One Pair of Hands Read online

  The washing up took an age. I began to regret the days when a huge dish was put on the middle of the table and everyone helped themselves with their fingers. It was finished at last, and we all sat down in the sitting-room round the unappetizing remains of the feast, ‘hotted up’ by me. I was too tired to do more than drink a cup of tea. They regarded me with pity, and Nannie said, ‘Slimmin’, I suppose – mad I call it,’ as she packed potato away behind her well-filled black alpaca. Addie ate rapaciously and I wondered at her thinness. I was enlightened, however, when her apology for passing her plate for a third helping was: ‘It’s me little strangers, there’s no satisfyin’ ’em, it seems.’

  This led to other interesting topics. Nannie’s feet, it appeared, were inclined to ‘draw’ in the damp, and Violet, one of the waitresses, had some information on the subject of varicose veins. The other waitress, whose name sounded like Mrs Haddock, had a daughter who had just had a bad time with her first, so, not to be outdone, I told them about my dropped arches. This went down well, and I went up a bit in their estimation. Cigarettes were lit, and we settled down to a cosy discussion of the people upstairs.

  ‘Some people,’ said Addie in her rather moaning voice, ‘have got a nerve. That Mrs Bewmont, I mean to say, asked for a second sponge finger, straight she did. “Well,” I said to myself, “what cheek, eh?”’

  ‘Well I never. She never took one.’

  ‘Didn’t she then? Too busy talking to his Lordship, I dessay. “Go it, my lady,” I says to myself, “we seen you without your party manners.”’

  ‘What about Miss May? She got married, didn’t she? Isn’t she going to have a baby yet?’

  ‘No, dear – she can’t, I’ve heard. It’s ’is fault, they say, but of course –’

  I was beginning to feel a trifle uncomfortable, and was relieved when, at this point, the drawing-room bell broke into Addie’s revelations.

  ‘Oh, bells, bells, bells, they’d drive you mad,’ said Violet calmly as she rose without haste to answer the summons. I thought it was about time I was going, so I went and put my coat on. I wanted to know what time I had to come the next day, and nothing had as yet been settled about my wages.

  Violet came downstairs again and said: ‘She wants to see you before you go.’

  ‘She’ was in the hall, her plumage drooping a little from the strain of sociability. ‘Ah, Miss Dickens!’ I could see she was trying to carry something off, as her voice was higher than ever, and falsely bright. ‘I really don’t think I can settle anything permanent just now, so please don’t bother to come tomorrow. Thank you so much. Good night!’ She pressed some coins into my hand and vanished into the drawing-room. When the door had shut behind her on the well of voices, I opened my hand on two half-crowns and a shilling.

  ‘Well,’ I said to myself, as I banged out into the Dulwich night and nearly fell into the laurels, ‘what a cheek, eh?’

  Chapter Two

  I THINK MISS Cattermole must have refrained from telling the agency what she thought of me, for they rang me up a few days later and offered me another job. This time it was a Mrs Robertson, who wanted someone twice a week to do washing and ironing and odd jobs. As I had already assured the agency that I was thoroughly domesticated in every way, I didn’t feel like admitting that I was the world’s worst ironer.

  They gave me the address, and I went along there in a clean starched apron which I hoped made me look crisp and efficient. The porter of the flats let me in, as Mrs Robertson was out, but she had left a note for me, and a pile of washing on the bathroom floor. I sorted it out, and it was not attractive. It consisted mainly of several grubby and rather ragged pairs of corsets and a great many small pairs of men’s socks and stockings in a horrid condition of stickiness.

  I made a huge bowl of soapsuds, and dropped the more nauseating articles in with my eyes shut. I washed and rinsed and squeezed for about an hour and a half. There was no one but me to answer the telephone, which always rang when I was covered in soap to the elbow. I accepted a bridge party for the owner of the corsets, and a day’s golfing for the wearer of the socks, but did not feel in a position to give an opinion on the state of cousin Mary’s health.

