Chapter XV

A certain Duke stood on a hill looking at his vast estate: as far as he could see was his property. He observed to his agent: “Lovely scenery, is it not? Yet I cannot eat or drink it, or take it with me when I die. You, or anyone else, may look at it, and that is all I can do.” But what would the estate look like if he had not agent, farm steward, and labourers to look after it, and gamekeepers to protect his game, servants to obey his every wish. The whole place would simply be a curse to him. Later on he came across a stranger on his land, and asked him if he knew he was trespassing on his land. “Your land,” said the stranger; “how do you make it out to be your land?” The Duke said, “I inherited it from my father, and have every right to it.” “And, pray, where did your father get it?” “He got it from his ancestors, who fought for it.” “Then,” said the stranger, “it’s about time it was fought for again. Come on!”

These great landowners are very jealous of their estates; they would not lose an inch of it. But they are not so particular as to the way they add to it when they can see a chance. I will point out an instance. When I was a boy my uncle held a small farm not many miles from Southampton, on the borders of a rich man’s estate—a small stream devided it from the park. My aunt was my father’s sister: they had a few cows, pigs, a lot of chicken, an old horse or two. My uncle was churchwarden or something of the sort. Nothing pleased me better than to walk the five miles to visit them on a Sunday when the fruit was ripe in the orchard; they would lend me an old muzzle-loading gun, powder, shot and caps, and I would shoot the thrushes and blackbirds that came to eat the cherries. I generally ate too much fruit, and got stomach ache. It was a fine old thatched house. Its surroundings would be a fine subject for a painter of pictures. The scene was painted by Ward, in 1831. I have the oil painting, a sunlight effect, in my posesion. My uncle and aunt made enough to live comfortably, in spite of the ravages of rabbits from the rich man’s estate adjoining, also of the phesants. They must have occupied the farm for twenty-five years when my uncle died. My aunt carried on for some few years, hiring extra help, employing an extra farm hand. But now came the rich man’s chance. He turned her out of the farm, as he wanted the land added to his park, pulled down the old farmhouse. My aunt went to a cottage in the village, and died in less than three months. My aunt was the only person I ever heard use the old expression, “Marry come up.” The kitchen was lighted by diamond paned windows, the floor was red bricks, the great wide fireplace with seats each side the fire which was on the hearth, no grate, fire-dogs each side, a chain and hook, a three-legged pot, sides of bacon hung up the chimney. Potatoes and cabbage, in nets, were cooked with bacon in the three-legged pot.

I observed in the newspaper a year or so after the great war a certain lady of prominence wrote an article saying the poor were behaving as though they were the cream of the land, whereas they were only the scum. It was during the time of the great labour strikes. I should like to ask her which is the scum: the busy bee who gathers the honey, or the drone who brings no honey to the hive? For she certainly belongs to the latter class, who lives on what the workers produce, directly or indirectly. Did she ever produce anything but talk, and such talk as that simply widens the gulf between the worker and those that do not work, the rich and the poor. Was her money amassed without the aid of the worker? and does she not live on what the worker produced? These things may not have been accomplished in her generation, but it must have been done some time previously, for in all labour there is profit, so without labour there is no profit. Did she ever do a hard day’s work in her life? Useful work. Fancy seeing her on her knees, with a slavey’s cap and coarse apron on, blackleading a grate, but worse still, having to live in the same house with a person of her ideas of human nature. Scum indeed! What is wanted in this country is a leader whose body and soul is for the good of the workers (the parasites can look after themselves); the busy bees, the honey makers, are the ones to take first consideration, and everything else would follow that the country desires, health, wealth, happiness, contentment. Whereas now it is nothing but discontentment all round.

But where are we to find the strong man with gumption and originality? Not at Westminster: I am afraid not. I have lived amongst the class that Members of Parliament are drawn from, all my life: have seen their inner life. As for intelect: God help them. All they learnt at school and college was to act like a gentleman, but that does not prove that they are gentlemen. Certainly they do not view the problem of life from the same standpoint as the worker views it. Then how can they be expected to mix a plaster to suit the workers’ case?

A man in his own district in the country may be of small importance, but when he puts up for Parliment and gets M.P. tacked on to his name he immediately becomes a big bug, and the way they go about it is at least peculiar, to say the least of it.

