Thinking that the conversation had taken a martial turn, I saw it as a chance to make my exit. The last time I had been with Michael, he had been holding me so tightly I could hear his heart beating. I hadn't mentally prepared for his return.
“Good night, gentlemen. I'll let you two catch up. Tomorrow's a work day for me.”
As I walked past Michael, he caught me by my arm and said, “Hell, I don't want to catch up with Geoff.” Putting his beer down, he said, “Let's go somewhere. There must be a dance club around here that isn't shuttered.”
The three of us ended up in a half-empty club with a three-piece band and a piano player who was feeling no pain, but it seemed that neither Geoff nor Michael cared about the quality of the music. While Michael was ordering a round of drinks, Geoff headed straight for a blonde, who was coming out of the ladies' room. After putting three ales down in front of me, Michael offered me a cigarette. I shook my head and told him I didn't smoke.
“You don't smoke, and you drink very little. Do you have any vices?”
“Yes, I swear like a sailor.” Michael started to laugh. He had the most beautiful smile. His father told me that he had spent a fortune on braces for Michael, and it had been worth every penny. “My mother always said there were three things a lady never did: smoke in public, chew gum, and cross your legs at the knees. I think she read it in a Ladies' Home Journal article.”
“Well, it's true that smoking is very bad for you. I'll agree with your mother there. And chewing gum is repulsive, regardless of sex. However, I have to disagree with her about crossing your legs at the knees. In your case, it's just bad advice.” It seemed that our flirtation was up and running, and Michael had been home only for a couple of hours.
The band was now playing a piano number that was even worse than the first, but Michael insisted that we dance. Although it wasn't a slow dance, he was acting as if it was and started singing “Always,” the song the band had played at Montclair for its last number. I was back in his arms again.
When we returned to our table, two men were sitting there. The more sober one had heard my accent, and he started in on Americans.
“The way I hear it, the British had their thumbs up their arses while America saved the world. Isn't that right, deary?”
There's always a fine line when talking to someone who has had too much to drink. Do you engage in the hopes he will settle down, or do you just walk away? The problem was, he was sitting at our table. I could see Geoff and Michael were not amused and were about to give both of them the boot. I didn't want a barroom brawl, so I decided to walk away and told the boys I was heading home. Michael was out of his chair in a flash. “You can't go home yet.”
“Actually, I can. That is possibly the worst band I have ever heard, and I've heard lots of them. I come from a town where every kid thought he was the next Tommy Dorsey. Besides, I have to work in the morning, and I'm tired, but I'd appreciate it if you walked me to the Underground.” And we left Geoff behind with the blonde.
Sitting on the bench waiting for the train, Michael asked what I had been doing since our farewell at the train station.
“I'm still with AAFES.” I explained about the three B-29 squadrons that were now stationed in England. “But I'm pretty sure I'll be heading home in January.”
“Has something caused you to change your mind about going back to your hometown?”
“Yes, my Aunt Marie has been ill for a few weeks now, and she's in her eighties. Besides, I'm beginning to feel as if I'm in limbo here.”
“I'm confused as to your plans,” he said. “After seeing your family and aunt, are you staying in Minooka? I didn't think that was an option because of the lack of jobs.”
Seeing his furrowed brow, I said, “Don't worry. I have cousins strategically placed throughout the country and a sister who lives near New York City.”
“I'm probably out of line here, but where is Rob in all of this?”
“Rob's employment with TRC ends on December 23rd. After that, he's going to Omaha to visit with the family of his friend, who was killed on the Stuttgart mission. From there, he goes to Arizona to be with his family, and on to California, where he's going to graduate school at UCLA.”
“In school, I was pretty good at geography,” Michael said. “It seems to me that while you remain on the East Coast, Rob is moving west.”
Just before the train arrived, I had been on the verge of telling him that Rob's whereabouts were of less and less interest to me. But the moment passed.
