Servants’ Hall (13 page)

Gerald was thinking of going into politics. Ever since the huge demonstration in Hyde Park against the unfair – or believed by the public to be unfair – treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti, Gerald had been talking about the dangers of Communism getting a hold in England. As Rose hadn’t known that Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian communists on trial in America – or even that two such men were in the news, as she seldom looked at a newspaper – she was only bored by her husband’s convictions. As far as I could see, marriage to one of the upper class had not improved Rose in any way. Her outlook on life was still as narrow, her social and intellectual understanding almost non-existent, and spiritually she was still in the slums of Manchester. But she’d changed as a friend. Although she still wanted to see Mary and me, she wasn’t really interested in our personal life; our work, our boyfriends and life below stairs no longer concerned Rose. She really only needed us as an audience, to hear about the strains of coping with a large house and entertaining guests; and to sympathise with her about Gerald’s complaints of her failings.

Mary, more prone to blunt remarks than I was, said to Rose; ‘How is it that Gerald had got so rich? He didn’t do well in Rhodesia, and showed no signs of making money when we were at Redlands, yet now he seems to be rolling in the stuff. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.’

Rose took no offence at hearing this, and in fact agreed; but in her opinion it was Gerald’s partner that was the real brains.

‘From the time he met Ronald Frost, Gerald’s luck has changed. Now everything they do seems to make money. From having one little office in the City, they now have a whole floor. I don’t much care for Ron, he’s always making jokes that I can’t understand, but Sheila’s ever so nice. She’s got ever so many friends and sometimes they all come here for tea. Now I’m going to have a proper staff, I’ll be able to have people to dinner without having to worry about the work.’

On the way back Mary, who I could sense had become irritated listening to Rose’s conversation, said, ‘Margaret, we’ll not go there any more. Notice how Rose never has any of her posh friends call while we’re in the house.’ And mimicking Rose’s voice, Mary added, ‘I’ll have people to dinner. We don’t have supper, nothing so common now I have a staff.’ Then, abruptly changing the subject, Mary asked me if I’d seen Roy lately.

‘Sure I see him whenever he and I are free at the same time. Why do you ask?’

‘He seems to spend a lot of time at Aunt Ellie’s. The last three times I’ve been there, your Roy and Aunt Ellie seemed to be very friendly. I’d just thought I’d warn you, Margaret.’

‘Warn me of what? You know your aunt has always liked young people around. You can’t possibly be suggesting that there’s something going on between Roy and your aunt. Why, she’s older than him.’

‘Not all that much older. And don’t forget Aunt Ellie’s got money now.’

I parted from Mary feeling extremely upset and, although I said to myself that Mary was just being catty because she’d lost Alf, in my heart I knew it wasn’t so, Mary wasn’t like that. I went over all the details of the previous weeks. Had Roy seemed any different? No, of course he hadn’t; Mary must have got the wrong impression. Of course Roy liked Ellie, but so did a lot of the young people she welcomed in her home. Roy still discussed what we would do when he’d finished his training, he was still as loving and tender when we were together. But however I tried to reassure myself that all was well, uneasiness remained. Especially so when I recollected that on two or three occasions Roy had left a note to say he’d got to work an extra shift so wouldn’t be able to keep our date. Had he been telling the truth?

In a way it was fortunate that Madam was doing a lot of entertaining, for it kept me too busy to worry overmuch. There was to be a dinner party for eighteen people and Madam and I were planning the menu; Mr Kite was polishing the silver – or, rather, he was doing the more delicate pieces while Norma did the cutlery. He carefully inspected each fork to make sure that Norma had brushed out all the Goddard’s powder. Mr Kite’s importance as a butler had slightly diminished by having a parlourmaid under him; in his previous place he’d had a footman. There is more prestige attached to being a butler with a footman than a butler with a parlourmaid, however efficient she is.

Mr Kite had left his previous situation because of the goings-on between the new handsome young footman and the master above stairs. In all the years in which our butler had given honourable service to high-class families, he’d never known such a thing to happen. I think what shocked Mr Kite more than the immorality of it, was the fact that accepted traditions had been overturned, the master and servant relationship violated. Poor Mr Kite couldn’t possibly continue to work in such a situation. He said to me, pompously:

‘Cook, if I could bring myself to talk about what went on there, you’d never believe me. But I couldn’t lower myself to utter the words.’

