Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance

by Margaret Powell

  ‘Surely your mother would never have books in your home written by a woman who lived in sin?’

  ‘I cannot see, Madam, how George Eliot’s private life should make any difference. Felix Holt is a good story. Besides, all that happened years ago.’

  ‘Immorality is still immorality whenever it took place, Cook. In my opinion, such a book should not be placed next to the Bible.’

  Like many people, Madam paid lip-service to the Bible without literally carrying out some of its precepts, such as ‘Love one another and forgive your enemies’. Violet and Lily believed implicitly in the Garden of Eden and an eventual Paradise where we would all be equal in the sight of God. To them it was almost blasphemy that I should point out the monstrous injustice of such a concept. The rich had had their paradise here below; they’d had an earthly life of ease and pleasure. Surely people like us could expect to be the privileged class up above?

  * * *

  I’d made up my mind to leave London for a while and go back to Brighton. Although I’d be sorry to leave Gladys and Mary, my friend Olive was in service in Hove. Besides, there was a good train service between Brighton and London, I could easily travel there and back on my half-day. Before my month’s notice was up, Mary got engaged to Alf, the odd-job man where she worked.

  And with what pride and joy did Mary announce the event to me. To be actually engaged with the ring on her finger and to a man who not only had a regular job, but made a bit extra on the side. Wasn’t she the lucky one! What did it matter that Alf was nearly fifteen years older than her, was only five foot three inches tall, and dropped his aitches; once they were married she’d soon alter that.

  I was about to say she’d have some trouble trying to change the first two points, but thought Mary would perhaps be annoyed. I did feel envious now. First Rose getting married, now Mary engaged; I seemed to be the odd one out. We went to see Rose to tell her the good news, taking a bottle of champagne with us. With the happy event so near, Rose said she daren’t drink champagne, the gassiness gave her the wind and upset the baby in the womb. When I told her that my mother had drank no end of fizzy lemonade and port when she was carrying, with no ill effects, Rose loftily answered that not all babies were alike. I suppose the heir to the Wardhams would have such a delicate system, that it wouldn’t stomach lemonade and port. Rose showed us the nursery that Mrs Wardham had prepared for the baby; it was like a little palace. Pale wallpaper patterned with pink and blue rosebuds – to be ready for either sex, I suppose – a lovely wickerwork cradle and a white cot, and soft toys were everywhere. Piles of beautifully embroidered baby clothes were in the cupboards, and in the hall was a maroon-coloured perambulater large enough for triplets. Mary and I dutifully admired everything and then drank all the champagne. We felt really gay and reckless, Rose had made friends with a young mother whom she’d met while walking on Hampstead Heath; she came in to see Rose while we were there. Jill Hurst had twins, a boy and a girl, now a month old. She lamented the fact that they weren’t in the least alike; it was just pushing two separate babies around instead of a pair. Her Laurence was minding them at the moment and so he should, he’d helped to make them; and for all the pleasure that she’d got out of it, he could lay off in future unless he took precautions. Rose looked shocked at this frank statement and apparent lack of maternal love. Jill had been married for five years before the twins arrived, and she talked about married life as though it was like living in an institution with rigid rules and laws.

  ‘I was only eighteen when I got married to Laurence and I’d known him only three months. My parents were against the idea but I made so much fuss that Daddy gave in. I had a white wedding with six bridesmaids in pale yellow, and a reception for two hundred people. We went to Italy for our honeymoon and honestly I had no knowledge of sex at all. Mummy never mentioned the subject and always looked so embarrassed when I asked her anything. Our wedding night was awful, Laurence just got on top of me without even kissing and caressing me first, and then he got angry because I didn’t know what to do. I simply cried and cried. And he’s always been the same; only now if I don’t want him, I don’t let him come near me. I tell him that if only he was as good at making love as he is at making money, he’d be something like a man.’

