No sooner had I closed my eyes - or so I thought - than my peaceful slumber was shattered by the alarm clock and Susie digging me in the ribs.
‘Come on, Kate. Five o’clock. Time to get up.’
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and got up. It was a bitterly cold morning and I hurried to get dressed. Work would soon warm me up, I said to myself. One good thing about the workhouse was that it toughened you up. It was the only good thing.
‘Have you got your list of jobs?’ Susie asked.
‘Right here in my pocket.’
‘Good, let’s get started.’
I was happy to be working with Susie. Together, we could make the hard graft bearable. And if I hadn’t had her to show me the ropes, I’d have been at sixes and sevens.
‘Can’t we have a cup of tea to get us in the mood?’ I asked.
‘Not yet. There’s far too much to do before we can even think about that.’ ' •
We crept downstairs so as not to waken anybody and we went into the cold, empty kitchen where we began the job of cleaning out the grate. We placed a piece of old carpet down and raked out the cinders and laid the fire. Before lighting it, we had to black-lead the range using the
special brushes provided because, according to Susie, Mrs Armstrong was most particular about it. After much elbow grease, the range was gleaming so you could see your face in it.
‘Let’s hope the wood and coal that Old Ned brought down last night are not damp,’ Susie said as she applied a match. We were in luck and soon there was a good fire going underneath the old iron kettle.
We went upstairs to the main hall and Susie’s next action puzzled me. She began scattering tea leaves right, left and centre over the lovely carpets in the hall and the reception rooms. She’s gone mad, I thought.
‘To lay the dust,’ she informed me.
We gave the carpets a vigorous sweeping. We cleaned, dusted, tidied the main rooms and she showed me how to lay the table for breakfast. We lit another fire as the family expected to see a cheerful blaze in the grate when they came down.
It was now six thirty and we made a quick cup of tea for ourselves.
‘You can begin your first day, Kate,’ she said, ‘by taking Mrs Armstrong her early morning cuppa.’
‘But Mrs Armstrong is only the cook - a servant like us,’ I said.
‘Don’t you believe it. She’s the most important person on the staff. The early morning tea is her only comfort. The rest of the day she’s run off her feet.’
‘What about James? Do we take him tea as well?’
‘James can get his own bloody tea. He’s a lazy bugger.’
I took Mrs Armstrong her tea using the best china.
‘God bless you, love,’ she said. ‘I can see that you and I are going to get along fine.’
I was already feeling tired after this frantic activity but there was no chance of getting off my feet.
‘Come along, Kate my girl. No sitting down. We have to take morning tea to the lords and ladies upstairs. I’ll take it in to the master and the mistress. Her Majesty always likes a slice of thin bread and butter with her tea to set her up for the day, and I have to light a fire in their bedroom. You can take tea in to Harold and Emma.’
‘Harold?’ I asked falteringly.
‘You’ll have to do it sometime. Why not today? You can put him in his place from the beginning. But don’t forget, he likes two sugars and Emma none.’
I was worried about this taking tea into bedrooms but I supposed I had to get used to it. I prepared the tea and in my nervousness I put two sugars in both teas. And I couldn’t remember who wanted it with sugar and who without.
Trembling, I took the tea into Harold’s bedroom. He was sitting up awake reading a big book when I went into the room. A young man of about eighteen, with deep brown eyes, his dark hair falling over his forehead, and blue morning stubble on his chin. Quite nice-looking, I thought. But I’d heard such stories about him.
‘Your morning tea, sir,’ I said, putting on a brave face. ‘Where would you like it?’
He grinned cheekily. ‘Where would I like it?’ he repeated. ‘Now, that’s quite a question, young missie. Why here in the bed, of course. Bring it to me.’
I was on my guard. I placed it on his bedside cabinet and was ready to beat a quick retreat.
‘You’re new here,’ he .said. ‘What’s your name, pretty maid?’
‘Kate,’ I answered, moving towards the door.
‘Kate! That’s a lovely name, that is.’ He held his book out to me, showing me the page he’d been reading. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that?’
It was a lewd picture of a naked woman and a man in a state of arousal. My cheeks burned.
‘No, sir. I don’t look at rude pictures like that.’
He laughed. ‘Ah, one of those convent girls, I see. We shall have to see if we can liberate you.’
‘Will that be all, sir?’ I said, making a beeline for the exit.
‘For the time being, my dear Kate,’ he leered.
‘By the way, sir,’ I said with my hand on the door, ‘if you take sugar, please stir your tea.’
I got out of there quick. I could see they hadn’t been exaggerating in the kitchen.
