[-113-]
CHAPTER IX.
SERVANTS VERSUS MISTRESSES.
WE have already mentioned a tradesman who
has given us much information on the subject of servants. At his invitation a
Commissioner went to meet some twenty servants, and have tea with them. The
following is her account of the entertainment.
Mr. --- is head man in a grocer's shop, and calls for orders
at some of the largest houses in the West End. His wife was formerly a servant,
and he has many relations "in the domestic line of business." He is a
Wesleyan, and teaches in a Wesleyan Sunday School. When our Commissioner arrived
at his suburban villa, she was taken into a smart little sitting-room, full of
chairs and sofas, with a large table in the centre. The table had a big Bible on
it, also volumes of sermons, and a copy of " Pilgrim's Progress." This
room opened into another apartment, and there the table was spread for tea.
While waiting [-114-] for the arrival of the
guests, the Commissioner asked Mr. to give her his opinion on the subject of
" perquisites." He said that a friend of his, who is a butcher's
assistant, had often talked to him about perquisites, and "in a
well-ordered house" the scullery-maid has the bones, the kitchen-maid has
the fat, and the cook has the dripping. Cooks or housekeepers receive presents
from tradesmen at Christmas according to the amount of the year's purchases at
the various shops, but butchers are their chief patrons. Butchers try to outbid
one another with housekeepers and cooks in large London houses.
"It is in this way, you see," he said. "A
butcher calls on a cook, and says, 'If you make your mistress give up her
present butcher and come to my shop, I'll give you a commission on that, and
discount every week while you trade with me.' Then the cook complains of the
meat to the mistress, or she manages to cook it tough, and the mistress says to
her, 'We shall have to change our butcher.' She pretends to be sorry, and
recommends the man who has offered her a commission. Then the mistress changes
the butcher, and if he writes to complain, the mistress says that the meat did
not give satisfaction. "
The Commissioner asked Mr.--- if cooks are in the habit of
selling cooked meat, and told [-115-] him about a
house in Kensington where the mistress opened her back door one foggy morning,
and had a basin thrust into her hands by some one who said, "Only three-penn'orth
of beef today, and a little gravy."
"I don't know," he answered. " A friend of
mine is coming here to-day who has been housekeeper in some of the largest
London houses. She will tell you more than I can."
Then the guests began to arrive, and our Commissioner was
introduced to ladies'-maids, house- maids, and cooks, also to three or four
men-servants. A handsome young valet informed her that he had once thought of
writing for the papers himself, but he had been told that the pay for such work
was bad, and that writers had "no position." "I've heard my lady
say, when she's been making up the list of people to have down at our country
place, that, she must throw in a few writing folks to make it amusing. Writers
don't bring much luggage, and by the look of their clothes I should say their
purses are empty."
Our Commissioner asked this young man if it is true that
servants take the rank of their master or mistress, namely, that the lady's-maid
of a duchess has a higher place at the housekeeper's table than Abigail of a
peeress.
"Certainly," he replied. "I've sat down
to [-116-] dinner with fifty ladies'-maids before
now, and it's been hard enough to remember their position. And if you dance with
one after dinner because she's a bit good-looking, and forget another that's got
a higher mistress, you may be sure you'll hear of it again from some one. It's
like walking on the edge of a sword, visiting about in some of these big houses.
The men are right enough, but the women stick up for their dignity. And if you
happen to go to a place where the housekeeper and the butler don't hit it off,
it's worse than living in a situation where the master and mistress aren't
friendly. The master and mistress can get a divorce, but the butler and the cook
can't. It looks like giving in for one to go away, so there they stay on
quarrelling all the time, until the servants complain, or one poisons the
mistress's mind against the other, or something else takes place to separate the
unhappy parties."
The company then adjourned to tea. Our Commissioner was
seated between the tradesman and a pretty little girl of sixteen. She asked the
girl her name.
"Do you mean my real name, or the one I go by in the
house?" the girl inquired.
"What do they call you in the house?"
"I go by the name of any favourite that's in - I mean
any horse on which the men are betting."
[-117-] Our Commissioner inquired if betting goes on to any great
extent among female servants.
"Bless you," said the valet, "they're keener
at it than the men. They don't gamble much, but they love betting."
"Why do they bet ?"
"Because their lives are so dull. They must have some
amusement," answered a lady's-maid. "I don't bet myself, but I know
others that do. Sometimes they copy their master and mistress."
