Her Ladyship's Girl (22 page)

‘Is this the Moyle residence?’

‘It is.’

‘Is Anwyn at home?’

‘She is.’

I went and lay on the bed, then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

‘Anwyn, you have a visitor.’

Mrs Reynolds was shown into the room by my mother, who asked her if she’d like some tea and some Prince-of-Wales cake.

‘That would be very nice, thank you.’

Monica Reynolds sat on the bed beside me, with a stern look on her face. I was afraid she was going to scold me and I pulled the blankets as high as I could without covering my face.

‘I’m not pleased with you, Anwyn Moyle.’

‘Aren’t you, Mrs Reynolds?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you didn’t tell me about your accident. I had to find out by chance.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Someone who frequented the hat shop in Maesteg had seen me being pushed around in the pram by my sisters and they were all having a good laugh about it and she overheard. She asked me what the
doctor’s diagnosis was. When I told her, she said I should get a second opinion. But I couldn’t possibly afford anything like that.

‘I know a good man. And don’t worry about the cost, honey.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t.’

‘Don’t start that again!’

‘All right.’

My mother brought the tea and cake and Mrs Reynolds stayed for half an hour and we had a chat and a laugh and it was like being back with Miranda Bouchard again – when she was my
friend.

Next day, a Doctor Mulhearn from the Welsh National School of Medicine arrived and removed the bandaging from my foot. There was a lot of tightness and pain and it hurt when he tried to move my
toes up and down. He told me the tightness was caused by the restrictive bandaging – although it was necessary in the beginning to keep the Achilles tendon together and allow it to heal, it
was now necessary to work the lower leg to flex the tendon and enable the entire foot structure to perform better. The pain was caused, so he said, by excess chemicals floating round in the sponge
that was my foot tissue. He told me I must open up the tissue of the lower leg and that would help the tendon to heal quicker.

‘And how should I do that, doctor?’

‘Massage . . . and lots of it.’

‘The bandages . . .’

‘The external wound has healed. Leave the bandages off and start moving the foot. This will prevent muscle atrophy and joint stiffness.’

I was worried about walking too much, in case I caused more damage to the injury than I was curing. He explained that the Achilles tendon bore a lot of weight with each step and I’d be in
danger of re-tearing it by putting too much load on it too quickly. But it also needed strengthening and this could only be achieved by exercise.

‘Use the crutch at first and don’t overdo it.’

He showed me some motion and strengthening exercises.

‘A little bit more every day. It’s a matter of common sense, young lady. I’ll come back and see you in a fortnight.’

‘Doctor . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Will I be able to walk without the crutch?’

‘Eventually, I don’t see why not.’

‘But when?’

‘That will be up to you.’

He left and, for the next two weeks, I massaged my foot and did the exercises and walked a little further every day, putting my foot to the floor but using the crutch to support some of the
weight – a little more the next day – a little more the day after. Monica Reynolds came again and we had tea and cake again and I told her I was walking again – and she smiled. It
was almost Christmas when Doctor Mulhearn came back and he was more than pleased with my progress. He said I was a plucky young lady and my lower leg and Achilles tendon were strong enough now for
me to walk without the crutch. A little at first, just a few steps – then a little more and a little more. He’d come back in the new year to see how I was getting on. I was unsteady at
first without the crutch and needed a shoulder to lean on. But gradually I got used to balancing again and could walk on my own.

But I had a bad limp.

Christmas came and it was the first one I’d spent with my family in four years. We had a small goose for dinner that Walter bought with his hard-earned wages, along with herb stuffing and
mashed swede and roast potatoes from mother’s patch. Afterwards, father sat in front of the fire and loosened his trouser buttons and slept. Mother drank a glass or two of nettle wine and my
sisters cleared away and washed up. Walter smoked a cigarette in the homely afternoon with the snow descending outside the smiling windows of our little house. I did my walking to and fro for a
while, until I got tired, and then I sat with Walter and drank a glass of mother’s green and winsome wine. The sky outside was unbroken and the snowflakes prevented any view of more than a
few feet – and it was quiet on that Christmas afternoon. It was as if we were alone in the world, us Moyles, and everybody else had disappeared into the strange, bleak whiteness beyond our
windows.

