Any gentle reader, in her proper senses, may readily suppose that after this I wasn’t long in giving that over-grown coward of a Duffy notice to quit. Of course I didn’t see the fun of keeping a man to walk after me as a protection who was frightened out of his wits by a trumpery “wicked mutton,” which a mere whiskerless brat could take by the horns whenever he liked. But no sooner had I told the good-for-nothing that he would be pleased to leave my service that day month, than I declare if he didn’t turn round and tell me to my very face, “that he would do so with all the pleasure in life,” saying, “it was a place to take the very life out of a man” (I think so, indeed, with only two in family, and little or no plate to clean); and that he never knew what work was before in all his life (pretty work, indeed!—a couple of trumpery tea-cups to wash up of a morning, and a page to help him); so he actually had the impudence to think I had better pay him his month, and let him leave the wretched slavery that very minute, or else he knew he should have to take to his bed with illness, for he shouldn’t be able to put out his hand to do a thing shortly from overwork, and then I should have to nurse him. Nurse him, indeed! Should I?—when all the time I knew it was only a mere make-believe to cheat me out of a month’s wages. Augh! I do detest people that pretend they’re ill just to gain their own selfish ends!
Accordingly I gave my delicate elephant to understand that he’d get no month’s wages out of me, unless I first got a month’s work out of him, to which my gentleman merely answered, between his teeth, “He’d see about that;” and he said it in such a nasty, spiteful way, that convinced me he meant something horrible. Sure enough so he did; for when I rang the bell for him to bring up the tray, to lay the things for dinner, I all of a sudden heard the most tremendous crash, as if ten thousand chimney-pots had fallen through two thousand skylights. I rushed to the top of the kitchen stairs, and cried out, “Good heavens, Duffy! what’s that?” when I declare if he hadn’t the coolness to answer, “It’s only me, mum, a breaking the plates and dishes.” I tore down to the pantry, and told him I’d have him punished; and then, of course, it was, his “foot had slipped, and I couldn’t punish him for a mere accident.” “Accident, indeed!” I said to myself, as I marched up stairs again, “oh, yes! it’s one of those many precious accidents which, even in the best regulated families, are done on purpose.” But, what could I do? I knew the spiteful good-for-nothing lout would swear till he was black in the face that his foot did slip; and how was poor I to prove to the contrary?
I declare the man went on so, that I soon saw I should be several pounds in pocket by paying the fellow what he wanted, and getting him out of the house as soon as possible. Now, there were my beautiful cut glass decanters, (which belonged to Mr. Sk—n—st—n’s poor dear first wife,) well, nothing would suit my gentleman, but he must go washing them in scalding hot water, and then, pretending to be astonished because they went crack, flying in every direction. But, of course, that was the fault of the glass, and none of his—oh, no! Then, again, too, the revengeful monkey must go wiping all the dirty knives with my very best glass cloths, which I had bought new expressly for him, until they were as full of cuts and gashes as poor dear father’s shoes when he’s got the gout. And, positively, do what I would, I could not prevent him from cleaning his shoes in my dress livery, until, what with the blacking and his carelessness, upon my word, his red plush thingomys were all over black spots, like the back of a ladybird, and his beautiful white coat as grubby as the outside of St. Paul’s. As for making the monkey stir of a morning, too, I declare it was no use trying, for though I commenced ringing at six o’clock, to a minute, and kept on pulling away—determined that if the fat, lazy sloth wouldn’t get up to see about my breakfast, at least he shouldn’t have another wink of sleep,—yet I couldn’t for the life of me get him to come up for the keys till near upon eight o’clock at the earliest; though how on earth the pig ever managed to snore through it all was a wonder to me, for it struck me it must be very like trying to take a nap in a belfry on the coronation day. But on going into my gentleman’s room, one fine morning, upon my word, if the fat, lazy, cunning fox hadn’t crammed one of his nasty, dirty stockings into the mouth of the bell, until I declare it wouldn’t speak any more than a married lady in the sulks. So, really and truly, when I came to think of it, was it worth while for a trumpery month’s wages to let the fellow remain in the house till all my glass and crockery were broken to shivers, and my beautiful queen’s-pattern plated coffee-pot, with silver edges, was all battered in, as horribly as the pewter quart measure at a fruit-stall. Accordingly, I made the best of a bad bargain, and packed the scoundrel out of the house, telling him not to expect a character from me. When he had gone, and I examined his livery to see whether by any manner of means I could have it cleaned for my next footman, I give the reader my word and honour, if the fat savage hadn’t been wiping on the skirts of my beautiful white coat the dirty pens with which he’d been answering the advertisements in the Times, and all the left sleeve was streaked over with ink, till it had as many black marks upon it as a mackerel’s back.
