Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor

by Rosina Harrison

  She did this and an inspector questioned me very thoroughly, which I didn’t mind. By a stroke of good fortune I’d kept the tissue paper that the furs were wrapped in, and I was able to demonstrate, by repacking, those that had been returned and how they had arrived. Now today, people who like me are economical, because they have to be, keep tissue paper for re-use. It was a firm rule of her ladyship’s that it must never be used twice, and that went for my things as well, so it was strange that I’d kept it. Anyway the inspector then went to Bradley’s. Two days later he called at St James’s Square and I was asked to go and see him. He was with Lady Astor and he said, ‘I have to tell you, Miss Harrison, that the mystery has been solved. There was never any question of you being under suspicion, neither are Bradley’s staff to blame. There was a third party involved, but we are not taking proceedings against them, and the matter will now be dropped.’ It all sounds a bit strange as I write it, but it was clear as daylight to me. One of her ladyship’s acquaintances must have persuaded Bradley’s to part with it, the police had found out who it was but it had been decided not to pursue the matter. In society at that time dog did not eat dog. The only mystery to me was that we never saw the tie again.

  Valuable coats are always a great worry. Unlike jewellery, which as it were never leaves the person when it’s worn, coats have to be continually put in the charge of other people who don’t necessarily give them the protection or the care they need. Then again they can be easily forgotten, particularly when the warmer weather comes along. I must say that, generally speaking, Lady Astor took care of hers and very rarely did I have any real worries over them. I think too that at that time people were more honest. I also know the police were more effective, probably because there were more of them. The constable on the beat was a great comfort, a good friend and a link with the local police station. It was easy to ask for help, it was always forthcoming and given in a friendly way. It was the same on the railways, and you can imagine I used them a lot not only on our lengthier travels but shuttling backwards and forwards between Cliveden and London every week, with a multitude of trunks and cases.

  I was to learn over the years how to pack for every conceivable period of time, climate and occasion and to be ready at a moment’s notice to do so. Whenever I travelled by train I would tip the guard and porter well. They got to know me and would look after me. They gave me a lot of useful advice about taking care of luggage and I think largely because of the trust and friendship that was built up between us I am able to say that I never lost as much as a piece of ribbon. People complain about the railways. I don’t. I’ve found that if you treat the people who run them properly and try to realize their difficulties and the things that can happen that are beyond their control, you can travel in comfort and with an easy mind.

  I’ve mentioned that I tipped well: it was with her ladyship’s money and advice. I always had a reasonable float given me by the office and accounted for by me at the end of each month. It was sort of petty cash, but it had to be quite a sizeable amount as her ladyship was continually running out of money and having to rely on me.

  That then is the bare bones description of the duties of Lady Astor’s personal maid. The spirit and the flesh follow later.

  5

  Coming to Terms with My Job

  What sort of person was I as a result of my experience over the last nine years? I hadn’t changed, or I didn’t think I had. I believe character forms during your childhood and you never grow away from it, indeed that you never really grow up. So I was young in heart. I’ve not mentioned my love life which nowadays is called sex life, but I prefer the earlier way of putting it. Perhaps I’ve given the impression that in service there wasn’t a lot of time for that sort of thing. Let me put it this way: we didn’t give it the amount of thought that it seems young people do now; there were so many other things to think about. Still, I didn’t neglect the romantic side by any means, and I got a lot of fun from it, but while it’s something I enjoy recalling, it’s a personal thing and in any case would make very dull reading.