Then the tradesman, at our Commissioner's request, asked the
company to suggest how "a better understanding can be brought about between
servants and mistresses."
"In my opinion," said a rather solemn-looking man,
"someone ought to write a book like 'Vice Versa,' and put the mistress in
the servant's place."
"Or put the mistress behind the curtain of this
room," suggested another, "and let her hear what we've got to say
about mistresses."
"Mistresses have no consideration," the valet said,
"nor have masters neither, unless they are aristocrats. I went to a house
in ----- Square, some years ago, and I came in the first afternoon through the
front door. My master was in the hall, and he said, 'Will you have the goodness
to come with me, and I'll show you your way in
[-118-] here?' He went to the area gate, and rung the bell. Says I, 'I am
a gentleman, though I am a servant.' I walked in, packed my
portmanteau, and left the house. Of course it isn't many can afford to be so
independent, but I can, and it's a blessing."
"The airs some people give themselves!" remarked a
smartly-dressed parlour-maid. "The other day a tradesman came to our house,
and asked to see my mistress. I told her a gentleman wanted to see her. 'What do
you mean,' said she, by calling a tradesman a gentleman ? 'Well, mam,' said I,
'I've been taught to call every one a gentleman, even a beggar. What else
do you think I ought to call him?"
"She wasn't much of a lady if she spoke to you like
that," remarked another servant. "In good houses the master always
calls his servants Mr. or Miss; he never thinks of doing anything else. It's
only in second-class houses they treat servants without any consideration. But
it isn't every one can get into a big house ; some people must go into
second-rate places, and then there is a great deal to put up with."
"My mistress said if I sauced her she'd send me
away without a character," the parlou-rmaid continued. "I'll stay my
year, although she's a Tartar. She makes me walk up in front [-119-]
of her to bed, and knock at her door so she may know at what time I get
up in the morning. She sends me and the two others out sometimes, and then she
and the master go down to the larder. They've nothing to do but worry us
servants. If they'd keep to the parlour, and let us have the kitchen in peace,
things would be easier to put up with."
"In my opinion," said a young woman, "the
system of giving characters is at the root of the mischief, because it gives
mistresses such a hold over servants. Times are bad, and work is scarce, so
servants must look out, for without a character they can do nothing. If a
mistress wishes to spite a girl she can do it. Besides now it's always
'personal' characters that are wanted, and mistresses get confabulating over
servants instead of writing down what they have to say for and against them on
paper. They want to know when you were born, and they'd like you to give them a
burial certificate. It's that 'no character' business that keeps servants so
humble with mistresses. I don't see what can be done, but I sometimes think that
the system of giving characters should be changed by Act of Parliament."
"If so," remarked the valet, "it would have to
be done by the Upper House. It's only the [-120-] aristocracy
who treat servants properly. I tried one situation out of aristocratic circles,
and that was where the man showed me his area gate. The aristocracy know how to
behave to a gentleman, even if he happens to be a servant."
"Well, I've been both a servant and a mistress,"
remarked a middle-aged woman. "I began as kitchen-maid, and I worked up to
my last place, where I was housekeeper. I left because, although I pleased the
master, I couldn't get on with the mistress. I believe servants like to be under
a housekeeper better than under a lady, for housekeepers have been servants
themselves, and know how to show consideration. I always let a servant see the
kitchen and her sleeping accommodation before I engaged her, and I went more by
her looks than her character. The best girl I ever had came to me with this
letter:- ' Jane ---- has been with me one year, and went away to nurse her
mother.' I think the system of letting a cook engage her own kitchen-maids and
scullery-maids excellent, and the housemaid should engage her own servants too,
also the head nurse her nursery-maids. Then there is order in the house, and
without order every one becomes miserable. I gave my scullery-maid from £10 to
£12 a year, and my kitchen maids from £16 to £18 a year, with their proper
perquisites. Three meat meals [-121-] a day was my
rule for everybody; I was not extravagant, and I was not stingy. Nothing was
wasted, for all the scraps went to make soup for beggars. Every servant had
¼lb. tea, ½lb. butter, and ¾lb. sugar every week. Besides, I let the servants
under me have a fixed time free each day. That's a thing ladies seldom think of
doing. A servant likes to know how much time is her own, and to do what she
pleases then without interference. Ladies seem to think that they buy servants
body and soul for so much a year, and forget that a servant ought to be her own
mistress for some part of the day, as well as every other Sunday."
