Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance Page 6

  He had written that as one of ten children, he’d gone into the mill at ten years old and worked in his bare feet from seven o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night; and anybody who wasted even a minute talking to another worker was fined or got the sack. And the stinking rich mill owner would drive up to the mill in his carriage and pair and the coachman would open the door for him as though he was bloody royalty. When he came into the mill everybody had to be working full out or they’d get sacked; the mill owner didn’t care who starved or died from overwork so long as he could live in a big house with servants to wait on him. But the time was coming when the workers would rise up and unite against bosses who ground down the workers.

  There was more in the same vein but, as Rose said, what had it got to do with her and Gerald. He was different from his father as shown by the fact that he wouldn’t let Mr Burrows valet him.

  But on the morning of the row between Mr Wardham and his son, Rose couldn’t speak so calmly about the affair; in fact she was weeping most of the day. When Madam came downstairs, looking very upset, she said that she wanted to speak to Rose privately in our servants’ hall. They were there over half-an-hour, and when Mrs Wardham came out she told the butler that Rose wasn’t to wait at table, for that day at least. And she told all of us that she hoped we wouldn’t discuss the matter – what a forlorn hope – and in particular the upper servants were not to reprimand Rose in any way. I thought how kind she was to say that and how well she understood servants; because most assuredly the upper servants would have attacked Rose. As it was, all they could do was to look hostile. Mrs Buller wasn’t too bad, though when she heard Doris and me whispering in the scullery she came in and caustically told us not to worry, such an astonishing event, in the nature of things, could never happen to us. Doris merely giggled but I was secretly annoyed, for, although I hadn’t the attractions of Rose, I was better looking than Doris. The butler came into the kitchen to complain to Cook about having to do the waiting at table on his own and he’d like to know what was going to happen after that day. Cook commiserated with him, saying that the late, loved and lamented Mr Buller – one of nature’s gentleman – would turn in his grave to hear of such a thing. The late Mr Buller had been highly respected by his employers because he always knew his place; he’d never at any time become familiar.

  When the day was over and we went to bed, none of us took any notice of Cook’s admonishment that we were not to gossip half the night. With the under servants Rose became more cheerful, though evasive about any future plans. It was obvious to us that already she was feeling a ‘somebody’ and not just Rose, a parlourmaid. We didn’t blame her for it, we’d all have felt the same in the circumstances – well, perhaps Doris wouldn’t; any contact with them above stairs reduced her to a mute figure. Mary and I freely gave Rose the benefit of our advice, though as we’d never been in a similar situation our advice wasn’t worth much. We told her not to be persuaded to give up Gerald, such a golden opportunity might never present itself again, and what was the point of throwing away her youth and beauty on that Len her Mum wanted her to marry. If she married him, she’d be living in a ‘two up and downer’, have half-a-dozen kids and in no time at all lose her looks and figure. We went on talking until Cook knocked on our door and told us to go to sleep. When Mary and I woke the next morning the third bed was empty and Rose had gone. There was a note on the bed saying that she’d left with Gerald and would write to us later on.

  Mary and I, though sorry that we hadn’t been able to say goodbye to Rose, were nevertheless gratified to be the bearers of such portentous news, and great was the consternation of the upper servants when they heard. The butler all but directly accused Mary and me of knowing that Rose was departing in the night, but we hadn’t known that she was going. Sometime during the day Rose must have packed her small suitcase – she’d left most of her clothes in the wardrobe – hidden it under the bed and crept out so silently that we’d heard no noise at all. Madam was shown the note that Rose had left and told Cook that she hoped all was well with Rose.

  Naturally, it was the one and only topic of conversation at dinner. Mr Hall seemed to be particularly incensed, as though Rose had done him a personal injury. Sitting at one end of the table, looking like a modern Mr Bumble, he started to say, very pompously, ‘In all my years in service, man and boy’, when young Fred interrupted, ‘Boy and man’.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You can’t say, “man and boy”,’ young Fred explained, ‘it’s the wrong way round.’