I will give an instance. I was living in the service of the gentleman who was “entering the lists,” for a constituency in the North of England. It was several years before the war, at the time there was a great outcry about so many foreigners being employed in this country, and so many Britishers walking about without a job. At the election speeches this question was brought forward. My Bos said he would give the matter his special attention should they give him their votes and put him in Parliment, which eventually they did. Now at that very moment he employed in his house a German housekeeper, a French chef, a German under housemaid, and a Swiss under housemaid, and a French ladies-maid. There is no length they will not go with safety to get the M.P. tacked on to their names.

I was staying in another large house where another seat in Parliment was to be contested. The would be member’s wife was helping him by visiting all the people’s houses who had a vote. The party were ready to start, the carriage being at the door, when the lady sent for her maid upstairs for some extra pairs of white gloves, then, turning to the other visitors, observed: “To shake hands with common herd.” If there happened to be a baby in the voter’s houses the lady would exclaim, “Oh, what a lovely child,” and would kiss the child all over if only votes were promiced her husband at the election. And the husband on his part has all of a sudden become extremely affable. On meeting a voter he shook hands and said, “Well, Jiles, how are things going with you?” Yet, whether that gentleman got into Parliment or did not, one thing is very certain: when he meets Jiles, or any of the voters who put him where he is, they have grown so darned small that neither he or his wife can see them. If I were asked what I am, a Conservative, a Liberal, a Wee Free, or all the rest of it, I could not tell them. I am just what a life lived amongst the Aristocracy has made me. I certainly do not believe in Socialism in its crude state.

It lies in the power of upper servants either to make the younger ones lives livable, or a perfect hell. When one considers that in a large house there are servants whose dispositions are all different. They have got to live peacably with one another. There may be Swiss, French, Italian, Belgians, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, English, and before the war, Germans galore. It resembles a lot of squirrels in a cage with a wheel. The employer says, “There you are, then; spin away, you devils.” It is simply a matter of temperament in the individual, whether he or she can adapt themselves to the conditions or not. In some situations the servants are very happy, in others just the reverse. There is this difference: In any trade or other profession, one has to be with objectionable people only during working hours. In service one has to be with them, living always in the same house, night and day, Sundays and weekdays.

It is an old saying that Like likes Like. No honest, truthful, straightforward man or woman likes a lying, two-faced person. Neither does a lying, deceitful person like a straightforward, trustworthy, truthful man or woman. But they think them fair game to be shot at. The lying deceiver gets on well in gentleman’s service, for a time, perhaps a long time, untill they are found out. They can always spin a plausible tale, pleasing to their employers, to whom the truth is often distasteful. But consider the damage they have done to others in the house before they are found out.

Jealousy, backbiting, slandering is only natural where a lot of servants are shut up in a house together, with the same hum-drum duties to do day after day. There is not enough variety of thought to distract their attention from it, during the long day, without amusements or freedom. The shop girl, or factory girl may have to work hard, but she does not have to begin work at five-thirty and keep on more or less continually till ten-thirty at night, as I know of some housemaids who do it in the winter. The outdoor girl can look forward to the time she will finish for the day, probably at five or six in the evening.

The employer does not trouble himself what they do or where they go; as soon as they are outside the place they are free. All that is required is that they shall be back to time on the following morning.

The National Insurance scheme is a farce as far as servants are concerned. If a servant does not feel well, can he or she leave their work and join up in the queue to see the doctor at 9 A. M. or at 6 P. M., the surgery hours? Most likely be away an hour. They may do it once, but will soon get the order of the “Boot,” as the gentry will not have unhealthy servants in their houses. Most of them are most unnatural on this point. For instance, a noble Lord I served, whose butler fell ill with pains in the stomach. The butler saw a doctor but got no better and could not do his work. The Noble Lord said, “Is not that fellow any better?” As he did not appear to wait at table after the second day the Noble Lord called in his own doctor, who ordered him to be taken (after consulation with the Noble Lord) to St. George’s Hospital, on a Sunday afternoon.

The butler died there in less than a week. The same Noble Lord treated his valet, who had been with him over twenty years, in a similar way. The valet fell ill. The Noble Lord had his own doctor to examine him. Said it was heart disease. The valet was at once turned out of the house. He took a quiet, single-handed butler’s place. He died in less than a month. The Noble Lord would not allow a servant to die in his house. Now, if this had been one of his hunters that was sick, there would have been no end of a fuss.

