I'M STAYING Chapter 1
Chapter 1
ENGLAND
THE ESTATE
I had rushed over to
England to accommodate my prospective new boss who was eager to meet and
interview me. My interview would involve ‘a light lunch’ followed by a walk
around the estate.
I arrived in the UK
during an unexpected heat wave which I was assured was extremely unusual
especially in Yorkshire where one could expect more grey and rainy days than
hot sunshine. Having booked in to a nearby farm that offered Bed and Breakfast,
my husband and I spent the morning preparing for the meeting. The views from
our window were spectacular and picture-post-card perfect. Looking out of the
small, windows just below the slope of the thatched roof my eyes feasted on the
rolling green fields which (and probably due to my eye being accustomed to the
browns and yellows of the parched African bush) appeared to have been painted
with a large paint brush dipped in very bright green paint. Dotted all over
this landscape were groups of perfectly white fluffy sheep and in between were
wild flowers of various pastel shades all enhanced by an impossibly clear blue
sky and lots of bright sunshine. It was as though the British countryside was
welcoming me, enticing me to stay and settle down.
English houses aren’t
equipped for hot weather and being in a small room upstairs with very tiny
windows it soon became a torture chamber of tropical conditions and having the
iron and hair drier going full blast certainly didn’t help. With the heat
causing more panic than the thought of the impending interview, I had to accept
that my clothes would continue to crease and cling to me and that my hair would
flop and flatten on my head, no matter how much effort I applied.
Wanting to be
impressively punctual we set off with more than an hour to spare and reached
the tiny village with enough time for a mid-day nap if we’d cared for one.
Instead we found a shady spot underneath some enormous leafy Oak trees to await
the exact arranged hour of our meeting. The little village looked like
something out of a fairy story with tiny
winding lanes, perfect cottages with roses blooming around the front door and
gardens filled with flowers. Through the
middle of the village wound a stream with a small wooden pedestrian bridge
crossing it and a path leading up to the church. It was everything I had dreamt
about while I’d lived my life in the dry dusty brown landscape of Africa.
In Africa one gets used
to seeing high walls and electric gates hiding gardens and homes, but in the UK
people like to show off their gardens and normally have low walls or in some
cases no walls at all between their house and the street. But here we were
greeted by these enormous wooden gates without even being able to glimpse what
lay behind. I felt almost that we were crossing a border into another country
and in fact I later found this to be true in that we actually crossed over into
another time and lifestyle that I could never have imagined without
experiencing it firsthand.
After ringing the bell
and identifying ourselves, the gates slowly swung open to reveal a very long
driveway leading up to the house. Either side were rows of trees and long tall
and neatly trimmed hedges edging large wild flower meadows filled with colour
which led us to the parking area in front of the large and imposing grey stone
house. This was my first glimpse of
Ashton Hall.
Most surprising for me
was that as I opened the car door I was immediately greeted by the Lord and
Lady of the Manor who had come outside to welcome us. I think I had expected a
butler to open the front door or at the very least, the housekeeper. It struck
me that here were some very decent un-snobbish people and that I had nothing to
worry about. I was so naive at this stage and took them completely at face
value.
Lord Duncan and Lady
Felicity appeared elderly and quite misleadingly frail. She, in particular was
very small with papery thin and delicate skin. She had the appearance of a
fragile little bird although her voice didn’t match her appearance and when she
spoke she had a confident and authoritative tone obviously well used to giving
orders. At this stage only their manner of speaking and very upper class
accents gave them away as their attire looked somewhat tatty and their home,
although large and filled with valuable artwork and antiques appeared slightly
shabby and disorganised.
“Mr and Mrs Holford!”
Lord Duncan’s voice boomed across the courtyard. “Welcome, welcome. Please come inside.”
We were ushered into an
oversized and surprisingly light room which appeared to be the main living area
of the house. The North facing wall was made up of a dozen long windows
reaching from ceiling to floor. A
beautiful and obviously custom built, wooden table with seating for at least
twenty took up half of the room and this table seemed to be somewhat hidden
underneath piles of documents, books and magazines strewn amongst potted plants
in beautiful ceramic pots. Surrounding the entire room were large plants and
trees some trailing up the walls or creeping down from higher positions. All of
the plants looked hot, tired and droopy with dead leaves collected around the
base of each pot and spilling out on to the surrounding floor. In between these
exotic plants were more piles of papers on the floor and having collected much
of the fallen and dead leaves were looking for all the world as though they
were growing alongside the plants. On the opposite side of this room was an
area set out as a lounge with comfortable plush couches and here and there
coffee tables, these being piled high with Country Life magazines, a fireplace
at one end prepared with kindling also seemed to have attracted more papers, possibly
in the hope of a fire being lit to burn them. In a small alcove was an eating
area set up with a smaller round table dwarfed by a large chandelier hanging
above and more tall windows affording a stunning view of the rolling green
meadows dotted with yet more wooly white sheep. The overall effect was of
wealth and a total disregard for the priceless ornaments scattered around the
room by the mess that surrounded them.