  Well! these revelations amazed Mary and me, and Rose was beyond speaking. Nowadays, such frank disclosures of a sexually inadequate partner would occasion little or no comment but, in 1926 very few females openly discussed what went on behind the bedroom door. It was obvious that Jill came from an upper middle-class family, so I was pleased that Rose kept silent about Mary and me being domestic servants. Perhaps it would have made no difference to Jill, but to many people there was a social stigma attached to being a ‘skivvy’. And there never would be any dignity to the job while it continued being caricatured in Punch and on the stage. Most plays of those days seemed to portray servants as figures of fun; idiotic and illiterate.

  15

  My reference from Mrs Hunter-Jones wasn’t entirely satisfactory. Although she didn’t denigrate my cooking capabilities, she mentioned that I went out at unauthorised times. Nevertheless, from my next employer I asked, and received, a wage of £52 a year, which was good money in those days, and I had a whole day off every month. As in this house servants could never be free on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Mrs Bishop had to offer high wages as an inducement to get servants. Most girls wanted their alternate Sunday off, especially if they were courting; but after my unfortunate experience with Paul, I was fancy free.

  Mrs Bishop had two sons but one of them was in Australia. Not that he wanted to be there, but having forged his father’s name on a cheque, he had to choose between going to prison or being exiled to Australia as a ‘remittance man’, receiving £8 a month from his father so long as he stayed put there. Rumour had it that the butler, who left Mrs Bishop’s service shortly after the son had departed, had also gone to Australia – perhaps that was the reason she now had a parlourmaid instead of a manservant.

  The only man employed was the chauffeur, who used to drive Mr and Mrs Bishop to London on a Tuesday, stay up there and bring them back on Friday evening. From then on it was dinner parties every night until the next Tuesday. Mrs Bishop, Italian by birth and about sixty years old, made great endeavours, by means of excessive make-up and hair dyes, to appear about half her age. Every weekend there were pretty young men staying in the house, referred to by Mrs Bishop as ‘darling Beppo, Cosimo and Tomaso’, and at these weekends, they lived off the fat of the land. Occasionally Madam would ask me if I minded them coming into the kitchen to make an Italian dish, and with shrill cries and chattering nineteen to the dozen they’d flit around my kitchen wearing blue, green or red shirts, appearing, as they darted about, like brightly-plumaged birds. I liked all of them, but especially one called Nicolo who came from Siena, had laughing brown eyes and sang all the time. Whenever the others weren’t around, Nicolo tried to seduce Hilda, the parlourmaid, and me. Given the chance, he’d have made love in the kitchen, larder, servants’ hall, or even in a bed. But Hilda and I knew that he wasn’t the marrying kind. Once Mr Bishop invited two of his friends, young Germans, but they didn’t get on with Madam’s Italians. Nicolo said what could you expect of Prussians who stuffed themselves with Frankfurter sausage, and had no idea of, or the temperament for, tenderness. Ah! Italy was the land of love, sunshine and song. Hilda remarked that if Italy was such a paradise, it was funny he was living in England; with Madam more than twice his age, surely the opportunity for romance in this house was non-existent. Nicolo just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘What would you?’ Hilda and I related stories to him, mostly imaginary, of the highly desirable and romantic Englishmen that we met at dances; nice young men who would never dream of dancing attendance on an elderly woman just because she was wealthy. But Nicolo was shrewd enough to ask why, if we knew such men, we were still working as domestics. Why didn’t we get married? Iris, the housemaid, was in fact engaged, to a man in the
fire-brigade, a very strait-laced young man called Stanley – abbreviated to Stan by Iris. Although Stan had that most desired requisite, a regular and permanent job, neither Hilda nor I envied Iris being actually engaged – and with a ring to show. We thought her Stanley no great catch as a partner for life. He was a strict chapel-goer and, when not on Sunday duty, he ran a Bible class in the afternoon and a Young Men’s Fellowship in the evening. Hilda and I agreed that viewed objectively these were admirable occupations, but we’d no wish to share in them. Iris did occasionally come dancing with us but this had to be kept a secret from Stan, who’d have strongly disapproved. She said Stan looked so lovely in his uniform and shiny brass helmet. Hilda and I had an hilarious session working out an evening of connubial bliss for Iris and Stan. After a delicious dinner cooked by Iris – though at the moment she couldn’t cook a sausage – Stan would sit down in his favourite armchair, wearing his shiny brass helmet and holding the Bible, and read the Proverbs to Iris; then after drinking their cocoa they could retire to bed and sleep the sleep of the just. Two years later Iris did marry him and they had eight children, so obviously Stan wasn’t averse to a little light entertainment.