  I had just finished hanging out the clothes, and had wandered into the drawing-room to see what sort of books they had, when I heard a latch key in the door. I flew back to the bathroom, and was discovered diligently tweaking out the fingers of gloves when Mrs Robertson walked in. It had occurred to me that she must be a very trusting person to allow a complete stranger the run of her flat, and I now realized that it was probably because she was the soul of honesty herself, that she expected everyone else to be the same. Her large blue eyes gazed candidly on the world, from a face that shone with integrity. She gave me a hearty smile and a handshake, and looked round to inspect my labours. If she expected everyone to be honest, she also expected them to be as efficient as herself. She was horrified to see that I had not hung the stockings up by the heels, and told me so with a charming frankness. However, she still wanted me to come back the next day to iron the things I had washed, so my heart warmed towards her, and I offered to make her a cup of tea. Mr Robertson arrived just as I was going out, and we collided at the front door. He threw me a terrific glance upwards, for he was a fiery man, and scuttled for safety into his dressing-room.

  I returned the next day, still crisp and efficient, and scorched Mrs Robertson’s best crêpe de Chine camisole. She was more than frank in her annoyance over this trifling mishap and it made me nervous. The climax came when I dropped the electric iron on the floor and it gave off a terrific burst of blue sparks. I supposed it had fused, and Mrs Robertson came hurrying in at the sound of the crash, and she knew it had. It was all very awkward, and I felt very small indeed under her candid remarks. It ended by her paying me at the rate of a shilling an hour for the time I had put in, and a tacit agreement being formed between us that I should never appear again. I just caught a glimpse of Mr Robertson flitting into a doorway as I came into the hall. I was sorry not to have known him better, we could have been friends, I think – except for the sticky socks.

  Well, so far I didn’t seem to have been much of a success as a working girl. I wasn’t exactly piling up money in large quantities either, and the rate of pay didn’t come anywhere near compensating for the mental agonies that I had undergone. I was still undaunted, however, and told myself that there are so many people in the world that it doesn’t matter if one doesn’t hit it off with one or two of them. I pinned my faith in the whispering woman in the agency, and went and had a heart-to-heart talk with her.

  ‘What I want is something where I’ll really get a chance to get some practical experience,’ I told her.

  ‘Well, we have one or two people asking for cook-generals,’ she said. ‘You might go and see this Miss Faulkener, at Chelsea. She wants someone to do the work of a very small flat, and cook dinner at night, and sometimes lunch. You ought to be able to manage that, I think.’ She gazed at me thoughtfully, but without much confidence. ‘Well, anyway, there’s no harm in having an interview. Here’s the address.’

  I rang up Miss Faulkener, and she told me to come and see her that afternoon. The burning question of what to wear exercised me very much. Should I dress the part in two slashing shades of green and Woolworth ear-rings?

  No, I would keep up the pretence of tragic gentility – plain, but clean and honest. A black coat and an uncompromising black felt hat would meet the case. Mourning, perhaps, for ‘the Dad’. I might be a soldier’s daughter, and he had told me with his last breath to ‘Take care of your mother, the gallant little woman.’

  I added a pair of cotton gloves to the outfit and went off, full of hope and very excited, to Miss Faulkener’s flat off the King’s Road. A sharp-featured maid opened the door and looked me over suspiciously.

  ‘You come after the job?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered humbly.

  ‘Got an appointment?’

  ‘Yes.’ I
gave her my name, and she let me in reluctantly. I stood shifting my feet in the narrow hall, while she disappeared through a door, presumably to give a report on me to someone inside. Eventually she came out and told me I could go in. I found myself in one of those long rooms that have an archway in the middle and velvet curtains to divide it into drawing-room and dining-room. I was in the drawing-room end. On a sofa in front of a coal fire, groomed to the last eyebrow, sat my prospective employer. Though quite young, she had a self-confident poise beyond her years. Undeniably attractive, there was yet a hard, almost inhuman quality about the faultlessness of her appearance. She didn’t look the sort of girl who could be persuaded to buy a dud article like myself, unless she wanted to of her own free will.

