Servants’ Hall (17 page)

I felt slightly peeved that he should put such stress on the value of butlers and menservants in general, as opposed to us women – after all, I thought, hadn’t somebody once written: ‘We may live without friends; we may live without books; but civilised man cannot live without cooks’. I quoted this to Mr Kite, adding, perhaps with some malice, that the only verse I knew about butlers was from Hilaire Belloc; ‘In my opinion Butlers ought to know their place, and not to play The Old Retainer night and day’. In any case it wasn’t strictly true that employers didn’t mind paying the tax on menservants. I used to read the newspapers that came down from upstairs, especially the readers’ letters in
The Times.
I had visions of writing to the paper and getting a letter published; though on what subject, I’d no idea. But in some of the letters, employers were complaining about having to pay this domestic tax. Considering that it was only 15/-, I couldn’t imagine why they made such a fuss. To people who could afford a large staff of domestic servants, what was an extra 15/-?

As it transpired, neither the butler nor I need have worried about ‘speaking to Madam’. Before we had a chance to complain, the Russian visitors had departed. Naturally, none of us servants were told the reason why their visit had been cut short.

22

Two days elapsed before I saw Mrs Van Lievden, for Odette gave me a message that Madam was indisposed and I was to plan the menus; she was sure I could cope. It was on the second day of Madam’s indisposition that the Count and Countess left the house. None of us regretted
his
departure, though he did provide me with an original topic of conversation; after all, not every cook can talk about the count in her kitchen – what a good title for a book. When speaking about his culinary achievements in my kitchen, I naturally always omitted to mention that Count Kylov spoke to me only when he required some kitchen utensil – it would have detracted from my glory. Working below stairs, I’d never spoke to the Countess, but Odette and Elsie agreed that she was a very sweet person; quiet, timid and apparently much in awe of her husband, who frequently spoke to her in a harsh manner.

The following morning, Mrs Van Lievden came down as usual to give the orders for the day. Now although the servants were interested in, and discussed every facet of life above stairs – or what little we knew of it – this interest was certainly not reciprocated. Madam was concerned to know that her servants had everything they needed in the way of uniforms, household equipment, comfortable bedrooms and servants’ hall, but that was the extent of her interest in us as persons. But this morning, for the first and only time, Mrs Van Lievden spoke to me of matters not appertaining to working out the menu. She asked if Count Kylov had been rude to me or to Mr Kite; and she went on to explain that the Count had suffered great hardships in that he had lost his beautiful home, money and possessions – it certainly hadn’t made him feel compassion for those who’d never had those assets in the first place, I thought. Madam seemed concerned that I should understand how hard life was for the Russian emigrés, now that the Bolshevists had driven them from their own country.

‘But of course, Cook,’ she said, ‘you were far too young to remember anything about the Russian Revolution of 1917. I’m sure you are not in the least interested in Russia, and there’s no reason why you should be.’

‘I do know something about pre-revolution Russia, Madam. I borrowed Tolstoy’s
War and Peace
from our public library, and I’ve also read
The Possessed
by Dostoievsky, and a volume of short stories by Anton Chekhov. I enjoyed reading the books, Madam.’

Madam was so taken aback that she could only utter, and somewhat feebly, ‘Did you, Cook?’

Everything was just settling down into the usual routine when Bessie, the kitchenmaid, decided to give in her notice. Not only was she still lamenting the faithlessness of the butcher-boy, but she’d discovered she didn’t like being a kitchenmaid. The work was too hard; she’d get a place as an under-housemaid. It was my opinion, and the butcher’s also that in comparison with what we had to do when we started in domestic service, Bessie was in clover. She didn’t have to get up in the morning until six-thirty, and a whole hour later on Sundays, and she’d no kitchen range to light, just an Ideal boiler to rake out. In my first job, there was a list of the kitchenmaid’s duties pinned on to the dresser, and what I had to do before eight o’clock: R
ISE AT 5.30AM, ON SUNDAYS 6.00AM.
L
IGHT THE RANGE, CLEAN THE FLUES, POLISH THE RANGE AND EMERY-PAPER THE FENDER AND FIRE-IRONS.
C
LEAN THE BRASS ON THE FRONT DOOR, THE TILES IN THE FRONT HALL AND HEARTHSTONE THE STEPS.
P
OLISH THE BOOTS AND SHOES FOR THE FOUR PERSONS ABOVE STAIRS, LAY UP THE SERVANTS’ BREAKFAST AND SET OUT THE KITCHEN TABLE WITH ALL THAT THE COOK WILL NEED.
When I first saw this list my mind boggled. I thought that I’d never be able to do it all in the time. But I managed. Mr Kite and I agreed that we didn’t know what the younger generation were coming to – which is of course, precisely what people say today.

