Diamonds at Dinner

by Hilda Newman

  It’s not for me to say this but I had a decent figure and a nice little waist and I suppose I must have been pretty enough to attract the attention of some of the local boys: they certainly asked if they could walk me home! I like to think that at least some of it was down to my skill as a tailor, for I made my own dresses to go dancing and one in particular – a lovely pale-blue satin material, which Mum had bought for me at Stamford Market, and which (thanks to my apprenticeship with Mrs Kent) looked like something from a very fancy couturier – drew attention the moment I walked into the Assembly Rooms wearing it. The girls all flocked round me with little cries of, ‘Molly,’ (I was always known as Molly in those days), ‘Did you really make that? It’s so lovely!’ I think the boys noticed it too – I certainly saw them sneaking glances my way – but I already had a young man I was walking out with. Norman Aitkin was his name and he worked at Blackstone’s, the engineering company in the town, which had once employed Dad. I thought he was smashing. But Dad – oh, dear, Dad – he just didn’t approve at all. Whether he would have thought anyone good enough for his eldest daughter is debatable. Maybe it was because Dad couldn’t get his old job back at Blackstone’s after the war, maybe it was the fact that he didn’t like Norman’s mother but, for whatever reason, in his eyes, Norman Aitkin was definitely not up to snuff.

  Although I’d been allowed to go to dances on my own for some months by the time Norman and I started courting, once Dad knew we were walking out, there was nothing for it but that I had to have a chaperone. If Norman and I went anywhere together, my little brother Jim was sent out to find us and make sure Norman behaved himself on the way home.

  So, all in all, Dad was never going to welcome the idea of his darling daughter leaving home and going into service miles away. Don’t forget that, once I’d gone, he knew there would be little or no chance of coming to see me: we didn’t have a car – no one from our class of people could even dream of running one, let alone paying the £175 even a basic one would cost. (If that sounds terribly little money for a car, don’t forget to multiply it by 100 to work out the modern equivalent: could you afford to splash out £17,500 if you were in our position today? Of course, car prices have come down in relative terms since then but in 1935 motoring was still very much in its infancy and the purchase price of even a little Austin or a Morris reflected that.) Nor were there any buses in Stamford: if you wanted to get anywhere locally, well, it was ‘Shanks’s pony’ as everyone called walking. There was, though, the train station and I began to wonder whether one of the enormous puffing steam engines that pulled in amid a fearsome clanking of steel and vast clouds of smoke might one day take me away from the town in which I had lived all my life.

  In the end it was the girl at work – the same one who had put the idea of my going into service in the first place – who helped me make a start. To this day I don’t know how she found out about the opportunities: maybe she had seen an advert from one of the agencies which then advertised positions in service for girls like me. But however she knew, I was at work in the laundry room one day when she came to me with the news that two fine ladies were looking for a maid. And she challenged me to write to them.

  The first was Lady Blanche Cobbold, from Glemham Hall near Ipswich in Suffolk. Since this was close to where Dad had grown up before he made the journey to Stamford, perhaps he would look on the idea more favourably. Lady Cobbold was, in fact, the daughter of the ninth Duke of Cavendish, and one of the most illustrious women in the country. She had been born and raised at the family estate at Chatsworth; she was married to a brave and dashing soldier who had been wounded in the Great War and had two young daughters. It certainly seemed like a very promising opening.

  The other was Nesta, Countess of Coventry. I knew nothing about her at the time and Worcestershire, where she lived at Croome Court, seemed an awful long way away. Nonetheless, I resolved to write to both the Countess and Lady Cobbold, enquiring about a position as their lady’s maid.

  I don’t know what I would have done if both had replied – quite probably, I would have preferred to go to Suffolk, given Dad’s connection with the county. But as it happened it was Lady Coventry who sent me a handwritten note inviting me to come for an interview.

