Saving Sam
Sam Dwyer is a mild-mannered cabinet maker living in Great Yarmouth, in 1844 at the mercy of his abusive wife, Susan. He meets and falls in love with the gentle Alice, a young woman taken in by a family friend, Mrs Elgin.
“Shut your eyes and hold out your hand,” he told me. I smiled, did as I was asked and felt a small box pressed into the palm of my hand.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Yes,” Sam replied.
I did so and looked at the prettily wrapped box. “Oh! A present!”
Sam smiled. “Come on, darling. Open it. I can’t wait to see your expression.”
I opened the box carefully and gasped. Inside sat the pendant.
“Oh, Sam!” I took it out to look at it. “It’s beautiful. For me?”
Sam nodded and kissed my cheek.
“Yes, I had it made especially. In fact, just over a week ago, that very pebble lay on this beach!”
“I thought it looked like the pebbles here! But it’s been polished up!”
Sam nodded. He took it and put it over my head where it nestled in the centre of my chest.
“Thank you, Sam, Thank you. It’s so beautiful!” I wrapped my arms about him.
Saving Sam
As their love develops, they realise they must get away if they are to be together, especially after Susan’s attempt to poison her husband so that she can be with her villainous lover.
Susan knew she had lost Sam, and knew it was her own fault. If only she had the courage to put arsenic in his food! Then, she would be free to marry Blisset! She had already killed once and got away with it. This time, it would be subtle and slow; foolproof! She would avenge herself for all the imagined wrongs and punish her husband and myself into the bargain.
Saving Sam
They both know that it will be hard for them to be accepted with such liaisons so frowned upon in strict Victorian Britain. But, with the help of kindly Mrs Elgin and Alice’s feisty friend, Helen, Sam and Alice determinedly make their way through life, with memorable characters, such as Helen, Miss Spoonamore and Manoa, with love and loyalties tested to the utmost.
There are many twists and turns as the tale reaches its conclusion.
Sam had kept yet another black eye Susan had given him from his parents. Susan’s abuse was commonplace, but he would never tell them. He knew other men would be scornful of him, and whilst wife beating was not unusual, nobody would believe a wife could beat her husband.
Saving Sam
“There’s a body been washed up along the tideline! Two wee laddies found her. ‘Tis awful!”
We all looked at one another, totally shocked. “Drowned?” I asked as we made our way hurriedly to the beach.
“No, lass. ‘Tis worse than that. ‘Tis murder been done! The constables have been summoned. They say ‘tis a young lassie.”
Helen paused. “She was found with her throat cut!”
Saving Sam
Take a stroll back to a time long gone, to gas lit rows, where the forbidding workhouse is the only choice for the unfortunates, to warm summers spent on the beach, and friendships were for life.