Below Stairs

by Margaret Powell

  Although much of what I have said may make you think I was envious of the lives of other people this wasn’t really the case. It was the inequality and the unfairness that struck me so much of the time. But there was one person of whom I was both jealous and envious: Miss Susan, the eldest of Mrs Cutler’s grandchildren. She was only two years younger than I was, but what a different life hers was from mine! She was almost as tall as I was, and she had the same sort of hair colouring, but there the resemblance finished completely, because Miss Susan was and had everything that I wasn’t and hadn’t. She had masses of clothes, a horse to ride, a tennis court to play on. She could speak French, play the piano, sing well; I was envious of her life, envious of all her accomplishments. Not all the time. But when she came down into the kitchen to ask for something and I was at the sink, you know, immersed in bowls of greasy water, washing saucepans, my hair straight as pump water, clad in a sacking apron, and there she was, only two years younger than me, tripping in, dressed up to the nines, and with her cultivated voice asking for something which I would immediately have to rush to get for her, I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t felt envious. Everything was done for her, the under-nurse used to brush her hair, her bath was got ready, even the toothpaste used to be laid on the brush ready for her.

  Sometimes she came with a message for the cook, and Mrs Bowchard would be all smiles for Miss Susan. It would be, ‘Oh yes, Miss Susan’, ‘No, Miss Susan’, ‘Certainly, Miss Susan’. And when she had gone Mrs Bowchard would say to me, ‘Doesn’t she look a picture, she’s a sight for sore eyes, a ray of sunshine.’ It seemed to hurt. Once I had the temerity to say, ‘If only she’d had to work down here for a week she wouldn’t be such a ray of sunshine.’ Mrs Bowchard, she was furious with me. She said, ‘You’re just eaten up with jealousy because you could never hope to look like that, even if you had money you couldn’t look or behave like Miss Susan.’ I don’t think I really begrudged Miss Susan her place in life, it was just the contrast was so marked when she came into our kitchen. And you see she never spoke to me or even noticed me. You would have thought she would have done. I was another young girl of about her own age. So I thought she was stuck up, but it could have been she was being tactful, that she noticed the contrast between what I was and what she was, so I might have been doing her an injustice now that I look back on it.

  19

  CHRISTMAS IN domestic service was nothing like the Christmases we had at home. I remember the excitement there was at home even with little money, the excitement of waking up early, the rush into our parents’ room for the presents and stockings. We didn’t have turkeys or Christmas trees, but we had plenty of laughter and there was always enough food to eat.

  Christmas in Mrs Cutler’s house was a very formal and elaborate affairs. There used to be a large tree in the dining-room which was decorated by the nanny.

  On Christmas Day after breakfast all the servants had to line up in the hall. Being the lowest in status I was at the end of the line. Then we had to file into the dining-room where all the family, Mr and Mrs Cutler, and the daughter, and the grandchildren, were assembled complete with Christmas smiles, and social-welfare expressions. The children looked at us as though we were beings from another world. And I suppose to them we were really sub-beings from a sub-world. It used to remind me of those adverts with blacks all walking along. I used to keep kidding Gladys, trying to make her laugh. But you couldn’t really laugh, it was such a solemn occasion. Talk about Christmas! When we got to the Christmas tree we deferentially accepted the parcels that were handed to us by the children, and muttered, ‘Thank you, Master Charles, thank you, Miss Susan.’ Oh I hated it all.

  Then we had to go to the Master and Madam and were given an envelope containing money; I used to have a pound and Mrs Bowchard had five pounds. The presents were always something useful; print dress lengths, aprons, black stockings, not silk, of course, they never gave you anything frivolous; black woollen stockings. How I longed for some of the things they had, silk underwear, perfume, jewellery, why couldn’t they have given us something like that? Why did we always have to have sensible things? I think that the reason they used to give us uniforms was because they knew we couldn’t buy them out of our measly wages. Besides if we were to have perfume or silk we would go astray. So I hated this parade of Christmas goodwill, and the pretence that we also had a good time at Christmas.

