Authors: Margaret Powell
‘I said to Mr Richard when he came back – Mr Richard’s away a lot – there’s such a nice-looking person moved in next door, with a sweetly pretty little girl.’
Mary and I didn’t dare look at each other; nobody in their right mind could call Victoria Helen ‘sweetly pretty’.
The neighbour twittered on, ‘I said to Mr Richard, “well, now our new neighbour really looks a lady”’ – I saw Rose wince at this – ‘“maybe she’ll be company for me you being away such a lot”. I don’t mind telling you, just between the four of us, that this road’s not what it was when we first moved in. There used to be a nice class of people here, cleaned their windows, spotless white curtains, polished brass on the front door and every Sunday they’d be tidying the front garden. You’d never believe it to look at these houses, but some of the people haven’t a penny to their name, they shouldn’t be living in this kind of neighbourhood. I wouldn’t mix with them even though I’m alone so much; Mr Richard has to go away you know.’
She must have told us half-a-dozen times that Mr Richard had to go away, but never once did she explain where, and why he went. We’d nearly finished tea when who should arrive, unexpected and unwelcome, but Rose’s parents. Well, perhaps not so unwelcome this time as their arrival did get rid of Mrs Richard. One look at the formidable Mrs Lawton, and a far fiercer bird than a twittering sparrow would have been vanquished.
Mary and I, having spent nearly all our money on new finery, and our monthly wages not due for another week, we were prepared to stay with Rose for the afternoon and evening; no amount of hostility, suppressed or overt, would make us depart before time. Even Rose had admitted that her mother was a domineering and ill-natured woman, yet Mrs Lawton had always tried to give the impression that it was
Mr
Lawton who was the dogmatic one.
Before Rose left home to go into domestic service she was continually hearing, ‘your father flatly forbids you to go to a dance, join a club, come home late from the pictures’ – in reality it was her mother who put a ban on any form of enjoyment. Similarly, when her mother was talking to Aunt Amelia, it was always, ‘Joe won’t have it, Joe put his foot down’. In actual fact, though far from effusive in his welcome to us, saying nothing but ‘How do’, Mr Lawton didn’t mind us being there. It was only when he talked of the ‘bosses’ that he became eloquent with bitter denunciations of what he called ‘the system’.
Although Gerald’s charm had worked on Mr Lawton enough to get a grudging consent to the marriage, he’d very soon gone back to his original opinion of the ‘bosses’. I’d have expected him to feel gratified in seeing, in the failure of his daughter’s marriage, how right he’d been in asserting that there never could be an alliance between the upper class and working class, but I think that while saying ‘I told you so’, he was secretly irritated because Rose hadn’t made a go of it.
Rose offered to make some fresh tea but Mrs Lawton said it was a waste; she should put boiling water on what was left in the pot. This at any rate indicated to Mary and me that she wasn’t going to sponge on her daughter. I didn’t know what financial arrangements had been made for Rose, but there was no shortage of food and comforts. We attempted to make light conversation, excluding such topics as work, marriage and the pleasures of living in London, knowing that a mention of any of these three acted as a touch-paper to her parents.
Rose said, brightly, ‘I’ve had a letter from Aunt Amelia. She wrote that they have had a bit of luck, Uncle Fred has had a rise.’
Mary, with misplaced humour in view of Mrs Lawton’s grim expression, said, ‘That can’t be much of a change surely? In his job he’s getting a rise all day long.’
Our laughter quickly faded when Mr Lawton said angrily that he was sick of his job in the factory making electrical components; it was monotonous and, unless one worked overtime, ill paid too.
‘There’s no skill to it,’ he complained, ‘anybody could do the job. I’m a nothing there, a nobody. At the mill I was looked up to, I knew my job, and the men respected me.’
‘Couldn’t you look for a better job, Da?’ asked Rose, timidly.
‘What better job, where would I get it? All I was offered was the factory job or to be a lavatory attendant. Did you ever hear the like? That the day would come when I’d be offered a job cleaning out a men’s lavatory – I’d sooner starve. And now we’re going to have a national government; what good will that do? It’s the same old lot that got the country into this mess. The only man who’s got any sense in that lot is Maxton.’
After listening to many more fulminations, I began to feel that as a way of spending a pleasant Sunday afternoon, it left much to be desired. Born into a later generation, Mr Lawton would, without a doubt, have been a militant striker on the picket line, angrily insisting on workers’ rights.
