Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid (23 page)

Mr Stocks’s niece would have been
driven by Mr Thornton from Cadogan Square to Buckingham Palace, where she would have
waited with other young girls on rows of chairs in an antechamber at the palace. One by
one they would have been called to present themselves. She would have entered the royal
chamber and have curtseyed first to King George V and then to the queen before being
ushered out of the room. The court ritual denoted their entry on to the marriage market.
The ensuing ‘season’ was a series of exclusive parties and events
attended by debutantes where potential suitors could observe them. The season ran
throughout the summer and its events included cocktail parties, dances, lunches and
weekends at country estates. This system meant that the upper classes could preserve
their hold over money and influence by only sharing their wealth and power with the
‘right people’. Marriages of couples who met at these events were
seen to have royal approval as the king had indirectly introduced them.

All the debutantes would be dressed in white
to signify their virginity, which was an essential requirement for marriage.

It was important for Mr Stocks’s
niece to get every aspect of the tradition right. The curtseys had to be low and
sweeping and no doubt her mother would have employed dance teachers to train her in the
run-up to the season.

The rigid traditions around aristocratic
marriage together with the loss of a generation of aristocratic sons
in the First World War meant that there was a very small pool of eligible young men
from suitable families for upper-class young women to marry. As it was inconceivable for
an upper-class family to marry their daughters to less prestigious families, they often
married men much older than themselves or remained unmarried.

The tradition finally died out in 1958 after
Prince Philip moaned that it was ‘bloody daft’ and Princess Margaret
apparently complained that ‘every tart in London’ was getting
in.

I’m quite sure that Mr Stocks saw
his niece as a cut above that, mind you. And so it was that she found herself getting
ready to be paraded – sorry, presented – in the hope of securing a suitable husband.

‘You may go back to your duties
now,’ nodded Mr Stocks.

‘Thank you, sir,
ma’am,’ we said, backing out of the room. We stumbled a little less
graciously from the drawing room and down the back staircase in stunned silence. But no
sooner had the green baize door swung shut behind us than Flo and I burst out into
nervous giggles.

‘Well, that was
strange,’ I laughed. ‘Whatever must she have felt like being gawped
at by us? Thought she was the bee’s knees, didn’t she? Thin as a
paper doll though, weren’t she?’

Flo was a little more charitable.
‘Yes, but she was ever so dignified,’ she said softly.

‘I s’pose,’ I
laughed. ‘She’s welcome to her balls though. Imagine, all those
boring dinner parties and formal evenings. I think I’d die of
boredom.’

Flo grinned as we arrived back in the kitchen.
‘I guess it is a lot of effort to go to, to bag a husband.’

‘Exactly,’ I cackled.
‘What a palaver, and like as not it’ll be some wrinkly old rich
man.’ I shuddered. ‘Imagine having to sleep with an old man night
after night.’

Alan crept up behind me and sneaked his arms
round me.

‘You wouldn’t have that
problem with me, Mollie,’ he said, squeezing me tight. ‘Only firm
young flesh here, I promise.’

‘Oh, get away with you,’
I scowled, pushing him off. ‘Don’t you ever get
tired?’

‘Not when it comes to you I
don’t,’ he leered.

But later, as the debutante was being
presented at court and I washed up dirty plates in the scullery, I thought seriously
about the strange day I’d had, seeing the little princesses playing in their
ivory tower under the watchful eye of their nanny and the debutante upstairs about to be
presented like a piece of meat. It was a strange old world.

Did I envy the upper classes their lifestyle
and privilege? The answer had to be
no
. I had a freedom that that girl could
never enjoy. OK, I didn’t have her money, but at least I’d never be
pushed into a loveless marriage with a rich older man. I could go where I liked and see
who I liked. I’d rather scrub floors than be trussed up like a dog’s
dinner and scrutinized at court any day. All that pomp and etiquette, it was a load of
old cobblers. When the posh broadsheet papers came down the stairs after
they’d finished with them upstairs, Flo and I would pore over them, laughing
at the silly names and who’d married who.