Miss Emma, too, was sitting up in bed when I entered.
‘Ah, you’re the new girl, Kate,’ she exclaimed, holding out her hand. I put the tea down on her cabinet and shook her hand.
‘I hope you’ll be happy here,’ she said. ‘But you seem too young to be a maid. How old are you?’
‘I’ll be fifteen next birthday, miss.’
‘But you are only a child. I don’t know what we’re coming to in this world when we employ young children as slaves. Sweated labour - and in my own family. One day all that will change, Kate. You wait and see.’
‘Yes. Thank you, miss,’ I said, and I headed towards the door. ‘If you take sugar in your tea, miss, stir it. If you don’t, don’t.’
As I closed the door behind me, I could hear Miss Emma giggling. At least, I thought, she has a sense of humour.
I returned to the kitchen where Mrs Armstrong was already preparing breakfast for the upstairs. And what a breakfast! Enough to feed an Ancoats family for a month. I couldn’t see how four people could eat such enormous amounts of food.
Before breakfast, Susie and I had to take up the master’s hot water for his shaving and his hip bath which he liked to take in front of the bedroom fire. We removed the two big pans which had been boiling on the range and lurched our way up the back stairs.
It was all right for some people, I said to myself. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as a man - a rich man.
When I got back downstairs, I found James waiting for me impatiently.
‘Come along, girl. Get a move on. You must clean and polish the shoes and put them outside the bedroom doors. And don’t forget to clean the instep underneath and iron the laces.’
Iron the laces! This was getting more and more like a loony bin with every hour that passed. But James was ironing the newspaper. What a mad, mad, mad world!
I finished the job and I couldn’t for the life of me remember which shoes belonged to who. As I climbed the stairs for the umpteenth time that day, I sang the popular song of the day:
I am only a bird in a gilded cage ,
A beautiful sight to see.
Though I seem happy and free from care ,
Tm not what I seem to be.
I placed the shoes outside the bedroom doors, hoping they could sort them out for-themselves.
As I descended to the kitchen, Susie began beating the gong for breakfast and the whole of the household - upstairs and downstairs - assembled in the dining room for the morning Bible-reading by the master.
I saw the beautiful table that Susie had laid with a
spotless cloth, each place with knives and forks and a table napkin folded into the shape of a mitre.
‘A reading from St Matthew , 5 Mr Lamport-Smythe announced. c “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” ’
I looked towards the sideboard with its bread rolls, toast, butter dishes, jars of jam, the jug of cream, and the china cups and saucers. I thought of the magnificent food that James and Susie would bring up from the kitchen: the bacon and eggs, kidneys, mushrooms, cutlets, broiled chicken, the kedgeree. What hypocrisy! Is not the life more than meat? St Matthew asked. For the Lamport-Smythes, the answer was there on their sideboard.
As the family sat down to their sumptuous breakfast served by James and Susie, Ned and I took the opportunity to remove the chamber pots and empty the master’s hip bath. I looked at the time. It was half past eight - three hours since I’d got up and I felt as if I’d done a day’s work already.
There was a short break while all of us downstairs sat down to our own breakfast. It was only porridge but it was the best I’d ever tasted, rich and creamy, and I ate it with lots of syrup. I tried some of the kedgeree which happened to be extra, thanks to Mrs Armstrong’s overestimate of the family’s needs. It was the first time I’d ever eaten such luxury food.
Whilst we were at the table, I asked about the family. Where did they go during the day?
James supplied the answers.
‘Let’s see now. Today is Tuesday. Master goes as usual to the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and at nine o’clock
Ned will take Madam in the dog cart for her coffee morning engagement with Fanny Tunnicliffe and her set. Miss Emma goes to meet her friends the Pankhurst sisters - Christabel and Sylvia - and two other young ladies who go by the names of Annie Kenney and Teresa Billington. They’re members of some crackpot society called the Women’s Social and Political Union - WSPU for short. It’ll get them into trouble one of these fine days, you mark my words. As for Harold, he goes to Chester where he’s supposed to be doing research for a book on the history of Cheshire.’
‘Harold’s a real mammy’s boy,’ said Ned. ‘Madam thinks he can do no wrong and that the sun shines out of his arse. And don’t go believing that malarkey about him doing research. We know the class of research he’ll be after doing and it won’t be the history of Cheshire. As God is my witness, I saw him once chatting up the strumpets in Manchester’s Piccadilly.’
‘And what, may I ask, were you doing in Piccadilly, Mr Ned Dooley?’ asked Mrs Armstrong.