  We had to work like trojans, coping with their dinner parties and the other entertaining that went on upstairs. All right, we had a Christmas tree in our servants’ hall that they’d bought, but they never put anything on it; we had to decorate it up with tinsel and bells and things, and they didn’t put their presents on it. We had to line up before them in Indian file accepting their alms. That was Christmas there.

  It was a replica of all the Christmases I had in domestic service. Formal and elaborate, a lot of entertaining by them, but nothing much for us. I dare say in the very large establishments they would arrange a servants’ ball like they do at Buckingham Palace. But from what I know of that sort of thing it never took place at Christmas, it was always well afterwards.

  About two months after Christmas we had to start on the spring-cleaning. That was a major operation, and lasted for four weeks. Spring-cleaning in those days was done with nothing, I mean no Hoovers, no mechanical aids, no modern detergents, nothing. People don’t spring-clean nowadays, they just keep their houses clean all the year round.

  During these four weeks I got up at five o’clock every morning and I worked until about eight o’clock at night. Then I had to get supper for the servants after that. We all worked these hours, but, of course, I remember mine in particular because it was mine that made me tired, not theirs! I used to crawl up to bed, too weary even to wash. I know it sounds dirty, but you work from five till eight doing spring cleaning in an old-fashioned house where they have coal fires in every room, and you’d be very weary.

  The first job was to scrub all the stone floors in the basement using a mixture of soap and sand. Those stone floors in the basement weren’t like those very shiny tiles that you see in front porches or kitchens nowadays. They were pitted and those pittings used to get filled with dirt, and only a mixture of soap and sand and a scrubbing-brush would get it out. All the iron and copper saucepans had to be cleaned on the outside even more than usual, and the huge steel fender and fire had to be polished until it looked like new, every bit of china had to be washed (there was enough to stock a shop), and the long kitchen tables, and the chairs and the dresser all had to be scrubbed until they were white. My hands used to get raw and bleeding and my nails broken and jagged.

  Upstairs it was easier for the house- and parlourmaids, there wasn’t so much scrubbing. The carpets were the worst things there. In those days people had hundreds of little china ornaments all of which had to be washed.

  Spring-cleaning the silver was a major operation. In this particular house, and in the majority like it, the silver was stored in a safe and the working silver was put in it every night. The safe was a sort of room that led off the dining-room, its door concealed by a screen. You could walk right into it. There were tea sets, not just one, a number, coffee sets, candelabras, table centres, and silver salvers; it used to look like an Aladdin’s Cave. They used jeweller’s rouge, not one of these white pastes in tins that are used nowadays, then polish with a leather and a brush. It was a long operation to make sure that none of the stuff was ever left in the little cracks and crevices.

  Although we had to work these long hours we didn’t get any extra money. But as a treat for this particular job Mrs Cutler used to book us seats at the theatre. Half of the staff went one week, and half the next. I remember the last show I went to, it was a comedy. But I didn’t really enjoy it because we were in the expensive seats, sitting among the well-to-do, and I felt conspicuous wearing a somewhat shabby black coat and a pair of black cotton gloves which I didn’t dare take off because my hands were all red and raw. I re
member the following morning the cook said to me, ‘Did you have a good time?’ I said, ‘Oh it was all right.’ So she said, ‘Well, don’t forget to say thank you tomorrow morning to Madam for the evening out that she gave you.’ So I replied with great boldness, ‘Well, Madam hasn’t said thank you to me for all the extra work I’ve done for her.’ I thought the cook would have suffocated with rage. ‘You’re here to work,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t like the job we can very soon get another kitchen maid.’

  Anyway, by this time I’d been a kitchen maid nearly three years, and after three years of being the lowest, and the lowliest-paid servant, I reckoned I could get by as a trained cook. At least I knew how to cook vegetables, make sauces and I thought I’d learnt a few other things as I’d gone along.

  So I looked in the papers and at last I saw an advertisement . . . Good plain cook wanted; it was for a house in Kensington. So I wrote. I had to put two years on to my age because I thought if I told them how old I was they wouldn’t employ me. I was sure they would consider eighteen too young to be a cook. I got a reply and was asked to go for an interview.

  On the appointed day I presented myself at the house, not without some trepidation, because it’s a tremendous jump from kitchen maid to cook. When I got there the usual inquisition followed. Madam started off with, ‘How old are you?’ ‘Twenty,’ I lied. ‘Is your home in London? Are you afraid of work?’

