One evening, much to my surprise, Jim came into the kitchen while I was cooking the dinner and said shyly: ‘Would you care to come for a wee drive this evening, Missis?’
I was too astonished to say ‘No,’ though I was rather scared at the thought of the risk of being seen in the borrowed car, and also I couldn’t make out what had become of Bessie, his girl. ‘You won’t say anything to the others now?’ he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the servants’ hall.
‘No, of course not,’ I said, rather thrilled at the prospect of this clandestine outing. He really was quite good-looking, and as he went out I noticed that the boils on the back of his neck were almost completely cured.
After supper I made an excuse for going up early, saying I had to write letters. I changed my apron for something a little more glamorous, and crept out of the back door when no one was looking. Jim was waiting in the road just above the garage, and I got into the front seat of the Daimler beside him. I felt most opulent as we hummed along the lanes for a while in silence. Jim seemed nervous, and didn’t talk much, and I didn’t want to say anything until I had discovered why I had been invited. Eventually he decided that we had gone far enough, for he suddenly braked and brought the car to a standstill on the grass verge of the road.
He leant towards me, and I was just going to slap his face in the best manner when I saw it was a cigarette he was offering me, and not a passionate embrace. It was rather an anticlimax when I realized that I was not to be assaulted after all. When the cigarettes were lit, Jim leaned back in his corner and said:
‘I brought you here for a wee talk. Would you mind very much giving me some advice?’
‘All right by me,’ I said, ‘but why pick on me?’
‘Well, Missis, if I was to take one of the other girls driving now, I’d be after kissing them instead of talking.’
I didn’t quite know whether to take this as a compliment or a horrible slight, so I passed it over, and said:
‘What d’you want my advice about? Is it Bessie?’
‘It is.’
He poured out the whole story, and I must say I thought Bessie seemed rather a low character.
It appeared that although they had an understanding and were technically ‘keeping company’, she had ceased to dedicate all her evenings to Jim, and he was a seething mass of jealousy. Calling for her one day, he had met her just leaving the house arm-in-arm with a red-haired runt from the International Stores. Jim had made a scene, but Bessie had given him to understand that he had no proprietary rights, and had gone flouncing off with Ginger smirking at her side.
‘I don’t know what to do with the girl,’ said Jim sadly. ‘I love her, and I thought she loved me, but it’s a queer way she’s carrying on.’
It was a familiar story, so it didn’t take me long to think of what to say.
‘I think she’s just going on like this for the fun of making you jealous – just to add a bit of spice to life, see? So I tell you what to do, Jim. You pay her back in her own coin. You get her jealous of you. Instead of going up there after her, you take somebody else out. She’ll soon come screaming back to you if she thinks someone else is going to nab you.’
The more he thought about the idea the more he liked it. His wrath at the moment was greater than his love. ‘I’ll show her,’ he said, ‘I’ll do her down. But ye’ll have to help me. Will you come out with me, as a favour, somewhere where she’ll see us?’
‘Oh, Jim, I’d much rather not.’ I didn’t see why I should be involved in this romance. ‘Take one of the girls out, can’t you?’
‘No, no, it must be you. It was your idea, anyway. How would I be explaining to them that I wasn’t after walking out with them? I don’t have to tell you that I wouldn’t be asking you out if it wasn’t for this.’
Another dubious remark, but nevertheless I realized I would have to help him, as his mind seemed to be made up. We drove back to Chilford House debating when and where to spring the shock on Bessie. Jim had a marvellous idea. There was to be a dance at the Chilford Village Hall in a few days’ time, to which Bessie was sure to be going, and it coincided with my evening out. He would be able to get off, as Sir Harold and Lady W— never went out in the evening.
We put the car in the garage as quietly as possible. The groom lived in a cottage out of earshot, and if the red-haired stable boy who slept above the garage with Jim heard anything, he would never say a word, as he was a trusted ally. I sneaked down the drive and got into the house by a secret way I had discovered through the coal cellar, and arrived black but undiscovered in my bedroom, beginning already to regret what I had let myself in for.
