Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance

by Margaret Powell

  And things are not what they seem.’

  But apart from Rose saying, ‘Oh, Margaret, I wish I was as clever as you’, my attempts to cheer her made no impression. I felt her mournful mood hardly presaged a lively evening at the Palais, but I was wrong. Of course, a girl as pretty as Rose never became a wallflower at a dance; but on this occasion even I did well – which gave me enough confidence to skim around the dance floor as though I weighed seven stone instead of nearer eleven. I even managed to make a date with a quite presentable looking young man for the Saturday night dance. Rose put rather a damper on this achievement by saying she wouldn’t have anything to do with a young man who met you inside a dance-hall – so that he didn’t have to pay your entrance fee. But then Rose always had more chances than I’d had. She could have left the Palais with the choice of any one of half-a-dozen young men, but Rose would never do such a thing now that she was married. We got a taxi and she insisted on its taking me back before going on to Hampstead. I lent Rose my copy of A. S. M. Hutchinson’s, If Winter Comes. I spent far too much of my wages on books – and told her it was a wonderful story. Gerald would be pleased to see her reading it instead of Hearts Aflame. Rose went back to Hampstead looking happier than when we’d met outside the Museum, and I’d had a good evening too. I wasn’t to know then that when I turned up at the Palais on Saturday, there wouldn’t be a sign of the presentable conquest I thought I’d made.

  13

  Naturally, I had to tell Mary about the outcome of the British Museum episode; she nobly refrained from saying, ‘I told you so’. We were queueing up to see Rudolph Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Mary was quite right in saying that an afternoon at the pictures would be far more in Rose’s line than a cultural afternoon. She reckoned the marriage might last another year and then Gerald would want a divorce. I felt sure that Rose, with her innate respectability, and influenced by the rigid and narrow religious views of her mother would never consider divorcing Gerald, whatever evidence he gave her. And, as the only ground for it was adultery, Gerald would never be able to divorce Rose.

  Anyway, as Lady Gibbons had returned from Yorkshire, I had far less time to think about Rose and her matrimonial problems. Lady Gibbons had brought back a sixteen-year-old girl from the remote village where they’d stayed; she was to be the housemaid and, as Lady Gibbons had her name down at three registry offices, she hoped soon to have a parlourmaid as well. The house was subjected to a thorough inspection, on Lady Gibbons’s return. She needed to be satisifed that the two month’s board wages she’d paid me, in addition to my monthly wage, had been worth the outlay. Actually I worked for her for only another four months before I decided to give in my notice. This was partly owing to the redcurrant jelly that I was expected to make. At that time I’d never in my life made jam, let alone jelly. I couldn’t get the stuff to set. I kept boiling it but still it was runny, so at last, in desperation I melted some sheets of gelatine in the redcurrants. After that it set so hard that when I dropped one lot on the floor it bounced. As the redcurrant jelly made by some previous cook was nearly all gone, I thought it would be better if I wasn’t there when my concoction was opened.

  Mary’s Aunt Elly asked why I didn’t get out of domestic service, I could easily get a job as a waitress in a Lyons teashop. I’d have a livelier time and see more people. But somehow I couldn’t fancy myself as a Nippy and the opportunity of falling into the arms of a wealthy widower – as Aunt Elly had done – was too remote even to contemplate. Besides, if I became a waitress I’d have to choose between living at home or in a furnished room; neither prospect appealed to me. In any case I’d decided to do temporary work as a cook; I wouldn’t stay long in any one place and I’d get a lot of experience. The first place I took was a disaster; not so the second. I was there because their cook was ill, not because they couldn’t get one. I was actually allowed to go into the library and borrow any books I wanted to read. To be able to do this was, to me, like an open sesame to Ali Baba’s cave. There were literally hundreds of books in huge bookcases lining the four walls. Not only the classics – I read those too – but modern books such as Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay and Chrome Yellow; authors like William Locke and Ethel M. Dell. When, after three months, their own cook was well enough to start work, I was certainly sorry to leave.

