Her Ladyship's Girl Page 18

  ‘Yes, Cook.’

  He laughed. Then he stopped laughing and looked at me. Then he laughed again. When he finally stopped chuckling and wiped his eyes with a white handkerchief, he spoke again.

  ‘Didn’t Mr Peacock tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘The Misters Fletcher and Jennings do all their own catering, my dear.’

  I was amazed. I’d never heard of any such thing. Gentlemen doing their own cooking? It couldn’t be right; he must be having a laugh at my expense.

  ‘But they’re not very good at cleaning up, as you can see.’

  He realised I was bemused and confused, so he explained that the Misters Fletcher and Jennings owned the L’Astrance gourmet restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue. They were both award-winning Cordon Bleu chefs and always ate out, except when they threw parties, and that was quite frequently. Otherwise they spent most of their time at the Buck’s Club, where they were members, or at Claridge’s, where they had investments, or at the Marquis of Granby public house, where they had many ‘friends’.

  ‘What about the other servants?’

  ‘There are no other servants, Anwyn.’

  He began to walk away, leaving me standing in the midst of the carnage.

  ‘What should I do now, Sir?’

  He turned and looked at me with an expression of puzzlement.

  ‘Whatever you think needs doing, my dear.’

  With that, he was gone, and I was left to my own completely disorientated devices. For the next few days I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, until my hands and knees were raw and my foot was swollen and aching like a ground-level gumboil. I cooked for myself and Mr Morecambe and never saw another soul or caught sight of the Misters Fletcher or Jennings. Mr Morecambe was delighted with my progress in the kitchen and commented that he’d never seen it sparkling so magnificently. They’d had other kitchen-cum-scullery-cum-parlourmaids before me – a parade of Jills de tous les métiers – but none stayed for more than a month. And I wondered why.

  I was a week and a half into the job and life was gradually getting easier at Devonshire Place. Mister Morecambe wasn’t a demanding major-domo and I’d cleaned up most of the mess both downstairs and upstairs. It was a Saturday morning when the pseudo-butler came down and had a cup of tea and some toasted crumpets with me. He was dressed more formally than usual and I knew something was different. He drank the tea and ate the crumpets and small-talked for about ten minutes. Then he stood up and walked towards the door, but turned before leaving.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Anwyn, the Misters are back today and will be hosting a dinner party for ten tonight.’

  He hummed his way through the door and was gone before I could tell him I wasn’t prepared for a dinner party.

  I didn’t know what to do. There was food in the house, but certainly not enough for any kind of entertaining. I didn’t know what should be on the menu or who was going to help prepare it, and I was just about to follow Mr Morecambe upstairs to find out when the basement doorbell rang. It was a delivery man in the charcoal-grey livery of Claridge’s. He began to bring in boxes of food from a flat-nose van parked up on the street. Canapés and salad stuffs came first, then salmon and chicken and lamb and duck, followed by an assortment of fruit and vegetables and puddings and pastries and cheeses. I stored everything as best I could and placed the perishables carefully in the refrigerator. Then I made sure the big range was fully operational. Mr Morecambe was busy lighting fires in all the rooms upstairs and I was peeling the potatoes when the Misters arrived. I could hear them upstairs, conversing loudly and extravagantly with Mr Morecambe.

  Then they came down to the kitchen. They were both men in their late thirties, of slight build and ostentatiously dressed in suits the like of which I’d never seen before, but came to know some years later as zoot suits – with tramos trousers and carlango coats and wide lapels and padded shoulders. They wore silk shirts and pointy-toed French shoes and wide-brimmed felt hats and they both sported twirly moustaches and smiled at each other extravagantly. Fletcher spoke to me.

  ‘Ah, you must be Annette.’

  ‘Anwyn, Sir.’

  ‘I’m Donald and he’s Peter.’

  They took off their coats and hats and donned a couple of aprons from the cupboard.

  ‘Right, Annette, let’s get to it.’

