Nooks and Corners / being the companion volume to 'From Kitchen to Garret'

by J. E. Panton

I actually know a case where the mistress had to go into the neighbouring town to search for a cook who had been missing for twenty-four hours, and who found her locked up in the police court for drunkenness and riotous behaviour, and who discharging her on the spot was surprised to find the woman a few weeks after in a friend’s house. The registry-office people had answered for her character; although the first mistress had taken the trouble to place the report of the case in the local papers in the registrar’s hands, and the cook was in possession, needless to remark that she broke out again and is no doubt carrying on her practices in another confiding mistress’s house at this very moment.

A written character introduced a butler into a friend’s house, which he promptly burned to the ground in a fit of blind drunkenness, while another servant in another house was found in the act of carefully concealing a burglarious parent in a convenient cupboard; and indeed I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that every case of ‘bad servant’ that is brought under my notice originates in either of these two particulars, and that if due care, aye, and even what may appear as undue care, is taken about the manner in which a servant is engaged we shall soon hear far fewer complaints than we do at present; while by raising the tone of our maids and ensuring that only really good-charactered servants will be employed, we shall get a better class of girl to take to service, and we shall thin the ranks of unemployed dressmakers, telegraph clerks, and shop-girls, and shall bring them back to the sheltered, safe, untempted lives that are the portions of all those who are in good places, under the care of conscientious and thoughtful mistresses.

I think many writers—Mr. Besant, for example—have done great harm by the manner in which domestic service has been run down; and when I am called on to pity and weep over the case of the ‘sweated’ sempstress, the underpaid, unsettled governess, the miserable shop-girl, who cannot sit down and to whom all sorts of unpleasant internal miseries happen because of her hard work, I absolutely refuse to do so. There are plenty of good sheltered homes waiting for these girls, either here or in Australia, where they can be fed and well looked after, where they have every comfort, and where they are as absolutely safe as if they were in a palace, indeed, much safer, as maids in palaces are left much to their own devices and can get into as much mischief as they please, and there is therefore no reason for their unhappiness save and except the absurd one of wishing to be their own mistresses.

‘Freedom! I want my freedom. I would rather starve than be obliged to brush my hair neatly, to give up my drowned ostrich feather, my screams of unbridled laughter in the streets, the delicious joy of trailing up and down a gas-lighted road, and, in fact, of being my own mistress.’ That is the argument put into the mouth of the factory girl, only, of course, in not quite such plain language, and much applauded. Now, if so, don’t ask me to weep over the girl who talks like this, because I shall not do it. Freedom is about the worst thing in the world for a young girl. She requires a guiding hand, as, indeed, in my opinion, all women require one, all through their lives; and, after all, who is freer and less trammelled than a good servant in a good place? She has no anxieties, no troubles. Whatever happens, her wages are paid to the day, and her food is unfailing. Indeed, when troubles are disporting themselves in the drawing-room the maids seem to think ‘more food and oftener’ an excellent panacea. And she can have her holidays and her walks too whenever they can be managed; while for the large class of girl who becomes, or rather wants to become, a nursery governess, are there not endless other situations crying out for them, where as upper nurses, ladies’ maids, or good cooks they could be sure of occupation and of ending their days in comfort, having been able to save, which they could never have done on the 15l. a year of the ordinary nursery governess, who does all the mending and bathing, and, indeed, in some cases, much more of it than falls to the share of an upper nurse, who yet ranks below the governess, because she is a servant.

Now, I think that, if the young people who marry on about 300l. a year, and can only afford one maid, would try this plan of engaging some girl who cannot get a situation as nursery governess, and work together with her, they would be far more comfortable than they otherwise would be. All their things are new and pretty, the bedroom nice, the kitchen fresh and comfortable. A young bride on a small income must help with the cooking and bed-making. Surely this would be much more pleasantly carried out if the maid were in some measure a friend. I can assure you that old-fashioned servants I know have far better claims to be considered of a good family than dozens of girls who pitchfork themselves into the governess ranks, and consider themselves members of the aristocracy from that date.

To sum up, then, our case: if we require a comfortable house we must take our servants young and train them ourselves, or we must be very sure that the servant is what she claims to be, and that the character she is provided with is a good one; and, finally, we must endeavour to refill the ranks of upper and better-class servants from the overstocked ones of nursery governesses and unoccupied girls, whose parents have not provided for them, and who are unable to do a single thing by which they can in any measure help themselves.

There are stupid, careless, and even unkind mistresses in the world, but as a rule servants are considered and very kindly dealt with, and there can be no reason why a girl should refuse a sheltered home and work that is not as hard as many other kinds of labour, and that should be amusing and pleasant, in a small household, or even in a large one, where the housekeeper is a lady and the upper servants are distinct and separate; a nurse of course having her own rooms and being waited on far more than is the governess, who after all in the eyes of the domestics is neither one thing nor another, and has often enough to go without or see after her own comforts.

But until that halcyon day arrives we must, as I remarked just now, be very particular about the maid’s references, and we ought then, if possible, to make the acquaintance of her mother, and also, if we can manage it, of the clergyman who prepared her for confirmation. Of course this means trouble. Yes, it does, but not half as much trouble as is caused in the endless procession of new servants which passes through so many houses, leaving behind it traces of its progress in the shape of ruined brooms and brushes, burned-out saucepans, smashed crockery, and bladeless knives, all of which must be replaced as one goes out and another comes in, in a manner which almost ruins the unfortunate master and enrages the mistress proportionally.

And now to turn to the question of how to make the kitchen a little pleasanter than it is at present, especially in those houses where there is no servants’ hall. The best of cooks only succeeds in making her room look spotlessly clean and absolutely uninteresting; there is nothing pretty about it, and there is, as a rule, nothing save the ordinary hard Windsor chair on which to sit. This is quite right and what it should be; but besides that there could be an easier chair for the tired servant, who presumably can get quite as fatigued as we can, and for whom we could provide a low-backed chair with cushions (easily taken out and washed) once we have come to the conclusion that she is