  I hadn’t seen either Rose or Mary for about six weeks. Where Mary was concerned it was because she’d met such a gentlemanly young man whom she hoped would become a ‘permanent’, and therefore all her free time had to be spent with him. Actually, I was in rather an invidious position. It was through me that Mary had met her Harold, who at that time was the boyfriend of Gladys’s. Gladys wanted me to meet this Harold, so one Sunday afternoon, taking Mary with me, we went to Hyde Park where we’d arranged to meet. We stood by Speakers’ Corner and I remember that there was a fat, red-faced man there, ranting on about the ‘rights of the common man’. Mary whispered to me that he looked about as common as could be so presumably he was speaking from a personal viewpoint.

  ‘My name’s Bill Robinson’, he bawled, ‘and I fought in the war to make this a land fit for heroes. And what have I got for it? What have any of us old soldiers got for it? A putty medal and goodbye, we don’t want to know you until the next bloody war. Get yourself a job or starve on the dole. The bloody government don’t care a damn about the likes of us working class people. But the day will come, my friends – ’

  Here he’d been stopped by another bawling voice, ‘I ain’t no bloody friend of yours Bill Robinson or whatever you call yourself, and by the looks of you, you ain’t starving neither.’

  Seeing that the barracker was only a weedy little man, the speaker told him to shut his bloody gob or he’d do it for him. Amid the general laughter, we met Gladys and her ‘gentleman friend’. I took an instant dislike to him as his pallid limp hand shook mine. Later on, in a teashop, holding his cup with the little finger outstretched, this Harold told Mary and me that he was head assistant in a men’s outfitters. I discovered that there were only two assistants so he wasn’t head of much. He spoke in an artificially refined voice about his father, a clerk; his sister, a teacher; his brother, a dental mechanic; until I felt like asking what were we supposed to be doing, playing ‘happy families?’ I could see however, that Mary was taken with him as we listened to a monologue about his life behind the counter. Still, give him his due, he offered to take us dancing. I could see from the look on Gladys’s face, that she had no wish to be lumbered with us two for the entire evening, so I said that Mary and I were going to the pictures. Mary protested that we could go to the pictures any time, she much preferred to dance. Besides, she’d just learnt how to do the Charleston and what a marvellous dance it was. Vapid Harold trotted out the joke that was going the rounds – we’d all heard it before – that the Charleston was invented by a girl trying to get a bent penny in the lavatory lock. We all went dancing and the evening was ruined for Gladys because, in no time at all, Mary was showing Harold how to do the Charleston and Gladys and I had to dance with each other. She quarrelled with me over bringing Mary along, but how was I to know we’d be together all the evening. She was no less melancholy when I told her that she’d not have kept Harold for long, and neither would Mary. His sort considered themselves a cut above servant girls. ‘Skivvies’ were all right for an evening out and to be seduced if possible, but certainly not for a permanent relationship. I was surprised when he stuck to Mary for two months.

  I had a letter from Rose asking why it was such a long time since she’d seen us. Rose seemed to forget that though she was free every day, Mary and I had only our allotted time off. I went on my own to see her as Mary said she couldn’t possibly put Rose before Harold – she didn’t know then that one more evening was the last she would ever have with the philandering counterhand.

  Rose seemed slightly more cheerful than when I’d last seen her, and she told me she was nearly three months pregnant. Because of this, Gerald had been e
ver so nice and kind, making her rest and coming home early from his office I thought that Rose looked far from well, very pale and edgy. I told her that she ought to get all the fresh air she could, but Rose complained that she had nowhere to go and she’d no friends but Mary and me. She couldn’t come to our places and was sick to death of walking around Hampstead on her own. She was sure that she’d have been happier as a parlourmaid and often wished she was down below stairs. I discounted that melodramatic statement. Rose would never give up the life of ease and comfort that she had now, and who would? Certainly I wouldn’t have done if I’d had the same luck. Mrs Wardham had been to see her and she was ever so nice and kind. All these ‘ever so’s’ grated on me, but it must be far worse for Gerald who heard them every day. It seemed strange to me that after months of hearing Gerald’s public school accent and polished speech, her way of speaking hadn’t altered in the least. Mrs Wardham had brought up some books for Rose; I was sure that she’d never even read the one I’d lent her.