As for that Wittals, there was no bearing with him either; for bad as he was before, I declare if that Duffy hadn’t so inoculated him with all the airs of a grown-up footman, that, upon my word, he seemed to think it a positive disgrace to work for his living. So I told him, very quietly, I had been turning it over in my mind, and if he had any wish to better himself, I should be very happy to exert myself to find him an excellent situation, and make it a moral duty to give him a good character, which, I said, he knew as well as I did, he didn’t deserve. And nicely I caught it for my kindness, after all; for, bother take it! he went on so shamefully in his new place, that I declare if his brute of a master didn’t begin an action against us, for giving a servant a false character; and we had to compromise it by paying goodness knows how much!
However, I determined that this should be a lesson to me not to give any more good characters in a hurry, but to speak the truth in future. So, when that Duffy, who was out of place again six months, came to me, as thin as a German umbrella, and as meek as a pew-opener, to hope that I would look over what had past, and say a good word for him, I told him pretty plainly, “Oh, yea! I’d speak for him, and do him perfect justice, he might rest assured.” Accordingly, I just gave a plain, unvarnished statement of all his goings on, and shameful pilferings, when, of course, the party refused to have anything at all to do with him. And then, bother take it, if he didn’t get some pettifogging lawyer to bring an action against us for libel (truth is a libel, Edward says)—so that, positively, this time we had to pay goodness knows how much more again for giving a servant a true character—drat it!
This very naturally convinced me that the only safe way of acting was to refuse to give any character at all to servants. Accordingly, when that stupid, stupid cook—whom I’d little or no fault to find with, excepting that she was so taken up with Wittals and Duffy that I thought it best to give her notice to go when they did, lest she should set the new servants against their place—accordingly, I say, when she wished to know when it would suit me to see the lady with whom she was going to live, I told her that she needn’t think of sending any of her ladies to me, for I had made up my mind not to say one word about her conduct either one way or the other. And then—drat that common law, which Mr. Edward will have is the perfection of common sense—we had another plaguy action brought against us, and had a third time to pay as much as would have bought us two beautiful opera pit tickets for the season, for taking the bread out of a person’s mouth, and refusing to give a servant any character at all.
This little insight into human nature, made me so disgusted with servants, and taught me that they were such a bad, worthless, ungrateful set, that of course I showed very little consideration for their trumpery feelings afterwards, and I kept bundling them out of the house, one after another so quickly, that I had them coming in and going out as fast as the people at the Bank of England on a dividend-day. But after a year or so of this continual changing, Mr. Edward did get so fidgety, and to tell the truth, I myself got so sick of writing answers to those stupid advertisements of “Want Places,” and spending a whole fortune in postage-stamps, for a pack of letters to your “GOOD PLAIN COOKS,” and “STEADY, ACTIVE, YOUNG MEN, who have no objection to travel,” (I dare say they haven’t—and no more should I have, for the matter of that, if any one would pay my expenses for me,) that, upon my word, at last I thought it might save me a world of bother, if—as the creatures were always grumbling at being over-worked in my establishment—I paid some attention to what they said for once in a way, and allowed them to have another pair of hands to help them. And then, odds-bobs and buttercups! directly I had been great silly enough to listen to the complaints of one of them, of course all the others expected I should do as much for them!