  Ignoring this, beyond glaring at the interrupter, Mr Hall went on to say that, man and boy, he’d never known the like. It was all owing to Gerald being in Rhodesia and coming back with all those mad ideas that white people shouldn’t be servants. And what, Mr Hall demanded to known, would happen to all of us; what other work could we do? Mark his words, Rose would live to regret it.

  ‘I think that it will be Mr Gerald who will regret it,’ said young Fred.

  ‘Ah!’ sneered Mr Burrows, ‘You would say that, you were sweet on Rose yourself.’

  ‘Sweet on Rose, I never was, I always thought that apart from being extremely pretty, there was nothing to her. She’d no conversation, never read a book, took no interest in politics or the world around her. I reckon that unless she gets herself an education, learns to speak well, can discuss the theatre and the arts, Mr Gerald will get bored with just gazing at a pretty face.’

  Hearing this, Mary and I, not having pretty faces, endeavoured to appear as intelligent as possible, while Doris looking at us just giggled; then, receiving a severe look and a rebuke from Mr Hall, she burst into tears.

  Mrs Buller who, although she sometimes reprimanded poor Doris, never allowed anybody else to do so, gave the butler a hard look and said, ‘Mr Hall, I’ll thank you not to exceed your obligations by assuming responsibility for my staff – in the absence of your own.’

  That just about did it. Mr Burrows tittered and young Fred burst out laughing – old Fred being deaf hadn’t heard a word. Mr Hall slowly rose from the table, the very embodiment of outraged dignity – though being fat and balding the effect wasn’t all that impressive – and left the room. In the normal way, Mrs Buller wouldn’t have made such a sarcastic remark; but for the time being the whole discipline of below stairs was suspended. Events were too much out of this world. Rose and Gerald gone, and Mr Wardham raging and venting his spite and anger on poor Madam and Miss Helen. Why, according to Mr Hall, the Master had turned on Miss Helen and said that nobody was likely to run away with her in the night.

  I wasn’t sorry when my time was up and I left Redlands. Mrs Wardham, kind as ever, gave me an extra £5, and Cook even kissed me goodbye. Mary too would soon be leaving to become a housemaid, she reckoned she’d done her time as an ‘under’.

  11

  My first place as a cook was in Kensington, and it was certainly a contrast to working at Redlands. For one thing, there were only three servants; cook, housemaid and parlourmaid. And for another, my employer, a Lady Gibbons, was a very different type of person from Mrs Wardham. Lady Gibbons was harsh and tyrannical; so much so that there was a constant procession of housemaids and parlourmaids who found her impossible to work for. As a cook, I saw her only in the mornings when she came down to give the orders for the day. I was dismayed to find that I had to cook on a kitchen range. Many houses, especially in London, were doing away with these coal-consuming objects and using gas stoves for the cooking and coke boilers for a constant supply of hot water. I know that some people can cook to perfection on a kitchen range, but I never could. Either it would be roaring like a furnace, or not hot enough. There was a small gas stove but it was only allowed to be used to boil kettles for early morning tea and for filling the hot-water bottles at night. Such was Lady Gibbons’s distrust of servants that she seemed to have developed a sixth sense about them. If I’d let the fire get low and used that gas stove, sure enough she’d come to the top of the basement
stairs and call down, ‘Cook, can I smell gas?’ I’d make out that a tap had inadvertently got turned on.

  Mind you, Lady Gibbons had plenty to put up with from me for I was by no means a good cook. I thought I could cook when I got the job, but I found that the amount I knew as a kitchenmaid was somewhat inadequate when it came to doing everything. The first dish I came a cropper over was a very simple dish; you wouldn’t have thought that I could go wrong making it – well, I wouldn’t have if Lady Gibbons had had it made the way I’d seen cooks make it. The dish was a bread-and-butter pudding. I’d always seen cooks make it with nice thin slices of bread and butter, interspersed with currants and sugar, and a custard made with eggs poured over before baking the dish. But the first one I made for Lady Gibbons was on a Monday night, using all the crusts that had accumulated through the week, with a dab of margarine on, and a custard made with custard powder poured over before baking. I’d never made custard with powder before but, if I’d had the sense to realise that I shouldn’t have let it thicken before pouring it over the chunks of bread, it wouldn’t have been so bad. As it was, the thick custard never penetrated through the bread. Still, I can’t see that it was my fault and, if they suffered above stairs with my cooking, our life was pretty grim. The attic bedroom I shared with the parlourmaid was barely furnished; a cupboard each for our clothes, two wooden chairs, a strip of matting on the linoleum and one washstand for the two of us. There was no bathroom for the servants, only one of those old hip-baths.