After we boarded, I asked him what his plans were, hoping to turn the conversation away from Rob and me. “Are you going to The Tech in January?”
“No. I've completely changed my plans. I'm going into medicine.”
“Are you talking about the whole nine yards? Are you going to become a doctor?”
“Not sure yet. I've been interested in medicine since I was a boy in India, but I don't just want to practice Western medicine. When I was in hospital in India, Indian troops were segregated from the British troops, mostly because of the diet restrictions of the Moslems and Hindis. I noticed the Indians, who were receiving a combination of Western and Eastern medicine, healed quicker than those who were receiving just Western treatments. Pain management is critical to healing, and Eastern medicine is much better in that area.”
Looking at him in a totally different light, I said, “I know you'll be very good at whatever you decide.” Michael took my hand and squeezed it and asked what I would be doing that weekend.
“I'm supposed to divert your attention, so that you won't know we're giving you a surprise party.
Laughing, Michael said, “I'm looking forward to being diverted.”
I was told to keep Michael busy for at least two hours, so we decided to go to the British Museum while Beth got everything ready for the party. Of all the museums and historical points of interest in London, the British Museum was my favorite, mostly because of the Elgin Marbles.
There had been an ongoing debate since the marbles had been removed from Greece in 1806 as to who owned the friezes taken from the Parthenon atop the acropolis in Athens. Britain's position was that they had “rescued” the marbles from centuries of neglect and mutilation by a series of invaders. Greece's position was much more emotional. Britain had looted its artistic patrimony, and they wanted the marbles back.
I was surprised to find Michael firmly on the side of the British and not the Greek underdog, saying that, if the British had not removed the friezes, people hoping to see them in situ in Athens would have found little more than fragments lying on the ground. Although I loved being able to view the friezes, the marbles were remnants of Greece's glorious classical past. Surely, something so emblematic of their country should be returned to the Greeks. We decided to enjoy the marbles and let the Greek and British governments fight it out.
The two hours passed quickly, and I told Michael it was time to go home to meet his adoring fans. The double doors to the dining room were closed, waiting for the honored guest to arrive. When they were opened, everyone broke into applause, and Michael gave a bravura performance of acting surprised. I was looking around the room at all the people who had come to welcome Michael home when I saw Leo and my boss.
“I don't want to seem rude, but what are you doing here?” I asked Don.
“Beth contacted me, figuring that I could come up with a good-sized turkey for the party. She felt it was only fair that if I supplied the bird, I should be invited.”
Don was going to say more, when Patricia rang the dinner bell and asked all of her guests to be seated. At a signal from Patricia, Andrews and Jim Budd, who had been waiting behind a screen, began to serve fruit cocktail and tomato juice, which was just what I would have had if I had been at home. After the servants cleared the fruit cups, they entered the room carrying dishes of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans, biscuits, and something I never expected to see in England—cranberry sauce. It was when the cranberry sauce
was placed in front of me that I realized what was happening. Everyone shouted, “Happy Thanksgiving.” The party hadn't been for Michael but for me, and I started to cry.
Because it had to have been Geoff who told Beth how much I missed the Thanksgiving holiday, I gave him a big kiss. Michael said from across the table, “Hey, wait a minute. I did more than he did. I kept you busy all morning.”
I went around to Michael and kissed him, and he said quietly, “May I have more of that later?”
Chapter 40
WHEN I FIRST MOVED in with the Alcotts, Patricia had said I should feel free to have my friends visit, and my most frequent visitor was Pamela. When we had worked in the same office building, Pamela and I had lunch together almost every day. Since Jack had gotten her husband a job on a construction crew resurfacing roads, Troy was frequently away from their home in Stepton, and she didn't like to be alone. With her son cradled in a carrier, she often came to London, and on one of those visits, she came up with a real nugget.