  Professionally I was, I thought and indeed still think, highly competent by the standards of the day. If you enjoy your work as I did, I don’t think you can help but become good at it. I’d developed the skills I’d begun with and learnt many others. I’d travelled a lot for my age and become a Marco Polo for my class. I’d met people and enjoyed them and I was able to get on well with my colleagues below stairs and my employers above, or so I thought until I began working for Lady Astor. From the start she knocked the stuffing right out of me. I had imagined things would be quite easy; after all I’d managed to get by when I’d looked after both her and Miss Wissie on our trip to America, but that I found didn’t seem to count. It was in a way as if I was with a complete stranger. Difficult though the job was I know I could have done it left to myself, but I wasn’t. The moment I began one thing she wanted another. She was quite unpredictable and always unappreciative. She was sadistic and sarcastic. If I reminded her of something, she’d say, ‘I never need telling anything twice, thank you, Rose.’ She mimicked me, not out of fun but to hurt. She’d change her mind purposely over her clothes, accuse me of not getting things right and then call me a liar if I protested to her. She shouted and rampaged like a fishwife, though without using the bad language.

  It all seems strange as I tell it now, and I don’t think anybody knew at the time quite how bad it was. I just wasn’t used to ladies behaving in that way towards servants. Gradually it wore me down. I began to think I was to blame, that I’d lost my grip on the job. I did forget things. My work went to pieces and so her criticism became justified. I had too much pride to go to anyone and ask for help. When I told Mr Lee about it some long time later he said, ‘Why didn’t you come to me, Miss Harrison, that’s what I’m here for. It wouldn’t have been easy, but I would have sorted things out with her ladyship.’ He would have, too, but at the time I saw it as my battle, something I had to fight for myself and I’m glad I did for both my sake and her ladyship’s.

  The change in our relationship was not something that happened subtly over the years. It couldn’t have been. I should have either collapsed or given in my notice if things had only altered gradually. I can pinpoint the day, indeed the time almost to the hour, when I got the resolve and the strength to come to grips with the situation. I’d had a very bad morning of it, with her ladyship at her most demanding. After lunch, feeling both physically and mentally tired, I went to my room. I began thinking about my work and the way my life was going. Then my thoughts switched to my childhood, my early ambition, the efforts Mum and Dad had made for me. I was back in our village, in the school, in our cottage, in our church, singing in the choir, and thinking about the beauty of life then. I don’t think I was consciously praying, but suddenly something seemed to touch my spirit: I had a feeling of inner happiness and release. It was as though I was in a trance. I allowed myself to drift.

  I don’t know how long it went on but gradually the dreamy feeling fell away and my body took over again. I didn’t hurry it, the sensation was so relaxing and enjoyable. When I came to myself it was as though I’d gained a new strength. I didn’t feel tired, the things that had worried me almost to death now seemed insignificant. It had all been my own fault. I’d allowed her ladyship to walk over me and make mincemeat out of me. I now knew that my work had been right; where I’d been wrong was in not defending it and myself when we were both under attack. 1 saw her in a different light, not as a mean spiteful person any more, but as someone who in her own way was putting me to the test. She wanted a maid in her own image and she thought she could get one by destroying me and then building me up again as she wanted me to be. She hadn’t succeeded and from now on she wasn’t even going to get the chance. Two could play at her game, and henceforth two did. What had begun as a battle gradually mellowed into a kind of game between us. It went on for thirty-five years; neither of us won, neither of us lost.

  For a day or two
I went about my work with a light heart and any nasty remarks fell off me like water off a duck’s back. Then one morning in London Miss Dorothy, from Bertha Hammond’s of 16 Old Bond Street, came to do her ladyship’s hair. Perhaps it is interesting to recall here that on my lady’s recommendation, Mr George Bernard Shaw had his hair and beard trimmed and washed at Bertha Hammond’s. As I went in to remove the breakfast tray Lady Astor said, very testily, ‘Rose, give Miss Dorothy a cup of coffee.’ I poured her one from the Thermos jug on the tray, put the cup on the dressing-table and left. About five minutes later my bell rang and I went to her ladyship again. Angrily she pointed to Miss Dorothy’s cup and said, ‘Take that thing away, you should have done it hours ago. How do you expect Miss Dorothy to work with dirty cups lying about?’

  I stopped in my tracks and looked long and hard at her ladyship through the mirror. From my expression there was no mistaking how I felt. I then looked at Miss Dorothy, who was obviously thoroughly uncomfortable, and left.

