Chapter IV

The under butler was very fond of a grilled bone for tea. (The chef would average out the weight of meat according to the number of servants, and the bones never went back to the kitchen, except at Sunday dinner, when the cold beef came in again for supper.) He would lay a shoulder of mutton bone on the bright wood ashes of the fire, then pick it: no wonder he got so fat. One day he put it on his plate, and turned to get the pepper and salt. I made a grab for the bone, but he was too quick for me. I made a bolt for the door. He flung the bone at me, it stuck in the plaster of the wall, four inches, by the shank end, and stood straight out. Had it struck the back of my head, which it missed by a few inches, What Ho!

The maidservants only came into the servants’ hall for dinner and supper, their other meals they got in their own apartments, the kitchen maids never came, except when a dance was on. The laundry maids in the laundry, the housemaids in housemaids’ room; the dairy maid would feed with the stillroom maids; nursemaids in their nursery; butler, valets, groom of chambers, housekeeper, lady’s-maids in the steward’s room. So that there is a lot of one servant waiting on another, the under ones of each department doing it, they in turn being waited on, when promoted.

In cases when visitors were staying in the house we wore our dress liveries, with a lot more yellow and black brade plastered up the back and across the front. The butler wore black cloth breeches and black silk stockings. Our silver shoe buckles were on the plate list, and had to be given up when leaving the situation. The Bold Bad Baron gave a ball each year, as he held a high position in the County, besides that, he had a daughter he wanted to get “off.” The family went away for a week before the ball, in order that the servants should prepare and have everything “spick and span.” The butler set us to do all sorts of odd jobs. The Baronial Hall was used as the ball room. It was about thirty yards long by twenty-five yards wide, with a minstrel gallery at one end. A two-foot shelf ran round level with the minstrel gallery, on which were old blue jars and other curios, about twelve feet from the polished oak floor. The butler set me to dust and polish this shelf, as the housemaids could not do it. I got a ladder and set to work: the ladder slipped away at the bottom. I managed to grip the edge of the shelf: there I hung. I shouted, someone came and pushed up the ladder (I could not have held on another minute), and so saved me from getting a decent bump on the hard floor. After that I got a half-hundredweight and put it at the foot of the ladder. I could see no fear in those days. A similar thing happened a few days afterwards. The Baron told me to clean his dressing room windows while he was away. The first footman and I went to the farm and got a long ladder, as I found that two of the windows did not open, so had to be cleaned from the outside. We had some rare fun sliding the ladder over the deep snow, on inclines we got on and had a ride. Eventually we got the ladder reared up. I did the outsides, standing on the window sill. To my horror, the ladder slipped away on the frosty ground at the bottom: I had no escape. I shouted to the first footman inside the room and told him what had happened. He had a long way to go to get to the foot of the ladder to push it up. I was left hanging on by an inch of window frame, on a slippery, icy windowsill: it seemed hours. I was up thirty feet. At last he appeared, and pushed up, and held the ladder. I tremblingly crept down and said, “Never again.”

Our chef was a decent little fellow. He was a son of a very eminent chef in London at the time. He was very fair to all the other servants as regards their food. There is a great deal of difference in chefs in this respect. One, in Grosvenor Place, I lived with would not give the servants enough food; when I complained, after speaking to him, and no improvement, he told the lady: “Zey have eggs and bacon and sausages for breakfast.” We did, but a little piece of bacon each one morning, a fried egg each the next, and a tiny sausage the next, other meals in proportion. But I noticed he always had a parcel when he went home at night on his bicycle to Soho where he had a large family to feed.

Another chef, an Italian, came at me with a long knife because a footman had put the kettle for the drawing room tea on the kitchen hotplate to boil: it was in the summer time, and no other fires in the house. I thought he was going to “knife me,” shouting, “Make your own fires,” like a madman. Gentry are always partial to foreign servants: they will chatter to them for a length of time, whereas, if it is a British servant, it is, go and get on with your work, “you dirty dog” sort of air. I think it is mostly to keep their foreign conversation from getting rusty, but no one can tell what they are talking about. I consider it very bad manners for a conversation to be carried on at the table by foreign servants, which the others cannot understand. But our chef at the Baron’s was not of that sort: he was a jolly fellow. He had a trick of bringing a pot of good soup to the pantry on a cold winter’s morning at eleven o’clock, exchanging it for our beer. (I wonder what makes kitchen people so thirsty? I suppose it is the fires.)

One day he came rushing to the pantry with all his hair, moustache, and eyebrows burnt off. It appeared one of the kitchen maids had turned off the gas in one of the ovens, and turned it on again, then shut the door. The chef went to light the gas some time after, with a taper, hence explosion and hair off, but it soon grew again. We could not help roaring with laughter, he did look comical, though it might have been serious.