  The new parlourmaid, named Olive, was a young girl of fifteen, though how she could be a fully-fledged parlourmaid at that age I couldn’t see, until I discovered that Lady Gibbons, despairing of getting an experienced parlourmaid, had decided to train a young girl. Olive came from a somewhat remote little village; I expect Lady Gibbons thought a country girl would be more malleable than a girl used to town life. Olive had a very sweet and amiable nature, and she was attractive too. It seemed to be my fate to be friendly with girls so much better-looking than me.

  About three weeks after leaving Redlands, Mary sent me a letter she’d had from Rose. The news was that she and Gerald were not yet married – I wondered if they were living in sin – but Gerald had been to Manchester to see Rose’s father. He’d made such a good impression on him that now her father had withdrawn his strong objections to the marriage, and Rose and Gerald would be married in two weeks’ time. They were to have a registry office marriage and Rose was so sorry that she couldn’t invite Mary and Margaret, but Gerald wanted to have a quiet wedding.

  I bet he does too, I thought. The last thing he’s likely to want is a reminder of his wife’s origins. I wondered what he’d thought of the ‘two up and downer’ that was Rose’s home. If he drove up in his bright red car, I bet the neighbours had an eyeful. I wouldn’t have minded betting that Rose’s ma had asked the street to make their doorsteps especially white for the occasion. She was the kind of woman who’d have the nerve to ask it.

  I told Olive about the good fortune of the under-parlourmaid I knew, and Olive, being a dreamy girl and prone to romantic fancies, immediately began to create an imaginary situation whereby the same thing happened to her – and I will say this: Olive had a much better voice than Rose. But even Olive’s vivid imagination couldn’t romanticise Lady Gibbons’s son. He was sandy-haired with a receding chin, about five foot nothing, and he took about as much notice of servants as he did of a beetle beneath his feet.

  Now that we had a parlourmaid we were without a housemaid, Jessica having left two or three weeks after I arrived. I did think of writing to Mary to suggest she come, but then realised that I wouldn’t want to inflict Lady Gibbons on a friend. In any case I’d have been too late as Mary had already agreed to be a single-handed housemaid with a family in Chelsea.

  She came to see me on her first free afternoon bringing a female whom she introduced as her cousin, Zena. This cousin was a revelation to Olive and me. Not only was she married, but she was still working. It was almost unheard of for a woman to go out to work when she had a husband, but Zena was smart and sophisticated. Her make-up was perfect inasmuch as one could tell that she had used it, but it made an harmonious whole instead of the clown effect that Mary and I sometimes achieved. I could see that Mary had already gained in looks from her cousin’s ministrations and I naturally resolved to find out how it was done. Zena worked in a fashion house, which I suppose was the reason she was so well-dressed, and she certainly looked far younger than her age of forty-five years. Mary had only just found out that she had this cousin, and it was apparent that she felt a certain pride in having a relation so different from us. Zena’s husband worked for a pharmaceutical firm and travelled a lot so, she told us, she had a free life. What she did with this freedom wasn’t discussed then, except that Zena said she spent a lot of time soaking herself in a highly-scented bath – that was where she got her ideas for designing her clothes – and it passed the time while Brian was away. It seemed a peculiar way of passing the time and, as I said to Olive later on, if Zena was with us in Kensington, she’d get very few ideas sitting in our bath-tub with a handful of soda in the water. Nevertheless, she brought a bit of life into our servants’ hall with her tales about the vagaries of customers who were convinced that they could wear a dress that was obviously two sizes too small.