  Two more minutes and my bell rang again. ‘Rose, why have you given me a thick dressing-gown to wear in the middle of the summer? Get me a thin one.’

  ‘I can’t get you what you haven’t got, can I?’

  ‘Very well, Rose, buy the material and make me one.’

  ‘No I won’t, my lady. You’ve got the money go and buy one yourself.’ I gave another look at her in the mirror, and another glance at Miss Dorothy who looked as if she was frightened to death, and left.

  Three or four minutes later the bell went again; so did I. ‘Rose,’ she said, ‘don’t you ever dare speak to me as you have this morning. I don’t know what’s come over you.’

  ‘My lady,’ I said, ‘from now on I intend to speak as I’m spoken to. Common people say please and thank you, ordinary people do not reprimand servants in front of others and ladies are supposed to be an example to all, and that is that.’

  I left the room feeling triumphant. I’d stood up to her, I’d protected myself, she could sack me if she liked, but if she did she was in the wrong, not me. Half an hour later my bell rang again. ‘This, my gal,’ I said to myself, ‘is it.’ I wasn’t the least bit afraid.

  ‘Rose,’ she said, as I entered the room, ‘I apologize for my behaviour this morning.’

  I’d won. Now I was torn between two stools: should I say, ‘And so do I, my lady,’ so making things easier for her? I didn’t. I thought, ‘No, if I do it will mean things are all square.’ So I just said, ‘Thank you, my lady,’ and went.

  Now all this sounds very trivial, but if you want to know how it was possible for two people to live closely for thirty-odd years it is important. For me it was a turning-point and so it was going to be for her ladyship though she didn’t know it then. She couldn’t change her nature any more than I could. I had created a situation between us and named the rules. It was to be a battle of wills and wits and therefore I had to keep mine about me. It wasn’t long before I saw how right I was. We’d been at it hammer and tongs and finally I said, ‘You’re unkind, my lady. I don’t think you realize how hurtful you can be to people.’

  ‘Oh yes I do, Rose, whenever I’m hurtful I mean it, and I enjoy it.’ She was like a tigress as she said it.

  I said, ‘Right, my lady. Now we know where we stand.’

  She laughed then, but still I knew she’d meant what she’d said, when she said it. As another argument reached its climax, she cried, ‘Rose, it’s my ambition to break your spirit.’

  ‘I know it is, my lady. There’s two of you trying to do it. You and the devil. And neither of you will succeed.’

  She didn’t care for that one, being coupled with the devil, with her strong preoccupation with religion. I’d got to learn quite a bit about Christian Science while I was with her and I’d throw it back at her. ‘How can you think that way, my lady? Your book says, “A person who thinks good and does good is good.” You must learn to practise what you preach.’ That put her back on her heels. So did my reply to her when she was being critical. ‘You know, Rose, if you were the perfect maid you would arrange my collar for me before allowing me to go down to dinner.’

  Quick as a flash came the Christian Science phrase, ‘It’s because I’m imperfect that I am here to try and perfect myself. Remember, my lady, there’s only one perfect person.’

  She often tried to get at me through my speech. ‘You and your Yorkshire accent,’ she’d say, ‘why don’t you try and speak properly?’

  ‘Do you really want me to go around aping the kind of people you entertain, my lady, speaking with a plum in my mouth? Never, I’m Yorkshire and proud of it. Me I am and me I mean to stay.’

  Then another time she was finding fault and started making comparisons. ‘The difference between us, Rose, is that I was born to command and have learnt through experience how to deal with people.’

  ‘The difference between us, my lady,’ I said, ‘is that you have money. Money is power, and people respect money and power so they respect you for having it.’ It wasn’t really true, there were so many other things about her that people respected, but beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to words. She’d use my rank to belittle me. ‘You’re as bad as a housemaid, Rose,’ she said to me once.

  ‘You ought to know better than to speak to me like that,’ I replied, ‘my sister Ann is a housemaid, a good one, and she’s a good person. I expect there are a lot of them who are better people than me. You’ve no right to talk of housemaids as though they are the lowest of the low, you only belittle yourself.’

