Recollection - PDF document

The Recollection Rooms The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy1 1 23/4/07 13:46:53 The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy2 2 23/4/07 13:46:53 The Recollection Rooms Character List Bel Housemaid Housekeeper Kitchen Maid Parlour Maid Drowned Maid Butler Chorus Keys The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy3 3 23/4/07 13:46:54 The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy4 4 23/4/07 13:46:54 Chorus Those who were, those who are and will always be, those who would show us what was, who would be spoken through, those who would be recalled to their lives in these rooms – O, spirits of place and spirits of no place, come and tell of how we came to be where you once were; of shelter and of home, of work and wear and lives untold and time undone, of stone’s wax and stone’s wane The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy5 5 23/4/07 13:46:54 Monck and Dobson pace. They take the measure of our confinement. A cage of numbers. What were we before? A limitless emptiness, open to the sky. Badgers and deer, and rooks bundled in black fell through us. Then parlour maids, every one a magpie under her black cap, pecked at the silver. No more, though we echo all that’s said and done. Parlour MaidYou come round the corner and down these steps – what else did we do there? But there’s all just green now where it was all once heather. Was it here the walnut tree stood? Or the pear? But if you go down, down the road and look to the bottom, that’s where the gentry hid their silver, is what they say, under that great stone with the hook in it. But I had me board and keep, and I was a child of the thirties, and everything was new to me, and I’d never seen such gardens and flowers in my life. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy6 6 23/4/07 13:46:54 O but a hundred square feet, closed in stone, the stones so close no breath can pass between. But we chorus from in-between. Our mouths are hearths, black velvet at the back of them. Our ears are cobwebs and the air itself as it moves under doors. We hear mouse-talk and cellar-talk, soldiers’ talk of home and servants’ rumours of silver: the lords speak of their legacies while we stare up at them from under the floor, our eyes lost buttons and old coins. We’ve stolen from the wind to speak. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy7 7 23/4/07 13:46:54 Kitchen MaidMrs Ellis, the cook, she was fair. She was very strict, but she was fair. A medium lady, but she was old. But I was only fifteen, so anyone over forty was old to me, and it was just Cook and me, but I didn’t mind. I had to get the fireplace cleaned out and get the fire laid to get the kettle on to make Cook a cup of tea, and Cook, she tells me – – Metallic grains of iron have been found in strawberries, and a twelfth of the weight of the wood of dried oak is said to consist of this metal. Blood owes its redness to the quantity of iron it contains, and rain and snow are seldom perfectly free from it. In the arts it is employed in three states – as cast iron, wrought iron, and steel. In each of these it enters into the domestic economy, and stoves, grates, and the general implements of cookery, are usually composed of it. In antiquity, its employment was equally universal. Your excavations at Pompeii have proved this – Kitchen Maid – and then I had three stone passages to scrub on my hands and The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy8 8 23/4/07 13:46:54 Housemaid I suppose it would be soap and water, I don’t really know. Or mebbes not, cus sometimes you use soap and water on stone and it doesn’t go very nice, sometimes it makes it go black, I The pear tree and the walnut tree: she minds them as she scrubs the floor, the kitchen maid on her hands and knees. The shadows mutter, the mice roar. We teethe on a ring of iron keys while she thoroughly rinses the kettle and, filling it with fresh water, puts it on the fire to boil. Then to the breakfast-room, where she makes all things ready for the family’s breakfast. Next, she will sweep and wipe the hall, sweep the kitchen stairs; and the hall mats, which she has removed and shaken, she will again put in their places. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy9 9 23/4/07 13:46:54 HousemaidBut I know I scrubbed these passages out, and he was very fussy: his logs had to be a certain size to fit in the fireplace! He was a funny gentleman. There’s a long passage that takes you to the back and all along there were scuttles, scuttles, scuttles; dozens of them for the fires. They had nothing else in winter-time, you see, and there’d be a man who filled them and did nothing else. Older than us, its cellared voice speaks in a glitter of blackness. Coal dust, the scrape of the hod’s lip on the cellar floor. Time weighs what coal weighs, the time a forest takes to fossilize and then perfect its black and glittering heart. The handymen go underground, under the house whose under-space Monck and Dobson planned as they paced, down to the coal-room coal has made its own, and there to do what coal, like a king, demands: to be raised from the dark and fed to the fire. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy10 10 23/4/07 13:46:54 ButlerWhose first is in the fluid inflammable bodies; whose second is in peat or turf; whose third is in charcoal of wood; whose fourth is in pit-coal charred; and whose fifth is in crude pit-coal capable of yielding a copious, bright flame. The first is seldom employed for the purposes of cookery; but the second has, in all ages, been regarded as an excellent fuel, belonging as it does to the vegetable rather than the mineral kingdom. The third is a kind of artificial coal: a black, brittle, insoluble, inodorous, tasteless substance. Its dust, when used as a polishing powder, gives great brilliancy to metals. Of the fourth and fifth there are various species; as, pit, culm, slate, cannel, Kilkenny, sulphurous, bovey, jet. These have all their specific differences, and are employed for various purposes; but are all, more or less, used as fuel. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy11 11 23/4/07 13:46:55 And you, butler, what do you do? Butler I have arranged the fireplaces and seen to the lights. I have brought in the eatables, and wait. Who will eat? Butler I have seen to the cleanliness. I have been responsible for the china and plate. But you wait? Butler I wait. Everything is in its place. I have rectified what was wrong. All is announced. Is the company seated? Butler I take my place behind my master’s chair. I am satisfied that the lamps and candles are in perfect order. The fireplace is arranged. The fires are safe. And you, dear butler, is your work completed? Butler Is the company seated? No more. The seats are empty. The company is no more. Butler And the butler’s wife? The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy12 12 23/4/07 13:46:55 HousekeeperI take up my responsibility – a brace of dark jangling keys. Keys We’re all borne on an iron ring, more than there are locks on the doors of the rooms she can only imagine. HousekeeperThe lightest pressure of my palm on the banister, the way I walk so carefully down the stairs. Keys Don’t look at your feet! Housekeeper Electricity now, in the chandelier, the dining room and the family’s bedrooms. Light, a cleaner light, encouraging greater diligence in the housemaids. For with new light come new shadows – borders of untouched dust around each skirting board of which, previously, I had been unaware. I wonder now what else we fail to see, even in our own faces, simply because we do not yet have the means. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy13 13 23/4/07 13:46:55 Keys Little teeth. Blades and bows, oiled by other hands. What have we seen? Where have we been? – Here, silly, here. And we see nothing. Little skulls, iron blind, clamped to an iron ring. It’s for you to see where we might have been. There’s a slot in the earth one of us fits. One of us unlocks a box no longer a box; one a sea-chest under the sea; one a door in a wall where no door should be: guess which. Housekeeper No matter which, or where each might fit, each is cold. My hand allows linen and silver out, allocates space. I count them, my keys, over and over, those for which I know doors and cabinets wait, and those for which I know there is nowhere to turn. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy14 14 23/4/07 13:46:55 Whispers in hallways, small words in tight spaces, gossip, tittle-tattle, weeping. The cooks – years of women, one after the other, in white – complain about the kitchen maids who, one after the other, wipe their faces. We see through years like pages of a book the wind has blown open: the figures shudder and skip into one another. Butlers’ and housekeepers’ words: Yes madams, No madams, and words in-between which are whispered to walls that never move, for only the house stands, its honeystone indisputable. Soot falls, for silence seldom happens as we roam the empty rooms – Housemaid – And as we were walking, this other maid and I, walking past the lake, she said to me ‘Did you know there was a tragic accident here years and years ago?’ So I said ‘No, I never heard of it.’ She said, yes, one of the girls had drowned. But I don't know whether there was any truth in it or whether she was trying to frighten me or not, because we had to walk past the lake coming back at night-time and you know how things are very impressionable at night-time – Drowned Maid – When I’m woken by the breaking of the mirror I sleep beneath – a girl with the weeds of dreams in her hair and work obliging her still to walk from the lake. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy15 15 23/4/07 13:46:55 My skin’s a mirror: I call for a rag and your breath, for I have none. Take my hand and breathe into it; polish my palm, my wrist, my silvered arm. I am hallmarked at the elbow now, a compound of lake water and Belsay silver. For I dusted cutlery and glassware and the places cutlery and glassware sat. I beat rugs and laid fires in cold colder than home’s for that cold wasn’t the cold of home. Finger-smears, tea stains, jam spoons, crumbs, kindling and coal scuttles beaten out of the armour left over from old wars, not my war with the wind and the dark. My orders? To hold this fort against disorder. To sweep, to press, to line up, to straighten. I dream of usefulness, the world’s woods gone to floorboards, its waters steam, its stone hollowed and me fixed in its middle, dreaming. Soot, sediment, tea-leaves and smoke. Wicks to trim, rabbits to boil. Tear-stains, soap-scum, feathers, starch. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy16 16 23/4/07 13:46:55 I was woken once by all that was still to be done at dawn in the stone’s heart in wintry sheets, the chill forcing itself through the floor. Down stairs, along passages, before time, before daybreak. Work was the habit my hands couldn’t shake while my mother was elsewhere, and there was no home but she made it, as I made my way softly down corridors to the kitchen – Butler – Where a tea-kettle, brass candlesticks, teapot and tray; two sets of skewers, a meat-chopper, cinder-sifter, coffee-pot, colander and steamer; five iron saucepans, a large boiling pot, stewpans, a fish-slice, an egg-slice, a dustpan, dripping-pan and stand; two fish-kettles, two frying pans, a gridiron, mustard-pot, salt-cellar, pepper-box, coal-shovel and bellows – Drowned Maid– so weighed me to the house that I filled my pockets with stones and went through the mirror to weightlessness. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy17 17 23/4/07 13:46:56 Wet footprints, black on the stone. Who would plan and build a house, grow shadows and earth what was air? Each room’s a spirit-radio – Butler – Get on there, little Miss. Oh – Housemaid– Arthur, not here! Butler – Things that I would say to you if we had the time, sweetness – Kitchen Maid– And light – Parlour Maid– He looks at me funny, he does – (crackle, hiss) The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy18 18 23/4/07 13:46:56 – And she knocks from the gutters – Drowned Maid – For I dusted cutlery and glassware and the places cutlery and glassware sat – – for you have built this place to be haunted. Shadows mutter. King Coal rumbles from his coal-room – Drowned Maid – I dream of usefulness, the world’s woods gone to floorboards, its waters steam, its stone hollowed and me fixed in its middle, dreaming – – and her skin is water under the skin of the house, a mirror staring from the Lady’s dressing table and rain in the gutters that run along the insides of the house under the roof upstairs where the servants sleep. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy19 19 23/4/07 13:46:56 Parlour Maid O I was born in the house on the Morpeth Road and I used to make them laugh: I said I was born and I’d be there till they carried me out in a box. My father came from Stamfordham when he was about thirteen and he started on the estate when he was about left school I suppose, and I suppose that’s how all the family got up there, and he was head woodman. No, there was no electricity, and we weren’t allowed to go to the sawmill on our own, but I got a beautiful owl there. Daddy caught it, it was hurt, and they caught a mouse and they gave it to him and he gobbled it down and choked, ho ho. Beautiful it was. They used to – whatwhatwas? – hoolets, as we used to call them, they used to hoot in the trees all night and we thought it was lovely. Hoolets we used to call them. Can you do it like this with your fingers? Can you (she blows) you know – The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy20 20 23/4/07 13:46:56 – When oak trees creak at the window and stars ring down on the skylight and the moon’s an unpolished glow and shadows mutter in the night, when the half-starved kennel dogs howl then goldly stares the wounded owl, To whit! To who! – a merry note it would sing from the creaking oak. The owl would sing if it were free and turn its clock-face back to front and stare at the house through the trees and I would dream of the fox hunt while the half-starved kennel dogs howled and snow-like fell the hungry owl, To whit! To who! – a chilly note it would sing from the creaking oak. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy21 21 23/4/07 13:46:56 But the woodman and the handyman? No more. No more what they used to know of where. No more going to see the Lady upstairs, for the Lady’s no more and the stairs lead down and stairs that lead down don't need to be clean – Housekeeper– Though the cleaning of the kitchen, pantry, passages, and kitchen stairs must always be over before breakfast, so that it may not interfere with the other business of the day. Nothing, it may be depended on, will so please the mistress of this establishment, as to notice that, although she has not been present to see the work was done, attention to smaller matters has been carefully paid, with a view to giving her satisfaction and increasing her comfort – – No more – Parlour Maid – For my father took Sir Arthur Middleton to Bolam churchyard on the lorry that they put the hay on. My father was the head cartman. And I can remember nicely, it was the third of May, Daddy having Sir Arthur Middleton on the lorry going to Bolam with him. How do you mean ‘on the lorry’? The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy22 22 23/4/07 13:46:56 Parlour Maid Well, they put his coffin on. He died at Belsay you see and they put his coffin – I think if I remember rightly it was covered with a Union Jack – on the old lorry that used to lead the hay on, with a horse, and they put his coffin on there and Daddy drove him to Bolam churchyard. And did people walk behind? Parlour MaidOh, I don’t think so. It’s a long way, isn’t it? And that door there – – She points to a photo – Parlour Maid– was the post office. That door there was Mr Snowball’s. He was a saddler. He used to sit in the window mending saddles. That was the store. That was the temperance hotel, and that’s at the top of the village, and that was the Ashington Industrial Bread Man: that’s Ernie Robson. He used to bring the bread from And that’s up in the hayfield – – Pointing to another photo. Parlour Maid They’re all dead now. I don’t know who that is – I think he was just a visitor in – but that’s my brother, and there’s my dad; there’s Jimmy Gallagher, and, er. Oh, it’s Tom Miller, and they were leading hay. And that’s me. The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy23 23 23/4/07 13:46:56 Can you remember what was in the cellar? HousemaidNo. Or who brought the coal in? HousemaidNo. You used to wash the statues – just with water? HousemaidIn a pail. With soap? (silence) Do you remember? HousemaidNo. Was the hall lit in those days? HousemaidI don’t remember. Electric lights? HousemaidMaybe. I don’t remember. Did you ever meet Arthur Middleton? Housemaid No. Only when he was in bed. I’d light his fire when he was in And what about his wife? HousemaidNever met her. I’ve lost touch with it all. Oh, it’s all right. Do you remember this room? Housemaid No. It’s all different, so different now. I started in 1929. I was only 14 – The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy24 24 23/4/07 13:46:57 Kitchen Maid– Cos we’re in bed and the door suddenly opens and here’s Santa Claus coming in! But Santa Claus is the Lady’s maid, Mrs Birney – Housemaid– And I’ve got given a nightdress-case, pure Irish linen, and we're getting taken to Newcastle to see Cinderella – Kitchen Maid– We’re all getting taken there, all the staff – Parlour Maid– Pat Kirkwood. Have you heard of Pat Kirkwood? Oh well, she’s the main one in it – Housemaid – Ee, we’re in the stalls and I don’t believe it. We’ve got really good seats – Kitchen Maid – And all the time things are on – I don’t know who’s brought it – but there’s a great big box of chocs getting handed round – Drowned Maid – And we haven’t even had to get the bus: we’ve all got brought here in cars – brought here! Parlour MaidAnd it’s the best pantomime I’ve ever seen in my life – Kitchen MaidAnd the butler’s wife? Butler She’s standing behind the kitchen door with a bunch of mistletoe when we get back – Housemaid– And everyone who comes in is getting a kiss! The_Recollection_Rooms_V1_0 copy25 25 23/4/07 13:46:57