Hidden Lives

by Margaret Forster

  Mothers spend half their time referring to their own childhoods as a point of comparison when bringing up their children, but apparently not a wisp of a memory ever escaped my grandmother’s lips. Nothing. A blank. She was a mother who had had no childhood, or a childhood so unhappy that she wiped it out, leaving only an impression that whatever she had suffered was too awful to remember. Her daughters were afraid of what she suppressed without knowing what it was. They were nervous, agitated, even after she was dead, at the thought of what might be uncovered if their mother’s past was exhumed.

  But I am not. I want to know. I have even come to believe I need to know.

  The story has to start, for the time being, in 1893 when Margaret Ann acknowledged she was living with the Stephenson family in Paternoster Row. She was only, living there, yards from where her own mother had lived in West Walls when she was baptized, only five minutes’ walk from where she herself was born over the bridge in Caldewgate, but she could have been in a different city so great was the contrast.

  She talked freely to her daughters, in later years, about that period and they, my mother’s sisters, especially Nan, were equally free passing the stories on to me. Life in Paternoster Row was literally dominated by the cathedral. Margaret Ann said she loved it, loved coming out of number 4 and looking straight at the splendour of it. Walking down the Row to Abbey Street, she passed the Abbey gateway, leading into the cathedral precinct. The doors were huge and solid, massively thick and iron-studded, with one short ladder hanging either side of them, used by the porter to light the gas lights. There was a right of way through the precinct which she often took for the pleasure of passing so close to the cathedral. It ran alongside the Fratery, with its ivy-covered ancient walls, and she would linger there, listening to the choirboys rehearse, as they did every morning. She would linger again, as she neared the doors of the cathedral, if there was a service on, so that she could hear the chanting and singing and the organ playing, a splendid organ recently renovated and fitted with air pumps driven by a gas engine. It made her happy living so close to the cathedral; feeling its holiness and beauty somehow touched her.

  The Stephensons’ house gave her almost the same satisfaction. She liked living there. Number 4 seemed to her exactly what a house should be – not too large, not too forbidding, a family house of the best kind with an elegant but modest appearance. It was only two storeys, built of red brick with pale sandstone dressings round the doorway and with a good slate roof. What she admired most was the doorway with its panelled door and pretty fanlight and its stone columns either side. She thought the one bay window (in Mr and Mrs Stephenson’s bedroom) gave the house a more interesting aspect than the other flat-fronted ones in the Row. Mr Stephenson had told her that when the house was built, only forty years ago in 1855, the workmen had discovered a Roman road running underneath where the cellar was to go. Margaret Ann liked to think about that. She had some sense of the importance of history (even if she denied her own). She often said how exciting she had found living above a Roman road, connected like that to ancient times.

  Number 4 Paternoster Row was a smart address lived in by a prosperous family. Mr Henry Stephenson was a glass merchant, head of a firm of glass makers, painters and decorators. His work premises joined on to his house with an arched opening between the two parts. Behind was the warehouse, partially blocking out Tullie House, an elegant seventeenth-century house recently converted into the Carlisle Museum and Library. His wife, Hannah, was ten years younger than him and they had four sons, William, Ernest, Alfred and George, and one daughter, Annie. Looking after them all was Margaret Ann, their resident domestic servant.

  It was fortunate Margaret Ann loved the house and its situation, because the work inside it was hard. Four sons, aged eighteen, twelve, nine and seven, when she started work in 1893 (if that was indeed when she did start) and one daughter of fifteen made for heavy work. There were many sheets to be washed and ironed, many plates and knives and forks to clean, many meals to shop for and prepare. But Margaret Ann was supremely capable. She had heard Mrs Stephenson boast she was a gem, a treasure. But she had help. She was not expected to do quite everything herself. The Stephensons also employed a cook who came in every day except Sunday, and two young girls who did menial tasks under Margaret Ann’s supervision (though she sometimes expressed the opinion that they were more trouble than they were worth).

