The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 4, April 1860)

APRIL, 1860.
LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
LEIPZIG: D. TAUCHNITZ. NEW YORK: WILLMER AND ROGERS. MELBOURNE: G. ROBERTSON.
⁂ Communications for the Editor should be addressed to the care of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., 65, Cornhill, and not to the Editor’s private residence. The Editor cannot be responsible for the return of rejected contributions.

BESSY’S REFLECTIONS.
APRIL, 1860.
The being for whom my friend Dick Bedford seemed to have a special contempt and aversion, was Mr. Bulkeley, the tall footman in attendance upon Lovel’s dear mother-in-law. One of the causes of Bedford’s wrath, the worthy fellow explained to me. In the servants’ hall, Bulkeley was in the habit of speaking in disrespectful and satirical terms of his mistress, enlarging upon her many foibles, and describing her pecuniary difficulties to the many habitués of that second social circle at Shrublands. The hold which Mr. Bulkeley had over his lady lay in a long unsettled account of wages, which her ladyship was quite disinclined to discharge. And, in spite of this insolvency, the footman must have found his profit in the place, for he continued to hold it from year to year, and to fatten on his earnings such as they were. My lady’s dignity did not allow her to travel without this huge personage in her train; and a great comfort it must have been to her, to reflect that in all the country houses which she visited (and she would go wherever she could force an invitation), her attendant freely explained himself regarding her peculiarities, and made his brother servants aware of his mistress’s embarrassed condition. And yet the woman, whom I suppose no soul alive respected (unless, haply, she herself had a hankering delusion that she was a respectable woman), thought that her position in life forbade her to move abroad without a maid, and this hulking incumbrance in plush; and never was seen anywhere in watering-place, country-house, hotel, unless she was so attended.