Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance

by Margaret Powell

  The night of the dinner party was extremely hectic and for once I really hectored Bessie and made her give me more help, for I’d never before cooked for such a large party. It wasn’t so much the actual cooking as getting the amounts right that worried me; a lot of food was needed to feed eighteen people. The menu was to be artichoke soup, with cream added just before serving; followed by sole normande, made with white wine and decorated with truffles. The entrée was veal cutlets and espagnole sauce, and the main course, the remove, saddle of lamb with mint sauce and redcurrant jelly – the latter bought ready-made. The sweet was cold honeycomb mould; and finally there were devilled prunes for the savoury. It all went extremely well, nothing was under-done, over-done or burnt, much to my relief. During the rush Mr Kite whispered to me that a Mrs Denver, a well-known diner-out, had particularly praised the sole normande. When it was all over, I was just thankfully sitting down for a few minutes before helping Bessie with the mounds of washing-up and getting our own supper, when who should come into the kitchen but Madam with a guest. I felt so embarrassed; all the cooking had left me as red as a peony, and the kitchen was still strewn with utensils.

  Madam smiled at me, saying, ‘Excuse us invading your kitchen, Cook, and don’t get up; you must be feeling tired. The dinner was splendid and Mrs Denver would very much like the recipe for the sole normande.’

  Mrs Denver added her thanks and they went back upstairs.

  Just before she left, Mrs Denver surreptitiously slipped an envelope into the butler’s hand; it was addressed to me. Inside was £5, and a message to the effect that if I ever contemplated leaving Madam, would I let her know. Mr Kite was pained at such perfidy. To be Madam’s guest, eat at her table and then try to lure away one of her servants was base conduct. Besides, he knew that Mrs Denver lived in a tiny apartment with two maids, so it could hardly be for herself that she wanted a cook.

  ‘In that case, Mr Kite,’ I told him, ‘Mrs Denver’s a procuress. But instead of procuring for bawdy houses, she procures reliable cooks for her friends – probably for a small consideration.’

  Mr Kite had received about six pounds in tips so we pooled all the money. Although the housemaids were not directly involved in the dinner party – nobody was staying the night – nevertheless Ada had helped with washing the silver in the butler’s pantry, Elsie had to be on duty upstairs to tidy Madam’s bedroom after the lady guests had used it, and we couldn’t leave out Odette.

  It was past eleven o’clock by the time we had our supper; but although we were tired, everybody was cheerful because the evening had gone well. Mr Kite even laughed at one of Odette’s somewhat ribald remarks and then he told us an amusing story about when he was a second footman!

  ‘One evening, at a very important dinner, and just as I was handing round the dish of peas to a guest, I sneezed violently, my hands shook and several of the peas shot off in all directions. There was a dreadful silence; it was too terrible, I wished that I was dead. Fred, the first footman, could hardly restrain his mirth, and the expression on the face of the old family butler gives me a nightmare still when I think of it. It wasn’t my fault I sneezed, I just couldn’t suppress it, but I’m certain that the martinet of a butler considered I should have choked rather than have disgraced his training.’

  Coming from Mr Kite, this was quite a story and he was obviously gratified to hear us all laugh. It was the last time for quite a while that I did laugh, because the morning brought me two letters; one from Rose and the other from Roy.

  18

  The next morning, feeling proud and pleased by the ultimate success of the previous evening, I received a letter from Roy; and certainly I was not prepared for the shattering news it contained. How could I be, when Roy had been as kind and affectionate as usual when we’d last met. I’d forgotten Mary’s warning. In the first part of his letter there was no finesse, no softening of the blow. He simply stated that he and Ellie were getting married. That they loved each other and the disparity in age made no difference to their love. I had to read it three times before I really grasped the fact that I had lost Roy. The rest of the letter was merely padding. He still liked me and hoped that I’d find a man better than he, Roy, could ever be. But we weren’t really suited to each other, because as Ellie had pointed out, we were both Scorpios with possessive natures. So, if we married, neither of us would be happy. I was too upset to take much notice of this last statement; but some weeks later, gradually recovering from my broken romance and reading yet again his rejection of me, I was furious at Ellie’s assumption that Roy and I were unsuited to each other. Both Scorpios indeed! I bet she couldn’t even say the names of the constellations, or tell the difference between astrology and astronomy.