  Mary wrote to me with the news that Rose had just had a baby girl, so I took my whole day off and went to London to see her. She was in a very expensive nursing home, where visitors were allowed to call at any time, but if I’d known that Gerald’s mother was going to be there, I’d have postponed my visit. However, I didn’t feel too embarrassed because she was kind and pleasant, and very soon departed so that I could talk to Rose and admire the baby and the presents. Rose being so very good-looking I expected to see a pretty baby, but Victoria Helen – as she was called – had her father’s features, which included a rather large nose. There were presents from Miss Helen, Sarah, Violette and Mrs Buller, but nothing whatever from Mr Wardham, who still refused to recognise Rose as a daughter-in-law.

  Gerald and his partner were doing so well with their business that they’d decided to form a company and start exporting. The house in Hampstead was to be sold because Gerald wanted to buy a proper country house where he could keep a couple of horses and join a golf club. Rose should have been delighted with all this prosperity, but it only induced a feeling of terror, and she wept as she said she’d neither wanted, nor expected, to live in that way. She’d thought that Gerald would get an ordinary job and they’d live in a cosy little house where Ma and Pa could stay with her occasionally. Now they never would, because her pa was bitter against people who were wealthy enough to employ servants; and he said that if he’d known Gerald was going to be a money-grabbing boss, he’d never have agreed to his Rose marrying him. It was useless to point out to Rose that there was no special merit attached to living in a poverty-stricken slum and denouncing the rich. She’d moved away from that life and should adapt to her surroundings. But Rose just couldn’t, her heart was still in the little back-street in Manchester. And now, she moaned, if they moved from Hampstead, Mary and I would never come to see her and, while we were in service, she couldn’t visit us. Leaving fervent promises that we’d still keep in touch, I went to see Mary.

  But even there I found no joy, for Mary, having quarrelled with her Alf, was far from happy.

  ‘I’m sure he’s not faithful to me, Margaret. We went to the pictures on Sunday and when he kissed me goodnight I could smell perfume on his coat and there was a long golden hair on the lapel. And when I asked about it, he just laughed and said that the perfume was hair oil he’d spilled on his coat and the hair must have blown on to him. I wish he wasn’t a window-cleaner then he wouldn’t have the chance to meet so many women. They’re always giving him cups of tea and making a fuss of him. When we get married I’ll get him to change his job.’

  I was about to say that in the first place it was suspicious that a thirty-five year old was unmarried, and if Mary kept nagging him he’d remain unmarried, but then I realised Mary didn’t want advice, she wanted sympathy.

  ‘They’re away upstairs,’ said Mary, ‘and the others won’t mind if I go out for a couple of hours. Let’s go round to Aunt Ellie’s, old Mack isn’t too well and we’ll cheer him up.’

  I think the last thing old Mack wanted was two lively young women around. He’d married Aunt Ellie because he was lonely, but Aunt Ellie’s exuberance was rapidly wearing him out, as she made him take her to theatres, cabarets and out shopping. She thought that in making Mack ‘see life’, it was doing him good.

  ‘I don’t want the poor old blighter to leave me a lot of money. I want him to enjoy his wealth. He worked hard enough to get it and he deserves a bit of fun.’

