Between Friends (35 page)

Within five minutes she was out of her lovely costume which was hung away carefully in the cubicle she was to share with another maid and, draped in a cap and apron three sizes too large for her, was on her knees scrubbing, a position she was to maintain for the next six weeks. She was polite, willing and self-effacing and if she went off to meet her ‘paramour’ those about her could never determine when, for she seemed to be in ten places at the same time, helping someone or other, forever asking questions and her room mate swore she spent the whole of each night in heavy and exhausted sleep!

‘Now then, Megan,’ the housekeeper in charge of the first floor said to her as she swept by one morning. Meg was on her knees, up to her elbows in a bucket of hot water in which caustic soda formed a large part and her mind was concerned mainly with the problem of how she was ever to restore her hands and forearms to some semblance of the white softness they had known as Mrs Hemingway’s parlourmaid. Then she had worn gloves. Gloves to polish and clean and dry the beautiful bone china and lead crystal glasses and at night she had applied the sweet smelling salve made up for her by Mrs Hemingway’s own personal maid with whom she had been on friendly terms for those who waited personally on the mistress could not appear with red and chapped hands.

‘Come along to my office, Megan, quickly girl,’ the housekeeper said, continuing on her way past the open-mouthed kitchen maid. ‘See … Nellie …’ She summoned a gawky girl who had been about to slip off for a cup of tea and who stood riveted in the doorway. ‘… finish this floor and look sharp about it. Now follow me Megan … oh, and remove that cap and apron first, if you please.’

She was not asked to sit down nor did the housekeeper waste time.

‘I believe you have worked as housemaid and parlourmaid, Megan,’ she said crisply.

‘Yes ma’am.’ Megan knew better than to answer with more than the absolute minimum words necessary.

‘For how long?’

‘A year, ma’am.’

‘Then why are you on your knees on the kitchen floor, if you please?’

‘I was put there, ma’am.’

‘So I see. Well in future you will work under my supervision. I shall give you a week to show me what you can do and if you do not suit you will be back at your scrubbing pail.’

‘Yes ma’am, thank you.’ She hesitated, breaking a cardinal rule which said never speak unless spoken to and then only with the shortest possible answer. There was no time in the busy, one might say hectic day in the life of an hotel such as this for idle chatter.

‘Yes Megan? You wish to say something?’ The housekeeper looked imperiously at Meg, her manner implying she would do much better if she didn’t.

‘May I ask …’

‘Yes?’

‘Did … did Mr Hemingway get me this promotion. There are girls in the kitchen who have been here much longer than I have and who work just as hard so if it was the old gentleman’s influence … well, I’d rather not have it. I want to get on on my own merits …’

‘
I beg your pardon
!’ The housekeeper seemed to swell up like a toad and her already florid face turned to magenta.

‘I said …’

‘I heard what you said, young lady and I should advise you to keep remarks such as that to yourself if you wish to get on in this establishment. Nobody,
nobody
is promoted to my floor except on merit, d’you hear. If King Edward himself recommended you I should ignore him. Oh yes, I heard that you … shall we say … applied for the job of kitchen-maid through the auspices of a certain gentleman but that had nothing to do with me nor did it affect my judgement when I chose you over the others, I might add, for the position as underchambermaid. I heard of your previous experience and I have watched you work, Megan and I liked what I saw and that is why you are to come out of the kitchen. It will not make you popular with your fellow servants
but
it strikes me you will not let that worry you. Now report to the head chambermaid at the cleaning station on the first floor, by the back stairs, if you please, and she will instruct you in your duties.’

It was almost like being back at Silverdale. She was careful, tender even with the beautiful rooms which came into her care, and, as it became known that she was to be trusted, with the exquisite pieces of fine porcelain, the crystal and jade with which the upper reaches of the hotel were crammed. And she was quick! She could look at a job – had she not used the same method at Great George Square and at Silverdale – assess it thoroughly, be it cleaning a grate, changing a bed or polishing the windows of which there were a great many, and within minutes have her cleaning routine worked out and the time that was saved put to good use in another task. Her capacity to work at twice the speed of the other maids and twice as thoroughly brought her no friendships as the housekeeper had foretold but it did bring her to the attention of the head housekeeper! Her organisational abilities, her enormous capacity for work and the efficient and speedy way in which it was performed were noticed and commented upon and she was told that if she continued as she had begun there was a strong chance she might be promoted again.

