Searching for Pemberley (42 page)

I asked her if she minded talking about her time in service. She said her memories from Montclair were good ones, and she had no problem sharing them with us.

“I didn't start out at Montclair but at Turner Hall as a scullery maid when I was thirteen,” Dottie began. “My dad was killed in a mine explosion, and my mum couldn't feed all of us—six children—that's how many we were. Two years later, she was gone, too, so there were no going back home for me. Mr. Turner was one of Sir Andrew's right-hand men. He bought some property from the Laceys that were north of Stepton, and the Turners went and built this monster of a house on it.

Taking a deep breath, she said, “It were a horrible, horrible job if ever there were one—sixteen hours a day, scrubbing pots and pans, mopping the kitchen floor over and over, plucking chickens, hauling coal. By the time I was fifteen, I had the hands of an old woman. Your whole life were working and sleeping,
working and sleeping. The only time I didn't work was on Sunday mornings, when we all had to go to church with the Turners, and the time my throat swolled up so bad I had to go to hospital, which meant three days of lost pay.

“Mr. Cutter, the butler, who always acted as if he had a broom up his arse, would tell us that servants were supposed to be invisible. Say, I was sweeping the stairs, and by sweeping I mean using a hand brush and going stair by stair on my knees, and Mrs. Turner come by. I was to stay perfectly still and make myself as small as possible until she passed. We were never ever to talk to the family. Not that I would have wanted to. That house wouldn't have lasted one day without the servants, but God forbid the master or mistress should know we were in the house. When I started out at Turner Hall, I cried every night. Poor Ellie, she'd be the scullery maid I shared a bed with, would listen to me cry 'til I fell off to sleep, but she said she done the same thing for the longest time until she seen there weren't nothing she could do about it, so why lose sleep.

“The housekeeper was always getting after the maids 'cause of complaints from them above stairs. I was practically dragged upstairs one day by Mrs. Hallam 'cause she found lint on a stair. You would have thought I had shit on the carpet the way she acted.

“And the cook, Monsieur Rideau! What a nasty piece of work he was, having tantrums, throwing pots and pans, pushing me out of the way. He threw a quail at me once 'cause I missed a feather.

“We had lots of rules. We couldn't leave the property without permission. Family weren't allowed to visit without permission, and if it were found out that a girl had a follower, she would have
been sent packing without a character. One of the maids got pregnant, and as soon as it were known, she was put out on the road 'cause it would 'tarnish the family's reputation.' That were a joke 'cause you'd see the young Mr. Turner going into a maid's room at all hours. Only time in my life I was glad that I wasn't good-looking, 'cause he left me alone.

“But then Ellie left and got a job at Montclair, and she got me a job, too. First, I was seen by Mrs. Crowell and then Lady Lacey, Miss Elizabeth's grandmother. She would have been in her fifties at that time, and she was just starting to go gray. She had the most beautiful reddish brown hair, but it were her green eyes that grabbed hold of you. You're not supposed to stare at people, especially your betters, but you couldn't help yourself when Lady Lacey looked at you.

“Anyways, I went in, and Lady Lacey said, 'Please sit down.' Someone above stairs saying 'please' to a servant, that were my first clue this house were different. Then to be asked to sit down—that were the second. I can remember that day like it were yesterday. The day of my freedom from slavery at Turner Hall.

“Lady Lacey said I'd be on probation for six months. If after that time Mrs. Crowell said I was a hard worker and a good girl, I'd be asked to stay on and that I'd have one day off every week. Love a duck! A day off!” Dottie said, nearly jumping out of her chair. “I never had one, so on my first day off, I sat out in the courtyard, not having a clue what to do.

“And then there were the Irish laundry maids. Well, they were a piece of work. Even though they could speak English, they spoke their Irish gibberish. To my mind, the laundry maid's job were worst job in the house for a girl 'cause the lye soaps just
eat away at your skin. Those girls weren't the cleanest people, neither. They figgered that they were in water all day, so they didn't need to wash. Mrs. Crowell had to get after them to take a bath and to see to their private parts regular like.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Michael was finding all of this to be very amusing. I did too, but I was embarrassed that the Irish maids were so dirty.

“Lady Sarah Lacey, your grandmother,” she said, pointing at Michael, “was an American and very thrifty. She didn't see no sense in having five or six courses every night when there weren't any guests in the house. Do you now what that means to a scullery? Do you know how many dishes and glasses have to be washed for every course served? It made a big, big difference, especially come the end of the day when you're so tired you can hardly stand. Besides, that whole family had the fidgets, especially Mr. Matthew. He'd always be below stairs looking for Jack or Tom to play football.

“Mr. Trevor were the best-looking boy I ever seen until I set eyes on this beautiful boy right here in front of me,” Dottie said with a great big laugh and slapped Michael on his knee. She laughed so hard it brought on a coughing fit. “Fags,” she explained, pounding on her chest. “I give 'em up two years ago, but the damage is done.

“Those Lacey boys were always below stairs looking for something to eat, and Mrs. Bradshaw would make 'em sandwiches or heat up the leftovers. Master Reed was my favorite, and Lord could he ever eat! He was always carrying that little beagle with him. That family had more dogs than a city pound, but Blossom were the only dog allowed below stairs 'cause Mrs. Bradshaw wasn't having any fur in her food.”

Taking a sip from a glass of water, Dottie said, “I'm surprised you haven't asked about Miss Elizabeth seeing how she's this young man's mother.” Michael smiled, knowing I had tried several times to get in a question about Beth.