  First, though, there was the little question of getting Dad’s permission. He was quite adamantly opposed to the whole scheme and, since it was so rare for Dad really to put his foot down, I knew that I would need allies. Fortunately, Mum and my aunts were both on my side: together we slowly won Dad over and I was granted his blessing to go for the interview.

  The funny thing is that, however much I try, I can’t remember a thing about it. You might put that down to my age but I’m convinced it was nerves: I’d never been outside of Stamford and my interview was in Worcester – miles and miles away and, as far as I was concerned, a big city. I couldn’t tell you how I got there, nor what was said by the Countess – much less what I said to her. But somehow or other I must have done well enough, for a few days later a letter arrived at Vine Street, addressed to me in a firm handwriting style: her Ladyship was pleased to accept me for the position of her lady’s maid.

  Well, what an excitement there was in our little house. Everything that I owned – not that there was much – needed to be packed up into a little cardboard suitcase. I would need suitable clothes (out came the sewing machine) and strong sensible shoes. Even though it was summertime, because I was going to a grand mansion, I would also need a hat – women and men always wore hats to go anywhere in those days – and gloves. I’d also needed the fare for my journey, which wasn’t to be sneezed at in our frugal household. Above all, I’d have to find out how to get there. And this journey I do remember clearly

  I don’t know if you can imagine what it was like nearly 80 years ago for a young girl to set out on an adventure like this. These days, of course, it’s easy to find train times and everyone is used to travelling all over the place. But in those days very few people ever strayed more than a mile or so from their hometown and the transport system was cumbersome and rather daunting – at least to a girl like me. After a trip to the station to consult the big and complicated book of railway timetables, we worked out that I would have to take three separate trains. The first would take me from Stamford to Leicester. Here I would get off and have to locate the train bound for Birmingham. Once I got there, I had to change again, this time onto the local service for Worcester. All in all, what with the slowness of the steam engines and waiting on the platforms at each stage, the journey was going to take all day: and this for a journey of just over a hundred miles.

  Slowly, the day for my departure came around. My suitcase was packed and I laid out a nice new dress, the thick black stockings everyone wore in those days, hat, gloves and – of course – my shoes polished to within an inch of their lives. My heart was racing as I closed the door on the little bedroom I shared with Joan: this was it – I was off out into the big wide world and who could know when, or if ever, I’d see my home and my family again?

  Dad was very upset: I knew how much he was worried and how much he didn’t want me to go. But, being Dad, he was strong and supportive and smiling: men didn’t show their emotions much in those days and I don’t think Dad would have ever dreamed of letting me, or even Mum, see the tears he must have been keeping in check. But as we walked through the town towards the station, I knew he was dreading the moment when I climbed aboard the train and he would watch as it pulled out, taking me away from my family.

  At the small ticket window, the railway clerk took my money and punched out the little oblong piece of thick cardboard: my ticket to a new life. It was, of course, Third Class: back then trains were divided into three, with the wealthy and well-to-do riding in First, the middle classes in Second, while working-class folk had the cheapest and hardest seats of all in the most basic of the carriages.

  I clutched the ticket in my gloved hand and climbed on board. Just before the guard waved his green flag and blew his
whistle, I felt Dad put his hand around mine and press something between my fingers. It was a crisp brown 10-shilling note. He didn’t say anything and neither did I: I knew this would be the last of his money for the week – possibly the month – and he had given it to me. There would be no Woodbines for him for a while and no half pints of mild. My eyes pricked with tears, for I knew the sacrifice he had made – not just in giving me the last of his money but in letting me leave our home and family. As the train puffed and wheezed its way out of the station, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Oh, Molly, what have you done?’

  Chapter Five

  Hierarchies

  ‘Miss Mulley, is it?’

  The man in front of me was a few inches taller than me but his dark hair had been combed back from his forehead (into what looked very much like the sort of brush Mum had used to sweep up with), which made him seem taller. Hair or no hair, as I appraised him, I reckoned he was a few inches taller than me and about ten years older. He was wearing a smart dark suit, his shoes were nicely shined (always a good sign – Dad’s training again) and a peaked cap. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this must be the Coventry’s chauffeur. I’m not sure what I expected, but fancy that: a real chauffeur meeting little Hilda Mary Mulley off the train – how very posh indeed!