  She told me to sit down, and scrutinized me pretty closely while we talked. It was a funny feeling to think that I was in her power to be accepted or rejected with contumely, and I had a strong schoolgirl desire to giggle.

  ‘What experience have you had, and have you references?’ I knew this was bound to come, but nevertheless it was still a disturbing question. I had thought of an answer, though, and got it out fast, stumbling a little in my desire to appear eager and worthy.

  ‘Well, you see, I haven’t actually had a job quite like this before, but I’ve kept house for my mother for quite a time, and also, I’ve done quite a lot of cooking for dinner parties at various houses.’ (Oh, Miss Cattermole, how art thou magnified!)

  Then I gave her exaggerated accounts of my training in cookery, and sat back to let her think it over.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I must say I’d rather you had more actual experience, but I’m in a hurry to get someone as my Mrs Baker, who let you in, wants to go tomorrow. Her father’s ill. I don’t want to be left without anybody. You really think you could manage the work all right?’

  Trying to hit on a nice mixture of pride and deprecation, I assured her that I could. I hadn’t the slightest idea how much money I ought to ask for.

  She said: ‘How about twenty-five shillings a week? Sunday afternoon and evening off, and one half-day a week.’

  It sounded quite a lot to me, for something that I thought I was rather going to enjoy. She looked an amusing woman, and it would be marvellous to have the run of a kitchen to mess in to my heart’s content. It was all fixed up; I was to start the next day. It seemed too good to be true to think that I’d really landed the job. In my enthusiasm, even the idea of getting up early seemed quite rosy. I asked her what time I had to be there in the mornings.

  ‘I have my breakfast in bed at a quarter past nine, so if you get here in time to get that ready, and lay this fire, that’ll be all right. You can get this room done after that, as I don’t get up very early.’

  I could picture her, lying in bed, holding long telephone conversations, wearing something rather pink and lacy. I was sure she had lovely night-dresses.

  She indicated that the interview was at an end, and told me to go and find Mrs Baker, who would show me where everything was. I found her in the kitchen. She was much pleasanter now that I was an accepted member of the household and not a suspicious intruder, and quite unburdened her soul to me over a pot of strong black tea. I heard all about her father’s illness. The details were terrifying; it seemed to me about time someone went and looked after him.

  ‘It’s a long time now since I lived at ’ome,’ she said. ‘Dad and Mr Baker, they never could get on together, so we went out Streatham way and set up on our own. Then when Mr B was called above, with pneumonia, poor soul, six years ago, that was, I went into service. Been with Miss Faulkener nearly a year now. Ever such a nice young lady she is, but particular. Oh, my, yes. Some folks seem to ’ave nothin’ better to do all day than to run their fingers along the shelves, lookin’ for dirt. Not that I’d say anything against her, mind, she’s always been very nice to me, I’m sure. Her parents are divorced. I expect you won’t mind that.’

  She said this last with such emphasis, and looked at me so severely that it was obvious that she didn’t approve herself and would be shocked but not surprised if I did.

  I said airily: ‘Ah well, of course, Mrs Baker, in these days, you know, one has to make allowances; after all, it’s happening every day.’

  ‘Those whom God hath joined together –’ she replied sternly. That’s the one remark to which there is never any answer, so I suggested that she might show me round a bit. It was a dear little kitchen and beautifully clean. I looked forward to having it to myself, though I was afraid it wouldn’t look quite so spotless after I’d been in occupation for a bit.

  The flat consisted of Miss Faulkener’s bedroom, a tasteful chamber of the peach satin and white woolly rug order, a spare room, bathroom, and the drawing-cum-dining-room which I had already seen. There didn’t look a great lot to do – not that I’d had any experience of housework, but Mrs Baker took care to point out that all the floors were parquet.

  ‘You’d be surprised at the amount of polishing they take.’

  I pursed my lips knowingly and nodded, trying to look as though I’d been polishing floors all my life.