Then it was time for Odette to go back to France. I would miss her, but she wasn’t sorry to be leaving England, comparing it unfavourably with her native Provençe. I pointed out that she barely knew England; living in London, with a few odd weeks in Bath, Harrogate and Edinburgh, she was hardly familiar with our country. We had lovely old towns and villages that Odette had never heard of, much less seen. But then she didn’t like Englishmen; for either they were too formal, stand-offish, cold as fish – and cod-like too; or they were as crude in their methods of showing affection as a gorilla in the zoo. Leaping to the defence of our males, especially as I was still looking for a permanent beau, I retaliated by saying that Raoul, the Frenchman I’d met at the Palais de Dance, was a pretty poor specimen of humanity. I didn’t so much mind that he was a second-rate dancer, for I was no twinkle-toes; what I did mind was his ineffable conceit in thinking that his ridiculous gyrations on the dance floor made him a marvellous partner. Furthermore, his ideas about kissing were certainly not mine. I strongly objected to being almost swallowed when we said goodnight. Odette explained that Raoul was probably out to prove a Frenchman was more passionate than a cold Englishman. He probably was, but I very soon told him to prove it with some other girl; it wasn’t passion I was looking for, it was marriage lines.

Rose wrote to Mary and me to say that her parents were thinking of doing the same as Uncle Fred in coming to London to work. The world wide Great Depression was still throwing more and more people out of work; now Rose’s father had lost his job in the mill. Uncle Fred had managed to get work as a lift attendant; the hours were long and the wages small, but it was better than being on the dole. Rose wanted Mary and me to look for a small flat suitable for her ma and pa. Her letter was full of the usual complaints about her husband. Gerald had refused to have ma and pa staying at Greenlands, giving as a reason that her pa disliked him and there would be rows – too true, said Mary. Gerald had offered to pay the rent of a flat, but she, Rose, knew that her pa would flatly refuse to accept charity. Pa’s temper had never been mild at the best of times it was positively dreadful now that he was out of work. That being so, I couldn’t see Mary and me calling on her parents as we had called on Uncle Fred. As I remarked to Mary, Shakespeare’s banished Duke may have thought, ‘sweet are the uses of adversity’, but evidently adversity hadn’t sweetened Rose’s pa.

After the fiasco of our visit to Greenlands, Mary still felt some animosity towards Rose. She said, satirically, ‘Margaret, isn’t it just like Rose to expect us to wear ourselves out walking around London to find a flat for her parents! Could you see her doing the same for us? Notice too, that she hasn’t enclosed any money so that we could get around in comfort by having a taxi. Oh no! A bus is good enough for us. And why should we give up our free time? I could think of a lot of things I’d rather do. Besides, I start my new job next week and I’ve some shopping to do. I think I’m going to like this new place. There’s only four above stairs; no children, thank heaven, and they don’t have coal fires in the bedrooms, not even for guests. Not that I’d have to lug coal-scuttles up the stairs, there’s an under-housemaid to do that. I have to provide my own uniform and caps, but I’m getting £40 a year. And the butler’s such a nice-looking man; young too, I bet he’s only about thirty-five.’

‘Now then, Mary, don’t start off the job with romantic ideas about the menservants. Remember what a disaster that Alf turned out to be – ’ But here Mary interrupted to say that Alf was never a manservant, it was just an extra job for him.

‘Maybe so, but if the butler is young and goodlooking, he’s either engaged or married. If he isn’t, considering all the females below stairs, it must be that he doesn’t like women.’

‘Oh, Margaret! Why do you have to be such a wet blanket? It could well be that he hasn’t found the right woman yet. Besides, not all men rush into matrimony in their twenties.’

‘Well, Mary, in my opinion, any reasonably good-looking man in his thirties, who’s still single, will have very little enthusiasm for walking up the aisle with a bride. Besides, you surely wouldn’t want to marry a butler and be in service for the rest of your life?’