  I didn’t have much time to take this in though: as the train pulled out, leaving clouds of smoke and steam rolling along the platform, the chauffeur was marching smartly off to the exit. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘Here goes. What’s to be afraid of anyway?’ I’m not sure if I answered my own question. If I had, I think I could have found plenty of reasons why my stomach was in knots and I felt a bit sick. I’d spent a day criss-crossing England, changing trains, drinking cups of tea poured from big silver urns in smoky station buffets, watching mile after mile of countryside sweep past the window – and now here I was, about to pledge the rest of my life (because that’s how I thought of it) to the service of a rich and powerful Countess I’d barely met. I hadn’t the first clue of where I was going and, if the chauffeur seemed perfectly at ease – and, therefore, I could presume he knew how we would get to our destination – why, I didn’t even know his name. Nervous? Well, wouldn’t you be?

  Parked in the road outside the station was a very ordinary little blue van – the sort which butchers and similar tradesmen used back home in Stamford to make their rounds and deliveries. Surely this wasn’t how we were to travel? But yes: the chauffeur was striding towards it, my little cardboard case in hand. What was his name? I couldn’t really imagine driving to wherever we were going and calling him ‘Mr Chauffeur’. What was the correct way of addressing him? These things would matter – that much I knew. I hurried to catch up.

  The chauffeur held the door open for me and, as demurely as I could, I sat myself down in the old, worn seat. Instantly, I noticed a strange smell – what on earth could this be? Then with a bang and a slam the door was shut, the chauffeur swung himself into the driving seat and we were off.

  ‘I’m Roland,’ he said with a smile. ‘Roland Newman. I’m Lord Coventry’s driver. Amongst other things. Oh, please excuse the smell: this is the hound wagon.’

  Hound wagon? Did the gentry’s dogs have their very own car? I’d grown up with dogs – instantly I remembered our dear old mongrel at home in Vine Street – but we’d never had a car for ourselves, much less a separate one for the dog. What on earth sort of life had I come to?

  Roland didn’t seem to think anything of it though, so I sat quietly, pulling myself as tightly down into the seat as possible as the little van grumbled its way out of Worcester and on into the countryside. Miles and miles of it: fields ripe unto the harvest, as we used to sing at church back home. Corn, wheat and something else I didn’t recognise at all.

  ‘Those are hop fields,’ Roland informed me. ‘This part of Worcestershire is famous for its hops: we grow the best for the best beer in England.’

  Since I’d never drunk beer – alcohol really wasn’t part of Mulley family life – I had no answer to this. I tucked it away in the back of my mind: a new piece of information for my new life. This was certainly going to be an education.

  The journey seemed to take forever – although I suppose it can’t have been much more than an hour. We seemed to be going ever deeper into the countryside, with only the occasional small village giving any indication that people actually lived here. Just how remote was this place I was going to? And if it was so far away from any sort of civilisation – for that’s how I thought of towns like Stamford – how would I ever to get away from it? That’s what it began to feel like: that I would be a prisoner in some terribly isolated castle, with no hope of ever escaping. The further we went, the more nervous and uneasy I became.

  Roland seemed unconcerned: if he noticed how worried I was becoming, he didn’t show it. Instead, he kept up a cheerful (and largely one-sided) chatter about this and that. I couldn’t tell you what he said, or whether he was trying to impart some knowledge that I would need in my new position: his words washed over my poor muddled head, filled with worries, until it blended in with the rattling of the little van’s engine and the rumble of its wheels on the rough country roads.

  And then, suddenly, there was the big stone gateway in front of us. The soft, buttery afternoon light caught one side of it as the van pulled up.