‘Wasn’t I visiting me old Auntie Eileen in Moston and I happened to be passing that way.’
Mrs Armstrong gave him a ‘you can tell that to the birds’ look.
‘As for that nonsense Miss Emma is wrapped up in,’ James went on, ‘it should be banned by law. When she was younger, she behaved as a young girl in her station should.’
‘And what was that, James?’ I asked.
‘Dressing up and going to parties and dances and lunch engagements. That kind of thing. Now she’s got in with a political lot in Manchester. Women getting the vote! Rubbish! Women are too scatter-brained and more concerned with primping up their hair or trying on the latest fashions than meddling in things they don’t understand.
Women should concentrate on making themselves beautiful. They should leave politics to the men. A woman’s place is in the home, looking after her husband and her children. Everyone should know their place in society. Why, I’ve even heard that women have formed a football club! It’s not ladylike.’
‘I agree with you there, James,’ said Mrs Armstrong. ‘I’m sure I have enough to do without getting mixed up with them politicians. As for them MPs, they’re a bunch of liars and cheats. Promise you anything to get the votes and do as they like when they get in.That Churchill fellar is the worst of the lot.’
‘As I see it,’ Ned said addressing James, ‘it’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ If there was one thing that was not plain, it was the nose on James’s face. ‘There’s one law for them upstairs and one law for us,’ Ned continued. ‘Always was and always will be as long as they’re making the laws. Stands to reason. But mark my words, there will come a day when the common man will make the law. Meantime, I believe in keeping my head down and staying out of trouble.’
Such a long speech from Old Ned left him panting. He looked surprised himself that he’d been able to utter so many words in one breath.
‘I don’t know about votes for women and that,’ Susie said. ‘I only know that I’m not going to spend the rest of my life at the beck and call of upstairs people. I’d like to get out of domestic service and set up my own home. Someday, I’ll make my fortune and you won’t see my heels for dust. Or at least if there is any dust, it won’t be me sweeping it up.’
‘And how are you going to make your fortune?’ I asked. I was interested in case there was a chance I could make mine too.
‘I dunno at this moment. Maybe doing them competitions in Tit-Bits. You can win twenty pounds if you get it right. Or maybe some day my prince will come.’
‘And is there a prince waiting in the wings?’ Mrs Armstrong asked.
‘Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t,’ Susie answered. ‘At home, there’s a certain young man I’ve known since we were kids but either he doesn’t have enough money or he’s waiting to pluck up courage to pop the question.’
‘And what about you, young Kate?’ James asked. ‘Do you have a young man?’
I blushed to the roots. ‘Oh no, not me. I’m much too young for that. Besides, my great dream is to save enough money to get my family together again. My young sister and brother are still in Swinton Industrial School and some day I’d like to see them back home.’ I said nothing about the workhouse or the death of my father. There were some things I preferred to keep to myself.
‘In other words,’ said Mrs Armstrong, ‘you yearn for a stable home.’
‘That’s it, Mrs Armstrong,’ I replied with a serious face, ‘but I don’t fancy living with a bunch of smelly horses.’
Everyone laughed at my attempt at a joke - even though it was corny.
‘Talking of dreams,’ James said, ‘what I’d like to do is get a job as house steward in the house of some lord or duke. Good pay, good grub, good wine and the life of Reilly - that’s for me.’
‘I don’t know about the life of Reilly,’ Old Ned chuckled. ‘I’d like to return to Erin and live it up but as myself, Ned Dooley, not this Reilly fellar. A pretty young colleen by my side and a nice little cottage in Kerry. Sittin’ beside the turf fire with a pint of porter and a pipe of good tobacco - that’s my idea of heaven.’
Tve learned not to make future plans,’ Mrs Armstrong said quietly. ‘We don’t know what’s coming tomorrow and I never expect too much. That way I’m never disappointed.’
On that solemn note, we broke up, for the bell was summoning Susie to help Madam dress for her coffee morning. And that was no easy job considering Madam would be wearing three or four layers of clothing, with tightly laced stays, many petticoats and a steel-hooped crinoline.
As for me, I had to wash the breakfast things, after which I had to help Susie tidy up the bedrooms. It was while we were making the bed in the master bedroom that I found half a crown under the master’s pillow.
‘Here’s a bit of luck,’ I said to Susie. ‘We’ll split it. One and three each.’
‘We’ll do nothing of the kind,’ Susie retorted. ‘That piece of silver has been put there by Madam deliberately to test you. She tried it on me a couple of years back when I first came here. No, you give it back as soon as she returns from her coffee morning.’
