One Pair of Hands Read online

  I have stuffed the broken bit of my window up with paper, but it’s terribly cold getting up at crack of dawn. I just leap into about six jerseys and an overall and rush down to the kitchen, which is a bit warmer. This morning I over-slept and there was a fearful panic to get the children up and the breakfast cooked in time for them to bus to school. I dressed them in the kitchen so that I could do everything at the same time, but the water for the poached eggs simply wouldn’t boil, and Peter started to scream because he thought his favourite mistress would give him a bad mark if he was late. Really, it is a bit of a strain coping with it all before breakfast, children ought not to be so lively at such uncivilized times of day. Breakfast is fearfully hearty – you wouldn’t know me – I have to sing ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ and have my hair pulled, answer riddles, and wipe egg off chins, while still feeling half asleep and rather sick.

  You might write. You haven’t answered my question about Mrs Hampden and her summer-house. She is so nice, but she looks awfully sad, and sometimes cries, I think.

  Love and kisses from

  MONTY

  YEW GREEN GROVE

  YEW GREEN

  WALLINGFORD

  Monday

  DARLING,

  How absolutely ghastly. I wonder if you’re right.

  Love

  M.

  YEW GREEN GROVE

  YEW GREEN

  WALLINGFORD

  Wednesday

  DARLING MUMMY,

  Major Hampden had to go out to dinner tonight, so Mrs H. and I took down our back hair over our cocoa, and told each other our life history. You were right about her – it’s awful. She said, quite jokingly: ‘The ridiculous doctors have given me six months, isn’t it absurd?’ No wonder she cries.

  Today the children’s Uncle Conrad came to tea with their grandmother. She is quite a nice old lady in a black sort of way, except that she would call me Miss Dixon, but I’m afraid Uncle Conrad is not at all normal. Mrs Johns had told me beforehand that he was ‘not quite the thing’, so I was not unduly surprised when he broke into a thin scream on being told to eat up his chocolate biscuit. The children love him, and see nothing peculiar; it was a sweet sight to see Jane and him playing on the floor with dolls.

  I have had to discover how to make all sorts of revolting things, like Sago, Spotted Dick, Blancmange, and Prune Mould, but I suppose it’s all part of one’s education.

  No more now, as I must go and wash some wee woolly garments. I mended Major Hampden’s cardigan one day, but I don’t think he really liked it; he is very conservative and missed the old aerated feeling. I have hardly been out of the house yet, except to the pillar box – so much for my ideas of rustic rambles.

  Love to all,

  MONTY

  YEW GREEN GROVE

  ETC

  Monday

  DARLING,

  Sorry I haven’t written for such ages. but I’ve been most fearfully busy, as Mrs Johns has got flu – I have to do all the housework alone – not that there’s much dirt in the country compared to London. She arrived the other day with a streaming cold, and went about the house saying: ‘Oh dear, what it is to be a laaady.’ Whether she meant that she was one, or envied those who were, I don’t know. I don’t know either how Mr Johns will manage to nurse her and keep his feet up at the same time. What a life these people have.

  Jane has been with me in the kitchen all day, as her mother is not so well. Her idea of help is to cut all the pictures out of Mrs Beeton and put them into the saucepans. I didn’t know she had, until I found a highly-coloured Charlotte Russe in my soup tonight. It’s funny, but I hardly break anything here, where it wouldn’t matter much if I did. Innumerable were the various things that slipped through my nerveless fingers in the Parrish basement.

  Major H. says the church roof needs repair, and they must have a bazaar – not here, I hope.

  Lots of love

  MONTY

  YEW GREEN GROVE

  ETC

  Thursday

  DARLING,

  I’ve been here over two weeks now, and it seems more like two days. I shall be awfully sorry to leave them all. Today I said to Jane at lunch: ‘Empty your mouth before you speak,’ and believe it or not, she calmly spat everything out all over the table. Logical, I suppose, but messy. The vicar’s wife called this morning to discuss the bazaar and laughed at me. She is a very hearty woman with wild red hair. I suppose a pair of trousers worn with a cooking apron and bedroom slippers does look a little odd, but no odder than her hat.