  ‘This is the London Arch,’ Roland informed me as we passed beneath its huge weathered face. London? Surely we hadn’t gone as far as that? London was a place I’d only ever read about in books and was as exotic and foreign sounding as Timbuktu. ‘No, don’t be silly,’ I told myself. ‘We can’t have driven all the way to London.’ Maybe this was one of the capital city’s famous monuments and Lord Coventry had brought it all the way to Worcestershire. If so, he must be very rich indeed.

  As these thoughts whirled through my head, the little van was off again, rumbling down a windy and very well-kept driveway. Trees – they seemed like a whole big wood to me – passed on my side while, on the other, open parkland spread out like an enormous bowling green for as far as I could see. Then we were onto crunching gravel and the car was stopping and Croome Court – bigger than any building I had ever seen in my young life – was in front of us. It was imposing, it was magnificent, it was impossibly grand: and, as Roland opened the car door and I slid out, my heart sank even lower. However beautiful, this place was like some giant prison castle in a storybook and I was to be locked up here with no hope of anyone coming to rescue me and no prospect of escape. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I might have burst out crying there and then.

  Roland picked up my case and walked me around the side of the house to the back. The rear of the house was just as impressive as the front: there was an enormous entrance with a pillared portico and huge stone steps leading up from the driveway. For a moment I wondered if I was going to have to march up those steps and in through the very grand doors. But Roland took me towards a little, almost hidden, entrance at the side.

  ‘Tradesmen’s entrance,’ he said with a warm smile. Had he guessed what I’d been thinking? As he opened the door, I caught a glimpse of long half-lit passageways: we seemed to be heading into some strange subterranean world that echoed with the sound of our footsteps. I shuddered as we left the warm summer sunlight behind us and the cold basement air enveloped me.

  On and on we walked through an endless series of corridors that seemed to sprout off one another and head off in all directions. How on earth would I ever find my way around this maze of passages? And did I really want to? The further we ventured into the depths of the house, the more I felt like an explorer entering some bottomless series of tunnels – and the more I wished I’d never left my cosy little home, with all its simplicity and its warmth, back in Stamford. ‘Oh, you silly, silly girl,’ I thought. ‘What have you done?’

  Eventually, we emerged from the latest of these passages and into an enormous room. A huge cooking range ran down the side of one wall and people – other servants,
I realised – bustled in and out. Occasionally, a bell would ring from somewhere in the maze of corridors and more bustling would happen. I had arrived at the beating heart of the house: the mighty kitchen of Croome Court.

  Someone – I couldn’t have told you who – pressed a cup of tea into my hands and a stern-looking older man appeared beside me. Of Roland the chauffeur there was now no sign. The new man welcomed me solemnly and explained that, given the lateness of the hour, I wouldn’t be meeting my mistress tonight. Instead, I was to be shown to my bedroom, where I could make myself at home and prepare myself for work the next morning.

  I had not the faintest idea what my duties would be, much less what time I would be expected to start performing them. But I was so tired, and felt so sorry for myself, that I simply followed a young woman in the uniform of what I assumed to be a maid out of the kitchen and back through the echoing passageways until we came to a great stone staircase, which seemed to rise and rise in front of my bewildered eyes. My guide tiptoed up the stairs to a little half-landing: this, she told me, was the floor where the Court’s great reception rooms were. Then it was up to the next floor – the master and mistress’s bedrooms, as well as those of the children, apparently – and up again until we reached the very top of the house. I’d never been up so many stairs in my life.

  Off the top of the staircase was a little ante-room. At first, I thought this must be my bedroom: it was bigger than the room I shared with Joan back home but there was no sign of a bed. But we left this behind and the girl opened another door and then I simply gasped: the room in front of me was absolutely vast – I thought you could have plonked the whole of our house in Vine Street into this one room and still have had space left over. The ceiling was at least 15 feet above my head and there was the grandest fireplace I’d ever set eyes on in the middle of one wall. A little bed (though still bigger than my own at home) stood out against another wall, absolutely dwarfed by the open space around it. An enormous mahogany wardrobe loomed large in the corner. Surely all this couldn’t be just for me?