  On the morning that I received the letter, I felt nothing but pain and grief, yet I had to hide my feelings from the servants and especially from Madam. Although she looked after our physical well-being, I could sense that she would only be irritated if she found herself involved in our personal lives.

  My other letter was from Rose with the news that her Uncle Fred, the miner, despairing of finding work, was coming to London with his wife and the three youngest children. Her parents had written to say that Rose must go to see Uncle Fred and help him if possible. Rose wanted Mary and me to join her. That was so like Rose. Confronted with a situation which might prove embarrassing, her instinctive reaction was to protect herself by having friends around. Neither Mary nor I had met Uncle Fred and I felt he would hardly welcome the invasion of two strangers. Uncle Fred had said that life for the poor in London must be better than the slums of Manchester, and he liked what he’d read about the irrepressible cockney humour prevailing over the worst of circumstances.

  As I said to Mary when we met, Uncle Fred would be disappointed. Like a lot of people viewing London from a distance, the city might seem a Utopia, a haven and refuge. But there are no Utopias, except perhaps in heaven; and by the late twenties, belief in heaven was rapidly fading – especially among the young. Agnosticism was now the thing, a non-religion. The slums of London were no more salubrious than the slums of Manchester, and as for humour: yes, given just enough to eat and a roof over their heads, perhaps cockney humour was irrepressible. But given an unemployed husband, one stinking room and starving children crying for food, Londoners were as miserable as any in a similar situation. Just as in the Second World War, when the newspapers printed that no amount of bombing could stop Londoners’ earthy humour, that simply wasn’t true. No-one, unless they were totally without emotions, could see and hear the carnage night after night and then emerge from the shelters uttering a merry quip or bawdy obscenity.

  Mary, having so recently had her own romance and even engagement come to nothing, was just the friend I needed for my lamentations about my lost Roy and her Aunt Ellie. I’d given her all my advice and sympathy, now she did the same for me. Naturally, her Aunt Ellie, from now on, was an anathema to me, but Mary too declared that she would never again see the cunning, underhand woman.

  ‘To think,’ Mary declared, ‘that she was always asking us to her home, trying to pair us off with young men and making out that old Mack liked company, and all the time she was picking out the next husband. I think it’s awful, and poor Mack hardly cold yet.’

  Mary was always prone to exaggeration, and I pointed out to her that it was to be hoped that poor Mack was cold when they put him in his coffin, never mind his grave.

  ‘Come on, Margaret, let’s find a pub where they don’t take any notice of two young females on their own. We’ll have a few drinks and cheer ourselves up. We’ll sit and talk about men and run them all down.’

  ‘And tell sad stories of the death of kings, how some have been deposed, some murdered by their wives,’ I added; but Mary knew no Shakespeare.

  She did though, say prosaically, ‘We didn’t get the chance to depose our boyfriends though we’d cheerfully have murdered them.’

  In those days a woman seldom went into a pub, unless with her h
usband or boyfriend, but after looking into one or two we eventually found a large pub so crowded that we’d hardly be noticed. In fact, there were two or three females dotted around the bar, but I don’t think they were there to drown their own sorrows; more to comfort any lone male whose wife didn’t understand him.

  Mary and I ordered two glasses of port as being a more appropriate drink than gin for two unaccompanied females. By our third glass of Sandeman’s, we both began to feel that perhaps we might survive the blow that fate had dealt us; though of course life would never again be as carefree.

  ‘You know, Margaret,’ said Mary, very solemnly, ‘the more I think about it, the more I feel certain there was something wrong with that Alf. Why wasn’t he married? At his age most men have got a family. And why did he need two jobs? I wouldn’t mind betting that he’d got a wife and kids somewhere. I reckon I’ve had a lucky escape – in more ways than one.’ Then she added, giggling madly, ‘You should have seen the way that Alf used to puff and pant when he brought in the coal-scuttles. He’d be red in the face. I reckon he’d no stamina. Just imagine him as a husband; by the time he’d climbed the stairs to the bedroom, he’d have been whacked out.’

