I smile at her. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’
Her cheeks are flushed from her efforts. She is young. Probably in her first position. I was that girl not so long ago, scrubbing steps, polishing awkward brass door handles, hefting heavy buckets of coal, constantly terrified to put a foot wrong in case the housekeeper or the mistress gave me my marching orders. The girl looks blankly at me and drags her pail noisily to one side so that I can pass. I go on tiptoe so as not to spoil her work.
Above the door, a sign says FOR DELIVERIES KNOCK TWICE. Since I’m not delivering anything I pull on the doorbell. In my head my mother chastises me. ‘Late on your first day, Dorothy Mary Lane. And look at the state of you. Honestly. It beggars belief.’
I hear footsteps approaching behind the door before a bolt is drawn back and it swings open. A harried-looking maid glares at me.
‘You the new girl?’
‘Yes.’
Grabbing the handle of my travelling bag, she drags me inside. ‘You’re late. She’s spitting cobs.’
‘Who is?’
‘O’Hara. Head of housekeeping. Put her in a right narky mood you have, and we’ll all suffer for it.’
Before I have chance to defend myself or reply, she shoves me into a little side room, tells me to wait there, and rushes off, muttering under her breath.
I place my bag down on the flagstone floor and look around. A clock ticks on the mantelpiece. A picture of the King hangs on the wall. A small table stands beneath a narrow window. Other than that, the room is quiet and cold and unattractive, not at all what I’d expected of The Savoy. Feeling horribly damp and alone, I take the photograph from my coat pocket, brushing my fingers lightly across his image. The face that stirs such painful memories. The face I turn to after every housekeeper’s reprimand and failed audition. The face I look at every time someone tells me I’m not good enough. The face that makes me more determined to show them that I am.
Hearing brisk footsteps approaching along the corridor, I put the crumpled photograph back into my pocket and pray that the head of housekeeping is a forgiving and understanding woman.
As she enters the room, it is painfully apparent that she is neither.
Wonderful adventures await for those who dare to find them.
O’Hara, the head of housekeeping, is a furious Irishwoman with a frown to freeze hell and an attitude to match. She is tall and strangely angular, her hair frozen in tight black waves around her face. Her arms are folded across her chest, her elbows straining against the fabric of her black silk dress, like fire irons waiting to prod anyone who gets in her way.
‘Dorothy, I presume?’ Her voice is clipped and authoritative.
I nod. ‘Yes, miss. Dorothy Lane. Dolly, for short.’
She looks pointedly at a watch fob attached to the chest panel of her dress. ‘You are five minutes late. Whilst I might expect poor timekeeping of flighty girls who work in factories and wear too much make-up and coloured stockings and invariably come to a bad end, I do not expect it of girls employed at The Savoy. I presume this is the first and last time you will be late?’
Her words snap at me like the live crabs at Billingsgate Market. I nod again and take a step back. When she speaks the veins in her neck pop out, as if they are trying to get away from her. If I were a vein in O’Hara’s neck, I’d be trying to get away from her too.
‘Mr Cutler is not impressed by tardiness,’ she continues. ‘Not at all. Not to mention the governor.’
I have no idea who Mr Cutler or the governor are, but decide that now is not the best time to ask. ‘I’m very sorry. I bumped into someone you see, miss, and the rain—’
A brusque wave of the hand stops me midsentence. ‘Your excuses do not interest me and I most certainly do not have time for them.’ She consults the watch fob again, as if it somehow operates her. ‘Hurry now. Get your bag. Come along.’
She turns and sweeps from the room. I pick up my bag and scuttle along behind, following the familiar scent of Sunlight soap that she leaves in her wake. She moves with brisk neat steps, the swish swish of her skirt reminding me of Mam rubbing her hands together to warm them by the fire. We go up a short stone staircase that leads to a series of narrow sloping passageways, the plain walls lit by occasional lampless lights. We pass a large room where maids are stooped over wicker baskets sorting great piles of laundry, and another room where a printing press clicks and whirs and men with ink-stained aprons peer through spectacles at blocks of lettering. The air is laced with a thick smell of oil and tar. It is stark and industrial. Far from the sparkling chandeliers and sumptuous carpets I’d imagined.
‘Your reference from Lady Archer was complimentary,’ O’Hara remarks, looking over her shoulder and down her nose with a manner that suggests I don’t match up at all with the girl she was expecting. ‘And the housekeeper spoke highly of you.’
‘Really? That was very kind of them.’ I’m surprised. I can’t believe Lady Archer would be complimentary about anything, let alone me. I worked for her in my last position at a house in Grosvenor Square. She can’t have said more than a dozen words to me in the four years I spent there and most of them were only to remark on my appearance and suggest how it might be improved.
‘It wasn’t kind, Dorothy. It was honest. Kindness and honesty are very different things. You’d be advised not to confuse one with the other.’
We walk on a little farther until she takes a sharp left and stops. ‘We’ll take the service lift,’ she says, checking her watch fob again and tutting to herself as she bustles me into a narrow lift and instructs the attendant to take us to second. He mutters a good afternoon before pulling the iron grille across the front and pressing a button on a panel in the wall.
‘I presume you haven’t been in an electric lift before,’ O’Hara says as the contraption jolts to life and we start our ascent.
‘No. I haven’t.’ I push my palms against the wall to steady myself as the passage slips away beneath us. I’m not sure I like the feeling.
‘The Savoy is the first hotel to be fully equipped with electricity,’ she continues. ‘Electric lifts, electric lighting – and centrally heated, of course. No doubt there’ll be plenty of new experiences for you here.’ She pushes her shoulders back and stands proud. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’
‘Yes. I suppose I will.’ The sensation of the lift makes me queasy. My mouth feels dry. I could murder a brew.
Stepping out of the lift, I follow O’Hara along another corridor and into a large room, similar to the servants’ room at Mawdesley Hall. She tells me this is the Staff Hall Maids’ Room, where I will take all my meals. At least a dozen maids sit around a long wooden table, their faces lit by electric globe lights suspended on a pulley from the ceiling. The walls are distempered a sickly mustard yellow.
O’Hara waves an arm towards the table. ‘I’m sure you’re capable of introducing yourselves. Afternoon break is ten minutes. Breakfast, lunch, and supper are all served in here. The tea urn can be temperamental. Wait there.’
She departs in a rustle of silk. I put my bag down and shove my hands into my coat pockets. ‘Seems like the tea urn isn’t the only thing that’s temperamental.’ I mutter the words to myself but one of the girls sitting closest to me hears. She spits tea with laughing.
‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year. Where’d