Jim and I had decided that we must keep the whole thing very dark, as there would be a lot of talk if it were discovered that we were going to the dance together. Our names would be coupled in the servants’ hall. The atmosphere became rather tense, therefore, when at lunch the next day Miss Biggs suddenly piped up: ‘I see there’s to be a dance at Chilford on Thursday. Is nobody going to trip the light fantastic?’
‘You bet I am,’ said Nellie. ‘I’m going with me beau, and what’s more I’m going to wear all me jools.’ Jim and I looked at each other. It would wreck everything if Nellie was to crash in on our delicate plot. I couldn’t make out whether she was joking or not.
‘Are you really going, Nell?’ I said, trying to sound casual.
‘Course I’m not, dearie; where would I get a boy from in this dead-and-alive hole? Unless Mr Dawkes would like to take me –?’
‘Not in my line, I’m afraid,’ said Dawkes, grinning. ‘Kid’s game, dancing, I always say.’
‘And we all know Mr Driver has a date with an angel,’ continued Nellie, ‘so here I am on the shelf. When I think of the boys who used to take me out at Torquay – the Promised Land that was all right.’
‘I can’t think why you ever left your precious Torquay,’ said Jessie dourly.
‘Well, ducks, that’s a subject over which we draw a veil,’ said Nellie. ‘It not being entirely to the credit of Yours Truly.’
I was glad to discover someone else besides me who had got the sack; I wasn’t going to admit mine in public, but I made up my mind to have a discreet get-together with Nellie about it some time. One morning a few days later, I was lying in bed thinking about the fateful dance, when an awful thought suddenly struck me: ‘My dear, I haven’t a rag to wear!’ Evening dress is not part of a cook’s trousseau. All I had with me besides my aprons were one or two decayed-looking skirts and jerseys. I would not be busy that afternoon, so I made up my mind to go into Birching and ‘look at the shops’.
When the others saw me hurrying lunch in order to catch the bus, there was a good deal of caustic comment.
‘You goin’ to town, Mae West?’ said Nellie. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve found a young man, you lucky girl!’ I couldn’t help blushing guiltily, and they were all delighted. ‘I do believe it’s that handsome policeman at the cross-roads,’ said Miss Biggs naughtily.
‘How did you guess?’ I said, getting up to go.
‘If you can’t be good, be careful!’ screamed Nellie after me, as I ran up the back stairs.
I only just caught the bus and flung myself panting into a seat beside a fat farmer. I had recovered my breath by the time we got to Birching, but he was still puffing from the mere effort of being stout. Stepping down into the market square, I looked about me for a fashion salon.
There was a draper’s shop on one corner, whose windows besides displaying balls of wool and innumerable lace collars, contained one or two rather depressed-looking dresses. One of them, a tasteful creation in pink sateen, had a label pinned across it saying ‘à la mode’, so I thought I would risk it. I opened the door and nearly knocked over a small man in pince-nez, who was waiting on the other side of it to direct customers.
‘Which department, Madam?’ he inquired, indicating with a wave of his hand a choice of three or four counters. ‘I want to try that pink dress in the window,�
� I said.
‘Ladies’ Modes? Certainly, madam. Miss Smith, take madam to the Ladies’ Modes.’ A fuzzy-haired young woman with a heavy cold ushered me through a curtain into a little room at the back of the shop, containing two mirrors and an ash-tray. She brought me the dress and stood snivelling while I struggled into it. It might have been worse, even though it did make one think of 1920, when waists were somewhere round the hips. It would have to do for Chilford, though I doubted whether Bessie could possibly be jealous of Jim going out with a pink sateen dress that ended in a girlish frill about six inches from the ground.
‘I’ll take it,’ I said, in spite of having just caught sight of my back view.
‘It looks lovely,’ said the sniffing one, sadly – ‘ever so stylish.’
