The Diary of a Chambermaid (9 page)

There was an explosion of indignation, an avalanche of foul language. Rose waited until calm had been restored, and continued: ‘His mother came to ask me about it… you may well imagine I advised her to sue the lawyer and his wife.’

‘And quite right too!’

‘Well, the mother hummed and ha’d and couldn’t make up her mind, but in the end decided not to … It’s my belief that the priest, who goes to dinner every week at the Rodeaus, took a hand in things. Anyhow the poor woman was scared. If it had been me … of course I’m religious, but no priest would have stopped me. I’d have made them cough up all right, hundreds and thousands, 10,000 francs at least …’

‘That’s right, that’s quite right.’

‘Heavens, fancy missing an opportunity like that!’

And the brim of the musketeer’s hat flapped like a tent in a storm.

The grocer’s wife said nothing. She appeared embarrassed, doubtless because the lawyer was one of their customers. Neatly interrupting Rose’s flood of abuse, she said:

‘I was hoping Mademoiselle Célestine would drink a glass of
cassis
with us all. And you, Mademoiselle Rose?’

Her invitation calmed everybody’s anger, and while she was taking from a cupboard a bottle and glasses, which Rose arranged on the table, their eyes lit up and they licked their lips greedily.

As we were leaving, the grocer’s wife said to me with a friendly smile: ‘You mustn’t worry because your people don’t shop here … You must come and see me again.’

I walked home with Rose, who continued to acquaint me with the doings of the neighbourhood. I should have thought her stock of infamies was exhausted, but not at all. She kept recalling or inventing new ones, each more dreadful than the last. Her capacity for calumny appeared to be endless, her tongue ran on and on without a pause. Neither man nor woman escaped. It’s amazing how many people she managed to condemn in so short a time. She accompanied me as far as the gate of The Priory. Even then she couldn’t make up her mind to leave me, but went on talking, overwhelming me with her friendship and devotion. My head was splitting after all I had had to listen to, and the sight of The Priory filled me with a sense of discouragement. Its great lawns without a single flower-bed, and that huge building looking like a barracks or a prison, where an eye seemed to be spying upon you behind every window.

The sun had become warmer, the mist had disappeared, and the distant countryside was more clearly visible. On the hills beyond the plain I could see little villages, lit up by the sun’s golden light, and with gay red roofs; the river in the valley, yellow and green, shone here and there with a silvery gleam, and a few clouds formed delicate patterns in the sky. But I found no pleasure in looking at all this. I had only one desire, a longing, an obsession, to escape from this sun and valley and hills, to get away from the hideous voice of this huge woman who was torturing me and driving me crazy.

At last she seemed on the point of leaving me, and taking my hand with her fat fingers, which protruded from a pair of mittens, she shook it affectionately.

‘So you see, my dear,’ she said, ‘Madame Gouin is a very agreeable woman and very skilful. You must keep in touch with her.’

But still she lingered. Then, in a more mysterious voice, added: ‘You’d never imagine the number of young women she has helped! Immediately they notice anything they go and consult her. You can trust her completely, I assure you. Out of sight out of mind … She’s a very clever woman.’

Fixing me with shining eyes and with a curious tenacity, she repeated: ‘Very clever and skilful and discreet! She’s the providence of the whole neighbourhood. So, my dear, don’t forget to come and see us when you can, and visit Madame Gouin regularly. You won’t regret it. So good-bye for now!’

She had gone. I watched her with her rolling walk, passing the wall, passing the hedge and suddenly turning into a footpath where she finally disappeared.

I passed Joseph, the coachman-gardener, who was raking the gravel paths. I thought he was going to speak to me, but he only looked at me obliquely and with a curious expression that made me almost shudder.

‘Nice weather this morning, Monsieur Joseph.’

Joseph muttered something under his breath. He was furious with me for walking on the path he had just raked. What an odd man, and what bad manners! Why does he never speak to me, or answer when I speak to him? When I got back to the house Madame was obviously annoyed. She greeted me unpleasantly and at once began nagging me:

‘In future I must ask you not to stay out so long.’

I would like to have answered her back, as I was irritated and annoyed, but fortunately I managed to contain myself and only mumbled something under my breath.

‘What’s that you’re saying?’

‘I didn’t speak.’

