Say Yes Samantha Read online

  The first person to say it to me was Giles when we were walking back from The Castle to the bazaar and he said,

  “I’m going to tell your father that you must come to London with me. You want to come, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer and he said insistently,

  “You’ve got to come! You can’t stay forever in this Godforsaken place! So say yes, Samantha, and let’s get on with it.”

  I really didn’t have much chance of saying yes or no.

  We reached the bazaar to find that Daddy had gone home with the first takings of the afternoon.

  “He’ll be coming back later,” one of the helpers told me, but Giles would not wait.

  “Show me the way to the Vicarage,” he said, so we set off walking through the village and across the green.

  “Why are you staying at The Castle?” I asked curiously.

  Then thinking it sounded rude, I added quickly,

  “Lady Butterworth’s friends are usually much older.”

  “There’s a big charity ball being given in Cheltenham tonight,” Giles answered. “The Countess of Croome, who is the Chairman, has asked everyone living round about to put up her friends from London.”

  That accounted, I knew, for Lady Butterworth being in a flutter about her party. She had been longing to get to know the Croomes.

  I wondered if they would bother with her after her usefulness was over!

  The Vicarage was next to the ugly Victorian Church, which had been erected after the original Norman building had crumbled into dust.

  I had always disliked its ugly interior, just as I have instinctively hated anything ugly ever since I was small.

  Giles was to open a whole world of beauty to me that I did not know existed.

  But for the moment I merely felt frightened because he was so insistent and I really could not believe that he wanted me to go to London, nor did I imagine for one moment that Daddy would let me go.

  We found Daddy in his study sitting at his desk sorting the money into little piles of copper and silver.

  He didn’t look up as I entered, but merely said,

  “I’m busy, Samantha, but you can bring me a cup of tea.”

  “I’ve brought you a visitor who wants to speak to you, Daddy,” I answered.

  He turned his head impatiently, but when he saw Giles looking so elegant and out of place in the shabby old study, he rose somewhat reluctantly to his feet.

  “I am Giles Bariatinsky and I am staying at The Castle,” Giles began. “I want to have a talk with you, Vicar.”

  Daddy looked at me meaningfully and I turned towards the door.

  “I would like Samantha to stay,” Giles suggested.

  I saw Daddy raise his eyebrows, surprised not only that Giles should want me to be present, but also that he had used my Christian name.

  In Little Poolbrook we addressed people formally until we had known them for years.

  “Do sit down, Mr. Bariatinsky,” Daddy proposed after a moment.

  Giles sat on the arm of a leather chair.

  “I want to tell you, Vicar,” he said, “that your daughter is one of the most beautiful young women I have seen for years and she will be a sensation in the profession I envisage for her.”

  Poor Daddy looked absolutely astounded.

  But Giles didn’t give him time to catch his breath, he just went on talking.

  He explained that there was a demand for photogenic young women who could wear beautiful clothes, so that their pictures could appear in the glossy magazines.

  There was also a great opening for them in modelling gowns for important dress shows.

  “Places like Molyneux, Revelle’s and Hartnell’s have their own mannequins who are permanently on their staff,” Giles explained, “but when they give one of their big shows they take on more girls from outside.”

  He looked at me and went on,

  “I run an agency of my own. It is very exclusive and very expensive. At the moment, I have two models, both of them outstandingly beautiful in their own way and they just cannot cope with the demand for their services. I therefore wish to employ your daughter.”

  Giles paused for breath, but Daddy could not get a word in edgeways.

  “I’ll pay her,” Giles continued, “four pounds a week all the year round. But she will earn between ten and fifteen pounds quite easily doing outside work, of which she will keep fifty per cent.”

  Both Daddy and I gasped at that, which was not surprising, considering that his stipend was three hundred pounds a year, out of which he had to pay the rates of the Vicarage.

  “Is that possible?” Daddy asked at last.

  ‘That’s a very conservative estimate of what your daughter could earn,” Giles answered. “I visualise that in time Samantha will earn a great deal more. She will have expenses, of course.”

  “Where would she live?” my father asked rather limply.

  I was surprised that he had not turned down the proposal out of hand. Then before Giles could answer he added sharply,

  “It would be impossible, of course, for Samantha to live on her own. She is only eighteen and has always lived a very quiet and sheltered life.”

  “I can understand that – ” Giles said.

  “Therefore, in the circumstances,” Daddy continued before Giles could go any further, “I am afraid, Mr. Bariatinsky, I must refuse your suggestion. I feel sure that if Samantha’s mother was alive she would agree with me that London is not the right place for a young girl.”

  At that moment I had not made up my mind whether Giles’s proposition was really genuine.

  I could not help feeling that the whole thing was too incredible to be real.

  He might have just invented it to make fun of us, or perhaps he really was mad, as I had at first thought.

  But now I felt a definite tremor of regret that I could not go to London, that I would have to stay in Little Poolbrook wearing the wrong clothes and trimming for myself the wrong hats – and no one ever again would call me beautiful.

