Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance

by Margaret Powell

  ‘How many waiters will there be, Mr Baines?’ we asked.

  ‘Just me and a boy to start with,’ he laughed. ‘So, you see, I’ll automatically be the head waiter.’

  At the time of my arrival, Mr Baines was involved in a voluminous correspondence with the shop that had sold some woollen socks to him, and also with the company that had made the woollen socks. Mr Baines asserted they had shrunk to about half their original size, though he had washed them only in Lux. The shop and the company letters were very short and legal, but those Mr Baines had written, copies of which he showed me, covered several pages and went off into wild flights of fancy about a butler’s position being in great peril if, in the course of his duties, his feet were constricted by socks which were not only matted, but too small. I reckon the firm should have sent him a few pairs gratis, if only because his letters must have made them laugh.

  Mr Baines had been married to a German cook, whose parents kept a small shop in the East End of London. Although they’d been there for years, they were subjected to much abuse and harassment during the 1914–18 war, so when the war was over they went back to Westphalia and their daughter, Mr Baines’ wife, went with them.

  ‘Suppose you wanted to marry again, Mr Baines? Could you get a divorce now your wife’s in Germany?’

  ‘Oh, Cook, I’d never want to marry an English woman – no disrespect to you, of course,’ he added hastily, ‘My Martha could make the best pumpernickel you’ve ever tasted.’

  ‘Pumpernickel! whatever’s that? I’ve never heard of it. Something to do with pumpkins, I suppose, Mr Baines?’

  ‘Dear, dear. Never heard of it and you a cook too. Pumpernickel is delicious rye bread. Martha occasionally used to make it especially for me. Now,’ he said mournfully, ‘I expect she’s making it every day over there in Westphalia.’

  Having a kitchen maid was a help; no more vegetables to prepare, kitchen tables and floor to scrub and washing-up to do; but it didn’t take Bessie long to realise that I was not like the previous cook who shouted at, and harried her. Consequently, Bessie became slow and lazy and, rather than nag at her, I’d do the jobs myself. This wasn’t good training for Bessie and could only lead to her being a slovenly cook. But I was happy enough because my romance with Roy was going well. We met on every occasion my free time coincided with his. We even got as far as talking about when he’d finished his training as a chef, then we might work in the kitchens of a smart hotel. We often went to Aunt Ellie’s with Mary, whose engagement to Alf seemed likely to come to an end. Alf continually made excuses that doing two jobs made him too tired to go out in the evenings. Ellie made a fuss of Roy and me, assuring us that old Mack liked to see and hear young people, it made him feel alive. That might have been true, but it certainly didn’t keep him alive as he died about three months after my return to London. There must have been about forty people at his funeral and Ellie spared no expense to give Mack a great ‘send-off’. There were black ribbon-bedecked horses, many carriages and wreaths, and Ellie had designed a stone which later on would be placed on the grave. It was to be inscribed; DEAR MACK, HE ALWAYS DID HIS DUTY. RIP. Malicious tongues said that his duty was to depart hastily from life leaving Ellie all his money; but that was after circumstances debarred them from the use of Ellie’s house and hospitality. Until he became too old to keep up with Ellie, I’m sure that Mack very much enjoyed life and never regretted marrying someone so much younger. Perhaps on his own he would have lived longer, but he might not have been so happy.

  After the funeral Ellie dispensed a lavish amount of food and drink; we drank affectionately to Mack’s life, death and probable destination. Apart from £250 left to a cat’s home – Mack loved cats, as do I – all his money went to Ellie. She was now a fairly wealthy woman; and it was easy to see that with her lively nature and love of excitement, plus the money, her widowhood would not be of long duration.

  Our new butler, a Mr Kite, was a very different person from lively Mr Baines who, in our servants’ hall, ceased to be a butler and became just a very pleasant man. Mr Kite was somewhat prosy and never ceased to be a butler, albeit kindly condescending, even when he was below stairs with us six females.

