Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance

by Margaret Powell

  But with the natural resilience of youth and, I’m afraid, the callousness of it too, we quickly became cheerful in a teashop as we consumed doughnuts and cream cakes. Mary and I wanted to know every detail about the new house. What were the servants like? How was the baby and Mrs Wardham? To give Rose her due, she did ask us what had we been doing before she launched into a long, and at times, incoherent account of her life. She didn’t much care for the new house, it was too far from London. She was lonely, apart from the vicar and his wife, nobody called. The only people she saw were the servants, and Gerald had insisted that she was not to get on familiar terms with them. Unless they realised their employer was above them, no servant would do his work properly. Why couldn’t Rose be like his mother, who not only treated servants well but had total respect for them too.

  As Rose paused for breath, I thought what a dolt Gerald was. Why should he expect a girl like Rose to manage a house in the same way as his mother did. Mrs Wardham belonged to a family that for generations had employed servants; it was easy for her to know how to treat them.

  Mrs Wardham engaged the servants as Rose said she couldn’t for the life of her go into a registry office as an employer. This had infuriated Gerald who felt strongly that as he’d removed Rose from her servant status, she should no longer feel like one.

  ‘I quite like Mrs Rush, the cook,’ said Rose, ‘she’s such a help with the menus and doesn’t mind if I’ve no idea what to order. But Flora, our house parlourmaid, she makes me feel inferior somehow. She’s always saying Madam this, and Madam that. I’m really fond of young Tilly who comes in from the village to help out when there’s a party; though Gerald’s just like his awful father, saying that he doesn’t care to have village girls in his house, they gossip afterwards’.

  Rose told us that Gerald insisted on inviting his friends to the house. Some of them were business acquaintances and, as she, Rose, took no interest in his business, she’d no idea what to say to them. As for the wives, she couldn’t stand them. They were painted and peroxided, called each other ‘dear’, and ‘darling’, and talked about the plays they’d seen and sweet Cecil’s paintings and charming Ronnie’s yacht. It was all rubbish in Rose’s view. When the house was empty, she saw little of Gerald. At weekends he was out on his horse. He’d tried to get Rose to take up riding but she was terrified of sitting on a horse. This had enraged Gerald so much – especially as he’d already bought the animal – that he’d been rude enough to say that Rose’s milieu was still the servants’ hall; and if he, Gerald, had known what he knew now, she’d never have left it.

  ‘He was ever so awful,’ said Rose, indignantly, ‘and just because I couldn’t get on a horse’ – for other inadequacies too, I reckoned. ‘Anyway,’ went on Rose, ‘some of the men think Gerald’s lucky to have a wife as pretty as I am. They don’t expect me to know about stocks and shares; they say a pretty little head like mine shouldn’t worry about money, leave money to the men. Servants’ hall,’ said Rose, almost venomously, one could tell the expression had rankled, ‘I’ve long ago forgotten I was ever in one.’

  She seemd oblivious of the fact that Mary and I were still in one and had no immediate prospects of removing ourselves to a higher region – or any other region at all. But then, as Mary and I philosophically agreed, we didn’t have the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’, though, thank heaven, ours weren’t bad enough to sink them.

  Later on, when I was talking about the hardships and risks of being a coalminer, the head housemaid argued that a farm labourer’s work was just as hard and hazardous. Her Jack worked from early dawn until after sunset with no security in his job; he could be given a week’s notice at any time. As for the wages, a farm labourer was the most poorly-paid of any worker.

  Mr Kite interposed with one of his usual ponderous orations, ‘Yes, Elsie, but you have to remember that a farm labourer’s job is a healthy one; he doesn’t spend hours in a dark basement at the beck and call of not just one employer, but of anybody above stairs who requires him. Your Jack may address his employers as Mr and Mrs, but I have to say Sir and Madam to everybody above stairs, even though they may be just guests; and however obnoxious the children are, they are Miss and Master. Besides Elsie, when you get married, you’ll have a cheaply rented cottage and Jack can grow vegetables.’

  Elsie listened to all this with growing irritation. ‘One can’t live on cheap rent and vegetables,’ she replied, angrily. ‘And with the hours of work that Jack puts in, he’ll have precious little time for his own amusements.’

