Say Yes Samantha Read online

  They were certainly a different collection from anything I had ever seen before.

  The women were really pretty and beautifully dressed and the men were much younger than one would have expected Sir Thomas and Lady Butterworth’s friends to be.

  The man called Giles had turned to go back to The Castle, but Lady Butterworth saw him and gave a cry.

  “You can’t go back now, Mr. Bariatinsky,” she called, “at least not until I have made my speech!”

  “Of course not,” he replied with a smile.

  I looked at him with interest.

  He was rather nice-looking – thin and elegant with dark brown hair pushed back from an oval forehead.

  A camera had been mentioned and I thought that he did look rather artistic. I noticed that his fingers were long and that he wore a signet ring with a green stone on one.

  There was plenty of time to stare at the party while Daddy introduced Lady Butterworth, thanked her for lending The Castle grounds and praised her generosity and kindness to the village.

  Then Lady Butterworth, smiling at the nice things he had said, made an almost impassioned appeal for everyone to spend a lot of money because it was so important that the Church should not be in financial difficulties and there was so much to do in the forthcoming year.

  I had heard it all so often before, so I didn’t listen. I just looked at the house party and realised how amateurish the green muslin dress I had made myself looked beside the dresses the women were wearing.

  And I saw at once that my hat was over-decorated and quite the wrong shape.

  Most of the women wore tiny cloche hats that fitted tightly over their ears like helmets and showed only a few wisps of hair on their cheeks.

  Their dresses, too, were much plainer and straighter than mine.

  Waists had risen a little in the last year, but the hemlines had obviously dropped. My dress was too short and too full.

  ‘Everything about me is wrong,’ I thought with a sigh and I found myself wondering if I could slip behind some bushes and cut the water lilies off my hat.

  I was still thinking about my appearance when Lady Butterworth finished her speech, which was, of course, the signal for a round of applause.

  Then she accepted a bouquet of flowers from a small child who was most reluctant at the last moment to part with it and started a triumphal tour of the stalls, accompanied by Daddy, with the house party trailing behind her.

  She shook hands with all the stallholders as if she hadn’t seen them only an hour beforehand when we were getting everything ready and spent a considerable amount of money, making poor Daddy and her guests carry the cushions, woollen jumpers and the vegetables that she bought from The Castle grounds.

  When she arrived at the stall where I was selling, she shook hands with the other helpers but merely smiled at me.

  “I know you have been a very busy girl all day, Samantha,” she said condescendingly, “and now you must persuade me to buy some of these delicious cakes so that perhaps this stall will make more than all the others.”

  “We’ve kept the iced cake for you, Lady Butterworth,” I said.

  “It looks delicious. We really must have it for tea,” she replied. “Perhaps, Samantha, you would be kind enough to take it up to The Castle for me?”

  “Yes, of course,” I answered.

  Then she turned away to make a difficult decision as to whether she should buy more lavender bags or a scarf that had been distressingly badly knitted by one of the older inhabitants of Little Poolbrook.

  I was wondering whether to take the cake up to The Castle right away or wait until it was nearly teatime, when a voice said,

  “Did I hear Lady Butterworth call you Samantha? It’s a very unusual name.”

  I looked up in surprise and found that the man they had called Giles was speaking to me.

  “Yes, that’s my name,” I answered, rather stupidly.

  He stood looking at me in such a strange way that I felt embarrassed.

  He didn’t speak again and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Yet I felt somehow as if I was waiting for something to happen.

  Then, as Lady Butterworth paid for the cake and her other purchases, she said almost sharply,

  “I think, Samantha, you had better take the cake up at once, otherwise it will melt in the sun and there are quite a lot of flies about.”

  “Yes, of course, Lady Butterworth,” I replied.

  I was glad of an excuse to escape because I felt shy under this strange man’s scrutiny. So I picked up the cake and, walking behind the other stalls, made my way in the direction of The Castle.

  It was only when I reached the edge of the lawn where the stalls ended that I realised I was not walking alone.

  Giles had joined me.

  “I’ve an awful feeling,” he said with a smile, “that we are going to be forced to eat that nauseating-looking concoction whether we like it or not.”

  I gave a little laugh.

  “Lady Butterworth is very fond of iced cake, so perhaps she won’t need your assistance.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I detest sweet things.”

  “Perhaps that’s why you are so thin,” I answered without thinking.

  I was then afraid that he might think it impertinent of me to make such a personal remark.

  He didn’t answer and after a moment, because I felt that I had perhaps been rude, I said nervously,

  “Are you going to photograph the bazaar?”

  “It would be a waste of film,” he answered. “But I should like to photograph you!”

  “Me?” I looked up at him in surprise.

  By this time we had reached the door of The Castle and I stopped, wondering whether I should walk in as the door was open and put the cake down on a table, or whether I should ring the bell.

  Giles made the decision for me.

  “Come along,” he said. “We’ll give that cake to one of the footmen and then I want you to do something for me.”