I smuggled it home and up to my room, and stored it carefully in the tin suitcase. I had decided that I couldn’t possibly change at Chilford House without being discovered, so when the great day arrived, I borrowed Nellie’s bicycle, giving them to understand that I had a heavy date with the policeman, and rode off after tea with my ball gown in a shopping bag on the handlebars. The ‘Green Man’ at Chilford provided me with a small dim room, in which I changed and did my face and hair as best I could. I felt far more terrified than a debutante at a state ball as I descended to the Private Bar where I was to meet Jim.
‘How do I look?’ I asked him, as I sipped my port and lemon.
‘You look grand,’ he said, chivalrously but doubtfully. He himself was looking smart and shiny in a blue serge suit, and I felt quite proud as we entered the village hall, gay with twists of coloured paper and bells left over from Christmas. ‘The Four Happy Harmonists’, in co-respondent shoes, were swinging it to the ‘Lily of Laguna’, so I took off my coat and Jim and I ventured a genteel foxtrot.
After about five minutes he suddenly pinched me, and I came to with a start from the trance that the combination of music and the smell of his hair oil was producing.
‘She’s here!’ he breathed into my ear, and directed my gaze to the doorway. A buxom black-eyed girl was entering gaily on the arm of a small creature with red hair and a fatuous smile of pride.
‘Hold me closer, Jim,’ I whispered back, ‘don’t forget you’ve got to make her jealous.’
He clutched me fervently to his bosom, breathing heavily and falling over my feet in his emotion. I threw back my head with a fascinating smile of careless rapture, and had the satisfaction of seeing Bessie’s jaw drop and her eyes blaze as we glided across her view. She tossed her head and danced off with Ginger, steering him deftly, as he was too small to see over her shoulder.
In the interval, I made Jim get me some fizzy lemonade, and sit by me in an attentive way, though his eyes kept swivelling round to where Bessie was chatting brightly and glancing at him covertly when she thought he wasn’t looking.
My plan worked even quicker than I expected. One more passionate polka with Jim, and Bessie could contain herself no longer. At the end of the dance I skipped out of the door, and when I returned, five minutes later, the deed had been done. The pair of them were waltzing together, and if their feet were not always doing the same steps, their dreamy eyes were in perfect communion. Ginger had disappeared, presumably to drown his sorrows in the Green Man. Jim didn’t even see me as he floated past ecstatically, so, having done my good deed, and feeling rather de trop, I decided to go home.
It was starting to rain when I got outside, and I was hanged if I was going to bicycle a mile and a half in ‘my Ladies’ Modes’. I felt I was entitled to some reward for my evening’s work, so I hopped round to the public-house yard where Jim had left the Daimler, and drove myself home in style.
After all he had Love, so I didn’t see why I shouldn’t have Luxury.
*
Life was almost too gay. Not long after the village dance, I began to hear talk of what was apparently an annual event at Chilford House – a Servants’ Ball at Whitsun. The house was to be full again over the long week-end, and family, guests, and staff would mingle with a great deal of embarrassment on all sides, and dance in the big hall to the strains of the Happy Harmonists.
There was a lot of discussion and excitement in the kitchen regions. Mildred and the pantry-maid had returned in preparation for the house party, and a stout old charlady came every day and swelled our gathering at the lunch table.
Nellie was going to wear red taffeta at the dance, and was hoping to pinch the broken-nosed Teddy from Mildred, who had had conspicuous success with him the year before.
‘Did he reely kiss you behind the coats in the lobby, Mil?’ she said one day when we were, as usual, discussing the topic of the hour.
‘Mm,’ said Mildred, blushing furiously.
‘How lovely. Wait till he sees me in me red. He’ll go for me in a big way, see if he don’t.’
‘Pride comes before a fall,’ said Miss Biggs. ‘Don’t talk so shocking, Nellie.’