  Her wage, her annual wage, was eighteen pounds and her keep. She thought this keep good. She had her own room at the back of the house, above the scullery, overlooking the yard between house and warehouse. It was small but it had a carpet on top of the linoleum, quite a luxury for a servant, a comfortable bed, a wardrobe and a wash-stand, all fitted in somehow. There was a tiny wrought-iron fireplace in which a few coals could be burned during very cold weather (and there was plenty of that). Mrs Stephenson complimented Margaret Ann on how she had managed to make her room pleasant – ‘You have quite a flair,’ she told her and wondered aloud where it had come from. There was little enough scope for ‘flair’, but within the strict limits imposed by the size of the room, and by the amount of furniture, Margaret Ann had demonstrated it. The wallpaper was a heavily embossed cream, and Mrs Stephenson had offered Margaret Ann a pink and blue patterned quilt for her bed and pink and white flowered curtains to cheer things up. The cheering up had been declined. Margaret Ann said she had a crocheted bedcover of her own. It was plain white. And she chose from Mrs Stephenson’s linen cupboard a pair of off-white cotton curtains which had been makeshift ones for Annie’s room until the red velvet pair were ready. The carpet was dark brown so it was a white and cream and brown uncheered-up room except for some artificial flowers, pale lilac, in the white jug on the narrow mantelpiece. The room was simple, quiet, like the servant herself.

  Mrs Stephenson’s only criticism of Margaret Ann, or the only one she ever admitted, was that she was not very forthcoming. She realized, she said, that most people would consider this quality an asset in a live-in servant, but she thought Margaret Ann carried quietness too far. She was not sullen, she must not think she was being thought sullen, far from it, she had a lovely smile, often in evidence, but she rarely initiated conversation nor did she seek to prolong those conversations begun by others… To Mrs Stephenson, Margaret Ann’s words were usually considered and few and, quite frankly, it rather hurt her employer, or so she said. She would have wanted her devoted servant to respond more, that was all. Mr Stephenson, hearing this once, had laughed and said that Margaret Ann was too intelligent to go in for gossip (Margaret Ann left the room instantly on hearing this, mortified). Ever afterwards she felt Mrs Stephenson was studying her for visible signs of this intelligence and failing to find it and becoming annoyed with her husband for alleging it was there.

  But Annie Stephenson agreed with her father. She adored Margaret Ann, who was not so very much older than herself. She thought her not just intelligent but beautiful, much to Margaret Ann’s embarrassment – she did wish Annie would not say such foolish things and especially not in front of her brothers, who guffawed rudely even though they too liked Margaret Ann and showed it. She knew she was not beautiful. Her hair was an ordinary brown and she wore it in an old-fashioned style. Her face was too square and her jaw too strong for beauty and her figure – well, she would rather not think about it. She was thick-waisted, not tall and slender like Annie. Annie, she knew, was only being kind to make her care less about not being married or having a suitor.

  Annie herself, greatly preoccupied with her own chances of matrimony, could never understand why Margaret Ann was not married. Sometimes she asked, as tactfully as possible, if she had turned down offers? Margaret Ann said she had not. She said she had always been too busy to think of suitors and, mercifully, Annie left it at that. And it was true, she worked so hard that all she wanted to do in her spare time was rest in her room or go to church. She rose at six in the morning and was never in bed before midnight. The hardest work was in the morning
. She wore a dark blue dress with a grey overall on top, because so much of the morning’s work was, if not dirty, messy. The dress came down to her ankles and underneath she wore thick black stockings and clogs, though not heavy clogs with clinkers. She found clogs more comfortable than shoes. They were better for her feet which often were swollen with all the standing she did. The first thing she did every morning was get the fire going in the kitchen range, thankful one of the girls black-leaded it once a week, a truly filthy job she hated. Then she boiled the kettle, the big iron kettle hanging from a hook above the fire, and began mixing the dough to bake bread for breakfast. Her breath would be coming out mistily all this time and the cold sweeping up her skirt from the stone flags until the fire took a hold. Even then the fire, however fierce, hardly spread its warmth beyond a radius of two feet. It was movement, constant movement, which kept Margaret Ann warm. She was on the go all morning, making porridge, making tea, rushing backwards and forwards to the dining-room laying and clearing the table and carrying heavy trays. Breakfast for a household of seven took two hours from that first descent into the cold kitchen to the last dish emptied and washed. Mrs Stephenson was the only one who did not appear for breakfast. She had it in bed. Margaret Ann was always grateful if Annie took in her mother’s tray and if William, who was very kind, volunteered to carry up the cans of hot water needed for baths. Really, she counted herself fortunate to be servant to such a considerate family.

