The Housekeeper
Excerpt from “The Housekeeper” first published in The Baltimore Review
I knew as soon as I saw her, this situation was going to take some work. She were skinny and pale - real ladies are always akin to greyhounds – a tad leggy, a tad skittery. Eyebrows plucked near gone. Her hair, skin, and frock all the one colour, like lard.
I stood in the morning room while she read my references, a chandelier above me – Irish, I’d say – Lord knows the last time those crystals saw water. She smoked a cigarette, curled up on the chaise longue. And I know it’s the fashion but I’ve never liked to see a lady smoke and moreover the ashtray hadn’t been emptied since the last one. Told a tale about the current state of affairs and no mistake.
“You’re very highly recommended, Mrs. Braithwaite,” she said. Braithwaite’s my married name but I’m a widow now and my employers seem to prefer it that way. No worries about hanky panky on the back stairs – hough I’ve never met a man I could stomach for more than five minutes. My Harold excepted, of course.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” I said.
A very respectable household by all accounts, I’d heard, for I’m picky about my situations. Two children, mind you, but between the nursery, the garden, and homework I’d be able to keep them from under my feet. And there would be no butler to contend with neither. The war had drafted them away to fight the Hun. With any luck they’d die for their country and give those of us who know what we’re about a bit of peace.
“Yes,” she finished in that whispering voice of hers. “I think you’ll do nicely.” I decided right there and then that the first thing I’d do was get her maid up an half-hour earlier to heat irons for her hair. It looked so wispy and limp.
But sloppy hairdressing were just the tip of the iceberg - rugs not beaten for months, brass doorknobs and fenders dull as dishwater, enough fluff under beds to knit pullovers for a whole battalion and whoever had been in charge before thought tape on the windows meant they’d never need cleaned. I had the whole chore rota worked out in my head by the time the chauffeur came back from Kings Cross with my bags.
Once I had the housekeeper’s parlor to my liking and put my Bible by the bed, I rolled up my sleeves and got right to it. I put more backbone in that staff in the first ten minutes than the previous housekeeper could’ve managed in a month of Sundays. Laundry bleached and pressed regular, fire grates blackened, chandeliers down and washed with boiling water and vinegar. In two weeks I’d everything whipped into shape but the floors, and that were the worst. Never seen a drop of beeswax.