‘A good thing for you … And another thing, I forbid you to go out with Monsieur Mauger’s servant in future. She’s not at all the sort of person you ought to know … Look, because of you, everything is behind-hand this morning.’

I said to myself: ‘Oh shut up, I’ve had about as much of you as I can stand … I shall see who I like, and speak to whom I like. I won’t have you laying down the law, you old cow.’

Just to hear her shrill voice, to encounter again those spiteful eyes and overbearing manner, was enough to efface immediately the impression of disgust that Rose and the grocer’s wife had made upon me. They were right, and so was the draper’s wife. They were all right. And I vowed to myself that I’d see Rose as often as I wished, that I’d go back to the grocer’s and I’d make that filthy draper’s wife my best friend … if only because Madame tried to forbid it. And I kept repeating to myself savagely: ‘Cow, cow, cow!’

But I should have felt much more relieved if only I’d had the courage to shout this insult straight in her face …

In the afternoon, after lunch, Monsieur and Madame Lanlaire went out for a drive in the carriage. The dressing-room, the bedroom, Monsieur Lanlaire’s study, every sideboard, drawer and cupboard, were locked. Just as I thought. Oh well, there’s no chance of reading any of their letters, or of making up a nice little parcel for myself.

So I stayed in my room writing to my mother and Monsieur Jean and reading
The Family.
It’s a nice book and well-written. Yet it’s a funny thing, though I like listening to dirty stories, I don’t enjoy reading them. The only books I enjoy are those that make me cry.

For dinner that evening there was stew … it struck me that the master and mistress were very distant with each other. The master ostentatiously read his paper, crumpling it and rolling his kind, gentle eyes. Even when he’s in a temper his eyes remain kind and timid. Eventually, in an attempt to make conversation, but with his nose still buried in his paper, he exclaimed: ‘Well I never, there’s another woman been cut to pieces.’

Madame made no answer. Sitting very upright and stiff in her austere, black silk dress, her brow furrowed and a hard look in her eyes, she continued to day-dream … But what was it all about? Perhaps she was sulking because of me…

For the last week I haven’t been able to write up my diary at all … By evening I have been worn out and exhausted and my nerves all on edge. All I can think of is to get to bed and go to sleep. To sleep … if I could sleep for ever! What a hole this is, my God! It’s almost impossible to convey the least idea of what it’s like.

For one thing. I’m always having to run up and down these confounded stairs just to satisfy the mistress’s whims. And before you’ve had time to sit down for a moment in the linen-room to get your breath back a bit, ting-a-ling-a-ling, and off you go again. Even when you’re not well, the bell never stops. And when I’m like that I get pains in my back that almost double me up, and tear my insides till I could almost shriek. But, of course, that doesn’t matter to her … Ting-a-ling-a-ling … no time to be unwell, no right to be in pain. Illness is a luxury that’s reserved for our employers. As for us, we just have to keep going, and look snappy about it … keep going till we drop. Ting-a-ling-a-ling … And if you don’t answer immediately the bell goes, scolding, bad temper, scenes …

‘Wherever have you been? Can’t you hear? Are you deaf? I’ve been ringing for you for the last half-hour. It’s most aggravating.’

And, usually, all it boils down to is this. You hear the bell and jump up from your chair like a jack-in-a-box, and all she wants is a needle! You go and find one … and then, ‘Fetch me some cotton.’ You take her the cotton and then she wants a button … and when you’ve found that, all she can say is: ‘What have you got there? That’s not the kind I wanted. Really, you never understand a thing! It’s a linen button I need, No. 4 … and hurry up about it!’

So off I go to look for a No. 4 linen button—cursing and swearing to myself. And after all this coming and going, up and downstairs, Madame changes her mind and decides she wants something else, or maybe nothing at all.

‘All right, then, let me have the needle and button … I’m in a hurry.’

My back’s breaking, my knees are as stiff as wood, I’m just about at the end of my tether. And then, of course, Madame is satisfied … that’s all she wanted. And to think that there’s a society for the protection of animals! In the evening, when she comes to the linen-room to see how I’ve been getting on, she starts raving:

‘How’s this? What on earth have you been doing with yourself all day? I don’t pay you just to lounge about, you know!’