“After the ball, my mum and I were talking, and that's when she told me my granny had been a scullery maid at Montclair, but only for a short time. Her dad had died, but once her mum remarried, she was able to bring her back home. Anyway, you should come up to Stepton and meet Granny. She could tell you what it was like to work at Montclair around 1900.”
As it turned out, I didn't have to go to Stepton because Granny had given Pamela the name of a woman who had also been in service at Montclair and who lived in London. I told Michael about Dottie, and he asked if he could tag along.
Dottie was living with her daughter in a small flat in a South London neighborhood that had miraculously survived the bombings. She was probably in her midsixties, and like many of her generation, was missing most of her teeth. She was very pleased to meet Michael, the grandson of her former mistress, and throughout the afternoon, kept telling him that he should go to Hollywood because he was “better looking than Cary Grant and Clark Gable put together.” And to me she said, “And you are quite a looker yourself, with your dark hair and blue eyes and nice figger. You two look just like Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney in The Razor's Edge. Did you see that one, Luv? It were the first movie I seen after the war.”
I asked her if she minded talking about her time in service. She said her memories from Montclair were good ones, and she had no problem sharing them with us.
“I didn't start out at Montclair but at Turner Hall as a scullery maid when I was thirteen,” Dottie began. “My dad was killed in a mine explosion, and my mum couldn't feed all of us—six children—that's how many we were. Two years later, she was gone, too, so there were no going back home for me. Mr. Turner was one of Sir Andrew's right-hand men. He bought some property from the Laceys that were north of Stepton, and the Turners went and built this monster of a house on it.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “It were a horrible, horrible job if ever there were one—sixteen hours a day, scrubbing pots and pans, mopping the kitchen floor over and over, plucking chickens, hauling coal. By the time I was fifteen, I had the hands of an old woman. Your whole life were working and sleeping, working and sleeping. The only time I didn't work was on Sunday mornings, when we all had to go to church with the Turners, and the time my throat swolled up so bad I had to go to hospital, which meant three days of lost pay.
“Mr. Cutter, the butler, who always acted as if he had a broom up his arse, would tell us that servants were supposed to be invisible. Say, I was sweeping the stairs, and by sweeping I mean using a hand brush and going stair by stair on my knees, and Mrs. Turner come by. I was to stay perfectly still and make myself as small as possible until she passed. We were never ever to talk to the family. Not that I would have wanted to. That house wouldn't have lasted one day without the servants, but God forbid the master or mistress should know we were in the house. When I started out at Turner Hall, I cried every night. Poor Ellie, she'd be the scullery maid I shared a bed with, would listen to me cry 'til I fell off to sleep, but she said she done the same thing for the longest time until she seen there weren't nothing she could do about it, so why lose sleep.
“The housekeeper was always getting after the maids 'cause of complaints from them above stairs. I was practically dragged upstairs one day by Mrs. Hallam 'cause she found lint on a stair. You would have thought I had shit on the carpet the way she acted.
“And the cook, Monsieur Rideau! What a nasty piece of work he was, having tantrums, throwing pots and pans, pushing me out of the way. He threw a quail at me once 'cause I missed a feather.
“We had lots of rules. We couldn't leave the property without permission. Family weren't allowed to visit without permission, and if it were found out that a girl had a follower, she would have been sent packing without a character. One of the maids got pregnant, and as soon as it were known, she was put out on the road 'cause it would 'tarnish the family's reputation.' That were a joke 'cause you'd see the young Mr. Turner going into a maid's room at all hours. Only time in my life I was glad that I wasn't good-looking, 'cause he left me alone.
“But then Ellie left and got a job at Montclair, and she got me a job, too. First, I was seen by Mrs. Crowell and then Lady Lacey, Miss Elizabeth's grandmother. She would have been in her fifties at that time, and she was just starting to go gray. She had the most beautiful reddish brown hair, but it were her green eyes that grabbed hold of you. You're not supposed to stare at people, especially your betters, but you couldn't help yourself when Lady Lacey looked at you.