Well, maybe more me than Flo.

‘Mr Pompington Pomp Smythe is
delighted to announce the marriage of his daughter Violet Pompington Pomp Smythe to Hugo
Fussington Fwah Fwah,’ I’d pretend to read, affecting a posh voice
and sticking my nose in the air. I’d make sure never to do it in front of Mrs
Jones, Mabel or Mr Orchard, mind you. They’d have had a blue fit to hear me
speaking like that. I was proud of my Norfolk accent. It had character and I
wasn’t about to speak with a plum in my mouth to feel important.
Silly
name, silly titles, silly traditions.

‘No, Mollie,’ I said to
myself as I plunged my hands into the dirty water and began to scrub.
‘You’re doing all right as you are.’

Tucked up in bed later, Flo turned to me as
she wearily pulled the covers over herself and snuggled down.

‘I’ll make you a lovely
dress out of that material we got today,’ she whispered.
‘You’ll look just as gorgeous as Mr Stocks’s niece by the
time I’ve finished with you. You’ll see.’

I smiled at my friend and found myself
marvelling yet again at how wonderful she was. Good as gold, right to the core.

‘You’re a real
friend,’ I whispered back. ‘They broke the mould when they made
you.’

As the following weeks turned to months and
Flo and I spent every spare second exploring London, I often found my thoughts drifting
back to the debutante: where she was and whether she found a suitable husband at the
myriad balls and parties she would be attending. I couldn’t
ask Mr Stocks. It was one thing him inviting us to his part of the house, but we would
never have dreamt of presuming the gesture could go both ways and we could just
‘pop’ up and ask how her presentation went. Mr Orchard would have
shot us on the spot.

Besides, we were all having too much fun to
worry about his niece’s marriage prospects. London was such a thriving,
bustling place and Flo and I could simply never
wait to change out of
our uniforms and explore. Every spare second was spent eagerly anticipating the two
hours after lunch service or our half-days off.

Here’s Flo again. She
always had a smile on her face, no matter how hard we worked or how tired we got.

Sometimes when I had a different
half-day to Flo I’d go back to Chapter Street and visit Aunt Kate and Uncle
Arthur. Other times I would wander round the V&A by myself, standing stock-still
and breathless with wonder at all the marvellous objects there. But I always most looked
forward to my time with Flo.

Every outing was a voyage of discovery as we
pounded the streets of London looking for excitement, thrills and even another glimpse
of royalty. We screamed at
King Kong
when it made its debut in the London
cinemas, gazed in every big department store window, ate roasted chestnuts bought from
street vendors and giggled our way from Chelsea to the West End in search of adventures
and fun. We were inseparable. You’d think working, sleeping and socializing
together in such close quarters would have driven us mad. Not Flo and I – if anything it
just seemed to bond us closer and not a cross word was passed between us.

Every day I noticed a difference in
Flo’s cooking and confidence. Mrs Jones had now all but stopped scolding her
and trusted Flo to make even the most complicated dishes. From crêpes to soufflés, she
could do it all. She even knew a bit of French and Italian cooking and could whip up a
Consommé Royale or Italienne. Not that she ever bragged about her talents. In the same
way that she was such a good seamstress – she could sew anything – likewise there
wasn’t much she couldn’t cook. ‘Tidy hands’, my
mother would have said.

I suppose I knew in my heart of hearts it
was coming,
but one evening after dinner service Flo pulled me to one
side.

‘I got some news today,
Mollie,’ she said. A frown line had creased between her lovely deep-blue eyes
and somehow she couldn’t quite meet my gaze.

‘I’m not going to like
this, am I, Flo?’ I said. ‘Go on, spit it out.’

‘I’m leaving,’
she said sadly. ‘I went to an agency and they’ve found me a job as a
kitchen maid. I’m ever so sorry, Mollie, really I am.’