Father woke in time for tea and mother laid a hot bread pudding and a plate of home-made griddle scones on the table. Ghosts tapped silently on the dark windowpanes, wanting to come in. But we
didn’t see or hear them in our secluded womb-world. Wild animals howled on the black and barren hills – we knew they were out there, but we paid no heed. The fire was warm and the tea
was strong and the food was sweet and we sang a carol together.

And then we went to bed and I took a long look out the bedroom window at the smoke-coloured snow, half expecting to see the Mari Lwyd come trotting through the blizzard,
followed by its band of rowdy revellers.

I got into bed and said a short prayer in the long and dream-laden darkness.

And then I slept.

Doctor Mulhearn came back in the new year and said my foot had healed, but I’d always have the limp. Now that I was able-bodied again, I had to find work because I’d been wallowing
in the hospitality of my family for long enough. But there was no work in the village, or anywhere else in Wales in the deep, depressing days of 1938. In desperation, I wrote to Miranda Bouchard at
Chester Square and asked if she had anything in her household. Maybe she’d feel some sense of obligation for the fidelity and unconditional friendship I’d given her. I got a letter back
from Mr Peacock saying there was nothing at Chester Square, but he enclosed a letter of recommendation for a kitchen maid’s job in a house near Regent’s Park, if I was interested. I
was. He suggested I should write to a Mr Morecambe of the household, which I did, enclosing Mr Peacock’s letter of recommendation. Within a week, I received a letter back, asking me to come
down for interview, along with an open train ticket to Paddington.

War clouds were gathering in Europe in 1938 but, in the early part of that year, no one was panicking yet and life in London seemed to be going on as usual. I arrived in Paddington like I had
before and made my way to Devonshire Place, close to Regent’s Park. I was used to London now and was easily able to negotiate my way around. It was a large, five-storey house, four main
storeys and an attic. The exterior of the ground floor was white, with an arched door and two large arched windows to the right as I looked at it from the street. Each of the floors above had three
windows, surrounded by pale beige brickwork. There were steps down to a basement and, again, I didn’t know whether I should knock on the front door or try to conceal my limp as I climbed down
the steps. I decided to go to the front door. A man whom I assumed to be Mr Morecambe answered and introduced himself as the major-domo, whatever that meant. Unlike most butlers I’d come
across, he was a jolly sort and not snooty at all. He wasn’t dressed formally in livery, but had on a shirt and breeches, with the sleeves of the shirt rolled up. He had a mop of uncombed
fair hair and a rather large chin that made him look a bit like Tommy Trinder. He could have been a gardener, not a butler, as he held the door open for me to walk through. I tried in vain not to
limp as I followed him down the hall.

We went into a small anteroom and he asked me to sit down.

‘Welcome to Devonshire Place, Anwyn. May I call you Anwyn?’

‘Most butlers call me Moyle.’

He smiled.

‘You’ll find we’re a little different here. And I’m not a butler, I’m a major-domo.’

I felt at ease in the house. It seemed a comfortable place, unpretentious, confident in its homeliness and not feeling the need to assume airs and graces. He told me the owners were a Mr
Fletcher and a Mr Jennings. There were no ladies and no children, but the Misters Fletcher and Jennings frequently entertained.

‘You understand the nature of the job, don’t you, Anwyn?’

‘Kitchen maid, Sir.’

‘Well . . . kitchen maid-cum-waitress-cum-parlourmaid-cum-a-kind-of
Jill de tous les métiers
, if you will.’

He sounded quite pleased with his French, although I’d never heard of such a thing, but I needed the job. And it must have been all right if Mr Peacock had offered a letter of
recommendation. In any case, I was here now and I wasn’t traipsing all the way back to Wales empty-handed.