  I was too surprised to argue. I just followed him along the passage that led to the main hall.

  It looked very different with its coloured glass windows and a black and white checked marble floor from its appearance in my grandfather’s day.

  There were two footmen in resplendent livery with silver buttons and striped waistcoats standing by the front door.

  Giles called one of them over.

  “Her Ladyship wants this cake for tea.”

  “Very good, sir,” one of the footmen answered respectfully.

  He took the cake from me and then Giles said,

  “Come this way.”

  He opened the door of the drawing room.

  As usual I could not help wondering why Lady Butterworth had chosen to have so many colours clashing with each other until the room looked like one of those kaleidoscopes one buys at a penny bazaar.

  Giles walked into the middle of the room and stopped.

  “Now,” he said, “take off that elaborate confection you have on your head. I want to look at you.”

  I stared at him in astonishment.

  “Do you mean my hat?”

  “If that is what you call that period piece – I do,” he answered. “Take it off!”

  I was too surprised and too humiliated to argue. I merely did as he told me.

  I took off my hat and stood in the sunshine coming through the long windows that led out on to the terrace.

  “It’s unbelievable!” he exclaimed.

  “I trimmed it myself,” I said apologetically, “but I see now it’s not right.”

  “I’m not talking about your hat,” he replied sharply, “but your hair.”

  “My hair?”

  I looked at him wide-eyed.

  “And your eyelashes. Look down!”

  I came to the conclusion that he was a lunatic. No one else would behave in such a way!

  But because he embarrassed me I looked away from him, first at the
carpet and then sideways across the room, wondering if the best thing to do would be to escape from him through one of the open windows.

  “Incredible!” he exclaimed. “Absolutely incredible! Now tell me who you are.”

  “My name is Samantha Clyde,” I answered, “and my father is the Vicar of Little Poolbrook.”

  “Your background is from Jane Austen,” he said, “but you are too beautiful for one of her heroines.”

  Once again I looked at him, quite certain by this time that he was deranged.

  “You must know you are quite beautiful, Samantha,” he said after a moment.

  “No one has ever said that – before,” I answered.

  “Are there no men in Little Poolbrook?”

  “Not many,” I replied. “Most of the young ones were killed in the War, so we have a large percentage of grandfathers.”

  “Then that will account for it,” he said. “Well, Samantha, let me tell you something – your face is your fortune!”

  I gave a little laugh.

  “There aren’t any fortunes in Little Poolbrook, except here in The Castle.”

  “I’m not talking about this benighted hole,” he replied. “I’m taking you to London. I’m going to photograph you, Samantha. I’m going to make you famous, you will become one of the most fabulous and best known faces in England!”

  “It’s very kind of you to think of such things,” I answered, “but really I must be getting back to the bazaar. Otherwise they will be wondering what has happened to me.”

  “Damn the bazaar!” he exclaimed. “You are going to stay here and I’m going to take some pictures of you now. I want to be quite certain that you come out right in black and white. It’s always difficult with redheads. Now, don’t move. Promise me you’ll stay where you are until I come back.”

  “I-I don’t – know,” I stammered. “I-I don’t think – I can.”

  “You’ll do as you’re told,” he said sharply. “I won’t be a moment.”

  He walked quickly across the drawing room as he spoke, went out of the room and closed the door.

  I stood staring after him.

  ‘He’s crazy!’ I told myself.

  At the same time there was a little excited feeling inside me because he had said I was beautiful.

  I knew some people thought I was pretty and Mummy had often said to me,

  “You are going to be very pretty, Samantha. I do wish Daddy and I could give a ball for you and you could have a dress like the one I wore when I came out.”

  She sighed and added wistfully,

  “It was white satin, trimmed with tulle and pink rosebuds and I thought it was the most beautiful gown in the whole world.”

  But, as there was not enough money for me to have more than one or two very ordinary garments every year, like a winter coat, there certainly wasn’t enough for a ballgown, let alone a ball, and so I had never even thought about it.

  But now this strange man had said that, that, I was beautiful!

  I really hadn’t moved since he left the room. Then because I was so curious about myself I walked to where there was a long gold-framed mirror between the windows.

  I stared at my reflection and realised that my hair was in fact a very unusual colour.

  It was not fashionably bobbed. Although I had chopped off the sides, I still had a rolled up bun at the back that I had not dared cut myself.

  It waved naturally and some of the curls, which had become untidy under my hat, turned up and looked like little tongues of fire.

  As I stared at myself in the mirror, I thought that I didn’t look as young and unsophisticated as I felt.

  Perhaps my looks had altered through the years until they illustrated my name.

  Mummy told me that when she was expecting me she had longed for all the expensive things they could not afford.

  “I wanted to eat caviar and quails,” she had told me, “chocolate creams and truffles and drink champagne.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “Of course I never told your father. He would have been upset. I suppose it was the reaction to having had to be so frugal and cheese-paring during the first year of my married life!”

