Chapter 5: The Manor

Gertie spends the weekend with the Lord of the Manor

It was one of the earliest heavy frosts of the winter she had ever experienced, although she was over a hundred miles north of her home latitude in East London, and Gertie mentally shivered as she looked across the endless lawn that seemed to disappear into the mist gently rising up from the edge of the woodland a couple of hundred yards away. She didn’t actually shiver, as she was warmly wrapped in a comfortable woollen dressing gown and she sighed in contentment.

This was her first weekend visit at Standhope Manor, the magnificent country seat of the noble and wealthy Winter family in Derbyshire. She had been warned before leaving home by both Johnnie and Evie, that locals called the Queen Anne-style manor house “the Palace”. It was a large and elegant house by any measure you care to make, with more than a hundred bedrooms, three ballrooms and its own gothic chapel. There were half a dozen various-sized dining rooms, the smaller informal family ones being rotated in use according to the season and the number of extended family members present. Gertie needed a map to find her way around and a thoughtful member of the lady’s maid staff quietly provided one for her on her dressing table.

Her bedroom was within the ‘close family’ area of the house, which so squarely constructed that it didn’t have ‘wings’ as such, just an enclosed courtyard within. This bedroom was large, light and airy and conveniently next door to Johnnie’s bedroom, so looking out at this view across the lawn, a short patch of woodland and beyond that, she had been told, was a view of the lake that had been installed when the grounds were lavishly landscaped in the 1820s. Today, or at least early this morning, the mist hovered above the trees after a heavy overnight frost and completely blocked the view she understood would be memorable.

They had driven up from London quite late last night after a banking problem at the Standhope Winter merchant bank that had held Johnnie back by at least a couple of hours, so they arrived late, in the dark, had missed dinner and made do with a delicious round of sandwiches that the house chef had put together for them despite their protestations of not being hungry or wanting to put the staff to any trouble.

Apparently the problem at the bank wasn’t just an ordinary customer in the form of a company, but the finances of a country. The State of Hungary needed to raise what to Gertie sounded an eye-watering number of millions of Swiss Francs (even though she had no idea how much even a single Swiss Franc was worth) in order to refit a factory to enable it to construct fairly modest motor cars to an Italian design for marketing in Hungary and other countries in Eastern Europe. However, there emerged during negotiations a difficulty over what security the State of Hungary could provide investors by way of guarantee for the bank’s large investments. The State had offered the guarantee of income from their State-owned coal mining collective but the Standhope Winter merchant bank had just discovered that the income from those very same mines had already been promised to an American bank consortium who were loaning the State money to upgrade the railway system which was desperately needed to get their coal in the bulk required to their customers, electricity power stations and heavy industry. The motor car factory deal had eventually collapsed late on Friday and they were going to restart negotiations on Monday, based on the State of Hungary coming up with an alternative form of security that hadn’t already been committed elsewhere. Johnnie privately disclosed to Gertie in his frustration that he doubted they had any securities at all.

Johnnie was exhausted having decided to give his driver the weekend off and driven them up himself, and she was sure he would not rise early this morning. Being a passenger for the three hour drive, through a bewildering number of towns and villages, Gertie had not been as tired on arrival as Johnnie had admitted to being. Gertie resolved to learn how to drive a motor car herself when she got back to London, so that she could share the driving with Johnnie in future emergencies.

Johnnie and Gertie had been a couple, in the form of boyfriend and girlfriend, for five weeks now and she was more certain, now that he had brought her to his ancestral home to meet his parents, Lord and Lady Standhope, that their futures were to be forever entwined.

A light knock on the bedroom door woke her from her reverie and prompted her to turn from the window and call out softly, “Come in.”

A petite housemaid came through the door wearing a black short-sleeved dress with a white lace pinafore and a white lace hat perched on the top of her head, who Gertie thought looked even younger than herself. She entered two steps into the room, carefully closed the door behind her, curtsied and asked,

“Good morning, Ma’am, can I help you get dressed this morning? Breakfast will be served at eight, in about twenty minutes’ time.”