  But Mack, now that he was old, was working much harder in spending his money, than he had worked in acquiring it. I believe he’d have been much happier sitting in an armchair by the fireside with Aunt Ellie sitting opposite. Unfortunately, Aunt Ellie wasn’t a fireside person. She did care about old Mack, but loved to have a crowd of young people around. There were several sitting around drinking sherry and putting records on the gramophone and Mary rapidly cheered up after drinking two large gin-and-tonics. Discovering that I was without a young man of my own, Ellie said she had just the right person for me, a terribly sweet young man, so very nice, who was training to be a chef; we’d have something in common as I was a cook. Remembering Steve, the last young man she’d introduced to me, and what a wash-out he had turned out to be with his passion for dominoes, I was sceptical about her ‘terribly sweet young man’. It was easy for him to be nice to attractive Ellie with an old wealthy husband; to be nice to me, just a cook below stairs, was an entirely different proposition. However, Ellie brought the charmer over to me and I was agreeably impressed with his looks. Roy Latimer seemed to like me too for he talked to me for the rest of the evening, came to Victoria Station to see me off, and asked if he could come down to Brighton to see me on the Sunday. I had to tell him that we were never free at weekends so he arranged to come down on the Wednesday evening. I was in seventh heaven that a young man should come all the way to Brighton just to see me.

  16

  Even Hilda, normally rather indifferent to young men, admitted that Roy Latimer was quite something. And he liked an occasional drink in a pub which was a great improvement on my previous boyfriend, George. When I went out with him we were passers-by where pubs were concerned. The only drawback was Roy working in London and me some fifty miles away, but Aunt Ellie promised to keep an eye on him and ensure his affections remained towards me.

  Life was far from dull working for Mr and Mrs Bishop. He was a pleasant man though, as I have written in an earlier book, he had some peculiar tendencies. As for Madam, years of living in England had not subdued her fiery Latin temperament. Apart from her normal retinue of young men, other young lovers came and went away at fairly frequent intervals. One such was a handsome young man called Clive, who now and again got a small part in films. Madam called Nicolo and his new compatriots, her cicisbeos, but this Clive got special treatment, much to the fury of the others. We would hear them exploding in our kitchen:

  ‘Girls, who is this Clive? (they pronounced his name, Cleeve). He is a nothing, a nobody, he is not simpatico. Our dear lady buys him clothes and shoes and he does not care for her; it is only for her money that he cares. He must not stay here.’

  Considering that most weekends they got free board and lodging, we felt that they were hardly in a position to criticise another hanger-on. But Clive didn’t last very long in any case; his departure was expedited by Mr Bishop who, on receiving the bills not only for Clive’s finery, but for a very expensive gold watch as well, became totally incensed. His quarrel with Madam was really something and her histrionics could be heard all over the house.

  I left Mrs Bishop’s not only because I wanted to go back to London, but also because I now felt that I was an experienced enough cook to have a kitchenmaid to help me. I consulted the Morning Post and got a job in Knightsbridge where there were seven servants – nine if one included the chauff
eur and an odd-job man. Madam told me the previous cook had left to get married, which was reassuring to hear. If prospective employers told you that their servants had left only to look after aged or ailing parents, then you immediately became suspicious of the job; for that was nearly always the excuse you gave to leave a situation you disliked. I’d used it myself, and later on in my married life I left so many daily jobs because my mother had broken her leg, Mum might have been a centipede.

  Madam had a butler and a parlourmaid. Most high-class and wealthy families employed a butler and a parlourmaid in preference to two parlourmaids. A butler gave tone to the house. The middle-classes had parlourmaids only. Madam’s butler, Mr Baines with his stately demeanour and grave mien, would have made a perfect stage butler – though the audience would probably have taken him for a caricature. But Mr Baines was never in the least pompous below stairs. He was always making us weep with laughter with his anecdotes about those above stairs – though he was never malicious. Unfortunately for the servants, Mr Baines was leaving in two months’ time as his brother and sister-in-law were starting a small hotel and he was going to be the head waiter there.