"How many women servants were there in your last
place?" inquired the Commissioner.
"Well, there was me, the cook, two kitchen-maids, a
scullery-maid, three housemaids, a schoolroom maid, and a lady's-maid, that's
nine. Oh no, there were ten of us; I quite forgot the governess."
We shall next look at the question from the other side
Mistresses versus Servants.
[-122-]
CHAPTER X.
MISTRESSES VERSUS SERVANTS.
HAVING read "Servants versus Mistresses"
in our last issue, Lady Florence , who is a constant reader of THE BRITISH
WEEKLY, invited a Commissioner to meet half-a-dozen mistresses at her house, in
order that the Commissioner might hear what ladies have to say about servants.
Lady Florence made what is called "a love marriage, namely, a matrimonial
alliance in which money was a secondary consideration. The result is three
children, a small house, and a limited income, all of which things she
"puts up with. But she groans over her servants.
"My dear! have you found a parlour-maid
yet?" she inquired, as one of the half-dozen ladies was announced by her
own neat little maid-servant.
The lady shook her head, and gave a graphic account of her
difficulties.
[-123-]"London
servants," she said, "will starve in the streets sooner than go to
service. The clergyman s wife in our parish tells me that the mothers foolishly
take the part of the girls, and that nothing can be done to put sense into them.
Her husband is going to preach a sermon on the subject."
"I wonder what he will take for his text!"
exclaimed Lady Florence. "My cook is dreadfully untidy, and I cannot
persuade her to look after her clothes. Only think, then, what my feelings were
last Sunday week ! A foolish young curate walked into the pulpit, and preached
on the text, 'Consider the lilies of the field.' You know how it goes on. My
cook was there, of course; and the next morning when I tried to explain away all
that the foolish young man had said in the pulpit, she answered, 'It isn't every
one that thinks so much of dress as your ladyship. '"
"I do not know what will become of servants,"
sighed another lady. "I was actually told the other day by a housemaid who
applied for my place, 'I'm not particular, mam, but I must have scented
soap to wash with, and I can only eat delicate puddings.'"
"Servants used to be so different!" remarked
another lady. "My husband's old nurse comes [-124-] every
year to visit us. She has a pension, and travels about to see her 'young ladies
and gentlemen,' as she calls them still, although they are all married. But then
servants had no education. She wrote to say, after she left us, that she had
my youngest boy 'in her mind's high.' I believe that the difficulties mistresses
have to put up with now are the result of over-education among servants. What do
you think ?" she inquired of our Commissioner.
The Commissioner said that it was not the business of people
who write for the press to form opinions on any subject, and that she had merely
come there to report the opinions of half-a dozen mistresses on the subject of
maid-servants. But she quoted as an example of "over-education" a
parlour-maid who is in the family of a well- known M.P. This woman told our
Commissioner that she enjoys her position as parlour-maid because it gives her
an opportunity of hearing what is going on in politics. "I look forward to our
political dinner-parties," she said. " and I enjoy the waiting,
for then I hear all that politicians are thinking and doing. I make my hands and
feet do the mechanical work, and I listen to the conversation."
She went away to be married two years ago, but her husband
died about a year after her [-125-] marriage, and
then she begged the wife of the M.P. to take her back again. She has the
greatest respect for her master, and admiration for her mistress. Speaking of
the former, she said, "He is that honest, he is only fit to be a Prime
Minister;" and of the latter, "She can hold her own with him, although
he is a Member of Parliament."
"Servants are so suspicious," said another
mistress. " It does not matter how kind you are to them, how much you put
yourself about, they look upon you as their natural enemy. I believe it has
always been the same from the beginning, and will remain so to the end, except
in exceptional cases. It comes from our 'dual' establishments, I mean two
families in one house, with no go-between but the children. And the children
soon cease to be a 'go-between,' for it does not do to let boys be intimate with
maid-servants."
"Of course," said Lady Florence, "it would be
easy to place servants on quite a different footing in the house if it were not
for the young men. The great ambition of a woman servant is to marry a
gentleman. She does not think, poor thing, of all she will have to bear from him
and his relations. I know a lady's-maid who married the son of a baronet, and
she came to consult me the other day about her little boy. 'I don't [-126-]
know how it is,' she said, 'but I can't get him to talk like a gentleman.