I answer rather shortly, revolted by her injustice: ‘But you keep interrupting me all the time, ma’am.’

‘Interrupting you? Me? … To begin with, I forbid you to answer back. I’m not interested in your observations, you understand? I know what I’m talking about …’ And then slamming of doors and endless grumbling, on and on and on. You can hear her yapping all over the house, in the passages, in the kitchen, even in the garden … hour after hour.

The fact is, I just don’t know what to make of her. Whatever can have got into her to make her so irritable all the time? If I were sure of being able to find another place, I’d just walk out on her like that. Not long ago, I was having a worse time than usual. The pain was so acute that I felt as though an animal was tearing at my insides with its teeth and claws. When I got up in the morning I had already fainted from loss of blood. I just don’t know how I had the courage to keep on my feet and drag myself about. Now and then, going upstairs, I was obliged to stop and cling on to the banisters in an effort to get my breath again and not fall down. I was green in the face, and my hair was soaked with cold sweat. I could have howled, but I can put up with pain and I pride myself on never complaining in front of my employers. Madame came upon me when I really thought I was going to faint … everything was spinning round me, banisters, staircase, walls.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ she said harshly.

‘Nothing, Ma’am,’ and I tried to pull myself together.

‘If there’s nothing the matter with you, then why are you behaving like this? I can’t bear having people around me, carrying on as though they were at a funeral. You have the most disagreeable expression when you’re working.’

In spite of the pain, I could have smacked her face …

Amidst all these trials, I can’t help thinking of other places I’ve been in. Today, the one I most regret is Lincoln Street. I was second housemaid there, and had practically nothing to do. Most of the day we used to spend in the linen-room, a magnificent linen-room, with a red felt carpet and big mahogany cupboards from floor to ceiling, with brass locks. We used to spend most of our time there, laughing and talking nonsense, reading, or taking off Madame’s parties, looked after by an English housekeeper, who used to make tea for us with the special breakfast tea that Madame bought in England. Sometimes the butler—he knew his way around all right—used to bring us up all sorts of delicacies from his pantry, cakes, caviare on toast, slices of ham.

One afternoon, I remember, they’d made me put on one of the master’s very smart suits—Coco we used to call him amongst ourselves. Naturally we were playing all sorts of naughty games, and sometimes went a bit too far, I don’t mind saying. I looked so funny dressed up as a man, and it made me laugh so much that I couldn’t help myself, I wet myself in Coco’s best trousers …

Oh, that was the sort of place to have!

I am beginning to know the master quite well. People are quite right when they say he is a decent, generous man, for if it weren’t for that he’d be an absolute swine, an utter rogue. His desire, his passion for being charitable leads him to do things that aren’t at all right. However praiseworthy
his
intentions may be, that’s by no means the case with other people, and the results are often disastrous. It must be admitted, his kind-heartedness was the cause of a lot of dirty little tricks … like this one, for instance: Last Tuesday, a poor chap, a Monsieur Pantois, brought some wild rose bushes that the master had ordered—without telling Madame, of course. It was already getting dark. I had gone downstairs for some hot water to wash a few things through. Madame had gone into town and wasn’t home yet. I was chatting with Marianne, the cook, when Monsieur Lanlaire, in one of his jovial, expansive, noisy moods, brought old Pantois into the kitchen and told us to give him some bread and cheese and cider, and he stayed there chatting with him. The old chap was so worn out, so thin and badly dressed that I was sorry for him. His trousers were in rags, his cap absolutely foul; and through the open neck of his shirt you could see the skin of his chest, wrinkled and cracked like old leather. He began to eat greedily.

‘Well dad,’ exclaimed the master, rubbing his hands. ‘That feels a bit better, doesn’t it?’

And the old man, his mouth full of food, thanked him: ‘It’s very good of you, Monsieur Lanlaire. Since four o’clock this morning, when I left home, I haven’t tasted a bite of food … not a thing.’

‘Eat up then, Monsieur Pantois, enjoy yourself!’

‘It’s very kind of you, Monsieur Lanlaire. You must excuse me …’

The old man was cutting himself huge slices of bread, which took him a long time to eat, for he had no teeth. When he had satisfied his hunger, Monsieur Lanlaire said: ‘And what about the rose bushes, Monsieur Pantois? They’re all right, are they?’