Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - One

One

January, 1915

Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, England

“That’s not the correct shade, Elsie,” Mary pointed out to me. I looked up, annoyed to be disturbed. I held a yellow pencil in my hand, to be used to colour in the hair on my self-portrait.

Although I refused to admit it out of my own stubborn pride, it wasn’t the correct shade of yellow if I wanted my drawing to be accurate.

I leaned forward and looked at the slender but pale girl in the looking glass and then back at my set of yellow pencils. I needed both a light shade and a warm shade of yellow for my hair if I was going to do this properly.  

"Leave me be, Mary, Mary quite contrary,” I sighed,  raising one of my high-arched eyebrows and tugging gently on my sister’s ropey brown plaits. Mary pulled away and ran into the glorious wilderness of our aunt’s rambling gardens…

That wartime New Year, we were indeed staying at our spinster Aunt Rose’s stately house in Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, because our father Albert was away on an ‘inquiry’. At the time, I had no idea what he did on them, and had no immediate desire to know.

Besides, I loved staying in Ingoldisthorpe, as there were endless amounts of beautiful green scenery, horse riding, and most importantly, freedom.

Oh yes, Mary and I ran wild in just simple cotton-checked garb, screaming and dancing through rows of cherry trees. There was five years between us, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves under dreamy Rose’s careless eyes.

All that changed now it was the war. I was supposedly older and more mature. I could not afford to ruin my hair, which my personal maid had spent hours arranging. It was the beginning of this story, and the desire for sweet satisfaction…

We arrived at Kingston House a few days after the weak celebration of a new year. The curtains in our carriage were drawn, so we could not absorb the splendour of the rambling moors and glistening ponds.

Mary was moaning because she wanted to be driven in the automobile, when she knew perfectly well that Father had taken it on his ‘inquiry’.

“Do shush,” begged Beatrice, my personal maid, running her hands tiredly through the escaping strands of fudge-colour hair from her bun.

“You can’t tell me what to do, you can’t…” Mary pointlessly chanted.

I sighed, as usual, as I did when Mary was around. Beatrice rolled her squinty eyes, and I rolled my deep caramel ones back.

The carriage jerked, and my sketchbook fell out of my hands. Yes, I was a passionate artist, and dreamed of having my own exhibition and being able to capture beauty like Florence Fuller. Mary constantly changed her dream, but she currently wanted to be the next Ellen Terry!

But those were, just dreams. Father would never give us such freedom. And I was to certainly obey his plans, as the heiress to the whole Kingston inheritance.

Looking back on all of this, my life seemed so stupidly simple and I come across as the snobby, self-opinionated, spoilt heiress that I used to be.