“No, that’s fine, I can dress myself. But as you are here, you can come and tell me about the house and people who live here. It’s my first visit.”

“Oh, er, yes, I know, er, yes of course I am here to help but I’m pretty new here too,” the housemaid replied nervously.

“Come on in, I won’t bite, honest,” Gertie smiled, “I’m Gertie, I’m pleased to meet you and glad you’re here to help me, and you are...?”

“Mary, Ma’am,” the girl said, “Only they already have three Marys here, so in private the staff have started calling me Maisie.”

“What name do you prefer?”

“I think it’s nice to be called something a bit different, Miss, so I’ve sort of grown to like Maisie, but the Standhope family call me Young Mary, to distinguish me from the older ones.”

“Then between you and me, Maisie it shall be. And so, you are assigned to me while I’m staying here?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I’m the Under House Maid, and I am directed to set out your clothes, help you get dressed and undressed, make your bed, take any clothes, linens and towels that need washing, pressing or mending and this morning I’m to direct you to the present breakfast room.”

“And you are how old, Maisie?” Gertie asked,

“I’m fifteen, Ma’am, I joined the staff straight from school in the summer.”

“Well, Maisie, if you are going to be looking after me for the weekend, you can please stop calling me ‘Ma’am’, at least when we are alone together. I’m only two years older than you and still a Miss, a spinster. I won’t be eighteen until 5 June next year, and another four years before I’m no longer regarded as a child, so please call me Gertie.”

“All right, Miss, er Gertie. Shall I at least lay out the clothes what you are going to be wearing today for you?”

“Well I only brought a couple of changes of day clothes and something to wear tonight at dinner. We should be driving back to London on Sunday night, tomorrow night. My clothes are in the top drawer over there.”

“Thank you Miss Gertie, I will lay them out and if you do decide you need a hand ... well, I’ll be here.” Maisie said and enthusiastically opened the drawer and started getting things out and carefully laying her selection out on the side of the bed and putting the rest back in the drawer. As she did so Maisie spoke about the house.

“Well, as for the house here, since the war there’s been a reduced staff of fifteen in the house, Miss Gertie.”

“Fifteen? Why so many?”

“According to Betty Weaver, she’s the Upstairs Family Housemaid, there was over thirty regular staff before the war and in the heyday of the house in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, when there were lots of parties and weekend guests, they’d have retired staff and other help in to cover the work on a day by day basis. Now there’s just Lord and Lady Standhope living here permanently and they live very quietly compared to the old days. Lord Standhope was quite poorly last winter and has stayed here, although he walks around the grounds every day and quite briskly I think, despite having to use a walking stick, so he must be getting his strength back. Lady Standhope had spent several weeks in the London house during the late summer and early autumn, because of meetings with her charities and attending the theatre, which she loves, but has come back home in the last two weeks and is expected to stay and celebrate Christmas here. I’m so looking forward to Christmas, Miss Gertie, apparently they go all out in decorating the house with Christmas trees, ornaments and lights.

“As for the children of their Lord and Ladyship, the eldest Miss Mildred I’ve never seen at the house, although as a young girl I saw her a couple of times, I think she lives in Paris nowadays. Mr John rarely comes up from London, I understand, this is only his second visit since the early summer. Lady Dorset used to come up every other weekend, spending the other week in Hertfordshire, but recently we’ve not seen her here at all.”

“Ah, my friend Evie’s been busy with me for the last five weeks. She said she was coming up today and will probably stay until Wednesday. Mr John has to go back to London on Sunday night and I have been given a choice of going back with him or stay with Lady Dorset and go back with her on Wednesday.”

Gertie looked out of the window, noticing that the trees looked darker, meaning that the mist must be getting thinner. The window faced east and she could see the sun trying to break through the mist.