  Now of all the ridiculous questions to ask anyone, ‘Are you afraid of work?’ There’s a good many people who’re not afraid of work who don’t like it. If she’d have said, ‘Do you like work?’ it would have been just as silly. My idea of heaven at that time was a place where you didn’t have anything to do except sit around fiddling with your harp.

  This lady had a title, she was Lady Gibbons. But I could tell straight away she wasn’t of the gentry. She told me there were three in the family; herself, Sir Walter Gibbons, and a son. ‘How much money were you thinking of?’ she asked. I heard a voice that didn’t sound like mine saying, ‘Forty pounds.’ ‘Forty pounds!’ she echoed, as if I’d asked for the Crown Jewels. Then there was a pause as if she thought I’d reconsider it. I didn’t. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and I want one whole day off a month.’ Her face fell still further. ‘If I give you a whole day off every month,’ she said, ‘the housemaid and the parlourmaid will want one too.’ I said nothing. Just sat silent.

  I’ve always found it’s the best defence, be quiet, don’t answer, then they felt that although you disagreed with them you realized it wasn’t your place to argue with your betters. This attitude usually paid off. In any case although servants were still two-a-penny, the first rumblings of revolt at wages and conditions were beginning to be heard, and it wasn’t so easy to give next to nothing and hardly any time off.

  I got the job. Forty pounds a year and my day off a month as well.

  Once again I had the unpleasant task of giving a month’s notice to Mrs Cutler. This time there could be no inducements and she wouldn’t offer me more money because once you give one servant any more money, everyone would ask for more. Once again I went through the ritual of making an appointment to see her as though she was some royalty. I laid on the old smarm and she laid on a little lecture. It could have been a lot worse.

  The unpleasantness came from Mrs Bowchard. It wasn’t that she had any personal animosity against me, she just didn’t like kitchen maids, she didn’t really like anyone that was that much younger than herself. For a whole month I was subjected to a barrage of innuendoes about my capabilities as a cook. She’d say, ‘Suppose they ask you to make so and so, how would you do it?’ I didn’t know how to do it, because I hadn’t had a chance of learning, and I’d say, ‘I’ll get it out of a book.’ ‘Meg,’ she’d say, ‘you can’t cook from a book, you learn from practical experience.’ I’d say, ‘But you’ve got to start.’ ‘I didn’t start when I was eighteen, I was twenty-five before I thought I was anywhere near good enough,’ she’d sneer. ‘Times are changing, aren’t they?’ I’d reply. ‘For the worse for Lady Gibbons. You only know how to do vegetables.’ And then she’d start on about their digestions, how she hoped they’d got good ones; digging at me all the time.

  Then of course I had to leave everything spotless so that when the new kitchen maid came it would all look marvellous. I knew just how Mrs Bowchard would be. When she got the new kitchen maid I would be praised, ‘Ah, when I had Margaret, she was a good girl, she used to do this, that, and the other.’ The last fortnight was the worst of the lot, but knowing I was going I didn’t worry. I stayed as pleasant as I knew how to be.

  The only one I was sorry to leave was Gladys. We’d got on like a ‘house on fire’; she’d come from a home as poor as mine, and she never built castles in the air. We’d just got on fine. One thing I did vow to myself was that if ever I was good enough a cook to have a kitchen maid I’d never be as foul to her as Mrs Bowchard had been to me.

  20

  I ARRIVED AT Lady Gibbons’ full of confidence if not much knowledge.

  I got my first shock when I went to the servants’ hall. There I found the housemaid, Jessica, but no parlourmaid. Jessica told me that there was a constant procession of housemaids and parlourmaids; nobody would stay long because of Lady Gibbons’ temper. ‘She’s an absolute cow,’ Jessica said. ‘Mean as a muck-worm, eyes like a gimlet, and a nose like a bloodhound.’ I thought, well this is fine, this is a lovely job I’ve come into. I said, ‘What do you mean, a nose like a bloodhound?’ She said, ‘If you use the gas stove because you’ve let the fire get low, you’ll find her at the top of the kitchen stairs bawling down, “Are you using the gas stove, cook?” She can smell it. That’s what I mean.’