  Perhaps he thought that a dignified presence was the safest in purely female company – though I’m not sure that Odette, the lady’s maid, was pure judging by the tales she told us about her native village in Provence. When her year with Madam was over she was going back home, and her younger sister, Yvonne, would take her place. I think Odette missed Mr Baines’s frivolous conversation; she certainly scoffed at Mr Kite, saying scornfully, ‘What a name, Kite. That man has never flown high in his life. Que diable! Il n’est pas pour moi. Quelle banalité.’

  It was true that most of Mr Kite’s contribution to our ‘after dinner’ conversation consisted of anecdotes about the high-class families he’d been butler to. A first hearing of these stories could be endured, but repeated telling at every opportunity was wearisome. Odette, to whom butlers were no more important than kitchenmaids – she’d not been in domestic service long enough to comprehend the rigid hierarchy below stairs – ruthlessly interrupted poor Mr Kite whenever he embarked upon a twice-told tale by saying, impatiently, ‘N’ importe. Nous savons tout ça’. He’d no idea what she meant but it effectively silenced him. Nevertheless, as he’d been in service from the time he left school at thirteen, Mr Kite was a very experienced butler and looked very smart in the uniform that Madam provided. None of us had to buy our uniforms, though we could choose what colours we liked. In fact, Madam provided a great many comforts for the servants; separate bedrooms, bathroom, a light and airy kitchen and a well-furnished servants’ hall. We even had a bookcase in the room with proper books in it. I wasn’t the only reader; for Mr Kite was pleased to find books on the shelves by Henty and W. W. Jacobs. There were also several books by Benjamin Disraeli, which at that time I found rather heavy-going to read, though I liked the many striking phrases. With my usual vanity and big-headedness, I wrote down a lot of the brilliant expressions and tried to memorise them. I had visions of uttering these bons mots when I was at a party or other social gathering, but the idea was another of my failures. In the first place, most of the people I met had never even heard of Disraeli and secondly, when I did quote him, it never seemed anything like as witty as in the book.

  For all this comfort and fairly high wages, Madam expected good service from her servants – as she had a right to. She didn’t take a personal interest in us, but that wasn’t necessary. She looked after our physical well-being in every possible way, and I for one appreciated a kitchen stocked with everything one needed for cooking. I thought of poor old Violet and Lily toiling for Mrs Hunter-Jones and living in dreary and spartan conditions. This place was a world apart by comparison. One day Elsie, the head housemaid, asked me if I minded the previous cook, now Mrs Peek, coming to have tea with us. To my surprise, Mrs Peek had little praise for Madam. After complaining about Madam’s idiosyncrasies, such as wanting dishes made differently from the way she, Mrs Peek, had been taught to make them, and the cook having to wear a clean apron every day, Mrs Peek said:

  ‘Would you believe that in the five years I worked here, Madam had no idea that I was courting, and engaged to be married. When I gave my month’s notice, Madam was very surprised. She said, “Oh, Cook, why do you want to leave?” And when I told her I was getting married, she didn’t even ask what sort of job my fiancé had.’

  Although I kept quiet, I saw no reason why Madam should show an interest in her servants’ private affairs. I much preferred a situation where, so long as your work was satisfactory, there were no enquiries as to what you did in your free time. Madam wasn’t even aware that Elsie, who was about thirty-five, had been engaged for seven years – and I’d have thought Elsie was hardly aware of it after all that time. Seven years, I just couldn’t imagine it. Elsie’s home was in a remote village in Kent and her fiancé worked on a farm there. She saw him only once a month when she had
her whole day off and went home. As far as I could tell, both Elsie and her Jack were perfectly happy with the arrangement. By careful saving and spending, she now had a chest of linen at home and a bottom drawer filled with underwear. No frills or furbelows, just plain cotton and wincyette as befitted the farmer’s wife she hoped to be eventually. There was an occasion when Elsie returned from one of her monthly visits and Odette teased her, asking did she and Jack have l’amour. Elsie replied stiffly that her Jack was a gentleman; when he stood at the altar his bride would be a virgin. Afterwards Odette said to me, ‘Je pense qu’il a les pieds glacés.’

  I’d picked up a bit of French from Violette but all I understood of that sentence was ‘think’ and ‘cold’, so I thought Odette was referring to the sexual part of Jack’s anatomy. When I replied, ‘Is it ever cold there?’ I wouldn’t have thought so,’ it caused her much merriment.