The ball came off in due course: it made everybody busy: extra waiters were got in: a horseshoe shaped buffet was rigged up in the dining room, leading off the Baronial Hall. Two footmen were on duty at the front door, and no lack of help behind the scenes. When all was ready the guests began to arrive, besides having a house full. I had three extra to valet. One morning something went wrong with one of the blinds, when I was calling one of them, so I went to get a pair of steps to put it right. I went towards the window, and happened to look at the bed. There lay a young lady, apparently asleep. I had gone into the wrong room. I quickly and quietly took the steps out. It is difficult to know the rooms in a long corridor, especially if they have no names or numbers. I heard nothing of it, though I looked at the young lady when at dinner, to see if there was any sign of recognition. On another morning, at another time, I was taking a can of hot shaving water to a gentleman. I opened the door after knocking: there stood a lady in a flat bath, her back was towards me. I quietly shut the door. The splash of the water prevented her from hearing me knock. Besides, she should have bolted the door. I thought to myself: “This is no place for Curates, and I so young too: a jolly good thing she was not facing a mirror, or she would have seen me, and I should have lost my eyesight, and probably my place as well.” People were more modest in those days, but now the ladies don’t seem to care if they are seen with scanty clothing, or even none at all. In fact I have been interviewed by ladies in bed on two occasions lately, when trying for a situation. One would imagine that the fact of the gentry having more money, without work, commanding the best of everything the world produces, would tend to develop and bring out everything that is pure and good in human nature. But it does not. Every day there is evidence of “Anyone’s wife but their own: and anyone’s husband but their own,” they soon tire of each other.

But let us get on with the mazy dance. Although we had been hard at work since the early morning, as soon as the band struck up it seemed to put new life into us. The first footman and I were taken from the front door to help in the buffet, and one thing we dare not forget was to go round every two hours and wind up the moderator colza oil lamps, also watch the candles burning, to see if they required replacing, clearing up any stray wine glasses, etc., that may have got into the ball room. The Baron was fond of pomp and show, and liked to see his dress liveries walking about. About four o’clock in the morning it was all over. Then the clearing up began: by the time that was done it was time to begin the ordinary day’s work, after we had changed our clothes. This is where that patent handle is wanted to wind servants up, to work on again for another fifteen hours; anyhow, we had to do it, no going to bed, and there is no over-time pay for servants, as in other trades. But I thought of those lines:—

What wonder, then, when we saw a chance of a little relaxation and fun we took it. One Sunday afternoon the under butler and I, being off duty, got up a party of the servants, not forgetting the buxom head laundry maid, for a punting party on the lake in the park. All was ready, the maids occupying the stern of the punt; we pushed off, and to our consternation, the stern of the punt, being overloaded, went under water. There was a terrible scrabble to get the maids out of the water, with all their Sunday clothes spoilt, and covered with green weeds. The head laundry-maid did not kiss me on that occasion. But our final escapade came later on.

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As the London season came round, we packed up, and went to town. On going out to dinner, or other function, the Baron always had two footmen standing up behind his C spring carriage, and the coachman with his curly wig on. The Baron was a big bug at his seat in the country, but when he got to London, among other big bugs, he was not such a very big bug after all. A London season is very tiring to servants. There is not only the day work, but the night work as well. They would keep us out regularly till one, two, or three o’clock, but we had to start work at the same time as the other servants.

Often during the London season we were kept so short of our hours of sleep that I used to go to sleep on the carriage; the coachman would notice it and draw the handle of his knotty whip under my nose. I would wake up with a start, and wonder where I was.

One footman, who lived near us in the country, went to sleep on the box of a high barouche, and actually fell backwards, and landed among the ladies. Of course they would say he was tipsy, or “Tishy.”

It is useless trying to describe the thousand and one things that comprise a footman’s duties, which, in every place he goes to, is different. It is like throwing a stone in a pond, rings are formed in the water, which eventually fades quite away. So that at the end of his day’s work he can show nothing that he has done. He has made nothing, produced nothing, yet he has been constantly on the alert all day, not knowing where his next job will spring from. It may be a ring at the front door, to take some dressmaker’s boxes to the lady’s-maid at the top of the house, and bring down the empty boxes. While he had been upstairs perhaps his master or mistress has rung the front door bell, and has been kept waiting. They demand to know “why” in no very pleasant tone of voice.

Sometimes two or three jobs will spring up, all wanting to be done at the same time. Even to scrubbing a pound’s worth of silver coins; for who knows what germs may be on them after they have been handled by the common working classes.