  I have told the children all about you, and they are very struck by the idea, and even mention you in their prayers: ‘Make Mrs Dickens a good girl.’ Do you feel any better yet?

  Your loving

  MONTY

  YEW GREEN GROVE

  ETC

  Tuesday

  DARLING,

  Well, I shall be home tomorrow. The train gets in about six, I think. The Austrian Jewess who is replacing me has arrived, and is very pleasant, so they are fixed up all right.

  The church bazaar is off, as my poor old Major Hampden can’t think of anything at the moment but his wife. Mummy, I can’t write about the awful things that may happen to this dear little family – I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.

  Till then –

  Your loving

  MONTY

  Chapter Seven

  I CAME HOME from the tour in Alsace more than ever convinced that I knew less than nothing about cooking, but after visiting the kitchens of almost every inn and hotel, I was fired with an enthusiasm to try out some of the marvellous things we had tasted over there. I determined to look for a job before the flat after-holiday feeling descended upon me.

  I was rather put off going to the agency, because while I was away they had sprung a horrid shock on me.

  They had never asked me for more than the initial shilling that I had paid to be enrolled on their books, and I, with an imbecile simplicity, had imagined that it was the employers only who paid a fee when they engaged a servant, and had never thought of inquiring what they were going to charge me. Judge, therefore, of my horror when a bill followed me out to Alsace, saying: ‘To suiting Miss Dickens, on such and such dates,’ or words to that effect. The total came to over £2 and I was furious. I reckoned up that in my various positions, I had earned about £20, and here they were asking for more than 10 per cent of it, as well as taking goodness knows how much from my employers. They could take millions from Martin if they liked, but I grudged them anything out of the earnings of my sweated labour. I went about for a bit muttering, ‘Dual commission, it’s illegal,’ but I had to pay it. Anyway, they had been very nice to me and got me jobs for which I really was not qualified. I decided that this time I would chance my luck with advertisement, so after much thought I concocted something very conceited and sent it to a ‘situations wanted’ column where it looked most imposing:

  ‘Working cook-housekeeper seeks daily post, capable, honest, and refined – excellent English and French cooking. Write Box —’

  I got several answers almost at once, but nearly all of them only went to illustrate the fact that some people never read anything properly, or if they do, they ignore what they see. Some wanted a living-in-maid, and a dear old lady wanted me as a sort of nurse-companion – heating up her milk at night was all the cooking I should get there probably – but the third was quite hopeful.

  ‘In reply to your advertisement in the Daily —’ (it ran) ‘I am looking for a temporary cook-general to do the cooking and housework of a very small house. There are just two of us, and it would only be for about a month, as I have engaged somebody else who is not able to come to me till then – if you are not yet suited, please call at the above address any morning before eleven o’clock.

  Yours truly,

  (MRS) BARBARA RANDALL

  I liked the idea of another temporary job – it doesn’t give time for the novelty to wear off, and for one to get sick of it, so I fished out the do
wdy hat, which was looking even more battered after quite a long sojourn in an ottoman. I arrived at the address in South Kensington to find a builder’s board hanging on the area railings, and a sound of hammering in the air. I looked again at the address on the letter, because it didn’t look the sort of house that anyone was living in, but this was it all right, so I knocked, as there was only a hole where the bell ought to be. The door was opened by a very pretty and quite young girl, in an overall with her hair tied up in a handkerchief.

  ‘Mrs Randall?’ I said, astutely observing the wedding ring on her left hand.

  ‘Yes – that’s me.’

  ‘I’ve come about the post as cook-general.’