“Anyways, I went in, and Lady Lacey said, 'Please sit down.' Someone above stairs saying 'please' to a servant, that were my first clue this house were different. Then to be asked to sit down—that were the second. I can remember that day like it were yesterday. The day of my freedom from slavery at Turner Hall.
“Lady Lacey said I'd be on probation for six months. If after that time Mrs. Crowell said I was a hard worker and a good girl, I'd be asked to stay on and that I'd have one day off every week. Love a duck! A day off!” Dottie said, nearly jumping out of her chair. “I never had one, so on my first day off, I sat out in the courtyard, not having a clue what to do.
“And then there were the Irish laundry maids. Well, they were a piece of work. Even though they could speak English, they spoke their Irish gibberish. To my mind, the laundry maid's job were worst job in the house for a girl 'cause the lye soaps just eat away at your skin. Those girls weren't the cleanest people, neither. They figgered that they were in water all day, so they didn't need to wash. Mrs. Crowell had to get after them to take a bath and to see to their private parts regular like.”
I could see out of the corner of my eye that Michael was finding all of this to be very amusing. I did too, but I was embarrassed that the Irish maids were so dirty.
“Lady Sarah Lacey, your grandmother,” she said, pointing at Michael, “was an American and very thrifty. She didn't see no sense in having five or six courses every night when there weren't any guests in the house. Do you now what that means to a scullery? Do you know how many dishes and glasses have to be washed for every course served? It made a big, big difference, especially come the end of the day when you're so tired you can hardly stand. Besides, that whole family had the fidgets, especially Mr. Matthew. He'd always be below stairs looking for Jack or Tom to play football.
“Mr. Trevor were the best-looking boy I ever seen until I set eyes on this beautiful boy right here in front of me,” Dottie said with a great big laugh and slapped Michael on his knee. She laughed so hard it brought on a coughing fit. “Fags,” she explained, pounding on her chest. “I give 'em up two years ago, but the damage is done.
“Those Lacey boys were always below stairs looking for something to eat, and Mrs. Bradshaw would make 'em sandwiches or heat up the leftovers. Master Reed was my favorite, and Lord could he ever eat! He was always carrying that little beagle with him. That family had more dogs than a city pound, but Blossom were the only dog allowed below stairs 'cause Mrs. Bradshaw wasn't having
any fur in her food.”
Taking a sip from a glass of water, Dottie said, “I'm surprised you haven't asked about Miss Elizabeth seeing how she's this young man's mother.” Michael smiled, knowing I had tried several times to get in a question about Beth.
“Well, your mother, I knew her to be a sweet girl and she'd be prettier than any other girl I ever seen come into that house. She had beautiful long brown hair, and she liked to wear it in a braid. Keep in mind, when I left, Miss Elizabeth was still a girl. After her lessons, she'd come and sit down on the stairs while I was brushing them and talk to me. One time, she asked me if I had a beau. I thought she was a mind reader 'cause I had just started walking out with my Jimmy, who I had met at a dance in Stepton. He come up from Sheffield 'cause he said he'd run through all the girls down there. Cheeky devil.
“Jimmy and me got married in '06, and we moved to London where he got a job on a loading dock at Selfridge's. That were a step up for him. I lost my darling man two years ago. We'd been married for forty years and had six kids together. But you're not here to talk about me. What's your next question?”
“What was it like having Jack and Tom below stairs?”
“At Turner Hall, the housekeeper and butler hardly spoke to each other, so you can imagine my shock when I found out the butler and the housekeeper were married! I'd heard of such things before, but it were after they retired and living in one of the tied cottages on the estate. But Mr. and Mrs. Crowell being married weren't my biggest surprise. When I got there in 1895, there'd be two little boys running around. Well, I never heard of such a thing before or since.”
Finally, Michael showed some interest. We had gotten to the part where his father and uncle had come into the story.
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