“If you are thinking of staying for a few days, Miss Gertie, there’s plenty of things to see here. The gardens are not so good at this time of year, of course, but in the walled garden there will still be roses and chrysanths and michaelmas daisies, with many more flowers in the heated greenhouses and the orangery. The woods are great places to walk through, with lots of the trees still holding onto their golden leaves and there are mushrooms and toadstools everywhere. There’s plenty to see, the lakes are always beautiful and so crystal clear that you can see the trout and the other fish.”

“You like it here, Maisie?”

“Oh yes, it is a lovely place. Obviously, there are problems with this building. It was used as a hospital during the war and quite a lot of damage was allowed to happen. I suppose their priority was the care of the patients, while we’ve cared for this building for many years. There are workmen in the north section that are dealing with dry rot in the attics and leaks in the roof from broken tiles, so there’s a tarpaulin stretched over that part of the roof and the old tiles stacked up against the back wall. My grandfather worked here in the gardens before he retired and had a right go at them, cos where they stacked ‘em is where there’s a load of bulbs planted underneath.”

“Will the roofers be gone by the spring?”

“Yes, they say they’d be done by the New Year or Janu’ry at the outside, but though the bulbs flower in the spring, they start growing in the autumn and by Christmas they are poking through the soil. Grandad told them straight, if those tiles are still there in Feb’ry, the bulbs might not flower but they’ll still grow through and those bulbs have been there for two hundred years and they will come through, he said, ‘come hell or high water’ so powerful that they’ll have more broken tiles to replace than they had bargained on.”

“I know, I’ve seen ordinary weeds grow through concrete and break it up like it was green cheese. So, this place is two hundred old, eh?”

“It’s a lot older’n that,” smiled Maisie, “there’s been Lord Standhopes here since before Queen Elizabeth’s day, the very first Lord was an Admiral and served her dad, Old King Harry, when he was having spats with the King of France over something important enough to be given the honour of Earlship. This was his family home, just a small manor house then, but it is said he had a fleet of ships that were nothing more than legalised pirates and they brought in enough money that they bought up all the land around here, then they bought up a lot of land in America where they planted tobacco and cotton. That’s when they built a few factories in the Dales for making cloth from the cotton, but found they weren’t so economical, so they bought into some of the Lancashire mills as partners instead and they made a fortune, enough to build this ‘palace’ on the foundations of the old original farmhouse.”

“Evie warned me that the locals call this house a palace,” Gertie laughed as she started to dress with the clothes that Maisie had selected from the limited choice Gertie had brought with her and carefully laid them out ready.

“Compared to the tiny village, this has always been considered a palace. Mind you, you can’t really see it from anywhere in the village as it is screened off by trees and hills, but anyone coming in through the gates can see the front of the house lit up by the setting sun and it looks amazing, just like a palace. It’s not as big as where the King lives in London but here in Derbyshire it looks fit for a king and queen to live here.”

“Ah, fit for a king and a queen, well, I suppose Mr John is wealthy enough to be a prince and in time, he will be the Lord of this Manor, isn’t that right?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Gertie, and everyone thinks that Mr John would be a perfect Lord,” Maisie said with a broad smile on her youthful face, “one of the best.”

“So, what is the general opinion among the staff regarding his present girlfriend?” Gertie asked coyly. “I hope you will give me the honest answer.”

Maisie stopped picking up and folding the nightwear clothing that Gertie was discarding as she was getting dressed and stared at the young woman she was supposed to be helping.

“Oh, Lor’,” she said, chewing at her lower lip and looked down for a moment, a hank of her brown hair that had worked loose from the bun tied behind her head, drifted across her eyes. Then she raised her eyes and smiled at Gertie, mischievously.

“Well, Miss Gertie, Betty told me that you are unlike any other young lady, not at all like the friends of Miss Eveline or the female cousins of the family that stay here from time to time.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Oh, a good thing, yes, Miss Gertie, a really good thing.”

“And why is that?”

“Because what the servants and staff want, what we all need, is a future that we are certain of, that the Manor will continue to be in good hands and will continue to be the family home where the family stays most of the time.”

“And you think that I will help with that ‘certain future’?”

