by Hilda Newman
And what, do you suppose, the Earl was doing all this time? From the moment I’d knocked on the door with his wife’s morning cup of tea he was nowhere to be seen. The answer turned out to be that he was receiving very much the same sort of treatment from Mr Latter: the whole routine with the clothes (though not, I think, with the hair brushing, since His Lordship sported the short back and sides of all respectable gentlemen). But, incredible as it may seem to us today, both of these grown adults – and Her Ladyship was almost twice my age – were apparently unable to decide for themselves what clothes to put on of a morning, much less to get themselves dressed on their own.
At 9.30am the Earl and Countess descended the big stone staircase and settled themselves in the dining room to take breakfast. As a lady’s maid, I never saw what went on in there – although I would see Winnie and her kitchen maids working up whole silver salvers of bacon, eggs, devilled kidneys, kedgeree and the like: it was the footmen and Mr Latter who waited on the family when they took their meals and, though we weren’t meant to gossip about the family, I soon found out that, before they ever undid a napkin or plunged a knife into the butter, the Earl said prayers. And when he finished, Her Ladyship would add her own appeal to the Almighty: ‘God, make my servants dutiful.’ Since there was no ‘please’ in that sentence, I realised not only that our duties were a matter of the strictest requirement but that the aristocracy were evidently on first-name terms with God.
There was one other very noticeable aspect to the Earl and the Countess’s breakfasts: they took them alone. By the time I joined the household in August 1935, the Coventrys had four children: three daughters and one son. The eldest, at 13, was Lady Anne; next came Lady Joan, aged 11, then Lady Maria, who was 4, and the youngest of all was George William (the family always called their first sons by those names), who was barely 18 months and known to everyone simply as Bill. Lady Anne and Lady Joan had been dispatched to boarding school and were thus away from Croome for much of the year but, even in school holidays, neither they nor the two youngsters ate with their parents.
Coming from a close family such as mine where, even had there been room enough in the little cottage to send the three of us children to eat on our own, my parents would never have considered it. The way the Coventrys brought up their children seemed very odd to me. They rarely saw them from one day to the next: most often, their only contact would be for a few minutes after the children had eaten their supper and were brought down to speak to their parents before being whisked back up to their playroom. Even at bedtime it was Mrs Lovett who supervised everything and tucked them in for the night. To my mind, it didn’t bode well: even though I was just 19, I had enough about me to suspect that this very aristocratic way of family life might one day reap some less than respectable rewards. Little did I know how tragically that premonition was to be realised.
Chapter Seven
Exploring Croome Court
I t took a week for me to stop crying myself to sleep at night.
The days themselves began to resolve into some sort of routine: up at 7am, drink tea, have bath, rush down the three flights of stairs, gulp down breakfast then whisk Milady’s tray upstairs and begin work on her daily needs. I found my way to the laundry – a huge bustling place where all the family’s bedding was washed and ironed every morning ready for the housemaids to make up again in the afternoon. I set up an ironing board in my bedroom so that I could press the Countess’s clothes. It was a relief to discover that I had an electric socket in my room and was issued with an electric iron: a vast improvement on the heavy old cast-iron implements I was used to at home.
I suppose that, if I’d wanted it, Miriam, the third housemaid who seemed to be looking after me, would have made up my bed for me. But I’d been brought up by Mum’s strict standards and I couldn’t bear to allow someone else to do this for me. The bedding, of course, was the old-fashioned type: no duvets in those days! And so every morning I started the bed from scratch and made sure the sheets were put back, neat as a new pin with hospital corners, just as Mum had taught me. Standards were important to Mum and, just because I’d landed in a place where I was treated as a superior being by the other servants, I wasn’t going to let them drop away.
Once Her Ladyship had breakfasted she would often return to her boudoir. She would summon me and give me my instructions for the day ahead and tell me what she wanted to wear for dinner in the evening. In those first few days it was just like that: firm instructions with no question of asking my opinion. But towards the end of the first week she seemed to thaw a little and for the first time spoke to me as if I was someone who might have something useful to say.
‘What do you think I should wear tonight, Mulley?’ was the first advice she sought from me one day. Well, I had only barely begun to comprehend the enormity of her wardrobe. It seemed to be absolutely stuffed with the most impossibly lovely gowns – mostly long but with a number of very fashionable shorter cocktail dresses. I’d no idea what was required of an Earl’s wife when it came to evening dress and, at first, I played safe by suggesting either what I knew she had already worn or at least something similar. It would take a fair while before I felt confident that I knew enough to give any proper advice.
Then there were her jewels. In the corner of the boudoir was Milady’s safe. On my second morning with her she handed me a little key and told me I was to be responsible for laying out the jewellery she would wear in the evening, making sure it was clean and sparkling and that it matched whatever gown she had chosen to wear. Can you imagine my nervousness when I took the little key into my hand? Here was I, a 19-year-old girl earning just £13 a year, being handed the key to a safe that must hold tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds and pearls.