  But I didn’t know Giles in those days. I had no idea that he always got his own way.

  “I can quite understand your feelings, Vicar,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “but don’t you think you are being a little selfish?”

  “Selfish?” Daddy ejaculated.

  It was one of his fondest conceits that he was one of the most unselfish men alive.

  Actually he always was thinking of other people.

  “Call it chance, fate or good fortune,” Giles went on, “but you have an exceptionally beautiful child. Do you think it fair to the world that you should keep her entirely to yourself? That you should bury her, for that’s what it amounts to, in this backwater?”

  He paused to say slowly,

  “Isn’t it written somewhere in the Bible that you shouldn’t hide your light under a bushel? Your achievement, Vicar, has been to produce one of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen in the whole of my career!”

  Well that, of course, clinched it.

  They went on talking for a long time, but I could see that Daddy was upset by the suggestion that he was being selfish and standing in my way and Giles, having made his point, went on pressing it home until all Daddy’s defences crumbled.

  “Samantha shall be well looked after,” Giles promised. “There is a boarding house to which I have sent other girls. The Proprietress is a friend of mine and very strict. Anyway, I promise you, she will be working too hard to have time to get into any mischief.”

  This, I was to discover later, was one of Giles’s pet convictions, which he actually believed in.

  But at this time Daddy and I were far too ignorant to contradict him or indeed to query anything he said.

  Finally I heard my father say in a weak, somehow defenceless voice,

  “When would you want Samantha to start work?”

  “At once,” Giles answered sharply. “This week at the latest. In fact I will take her back to London with m
e tomorrow night.”

  “It’s impossible!” Daddy and I said simultaneously.

  Then Giles began to sweep all our objections to one side, one after another, until finally we capitulated.

  “I’ve no clothes,” I murmured feebly when we had no more ammunition left.

  “You certainly don’t want to waste your money buying rubbish like that dress you are wearing at the moment,” Giles said disparagingly. “I’ll see you are properly fitted out as soon as we reach London.”

  He glanced scornfully at my green muslin and added,

  “Once you have acquired some semblance of good taste, you’ll find it quite easy to choose things for yourself.”

  I meekly accepted his sweeping condemnation of the new dress which I had expended so much time and trouble over.

  I knew he was right!

  At the same time it frightened me to think how much I had to learn.

  I didn’t realise then, as I realise now, how abysmally ignorant I was –

  Reflection 4

  Giles ought to be here at any moment, so I will go into the sitting room to wait for him.

  One advantage of having a flat on the ground floor is that one needn’t keep people waiting who come to call and they do not have to come inside.

  In fact the only person who has been in here for more than a moment or two is Peter, when he came to hang the pictures that came to London with the furniture from the Vicarage.

  It is nice having around me the things I have known all my life although, of course, some of them are rather big, especially the mahogany bedstead which fills the bedroom at the back so that there is hardly room to move.

  But I couldn’t leave that bed behind. I had known it all my life. I was born in it for one thing and I can remember when I was small creeping into Mummy’s room innumerable times in the middle of the night and saying,

  “There’s a – ghost in my room – Mummy.”

  “Nonsense, Samantha! There are no such things.”

  She would speak in a whisper so as not to disturb Daddy who was asleep beside her.

  “If it isn’t a ghost – it’s a very big – goblin. I can hear it.”

  “Now, darling, you know quite well that is only the water pipes,” Mummy would say.

  “But I’m – frightened!”

  That, of course, meant that I could get into bed beside Mummy and Daddy and feel really safe.

  I have never since felt so safe and secure as I did then.

  Sometimes I wonder if I would feel like that if I was lying close to David. But I don’t want to think about – that – I won’t think about – it.

  I’ll just powder my nose and go to the window and see if there is any sign of Giles.

  It doesn’t really need any more powder. I remember David saying once,

  “I adore your proud little nose, Samantha.”

  I felt myself thrill at his words. Then he added and his voice changed to become mocking and rather sarcastic,

  “Of course, it is straight and unbending like your principles which infuriate me!”

  So instead of feeling happy and excited, I felt weak and deflated and wanted to cry!

  But all that is over. I’m going to be different now – at least, I hope I am!

  There’s no sign of Giles yet, but I’ll wait just by the door so that I can hurry out to him the moment his car draws up outside.

  I like so much being on my own and having my things around me that I couldn’t bear anyone to disparage them, which I am sure he will do.

  I know the green carpet that was in Mummy’s drawing room is rather worn and the flowery chintzes are a little faded, but they are part of me.

  I love them, just as I love the marquetry china cabinet, which Peter said was quite valuable, and Mummy’s workbox, which is Queen Anne and the battered tapestry chair Daddy always used.

  I love these things because they are mine and they belong to me. I don’t really care if Giles or anyone else thinks they look old and shabby.

  But I don’t want them to say so in my hearing.

  Oh, there he is! Now at last we can set off for this horrible party.