“Oh yes. You see, both Mrs Bridger, she’s the Housekeeper, and Mr Johnson, the Butler, say that having you in the family, alongside Mr John, will be a breath of fresh air that will be needed when the Lord and Ladyship changes, as it always must do eventually.”

“Really?” Gertie was astounded, “why would they say that?”

“Because, Mr Johnson told us, that history repeats itself, Miss Gertie. There have not always been Winters at Standhope, once, maybe over a hundred years ago, the male line of Standhopes actually died out. I think the old Lord had a couple of sons and a couple of daughters, but both the sons died without children, but one of the daughters had married a Winter, one of the banking Winters and they had a baby son. When the Lord died, rather suddenly, the Winter baby, being the only male in the family, inherited the title and lands and became Lord Standhope. The mother was a Standhope and had been born and brought up here but was estranged from her father for many years. She came home shortly after her father died, and her husband came with her too. They found the house in a state of disrepair, the old Lord had not been a good businessman, had lost the income from the cotton and tobacco plantations in the American Civil War and the factories in Lancashire kept running out of cotton and many had been closed down. The banker was rich and he was able to secure new sources of cotton for the mills and he repaired the house and restored the gardens. The staff were re-employed which made everyone happy and the new young Lord grew up here from a babe in arms up to an adult and he loved the Manor.

“So, even when he took over the ownership of the bank from his father and worked in London part of the time, he still looked upon here as his home. He raised his family here. We hope that you are like that first Winter banker, that you will like us here and set up your family home here, and have your babies here so we have a new generation of family at the Manor, that will invite their friends to come and stay, to have parties and dinners and balls and we servants can rotate between here and your London home. Yes, Miss Gertie, we look to you as holding our future in your hands. We want to support you and advise you and make you so happy here that you love this place just as much as we do.”

“Mmm, ‘oh Lor’, indeed, ‘oh Lor’, indeed,” Gertie mused almost to herself thoughtfully considering a future in such a lovely place as this. “I think I’m ready for breakfast now, Maisie, can you show me the way there?”

“Of course, Miss Gertie, please follow me.”

Gertie was almost finished breakfast by the time Johnnie got to the breakfast room. Gertie thought he looked tired, but his face did appear to light up when he saw her sitting there.

“I looked into your bedroom in case you were still there, but your lady’s maid told me you were in this room. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, thank you, but what about yourself? You were very tired by the time we arrived after your long working day and long drive and I didn’t want to wake you until you awoke naturally.”

“Yes, it was a long, frustratingly tedious day yesterday but I feel much more refreshed now. Thank you for letting me sleep in, Gertie. Weren’t you bored on your own though?”

“No, Maisie is fascinating to chat with, she was telling me about the history of this place,” Gertie then remembered something Johnnie had just said, “what did you mean, my Lady’s maid?”

“Yes, little Mary Andrews is your lady’s maid, she’s been appointed to you as your personal maid whenever you are here and, she can accompany you wherever we stay, if you want her to, that is. She’s a very sweet girl and as she’s close in age to you, so we hoped you’d get on well together. She still has much to learn, but like you she’s very quick minded and smart and we thought you’d support each other growing into your roles together. Did you like her?”

“Yes, I do like her, she is indeed a sweet girl and has a lively spark about her. Who do you mean by ‘we’ exactly when you talk of ‘we thought’?”

“Well, mother and I basically, of course, but she had already spoken to Mrs Bridger the Housekeeper about how best to look after you. I knew Mary’s father, Andrews, quite well; he was a fine gamekeeper, but unfortunately he died serving with the Sappers in North Africa in ‘42 I think it was. Mary was mostly brought up by her grandparents, who also worked here for many years. What did she say to you that was particularly interesting?”

“She told me about your family, the Winters. About how they came to live here about a hundred years ago, she said that it sort of helped liven up the Standhope bloodline.”

“Ah, yes, and you think that my courting you now was part of a scheme, some sort of grandiose breeding programme to improve our human bloodstock?”