‘The chambermaid on the second floor is to be married, Megan and will leave us at the end of the month. I shall be sorry to see you go from my floor but I believe in rewarding good service.’ The housekeeper nodded approvingly, well pleased with her own good judgement in putting forward this girl. In six months she had become what it took most a year or more to achieve,
and
on her own merit. Those in the kitchen who had been passed over muttered of favouritism but in their hearts they knew this was not so. Megan Hughes had got where she had, only chambermaid yet, but at least a rung or two up the ladder, on hard work and determination and nothing else.

But it was in her spare time that Meg learned the most. She did not need to be taught how to clean a carpet, to make a bed or polish a delicate ornament. When the time came her own good taste and what she had seen here, and at Silverdale would guide her in the way to furnish and decorate a room. What she wanted to know was how to
run
a hotel. A luxury hotel! How to manage the hundreds of tasks the man at the top managed. And to do that she must know what every single employee did as well! She was
already
a competent, imaginative cook for had not Mrs Whitley, one of the best herself, told her so. She had Mrs Whitley’s recipes and had turned out a score of delicious meals at Great George Square, but French
haute cuisine
, as prepared by Monsieur Rénard and the other chefs in the kitchens, that was another matter.

And then there were the wines, the running of the grill room, the restaurant, the work of a waiter, the maître d’hôtel, the meaning of ‘table d’hote’, ‘a la carte’, the purchase of delicacies from all over the world, the arranging of balls and banquets, and of people! The accounts, the auditing, bills, receipts, the work done by receptionists, the board of directors, cellar men, electricians, engineers and the dozens of men and women who kept the hotel running smoothly without effort, or so it must seem to it’s guests!

She knew she had a knack for it. A flair! She knew she had the capacity to work for nineteen hours in every twenty-four. She was obsessed with it, knowing instinctively that it was right for her, as Martin knew that the world of the motor car, of the flying machine was his, but before she moved on she must acquire the technical knowledge, as
he
had, to carry it out.

It became known in the months that followed that Megan Hughes was willingly at the beck and call of everyone who might need a helping hand and in return she demanded no more than the knowledge that was in their heads, cramming into her own receptive mind like a sponge soaking up water. She forced herself on with fierce, hungry resolution so that when the opportunity should occur she would be ready for it, preparing for the day she was convinced would come. She picked up, by listening and watching others in the kitchen and in every corner of the hotel where people worked, everything they themselves had learned or been taught, working every spare moment of the day and night. She made herself manage on three or four hours of sleep a night and the twenty remaining were spent in learning.

By helping everybody she helped herself. She learned to understand others and what interested them and made them speak of it. She learned kitchen administration for what working area will
work
if it is not efficiently managed and the people within it properly organised? She picked the brains of the wine waiters and the engineer in the boiler room. She became on the friendliest terms with the meat buyer, the meat carver, the head floor waiter, the French, the Italian, the Viennese chefs, the pastry chef, the entrée chef, the soup chef moving from crowded rooms bustling
with
industry to one in which a man laboured in solitary delicacy! Bakeries, cakeries, still rooms, they became as familiar to her as the tiny cubicle in which she took a few hours sleep each night.

She worked herself to a slender shadow and Tom said she looked like a bloody scarecrow and what the hell did she think she was doing to herself but she took no notice. She meant to learn how to run this great hotel with one hand tied behind her back if needs be, she told him blithely, and blindfolded into the bargain!