  She felt less fortunate as the morning progressed. There was so much to do, time was her enemy. ‘How’s the enemy?’ she would ask the girls as dinner-time loomed. Dinner was eaten in the middle of the day, at half past twelve. Everyone came home for it. The daily cook shopped for and cooked it, but she needed the two young girls to run around for her, so Margaret Ann managed everything else. She made everyone’s bed, a laborious business with so many blankets and quilts and eiderdowns to shake and spread, and dusted all the furniture, dusted scores of cluttered surfaces and endless mirrors, and then she sorted the washing to be sent out. On Mondays she lifted the carpets and took them into the yard and beat them to expel the dust; on Tuesdays she cleaned the silver; on Wednesdays she ironed, her wrist aching from the weight of the heavy stone iron; on Thursdays she polished every piece of furniture in the over-furnished house; on Fridays she scrubbed the kitchen out before Cook arrived – she hated Fridays; on Saturdays she cleaned the windows, though one of the girls helped. Every morning was always a long morning, what with the essential regular jobs and each day’s particular extra one, and it ended with a gallop, with the serving of dinner.

  It always seemed that half this housework was done in semi-darkness, though 4 Paternoster Row was not an especially dark house. There was not much natural light coming through the windows, heavily shrouded in net, and the gas lamps were not lit until late afternoon. Those lamps were the very devil in any case, always needing attention. Hours it took getting them to burn properly, nearly as difficult to manage as oil lamps. There was talk of electricity being installed soon, but there was no Electric Lighting Station in Carlisle yet (it wasn’t constructed until 1899). Margaret Ann was more interested in the thought of Mrs Stephenson purchasing a gas oven. It would be such a blessing, doing away with so much mess. It seemed to her that the two biggest headaches in her working day were dealing with the dirt caused by coal and battling against bugs. Dust from coal spread everywhere and then there was the menace of soot from the chimneys and the filthy ash which had to be cleaned out from the fireplaces. As for bugs, constant vigilance was necessary. The mattresses, the pillows, the carpets, the curtains – they all had to be inspected and treated to keep the bugs at bay. Margaret Ann was exhausted at the end of every morning with the fight against all forms of dirt.

  Afternoons were more restful. Cook baked in the afternoons and sometimes she helped her, especially with scones and pastry. Cook had a heavy hand with both, and Margaret Ann a light touch. They baked for tea, high tea as well as afternoon tea, tarts and rock-cakes and several kinds of bread and scones, and the kitchen would suddenly seem a pleasant, warm place. Or Cook would bake on her own while Margaret Ann mended. There was always heaps of mending, stacks of socks to darn and buttons to sew on and even collars to turn (because Mrs Stephenson didn’t believe in throwing a good shirt away just because the collar was worn on the inside). She would have enjoyed the mending more – at least she was sitting down – if Cook hadn’t talked so much. She rambled on in a disjointed way and sometimes she was foul-mouthed which Margaret Ann hated. She was always tempted to leave the kitchen and retreat to her bedroom with the mending, but this would have caused such offence she endured Cook’s bouts of swearing and tried to show her disapproval by her absolute silence. Other afternoons she sorted the larder, tidied drawers and made clothes for Mrs Stephenson. Early on Mrs Stephenson had discovered that her servant could not only darn so that these darns were virtually invisible, but that she could sew beautifully. She even knew how to make paper patterns and cut out material. If Mrs Stephenson could have spared Margaret Ann from her other work she would have had her dressmaking every day, all day.