It was a good job Susie had been there with me or I’d have fallen into the trap. In the workhouse, I’d learned that it was every man for himself.
I spent the rest of that first morning cleaning and dusting everything in sight and a few things that weren’t. I dusted and washed picture rails, skirting boards, the mirrors, and the insides of the windows. In case I ran out of things to do, Susie told me to scrub the front steps and polish the brass on the door, and there was a lot of it - the numbers 3 and 5, the fancy knocker, the knobs, the door plates.
‘Make sure it’s gleaming,’ Susie advised. ‘Madam’s most particular about the doorway.’
‘But it looks like rain,’ I objected.
‘Doesn’t matter, you’ll have to do it as she’ll notice when she comes back at lunchtime.’
I worked like mad on it till it shone like the sun; the guards at Buckingham Palace would have been proud of it.
At twelve thirty, it was time for dinner; that is, dinner for downstairs and luncheon for upstairs. It had been a long morning and I was as hungry as a horse, and ready for the lentil soup and rolls Mrs Armstrong had organised. Susie prepared a tray and took it up to Madam. We were about to begin eating when Susie returned and with a jerk of the thumb indicated that Her Majesty wanted to see me after luncheon. I was a little worried as to what it could be about but I didn’t let it put me off my food. No fear! Anyway, it might be good news; perhaps she wanted to congratulate me on the radiance of the front doorway.
Before I left the servants’ hall, James asked me to take a letter up to her. He had a stupid grin on his face and he was doing a lot of winking to the others. I wondered what he was up to but there couldn’t be any harm in taking up a letter to her, surely.
At two o’clock, I went up to see Madam and found her waiting for me in the drawing room.
I gave her my best curtsy and held out the letter.
‘James asked me to give this letter to you, Madam.’
‘Never, never do that again!’ she snapped, frowning at the letter as if it were a dead mouse.
What had I done wrong?
‘Never hand me a letter like that. Heaven knows how many germs it might have picked up from the people who’ve handled it. The sorters, the postman, the servants, and now you. Another thing: it’s not your job to deliver letters to me but if ever you do, you should wear gloves and always give things to me on a silver salver.’
‘Yes, Madam.’Wait till I see that lot downstairs!
‘Another thing,’ Madam continued staring at some distant point over my left shoulder, ‘I’m not satisfied with the brasses on the door. They look positively green and mouldy. What would one of the Brocklehurst family say if they came to visit us?’
Not knowing who the Brocklehursts were, I couldn’t answer this but I did know that I’d shone those brasses to the best of my ability. It must have been the rain that had taken the shine off my handiwork but it was no use telling her that. Best not to argue with Her Majesty.
‘Sorry, Madam. I’ll try to do better.’
‘And there’s another matter,’ she said. ‘I distinctly heard you singing this morning, something about a bird in a gilded cage. Must I remind you, there should be no laughing or singing above stairs. It’s unacceptable. Kindly refrain.’
‘Sorry, Madam,’ I answered automatically. I changed my mind about wanting to come back as a rich man. No, now I wanted to return as a torturer in a dungeon and I wanted this woman on the rack with me turning the screw until she begged for mercy.
I dismissed such evil thoughts. Instead, I held out the half-crown I’d discovered under the pillow. ‘I found this coin under the master’s pillow when we were making the beds this morning, Madam.’ Uh-oh, I thought. I’ve put my foot in it again. Should have offered the coin on a tray.
She studied the half-crown. ‘At least you’re honest. Put the coin with the others that I’ve given to Susie. She’ll tell you what to do.’
When I got back to the kitchen, they were still sitting iround the table and as soon as I appeared they broke out llaughing.
‘The tray, the tray! You forgot the tray! Also the white gloves!’ James guffawed. ‘You’ll learn in time.’
Some joke! On this occasion, I didn’t share their humour.
Susie handed me a box containing about three pounds in silver to which I added the decoy half-crown. The rest of the afternoon I spent cleaning anything that had not been done in the morning. I didn’t think there was anything left but there were the staircases and the ledges. Surely now that was the end of it. Then Susie gave me a job which confirmed my view that I was working in a madhouse.
‘Madam has asked that you clean and polish the silver coins in her handbag to make sure all germs are exterminated.’
All afternoon, Mrs Armstrong had sweated over her range preparing the evening meal. Towards four o’clock, I helped her cut cucumber sandwiches for Madam and the friend she was entertaining.
‘Always cut the cucumber in the middle first,’ she instructed. ‘Next take a fine knife and peel the skin ever so carefully without losing too much of the cucumber.’