IT SEEMED THE
three of them could do no wrong now and Mrs Whitley grew dewy-eyed with proud emotion each time she spoke of them, which was often, to everyone who called to see her. Of course, their Martin had been a success for a long time now in his chosen profession, travelling the world alongside of Mr Robert and mixing quite naturally with the gentry and, she whispered confidentially, it was rumoured he had even spoken to His Majesty who it was well known took a great interest in motor cars and had not a few of his own! Martin had his very own motor car himself now, bought with the money he earned as one of Britain’s foremost young racing drivers, a golden boy, Mrs Whitley had heard him described as in the newspapers, to match the golden era, driving round Liverpool when he was home, quite the man about town in his dashing little Austin two seater motor car. It was a glossy green, decorated with a trim of gold with bright brass lamps, a luggage rack to take the growing number of suitcases which held his fashionable wardrobe and a leather hood which he put up only when it rained. He had offered to take her for a ‘spin’ in it, she told one and all, not boasting exactly but pleased as punch just the same! She had declined, naturally, for she was past the age when she cared to hazard herself as their Meg did, in one of those wicked machines. He had told her privately that he had won Mr Robert many thousands of pounds in prize money and – she could not keep this to herself for he was the only person she had ever known to have done it – had finally persuaded Mr Robert to allow him to fly! Yes, John Tabner and his wife might well stare open-mouthed, she told them, for she had done the same when she had heard. He had flown solo, which meant, she explained kindly, that he had gone up completely alone in what he called a ‘box-kite’, only last month. He had received his official Aero Club Certificate and if they didn’t believe her she’d ask him to show it to them the next time he was home. There was a belief that the motor car was a rich man’s toy and
the
aeroplane a young man’s folly and what did she think of that, John Tabner asked her tartly but Agatha Whitley knew her boy was neither rich, nor foolish so she soon had
him
in his place!

Now their Tom, though not quite so … so remarkable in his advance as Martin, had made good progress in the employment of the Hemingway family and was well nigh indispensable to old Mr Atkinson who, it seemed, could do nothing without his young assistant beside him. Well, you only had to see their Tom directing the other lads in the planting to know who was really in charge of the gardens. The old gardener was past his best but no-one commented upon it in Tom’s presence for he was a kind lad and let the old man think he still ran the place. Tom was interested in new methods, she told her visitors sagely, not knowing exactly what they were, but you could see the results of the books he read on the subject in the splendid rows of pure, creamy cauliflowers, the sweet green cabbage, the shapely, plump marrow, French beans, potatoes and artichokes which lay like shining ribbons across the dark earth of the vegetable garden. The Hemingway’s and their servants had never seen such fine asparagus and courgettes on their dinner table; old Mrs Hemingway had said so personally in the hearing of their Tom who had told her himself. He tended apple trees, damson and plum and had brought her the fruit of them for the very pie her visitors were eating! He had become quite an expert, Mr Atkinson had said on the growing of the exotic such as passion fruit – had they ever heard of it … no … well neither had she until Tom brought her some – fig, melon and mango. He had an aptitude for it. Well, she’d always known he was a patient sort of a lad and that’s what you needed in his job, but he had a head on his shoulders and he’d be head gardener one day, she said, you mark my words.

And then there was Meggie! Was there ever a girl like her? Work! She could polish and clean a whole floor before you could say Birkenhead ferry and, if Mrs Whitley was any judge, would end up Head Housekeeper before she was twenty! She had her own floor now as head chambermaid and her only there eighteen months. There was no doubt about it, a girl could get on these days if she put her mind to it,
and
without creating a fuss like that Mrs Pankhurst and her two daughters who were playing havoc with life up in London, so she’d heard. Breaking windows and setting fire to schools and railway stations. They’d slashed a picture or two in the public art galleries and dropped burning rags
through
the slits of letter boxes so that decent folk were deprived of their rightful mail but they’d get nowhere with that sort of nonsense. Gentlemen didn’t like unfeminine behaviour, she could have told them that and could you wonder they got themselves arrested? Thank God their Meggie had no time for it, sensible lass that she was and had made a good start in her own career without the help of universal franchise, whatever that might be!