Yet there was one vast difference between the terrible Depression of the early thirties and living in England now. In spite of Mr Lawton’s bitterness against the government, he, and the tens of thousands like him who’d lost their jobs and were living on the poverty line, never resorted to the violence and vandalism that prevails today. Nobody of my generation could ever have dreamed that the day would come in England when it wasn’t safe to walk through the streets in the evening for fear of being mugged, when quiet country lanes and city parks were to be avoided if one was alone. How smugly did we read about the violence in America and say, ‘It can’t happen here’. Of course there always have been people who are just plain ‘bad’, but at one time if they were caught, they had to pay for their crimes; now they get therapy.
By the time Rose’s father had finished his imprecations against the government, with special execrations for Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden – he considered them responsible for the Labour landslide – he was too exhausted for general conversation. But his wife nobly kept things going by talking about the difference between north country people and Londoners – to the disparagement of the latter. If they’d had a sense of humour I’d have hummed:
‘It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor wot gets the blame;
It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure,
Ain’t it all a blooming shame’.
But faced with Mr Lawton’s rancour and his wife’s grim expression, I hadn’t the nerve.
Matters were not improved by Victoria Helen throwing a tantrum because she didn’t want to sit on her grannie’s lap. I didn’t blame her; used to her other grandmother, Mrs Wardham, and her doting Aunt Helen, she didn’t take kindly to this grandmother’s exhortations to sit still at the tea-table and not to drop cake crumbs. I’m sure Rose never realised how upset and confused the poor child must have felt when she was removed from her normal surroundings to this small house in Streatham.
Fortunately, Rose’s parents departed about six o’clock. Her mother said, ‘Although I’ve locked up everywhere, I don’t trust the people in that house. I’m sure that couple on the first floor are no better than they should be, they come in at all hours of the night. I wish we was back in the old street where people were honest and if you liked you could leave your front door unlocked, knowing that none would come in unless invited.’
After the child had gone to bed, Rose produced bottles of port and sherry and we spent a pleasant evening; by common consent her husband was not mentioned. As we left, Rose said, rather wistfully that she’d love to have an evening in the West End with us. Mrs Richard would mind Vicky as Mr Richard ‘is away a lot’, we chorused.
When I got back, Mr Kite greeted me with the news that Madam had been sorting through her bookshelves and had sent down half-a-dozen books for our servants’ hall.
‘That’s very nice of her, what are they?’
‘Well, there’s two by Belloc Lowndes – one of them’s called
The Lodger
, I think it’s about Jack the Ripper. There’s two by somebody called Ouida, and the other two are by Arnold Bennett; I like him, he writes about people like us. I’ve already started on
Riceyman Steps.
Course,’ added Mr Kite, slightly maliciously, ‘Madam doesn’t know that only you and me read proper books.’
Our butler always felt rather peeved that his taste in literature had never influenced Norma, his parlourmaid, to progress beyond
Peg’s Paper.
I couldn’t see why it was incumbent on him to be a pedant in the pantry. Let everybody be happy in their own way, was my maxim.
My irrepressible kitchenmaid – who should have waited until the butler was absent – said, ‘I like reading books, I’d like to read
The Lodger
if it’s about Jack the Ripper. My gran told me about him, she used to live in Whitechapel.’
Mr Kite, irritable as usual when Miriam gave an unasked for opinion, said, sarcastically, ‘Is there any incident that occurred in the East End of London when one of your numerous relations wasn’t around to record it?’
I hid a smile; it was true that Miriam often related lurid stories of long ago events in London’s East End.
Somehow I couldn’t see my kitchenmaid remaining in domestic service, she wasn’t the type; she’d no idea of respecting the upper servants, of keeping to the rigid hierarchy below stairs. Her mother had told her that life below stairs was lively, that high jinks went on between the servants when they were off duty. Miriam complained that it wasn’t like that where we were, it was dull.