  I wonder how soon I can get away. Giles is bound to want to stay to the bitter end. But there is sure to be someone else there who will give me a lift home.

  Reflection 5

  Giles is in one of his grumpier moods when he doesn’t talk.

  I’m glad because I’ve nothing to say.

  His car is very comfortable. I always think that Hispano Suizas look romantic, but Bentleys are my favourite cars. All the smart young men have one, so that they are called ‘The Bentley Boys’.

  The first time I went out in a Bentley after coming to London, I felt terribly grand and rather dashing and it was thrilling to rush along faster than I had ever travelled before.

  But David’s Bentley took us into a world of our own. It was a fiery chariot in which we could escape so that no one knew where we were or could interrupt us.

  It was a secret place made of dreams, a cloud that we could float on above the world and forget it ever existed.

  It was a Heaven on wheels where I first knew what it meant to thrill and thrill and thrill –

  Reflection 6

  Everything in those first few weeks was overwhelming, simply because it was all new and I was continually being taken by surprise.

  The first big surprise was that Daddy ever agreed that I should go to London, although two minutes after Giles had left us with a self-satisfied smirk on his face because he had had his own way, Daddy began to have misgivings.

  “I hope I’ve done the right thing, Samantha,” he kept saying.

  When the bazaar was over, we went home to eat a very nasty meat pie that Mrs. Harris had left for us in a low oven, which was still too hot.

  He sat at the table looking so worried that I said in a rather small voice,

  “If you don’t want me to go Daddy, I’ll stay – here with you.”

  “No, Samantha,” he answered, “I think you ought to go. That Mr. Bariatinsky is right when he says that this is a chance for you to see the world and get away from Little Poolbrook.”

  “I’m not certain I want to get away from it,” I said.

  “Well, if you are not happy, you can always come home,” he replied.

  “Of course,” I agreed, “and, as soon as I make enough money, we can put a new stove in the kitchen so that we shall not have to eat any more burnt pie crust.”

  Daddy laughed at that, which was what I had intended.

  But when we went to sit in the study he fidgeted about, which I knew meant that he had something on his mind.

  After a little while he said,

  “I wish your mother was here to have a talk with you, Samantha.”

  “What about?” I asked.

  “About going to London,” Daddy replied. “You do realise, my dear, that there will be a lot of difficulties and temptations which you have not encountered before?”

  “What sort of temptations?” I asked curiously.

  Daddy didn’t look at me and I knew he was embarrassed.

  “For one thing you are very pretty, Samantha,” he said. “And I expect there will be plenty of young men to tell you so.”

  “Surely there is nothing wrong in that?” I asked.

  “No, of course not,” he agreed, “but I don’t want you to lose your head and behave in a manner that your mother would not have liked.”

  “I see no reason why I should do that,” I answered. “I always try to do things in the way Mummy would have approved.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Daddy answered. “You are a good child, Samantha, but it may be very different in London.”

  He said it in such a worried manner that I couldn’t help feeling he was keeping something from me.

  “What are you trying to say, Daddy?” I asked.

  “I am only trying to warn you,” he answered. “It is very easy, I believe, for young girls to be led astray, especially i
f they are pretty.”

  “Do you mean that men would make – love to me?” I asked.

  There was a pause and then Daddy said,

  “I am hoping, Samantha, that one day you will fall in love with someone, get married and be really happy, just as your mother and I were. As you know, she had many opportunities to marry far more important and richer men than me, but as soon as we met, we just knew we were meant for each other.”

  I should like that to happen to me,” I said.

  “I hope it will,” Daddy answered. “I shall pray it will, Samantha. But I want you to keep yourself for the one man who will matter in your life.”

  “I promise you one thing, Daddy,” I answered, “I would never think of marrying anyone that I didn’t love.”

  “I hope not,” Daddy answered. “At the same time, men don’t always offer – marriage.”

  I thought about this for a moment and then I said,

  “You mean they might want to kiss me and not be really seriously in love?”

  “Something like that,” Daddy answered.

  “Well, I expect I shall know if they are genuinely fond of me or not,” I said lightly. “Don’t worry about me. I am sure I will be able to take care of myself.”

  I really believed I could do that, until I arrived in London and realised how big and overwhelming it was.

  It made me feel very small and insignificant.

  Giles drove me up, but he didn’t say very much on the way and he took me straight to the boarding house he had talked about, which was in South Kensington.

  The Proprietress, who obviously was very impressed by him, was a middle-aged woman with a rather severe appearance, but she was very gushing when Giles explained that he had brought her a new boarder.

  “Miss Clyde is from the country,” he said. “I promised her father, who is a Clergyman, that you would look after her and see that she doesn’t get into any trouble.”

  “No, of course she won’t, Mr. Bariatinsky,” Mrs. Simpson said positively. “She’ll be very happy here in this friendly little community, which is how I always think of my guests.”

  When Giles had gone, she took me upstairs and showed me a very small, ugly back room which she informed me I could have for twenty-five shillings a week with breakfast.