Every surface in that
large room was crammed with knick-knacks and baubles which on closer inspection
I recognised to be keepsakes from travels abroad and various collectables and
antiques. On the walls were a collection of strange decorations and in the
centre of all of this stood a huge stone African sculpture of what appeared to
be two people. This particular sculpture towered over the lounge area and in
the time I worked there I never got over the surprise of looking up to see
these dark and oddly shaped stone people who seemed to be watching my every
move with their empty stone eyes. Maybe they were missing Africa as much as I
was.
The interview went well.
Mainly I think, because at that stage I was still unaware of the huge gap that
lay between us and our prospective employers. I considered myself to be, if not
exactly financially, at least intellectually equal to these people. We were as
well travelled as they were, we were educated and, in the case of Lady Felicity
at least, I felt I had probably undergone a degree more education and
experience than her as she had lived the typical lifestyle of a lady of her
time, which meant marrying, producing an heir and looking after the staff in
the house, maybe having some knowledge of menus for entertainment purposes and
being able to arrange cut flowers for a vase and possibly run the local women’s
church group. Aside from these duties she was there to be a faithful and supportive
wife to her husband, probably never expected to express her opinions or views
on any subject but merely to agree with his.
And so I felt I could
hold my own at the lunch table as I still had the blind confidence of a visitor
to this country completely unaware of the strict class distinction which is
recognised and blindly accepted by one and all. I ate and chatted in a normal
fashion with these people, never realising for a moment that they actually
considered themselves far superior to me to the extent of being from a
different species, I suspect!
If there were times when
I considered them to be slightly strange I simply put it down to eccentricity.
“Oh Daahling”, Do fetch
your hearing aid”, suggested Lady Felicity when her husband had difficulty in
hearing me speak.
“Oh very well” he
spluttered and walked over to the larger table to search through the
debris.
I overlooked the fact
that he felt the need to assemble his hearing aid on the lunch table amongst
our plates of food and acted as though it was perfectly normal to watch
someone’s old earwax smear his side plate as he battled to put the mechanism
together.
“Yes, Lady Felicity” and
“that’s correct Lady Felicity”, murmured the Housekeeper as she served our
lunch of Salmon and a mixed salad.
“All from our own
garden” boasted Lady Felicity, as though she’d been out there sweating over the
vegetable gardens herself.
I smiled to show how
impressed I was.
Desert was fresh
raspberries, again from “our own garden” I was informed.
I smiled and chatted
along as though I was their equal. More fool me!
But it got me through
the interview successfully. The Lord and Lady seemed content with their choice
of gardeners. With hindsight I now realise after viewing the condition of the
gardens, they were simply desperate for some help. We were naive enough to
believe we had been selected from a long list of applicants when in actual fact
they’d had little response to their advertisement for the vacancy. They had
lost their garden staff and were becoming quite despondent and helpless as they
watched their grass and weeds grow taller and their exotic plants die from
disease without a clue as to what to do themselves except to employ more staff.
With the
uncharacteristically warm weather and this mass of glass capturing the sun's
rays, the room was incredibly hot. I was soon reaching the melting stage and
was happy when it was suggested we move outside for our tour of the gardens.
“Shall we take a stroll
around the grounds” he suggested, spitting tiny pieces of raspberry at my nose.
The “stroll” turned into
many hours of walking around the estate grounds. Before we left the house we paused in the
entrance hall to select the correct clothing from an array of battered straw
hats, tweed jackets, wellington boots, walking sticks and anything else needed
for an expedition into the outdoors. We
were offered the loan of a hat each to shield us from the hot Yorkshire sun and
the elderly couple selected their outdoor attire and we set off with the dogs
on their leads. I was, at the time, quite stunned that this
elderly gentleman knew every tree and plant in this large estate and named them
all using the Latin names of course; although I must admit to being slightly
frustrated at his need to discuss each plant in great detail. We followed and
listened attentively, nodding heads, offering advice. Hour after hour we
walked, listened, talked and wondered where these old people got all their
energy from, while I began to wilt during the first hour! Their frail
appearance was certainly misleading.
Lord Duncan and Lady
Felicity must have been impressed enough to make a decision at the end of our
interview/lunch/walk-about as they then told us the job was ours and seemed
most impatient for us to move in and start work. At the time, being completely
ignorant of the situation and their urgent need for staff, we began patting
ourselves on the backs on our success. Filled with confidence for our future
which held the promise of many happy years spent on this beautiful estate we
made our plans to move into the lovely cottage that was offered as our
accommodation. All the while wearing our rose-tinted spectacles!
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