  ‘Well, you could have lived in a bungalow,’ I said, and Mary nearly upset her port with laughing.

  ‘As for that Roy of yours, Margaret, he wouldn’t have been your type. What would you have found to talk about? The only books he ever read were Sexton Blakes. Not only that, when Aunt Ellie gave us a meal, your Roy ate his peas off a knife. Just think of a lifetime sitting opposite a man who ate peas off a knife.’

  I’m afraid that I wasn’t consoled by those strictures on the bad habits of my lost love. If we had married, I wouldn’t have been concerned with his mental prowess and, as for his eating habits, I reckoned I could have soon altered them.

  Mary went babbling on about Roy being no good and he could only be marrying Ellie, a woman so much older than him, for her money. Probably he was, but one couldn’t deny that Ellie was also an attractive woman. She knew how to talk to men and make them feel important.

  ‘By the time Roy is forty,’ said Mary, ‘Aunt Ellie will be past it. What will he do then, I ask you?’

  I neither knew nor cared about what Roy would do at forty. It was what he’d done now that concerned me. I knew that if by some miracle he was to walk through those pub doors and tell me it was all a mistake, that it was me he loved, I’d be full of joy and happiness.

  Mary’s laughter had attracted the attention of a young man at the next table and they were very soon talking animatedly. If I hadn’t been there, I believe Mary would have got friendly with him; in spite of the fact that we were supposed to be consoling ourselves for our broken romances and therefore right off all men for ever.

  Mary, who’d taken a new situation to get away from Alf, wasn’t very happy in it. She’d taken a place as head housemaid in a large house in Belgravia, and found that she was expected to be a lady’s maid on top of her other duties. Not that Mary would have minded, but the Madam was a harsh and overbearing woman. ‘She’s nothing but a parvenu’, Mary had said. She didn’t really know what ‘parvenu’ meant but had heard Mr Wardham use the expression in a contemptuous way when talking about some newcomers. Mary’s employer had been left a fortune by her grandfather who’d made his money in trade; so they were neither nobility nor gentry. I suppose that Madam, having fairly recently removed herself from the mire and muck, wasn’t going to fraternise with those still in it.

  ‘She hasn’t a clue how to treat servants,’ Mary complained, ‘Would you believe it, last week she bought two yapping Pomeranians, and in the evening rang the drawing-room bell for our butler – such a nice man – to take them out for an airing and to do the necessary. Mr Yates said, very politely, that it was no part of his duties to walk two lap-dogs round Belgravia. Then Madam had the cheek to say her dogs had a better pedigree than he, the butler, had, and he’d better look for another post. I think I’ll give in my notice too, Margaret, if Mr Yates is going. Our cook is an old harridan, she treats the poor kitchenmaid like dirt. As for our servants’ hall, well, I’d never ask anyone to tea there it’s so awful. One small window, so it’s always dark, old brown lino on the floor, dirty misshapen wicker chairs and bilious yellow-painted walls. And our bedrooms are not much better.’

  I thought with complacency of our bright and comfortably furnished servants’ hall and our pleasant bedrooms, each with an armchair so that we could have privacy and comfort. Even Mr Kite, who’d worked in huge establishments, admitted that more was done for the servants’ comfort than any other place he’d been in. But then, being Mr Kite, he had to launch into a long and wearisome discourse as to why this should be so. For Mr Kite, like most of us, liked to think that he had left his mark wherever he had been. He didn’t want me to think that he’d been of so little importance to his past employers that nothing had been done for his comfort.

  ‘You see, Cook, when I started in domestic service, servants were ten-a-penny, you had to be good to keep your job, otherwise you get the sack because they could always get another to take your place. Nowadays, it’s not so easy to get, and keep, good experienced maids and manservants. Since the war, the working class have got the idea that they’re lowering themselves by working in private service. Some of this new lot wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the old days. Just imagine, Cook, in my last place we had a new housemaid; just left school she had, and when Madam spoke to her on the first morning, saying, in as nice a voice as I’m talking to you now, “Are you getting on all right, Taylor, I know this is your first place,” that girl had the cheek to answer, “Yes, thank you, Mrs Mannering.” I tell you, Cook, I couldn’t believe my ears. I came out of the dining-room, where I was about to serve breakfast, and after Madam had gone in I told that girl off in no uncertain terms. And what, Cook, do you think that impertinent girl said? She said, “Why should I be called Taylor? I’m either Joan or Miss Taylor”. Did you ever hear the like? And Madam such a real lady.’