He uses queer words, and drops his h's, and that makes his father angry.
His father seems quite ashamed of him. I can put up with slights from my
husband's relations myself, but I can't bear to see my children slighted.'"
A long conversation then took place about young men who fall
in love with servants, and our Commissioner was asked to give her opinion. She
could only quote her own father, who always showed to his women-servants the
same courtesy that he showed to visitors of their sex, who bowed to them out of
doors, and taught his sons to behave as he did.
"My servants always come upstairs on Christmas Day
(unless it is Sunday) to play games with the children," said a lady,
"and on New Year's Day my children go downstairs to tea in the kitchen. But
it is always done by written invitation the children write to the servants and
the servants write to the children."
"That does not remove the difficulty of the two
families," remarked the lady who had previously said that servants are
"so suspicious." "Once a day all the
inhabitants of the house meet at prayers, and then they separate for the day.
One family lives upstairs, and the other [-127-] downstairs;
there is no place where they come together except the nursery."
"I see no help for that," said Lady Florence.
"All are equal when they die, but here there must be social distinctions. I
remember when my grandmother was buried in the family vault, and the water got
into it, an old servant said, 'To think that her ladyship, who was so much
better off than us when she was alive, is so much worse off when she is buried
We do get dry graves, at any rate.'"
"Well, I think that servants are very much to be
envied," said another mistress. "They have comfortable homes, good
food, kind treatment no responsibilities, and money enough to be independent in
their old age. In return for all this we have a right to expect from them
gratitude, at any rate. Yet they are the most ungrateful race under the face of
the sun, and the most deceitful. What do you think, Lady Florence ?"
"Oh, don't ask me!" groaned Lady Florence. "My
present cook is dirty, and my last cook was impertinent. The last one always
quoted her previous mistress, and used to say, 'Mrs.---- did this, or that; but
then she was a lady.' At last I had to turn her out of the house, with a
month's wages, at a moment's notice. She refused to go, because I am a widow ;
and when I told [-128-] her that I should send for
my friend Mr. --- who lives close by, to make her go away, she said, 'Your
friend! I came up with him in a third-class carriage from the City last week. A
nice sort of friend he is, to travel in a third-class carriage!' Of
course she was tipsy, but all London cooks seem given to drinking."
"If things go on like this we shall soon have to
do the work ourselves, for good servants are rare, and bad servants are such a
nuisance," said a lady. "'The levelling spirit of the age,' my husband
calls it. I hope before long we shall see the work done by machinery, for in
London young women will even go into the Salvation Army sooner than become
servants."
"There are some Christian servants left,"
observed another lady- young women who are content with the position in which it
has pleased God to place them. Their number is few, I admit; but some few
remember the text 'Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according
to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto
Christ.' Such servants find good mistresses, for the Bible commands, in more
than seven hundred places, that servants should be treated with love and
kindness. When servants are unmannerly and impudent, it cannot be expected that
they should find sympathetic [-129-] mistresses;
but if they study their employers, their employers will study them - at least,
that is my experience."
"How to treat women-servants is a problem," sighed
Lady Florence. "They are much more difficult to deal with than
men-servants."
"The problem to me has always been how men can bear to
be waited upon by women," remarked our Commissioner. "I have not the
smallest compunction about men-servants; I do not care how often I send them up
and downstairs, or how much I make them fetch and carry; they are strong, and if
they like the position of menials it is not my business. But when I see a
parlour-maid waiting on half-a-dozen men, walking about the room with a pale
face, dragging herself from seat to seat, looking ill, sometimes half-fainting,
I always wonder how the men can enjoy their dinner. Some men cannot bear it, and
will not be waited upon at all if they cannot afford to keep a man-servant. But
most men never seem to see anything but the menu, or to think of any one
but the cook."
"I heard a man say to his wife, not long ago, 'I will
not let you dismiss Mrs.--- (the cook). I could get another wife, but I could
not replace Mrs.-- -. So you must put up with her' laughed a mistress.
"Some of the happiest [-130-] marriages I have
known have been between masters and cooks," she continued ; "I intend
all of my daughters to learn cooking."
The conversation then turned on the subject of men-servants,
and Lady Florence related an anecdote about a footman who was in the service of
Mr. Studd, the father of the famous cricketers. Some of the ladies thought the
anecdote frivolous; and our Commissioner wished them good-bye, as we have
nothing to do with men-servants in these articles.