Her Ladyship's Girl Read online

  ‘I’m a barmaid. I earn five shillings a week.’

  His undisguised contempt smiled down at my naivety. Then he told me the glass had pivoted up through the back of my heel and badly damaged the Achilles tendon and opened my ankle to the bone. I went into shock from loss of blood. I would have to keep my foot tightly bandaged for four months, initially in a pointed position to keep the ends of the tendon together, and gradually the foot should be brought upwards before re-bandaging. I would be unable to walk without a stick, even when the injury healed.

  They gave me a makeshift crutch and Lucy helped me into a car sent down by Pearl. I went back to the Duke’s Head and lay on the bed in my room for two days, with only the crutch to help me go back and forth to the bathroom. Pearl and Lucy were good to me, taking turns to bring me food and cups of tea and to sit with me and keep me company. But they both had to work and I knew Pearl would need the room for a new girl, even though she didn’t say so.

  There was nothing else for it – I’d have to go home to Wales. In those days, very few people were entitled to free medical aid. Under the 1911 National Insurance Act, access to a doctor was only given free to male workers who earned less than £2 a week – and that didn’t cover their wives or children. Hospitals charged for services, which most people couldn’t afford, so they didn’t go there, and many people, especially children, died through lack of simple care. Everybody tried to heal things themselves and they all had a folk remedy for something – turpentine for lice, and tomatoes for hair loss, and onions for colic, and urine for chilblains, and cloves for toothache, and dock leaves for stings, and enemas and Epsom salts and poultices. Doctors were aggressive and snappy with the poor, believing that it would be better for most of them to die than to waste resources on being treated.

  So, there was no way I could stay lying on my back in London for four months, and then hobble about on a crutch for the rest of my life after that. I had to go home – at least I’d be with my family who loved me and would take care of me. I wrote to my mother and explained what had happened. She wrote back and said coming home was the right thing to do. My brother Walter would come down to London on the following weekend and collect me and take me back to Llangynwyd – probably for the last time in my life.

  On Sunday 26 September 1937, Walter arrived at the Duke’s Head. I was dressed and packed and waiting for him with the makeshift crutch the hospital gave me. Lucy cried and hugged me and even Pearl had a tear in her eye. She gave me a bag with £5 in it that the customers had collected between them to see me on my way – and I was deeply touched. People who could barely afford to feed their children had contributed to this gentle gift, while those who could afford the obscenity of indecent extravagance thought hard over giving their workers a shilling for Christmas.

  Pearl provided a car to take us to Paddington station and Walter helped me to board the train for the journey home. We sat in silence for most of the way, except when he unpacked some food and a bottle of milk, and we ate and talked about the family and how my father’s lungs were getting worse and my mother was tired from working and looked older than her years. But Gwyneth had already left school and Bronwyn would be leaving next year and they’d both be able to get jobs and help out with the family finances. And I resolved there and then to get the better of this injury. I would not be a cripple and a burden on my family for the rest of my life.

  I would not!

  Chapter Sixteen

  My mother and sisters were so glad to see me and fussed about me and made me sit and put my foot up out of harm’s way. But my father’s broncho-pneumonia had turned into emphysema. His condition was worsening all the time and he could hardly breathe without coughing up blood and bile. The little house was like an infirmary, with me laid up and bandaged and my father choking and my mother tired from the hardship of her whole life.

  The local doctor came round and re-bandaged my foot to stop it getting infected and, although my father got the free medical aid, it didn’t cover me and I had to pay him 2s/6d each time. I gave my mother the five pounds the customers collected for me in the Duke’s Head and I had a few shillings from my wages – though not much because I spent it as I earned it, dancing and dawdling round London with Lucy.

  The autumn of 1937 was setting in and it was wild and wet and windy in South Wales. It was difficult for me to go anywhere with the crutch, in case I got the bandages damp or dirty with coal dust and had to have them changed again for another 2s/6d. After a few weeks, my mother started changing the bandages herself. She’d wash and dry one lot, then alternate them with the dressing that was already on my foot when that got dirty. I was in a lot of pain, but I didn’t like to complain because everyone was doing their best, and I didn’t want to be any more of a burden than I already was. My sisters rigged up a makeshift wheelchair for me with a wooden seat and the handle and wheels off an old pram, and they pushed me around in it when the weather was kind enough and Gwyneth wasn’t working and Bronwyn wasn’t at school. Gwyneth was coming up to sixteen and she was doing what I was doing at that age, working at whatever part-time job she could get to help ease the burden on my mother and brother – and Bronwyn was too young to be pulling and pushing a lump like me around on her own.

  The snow came early to the village that year and then I couldn’t get out at all. By late November I’d read every book I could lay my hands on twice over and it was still only two months since the accident. Then, one day, I was sitting looking out the top window at the people trudging past in the black and white street when this Wolseley car pulled up outside our house. I drew back quickly from the window when I saw Mrs Reynolds get out. I thought she must be angry because I’d left the Morgan family after she was good enough to get me the job. I kept peeping from my secluded position as she approached the door and knocked on it vigorously. My mother answered.

  ‘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 w
as 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.

  Sleep my child and peace attend thee

  All through the night.

  Guardian angels God will send thee

  All through the night.

  Soft the drowsy hours are creeping

  Hill and vale in slumber sleeping

  I my loving vigil keeping

  All through the night

  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.

  Day comes to end

  The sun descends

  Moon enters sky

  And so do I.

  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 smal
l 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?’