  ‘Oh, are you the advertisement in the Daily —, I mean, the one who put it in? Do come in, I’m afraid the place is in an awful mess, the men promised to have finished yesterday, but of course they’re not nearly done, goodness knows when they’ll be out of the place.’ She led the way, prattling gaily, to what I presumed was going to be the dining-room in the fullness of time, as there was a round mahogany table in the middle of the room. The rest of the space was cluttered up with toppling piles of books – vases, lamps, and even a dirty clothes basket. Sweeping one or two volumes of the Encyclopedia from a chair to the floor, she told me to sit down, and hunted about among the confusion on the table for a cigarette for herself. When she had lit it up, she leant against the mantelpiece and giggled.

  ‘I’ve never engaged a maid before, you know,’ she said with endearing candour, ‘so I don’t know all the things to say. I do so badly want to move in as soon as we’ve got things just a tiny bit straight. The workmen are only in the basement – they’re doing something mysterious to the foundations, and building a maid’s bedroom – that’s why I can’t have anyone to sleep in yet, you see. I’m sure you’ll do marvellously, if you don’t mind a bit of a muddle.’

  This was swift work, and my professional instincts told me that it was all wrong that I should have been engaged without having a chance to tell her how marvellous I was – Mrs Hampden had given me a reference, saying I was willing, obliging, and a good worker, which sounded more like a cart horse than a cook, but I produced it now and handed it to Mrs Randall. She barely glanced at it, and she seemed to have made up her mind. I believe she would have engaged anybody, one-legged, armless, or deaf and dumb, provided they’d been the first to apply for the job. She was so pleased at the idea of getting someone, and being able to settle down in her little love-nest – she was obviously very newly married, and I thought she was sweet, and would be delightful to work for. She was small, with curly brown hair and huge wide-open eyes that looked at you innocently out of her pretty round face. She didn’t look more than twenty, but I thought it preferable to be bossed by someone younger than myself, rather than by an old trout in a flowered kimono.

  After showing me the rest of the house, which consisted only of a drawing-room and dining-room on the ground floor, a double bedroom and spare room upstairs, and a bathroom half-way, we descended to the kitchen, stepping over planks and heaps of cement on the way – the kitchen, however, was more or less ready for use, as far as one could see from the litter of shavings, crockery, and pots and pans that was strewn about.

  It was done up quite pleasantly in blue and white, with check curtains, there was a clean-looking new sink and gas stove, but, oh horrors! What was this? The old-fashioned range had evidently been removed, and in its place under the mantelpiece, charged with sinister menace, stood – a boiler. Mrs Randall followed my gaze, which was riveted on it in awful fascination, and said cheerfully:

  ‘You won’t mind lighting the boiler in the mornings, will you? Actually – I believe it’s quite a simple one. My husband will be able to explain all about it to you, anyway.’

  I thought it would have to be a pretty intensive explanation to make me understand it. It has always been my contention that no woman ought to have to look after a boiler. They’re simply not made that way – it’s like overarm bowling.

  However, it would be their lookout if the bath-water wasn’t hot through my getting confused with dampers, drawers, and what not.

  We arranged that I was to come quite early the next day and between us we would try to get the house straightened up so that they could sleep there that night.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Randall suddenly, as I was just going out of the front door, ‘we haven’t settled anything about wages. Would £1 do?’

  ‘Well, er, hm –’ I was going to say that it was less than my usual wage, but it occurred to me that they were probably very hard up and had only just been able to afford to marry. Everyone likes to help young love along, so I said: ‘Yes, thank you, that’s quite all right.’ She looked relieved, and I left her, thinking that the small pay would anyway give me an excuse for being even less thorough than usual. I arrived before her the next day, but the workmen had got the back door open – so I went in that way, and was nearly brained by a small plank that came hurtling from the roof into the area. I looked up, furious, and a face with a walrus moustache looked over the parapet and said, ‘Wotcha, Blondie!’ I flounced into the house, to be treated to a few desultory tooth-suckings as I passed the future servant’s bedroom – where four or five men were sitting on the floor drinking tea out of enamel mugs.