  Odette, whose understanding of English was not yet good enough to keep pace with all the conversation, and who seemed to be obsessed by ‘l’amour’ – or the absence of it – did grasp the last few words, ‘little time for his own amusements’. She loudly exclaimed, ‘Mais non! Vous ne comprenez pas. N’importe quoi.’ And then, seeing our blank looks, Odette tried to explain in English; ‘It is l’amour, the marriage, one must have time for the love.’

  To Odette, amusements were synonymous with love or, if she was to be believed, they were so in her native Provençal village. She was rather scornful about Englishmen as lovers, saying they were cold, and they had no idea how to make love in the way that Frenchmen did. Perhaps she was right, but I’m sure that Englishmen know the basics; the rest, after all, is only variations on a theme.

  Afterwards, Odette – who called me Margaret, not Cook – said to me, ‘Margaret, haven’t you learnt any French from that book I lent to you?’

  ‘Certainly, Odette, I now know two sentences: “En ce moment je fais des chaussettes”, and “Elle éclate de rire”.’

  Odette certainly did the latter, as indeed did I. But of all the French phrases I could have learnt, why did I memorise, ‘Just now I am knitting socks?’ An absolutely useless sentence! In a wild flight of fancy, I imagine myself at some important and glittering function in Paris. Sitting next to me is a young and handsome Frenchman. Leaning towards me, gazing into my green eyes, he murmurs tenderly – in French of course – ‘Ma chère, je te veux heureuse.’

  And I blush and whisper, ‘Merci, monsieur. Mais en ce moment je fais des chaussettes.’

  Odette wasn’t feeling very happy at this time because Madam was going to Holland for three weeks and taking Odette with her. They were going to Schiedam, where Mrs Van Lievden, our employer’s mother, lived. Odette wasn’t keen on the Dutch people, she said they had no joie de vivre. Years later, when I went to Holland, I found the Dutch people extremely friendly and helpful – and very many of them spoke good English too, which was more than could be said for the French. I strongly suspect that even when French people can understand English, they pretend to be ignorant. In their opinion, we should learn the language before venturing into their country.

  While Madam was away, we servants had to get on with a massive spring-cleaning. The housemaids had to take up the carpets and beat them, brush the heavy velour curtains, wash every china ornament and polish every piece of mahogany and oak. Mr Kite and Norma had to do the dining-room carpet and all the silver, used and unused, while Bessie and I had the kitchen and scullery, servants’ hall and long corridor to clean. I still had to cook for all of us, but the meals were somewhat plain while the spring-cleaning lasted.

  The chauffeur, Ewan Davies, was given a holiday; as was Tom, our odd job man; though as Tom did several odd jobs in the neighbourhood, he still called in for a breakfast every morning. Ewan Davies came from Swansea and had only been in London for two years. He’d worked all his life with horses, then his boss changed to motorised transport and went bankrupt just as Mr Davies had learnt to drive. Not able to get a job in Swansea, he, like hundreds of other workless, came to London. He and his wife lived in a mews flat over the garage where the cars were kept. Although he had to wear a uniform, he did not regard himself as a domestic servant and one day, when our butler included Mr Davies in a talk about ‘us domestics’, Mr Davies broke in quite angrily to say that he wasn’t a domestic servant, he didn
’t ‘live in’. Mrs Davies was a very tiny, if extremely voluble little woman, and a splendid cook. She used to make a lovely hotpot using slices of thick smoked bacon, and her Welsh gingerbreads were just as I liked them, moist and sticky. Ewan Davies was an ardent patriot who thought that Wales was superior to the rest of the British Isles – even though he couldn’t find work in his county of Glamorgan. Owen Glendower was an heroic man according to Mr Davies, but as I’d never heard of him the name meant nothing to me.