Susie took up the tray and for the next two hours I worked with Mrs Armstrong putting the finishing touches to the five-course dinner she’d been working on the whole afternoon. As the evening approached, it was all hands to the pump and soon there was chaos as everyone ran around attending to their own particular chores. Mrs Armstrong, who was normally so calm and collected, now became the short-tempered and irritable woman I’d seen on my first day. She snapped at everyone, including the house steward.
When James found that his own hob was not hot
\
enough, he placed a kettle on the cook’s range.
‘You will get that bloody kettle off my range and quick or I’ll hit you with this pan, so I will!’ she screamed at him.
‘One of these days, 5 James muttered when safely out of her hearing, ‘I’ll plonk that bloody woman down on her own hot stove. 5
Around six o’clock, when things seemed to be under control, the domestic staff sat down to supper in the servants 5 hall. We ate early so as to be free to minister to the family. Needless to say, we had small tastes of the courses that would be served later that evening. I got to sample foods I’d never heard of and some that I couldn’t even pronounce: consomme, Dover sole, entrecote steak with asparagus tips, sherry trifle, and a board with a wide selection of foreign sounding cheeses like Brie, Camembert, Parmesan.
‘I love these rich foods, 5 1 remarked to Susie.
‘I hope you do, 5 Susie laughed softly, ‘because you’ll be eating some of ’em for breakfast tomorrow. 5
‘But the waste, 5 I said. ‘All this rich food for a small family whilst people in the workhouse are starving on food you wouldn’t feed to the pigs. 5
‘The waste in this house, 5 said James, ‘is nothing next to what I saw in my last employment. Our master was Sir Charles Lancaster and there were fifteen servants, each with his own particular role, and it was God help anyone who tried to trespass on another’s job. The food we threw into the dustbin each morning was enough to feed an Indian village for a week. But fifteen’s a small staff next to the big houses like that of the Duke of Westminster who employs about three hundred. You can well imagine the extravagance in a place like that. As for Buckingham Palace, I shudder to think what goes on there. The Queen has a separate staff of Indian cooks to prepare a curry lunch each day whether anyone wants to eat it or not. 5
After our meal, the kitchen once more became a scene of frenzied activity. Mrs Armstrong showed me quickly
how to set the cook’s table with its vast array of knives, forks and an endless list of other implements like fish slices, tongs, spatulas, whisks. The table was set out like a hospital’s operating theatre -1 was the nurse and cook was the surgeon.
‘Knife! Fork! Fish slice! Pepper mill!’
I slapped them into her hand as she called.
‘Holy spoon! Ladle! Paring knife! Scissors!’
Using the dumbwaiter, we sent the various courses up to Susie and James in the dining room. The lift was soon back with the dirty dishes. Ned and I filled a large sink with piping hot water and for the next two hours we were hard at it washing and drying. Many of the cook’s instruments had to be washed quickly as they were required several times over.
‘Come along, Kate! Quick! Quick!’ Mrs Armstrong yelled. ‘You’ll have to learn to speed up!’
‘Pm going as fast as I can!’ I shouted back. ‘Pm not a machine!’
At nine thirty, the pace slowed down as James took up coffee and the cream.
Phew! What a day! And that was a normal day serving four people. God help us if they ever held a dinner party.
As we sat at the table having our cocoa before retiring, I asked, ‘Why don’t the Lamport-Smythes invest in some of the labour-saving devices Pve read about in the Servant’s Magazine ?’
To my surprise, everyone found this funny, especially when Mrs Armstrong declared, ‘I’ll not have any of them new-fangled inventions in my kitchen!’
James said, ‘If you mean things like gas cookers, the new electric water heaters or the carpet sweepers, the answer’s simple - rich folk would rather rely on our strong arms than pay out good money on mechanical
contraptions. The only one they might put their cash into is one that was displayed at the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty-one.’
‘Must have been good,’ said Mrs Armstrong, ‘if you think they might put their hands in their pocket. What in heaven’s name was it?’
‘A bedstead specially designed for servants.’ James laughed. ‘At a set hour, an automatic clockwork device removes the support from the foot of the bed, throwing the occupant out onto the floor. Good for sleepy-heads like Susie and Kate at five o’clock in the morning.’
‘Better still for butlers and house stewards,’ Susie retorted.
At last we retired to our rooms. Susie and I undressed quickly and collapsed into bed.
My legs were like wobbly jelly. I was so exhausted by my first day at work, I could hardly keep my eyes open.
‘Jiggered?’ Susie asked.
‘No, not jiggered. Buggered!’
I turned over and within seconds I was asleep.