Читать книгу Ginger-Snaps - Fern Fanny - Страница 3

SPICK and span, thorough and fresh, from attic to cellar. Pretty carpets and pictures, and glass, and silver, and china, and upholstery, and a pretty bride for the mistress! Receptions over, she looks about her. Hark! what's that? A mutiny down stairs! She didn't foresee so speedy a grapple with Intelligence offices, even if any at all. She remembers, 'tis true, that the coachman came one day to announce to mamma that "the cook was stiff drunk," and the dinner consequently in a state of indefinite postponement; and she remembers that a new cook soon took her place; and she has a misty recollection of a chamber-maid who left suddenly because she was requested not to use the cologne, and then fill up the bottle with water; and she knows another chamber-maid arrived before night, who had so tender a conscience that she couldn't say the ladies were "out," when they were in the bath, or in bed, and yet would appropriate handkerchiefs and ribbons and gloves without even winking. Still, she never thought of being bothered in this way, when she was married. It was all to be a rosy dream of love and quiet and comfort, and immunity from vulgar frets. "Well, she goes down into her kitchen, and inquires into the mutiny, and finds that the chamber-maid has called the cook a 'nasty thing;' and both are standing in the middle of the kitchen-floor like two cats on top of a fence, neither of which will give way for the other, snarling, spitting, and growling, and making the fur fly at intervals. She tries to pacify them, but they out-scream each other, till her head cracks, defending themselves. She goes up to George, with both hands over her ears, and asks him 'if it isn't dreadful?'" He says, with an executive wave of his conjugal hand, "Send them both off, and go to an Intelligence-office, my dear, and get others." He thinks "going to an Intelligence-office," and breathing the concentration of "marasmus" in a little den ten feet square, for an hour, is to be the end of it. He don't take into account the "character" that is to be hunted up at the last place Sally lived in, up in Twenty-thousandth street, the mistress of which will keep his little wife waiting an hour to dress, before she comes down; while Sally is meantime airing her heels in the Intelligence-office, whither the new bride is to return and report, affirmatively or the reverse. If affirmatively, George supposes again that there's an end of it. Not a bit. Now, Biddy is to be instructed an hour or two every day, where to find spoons, forks, knives, towels, napkins, brooms, dusters, and where and how to use them, and at the end of a week's education, she will never once set a table without harrowing mistakes, even if, at the end of that time, her opinion of some other servant in the house does not necessitate her "finding another place;" or because, though ignorant of all she professed thoroughly to understand when she came, she objects to being "followed 'round".

'Tis true the little bride might dodge the Intelligence(?) offices and "advertise," thus holding a servant's levee for several days in her parlors and hunting "characters" at immense distances afterwards; or, she might take a list of advertisements, and scour the city in disagreeable localities, up pairs of stairs innumerable, to find the advertisers "just engaged," if she prefer that. Either way, the grapple is to be met, in the person of cook, chambermaid, or waitress, or all three, every few weeks; and all this, though the little bride may ask no questions of the speedy disappearance of the household stores, or how many people unknown to her are fed at all hours out of them. Although she may prefer not to see that her damask table-napkins are used for dish-towels, or that the mattresses are never turned over when the beds are made, or that the broom never invades the corners of any apartment, but merely takes a swish through the centre. She may also be silent when she is told that a closet has been cleaned and put in order, although to her certain knowledge it has never been touched; for is not the virtuous and indignant rejoinder always ready, "D'ye think I'd lie, mum?"

Now, what comfort is her pretty silver, half cleaned, and bruised and scratched in the process? What consolation her pretty dishes, with the handles knocked off? What pleasure her china nicked at the edges? Which way soever she turns, waste, ignorance, and obstinacy stare her in the face. And is her life to be all this? Yes, except an interval now and then, when she lies with a little one on her arm, with a doctor and a nurse between her and the "grapple;" and the vision, as she gets better, of hunting up a nurse-maid, who, horror of horrors! will be "always under her nose."

I do not say there are not exceptions to this gloomy picture, but they are rare. Sometimes a godsend of an aunt, or housekeeper, stands between the mistress of the house and all this "how not to do it." But till Intelligence-offices have something besides the raw material to offer on the one hand, or on the other, servants who insist upon performing your work "as Mrs. Jones did," and who resent as an insult the mildest intimation that you prefer your own way, and object totally to your going over your house in every part once a day, to see if things are right – while this state of things continues, the mistress, be she young or old, must needs take refuge from this grapple in hotel life, or spend her existence watching the arrival of emigrant ships.

No man has any call to speak or write on this subject, since they know nothing about it. One of them recently explained the present wastefulness of servants to be caused "by the extravagant way of living indulged in by their mistresses." Waiving the truth or falsehood of the charge, I rise to inquire, whether the dishonesty and fast-living of clerks, be not attributable to the fashionable vices and lavish expenditures of their business employers. Having aired this little question, I proceed to say, that the dissatisfaction with regard to servants is undoubtedly every day greatly on the increase. In most instances, their utter disqualifications for the high wages they demand, are patent to every observing housekeeper. If the lady of the house wishes her work properly and systematically done, she must, in addition to paying such wages, do half the work herself; or, which amounts to the same thing, oversee these incompetent servants; who, at the end of even two months' teaching, either cannot, or will not, learn to do it faithfully. They who slight their work the most, are of course most unwilling to have the supervision. Indeed these very servants will often say, "that having done chamber-work, or cooking, for such a number of years in New York, they don't need any lady to instruct them how!" So that the mistress has to choose between a constant and irritating war of words, or a mismanaged household. To preserve one's patience or serenity, under such household friction, or to get time for anything else, is a very difficult task indeed. Now every right-minded mistress of a household desires, not only to have it well ordered, but to feel an interest in the welfare of those women who serve her: she would be glad, if they have a sorrow, to lighten it; if they are sick, to nurse them kindly; and in every way to help them to feel, that she does not look upon them as "beasts of burden," but as human beings.

