He still smiled, his gentle old man’s smile which somehow gave her confidence.
“Madam won’t sye that after a dye or two. It’s new to ’er yet, of course; but if she’ll always remember that I’m ’ere, to myke everythink as easy as easy––”
“But what are you goin’ to do, with no cook, and no chambermaid––?”
Standing with the corner of the table between him and her, he was saying to himself, “If Mr. Rash could only see ’er lookin’ up like this—with ’er eyes all starry—and her cheeks with them dark-red roses—red roses like you’d rubbed with a little black....” But he suspended the romantic longing to say, aloud:
“If madam will permit me I’ll tyke my measures as I’ve wanted to tyke ’em this long spell back.”
Madam was not to worry as to the three women who were leaving the house, inasmuch as they had long been intending to leave it. Both Mrs. Courage and Jane, having graduated to the stage of “accommodating,” were planning to earn more money by easier work. Nettie, since coming to America, had learned that housework was menial, and was going to be a milliner.
Madam’s remorse being thus allayed he told what he hoped to do for madam’s comfort. There would be no more women in the house, not till madam herself brought them back. An English chef who had lost an eye in the war, and an English waiter, ready to do chamberwork, who had left a foot on some battlefield, were prepared under Steptoe’s direction to man the house. No woman whose household cares had not been eased by men, in the European fashion, knew what it was to live. A woman waited on by women only was kept in a state of nerves. Nerves were infectious. When one woman in a household got them the rest were sooner or later their prey. Unless strongly preventative measures were adopted they spread at times to the men. America was a dreadful country for nerves and it mostly came of women working with women; whereas, according to Steptoe’s psychology, men should work with women and women with men. There were thousands of women who were bitter in heart at cooking and making beds who would be happy as linnets in offices and shops; and thousands of men who were dying of boredom in offices and shops who would be in their element cooking and making beds.
“One of the things the American people ’as got back’ards, if madam’ll allow me to sye so, is that ’ouse’old work is not fit for a white man. When you come to that the American people ain’t got a sense of the dignity of their ’omes. They can’t see their ’omes as run by anything but slyves. All that’s outside the dinin’ room and the drorin’ room and the masters’ bedrooms the American sees as if it was a low-down thing, even when it’s hunder ’is own roof. Colored men, yellow men, may cook ’is meals and myke ’is bed; but a white man’d demean ’imself. A poor old white man like me when ’e’s no longer fit for ’ard outdoor work ain’t allowed to do nothink; when all the time there’s women workin’ their fingers to the bone that ’e could be a great ’elp to, and who ’e’d like to go to their ’elp.”