It has long been a tradition at Welbeck that on Christmas Eve every employee of the House and estate drop by with their families in the afternoon. Nothing much, just a stand-up buffet in the ballroom and some games for the little ones. But mainly just an excuse for a get-together and the opportunity to wish each other well.
So, around three o’clock His Grace comes down for ten minutes or so, to help ladle out the punch. He was never one to make a speech or draw attention to himself and it is not as if anyone expected it. But when one year he joined in a game of dominoes with some of the children it was talked about for weeks on end. Just a little thing like that, you see, but it goes a very long way.
Well, me and the girls had put some effort into it the last time round. We’d made a big potato salad, brought up some smoked hams and laid it all out on the best tablecloths. But it had got to three o’clock, then quarter past and half past with nobody having seen hide nor hair of His Grace. So Clement goes off and searches for him and eventually tracks him down in some corner of his rooms with his books and charts. Tries to get him down, to show his face just for a second, but His Grace says that he is busy and to leave him alone.
Well, some of us see him every day of our lives but for others it might be the only time they will see him from one year to the next and when it becomes clear His Grace is not to make an appearance people begin to drift away. And all this time he was upstairs reading. What is one to make of that?
It was later on that His Grace came down and apologized. Said he had not realized that it was Christmas Eve and was quite upset. But when a fellow forgets it’s Christmas something is definitely wrong. It’s not just the effort. It’s people’s feelings I’m talking about.