  My friend Mary had little cause for merriment as her engagement to Alf was off. She’d given in her notice because she couldn’t bear now to see Alf every morning. To add to her misery and rage, Alf didn’t seem to mind; he still went whistling around doing his odd jobs, just as though there had never been anything between him and Mary. We decided to visit Rose before she moved from the house in Hampstead to the palatial establishment in Surrey. As Mary said, in Hampstead we could use the front door; in the country house we’d probably end up in the stables.

  17

  Now that Rose had a baby she seemed more contented, though still averse to the idea of moving into a large country house. She wanted to stay with her parents in Manchester while all the moving went on. But Gerald was against the idea, saying that a back-street in the slums of Manchester was not good for Victoria Helen; and furthermore, he wasn’t having his child acquiring a Mancunian accent. Considering the child was only a few months old, I couldn’t see how she could possibly be affected by accent.

  One couldn’t in truth describe Victoria Helen as a pretty baby for, as I’ve said, she had the Wardham features, and to a marked degree. It was to be hoped that in disposition she wouldn’t take after her grandfather. It very much grieved Mrs Wardham that she couldn’t have Rose and the baby to stay at Redlands, but the awful Mr Wardham would never allow it. Neither Mary nor I could visualise Rose as one above stairs in the very house where she’d been a servant, and certainly those below stairs would object to waiting on her. They might not begrudge Rose her new-found affluence, but they wouldn’t want her under their noses, so to speak.

  Over tea, Rose told us that there was to be a house parlourmaid and a cook general at the country house, as well as a woman from the village who was coming three times a week to do the rough.

  Gerald was thinking of going into politics. Ever since the huge demonstration in Hyde Park against the unfair – or believed by the public to be unfair – treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti, Gerald had been talking about the dangers of Communism getting a hold in England. As Rose hadn’t known that Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian communists on trial in America – or even that two such men were in the news, as she seldom looked at a newspaper – she was only bored by her husband’s convictions. As far as I could see, marriage to one of the upper class had not improved Rose in any way. Her outlook on life was still as narrow, her social and intellectual understanding almost non-existent, and spiritually she was still in the slums of Manchester. But she’d changed as a friend. Although she still wanted to see Mary and me, she wasn’t really interested in our personal life; our work, our boyfriends and life below stairs no longer concerned Rose. She really only needed us as an audience, to hear about the strains of coping with a large house and entertaining guests; and to sympathise with her about Gerald’s complaints of her failings.

  Mary, more prone to blunt remarks than I was, said to Rose; ‘How is it that Gerald had got so rich? He didn’t do well in Rhodesia, and showed no signs of making money when we were at Redlands, yet now he seems to be rolling in the stuff. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.’

  Rose took no offence at hearing this, and in fact agreed; but in her opinion it was Gerald’s partner that was the real brains.

  ‘From the time he met Ronald Frost, Gerald’s luck has changed. Now everything they do seems to make money. From having one little office in the City, they now have a whole floor. I don’t much care for Ron, he’s always making jokes that I can’t understand, but Sheila’s ever so nice. She’s got ever so many friends and sometimes they all come here for tea. Now I’m going to have a proper staff, I’ll be able to have people to dinner without having to worry about the work.’

  On the way back Mary, who I could sense had become irritated listening to Rose’s conversation, said, ‘Margaret, we’ll not go there any more. Notice how Rose never has any of her posh friends call while we’re in the house.’ And mimicking Rose’s voice, Mary added, ‘I’ll have people to dinner. We don’t have supper, nothing so common now I have a staff.’ Then, abruptly changing the subject, Mary asked me if I’d seen Roy lately.

  ‘Sure I see him whenever he and I are free at the same time. Why do you ask?’

  ‘He seems to spend a lot of time at Aunt Ellie’s. The last three times I’ve been there, your Roy and Aunt Ellie seemed to be very friendly. I’d just thought I’d warn you, Margaret.’

  ‘Warn me of what? You know your aunt has always liked young people around. You can’t possibly be suggesting that there’s something going on between Roy and your aunt. Why, she’s older than him.’