  For the next five hours, the Misters whizzed round the kitchen like a couple of dervishes, poaching salmon and lyonaissing chicken and glazing duck and boiling vegetables and wilting cress and painting éclairs. I was trying to keep up with washing and replacing the utensils like I’d been taught, and clearing away and peeling and chopping, and my foot was on fire from running about. Then it was all done. They took off their aprons and threw them on the floor.

  ‘Well done, Annette.’

  The guests started arriving at 7:00 p.m. and Mr Morecambe came down with a parlourmaid’s outfit for me to wear. He himself was still dressed formally and it was now our job to serve at table. We had to carry all the food for each course up first and plate it in an annexe to the main dining room. Then we served it to the Misters and their ten guests. It was a five-course meal and I noticed the guests were all men – not a single woman in sight. Except me. Fletcher and Jennings sat either end of a long table, with five guests on each side. It was while serving up the first course of canapés á l’Amiral and cream of barley soup that I noticed Mr Peacock. He noticed me too and nodded. The main course was poached salmon with mousseline sauce, along with chicken lyonnaise and Calvados-glazed roast ducking in applesauce, served with château potatoes and minted green pea timbales and creamed carrots.

  The third course was punch romaine, with asparagus salad and saffron vinaigrette and pâté de foie gras. Then came chocolate-painted eclairs with peaches in chartreuse jelly and French ice cream. All finished off with a fifth course of assorted fruits and cheeses, accompanied by coffee and liqueur.

  All through dinner, Mr Morecambe kept up with the demand for a variety of drinks, including aperitifs and wines and ports and brandies, leaning against the wall every now and then to catch his breath. When it was all over, the men retired to the smoking room for cigars and Mr Morecambe brought in decanters of drinks. The doors were then closed and I was not allowed to enter.

  Mr Morecambe helped me clear away and then I returned to the kitchen, which looked now as bad, if not worse, than it did when I first arrived. Mr Morecambe said I should leave the washing-up until morning, but I couldn’t countenance such a thing. After he left to go back upstairs, I got stuck in and was finished after a couple of hours. It was approaching midnight and I was completely exhausted. I trudged upstairs and went to use the bathroom on the fourth floor as usual, before going to bed. The door wasn’t locked so I walked in and, to my shock and horror, there was one of the gentlemen I’d served at dinner. He was combing his hair in the mirror and was completely naked from head to toe. I ran back out of the bathroom and was trying to catch my startled breath and compose myself when he walked out past me, still naked, and never batted a brazen eyelid.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  With that, he walked away down the corridor, the cheeks of his bum swivelling like an oversized peach in a hammock.

  I didn’t go back into the bathroom, in case there were more like him in there, but ran to my room and bolted the door. All through that night there were sounds of laughter and music and banging and bustling and it was like someone had let in a load of prankster schoolboys. There were footsteps up and down the stairs and calling and clapping and other strange noises that I couldn’t put a name to. I eventually fell asleep and it was all quiet when I woke on the Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m.

  I went downstairs and got the range going and made myself some tea. I had a leftover breakfast from the night before and it was only then I realised how hungry I was. I’d been so busy I hadn’t had anything to eat since the previous morning. I thought I’d better prepare something for the gentlemen who’d stopped over in th
e guest rooms, although nobody told me to. I put on a traditional English breakfast of bacon and sausage and black pudding and fried bread in dripping. Then I scrambled some eggs and fried some mushrooms and I was about to peel the tomatoes when Mr Morecambe appeared. He poured himself a cup of tea and helped himself to a sausage.

  ‘Well done for last night, Anwyn.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  He looked like he wanted to say something else, but was unsure how to phrase the words.

  ‘Any . . . problems during the night?’

  ‘Problems, Sir?’

  ‘Any . . . interruptions?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.’

  ‘Good! I mean good . . . I’m glad you had a peaceful night.’

  He helped me bring the breakfast food up to the dining room and put it on covered chafing dishes, along with percolated coffee and pots of tea in cosies to keep them warm.