  Mr Van Leivden had two cars, a Rolls Royce and an Austin. Mr Davies wasn’t allowed to use the Rolls Royce for his own pleasure but, as he’d been given permission to use the Austin while they were away, he offered to take me out for a drive. Madam had told us that so long as all the work was done and either I, Elsie or Mr Kite was in the house, we could take extra time off. I thought it would be interesting to see where Rose lived, a few miles from Basingstoke, so when Mary had her free afternoon and evening, Mr Davies drove down there and arranged to collect us some hours later on his way back from visiting his wife’s parents.

  Mary and I never forgot that day – and emphatically not because it was enjoyable. It certainly taught me never to arrive as an unexpected visitor.

  20

  We left London about 2 o’clock and I think the journey took about two hours. I know that Mr Davies, a very competent driver in London, completely lost his way once we got into the country; he complained that the sign-posting was inadequate. When eventually we found the village and enquired the way to Greenlands – the name of the house – we still had half a mile to go. The house was not as large as we had visualised from Rose’s description; nevertheless, it was a handsome building with weathered stone and mullioned windows, giving the impression that it had stood there for years past and would continue to do so for years ahead.

  There were several cars in the drive, and as we climbed the wide steps to the front door Mary remarked, uneasily, that perhaps we should have let Rose know we were coming. I was beginning to feel the same way, even though I answered that Rose would be delighted to see us. The door was opened by the house parlourmaid, and coming from the back of the house, we could hear talking and laughter. Mary and I looked at each other and, if the maid hadn’t been there, I’m sure we’d have beaten a precipitous retreat. As it was, we said that we were friends of Mrs Wardham and, as we happened to be in the neighbourhood, we would very much like to see her. The maid gave an audible sniff – ‘snob,’ muttered Mary – and said that Madam was entertaining guests. She left us sitting in the hall while she took in our names to Madam. The hall was very imposing; oak-panelled, with a double staircase leading up to a wide balcony; parquet-flooring and two or three Persian rugs. Looking at all this evidence of wealth and good taste – Gerald’s, of course – we could see how painfully aware Rose had been made of the difference between her conditions and Uncle Fred’s. Rose came running out to us and immediately Mary and I felt that here was a stranger. She really looked beautiful in a floating black chiffon dress, a three-row gleaming pearl necklace and her lovely golden hair like a halo round her face. But fortunately for us, the moment she spoke it was the same old Rose with the same old excruciating accent. She hastily removed us from the hall – and from the festivities too, as I saw that the dining-room table had been laid for eight people. We went up to her bedroom, which was decorated in pale green – Rose’s favourite colour. I noticed that her taste in reading had still not progressed beyond the paperback romances, for on the bedside table was a pile of them, the top one entitled Love’s Sacrifice.

  Flora, the house parlourmaid, came in with a tea-tray looking, if that were possible, even more disapproving than when she’d ushered us into the hall. And when Rose, told her to bring some cake, as she’d discovered there was only biscuits on the tray, her sour face could have curdled the milk.

  ‘Oh dear!’ Rose lamented. ‘If only you’d let me know. I never thought you’d ever come all this way to see me. Just the day when a lot of Gerald’s friends are here. He and his partner have just made a lot of money – I don’t know how – and Gerald’s bought a new car and they’re all here to look at it. Some of them are staying on to dinner too.’

  ‘Yes, we saw the evidence as we were whisked by the door,’ Mary replied, drily. ‘This is the first time I’ve been entertained in a bedroom. And why only one bed here? Don’t you and Gerald sleep together now? And where’s Victoria Helen? Downstairs with the party?’

  ‘Of course she isn’t, Mary. She’s staying with Gerald’s mother and his aunt down in Cornwall. My mother-in-law dotes on Victoria but Gerald’s father won’t let her stay at Redlands. What a horrible man he is. And I have a separate bedroom because Gerald comes home late and I hate being disturbed. Besides,’ and Rose blushed, ‘I don’t like that side of married life, being mauled about. When we were first married, I’d put my arms around him and kiss him to show my affection. But no sooner did I do that than he’d want to get on top of me. Ugh! It makes me shiver to think of it.’

  ‘But you liked it in the beginning, Rose,’ I said, ‘I remember you telling us how loving Gerald was.’

  ‘Perhaps I did, but I didn’t know then that he’d want to make love so often. Why, you’d never believe, but in the first months of our marriage he’d come home at midday and expect me to go to bed with him. At midday, in the daylight. If my ma knew she’d think it disgusting. And so it is too.’

