The youngest-looking girl pours tea from a pot and hands me a cup. ‘You been for a swim in the Thames?’ she says. ‘You’re soaked. And you’re leaving puddles on the floor.’
I look down. A small pool of water has gathered on the floor as the water drips from the hem of my coat. I take it off and bundle it under my arm, telling the girl that it’s cats and dogs outside.
The girl who spat her tea asks if I’ve ever heard of a thing called an umbrella. ‘Sissy, by the way,’ she says. ‘Sissy Roberts.’
‘Dorothy Lane,’ I reply. ‘Dolly, for short. I never bother with umbrellas. Too much bumping into people and apologizing. Anyway, a bit of rain never hurt anyone.’
Sissy laughs. ‘It’ll hurt the governor’s Turkish carpets if you drip all over them.’
As I take my first sip of tea, O’Hara sweeps back into the room. ‘Come along now, Dorothy. I’ll show you to the maids’ quarters.’ She stops and stares as if noticing me for the first time. ‘Goodness, girl! You’re soaked. Did you swim here?’
Her comment sets the others sniggering again. Sissy mouths a ‘good luck’ as I reluctantly leave my tea and rush along after O’Hara like a gosling following a mother goose.
We walk down another long passage that leads to a narrow staircase where two porters are struggling with a heavy-looking crate of champagne. One of them winks at me as they shuffle past. Cheeky sod. We pass a maid whose cap is just visible above a towering pile of linen balanced in her arms, and then a young page in a powder-blue uniform who stands obediently to one side to let us pass. He reminds me of a toy soldier with his smart white gloves and epaulettes. He wishes O’Hara good morning and gawps at me like he’s never seen a girl before. I flash him my best smile, setting him blushing like a ripe peach. O’Hara tells him it is rude to stare and to straighten his cap and to hurry along with whatever message he is delivering. His cheeks flare scarlet under her castigation.
‘You’ll share your room with three other maids,’ O’Hara explains as she bustles on ahead. ‘I suggest you get out of those damp clothes straightaway or you’ll have pneumonia before you’ve even changed so much as a pillow slip. Your uniform is laid out on your bed: two blue print morning dresses, two black moiré silk dresses for afternoons and evenings, three white aprons, two frill caps, black stockings, and black shoes. Laundry is sent out on Mondays. The hotel has its own laundry out Kennington way.’ The mention of Kennington sets my heart tumbling, but I have no time to dwell on the memories stirred as O’Hara rabbits on. ‘Sissy Roberts will show you around the areas of the hotel you are permitted in. Pay attention. Nobody likes to see a maid where she isn’t supposed to be. I’ll stop by later with the house list.’
I haven’t the foggiest what the house list is. I would ask, but my mouth is dry and my tongue feels as fat as a frog.
‘Second floor is live-in staff quarters,’ she explains. ‘Heads of department are accommodated on eighth. The governor – Reeves-Smith – keeps an apartment here, although he usually stays at our sister hotel, the Berkeley. Each guest floor has an assigned waiter, valet, and maid for floor service. You’ll take instruction from them, as necessary.’
The corridor is brighter than the passages below. Electric lights shine from sconces along the walls. My sodden shoes squeak against the nut-brown linoleum as I walk, the sound setting my teeth on edge. I follow O’Hara to a panelled door, where she stops and takes a key from the impressive collection hanging from her waist. She opens the door and we both step inside.
The room is neat, functional, and comfortably furnished. Far nicer than the sparse little room I’d shared with Clover at the top of the house in Grosvenor Square. It smells of furniture polish and lavender. A Turkey rug sits in the middle of the room, worn in patches from the footsteps of countless maids. Each of the four iron bedsteads is neatly made up with a white candlewick counterpane pulled tight across the sheets and mattress. O’Hara strides towards a narrow sash window and pulls it shut.
‘The maids’ bathroom is across the corridor,’ she says. ‘The necessary is to the right. You’ll be attending to guest rooms on floors four and six. All rooms are turned out daily, starting with unoccupied rooms for incoming guests, and then on to occupied rooms as soon as the guest departs for the day. Knock three times before announcing yourself by saying, “Housekeeping.” You’ll hang a MAID AT WORK sign on the door and always close the door behind you. Nobody wishes to see the work in progress, as it were.’ She tugs at the edge of a counterpane and plumps a pillow. ‘Should a guest return unexpectedly, you must vacate the room and finish it when instructed to do so. Things happen at peculiar and unpredictable times of the day in a hotel, Dorothy. You cannot expect the rigidity and routine of a regular household.’
‘No. Yes. Of course.’ My mind dances with thoughts of the hotel’s impressive guest list. Hollywood stars. Privileged American heiresses. The darlings of London society. Far more impressive than the stuffy old ladies who visited Lady Archer for boring bridge evenings and dreary at-homes.
‘You’ll attend to various other duties throughout the day – sorting the linen cupboards, occasional sewing for guests, that sort of thing. You’ll pull the blinds and curtains and turn down the beds in the evening. You must greet guests with a polite good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, and use their full title.’
I try to take everything in as O’Hara reels off her endless lists of instructions, but I’m preoccupied with thoughts of who the other three beds belong to, whether my roommates are pleasant, whether we will become good friends.
O’Hara chatters on. ‘I’m sure I needn’t remind you that the utmost discretion is required at all times.’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘Maids may occasionally see or hear things that are, shall we say, out of the ordinary. My advice to you is to turn a blind eye.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘You have a ten-minute morning tea break. Lunch is at twelve or one, depending on which relay you are on from week to week. Tea is at five, and supper – if all your chores are complete – is cocoa and bread and butter at nine. You have Wednesday afternoons and alternate Sundays off. I presume you’ll be powdered and painted and heading off to the picture palaces or the dance halls like the others.’ She tuts as she straightens the hearth rug. Her words fall off me like raindrops. All I can remember is cocoa and bread and butter at nine and my stomach rumbles at the thought. ‘Curfew is ten o’clock. Sissy Roberts will accompany you on your rounds today and tomorrow. Then you are on your own. Watch and learn, Dorothy. Watch and learn.’
I set my bag down beside the bed where my uniform is laid out. ‘It’s Dolly,’ I mutter. ‘Dolly, for short.’ She doesn’t hear me, or if she does, she chooses to ignore me as she stoops to pick up a piece of lint from the rug.
‘Any questions?’
I have dozens. ‘No. Everything seems straightforward. I’m sure I’ll soon pick it up.’
‘Very well. Then welcome to The Savoy, Dorothy. She is quite wonderful when you get to know her. I hope you will get along very well.’
She closes the door behind her, leaving me alone with the sound of the rain pattering against the window and a nagging voice in my head wondering how I’ll ever remember everything.
Hanging my sopping hat and coat on the stand beside the door, I take a better look at the room. Beside the beds, occasional items on the nightstands suggest a hint of the other girls who sleep here: a framed photograph of a soldier in uniform, a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a scallop-edged gilt powder compact that I can’t take my eyes off, a well-thumbed copy of The Sheik, and a pile of Peg’s Paper magazines. Clover’s favourite.
Dear