‘The only kind of place where you would see “high jinks”, as you call it,’ I said, impatiently, ‘is where there is a huge staff that includes several men servants. Not in a place like this where there are only seven living in, and only one of them a male; you can’t expect Mr Kite at his age to indulge in high jinks. Miriam, you’ve no idea what service could be like, this place is the cream. If you had worked under some of the cooks I’ve had over me, harsh tyrannical slave-drivers, and had to sit at table in the servants’ hall with upper servants that demoralised you, then you might have cause to complain. It’s because I’m young and remember those days, that I’m easygoing with a kitchenmaid. Why, even when the cook came back from her free evening I’d have to wait on her; take off her shoes, carry hot water along to her bedroom, make her a cup of tea. The only personal chore you do for me is to bring me a cup of tea in the morning. As we have a bathroom, none of you under servants have to bring us hot water. I know that you don’t like Mr Kite; but, let me tell you, that in spite of his being prim, prosy and oracular, he’s a sight better than some butlers I’ve known who seemed to imagine that below stairs was a Principality and they the rulers of it.’
Miriam had to listen to this long speech, but I could tell from her expression that none of it really registered. All right, my girl, you just wait, I thought, it won’t be long before I leave to get married, you might not be so lucky with the next cook.
Of course domestic service was changing. What with income tax, the cost of living and domestics demanding higher wages, far fewer households could afford to employ a staff of twelve to fifteen. My mother told me that in some of the very large establishments a butler could easily increase his wages by perks. Money on the empty bottles, commission from the shop where he ordered the cigars and, of course, tips from the guests at dinner parties. Mother was a cook in a house where the butler, in addition to the usual perks, had permission to buy necessities for his pantry such as green baize, chamois leathers, rouge and plate-powder for cleaning the silver, and soft cloths for wiping the glasses. As he was never asked to show the bills for these things, quite a bit extra was added.
About two weeks before I finally left domestic service to get married, we three, Rose, Mary and I had an evening in the West End, but it wasn’t an unqualified success, mainly because of the absence of the usual reason for going there, to have fun with the opposite sex. Rose had insisted that we do the evening in style, by taking a taxi to Piccadilly and having a dinner at Lyons Corner House there. The food, wine and service were excellent, the band played melodious and romantic airs and, with Rose being so pretty several admiring glances came our way. But we didn’t consider ourselves free to take advantage of the ‘come-on’; Rose because she was married, I because I very soon would be and Mary because she was faithful to her Conrad. Most of our male conquests were measured by the degree of generosity they showed in buying us chocolates, a decent seat in the cinema and a drink afterwards. But in return for this they expected, and we were prepared to give, a certain amount of petting such as kissing and hugging in dark corners; certainly nothing more than that, though occasionally more was attempted. No doubt the daughters above stairs were not required to give anything in exchange for an evening’s entertainment, but then their escorts had not needed to work long and arduous hours to acquire enough money to take a girl out. Still, although three females on their own inevitably lacked the sparkle that male company provided, we enjoyed the evening in our own way. It was the last such evening for me for many years; a milkman’s wages allowing only for a beer and a bag of crisps at the local.
* * *
Yes, I married. Such a plain and dull statement it seems now, but at the time I was so grateful to get my marriage lines that I nearly framed them. Like a fairy-tale prince who’d roamed the world searching for a bride, only to return to his own home and fall in love with the wood-cutter’s daughter – who invariably proved to be a princess in disguise – so did I search for a husband only to find him in the milkman who called every day. I’d assumed he was already married so had not bothered to practise any blandishments on him. Of course he wasn’t a prince nor I a princess; but then real life is no fairy-tale.
And so I got married and commenced a way of life completely different from the life I’d known since I’d left school at thirteen. It was rather ironical that having just left ‘below stairs’, our first home happened to be rooms in a basement. In marriage, I tried to put into effect those principles of equality and partnership that to me were the basis of a happy marriage. I thought that the marriage ceremony itself was biased towards the husband with the injunction to ‘obey’, and the fact that he is not expected to wear a gold ring proclaiming to an army of women searching for husbands, ‘I am a married man, hands off’. Having myself a strong antipathy to wearing rings of any kind, I very soon left off wearing a wedding ring. In those days, that was a far greater step forward towards liberty and equality than was – in recent years – the ceasing to wear a bra. A bra-less woman who is wearing a wedding ring is still publicly a married woman, and it’s also patently true that over a certain age most women look better wearing a support, whereas not wearing a ring makes no difference to one’s appearance. Then I went to free educational classes one afternoon and one evening every week, without my husband; though when the babies arrived I had to give up the afternoon class, my husband not getting in from his milk-round until three o’clock. Later on, when the children went to school, I tried to get up a kind of social and, I was hoping, partly intellectual gathering with some of the mothers, meeting in our own homes; only to discover that most women – working-class wives at least – were as subservient to their husbands’ needs as ever we had been to our employers’ in domestic service.