  ‘Not all that much older. And don’t forget Aunt Ellie’s got money now.’

  I parted from Mary feeling extremely upset and, although I said to myself that Mary was just being catty because she’d lost Alf, in my heart I knew it wasn’t so, Mary wasn’t like that. I went over all the details of the previous weeks. Had Roy seemed any different? No, of course he hadn’t; Mary must have got the wrong impression. Of course Roy liked Ellie, but so did a lot of the young people she welcomed in her home. Roy still discussed what we would do when he’d finished his training, he was still as loving and tender when we were together. But however I tried to reassure myself that all was well, uneasiness remained. Especially so when I recollected that on two or three occasions Roy had left a note to say he’d got to work an extra shift so wouldn’t be able to keep our date. Had he been telling the truth?

  In a way it was fortunate that Madam was doing a lot of entertaining, for it kept me too busy to worry overmuch. There was to be a dinner party for eighteen people and Madam and I were planning the menu; Mr Kite was polishing the silver – or, rather, he was doing the more delicate pieces while Norma did the cutlery. He carefully inspected each fork to make sure that Norma had brushed out all the Goddard’s powder. Mr Kite’s importance as a butler had slightly diminished by having a parlourmaid under him; in his previous place he’d had a footman. There is more prestige attached to being a butler with a footman than a butler with a parlourmaid, however efficient she is.

  Mr Kite had left his previous situation because of the goings-on between the new handsome young footman and the master above stairs. In all the years in which our butler had given honourable service to high-class families, he’d never known such a thing to happen. I think what shocked Mr Kite more than the immorality of it, was the fact that accepted traditions had been overturned, the master and servant relationship violated. Poor Mr Kite couldn’t possibly continue to work in such a situation. He said to me, pompously:

  ‘Cook, if I could bring myself to talk about what went on there, you’d never believe me. But I couldn’t lower myself to utter the words.’

  ‘Don’t even try, Mr Kite,’ I answered hastily, having no wish to hear a sordid saga from prosy Mr Kite. I felt sure that if the master had even smiled at his footman, Mr Kite would have interpreted it as an immoral advance.

  Such inhibitions on frank speech meant nothing to Odette, who frequently entertained us with colourful – and probably embellished – tales about Provencal life. Mr Baines had always laughed whenever Ode
tte, lacking knowledge of the English word for something she wanted to say, lapsed into French. She did this one evening while she was talking about Paris to Norma, Bessie and me. Trying to describe the street lavatories for men, she called them ‘pissoirs’, and Mr Kite looked really pained. He’d have us know that he’d been to France with one of his employers and had not liked the country, the people, or their customs. As for the sanitary arrangements, even in Paris they were disgusting; fancy both sexes having to use the same entrance to a lavatory – and sometimes even share it. Odette derided such opinions; ‘You English are just prudes’, she said. But I must admit that we too found the idea somewhat revolting.

  Mr Kite often complained to me that service was no longer the same as when he was a lad. The nobility and the gentry were fading away and a high-class butler, such as he was, had sometimes to have a dozen interviews before he found the right place.

  ‘You know, Cook, it never does to take an inferior place where you cannot take a pride in your work. Being a top-class butler means that one starts in service from the bottom and gradually works one’s way up the ladder. One is not going to throw all that experience away on employers who don’t appreciate a real butler. Would you believe it, Cook, in one of the situations I went after, although they advertised for an experienced butler, at the interview I discovered that not only did I have to do the work single-handed, I was expected to be handyman too. I very soon told them that I hadn’t spent nearly forty years in good service to become a handyman. Ah no, Cook, it’s so easy for us servants to fall into bad service; we have to be constantly on our guard. One bad employer from whom one requires a reference and the damage is done. The next employer will think the man couldn’t have been much of a butler to work in such a place.’

  Mr Kite’s conversation was never wildly exciting and as a rule I only half listened to what he had to say. Nevertheless, I suppose he was right in what he told me; the difference between us being that if I got a bad place I didn’t worry but changed it as soon as possible. But then I didn’t intend to spend all my life in domestic service as Mr Kite plainly did.