  Mary and I looked at each other; and I for one remembered what young Fred had said in our servants’ hall at Redlands, apropos of Rose and Gerald. ‘I think that it’s Gerald who will regret it’. What was Rose giving him in return for a lovely home, beautiful clothes and a life of ease? She refused to acquire an education, to read about current events; as an intellectual companion she was hopeless; now we heard that she was loth to be a bed-mate. And although she was even prettier now than when he’d fallen in love with her, Gerald had a right to expect more out of marriage than just gazing at a pretty face.

  Rose went on complaining. ‘Gerald wants me to have another baby, but I can’t do with kids, I’m not the maternal type. He’d like to have a son; but I’m as likely to have another girl. Besides, what’s the use of having a family when that father of his won’t even look at them.’

  Flora knocked on the bedroom door to say that Mr Wardham wished to speak to his wife. Rose went outside to speak to him and we were extremely embarrassed to hear the sound of an altercation between Rose and Gerald. I had an overwhelming desire to be somewhere else. Rose came in, looking hot and flustered, to say that she was so very sorry, she simply loved seeing us and if only we’d let her know we were coming she’d have asked us to make it another day. But Gerald wanted her downstairs, she was being rude to his guests to absent herself for such a long time.

  ‘Long time!’ cried Mary angrily, ‘We’ve only been here half-an-hour. Don’t he reckon you should have friends of your own who can pop in without warning? What’s he think, we got the plague or something? Come on, Margaret, let’s go somewhere more suited to our station in life.’

  Turning to Rose, Mary added, sarcastically, ‘Is it all right if we leave by the front door? I don’t suppose Mrs Rush would mind if we went through her kitchen. Maybe we could stop and have a chat with her; or would Master Gerald object to us even being below stairs.’

  Poor Rose was nearly in tears as she showed us out and I was sorry that Mary had upset her. After all, we had arrived unexpectedly and it wasn’t Rose’s fault that she couldn’t entertain us. As we walked down the drive, Mary was still fulminating about our reception:

  ‘Never again, Margaret, never again. All this long journey just to be shown the door. What’s the matter with us that we have to be poked in some corner because her guests mustn’t see us? What if they did? Who are they anyway? They’re not real gentry, they’ve made their money in business. Why couldn’t we meet them?’

  ‘We couldn’t meet them, Mary, because we were domestic servants in Gerald’s house and he knows it. We coul
d never be on an equal footing. Besides, if all the females were as well-dressed as Rose, we’d have looked a bit conspicuous in our outfits. I wouldn’t have wanted to mix with them. In any case, Mary, this long journey cost us nothing; Mr Davies drove us here. What I’d like to know is, what are we going to do now? It’ll be two hours before he comes to pick us up. Two hours stuck here with nothing to do.’

  That two hours was about the most tedious I’d ever spent; it seemed more like four hours. We didn’t dare stray too far in case we lost our way. By the time Mr Davies arrived we were fed up with the country sights, the weather and even with our own company; though when he asked if we’d enjoyed ourselves, we looked at each other and started to laugh. As he’d been kind enough to take us out we felt that we should explain the situation to him; get an outsider’s opinion of our welcome, or lack of it.

  We’d travelled nearly five miles before Mr Davies spoke – I thought he’d forgotten what we’d told him. Then, after some hemming and hawing he said, sagely, ‘Ah! It never does to marry out of one’s station. My wife’s sister-in-law’s cousin, over to Ruthin, was as strict a chapel-goer as you’d be likely to meet in the whole of Denbighshire. She was a good-looking lass but a bit simple like, could hardly read or write. She was still not married at twenty-eight; though mind you, she’d had her chances. But she couldn’t seem to fancy any of the local lads. Old Farmer Hyde would have given his eye teeth to get Molly; never mind she couldn’t read, she could do the work of two women. He’d had a nice farm, money and all, but Molly said she’d as soon bed down with Ambrose – that was Farmer Hyde’s prize pig. And then, who do you think she went off with? You’d never believe.’