  The gentlemen guests came down to eat at irregular times and I noticed several others who hadn’t been there at dinner – younger men with white teeth and lovely skin. Then they all drifted off into the drizzling day. I asked Mr Morecambe what to do about lunch and he said not to bother. The Misters came down to the kitchen at about 4:00 p.m., long after I’d cleared away and washed the breakfast things. They were wearing matching blue blazers with white baggy trousers and two-tone shoes and straw boaters – and I wondered if they always wore the same clothes. Like twins.

  ‘Ah, Annette, thank you for breakfast. It was sublime.’

  ‘So . . . traditional.’

  ‘You’re very welcome, Sirs.’

  ‘How did you find it last night?’

  ‘Fine, Sir.’

  ‘Not too much for you?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  I lied. My foot was still hurting and I was trying not to limp even more than normal. They gave me half-a-crown and a pat on the shoulder and then they were gone – back to their restaurant or their club or their hotel or the fraternity of their friends.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On one of my Sundays off I decided to pay a visit to the Duke’s Head to see all my old friends – Lucy and Pearl and all the customers who were so good to me when I had the accident. It was just after opening time when I got down to London Bridge and I tried not to look like I was limping when I walked into the pub. Nothing much had changed; it was still the same spit-and-sawdust pothouse, full of hardy-looking dock labourers, only this time they all recognised me.

  ‘Anwyn? Hey, lads, look . . . it’s Anwyn!’

  Well, I was hoisted up on their shoulders and carried round the bar and I was afraid of my life lest they’d let me drop on my spinning head.

  ‘Put her down this minute!’

  Pearl’s warning voice came loud and clear from behind the counter.

  ‘Put her down, you bunch of blockheads!’

  Her scowl was enough to subdue the boldest of them and they gently placed me feet first back on the floor.

  Pearl came out from behind the bar and clasped me in a bone-bending hug.

  ‘It is you, Anwyn. They said you wouldn’t walk again.’

  ‘They were wrong, Pearl.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  She had a couple of girls on with her that lunchtime, so we went and sat at a table and she brought over a bottle of sweet sherry. I told her all about what happened in Wales and how I got my foot healed and how I’d always walk with a limp from now on.

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Anwyn.’

  ‘Better than not being able to walk at all.’

  ‘What are you doing in London?’

  ‘I’m working in Devonshire Place.’

  ‘Oh, very la-de-da, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m just a kitchen maid.’

  Pearl laughed when I told her about the Misters Fletcher and Jennings and the strange dinner parties and the naked man. She laughed and laughed and I thought she was going to burst a blood vessel.

  ‘Oh, Anwyn, you’re a bit green, ain’t you?’

  I didn’t think I was green at all. I’d read more than she ever would and I’d been a lady’s maid and seen the hunts and the balls and been the object of several men’s desires. Pearl poured two more glasses of sherry, still trying to suppress her urge to continue laughing.

  ‘It’s a ginger house.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Ginger beer.’

  I still didn’t understand and Pearl was on the verge of exploding from trying to keep in the chuckles and chortles.

  By now, some of the men round the bar had overheard our conversation and they were all laughing too and passing silly remarks.

  ‘Plenty of fruits in your kitchen, Anwyn?’

  ‘Does the tooth fairy leave anything under your pillow?’

  I felt they were laughing at me and I grew quite indignant. I stood up sharply.

  ‘Anyway, I just came here to see Lucy. I forgot she doesn’t do the afternoon shift.’

  All the laughter stopped abruptly. The men turned their faces away and Pearl touched my arm.

  ‘Sit back down, Anwyn.’

  I did, and she poured more sherry. She reached across the table and took my hand and I felt an icy chill on the back of my bare neck.

  ‘Anywyn . . . Lucy’s dead.’

  The glass fell from my hand and the sherry spilled across the table like blood. My mouth opened to gasp out the air that was choking me. No! This couldn’t be true! No words would come for a long time. Then, finally –

  ‘When? How?’

  ‘Tuberculosis. She died during the winter.’