‘Don’t even try, Mr Kite,’ I answered hastily, having no wish to hear a sordid saga from prosy Mr Kite. I felt sure that if the master had even smiled at his footman, Mr Kite would have interpreted it as an immoral advance.

Such inhibitions on frank speech meant nothing to Odette, who frequently entertained us with colourful – and probably embellished – tales about Provencal life. Mr Baines had always laughed whenever Odette, lacking knowledge of the English word for something she wanted to say, lapsed into French. She did this one evening while she was talking about Paris to Norma, Bessie and me. Trying to describe the street lavatories for men, she called them ‘pissoirs’, and Mr Kite looked really pained. He’d have us know that he’d been to France with one of his employers and had not liked the country, the people, or their customs. As for the sanitary arrangements, even in Paris they were disgusting; fancy both sexes having to use the same entrance to a lavatory – and sometimes even share it. Odette derided such opinions; ‘You English are just prudes’, she said. But I must admit that we too found the idea somewhat revolting.

Mr Kite often complained to me that service was no longer the same as when he was a lad. The nobility and the gentry were fading away and a high-class butler, such as he was, had sometimes to have a dozen interviews before he found the right place.

‘You know, Cook, it never does to take an inferior place where you cannot take a pride in your work. Being a top-class butler means that one starts in service from the bottom and gradually works one’s way up the ladder. One is not going to throw all that experience away on employers who don’t appreciate a real butler. Would you believe it, Cook, in one of the situations I went after, although they advertised for an experienced butler, at the interview I discovered that not only did I have to do the work single-handed, I was expected to be handyman too. I very soon told them that I hadn’t spent nearly forty years in good service to become a handyman. Ah no, Cook, it’s so easy for us servants to fall into bad service; we have to be constantly on our guard. One bad employer from whom one requires a reference and the damage is done. The next employer will think the man couldn’t have been much of a butler to work in such a place.’

Mr Kite’s conversation was never wildly exciting and as a rule I only half listened to what he had to say. Nevertheless, I suppose he was right in what he told me; the difference between us being that if I got a bad place I didn’t worry but changed it as soon as possible. But then I didn’t intend to spend all my life in domestic service as Mr Kite plainly did.

The night of the dinner party was extremely hectic and for once I really hectored Bessie and made her give me more help, for I’d never before cooked for such a large party. It wasn’t so much the actual cooking as getting the amounts right that worried me; a lot of food was needed to feed eighteen people. The menu was to be artichoke soup, with cream added just before serving; followed by sole normande, made with white wine and decorated with truffles. The entrée was veal cutlets and espagnole sauce, and the main course, the remove, saddle of lamb with mint sauce and redcurrant jelly – the latter bought ready-made. The sweet was cold honeycomb mould; and finally there were devilled prunes for the savoury. It all went extremely well, nothing was under-done, over-done or burnt, much to my relief. During the rush Mr Kite whispered to me that a Mrs Denver, a well-known diner-out, had particularly praised the sole normande. When it was all over, I was just thankfully sitting down for a few minutes before helping Bessie with the mounds of washing-up and getting our own supper, when who should come into the kitchen but Madam with a guest. I felt so embarrassed; all the cooking had left me as red as a peony, and the kitchen was still strewn with utensils.

Madam smiled at me, saying, ‘Excuse us invading your kitchen, Cook, and don’t get up; you must be feeling tired. The dinner was splendid and Mrs Denver would very much like the recipe for the sole normande.’

Mrs Denver added her thanks and they went back upstairs.

Just before she left, Mrs Denver surreptitiously slipped an envelope into the butler’s hand; it was addressed to me. Inside was £5, and a message to the effect that if I ever contemplated leaving Madam, would I let her know. Mr Kite was pained at such perfidy. To be Madam’s guest, eat at her table and then try to lure away one of her servants was base conduct. Besides, he knew that Mrs Denver lived in a tiny apartment with two maids, so it could hardly be for herself that she wanted a cook.