‘But you’re already a
kitchen maid, Flo,’ I protested.

‘I know,’ she said.
‘But this is for the Marquess of Salisbury at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.
He’s the Leader of the House of Lords, you know. It really is a step
up.’

I felt my bottom lip start to wobble.
‘But who’ll help me keep Alan in line?’ I cried.
‘And who will I have to keep me company with old Mrs Grump?’

‘He has a London property for the
season,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s in Arlington Street,
just off Piccadilly near the Ritz, so just round the corner really. We’ll be
able to see each other in our time off.’

Poor Flo looked so desolate telling me, I
had to put her out of her misery.

‘Oh, come here,’ I said,
throwing my arms round her. ‘I’m so pleased for you I
can’t even imagine. A marquess, no less. I’ll have to curtsey for
you now.’

‘Get away,’ she laughed,
swiping my head affectionately. But behind the laughs we both knew it was the end of an
era and that life at Cadogan Square would never be the same again. I’d never
be able to replicate the easy camaraderie and trust I shared with Flo Wadlow with anyone
else.

The next day she handed her notice in to Mrs
Jones, who scowled like a bulldog chewing a wasp.

‘Young girls nowadays,’
she tutted as she wrote out a reference for Flo. ‘Never stick at anything for
more than five minutes. Flighty you all are.’

‘Boys, dresses and dancing is all
that fills your silly little heads,’ I whispered to Flo.

‘I heard that, Mollie Browne. Get
back to ya scullery and get on with them dishes,’ she said.

But despite her obvious irritation I could
see she was disappointed. Flo was a lovely, calm, capable and efficient person to have
around – an asset to any kitchen – and I knew Mrs Jones would feel the loss of her
kitchen maid.

‘That marquess’ll be
lucky to have you cooking for him,’ she added, somewhat more softly.
‘You’ll learn a lot there, I reckon.’

Mr Orchard was greatly impressed at
Flo’s advancement up the servants’ social scale, snob that he was.
‘Oh, yes, I should say,’ he observed from over the top of Mr
Stocks’s copy of
The Times
from the day before.
‘You’ll be working for the fourth marquess no less, former ADC to
King Edward VII and King George V and Lord Privy Seal 1924 to 1929. A far larger staff,
needless to say, and I daresay you shall have to refer to the butler there as
“sir”.’

Looking at him now I could easily see how he
fancied himself in such a position – not that he’d ever dream of leaving Mr
Stocks, mind.

‘Yes, I feel quite elevated
myself,’ said Flo, smiling shyly.

That is what people fail to recognize about
domestic servants today. We weren’t just a load of simpering halfwits beholden
to our masters. We had choices, we could
come and go as we pleased and
try our hardest to climb the ladder and elevate ourselves. What other job open to the
working classes in that time gave you those options?

The morning she left, it was all I could do
not to throw myself in front of the area steps and bar her way. Instead, I hugged her
warmly.

‘Here,’ she said,
pulling a package from behind her back. ‘This is for you.’

Unwrapping it, I gasped as something black
and shiny slipped through my hands. ‘Oh, Flo,’ I marvelled.
‘This is magnificent.’

She’d promised she’d
make me a dress to rival Mr Stocks’s niece and she hadn’t let me
down. The long tailored black satin dress was nipped in at the waist but had a soft
elegant scoop neckline. A flash of dazzling green lining peeked out from the neck.

‘I’ve never owned
anything so beautiful in all me life,’ I cried, holding it up against me.

‘You’ll look the
cat’s whiskers in that, Mollie,’ she smiled.

In a flurry of tears and hugs she was gone,
her feet pattering up the steps as she went on her way to her new life. But just before
she left she ducked her head round the door. ‘Learn to gut them partridge,
Mollie,’ she said with a cheeky grin.

There was no doubt that Flo leaving was a
cause for great sadness in my life, but this particular cloud did have one silver
lining.