Mrs. Hill-Owen (she told me) had not been gone more than a few minutes when a Rolls Royce purred up to the door of “The Book- lover’s Rest,” and a richly dressed young woman emerged and made her way upwards to “The Beck and Call.”
Ben, chancing to be in the front office, received her in person, and asked her requirements.
“I want,” said the girl, “an engagement as parlour-maid.”
“You want?” Ben exclaimed. “But for someone else, of course.”
“Oh, no,” said the girl. “For myself. I want to go into service.”
“Come inside,” said Ben.
“I must get this clear. You want,” she said, when they were seated, “a situation as a parlour-maid?”
“Yes,” said the girl. “But it must be in a really good house—a nobleman’s for choice.”
Ben’s surprise led the girl to be confidential.
“I ought to explain,” she said, “especially as I’ve had no experience of anything but helping mother at home. The fact is dad has suddenly become rich—enormously rich—and everything has changed. We used to live in a little house in Ealing, but now dad’s bought one of those great places on Kingston Hill. He’s happy enough, pottering about the garden, but it’s very lonely for mother and me, because many of our old friends have disappeared—frightened, I suppose —and we can’t make new ones of the new kind because—well, we’re not easy with them. We don’t know how to behave or what to say. They’ve called, you see. So I thought it would be a wonderful thing if I took service in a good family and kept my eyes open. I’m very quick; I should soon pick it up; and someone was saying that ‘The Beck and Call’ was the best place to come to with any inquiry, so I came. What do you think, miss?”
“You would have to keep your secret,” said Ben.
“Oh, yes, of course,” the girl replied.
“You’d have to leave that car behind.”
“I shall love to,” said the girl. “It’s largely because of the chauffeur that I want to learn. He’s so superior. Mother and dad, of course, will never be able to deal with servants, but I feel that after a little while I shall know enough to keep them in their place. And of course when I’m through we shall have new ones, and so start fair.”
“Well,” said Ben, “I think it’s a most original plan. The principal difficulty is the noblemen. They’re all so poor now that they probably do their own parlour-maiding. I know one person¬ ally who describes himself as the ‘Gentleman with a duster,’ and one of the most famous of our dukes boasts that he cleans the windows. You would take the lowest wages, of course?”
“Oh, yes,” said the girl; “or none at all.”
“No,” said Ben, “that would be very foolish. Never do that. You would be suspected at once; and if the other servants found out they would be impossible to you. By the way, had you thought of the other servants?”
“Oh, yes.”
“The footman?”
“Yes. But I’ve got to go through with it, and I’m very quick. You don’t think it’s unfair to the people who engage me to use them in this way?”
“No, I don’t think so. All life is a lesson, and this is quite funny. But the real joke will come when you meet them later on, on level terms.”
“Oh,” said the girl, “how terrible! I never thought of that. I must—I must think a little more about it,” she added, “and talk to mother.”
She went off, and Ben watched the chauffeur’s face as she got into the car. It certainly had an expression that needed very drastic treatment.
Quite a fun story!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but sadly goes nowhere!
DeleteGood Start like you say Camille, perhaps worth continuing?
ReplyDelete