  She then told me a lot of things about the routine of the establishment. I didn’t take in all of them, but I was pleased to hear that Miss Faulkener took an interest in food and ‘liked things done appetizing’. It would give me plenty of scope for practising.

  I suddenly remembered that I must go and buy a uniform before the shops shut, so Mrs Baker and I went out of each other’s life and I made tracks for an Oxford Street store where I could get something on my mother’s account.

  They had a huge variety of really quite decorative uniforms. ‘There’s no need to look drab even if I am only a general,’ I thought to myself. I bought a plain blue dress and some very tricky little frilled aprons with cuffs and collars to match. I tried on a few caps, but decided I looked too like a waitress, and anyway it was rather the modern idea for maids to revolt against wearing caps. I finished off my trousseau by getting some bright-coloured overalls to ward off depression in the early morning and a very attractive peasant apron for cooking.

  I rushed home to try on my uniform, and was so fascinated by it that I had to keep it on the entire evening. I was to get sick of the sight of it only too soon, when it began to wilt a little under the stress of work!

  I went to bed early, with the cook’s alarm clock at my side, but in spite of that I didn’t sleep well. I kept dozing off and then waking with a start, thinking that the alarm had gone wrong and I had overslept. Its strident note eventually broke into a confused dream about floor polishing and terrified me right out of bed into the damp chill of a November morning. I rigged myself out in my uniform, which was cold with the unfriendliness of all new garments, and only put on just enough make-up to establish my self-respect. My breakfast arrived at this point, and I bolted down some coffee and rushed off, clutching my overalls and aprons, feeling distinctly queasy about the stomach, and, arriving in good time, let myself in, feeling like an old hand. I had a look over her letters, but there was nothing that looked exciting, so I took myself off to the kitchen. It was looking rather inhumanly neat, and was distinctly cold. There was no boiler as it was a flat, and a small refrigerator stood in one corner. I hung my coat behind the door, put on an overall, and, rolling up my sleeves, prepared to attack the drawing-room fire. I found the wood and coal, but I couldn’t see what Mrs Baker had used to collect the ash in. However, I found a wooden box which I thought would do, and took the coal along the passage in that. I hadn’t laid a fire since my girl-guide days, but it seemed quite simple, and I took the ashes out to the dustbin, leaving a little trail of cinders behind me from a broken corner of the box. The trouble about housework is that whatever you do seems to lead to another job to do or a mess to clear up. I put my hand against the wall while I was bending down to sweep up the cinders and made a huge grubby mark on the beautiful cream-coloured paint. I rubbed at it gingerly with a soapy cloth and the dirt came off all right, but an ev
en larger stain remained, paler than the rest of the paint, and with a hard, grimy outline. I didn’t dare wash it any more, and debated moving the grandfather clock over to hide it. However, it was now a quarter past nine, so I had to leave it to its fate and pray that Miss Faulkener wouldn’t notice, as it was time to get her breakfast ready. She only wanted coffee and toast and grapefruit, which didn’t take long. I tried to make some butter balls, but though I rotated the pats in the approved style something was wrong somewhere, because the butter just stuck to them in a shapeless mess. I had to give it up as it was half past nine, so I combed my hair and powdered my nose in an effort to look like ‘the fresh-faced maid’, who draws people’s curtains in novels, ‘letting in the full radiance of the morning sun’. I needn’t have bothered, for she was buried under the peach eiderdown and remained there while I put down the tray and drew the curtains on the beginnings of a fog. I turned on the gas-fire and wondered whether I ought to wake her up, so I coughed. The eiderdown heaved and I went out.

  I had dusted the living-room, swept all the dirt down the passage and into the kitchen, and gone through the usual tedious business of chasing it about, trying to get it into the dustpan before her bell and back-door bell rang at the same moment. People don’t realize when they put their finger on a button what a chaotic effect it has on the maid’s nerves. I stood quivering in the middle of the kitchen, recovering from the shock while I tried to decide which to answer first. The back door was the nearest, so I opened it on a man in a bowler hat and bicycling clips who tapped a paper pad and said ‘Grosher.’