The first time I opened the safe her Ladyship stood beside me and took out a typed list of all that was in there. But I only had eyes for the precious stones, gold rings and sparkling necklaces: it was like finding Aladdin’s cave tucked discreetly in the corner of the room. The Countess must have seen my face and, in her mind, I suppose, tried to put me at my ease.
‘These aren’t the valuable ones, Mulley. I don’t keep them here. These are just the ordinary ones for everyday wear.’
Well, all I knew what that what I saw before me – what I was now in charge of – were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. If these were only the less precious ones, what on earth could the real treasures look like? I made a mental note to talk to Mr Latter about the whole business. It wasn’t too long before I had the chance to do just that. Bless him, he must have seen how anxious I was and he patiently explained the situation.
‘The Countess keeps only her less valuable jewels here. Some of it might, I think, be classed as costume jewellery and, however brightly it sparkles, it might not really be made of genuine stones. Nonetheless, since she has given you the key to the safe, you are legally responsible for its safe-keeping, and you must understand that Her Ladyship has placed a great trust in you.’
That didn’t exactly bolster my confidence. What if something should go missing? What if somehow someone got in and stole from the safe? What would happen to me? Would I be arrested and taken to prison? I should certainly lose my position – that much was beyond doubt. I gulped.
‘You must try not to worry yourself about this, Miss Mulley,’ Mr Latter continued. ‘I know you will do very well for Her Ladyship and I have every confidence that the trust she has placed in you will be fulfilled.’ His face relaxed into a smile and, in a manner that came as close to conspiratorial as his training and position would allow, he leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Her Ladyship’s real jewellery is far away from here. It is kept in a vault in one of the oldest and most secure banks in London – so that should be a weight off your mind. And as for Croome Court: well, let me show you something.’
He led me through the corridors of the servants’ quarter and into his own sanctuary, the Butler’s Parlour. This room, I knew, was where he spent those part
s of the day when he wasn’t attending to the family’s needs and fulfilling the duties of valet to the Earl. It was a very large room – larger even than my bedroom – and one whole wall was lined with sinks. This was where – under Mr Latter’s strict supervision – the lower footmen washed up the fine porcelain and silver cutlery that the Coventrys used for dining. There was a big coal range in the corner, gleaming with blackleading, on the sides of which were two oblong containers: these were where the fire heated the water, which would then be carried over in pans to the sinks. In the top of one wall there was a long glass panel that would have been at ground level on the outside of the front of the house. This was how the butler was able to see who was arriving at the Court in time to get upstairs and open the great front door to welcome them.
But what Mr Latter wanted to show me was a huge, heavy cast-iron door in the opposite wall. This really looked like something out of a Victorian prison.
‘This, Miss Mulley, is the strong room. In here we keep all the family’s silver – a collection much more valuable than the jewels for which you are responsible. Much more valuable by a very long chalk, Miss Mulley.’
As he continued, I began to understand just how cleverly Croome Court had been designed and built. There was, of course, only one door to the strong room and, as Mr Latter pulled it open, I could see just how heavy and secure it was. Inside, the ceiling was of a completely different design to anything else I had seen in the house. The bedrooms all had straightforward – if very high – ceilings and those for the servants’ quarters downstairs were arched. But the ceiling in the strong room was a complex series of mini-arches, intersecting and giving the room a very odd feel indeed. Nor was this an accident.
When Capability Brown and Robert Adam were rebuilding Croome Court 200 years earlier, they knew that gentry such as the Earl of Coventry would possess many thousands of pounds’ worth of silver and gold – the equivalent to millions of pounds today. And they knew that, in the lawless and poverty-ridden conditions of the time – when police forces hadn’t even been invented – this treasure would act like a magnet for burglars. I discovered that the favourite technique of house cracksmen (as burglars were known) was to dig their way into a strong room from above, and so, between them, the creators of Croome designed a ceiling with multiple vaults and inbuilt strengths to ensure that any burglar would find it almost impossible to crack.
Nor was that the only security precaution. Every evening the strong room was locked shut – Mr Latter had the only key – and a cot bed was placed against it, just inside the butler’s pantry. On this bed, one or other of the footmen took turns to sleep, so that it would be impossible for anyone even to approach the strong room door without waking him up.
Well, of course, I was impressed and (as Mr Latter had no doubt intended) really quite reassured about the onerous burden of taking responsibility for Milady’s jewels. But I couldn’t help thinking how uncomfortable and cold it must be to spend the night on a little cot in the butler’s pantry. And I began to realise that, in many ways, I was being very well treated.