  The following day I came to realize how parsimonious Lady Gibbons was. I’d come from a house where the cook just telephoned for everything she wanted. Where vast quantities of milk and cream, eggs, and butter were used every day; where caviare and pâté de foie gras were quite commonplace, and where any left-overs would be thrown in the pig bucket.

  That first morning Lady Gibbons came into the kitchen, she walked into the larder and inspected every bit of food there. I’d never seen anything like that happen before, nor since. She peered into the old bread crock, she even counted the crusts. She looked into the flour bin and the vegetable rack and the ice box, and she ended up by counting the eggs. I was absolutely dumbfounded. I kept on imagining Mrs Bowchard’s face if Mrs Cutler had come down and done the same thing. She wouldn’t have stayed five minutes, she would have given her notice there and then.

  My next shock was when she told me that she did all the ordering and that anything I wanted I’d have to ask for. She had a store cupboard in the basement and everything was all doled out to me in minute quantities, and the cupboard was then locked. I was never given the key.

  For instance, the jam was ladled out of one of those big seven-pound jars as though it was so much gold dust. And the same with tea and other things – just enough for each day. Mind you, perhaps in some ways this was an advantage, inasmuch as I was very inexperienced and I wouldn’t have known what to order, and running the store cupboard would just have been an added worry.

  I think I should explain that when you go to a house as a ‘good plain cook’ you don’t get a kitchen maid. Nor was there the large staff that I’d known before. There was just me, a chauffeur, a housemaid, and parlourmaid, and as I’ve said, often only one of the last two.

  When it came to what to call me, Lady Gibbons was in a quandary. The two other cooks I’d known had been called ‘Mrs’ even though they weren’t married; a sort of courtesy title, but Lady Gibbons said I was too young to be called ‘Mrs’. She called the other servants by their surnames, but I didn’t like that, so we settled for ‘cook’.

  She wanted me to wear a cap, but I wouldn’t. It always struck me as a badge of servitude. I know nurses wear caps but somehow it’s different with them. In any case it was a hideous cap, so I left it off. Lady Gibbons didn’t like it, but
she couldn’t really do anything about it.

  During the morning the parlourmaid used to have to go upstairs to help the housemaid make the beds. And while she was upstairs Lady Gibbons asked me if I would answer the front door. I used to wear print dresses with short sleeves that finished at my elbow; one morning she came down with a cap and a pair of white cotton armlets that fitted from the wrist up to the elbow, and she said, ‘Oh, I’ve brought you these down, cook, because I think you would feel more comfortable if you went to the front door wearing them.’ She didn’t think I would feel more comfortable at all, what she really meant was that she would feel a lot more comfortable. So I said, ‘Oh yes, thank you, M’Lady,’ because you used to have to say ‘M’Lady’; naturally, being a titled Lady, you didn’t say Madam. ‘Yes thank you, M’Lady.’ And I just put them away in my drawer. I never did put them on. She never said anything more. She knew the rules; they were not written down but they were all there unwritten. She knew that she could no more compel me to wear a cap and those armlets than fly.

  When I started cooking I found out that it was quite true what Mrs Bowchard had said, that there was more to it than following the books, more to it even than experience; you had to have a kind of instinct about it, and I didn’t seem to have much in the way of instinct at that time.

  One dish I came a cropper on was beef-olives. I’d watched Mrs Bowchard make these, she used to use the best fillet steak, cut it into thin slices, and then put a little veal forcemeat on each slice, roll it up, tie it with very thin twine, and cook it in a casserole. When you’ve cooked them you cut the twine off and serve them up. It’s a dish which is full of flavour. Lady Gibbons was very fond of salt beef, and would have it as a hot dish on a Sunday perhaps, served with carrots and boiled onions. It was very economical. When it was cold she used to want me to make beef-olives with it. Well, when you cut and fold a slice of cold salt beef, it cracks everywhere. I used to tie them up in little bundles, putting string this way and that. Then of course when they were cooked I couldn’t get the string off, it had embedded itself in. So I sent them up as they were. When the three plates came down all the bits of string were round the edge in a sort of silent reproach.