A butler doesn’t have to stay in service, does he? He can get another kind of job.’

‘What! with a million and a half unemployed? What would he do? He’d look fine in the dole queue when they asked him what kind of work could he do! He’d have to say, “I can buttle”.’

Beating Mary in an argument was a bit pointless when we were spending some hours together, for generally it took her time to recover her equanimity. But now she just laughed, saying, ‘we’ve got time to dash in the pub for a quick one before we start flat-hunting.’ The barman, who was Welsh and a friend of ours, asked us where we were off to.

‘We’re looking for a small flat, or rooms of some kind, Morgan. Do you know of anything round this way?’

‘Well, I never, sweethearts. Is it that you are going to set up home together now? What a waste of good material.’

Mary and I blushed a fiery red. We thought that he meant were we setting up a brothel. We knew only of men like that; probably what he meant was, were we a couple of lesbians.

23

As a way of spending a pleasant afternoon, I wouldn’t advocate hunting for accommodation. It was much worse a few years later when I had a family and needed rooms, but even now Mary and I had a wearisome time. We’d bought the local newspapers of Kensington, Notting Hill Gate and Earl’s Court, and we started off fairly confident of finding a suitable place.

At the first house, in Earl’s Court, the door was opened by a young man whose fair curly hair and high-pitched voice made it obvious where his sexual preferences lay. He smiled at us, saying, ‘Come in, my dears, come in, I’ll show you the rooms.’

We explained that it wasn’t for ourselves we were seeking accommodation, and again he gave us a sweet smile.

‘What a pity, my dears, what a pity. I do like to have young people around me.’

He repeated most of his remarks; whether to emphasise or prolong the conversation, we’d no idea. The house was very clean but it was all furnished accommodation so wouldn’t do for Rose’s parents. Her ma would never be parted from her green plush chairs and china dogs. The amicable young proprietor said that he let furnished rooms because he simply loved to be surrounded by his own things.

‘My dears, you’ve no idea. Once, just as a favour, I did let a tenant bring her own things. They were simply hideous, simply hideous; gave me a headache just to look at them.’

‘But, Mr Martin, if you let unfurnished rooms, you didn’t have to go into the rooms.’

‘Ah, my dears, you don’t understand. Just to know such things were in my house upset me, yes upset me. I must have my own things.’

I had an hilarious vision of him sitting with Rose’s ma and pa surrounded by the green plush chairs and green plush over-mantel, complete with china dogs. He’d have had the headache of all time. He made tea for us and introduced us to his ‘friend’, Aubrey, a hefty six-foot man. As Mary said, no doubt Aubrey was the ‘chucker-out’ of undesirable tenants. In those days it was possible for a landlord to get rid of them.

Next on the list was a house in Notting Hill Gate where the landlady, in hair curlers and wearing a sacklike garment – on which it was possible, to discern the remains of many meals – was extremely garrulous. She showed us the dark, empty and cavernous basement flat, which stank of countless previous cave-dwellers; perhaps the midden was in the yard. Oh, yes, she liked people from the North. Her late husband had come from Yorkshire, as hard-working a man as you’d hope to find though suffering something cruel with his ‘waterworks’. He had to hop in and out of bed all night, they could never get down to a bit of the ‘you know what’. It carried him off eventually; thank gawd she had no kids to bring up.

What with the smell of the basement and the torrent of words, Mary and I were thankful to get out into the fresh air. We collected particulars of some half-dozen more or less suitable places, and I suggested to Mary that perhaps we should telephone Rose and give her the information.

‘What! at our expense?’ Mary exclaimed, ‘you must be mad. It’ll cost us a packet and we’d never get our money back. No, send it through the post.’

Our chauffeur’s wife had invited us to supper in their mews flat; and as I was short of money – it being still a few days to go before my month’s wages – we called on Mrs Davies as early as etiquette allowed. The supper was a delicious beef stew, which Mrs Davies said she’d made from shin of beef. At the time I doubted her, for in service I used shin of beef only to make beef tea, and I then threw away the meat. It was only about sixpence a pound then. Off duty, Mr Davies was a very entertaining man, with a fund of stories about his childhood in Glamorgan. Every midsummer his grandparents had made mead, ready for a grand gathering of the Davies clan at Christmas, and his mother had cooked a ham, with cider, and made dumplings to go with it – made not with ordinary flour, but with oatmeal.