Phillis has been very contrary lately. She is completely out of humour; does everything badly, and resents the least word of reproof. Instead of her waiting at table, it is I who wait, while she does not answer the bell. If coals are wanted, it is so long before she brings them, that the fire is nearly out; then she comes in, throws on half a scuttle-full, which, of course, extinguishes it completely; and, to finish all, upsets the remainder on the carpet. Then she goes off in a towering rage, comes back with dust-pan and brush, repairs the damage to the carpet in a very slovenly way, and then fetches an armful of chips and paper, which make a great blaze for a few minutes, and soon burn completely out. Is it not singular that persons will sometimes appear to forget how to do a thing that they have done, and done properly, for years?
This morning, though I was suffering from neuralgia, and a drizzling rain was falling, she scoured my bed-room all over, and set the windows wide open, whereby everything in the room is as damp and limp as possible. On my telling her that I would rather have had the cleaning deferred till a drier day, especially when I was suffering from a cold, she replied that Friday was the day for doing it, and she would do it on a Friday, or not at all. On my rejoining—“Nay, is that a question for mistress or maid to settle?” she replied, she never knew such a mistress; nothing she could do gave satisfaction; and, as she saw it was no use trying to please me, she hoped I should suit myself with another servant by that day month; and then went off, banging the door after her, yet leaving it ajar.
I felt resentment. I knew I had been a kind mistress to her; had studied her comforts, allowed her many indulgences, and overlooked many faults; and this was the way I was repaid! I felt it very hard. True, I had given her much trouble during my long and painful illness; but she had been engaged on purpose to assist in nursing me through it, and undertake the whole general work of the little house; had said, again and again, the work was nothing, and, in fact, was always sitting down to needle-work at five o’clock in the afternoon.
I was aggrieved: I thought, if she would go, she might: if there were no attachment on one side, why need there be any on the other? And as to getting another servant, why I could but have a tiresome one, and Phillis was that already.
In writing all this down I perceive some bad logic, but I felt very forlorn and depressed. When she came in to lay the cloth for dinner, she said not a word, nor did I; but her face declared war. The dinner could hardly have been worse cooked.
After dinner Mrs. Prout called. She seemed sorry to see me not looking well, and made such kind inquiries that a tear rolled down my cheek, and I told her all my trouble. She was very indignant at Phillis’s conduct, which she called abominable; and she said she would look out for a better servant for me—a woman who could behave like that was not worth her wages. I softened a little, and said she was not always so bad, of course; and when I had been so very ill, was really very attentive to me.
Mrs. Prout said yes, she remembered poor Mr. Prout saying I had a rough sort of creature to wait up me, but that she seemed kind-hearted.
“And, after all,” said she, “when we consider how little training such women get before they go into service, and what indistinct notions they have of their relative duties, we must make great excuses for them.”
“O yes,” said I, “we must; and, perhaps, I have been too exacting.”