How It Came To Be That Alfred Hitchcock and I Had the Same Housekeeper

Recently, a friend posted on his Facebook timeline the anniversary date of Nixon's resignation from the presidency. Normally, I do not comment on Facebook except for birthday congratulations but this prompted me to remark on how I happened to be in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, standing by Connie Chung and Dan Rather, partying with a few thousand others that night.

Which got me thinking about some of the other events/happenings/coincidences in my life.

It was in the last century, while Nixon was still president, and I was studying political science at a small private university in New Jersey. Our school, despite its size, offered several off-campus semesters including United Nations (International Organizations), Brussels (European Community), Washington D.C. (U.S. Government) and London (Comparative Government). I eventually took all of the off-campus semesters except Brussels thereby spending my entire junior and half my senior years away.

This story is about London.

There were about 40 of us on the semester, including about a dozen students from other schools, plus three of our professors and another handful of local professors and lecturers including a sitting Labour M.P. All of us, except the locals, lived in a five-story white stone Victorian townhouse in South Kensington a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall. The owner would occasionally lurk about in the corners with serious second thoughts about having American college students running loose. (Rumor had it a few years later he sold the place to some African country for an embassy.) In addition, this being London and all upstairsy-downstairsy, we had a full staff: cook, whose specialties included Brussels sprouts, ox-tail soup and eggs drowned in lard; three live-in maids, two homely Spanish girls who looked enough alike to be sisters and one incredibly cute Australian whose nickname was "Rabbit" and who has her own story possibly titled "How I got the Maid Fired for Fraternization," due in a future post. And the housekeeper. Mrs. Yardley.

Mrs. Yardley was in charge. Mrs. Yardley set the schedules for the maids and inspected their work. She kept the owner from freaking out. She could do nothing to improve the cook. She was barely five feet tall, broad in the shoulder and hip, with thick stubby fingers and a voice like a trumpet. Think short Julia Child with a working-class English accent. And, unlike the owner, Mrs. Yardley was intrigued by Americans.

One day four or five of us were sitting around one of the bedrooms enjoying a little afternoon sweet vermouth when Mrs. Yardley knocked and entered. She had a question regarding American timekeeping, specifically: Did the phrase "a quarter of the hour" mean fifteen minutes before or after the hour? Being Americans, it had never occurred to us that this could cause confusion but, after considering for a moment, we realized that, yes, someone unfamiliar with the Americanism could misunderstand and invited Mrs Yardley to partake of some vermouth while we explained. (It means before.) Turned out Mrs. Yardley liked vermouth. We had two bottles that day. We guys finished one and Mrs. Yardley did for the other.

Towards the bottom of her bottle Mrs Yardley started to reminisce about her experiences during The War. She'd been in London during the early part of the Blitz but late in the war got a position out in the Essex countryside as a housekeeper. In fact, she was on her bicycle, peddling home from market one day, when one of the first V-1 buzz bombs exploded in a field less than half a mile from her. She said her employer out on the estate was "Mr. Hitch-cock." That's how she pronounced it, with equal emphasis on both syllables as if it was two words.

We asked her if he was, you know, the Mr. Hitchcock. Oh, yes, indeed, she said. Himself. We asked what he was like. Mrs, Yardley turned her glass a bit, examining her vermouth, perhaps contemplating the propriety of discussing personal details of a former employer.

"He was a very quiet man," she said, finally. "Strange. But very quiet."

Well, of course.