I call to mind an event that occurred at a small place in the North of London, where a butler and five maids were kept. The cook took the place as her sweetheart was a chaffeur living within walking distance, and naturally wanted to see each other sometimes, as sweethearts have done since the world began. Having finished her work after supper, she popped up to the side gate for a few minutes’ chat, and to rub noses, as he was not allowed in the house. Some of the girls gave her away to the “Missus,” who sent all the other maids to bed, and told the butler to stand by, in case of a disturbance. The cook appeared, well before the time the house was usually locked up, and was met by the “Missus” at the side door. They bundled her out of the house that night, and sent her boxes after her next day. She was a capable cook, and a well educated girl, but what humiliation. In another place, on the opposite side of London, cook after cook left because “No visitors allowed” was the order. So the employers gave in at last: they had to allow the girls’ sweethearts in or cook their own food. Consequently when the Lady went into the kitchen there sat the man in the arm chair, and did not even stand up and make his observance of respect, but told them if he was not to be allowed in he should take the cook away. This sort of thing frequently occurs in small places.

I have not written much about maidservants, for they can generally speak for themselves. As regard cooks, I have met those who has been plesant to work with, also the reverse. Some of them ought to have a piece of red ribbon tied on behind, similar to that on a horse in the hunting field, or racing paddock. For one never knows when they are going to “lash out.” As regards ladies-maids, they would be disappointed if, when they have “got ’em all on,” with a touch of the powder puff, they were not taken for real ladies. They abhor having to go in and out of the area gate, but would much rather use the front door. In fact it would be difficult to tell now-a-days which was the ladies-maid and which was the Lady of the house, when out walking. Even the scullery maid must dress herself in the height of fashion, when it is her Sunday out. Forty years ago servants were not allowed to wear a hat, but only a demure bonnet.

It would be difficult to tell that a char lady was a char lady, for she too must dress in the fashion when out of doors, as far as her pocket will permit. I have seldom met one that has not seen better days. Life must be hard for them to have to do it. Probably she has to pay a neighbour a shilling a day to see that her children get their dinner when they come home from school. Her husband perhaps out of work. Did anyone see a crosseyed servant? No, they are as scarce as dead donkeys. A servant must be absolutely perfect in form, disposition, and action. He must have no sweaty, smelly skin, or feet, which a great many people have. There used to be an old titled lady in Eaton Place who was very prowd of her two tall matched footmen. When she was engaging them she would make them walk backwards and forwards across the room to see if she liked their action, just as though she was buying a horse; the footman also had to open the door, go out, and come into the room again, to show if he did it properly. No, a servant must not be knock-kneed, flat-footed, humpty-backed, or idiotic, neither do they like the bald headed ones, they must be properly thatched. In some places they will have all their men with hair of the same colour, either all light or all dark.

Of course a tall man has the preference, and advantage of a shorter man in service. Had I been three inches taller, a six-foot man, I could easily have got to the very top of the tree. The experience was there. The first-class character was there, but in a first-class place a six-foot man would be taken in preference to me. Though I have never had to borrow a penny in my life, I cannot say I am much better off than when I began in gentleman’s service.

When my brother kept the shop in the Fulham Road an old butler, who was in the workhouse, used to leave an old private coat and hat with my brother to take care of. When it was his day out he came there and changed his workhouse clothes, and no wonder, after being in gentleman’s service, among the Aristocracy all his life. People remark, why did he not take care and save his money when he was in service? But I say, if a man has a family and wife to keep, and house rent to pay, there is not much left out of a wage of seventy or eighty pounds a year, finding his own clothes. If a servant is an honest man and has to do the above, he will be worse off at the end of thirty years’ service than when he began. He may, if he is a single man all his life, manage to keep out of the workhouse at the end, but he would have to be lucky, and have found good situations. Perhaps one in a hundred butlers gets a sort of pension, enough to keep him out of the workhouse.

I have had chances of taking valuable things in my time, that would never have been missed, because no one knew they were there, but a clear conscience is of much more value, and if I must die in the workhouse, I must. After having had fifty years of it, I still keep the old flag flying, and feel as fit as most men at thirty, and say:

Au Revoir