‘Who else is going to be there, anyway?’ Nellie asked Dawkes. ‘Any guests coming except pot-bellied old geezers with flat feet?’
‘One or two,’ said Dawkes, who had evidently been through his employers’ entire correspondence on the subject. ‘Mr and Mrs Wilson-George – that dame with the fancy sparklers; the Gregorys – dirty spongers – mean as hell, no tip from them. A bloke from London – friend of Mr Teddy’s, I think –’
‘New Blood, eh? What’s his name?’
‘Let’s see. Robin something or other – Brook – no Burke, Robin Burke.’
All eyes were turned on me as I choked on a fish-bone and was very nearly sick on the table. I fled from the room, thankful for an excuse to hide my horror. This was terrible! What a ghastly situation, to be cook in the house where one of the guests was to be an old flame of two years ago, and to come face to face with him at the Servants’ Ball wearing pink sateen, and black strap shoes. I could not possibly go to the dance. Apart from the embarrassment of meeting him, it would lead to all sorts of complications and explanations below stairs. On the morning of the dance, I appeared at breakfast with my right foot heavily bandaged and encased in a carpet slipper. There were cries of sympathetic inquiry from all sides.
‘Spilt some boiling water on it,’ I explained. ‘Just my rotten luck. No dancing for me.’
‘Well, you are a wounded warrior!’ cried Miss Biggs. ‘Never mind, you shall sit with me, and we’ll watch the young folk enjoying themselves.’
I was disappointed to hear that she was not going to dance. I had had visions of her doing the Rumba, clicking out the rhythm on the bones of her stays. I said: ‘Not me – I’m not going to come to the rotten show if I can’t dance. I shall go to bed and pray for you all.’
I really was disappointed at not being able to go; I had been looking forward to my spot of gaiety. It was just like Robin to turn up at a time like this. He had always been possessed of a charming lack of tact.
I hopped and limped about the kitchen all day, and my other leg became quite crippled under the strain. I had been very busy for the past few days making refreshments, and there was still a lot to do on the day of the dance. By five o’clock I was thankful to sink into a chair and revive myself with tea. The others looked pretty dead too, they had been hard at it all day under the eye of Mrs Lewis, and Nellie voiced the feelings of everybody when she said:
‘I’m not sure that this hop isn’t more trouble than it’s worth. I feel more like goin’ to bed and sleeping for a week than prancing round the ballroom on me poor dogs.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Rose. ‘I quite envy Mrs D. her scald.’ Dawkes, who had gone to answer the telephone, came back at this moment, and said gleefully to Nellie:
‘Got a disappointment for you, my girl. Mr Burke’s just phoned to say his car’s broke down and he won’t be here till morning.’ ‘Oh, it’s too much,’ said Nellie, pouting. ‘Just when I was all set for Romance. I shall have to make a go for that sissy curate. It’s me last chance.’
I was delighted. All I had to
do now was to effect a quick and plausible cure on my foot and I would be able to go after all.
I got up and went to the door, reducing my limp considerably. ‘My foot’s ever so much better this evening,’ I said brightly. ‘I think I’ll just pop up and put some more ointment on it. I might be able to come after all. You never know, I might cut you out with the curate yet, Nell.’
They seemed to take this all right, so as the evening drew on I gradually got less and less lame. Each time somebody poked their head into the kitchen to say: ‘How’s the foot?’ I gave more and more cheering bulletins, till at last I was able to announce that I was coming after all, ‘if my foot doesn’t turn on me.’
There was no proper dinner to cook for the dining-room; they had a cold buffet, in order to give us a chance to get cleared up and changed by nine o’clock, when the guests were due to arrive. Both servants and employers had been asked from houses in the neighbourhood; class consciousness would be thrown to the winds, and a good time enjoyed by all. After dinner Dawkes and the girls had to put out the refreshments and drinks on long tables in the dining-room, and Polly and I converted the servants’ hall into a ladies cloakroom for the visiting maids.
One Pair of Hands Page 14