We were all glad to get back to the country house again after the London season, with its dinner parties, tea parties, evening parties and night work. Things went on fairly quiet till the garden parties came on, and the house began to fill up with visitors. This is the time to do the duty entertaining of poor relations, who come with a handbag, and go away with two dress baskets. But, poor things, they can’t help being poor, and taking away the things that the ladies’ maids and valets ought to have. Apropos of this sort of thing happened in a small place only a short time ago in the country, where only two maids were kept. In the good old days it was the custom when visitors who had stayed perhaps a week or so, for them to give the servants a tip, just to show they appreciated the services rendered them, and to compensate the servants for the extra work they had caused. It was usual for them to put the tip for the housemaids under the pillow of the bed. We had a very smart footman who knew this. As soon as the visitors left their bedrooms on the last morning of their visit he used to pop round the bedrooms and take the tip from under the pillows, and then disappear downstairs. He was seen to come out of the bedrooms, where he had no business to be, and as there was never any tips for the housemaids while he had been there, the butler was told, who laid a trap for him, by putting a marked half sovereign under the pillow. Sure enough he fell into the trap. When he came downstairs the butler told him to turn out his pockets. He had the marked coin and the sack as well. But servants do not have to worry much about tips now-a-days. The gentry want someone to give them a tip. When they leave by the front door after a visit, the servants have so shrunken in size that they can’t see them, and it is always those visitors who give the servants most trouble that give the smallest or no tip at all.

In the past a gentleman and his wife had been visiting the house for a few days. When they left in a car they left nothing behind them for the servant. They started, but suddenly remembered the fact, so stopped, and sent the chauffeur back with a ten shilling note for the servant. She not being at the door, he gave it to the lady, who was there. The lady gave the servant five shillings as from them; and two half-crowns as coming from two of her poor relations when they went away shortly after. Another curious thing happened while we were in Buckinghamshire, worth relating. I have no animosity against the church, being a church-goer myself, when I get the chance. As, without a doubt, there is something in all human beings, rich or poor, that one cannot smother; will not be trampled down. Live a life of a beast, a fish, a drunkard if you will, but it will always crop up, even against your will. It is your Conscience. “As a man, or woman sows, so shall they reap.” Though a great many reaps where they have not sown.

Everyone of us have our own standard of what is right: but on its being boiled down, and analised, proves to be selfish every time. I consider it a greater sin for a rich man to withhold help and assistance to the poor, or a person that really wants to get on in the world honestly, than for a starving person to steal bread, meat, or a rabbit off his land. “Oh,” the rich exclaim, “but I subscribe to this and that charity, you can see my name in the papers that I do it,” but that is not the thing. Most of these charities are sifted through a ladder, that which remains on the ladder goes to charity. That which goes through the ladder goes to the management. I have never met anyone that has benefitted by them individually. Neither is it charity in the true sence of the word when one sees So-and-So died, leaving £10,000 to such a charity or hospital. He or she held the money to the very last gasp of breath in their bodies; if they had lived another five years so would they have held on to the money that five years, and if possible, would have taken it with them. It is no true charity to give away something that cannot possibly be of any use to you.

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Now for the story about the parson.

Those servants that could be spared used to trip off down to the villiage church on Sundays. The schoolmistress played the harmonium: she being a nice person the servants got acquainted with her, and asked her to come to tea at the “big house.” The parson and his wife also came up to lunch. They were about to have a jumble sale in the schoolroom. The outcome of it was: I and the ladies maid had to pack two large laundry hampers full of clothes, which the Bos and Mistress turned out. I had to take them down to the parson’s house. On arriving, he came to the door, we took the hampers in. I said: “I beg pardon, Sir, but I packed two pairs of dark trowsers that would be of great use to me. If you will state a price, I would like to have them, and will pay for them now.” “Oh, no,” he replied, “We do not do things that way.” I said, “I’m sorry. Hope no offence.”

The schoolmistress was to be behind the counter at the sale, so I went to her, described the trowsers, gave her the money to pay for them, asking her to seize them as soon as the sale was opened. On going for them the next day she said there were no trowsers at the sale. The parson had two grown-up sons of his own; so the trowsers never reached the sale room at all.

Although we used to make what amusements we could amongst ourselves, I felt that I was gradually going into a net, and losing all liberty in life: the constraint became almost unbearable, but what could I do? I had no trade in my hands. I knew nothing but gentleman’s service wherewith to get a living. I suppose some men does not feel it, men with no further ambition than to fritter their lives away from day to day in such a calling; a sort of man-woman existance, at the mercy of the gentry’s whims and fancies; cooped up day and night, without variation. But Fate, or something we did, shortly brought a change.