“No!” Gertie gasped in astonishment, then, softer, said, “No, Johnnie, not at all. I couldn’t possibly think that, let alone believe it. One of the things that I liked about you when I worked in the theatre, was how gentlemanly you were, you were respectful to the people around you, patient while waiting your turn, even allowing older and less mobile ladies to go before you, so they had plenty of time to get to their seats before the doors closed. I noticed that and I imagined that you would be kind and a nice gentleman to know, although of course I never imagined...”

Johnnie moved his chair closer to Gertie and took both her hands in his. “Gertie, let me assure you of one thing, you have never been part of some scheme, although my mother did notice me allowing what you call ‘older ladies’ to go in front of me because at first, and I think it must’ve been completely involuntary on my part. By letting others go first, well, it gave me a little longer to observe you, when I hoped you’d be occupied and too busy to notice me observing you.”

“I confess I was and hadn’t noticed that at all. And why were you observing me, Johnnie?”

“Ah, well, firstly you are very pretty, Gertie, so you’re easy on the eye as they say, but then so are lots of girls. You were more interesting to me partly because you had seemed to devise your own method of storing the coats in different places.”

“Well, I didn’t like the set method, it was too inflexible and people are creatures of habit, so those regular guests who hate to linger and rush for the exits as soon as the curtains close, I have their coats more ready to hand than others.”

“Ah, I see that now, I didn’t see that pattern at all. And that intrigued me. I’m both a banker and a military man, I like order and I notice patterns, whether they be in figures on a balance sheet or behaviour in my men or in movements of the enemy. Your predecessor, Marjorie, did your job for eighteen months or so and she put the coats on the racks in strict ticket number order, but you didn’t. It appeared haphazard, yet when it came to the end of the show, you were able to find the coats more quickly and more efficiently and often whole groups of people together. Also, while observing you, I was impressed by how unflustered you were, how careful with handling the coats, how patient you were with those who couldn’t find their tickets right away, and in one instance, your absolute honesty.”

“Honesty?” Gertie asked out of curiosity.

“One old lady appeared to have left her purse in the pocket of her coat. You must’ve felt it as you handled the coat, so you checked with her to make sure she was aware that her purse was left behind in the coat and ask if that was what she intended. She leaned over and whispered to you and you removed it from her coat and handed it to her.”

“That wasn’t really honesty, Johnnie. Besides, it wasn’t even a purse at all, not a money purse anyway. It just felt to me like a purse and that it was relatively heavy like it was half-full of change. She whispered back to me that it was once an old purse that now just contained her opera glasses; her eyes she said had worsened since before the war without her noticing and she only realised how much sight she had lost when she started going to the theatre again after a gap of some years. She hated wearing spectacles or to even admit to needing those opera glasses, so she kept them in the purse until the lights went down and she could then use them discretely. Once she had admitted that and I kept her little secret, she often stopped to chat to me about the show. I think she was a little lonely, a really nice old lady. I hope she doesn’t miss me since I left.”

“I am sure she does and I still think you’re amazing and a few weeks ago I wanted to know a little more about you. That was why I was in Whittaker’s office when that drunkard was reported to him that he under surveillance by your doorman and barman.”

“You were asking Mr Whittaker about me?”

“Discretely, trying it on that my mother was looking for a likely girl to employ among her domestic staff, but Whittaker’s no fool,” Johnnie laughed, “I must have seemed such a loon mooning after his pretty hat check girl.”

“Ex-hat check girl.”

“Yes, I was quite surprised that you gave in so easily about your job, old girl.”