  Tea was at four, just for Mrs Stephenson and Annie together with anyone invited to join them. High tea was for the men, at six, after work and school. The men ate mountains of food, great heaps of Cumberland sausage and eggs and pies and cold meats, followed by scones and cakes, and all of it washed down with gallons of tea. It took a long time to prepare this feast and a long time to clear the debris away and put the kitchen to rights. Cook and the girls would have gone by then and Margaret Ann was responsible. It was well after eight before she was done and free to retire to her room with the eternal mending. That was the best time of day. Sometimes she didn’t go to her room; sometimes she stayed in the kitchen. There was an old but very comfortable armchair there and she’d sit with her feet up and savour the peace. Sometimes Annie would come and talk to her, mostly to complain about trivial things, about being made to go on learning to play the pianoforte, at her age, and about her boredom with Carlisle, with her dull life. Margaret Ann listened but passed no comment, offered no advice. She went to bed around midnight and said her prayers and mostly slept deeply. Mostly, but not all the time. She dreaded having nightmares and crying out in her sleep. Only Annie ever heard her, but by the time she had come to Margaret Ann’s door to inquire what the matter was Margaret Ann was awake and in control of herself.

  Nothing, she always said, nothing was the matter. It must have been something she ate. Never, all those years later, when she related this to her daughters, did she give them any clue as to what her nightmares had been about or why she had cried out. And they were stopped from asking her for the usual reason they always gave – ‘she was upset, even remembering’.

  II

  My grandmother’s life was, then, a narrow life, a predictable one, shared by scores of domestic servants in Carlisle in that last decade of the nineteenth century, by thousands in the whole country. Hardship was only relative to Margaret Ann Jordan. Her life was no harder than any other woman’s in her position, the point precisely. The physical hardship, the sheer energy and strength needed to get through each day, was commonplace. She expected to be down on her knees scrubbing, up to her elbows in boiling or freezing water washing and rinsing dishes, rocking on her feet with weariness after hours of running up and down stairs. It was what she was paid for. When she reminisced later in life – as she often did, her daughters remembered – it was always without any trace of resentment. Her expectations were low. She expected to carry on as she was until she dropped. Or married.

  Marriage was always an option. Marriage was possibly, but not definitely or even probably, an escape from servitude. If she married, she knew she’d still have to cook and clean and wash and mend, and without the help of the kind of servant she was to the Stephensons unless she married a rich man. The chances of this happening were nil. Who, in Carlisle, among the servant class, married rich men? Rich, eligible men were few and far betwee
n, and girls like Annie Stephenson from good families ever on the lookout for them. But there was rich and rich, after all. Plenty of tradesmen around who did quite well for themselves by Carlisle standards, tradesmen who could afford to rent or even buy decent houses and to lead comfortable enough lives. The market was full of them. Plenty of money there, especially among the butchers, with Carlisle being such a big meat-eating place.

  On Saturday afternoons Margaret Ann would go to the market to buy the joint for Sunday. She’d walk to the end of Paternoster Row, cross Castle Street, where the potato stalls were lined up in front of the cathedral railings, and cut through to Fisher Street into the splendid new covered market. She went through the glass doors and down the little cobbled hill where the shambles now were. Some butchers had more than one shambles. They had three or four together, positive empires. The meat hung from the ceiling on hooks, whole carcasses of pig and lamb and beef, and on the tiled counters below lay the cut-up portions: the bright red stewing steak, the dark slabs of liver, the great coils of pale, putty-coloured Cumberland sausage, the crimson mounds of mince, the stiff rows of chops. Meat was so important, it was every housewife’s mainstay, it could not be done without. Every meal that professed to be a real meal had to have some kind of meat content. The Sunday joint was naturally the most important meat purchase of the week. It was a serious business. The joint had to do the family for Sunday dinner and then provide cold meat for Monday with enough left over to make rissoles or shepherd’s pie on Tuesday, and preferably leave a well-covered bone to use for stock. The responsibility of this purchase lay heavily on Margaret Ann every week. She actually hated the sight of meat. It made her feel sick, all that bleeding red, that reminder of killing… She had to control herself carefully. She found beef the worst to buy, but it was the Stephensons’ favourite. Best sirloin, that’s what they liked, or rib of beef. The meat had to have yellowy fat round it, not white lardy-looking stuff, and it had not to be a suspicious bright red but rather a dull brown in colour. She knew that meat, to be properly inspected, should be touched as well as looked at – she saw other shoppers removing their gloves and prodding the meat, but she couldn’t do that, she was too squeamish, too fastidious. She had to rely on the honesty of the butcher, of Thomas Hind.