  The news from Redlands was that Mr Wardham was still enraged over Gerald’s marrying a servant; he’d cast off his son for good and never wanted to see him again. Such was Mr Wardham’s temper – never mild at the best of times but now positively evil – that Mr Burrows had given in his notice. For Madam’s sake, he’d put up with harsh words and insults, but when it came to having a clothes-brush flung at him, human nature could stand no more. Rose and I giggled as we visualised the pompous and stately Burrows trying to dodge a clothes-brush. I was just saying goodbye to Rose when, much to my embarrassment, Gerald came in. Although I was no longer a servant in his mother’s house and he had no jurisdiction over me, yet I was still a servant and, as such, felt distinctly inferior. Such was the vast social, educational and financial gap between above and below stairs, it was almost impossible to feel at ease unless the rigid distinctions were maintained. Rose hadn’t yet managed the transposition; she was living in a kind of limbo – though I flattered myself that given her chance, I’d have made a go of it.

  I could see that her husband wasn’t pleased to see me as a visitor in his house, and comparing my clothes with the expensive ones Rose was wearing, I suppose I must have looked like a poor relation. Even though I was now earning £45 a year, I couldn’t afford to buy expensive outfits. As I left, Rose whispered to me to come again soon and to bring Mary.

  14

  By the time I was in my next temporary job, the General Strike had started. One of my history books describes the strike as ‘one of the most controversial and significant events of the inter-war years’, but at the time it made little or no impression or difference to us in domestic service. We had so few free hours outside the basement that our need of transport was minimal and, as for the news, they had a radio above stairs and scraps of information from this were retailed to us. Not that the aged housemaid and parlourmaid would have been at all interested in the strike even if we’d had a radio below stairs. Mrs. Hunter-Jones was one of the worst kind of employers; haughty and overbearing in manner, she provided the absolute minimum for the comfort of the servants. We had no servants’ hall, so in what was very limited leisure time we had to sit in the kitchen. Madam had provided just three chairs; if Mary or Gladys came to see me one of us had to stand up. Perhaps that was Madam’s way of discouraging visitors. She’d also provided us with three books; the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress and Little Women. This latter, judging by the tattered cover, was the only one that previous servants had opened – though for my part I preferred John Bunyan and read him many times. When I added my own book to this extensive library – I was reading Felix Holt the Radical – the housemaid said Madam wouldn’t like to see that book in the kitchen. Violet, who was sixty-three, had never in her life read such a book, but the word ‘Radical’ was enough to convince her that it wasn’t a suitable book for a servant to read. Most employers provided the Bible for their servants; I suppose they were acting on the assumption that a knowledge of the hardships of life in the Old Testament, coupled with words on a paradisal after-life in the New, compensated us for our somewhat dreary existence below stairs.

  We did have two pictures and a text hanging on the wall in our kitchen. One picture showed Elijah rising to heaven, and the other, Commander James Wolfe dying at the battle of Quebec. The text stated: IN ALL LABOUR THERE IS PROFIT, BUT THE TALK OF THE LIPS TENDETH ONLY TO PENURY. If that was true, there was little prospect of penury in our kitchen as Violet and Lily hardly ever spoke either to each other, or to me. Poor Lily and Violet, after twenty-five years in the same place in service, had expected to retire on an annuity; in fact, this had been promised by their employer. But, no will, no annuity. It just shows that you need to see written evidence of an assured future. Now, at sixty-three and sixty-five respectively, they had little choice of jobs; hence Mrs Hunter-Jones. I’d no intention of staying long, the place was too much like Bleak House.

  Mary came to see me. She was thinking of leaving her job because the cook and butler were going to be married. I couldn’t see what difference that need make to Mary, presumably her duties wouldn’t change just because the cook and butler were entering into a legal partnership – according to Mary they’d long had an illegal one. Mary said the butler was a pompous bore and the cook, judging by the way she extracted commission from the tradesmen, must be a minor member of the Mafia. The prospect of a holy alliance between those two was more than Mary could stomach. She’d had a letter from Rose who’d just returned from a visit to her parents. Rose wrote that her father was very bitter about conditions up there. Although the General Strike had been called off, the miners were still out and Uncle Fred and his five kids were suffering. Public opinion might be sympathetic to the miners, but sympathy didn’t put a wage in Uncle Fred’s pocket or food in his kids’ bellies. Her father said that the only man who cared about the working classes was Ernest Bevin. And when Rose got back to London, with her father’s opinions and her own tales of woe, Gerald wasn’t in the least understanding or kind about her anxieties. All he said was that nobody paid him for not working, and Rose’s father would sing a different tune if he was one of the bosses. Also, Rose wasn’t feeling well. Her pregnancy was causing her legs to swell – ‘she should see my mum’s after a dozen of them’, said Gladys – and Gerald, who’d been ever so nice and kind when he first knew about the baby, now just snapped at her every time she complained. She was sure he didn’t care for her now that she’d lost her figure.