“Well, your mother, I knew her to be a sweet girl and she'd be prettier than any other girl I ever seen come into that house. She had beautiful long brown hair, and she liked to wear it in a braid. Keep in mind, when I left, Miss Elizabeth was still a girl. After her lessons, she'd come and sit down on the stairs while I was brushing them and talk to me. One time, she asked me if I had a beau. I thought she was a mind reader 'cause I had just started walking out with my Jimmy, who I had met at a dance in Stepton. He come up from Sheffield 'cause he said he'd run through all the girls down there. Cheeky devil.

“Jimmy and me got married in '06, and we moved to London where he got a job on a loading dock at Selfridge's. That were a step up for him. I lost my darling man two years ago. We'd been married for forty years and had six kids together. But you're not here to talk about me. What's your next question?”

“What was it like having Jack and Tom below stairs?”

“At Turner Hall, the housekeeper and butler hardly spoke to each other, so you can imagine my shock when I found out the butler and the housekeeper were married! I'd heard of such things before, but it were after they retired and living in one of the tied cottages on the estate. But Mr. and Mrs. Crowell being married weren't my biggest surprise. When I got there in 1895, there'd be two little boys running around. Well, I never heard of such a thing before or since.”

Finally, Michael showed some interest. We had gotten to the part where his father and uncle had come into the story.

“They were good boys. The worst thing they done were run up and down those long halls or kick a ball indoors. Tom could get into mischief now and then, but that just meant that he'd hide under the table in the servants' hall or splash the laundry maids, and the one time he got caught looking up Macy's dress.

“It worked out nicely for the servants 'cause everyone took turns taking the boys outside to play. Getting outside were a big thing for us. I actually looked forward to hauling coal or going to the wood pile 'cause it got me outside where I could at least see the sky.

“I think it were 1922 when Lady Lacey invited me and my family to Harvest Home at Montclair. I hadn't seen her in years and years, and she come over and said, 'Dottie, I'm so glad you could come.' It were like she'd seen me the day before.

“And Miss Elizabeth was there with her older boy scampering around getting into everything. It were a lot of fun to see Jack chasing after him, seeing how we used to chase after Jack. And you, young man,” she said, pointing at Michael, “didn't come into this world for another couple of months, but it were plain as day your mum was going to have another baby. So we've already met one time before.” Dottie laughed, which caused a coughing fit. “Fags,” she said, pounding her chest. “Don't never start smoking.”

I asked Dottie if there was anything else she would like to share. After giving it some thought, she said, “I think back to those days, and I can hardly believe how much of our lives were given over to those above stairs. But then I think about those below stairs. They were my family. The footmen were my brothers, and the maids were my sisters. When Jimmy and I started walking out, Mrs. Crowell had the 'birds and bees' talk
with me like she were my mum, and Mr. Crowell sat Jimmy down and let him know that there'd be 'consequences' if he didn't treat me right. And we had fun. The lot of us, the junior servants, I mean, would get silly and laugh our fool heads off.

“We've come such a long way from those days when you couldn't walk down the road without getting the housekeeper's permission, and all I can say is, I'm glad that none of my kids ever had to go into service. That would have been hard for me to take.”

After leaving Dottie's flat, Michael and I went to a fish and chips shop and then to Trafalgar Square to eat. As always, the square was covered in pigeons, all waiting for one of us to drop a crumb. Michael was unperturbed by pigeons hopping on his shoes, but I stomped my feet to get them away from me.

“Well, what did you think?” I asked.

“I agree with Dottie. You are 'quite a looker,' but you're prettier than Gene Tierney. And that were the truth.”

“Thanks, Tyrone. That's quite a compliment coming from someone who is better looking than Clark Gable and Cary Grant put together. But what did you think about Dottie?”

“Did you see the thickness of her glasses?” Michael asked. “They looked like shot glasses.”

“I meant what did you think about her working at Montclair as a servant?”

“There wasn't all that much that was new for me. Don't forget, my grandparents were servants,” Michael said, pulling tiny pieces off of his chips and throwing them to the pigeons. “On rainy days, James and I loved running up and down the
backstairs. One time, Dad said, 'Try going up and down those stairs carrying a bucket of coal because that's what the servants had to do.' It was as if a light went on in my head. For the first time, I noticed how the stone was worn in the middle of the steps from all of the times the servants had gone up and down, answering servants' bells or hauling hot water for the master's bath. After that, I'd think about all those servants who did that because they had to—people like Dottie and my grandparents.”

Some of what Dottie had shared was also familiar to me. I had plucked my share of chickens, and I had hauled buckets of coal up from the cellar to keep the kitchen fire going. Our family got all of our coal from my uncle's bootleg hole near the cemetery. When Uncle Bill dumped a load in our backyard, my father would string up lights for a “coal-cracking party.” All the kids had their own hammers to break the coal into pieces small enough to fit into our stove. By the time we finished, the tips of our fingers were raw from handling the jagged pieces of anthracite, but the next day we would be treated to an ice cream cone at Walsh's.

“It's amazing to me how loyal the servants were, when they were basically second-class citizens. Your Dad told me his father was so angry when he found out your parents were getting married. It was as if he had betrayed the Laceys by presuming to marry into the family.”

“Loyalty is usually a good thing,” Michael said. “There are times, such as war, when it is what binds a people together, allowing them to do collectively what they could not possibly do individually. But it can also mean that someone, such as my grandfather, would never question anything that was asked of him by 'his betters,' and it can be even trickier in personal relationships.”

“For example?” I asked.

“For example, Audrey. I should have ended it sooner, but I had this misguided sense of loyalty because she was such a nice lady. Eventually, I had to let go.”

“You seem to be attracted to older women,” I said, knowing that Michael had been talking about Rob and me.

“I'm attracted to intelligent women, regardless of age,” he answered quickly. “It's true I was often more comfortable with someone who had a few years on me because I was pretty awkward around women.”