  Oh, I let her have it that time, and she took it. Give her her due, after she’d got over the initial shock of my talking back at her, she learnt to accept it and to expect it. It wasn’t long before I began to suspect that she enjoyed it and therefore goaded me purposely. Anyway she never seemed to bear any malice. Another time when she was talking disparagingly about servants, I said, ‘I’m surprised that you think of maids that way, my lady. Wasn’t it only yesterday that you were saying in the House of Commons that more girls ought to go into domestic service? If any possible recruit were to hear you now I should think they’d have second thoughts.’ I got a quick, ‘Shut up, Rose,’ for that one, but now, when she said that, I looked on it as one up for me.

  There were times when she suspected that I wasn’t very busy and she couldn’t bear to think that she wasn’t getting her money’s-worth out of her servants. An occasion I remember was when we were down at Sandwich, and she asked me how I was enjoying the holiday. ‘Very much, my lady,’ I said. This must have started her thinking that I wasn’t doing enough because half an hour later she rang for me and told me to produce the sewing work that I’d done for her that week. Well, that was tantamount to me being there on trial. It was an insult and I took it as such. As it happened I’d been very busy making sachets for her underclothes and edging scarves from material that had been sent from Paris. I took it all down, plonked it in front of her and stormed out of the room.

  Again my bell rang. Her ladyship said, ‘Rose, I like your work, but I don’t like your attitude when I ask to see it.’

  ‘My lady,’ I said, ‘you treat me as if I was new and untrained. You show no trust in me at all. I can read you like a book. Just because I said I was enjoying the holiday you thought I wasn’t doing my work, so you decided to check up on me. I don’t like it, my lady, and it won’t do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ she said.

  ‘So am I, my lady,’ I replied.

  There’s no doubt that some of the blame for our set-to’s lay with me. It was a clash of temperament. Perhaps we both fed on it. Sometimes it used to worry me. I’d end up by saying, ‘You know, my lady, it’s dreadful the way we go on at each other; you make me ashamed of my own sex.’ Once, I remember, things got so heated that she really lost control and landed out at me with her foot. I made to catch it but just missed. ‘You wouldn’t have floored me, would you, Rose?’ she said, when she pulled herself together.

  ‘I certainly would, my lady,’ I
replied, ‘just as you would have kicked me if I hadn’t moved away in time.’ Then of course we both burst out laughing.

  As the years passed our relationship mellowed and the rows became more like verbal skirmishes. Apparently, though I didn’t learn this until later, they were a topic of amusement and conversation not only among the servants, but with the family as well. Eventually I was told that Lord Astor would go to his dressing-room when we were having an altercation, to listen in and have a good laugh. When I heard this I was astounded that he allowed a maid to talk to her ladyship as I did. Mr Bushell, his valet, said that he probably thought it better that she should take it out on me and so spare himself. I don’t know. I suppose it could be true. One thing I do know is that I discovered the key to understanding and working for Lady Astor: she didn’t like people who kow-towed to her and she didn’t like ‘yes’ men.

  So far I haven’t been very complimentary about her ladyship. While I am at it I think I may as well complete this one side of the picture. That there is another you can be sure, otherwise I could never have stayed with her. She was such a mass of contradictions that it’s impossible to generalize about her. She could be mean, mean over money and sometimes mean in spirit. It was about six years after I had been with her that I thought I deserved a rise in salary. Seventy-five pounds a year wasn’t a lot of money even then. I approached her ladyship. I could see she didn’t like me for doing it, but she said she would see what she could do. She spoke to the secretary. The next month my wages were raised by five pounds a year. I was disappointed and disgusted. I said nothing. Some time passed and one day her ladyship said, ‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Rose, have you got your rise in salary?’

  ‘Yes thank you, my lady,’ I answered, ‘I’ve got my extra threepence a day.’ She flushed a bit, but no more was said. I’d learnt my lesson. I never asked for another rise, and I never got one. At that time goodness was supposed to be its own reward.