For a start, I was never hungry. Not only were all my meals provided – hot and nourishing and made for me – but Winnie Sapstead was always very generous, making sure I was provided with cake of an afternoon. We began to settle into a little routine where I would take the bits of sewing and mending the Countess had given me to do into the steward’s room and Winnie would bring up something additional for me to do – sew a button on a uniform here, or mend a tear there. In return, she would be armed with a bit of fruit loaf or something she had made for the family. If nothing else, I was definitely getting more than crumbs from the gentry’s table.
Although Croome Court itself was always fearsomely cold – don’t forget it was a vast, cavernous place and there was no such thing as central heating in those days – my bedroom was always kept supplied with my very own bucket of coal. I knew from the snatches of gossip of the other servants below stairs that not all fine families treated their servants like this and that having an unrestricted supply of coal – no questions asked about how much I used – was a sign that the Coventrys took great care of their servants.
Still, it wasn’t home. After I had laid out my mistress’s clothes for the evening and helped her dress for dinner (I’d polished up her diamonds and pearls ready for her to choose what to wear), I would largely be left to my own devices. And warm though my bedroom might be, in the flickering gas light of an evening I was terribly homesick. And that’s why I cried myself to sleep.
During the day I was kept busy enough not to feel too low and, within weeks of starting my position, I began my hairdressing course. The place where I was to be trained was in Worcester – nearly ten miles away. Croome Court was, as I have explained, in a very isolated position in the countryside and, while there was a bus service from right outside the London Arch, it only ran once a day and was plainly not going to be suitable. Instead, the Countess instructed that the family chauffeur was to ferry me back and forth for my once-a-week lessons.
Roland Newman had been the first of the staff that I’d met and – although I never said as much to him and probably didn’t even admit it to myself – I’d been rather taken by him. He was good looking and had tried to be friendly and, if he was a little older than me, in those days that was much less of a concern than it seems to be today. And so I was secretly rather looking forward to being chauffeured to Worcester. I did, though, hope we might have a rather better means of transport than that with which I had been met on my arrival.
Sadly, this wasn’t to be. The Coventry family owned – and Roland drove for them – a very smart car indeed: not a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley but a very swish Standard 20 with deep red coachwork and the finest leather seats. Over the years many people have commented on this and find it surprising that the Earl hadn’t splashed out on a Rolls – after all, in every film or television drama you see about the 1930s the aristocracy is always shown in the biggest and most luxurious Roller. But that’s fiction and real life for the Coventrys – especially in the straitened financial climate of the 1930s – was different.
For one thing, the Standard Motor Company was very much a local enterprise: its cars had been built – sometimes hand-built – in Coventry for more than 30 years and I think the Earl was determined that he should support it. After all, he was the Earl of the town where they were constructed! And although the Standard name has long since disappeared (it was eventually swallowed up into British Leyland as part of the rationalisation of Britain’s motor industry in the 1960s and 1970s), before the Second World War it had a very good reputation for reliability and comfort. The Standard 20 was very much the top model in the range.
I’d caught a glimpse of this magnificent machine on the driveway outside and seen Roland open its big solid doors for my mistress and the Earl. And so, naturally, I hoped that this would be the way I would ride into Worcester. Perhaps I was guilty of giving myself a few too many airs and graces with this because, when the time came for Roland to take me to my first lesson, there was the smelly blue hound van again. ‘Ah, well,’ I told myself. ‘That’ll teach you to get ideas above your station.’
As it turned out, I didn’t really notice the rather basic nature of the vehicle too much – although I did enquire why it was called a hound van. The answer was that the Countess was a very keen huntswoman and that Croome had its own pack of hounds. Not only were these transported to and from meets in the back of the little blue van but it was also used to collect offal and cheap cuts of meat for their daily suppers. This, at least, explained the rather odd smell. But as I say, as the weeks passed, I began to notice less and less about the van and more and more about the quietly dashing Roland Newman. I could also see that he was beginning to take a shine to me. I determined to find out a little more about him and his background.
Roland was, in fact, 11 years older than me. He was one of three brothers and one sister who had grown up in the nearby village of Severn Stok
e – well, I say a village but it was really more of a hamlet. His mother and father had been agricultural workers on the Croome estate and lived in a little tied cottage next to the Rose & Crown pub. By the time I met Roland, his parents were retired, although his dad was still the ghillie, acting as a sort of unofficial official on the river. His brother Sid worked at a famous racing stables nearby, while Arnold, the other brother, was living and working on a local farm and Roland lived with them.
Roland had joined the Earl of Coventry’s staff several years earlier and, in addition to his duties as a chauffeur (and acting as a part-time footman whenever the local gentry came to dinner), he also looked after the Court’s water-pumping station – for a house that size and set in so rural a location had to have its own water works – and helped out with just about anything that any of the other servants needed doing by way of mechanics. I’d discovered – in truth, I’d made it my business to find out – that he was a very popular member of the servants’ household. All in all, I began to look forward to our trips to Worcester and to miss his company on the days when I didn’t see him.