  I could taste the salt in my mouth long before I realised I was crying. Tears streamed down my face and I felt like I was going to faint. I stood up again and rushed out into the thick Tooley Street air. Pearl followed to make sure I was all right, but she stood back, giving me space to grieve. A loud bawling sound broke from my heart and people passing by stared and some came across, but were turned back by Pearl. I leaned against the wall for support. Lucy – dead? No! I couldn’t believe it.

  I had to see for myself. I had to get over to her family. I wouldn’t wait for a bus or tram or for Pearl to call me a cab so I stumbled as fast as I could along the length of Tooley Street and into Jamaica Road. I was almost in a state of collapse by the time Lucy’s mother opened the door to find me on the step. As soon as she saw my tear-stained face, she started crying too – and I knew it was true. We hugged each other tightly for comfort and Lucy’s sisters came out and soon all five of us were crying in the doorway. The father came and brought us all in and made a pot of strong tea and we sat round the table and sobbed. They told me Lucy got TB shortly after my accident, but she didn’t tell anyone until she was coughing up blood and it was too late.

  ‘She didn’t want to lose her job.’

  Once the disease was diagnosed, they moved her straight to a sanatorium in case she infected the rest of the family.

  ‘They put her bed outside in the snow . . .’

  ‘For hours . . .’

  ‘And strapped a sandbag to her chest . . .’

  ‘And collapsed one of her lungs . . .’

  But she still died. She wasn’t strong enough to fight the disease – or endure the treatment.

  Lucy died in February 1938, just a few weeks before I came back to London. She was buried in Bow Cemetery and I went along there with one of her sisters that afternoon. I bought a bunch of flowers from a street vendor on the way. The cemetery was like a little piece of the country that had been taken up and dropped right into one of the dirtiest parts of the city. There were trees and flowers and early spring birds and bats and beetles. People strolled through it like it was a park and children played and I knew the sound of their little voices would make Lucy happy here. We placed the flowers on her grave and I knelt and said a simple prayer.

  May she walk on the earth again

  Again beneath the same blue sky

  And may
our lives again entwine

  When we remember, you and I.

  Then we left and I kissed her sister and said I’d come back down every chance I got.

  Mr Morecambe was nowhere to be seen when I got back to the house in Devonshire Place – which was just as well, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I went to the bathroom on the fourth floor and washed the dried-in tears from my face. Then I went to bed and cried again and it was a long time before the salve of sleep came stealing.

  The politicians were telling everyone that war was going to be avoided and there were a lot of opinions flying about regarding Germany and what Adolf Hitler was going to do next, but I barely took any notice, because all my time was taken up being a skivvy and a cook and a parlourmaid and a cleaner and a Jill de tous les métiers for Mr Morecambe and Fletcher and Jennings. The shenanigans at the house grew louder and more boisterous as time went on and the dinner parties grew more frequent, despite the darkening war clouds. And I wondered if these people really didn’t know what was going on in the world around them, or if they chose to ignore it simply because to accept the reality of it would have been too horrendous to contemplate. I was kept busy morning, noon and night and I kept my bedroom door safely locked tight when the naked and the naughty were roaming round.

  I found out from visits to the Duke’s Head that the area known as Fitzrovia round Marylebone was very bohemian and the pubs and clubs were often frequented by actors and artists and soldiers and sailors and kilted musicians and queer men and women. Now, when they said queer men and women, I thought they meant those people were a bit eccentric, just like the Misters Fletcher and Jennings, and I could understand why the two of them lived and socialised in that area.

  But Pearl explained to me that there were certain types of men who rouged their lips and pencilled their eyebrows and scented their clothes and spoke with high-pitched voices. She showed me a report in the newspaper about ‘painted and perfumed travesties of men, who lounged around Fitzrovia, leering at passers-by’ – although I’d never come across anyone like that. The Misters dressed extravagantly, it had to be said, but certainly not to that degree. Pearl said these men attended private dances called ‘drags’. They went as ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ and the kings wore lounge suits and the queens wore evening dresses. I couldn’t imagine what a man might look like in an evening dress – it made me laugh to myself. But I’d always been a one to live and let live and I minded my own business and got on with my work. As long as they didn’t interfere with me, it was their own business what they got up to.