‘In that case, Mr Kite,’ I told him, ‘Mrs Denver’s a procuress. But instead of procuring for bawdy houses, she procures reliable cooks for her friends – probably for a small consideration.’

Mr Kite had received about six pounds in tips so we pooled all the money. Although the housemaids were not directly involved in the dinner party – nobody was staying the night – nevertheless Ada had helped with washing the silver in the butler’s pantry, Elsie had to be on duty upstairs to tidy Madam’s bedroom after the lady guests had used it, and we couldn’t leave out Odette.

It was past eleven o’clock by the time we had our supper; but although we were tired, everybody was cheerful because the evening had gone well. Mr Kite even laughed at one of Odette’s somewhat ribald remarks and then he told us an amusing story about when he was a second footman!

‘One evening, at a very important dinner, and just as I was handing round the dish of peas to a guest, I sneezed violently, my hands shook and several of the peas shot off in all directions. There was a dreadful silence; it was too terrible, I wished that I was dead. Fred, the first footman, could hardly restrain his mirth, and the expression on the face of the old family butler gives me a nightmare still when I think of it. It wasn’t my fault I sneezed, I just couldn’t suppress it, but I’m certain that the martinet of a butler considered I should have choked rather than have disgraced his training.’

Coming from Mr Kite, this was quite a story and he was obviously gratified to hear us all laugh. It was the last time for quite a while that I did laugh, because the morning brought me two letters; one from Rose and the other from Roy.

18

The next morning, feeling proud and pleased by the ultimate success of the previous evening, I received a letter from Roy; and certainly I was not prepared for the shattering news it contained. How could I be, when Roy had been as kind and affectionate as usual when we’d last met. I’d forgotten Mary’s warning. In the first part of his letter there was no finesse, no softening of the blow. He simply stated that he and Ellie were getting married. That they loved each other and the disparity in age made no difference to their love. I had to read it three times before I really grasped the fact that I had lost Roy. The rest of the letter was merely padding. He still liked me and hoped that I’d find a man better than he, Roy, could ever be. But we weren’t really suited to each other, because as Ellie had pointed out, we were both Scorpios with possessive natures. So, if we married, neither of us would be happy. I was too upset to take much notice of this last statement; but some weeks later, gradually recovering from my broken romance and reading yet again his rejection of me, I was furious at Ellie’s assumption that Roy and I were unsuited to each other. Both Scorpios indeed! I bet she couldn’t even say the names of the constellations, or tell the difference between astrology and astronomy.

On the morning that I received the letter, I felt nothing but pain and grief, yet I had to hide my feelings from the servants and especially from Madam. Although she looked after our physical well-being, I could sense that she would only be irritated if she found herself involved in our personal lives.

My other letter was from Rose with the news that her Uncle Fred, the miner, despairing of finding work, was coming to London with his wife and the three youngest children. Her parents had written to say that Rose must go to see Uncle Fred and help him if possible. Rose wanted Mary and me to join her. That was so like Rose. Confronted with a situation which might prove embarrassing, her instinctive reaction was to protect herself by having friends around. Neither Mary nor I had met Uncle Fred and I felt he would hardly welcome the invasion of two strangers. Uncle Fred had said that life for the poor in London must be better than the slums of Manchester, and he liked what he’d read about the irrepressible cockney humour prevailing over the worst of circumstances.

As I said to Mary when we met, Uncle Fred would be disappointed. Like a lot of people viewing London from a distance, the city might seem a Utopia, a haven and refuge. But there
are
no Utopias, except perhaps in heaven; and by the late twenties, belief in heaven was rapidly fading – especially among the young. Agnosticism was now the thing, a non-religion. The slums of London were no more salubrious than the slums of Manchester, and as for humour: yes, given just enough to eat and a roof over their heads, perhaps cockney humour
was
irrepressible. But given an unemployed husband, one stinking room and starving children crying for food, Londoners were as miserable as any in a similar situation. Just as in the Second World War, when the newspapers printed that no amount of bombing could stop Londoners’ earthy humour, that simply wasn’t true. No-one, unless they were totally without emotions, could see and hear the carnage night after night and then emerge from the shelters uttering a merry quip or bawdy obscenity.