  Once again I resolved never to mention domestic service to Mr Kite, he was such an encyclopaedia of every aspect of it. But as his whole life had been spent in service, he had no other conversation. Still, at least he spoke good English, which was more than could be said of Rose’s Uncle Fred’s wife when we called on her.

  19

  Calling on Uncle Fred was not an experience that Mary and I would have wanted to repeat and, looking back on it, I find it hard to understand why we didn’t simply refuse to go with Rose. Perhaps we were curious to see how Rose looked now, and curious to see a real coalminer – even one far removed from his natural habitat.

  We met Rose at Waterloo Station. When we saw how she was dressed, we immediately protested that she was far too ‘got-up’ to call on an out-of-work family. Rose explained, plaintively, that her outfit was the oldest and plainest she possessed; and in any case, Uncle Fred knew that Gerald was wealthy so he wouldn’t expect to see his niece looking shabby.

  Her uncle and aunt, with the three children, were living in Harlesden. They had two rooms and a kitchen; the lavatory they shared with two other families. I thought the place somewhat grim; not knowing at the time that eventually I would be living in just such a place with my husband and three children – and be perfectly happy in it.

  We found Rose’s uncle filling in a football coupon, and he showed no signs of pleasure at being interrupted. With a first prize of £50 it was naturally important to devote time and study to the occupation. Besides, while not averse to seeing his niece, I don’t suppose he’d expected a deputation. He was a short, pale, thin and wizened man, looking far older than his forty-five years. Unlike Rose’s father, who hectored and harangued, Uncle Fred’s thin lips were tightly closed as though he feared to speak, and he seemed to smoulder with an inward bitterness. After filling in his coupon, he put on his cap and went out; and he did not return while we were there. Mary and I were rather peeved; as we’d given up some of our sparse leisure time
, we felt he ought to show some appreciation. But I suppose, he had no wish to talk to young and ignorant girls who had no real knowledge or experience of the hardships he and his family had endured.

  Mary and I had brought sweets and a toy each for the children, and Rose provided what was urgently needed, money. Her aunt, Mrs Green, was a shapeless lachrymose woman who, as soon as her husband had gone, complained to us about the lack of privacy they had there.

  ‘Back home, folks never came in your door without so much as a “by your leave”. Neighbours respected each other. Even if it was only a miner’s cottage, it was his castle. Once he’d shut his door, that was it. In this house, people are all the time running up and down the stairs and other people’s kids open your door. I wish we were back home, I do. Father’s got no sign of a job; we’d as well starve up there as down here. But Father would come.’

  ‘Father’ was, of course, her husband. Mrs Green seemed to me to be totally subservient to him. If she had any opinions, which I doubted, she never voiced them – very different from my mother, who not only had opinions but made sure that we were all aware of them.

  ‘Hasn’t Uncle Fred been offered any kind of a job yet?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Yes, he’s been after two. The first was as a storesman and, although the wages were only fifty shillings a week, Father said there were about a hundred men queueing-up for the job. He didn’t stand a chance. The other job he’d to know a bit of book-keeping; Father can’t do with figures.’

  As we departed, Rose tried to leave some money without saying anything, but Mrs Green would have none of that. Clutching the notes, she tearfully thanked Rose, saying that only because of the children would she take the money; how very hard it was to be brought so low, and Fred was so bitter about accepting charity. He’d gone into the mines when he was twelve years old and, from the time Fred’s father broke his leg in the very same mine that Fred was in, Fred had practically kept his young brother and sister. And now look at him, forty-five years old, wants to work and has to swallow charity. As we walked away, our feelings of depression were not lessened by Alice, a pretty little girl about six years old, running after us to say thank you for the sweets and the present. Rose openly wept, but then she knew how hard life had been for such men as Uncle Fred; Mary and I had never even seen a coalmine. Also, I expect Rose felt the difference between her life of ease and comfort and the misery of her aunt.