First, the nursery-maid, owing to the increase of my family, (for I went on blessing Edward with another little tiddy-ickle-petsy-wetsy of a beautiful baby—with, thank heaven, all its dear little limbs right and straight—regularly every eighteen months)—first, the nursery-maid, I repeat, found it impossible to mind so many young children without an under one to assist her. And when I, like a ninny, had coaxed Edward to allow her to have what she wanted, then, of course, the housemaid (directly we had an extra story put on to our villa, from sheer want of bed-rooms) must find out that the house was too large for her to attend to single-handed, so she must needs want an under one as well. Well, when I had wheedled Mr. Edward into that too—for as he very beautifully and philosophically said, throwing up his hands and tearing his hair, “Oh, anything you like, for peace and quiet”—then the cook must walk into the parlour and tell me, that we were so many in family now, and there were so many dinners to cook—one for the nursery, one for the kitchen, and one for the parlour—that really the plates and dishes were more than one person’s time to wash up, and she was sure her constitution would give way under it unless she had a scullery-maid to help her. So then, I had to carney, and fondle, and flatter that Edward for days, and when that wouldn’t do, to get out of temper and sulk for weeks with him together, in order to let the poor cook have a maid under her, too, in the kitchen. But, then, the worst of it was, that what with the upper nursery maid and the under nurserymaid—the upper housemaid and the under housemaid—the cook and the scullery maid—and the footman and the page into the bargain—positively, I had our poking villa so full of servants, that we were as short of beds as a country town during the assizes: and, as our lease had still fifteen years to run, and since, owing to that bothering, rattling railway at the back of us, we couldn’t get anybody to take it off our hands, and as—plague take those maids—I could not get them to sleep three in a tester anyhow, why, drat it, there we had to go putting another and another story to our residence, till I declare our villa looked like an old Jew with three hats on.
However, if I must tell the truth, I didn’t object to this so much after all; for I felt that the great, big, grand house, we had now got over our heads, and the large retinue of servants we had at our backs, did give us such a position in this empty world, and such a footing in hollow-hearted society, that—notwithstanding Mr. Edward was always telling me, I and my servants were driving him into the Queen’s Bench as fast as he could gallop, or even a National Theatre could take him—still for the sake of my four poor dear children, and those yet to come, I determined not to give way—even so much as a scullery maid—no! not if I had to be afflicted with a violent neuralgia again—or even St. Vitus’s dance in the height of summer, for it.
But I was far from being as happy in the midst of all this grandeur as I had, like a stupid girl as I am, foolishly expected; for no sooner had I got eight servants dangling at my heels, than, lud-a-mussy-me! if I could get as much attention or as much peace and quiet as when I had only one—a mere servant of all work—to wait upon me. If I wanted anything done, positively, it didn’t seem to be anybody’s place to do it. For instance, let me tell the footman to sweep up a few crumbs from under the table, of course it wasn’t his place—but he’d send the housemaid; then let me tell the housemaid to bring up some more coals, of course it wasn’t her place—but she’d send the footman. If I told the upper nurserymaid to make me a little warm water-gruel, for my little angel’s bottle (love its sweet eyes!) oh dear me, no! even this was too much, it wasn’t her place—but she’d tell the under one. If I went down stairs, too, to see about dinner, and just asked the cook to wash a trumpery basin for me—bless you! she couldn’t think of soiling her delicate hands with a dish-clout; no! it wasn’t her place—but she’d tell the scullery-maid. Augh! the lazy, good-for-nothing pack of leeches! And what did they think was their place, then, I should like to know? I can tell them what I think their place was! and that’s—a very snug berth, with little or nothing to do, but to try their hardest to eat me out of house and home—and that’s what it was.