I affirm that the present generation of servants neither care for nor understand this. All they want is, to be "let severely alone." Not to be "followed up," as they phrase it. If you hear the area-bell ringing punctually every day when your meals are served, they expect the fact, quite ignored by you, that some big nephew, or cousin, or lover, or uncle, with a robust appetite, comes at those times for his bowl of tea, or coffee, or a bit of meat, with some warm vegetables. They will, if found out, lie about it, with an unblushing effrontery which is perfectly astounding; or, if well up to New York area ways, will, with arms akimbo, inquire, "Well, what's a cup of tay, or a sup of coffee, or a bit of mate, now and thin, to rich folks?" and that although this may and does happen every day, and two or three times a day. As to cultivating any good understanding, or feeling, with such unscrupulous servants, it is simply impossible. There is no foundation in them for any such superstructure. Not long since, one such servant was requested at a time of sickness in the family, "to step about the house softly in the morning, as the patient had a sleepless night." She stared defiantly at the person making this gentle request, and inquired in a loud voice, "if this wasn't a free country?" Not long after this she smashed a very pretty butter-dish; and when told that it just cost five dollars, she loftily inquired, "Well, what's five dollars?"

Now what progress can even an intelligent, well-meaning, kind-intentioned mistress make with such a savage element as this?

One replies, "Oh, don't keep them, of course; get others." Very well – you wear out a pair of boots "getting others." To your horror, you discover that the new cook is subject "to attacks" which confine her to her bed, with – a gin bottle! till she feels like convalescing. The last lady she lived with, in the "recommendation" with which she got her own neck out of the noose, put yours into it by omitting to mention this little fact; so that again you must start on your travels "Intelligence" – ward.

During these changes of programme, a house gets pretty well demoralized; every servant who comes, expects to find nothing to do in the way of putting it to rights; and often when her lazy dream in this respect is realized, she will be very far, when she leaves, from putting her successor's mind, or bones either, at rest on this point.

All this is sufficiently rasping and vexatious. One lady remarked to me, "Oh! as for me, I neither know nor see, anything that they do. I have to choose between this or a lunatic asylum. I can't fight all the time; and if you change, there's only a new kind of misery."

"Your husband must have a long purse, my dear," I remarked. She shrugged her shoulders, and asked me "where I bought my new bonnet?"

Now, this state of things is deplorable enough. I can very well understand, and sympathize with, the disgust many right-minded women arrive at, after a panorama of such Sallys and Betseys have passed through their pretty houses, intent only on high wages, waste, and plunder. To fight it, only sours one's temper, and wastes one's life. There's no right feeling about them; they have neither conscience nor industry. "I have done my best," said a lady to me, "to teach and civilize and humanize them, but I tell you there's nothing to work upon; so, after giving my orders in the morning, I will neither hear nor see anything more about it."

Well, another lady will keep on her feet all day, trying to bring things to a focus; trying the impossible task of putting brains where there is nothing but a great void; trying to encourage – trying to lighten burdens by shouldering half herself, or getting substitutes to help; and thus by superhuman efforts she gets her husband's little culinary comforts all attended to at the right time, and every disagreeable thing put under lock and key before his return; but she sits down opposite him at the table with no appetite, with not an idea in her aching head; the well-ordered repast only representing back-aches and vexation of spirit.

Now this is rather a steep price to pay for housekeeping, and that is why the cunning little lady above referred to dodged it, and saved incipient wrinkles.

In conclusion, I beg leave to suggest to ladies that they must stop "recommending" dishonest or incapable servants, merely because "they don't want a quarrel with them." In the next place, if it be true that the keepers of intelligence-offices, for a stipulated sum, will furnish "a character" for any kind of girl able to furnish the money, is it not time something were done about this?

Finally, in the name of all the New York ladies, I know, or have heard speak, in private, on the subject, let China, or Africa, or Professor Blot with his travelling cook-shop, and all the laundry establishments, come speedily to the rescue, and find us a way of escape. If you ask, by way of postscript, if there are no exceptions to the kind of servants I have described above, I answer by asking you, how often you find a four-leaved clover, or a black holly-hock, or a green rose?

Let the poor wretch, smarting under the lash of the critic, remember that indigestion has lent point and bitterness to many a sentence which would else have been kindly. He can add to this, that critics are subject, like others, to envy, ambition, and little uncharitablenesses, which grow out of them. Also, that "mutual admiration" societies are not extinct. Also, that some critics look through political, some through religious, and some through atheistical spectacles; and if this don't assuage his anguish, let him remember that a thousand years hence both the critic and himself will have passed into happy oblivion.