‘It’s ten shillings a week, with Sundays off. And I think you’ll find we are fairly flexible in this house, Anwyn.’

‘I’ll take it.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Capital!’

Mr Morecambe showed me to my room, which I thought strange, as it was normally a footman or a maid who did this. He huffed and puffed as he climbed the stairs to the attic and had to lean
against the wall to get his breath back. The room was bigger than I was used to, with only one bed, so I knew I wouldn’t be sharing. There was a small table and chair, a sofa, a wardrobe and
a dressing table with a mirror, and a washbasin with hot and cold running water. There was linoleum on the floor and patterned curtains on the window that looked out over Devonshire Place.

‘There’s a bathroom on the floor below, and you are free to use it, Anwyn.’

‘Thank you, Sir.’

‘Call me Aldous.’

‘Oh no, Sir . . . I couldn’t.’

‘As you wish.’

He told me the Misters Fletcher and Jennings used the private bathroom on the ground floor, so I wouldn’t be disturbed – apart from when they had house guests, then all the bathrooms
on all the floors were on a first come, first served basis.

‘But you, being a young lady, should have nothing to fear.’

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I didn’t ask. Mr Morecambe was a queer sort of cove, I thought. But it took all sorts to make a world and I wasn’t a one for casting
cynical aspersions.

On the way back down to the kitchen, he noticed my limp for the first time.

‘Your foot . . .?’

‘An accident.’

‘I see.’

And that’s all he said. Never passed another remark on it. And neither did I. When we got to the kitchen, I nearly fainted. I was used to kitchens being spick and span, with everything in
its place and a place for everything. This kitchen was a complete mess. Skillets and strainers and cutlery and colanders and porringers and jorums and ramekins were strewn about everywhere. There
were potato peelings on the floor that could’ve been there for a year by the look of them. The range was stained with gravy and grease and the sink was piled with unwashed pots and plates.
There were bits of bread and vegetables and fruit and meat and fish-heads and other things I couldn’t identify that were starting to rot, and the smell reminded me of the toilets in the
Duke’s Head after a rough night on the rum. Mr Morecambe shook his head disapprovingly.

‘You can see why we need a woman’s touch round here.’

‘Where’s Cook?’

‘Cook?’

‘Yes, Cook.’

He laughed. Then he stopped laughing and looked at me. Then he laughed again. When he finally stopped chuckling and wiped his eyes with a white handkerchief, he spoke again.

‘Didn’t Mr Peacock tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘The Misters Fletcher and Jennings do all their own catering, my dear.’

I was amazed. I’d never heard of any such thing. Gentlemen doing their own cooking? It couldn’t be right; he must be having a laugh at my expense.

‘But they’re not very good at cleaning up, as you can see.’

He realised I was bemused and confused, so he explained that the Misters Fletcher and Jennings owned the L’Astrance gourmet restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue. They were both award-winning
Cordon Bleu chefs and always ate out, except when they threw parties, and that was quite frequently. Otherwise they spent most of their time at the Buck’s Club, where they were members, or at
Claridge’s, where they had investments, or at the Marquis of Granby public house, where they had many ‘friends’.

‘What about the other servants?’

‘There are no other servants, Anwyn.’

He began to walk away, leaving me standing in the midst of the carnage.

‘What should I do now, Sir?’

He turned and looked at me with an expression of puzzlement.

‘Whatever you think needs doing, my dear.’

With that, he was gone, and I was left to my own completely disorientated devices. For the next few days I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, until my hands and knees were raw and my foot was
swollen and aching like a ground-level gumboil. I cooked for myself and Mr Morecambe and never saw another soul or caught sight of the Misters Fletcher or Jennings. Mr Morecambe was delighted with
my progress in the kitchen and commented that he’d never seen it sparkling so magnificently. They’d had other kitchen-cum-scullery-cum-parlourmaids before me – a parade of
Jills de tous les métiers
– but none stayed for more than a month. And I wondered why.