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attractive. It consisted mainly of several grubby and rather ragged pairs of corsets and a great many small
pairs of men's socks and stockings in a horrid condition of stickiness.
I made a huge bowl of soap suds, and dropped the more nauseating articles in with my eyes shut. I
washed and rinsed and squeezed for about an hour and a half. There was no one but me to answer the
telephone, which always rang when I was covered in soap to the elbow. I accepted a bridge party for the
owner of the corsets, and a day's golfing for the wearer of the socks, but did not feel in a position to give an
opinion on the state of cousin Mary's health.
I had just finished hanging out the clothes, and had wandered into the drawing-room to see what sort of
books they had, when I heard a latch key in the door. I flew back to the bathroom, and was discovered
diligently tweaking out the fingers of gloves when Mrs. Robertson walked in. She was horrified to see that I
had not hung the stockings up by the heels, and told me so with a charming frankness. However, she still
wanted me to come back the next day to iron the things I had washed.
I returned the next day and scorched Mrs. Robertson's best camisole. She was more than frank in her
annoyance over this trifling mishap and it made me nervous. The climax came when I dropped the electric
iron on the floor and it gave off a terrific burst of blue sparks. I supposed it had fused. It ended by her paying
me at the rate of a shilling an hour for the time I had put in, and a tacit agreement being formed between us
that I should never appear again.
I was still undaunted, however, and I told myself that there are so many people in the world that it doesn't
matter if one doesn't hit it off with one or two of them.²1 pinned my faith in the woman in the agency,³ and
went and had a heart-to-heart talk with her.
'What I want is something where I'll really get a chance to get some practical experience,' I told her.
'Well, we have one or two people asking for cook-generals,' she said. 'You might go and see this Miss
Faulkener, at Chelsea. She wants someone to do the work of a very small flat,
4
and cook dinner at night, and
sometimes lunch.'
I went off, full of hope and very excited, to Miss Faulkener's flat. A sharp-featured maid opened the door.
'You come after the job?'
5
'Yes,' I whispered humbly. I gave her my name and she let me in reluctantly. On a sofa in front of a coal
fire, groomed to the last eyebrow,
6
sat my prospective employer. She looked an amusing woman, and it
would be marvellous to have the run of a kitchen to mess in to my heart's content.
7
It was all fixed up.
I went to bed early, with the cook's alarm clock at my side, but in spite of that I didn't sleep well. Its
strident note terrified me right out of bed into the damp chill of a November morning.
8
I bolted down some
coffee and rushed off, clutching my overalls and aprons, and, arriving in good time, let myself in, feeling
like an old hand. I took myself off to the kitchen. It was looking rather inhumanely neat, and was distinctly
cold. There was no boiler as it was a flat, and a small refrigerator stood in one corner. I hung my coat behind
the door, put on the overall, and, rolling up my sleeves, prepared to attack the drawing-room fire. I found the
wood and coal, but I couldn't see what Mrs. Baker* had used to collect ash in. However, I found a wooden
box which I thought would do, and took the coal along the passage in that. I hadn't laid a fire since my girl-
guide days,
9
but it seemed quite simple, and I took the ashes out to the dustbin, leaving a little trail of cinders
behind me from a broken comer of the box. The trouble about housework is that whatever you do seems to
lead to another job to do or a mess to clear up. I put my hand against the wall while I was bending down to
sweep up the cinders and made a huge grubby mark on the beautiful cream-coloured paint. I rubbed at it
gingerly with a soapy cloth and the dirt came off all right, but an even laiger stain remained, paler than the
rest of the paint, and with a hard, grimy outline. I didn't dare wash it any more, and debated moving the
grandfather clock over to hide it. However, it was now a quarter past nine, so I had to leave it to its fate
10
and
pray that Miss Faulkener wouldn't notice.
* Mrs. Baker is the name of the former cook-general
I had dusted the living-room, swept all the dirt down the passage and into the kitchen, and gone through
the usual tedious business of chasing it about, trying to get it into the dustpan before her bell and back-door
bell rang at the same moment. The back door was the nearest, so I opened it on a man who said 'Grosher'.
11
'Do you mean orders?'
'Yesh, mish'
He went on up the outside stairs whistling, and I rushed to the bedroom, wiping my hands on my overall
before going in.
'Good morning, Monica, I hope you're getting on all right. I just want to talk about food.'