One night, after “lights out” upstairs, and we had all finished work for that day; by chance we were all going down the passage to our various rooms, we all branched off to my room on the right, at the foot of a back staircase. There was the under butler, first footman, two under gardeners, two grooms, and myself. We began larking about, at one thing and another, and making more noise than we thought. We were too far away from the butler’s room for him to hear us. Anyhow, it ended up with a pillow fight. Just as the end of one of the pillows burst, and the feathers flew all over the room, the door opened, and there stood the Bold Bad Baron, with a silver candlestick in his hand. I suppose as he was going to bed, passing the top of the staircase, he heard the scrimmage going on, and came down to see what it was. We looked pretty with our hair powder knocked off by the pillows. I think it was knocking each other’s powder off that began the meleè. His Lordship said: “Whose room is this?” I said: “Mine, my Lord.” He said: “I will see you all at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.” Next morning we were all ranged up in the library wondering what was to happen next. His Lordship came in at the door opposite, looking as black as thunder. The outcome of it all was: the under-butler was severely cautioned, and told he ought to know better, the first footman got the sack, I was cautioned as to my future conduct, the two under gardeners were forbidden to come into the house, so for the future they would have to keep each other company in their little bothy in the garden. No doubt the butler got a whigging, and told he could not manage his men, or something of that sort. I was sorry for him, for as long as we did our work properly, he never interfered with us. He simply gave each of us our orders in the morning and we executed them. But a sence of depression seemed to come over the place; so after things had quieted down, I sent in a month’s notice to leave. On leaving I received a telegram to say my father had met with an accident while at work, and that I was to go home at once; but by the time I got there he was dead. It appears a heavy load from a crane had fallen on him, crushing him so that his ribs were broken and driven into his lungs: he bled to death internally. All this time that I had been away in service I always sent the greater part of my wages home, but in those days, a second footman got £28 a year, and had to pay his own laundry bill out of that. We were allowed £2 per year for hair powder, but always used flour. There was no such thing as Employers’ Liability in those days, so we got nothing except the £12 from the Foresters’ Club, which my father belonged to. Enough to pay funeral expences and a little over. After the funeral, which was attended by all his fellow-workmen, my mother and the rest of the family talked things over, as to ways and means for the future. My eldest sister was married, and lived in the Isle of Wight, my youngest sister in service, lived near her. It was decided my youngest brother should leave his place in service, and come home to live with mother, who otherwise would be all alone. The undertaker promised to give him work in oak carving, and being a clever fellow in most things he made rapid progress. He was also a good musician, and joined the County Regiment Volunteer Band. At meal times he took his cornet, blowing it (so as to learn marching and playing at the same time) to and from his meals, much to the amusement of the neighbours. He also learnt to play the violin.

During the time I was at home a certain General, living not far away, sent for me to know if I would go and assist, as he was giving a garden party, he having two daughters he wanted to get “off.” I went, and found it was a lively affair. Boat loads of officers rowed up from the Men o’ War ships in Portsmouth harbour. There was a military band and lots of officers from the forts and barracks. After it was over some of the officers lingered behind. The gardener and one of the boat’s crew proposed to have a bathe: no sooner said than done. We jumped into the Man o’ War’s boat, and pulled out to the middle. The gardener and the sailor were good swimmers: I never was very good at it for a long distance. We were soon stripped, and overboard they went, the sailor put the painter round his neck and pulled the boat along. I, not liking to show the “white feather,” dived overboard too. By the time I came to the surface I found the boat had got a length or two ahead of me. I put on a spurt, but it was as much as I could do to keep pace with them, and soon began to tire, so decided to make another effort and get into the boat. When alongside, I made a grab for the gunwale, missed, and went under the boat. When I came up I found the boat had got several lengths ahead. I would not call out, though nearly exhausted, but made another spurt. This time, I thought, I will make no mistake. I just caught the gunwale with my fingers, but my body was sucked under the boat. I hung on, and gradually got a better hold, drawing my body up, also drawing a lot of skin off my ribs, which the salt water tingled up nicely. I thought to myself, “That’s the second near squeak of being drowned. I wonder what the next will be like?” But that came later in Scotland.

Now we had to begin to think about ways and means at home. We decided to let two rooms for lodgings, to a man and woman, who paid at first, but after getting in arrears with their rent, “hopped it” one night without paying, besides taking some of our things with them. Soon after this my youngest sister got married to a fellow who turned out to be a “waster.” He was full of promices, and bragged of what he could do. He took a provision shop in London, but failed, through inattention to the business. He got into debt, and did a “Moonlight flit” one night. But my sister had great faith, and clung to him like the ivy, “The greater the ruin, the tighter it clings.”