On leaving home I took an indeterminate position in a Bayswater
boarding-house. At any rate, my wages and food were determined, but my
hours of work were not.
A boarding-house is a congeries of people who have come down. The
proprietoress never dreamed that she would have to earn her own living
like that--though she gets everything to a knife-edge certainty in the
first week. Then in the drawing-room you have military people who have
thundered, been saluted, been respected--and superseded. And nobody can
make worse clothes look better. The cook explains why she's not in
Grosvenor Square, and the elderly Swiss waiter says that he has been in
places where pace was not everytink. If you're out looking for
depression, try a boarding-house.
I stayed there a week and then said I was going. The lady said she knew
the law and I couldn't. So I said I would stay, and was sorry that the
state of my nerves would mean a good deal in breakages.
I left at the end of the week.
THIRD EXTRACT
GLADSTONE--MR. LLOYD GEORGE--INMEMORISON--DR. BENGER HORLICK.
After this I had a long succession of different situations. It is
possible for a girl to learn the work of any branch of domestic
service in a week, if she wishes to do it, with the exception of the
work of a cook or a personal maid. But then, it is quite possible to
take a situation as a cook, and to keep it, without knowing anything
appreciable about the work. Thousands of women have done it, and
are still doing it. I never went as personal maid--I dislike
familiarity--but with that exception I played, so to speak, every
instrument in the orchestra.
I acquired an excellent stock of testimonials, of which some were
genuine. The others were due to the kindly heart and vivid imagination
of my sister Casey, now Mrs. Morgenstein.
I rarely kept my places, and never kept my friends. The only thing I
did keep was a diary. A diary is evidence. So if you see anything
about anybody in these pages, you can believe it without hesitation.
Do, please. You see, if you hesitate, you may never believe it.
I well remember the first and only time that I met Gladstone. I was
staying with Lady Bilberry at the time at her house in Half Moon
Street. She was a woman with real charm and wit, but somewhat irritable.
Most of the people I've met were irritable or became so, and I can't
think why. I may add that I only stayed out my month as too much was
expected. Besides, I'd been told there was a boy for the rough work and
there never was.
But to return to Gladstone. I wrote down every precious word of my
conversation with him at the time, and the eager and excited reader may
now peruse it in full.
GLADSTONE: Lady Bilberry at home?
MARGE: Yes, sir.
GLADSTONE: Thanks.
MARGE: What name, please?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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