  ‘I don’t know about you, Margaret,’ said Mary, ‘but I get a bit tired of listening to, or reading about her complaints. When she was the parlourmaid, Rose was such a nice girl. She was always happy and willing to help out with any extra job. However disagreeable Mr Hall was, Rose never took offence but always gave him a soft answer. But now that she’s no longer one of us, she’s completely changed. It’s nothing now but moans and groans. And we don’t really feel comfortable in her home as she hovers between being one of us and one of them. If you ask me, it’s a great pity that marriage ever happened. Rose was happier in her right place. Now she doesn’t seem to know where that is.’

  I agreed with Mary, but at the time I couldn’t worry overmuch about the problem of Rose as I’d fallen violently in love with the young man who called with the groceries. Paul was nearly six foot tall, with masses of dark wavy hair, and we used to talk and laugh in the kitchen every time he called. With two such miseries as Violet and Lily, that was about the only time there was laughter in the kitchen. I never thought he’d ask me to go out with him, knowing that a good-looking young man like him would have countless opportunities where girls were concerned. Although inwardly rather dismayed to discover that he was a weekend country lover, I nevertheless professed an equal enthusiasm for the delights of nature and country walks. So, every Sunday about three o’clock, we went by bus or train to somewhere on the outskirts of London and then walked for miles – or it seemed like miles to me. We ate our tea – sur l’herbe, with insects crawling below and circling above; but I
was so besotted with Paul that despite the insects, I just smiled as though I was having a heavenly time. Very little about living in a city alarms me. I’m not worried about the noise, the dirt and dust, the crowded streets or the hazards in dodging the traffic. But for some reason, the countryside fills me with apprehension. Every cow looks belligerent; there may be snakes in the grass or minor tarantulas, and ditches and barbed wire seem to be everywhere. But above all it is the absolute silence that is menacing, heralding some cataclysmic upheaval in nature. The fact that this upheaval never takes place in no way lessens my apprehension. On my free weekday afternoon and evening, Paul took me to the pictures. He didn’t dance, which I felt was extremely fortunate for me, as I knew that I’d suffer agonies of jealousy to see him holding another girl. This idyll lasted about a month; its end hastened, if not caused by me. In the beginning, what made Paul like me was my wit and laughter, but as soon as I fell in love these qualities were no longer in evidence. He was constantly being subjected to long searching interrogations on what he did in the evenings when he wasn’t with me, and such was the intensity of the emotions I felt about him that I could no longer be light-hearted. Naturally, he got browned off sharing his country walks with a tragedy queen and, nervous of the probable scene if he cast me aside in any dramatic way, he simply stopped coming with the groceries. Shortly after that I decided to give Mrs Hunter-Jones a month’s notice, for apart from the fact that the new grocery boy was only fifteen and pale and pimply, I was fed-up with the place in other ways. As companions, Violet and Lily were a dead loss; their only conversation was about their ‘dear mistress’ whom they’d served faithfully for twenty-five years. They were convinced that she had left them an annuity but the wicked nephew had destroyed the will. No amount of explaining that even if their dear mistress had kept the will in the house, a solicitor would have known the contents, altered their conviction that they’d been victims of a crime. Mrs Hunter-Jones objected to my going out for an hour in the evening, even though I’d done all my work and was only going to see a friend who was also a cook. Looking around at the ‘comforts’ she provided in our kitchen, Madam espied George Eliot’s book and remarked that she wouldn’t have thought I’d have wanted to read a book by that author. Thinking she meant the book was too erudite for me – a great many employers seemed to think that the inferiority of servants extended to their being dim-witted – I said that I’d been reading books since I was nine years old.