  Mary said she hadn’t been sorry to get away from Redlands. The discord in the family above stairs had repercussions on the servants below; the butler and valet were always bickering and Cook seemed snappish with everybody. Her new place in Chelsea wasn’t bad, though her Madam was nothing like so kind as Mrs Wardham – nor was mine either, not by a long shot. The staff consisted of Mary, a butler and a cook; and an odd-job man, Alf, for cleaning the steps, boots and knives and getting in the coal for the range. Alf, who was about thirty-five and unmarried, did this job every morning in addition to his own work with a firm of window-cleaners; obviously an early case of moonlighting.

  I rather envied Mary’s job where there were two men around. It was not that one necessarily wanted to feel romantic about the male servants, but just nice to have some contact with the opposite sex.

  Mary had brought a letter with her from Rose inviting us to tea, but not on a Sunday as Gerald refused to have visitors then. He liked Sundays to be kept free so that he and Rose could be alone in their own little house in Hampstead. How very sweet of him, we thought, and wondered how long that would last. Mary and I agreed that in all probability the reason we were invited on a weekday was because Gerald wouldn’t be at home to see us. And so it proved.

  * * *

  When Mary and I saw the size of the ‘little’ house in Hampstead, we both felt that Rose could no longer be one of us. The house was double-fronted, large and solid. It even had a trades-mans entrance, and Mary and I stood on the pavement debating whether we should use it – not seriously of course. We rang the bell and were taken aback when the door was opened by a stern-faced, middle-aged woman wearing a black dress and a frilly white apron. She informed us that Mrs Wardham would be down in a few minutes and showed us into what we supposed was the drawing-room.

  When she’d gone, Mary and I looked at each other and, with difficulty, suppressed our laughter. Mary, who was quite a good mimic, said, ‘Sit down, girl. Mrs Wardham will shortly appear to interview you. I hope that your references are excellent as Mrs Wardham couldn’t possibly employ you otherwise. Mrs Wardham’s servants have always come from the best families.’ We then giggled madly but I was nevertheless rather annoyed. Why couldn’t Rose have welcomed us in? She knew what time we were arriving.

  When Rose eventually arrived, we saw a transformation from the Rose that we’d known. She was wearing a blue silk dress that was obviously expensive, as were the black patent shoes, pearl necklace and diamond ring, not to mention the elaborately-waved hair. I didn’t know about Mary, but I felt like a poor relation. Fortunately, when she spoke, it was still the same Rose with the same excruciating accent, now overlaid by falsely
genteel tones.

  ‘Lovely to see you again, Mary and Margaret. How nice you both look. Mrs Brookes will be bringing in the tea in a few minutes. She’s my housekeeper, you know. Gerald says that I can’t possibly look after this house on my own.’

  What rubbish, ‘housekeeper’! It was just an euphemism for a general servant. How could she possibly be a housekeeper when she was the only maid employed. Mary and I were embarrassed at sitting there doing nothing while Mrs Brookes brought in a heavy tea-tray. Mary, with more curiosity than tact, asked Rose how Gerald could afford all this; the large house, expensively furnished, and the servant. Wasn’t Gerald dependent on his father?

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ exclaimed Rose, somewhat indignantly, ‘he has money of his own. Mrs Wardham bought this house for us as a wedding present. Besides, Gerald’s gone into partnership with a man in the City and he’s doing ever so well. His partner’s ever so nice; we went to his house to dinner the other evening, he’s got a lovely place near Ascot and his wife’s ever so nice.’

  I inwardly winced at all these ‘ever so nice’s’ and wondered how Gerald managed; he probably tried to keep his wife’s conversation to a minimum.

  On the way back, Mary and I agreed that our visit to Rose hadn’t really been a success. Now that she was married to Gerald, she didn’t want to talk about Redlands or the Wardhams. Mary and I had found ourselves with very little to say after we’d finished talking about our new Madams – or My-lady, as it was in my case. For all the fine establishment and servant too, Rose’s life seemed singularly dull. She’d been nowhere and done nothing.

  ‘I don’t know about you, Margaret,’ said Mary, ‘but I expected something better than that. Two cups of weak tea, such soppy little sandwiches that six of them only made a mouthful, and one slice of cake. All that bus fare to Hampstead for such a stingy tea.’