“Your sister Evie is devilishly persuasive, Johnnie, as you no doubt know. ‘Gertie,’ she said to me in that school-ma’am voice she puts on with truculent doormen and cabbies, ‘you are learning how to be a lady, a proper lady, mind, whose job one day will be to hold this family together in times of strife or even tragedy. You are a student studying to be a Lady and a full time student at that, who needs to graduate with honours. There are no second places, Gertie, you must pass this course with flying colours and you need to concentrate every single moment of your time to it. Now, we have opened a bank account for you at Standhope Winter. Although we are not a clearing bank like the High Street banks are, the Bank of England does allow the cheques that we issue to be cleared through the system just like everyday banks. We do get charged for this privilege but for certain of our customers and family we judge that to be an acceptable expense. So, Gertie,’ Evie insisted, ‘from this week, two pounds, ten shillings and ninepence goes into your new account each Friday and the bank also pays your weekly 6d National Insurance stamp. It’s like you’re the bank’s student and when you qualify you’ll find you have a job in this family for life.’ In all innocence, Johnnie, I asked Evie, if I’d ever have to actually work in the bank for my money and she said, ‘If we ever have another war like the last one, then yes, you will. We had so many staff volunteer to join up in those first few weeks of September 1939 that for the family it was all hands to the pumps. I worked at least four days a week until things settled down after Christmas ‘39 and then I was able to cut it down to a couple of days a week. Even Mama helped out for a week here and a week there, and carried on long after I had joined the ATS in 1941.’ So I folded, knowing that to do this job of learning to fit in with society properly I had to take it all seriously.”

“Yes, Gertie, it is a job. I’ll tell you that everyone in the Winter family gets paid an income, some directly from the bank itself, like you are at the moment, but more established family members have income from trust funds, which hold investments, shares etc. It keeps everyone independent in many ways but it also ties them into the responsibilities of being in the family. The principle investments that pays the dividends can’t be touched, well not without convincing the Trustees that investments need to be changed but the dividends that accrue are free to do with as you want.

“My Mama, for example, uses a large portion of her dividends to reinvest until she has built up sufficient money to fund a favoured project, the reinvestment of her dividends is handled by the Trustees but those reinvestments are not included in the ring-fenced investments and can be withdrawn when the project is ready to go. She used hers to fund shelters for families bombed out of their homes in various seaports, industrial towns and the Docks area of East London during the war. That charity is still existing to help those families still in distress to get housed and furnished with furniture and coal until they can get back on their feet.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting your mother again, and your father I’ve never met. I understand from Maisie that he is poorly?”

“He’s got some bronchial issues at present and, as you know, I left the Army after he had a heart attack and had to step down from managing director. You will see them later, they tend to dine together in his room mostly, but he insisted that we will see them both at lunch. You know Mama, anyway.”

“Yes, Evie took me to meet her at the Dorchester for lunch two weeks ago. Of course I recognised her from among the theatre-goers, she used to come even for performances when you didn’t escort her.”

“Of course she did, she’s always loved the theatre, she was a professional singer called ‘Milly Martyn’ on the theatre circuit before she married my father. You know, she always entertained us at home where we were all encouraged to perform for the family. My older sister Milde particularly loved dressing up and singing and dancing, I, naturally, hated it.”

“You hated performing?” Gertie smiled, “I can imagine you as a child, dressed with a fancy frill around your neck and your make-up running under the hot gaslights.”

“We didn’t take it all that seriously, although Mama did put all the make up on for her own performances, I suppose she must’ve been on the stage for two or three years before she was married.”

“Really? I would never imagine that, she looks absolutely fantastic for fifty and carries herself like she was born to be regal.”

“No, she was from an ordinary background and yes, she was a rising star in musical revues and light opera on the West End towards the end, although she had acted and danced in repertory companies in seaside resorts from the age of about 15. Papa fell in love with her when she was about 20 and he was four or five years older. My grandfather didn’t approve of the match apparently but my grandmother loved ‘Milly’ immediately they met, so it was a done deed. So you see my dear Gertie, we don’t seek out the girls that we fall in love with for any breeding purposes, nor do we feel a need to marry a rich girl in order to save the family finances. No, Gertie, my dear sweet old thing,” he smiled, “we marry who we marry for only one good reason my love, and that is love. The fact that you have a pretty face, a strong and sharp, independent mind, good teeth, bright eyes and breasts succulent enough to keep twins happy for hours, has absolutely nothing at all to do with it ... except that all your pros added together makes you amazing, bewitching.”