  She smiled so that I would not think that she regretted having married Daddy, before she continued,

  “My papa would not give me much money. He always thought it a mistake for a woman to have money and anyway he had been disappointed by my not having married someone richer and of better standing.”

  She laughed.

  “Your father and I had only two hundred pounds a year between us in those days and, as I was a very bad housekeeper, I could not make it go very far.”

  “But you were glad that you were having me, Mummy?” I asked.

  “Of course I was, darling. I longed for a baby and I hoped that if it was a daughter she would be very beautiful.”

  Mummy put her arms round me.

  “I was so tired of the plain tiresome little girls that I taught in Sunday School that I used to pretend to myself that my daughter would look like a Princess in a Fairytale – and you did, Samantha!”

  “I’m so glad,” I cried.

  “So I said to your father after you were born, ‘our daughter is going to have an exciting name, so that she will be different from other children’.”

  Mummy had paused and then she went on,

  “Your father said rather hesitatingly, ‘I thought we might call her Mary after my mother and Lucy after my sister’.”

  “I hate both those names,” I exclaimed, “but you gave them to me.”

  “I know,” Mummy answered, “because I loved your father and didn’t want to disappoint him. You were christened Mary Lucy, but I added Samantha because it was the most thrilling and exciting name I had ever heard.”

  So except when I had to write my name on examination papers at school, I have always ignored the commonplace ‘Mary Lucy’.

  I was still looking at myself in the mirror when the door opened and Giles came back.

  He carried a camera in his hands and a tripod under his arm.

  He set up his equipment, grumbling as he did so,

  “I hate taking photographs except in my studio! I want lights and backgrounds. I can see you against shimmering silver with a crystal chandelier just showing above your head. I can see you lying on a tiger skin! I want you posed against black satin cushions with white balloons floating in the background!”

  “Do you sell your photographs?” I asked him.

  “Of course,” he answered. “I have a permanent arrangement with Vogue, but all other magazines want a ‘Giles Bariatinsky’ and I can assure you they pay me handsomely.”

  He made me sit, stand and even lie down on the carpet.

  That made me terribly embarrassed in case someone came into the drawing room. They would have wondered what on earth I was doing.

  Giles just fired orders at me and, although I felt guilty not to be helping at the bazaar, it was somehow impossible not to obey him.

  Finally when he had taken what seemed to me to be a hundred different shots he said,

  “When can you come to London?”

  “Come to London?” I repeated stupidly.

  “I’m engaging you as one of my models,” he said. “You are just the type of girl I have been looking for. I already have a blonde and a brunette. Now I shall have you.”

  “It’s impossible!” I answered. “I live here.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” he said. “You can’t stay in Little Puddleduck, or whatever it’s called, for the rest of your life!”

  I laughed because he said it in such a funny way, but I replied quite seriously,

  “I look after my father. He would not hear of my going to London.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him,” Giles said. “Come on.”

  He picked up his camera and tripod and I followed him.

  I was to learn that, when Giles said ‘come on’ in just that tone of voice, one did exactly that.r />
  I picked up my hat.

  “There’s no point in wasting time,” Giles turned to say. Then he added, “For God’s sake, go home and burn that monstrosity. It makes me sick just to look at it!”

  Reflection 3

  When I look at myself now, it is difficult to visualise what I must have looked like the first time Giles saw me.

  Hartnell’s dress has a skirt of topaz-coloured tulle on which are sewn tiger lilies with their petals and stamens glittering.

  It is cut very low at the back, right down to the waist, with the bodice embroidered in topaz and gold beads that match my hair.

  All the evening dresses are so pretty this autumn. They fall to the ground at the back and lift a little at the front just to reveal my ankles and the topaz satin slippers, which I wear over such transparently thin stockings that I feel they are almost indecent.

  Giles had my hair bobbed when I first came to London, but now it is parted low on the left-hand side and sweeps across the front of my head in a huge wave to curl up at the back.

  It is very alluring – at least that is what the gossip writers say! All their descriptions of me begin,

  ‘The alluring Samantha Clyde’

  and

  ‘The enigmatic Samantha Clyde’

  Sometimes they are more romantic. I liked the one that began,

  ‘Samantha Clyde, smouldering with fire, mysterious as mountain mist.’

  I’ve learnt that the sideways glance that I inadvertently gave Giles the first time is what they call my ‘enigmatic’ look and, when my eyelids are slightly lowered, I am described as ‘exotic’.

  Actually I half-shut my eyes because I’m shy, but, of course, the press don’t know that and they think I personify the calculated allure of worldly sophistication, which, unfortunately, is very different from the truth.

  I hope Giles will be pleased with my looks tonight.

  Sometimes he is very disagreeable when he thinks I’m wearing a dress that doesn’t suit me. But Hartnell was quite sure that ‘Tiger Lily’, as this dress is called, was exactly the right gown for me and in fact I wore it in his show.

  One day I shall write a book and it will be all about my life and the strange things that have happened to me and I shall call it, Say Yes, Samantha, because that is what people are always saying to me.