  ‘Never speak to strange men’ is evidently not a maxim that applies below stairs, for they were very offended when I ignored them, and yelled out, ‘Can’t yer say “Good morning”?’ So I had to yell back from the kitchen, ‘Good morning!’ to which they replied, ‘Oi-oi’ on various notes like a male chorus. However, this wasn’t the B.B.C., so I vouchsafed no more, and, putting on an overall, attacked the kitchen with morning zest. After I had put all the rubbish into the dustbin, and arranged the plates and dishes on the dresser, it began to look more presentable. All the crockery was dirty, of course, and would have to be washed, but as I couldn’t find any soap flakes or powder, I left it for the time being. I decided to hang up some saucepans. Most of the workmen seemed to have disappeared by now. They had gone either on the roof or on strike, but there was a sad, pale youth of about sixteen sitting in the area, chipping stones, so I bearded him and said, ‘Could you oblige me with a hammer and some nails?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ he said, getting up and hunting round in a vague way till he found what I wanted. He handed them to me with an ‘’Ere y’are’, and returned sadly to his stones.

  I had great fun knocking in nails at every possible point – I love to see saucepans and ladles and things hanging round a kitchen, it gives it a cosy olde worlde look, and Mrs Randall had lovely new matching sets of everything, which it would have been a pity to hide. The noise of my hammering drowned her arrival and she entered with a shriek as she saw me miss the last nail and hit my thumb. I hopped round the room in agony for a bit, and she trotted after in a distressed way, begging to be allowed to have a look. When I eventually uncovered the injury, there was nothing to see at all, which is often the case, but is always disappointing, so we went upstairs, after she had admired my efforts in the kitchen. A van had deposited several more things in the hall since yesterday. They seemed to have had a lot of wedding presents.

  I spent the rest of the morning carrying endless loads of books and knick-knacks up to the drawing-room where she arranged them, prattling all the time. Even when I went out of the room, she raised her voice to follow me downstairs, but nevertheless I missed some of her remarks, and she would say ‘D’you think so?’ as I arrived back, hidden under a pile of books on a sofa cushion.

  ‘Yes, madam,’ I panted, or, if that didn’t seem to be the right answer, ‘I mean, no, madam.’

  Eventually, we couldn’t get anything more into the drawing-room, which was already beginning to look rather early Victorian, so we stacked a lot of things in the spare room.

  ‘It’s rather a pity,’ said Mrs Randall, ‘because I shan’t be able to have my mother to stay till I get rid of some of this rubbish. Really, why do some people hav
e such ghastly taste? Look at this vase, just like a dustbin!’

  I thought there was an excuse for it, if it was going to help in preventing a mother-in-law from staying with a newly-married couple, but refrained from comment and descended for a fresh load.

  At lunch time she sent me out to buy some sausages, which I cooked, and we both ate them at the kitchen table, washed down with huge cups of coffee and more chatter.

  I asked her if she was going to arrange with any of the tradesmen to call for orders.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ she said, ‘yes, I suppose I ought. There seem to be quite a lot of grocers and things round here. Mother says it’s a good thing to change your tradesmen quite often, as they’re more likely to try and please you if you’re a new customer, but I shan’t tell the first lot that, of course.’

  She went upstairs proudly, to get her coat, and I started in on the crockery washing, as I had bought some soap flakes when I got the sausages. She came down in her trousseau fur coat. ‘I say, are you washing all the plates and things? That’s marvellous. I wonder if you could possibly give us dinner here tonight? Just a chop or something? Could you really – oh, that’ll be lovely – what shall I get?’ I gave her a list of things; and she trotted out, saying, ‘Now don’t go and do too much and get tired on your first day.’

  What a change from Parrish! I prayed that she might never get like that, but a few years of coping with rather frightful domestics like myself might easily sour that sweet good-nature. Who knows, perhaps even Mr Parrish had been a sunny soul at that age, and had treated his cooks as if they were human, but, somehow, I couldn’t imagine it. At tea-time the Walrus Moustache came tramping in a very dirty pair of boots into the kitchen which I had just swept.