Suburban Residences, and How to Circumvent Them

by J. E. Panton

Another thing that no one seems able to rise above is the usual mahogany margin to any fixed bath, which always become disgracefully untidy, and makes the bathroom look squalid before it has scarcely been used. If the house belongs to the tenant, I should advise him ruthlessly to paint the mahogany with Aspinall’s bath enamel, which does not mark with water; if he is only a tenant, the margin should be covered at once with the American leather which has a woolly back, cut out and fixed to the shape. If this is not done, the expensive process of French polishing will have to be resorted to when the house is left; besides there is the fact to consider that the margin will always be an eyesore, because of the manner in which people will either rest the soap on it or put one foot up on it, or even sit on it, while they are drying themselves after their bath.

We should likewise always have plain, unpainted deal shelves put up for the hot-water cans in the bathroom; and if, as is the unsavoury case in many bathrooms, there is a housemaid’s sink there, the shelves should be put just over it, and should have gimlet holes in them for drainage; this will keep them from rotting, as no housemaid I ever met could be persuaded to dry a can before she put it down, and months of wet cans are guaranteed to spoil and rot the stoutest undrained shelf which I ever came across. Oh! if only every single person would know and learn each separate detail which goes to make up the perfect house and housekeeping, life would not be half as expensive, half as ‘sketchy’ and untidy as it now is in the vast majority of households, where people are content to jog along comfortably if things are just bearable, and where no preaching will, I fear, induce them to cultivate the twin talents of observation and regularity, which alone suffice to keep any house going in the way it most undoubtedly should go.

When the bathroom has been used it should be properly aired, and the moment it is quitted the housemaid should go in, throw up the window, top and bottom, and take away and dry the towels. If the weather is cold, the fire or gas must be kept going night and day to keep out the frost, and always the floor must be wiped over and the bath blankets hung up until they can be properly dried, then will the room remain nice much longer than it otherwise would. The mistress of the house herself must see that the bath is properly dried after use, and that the basin and housemaid’s sink are duly cleaned and disinfected. For even soapy water decays and smells, and drains that are used for nothing else can be as offensive, even if they are more innocent than others, about which lurk absolute and imperative danger. It is well to cover all outlets for water with very fine hair or wire netting. I personally prefer hair, as that is much finer than anything else. Then there is no chance of any drain being stopped up as nothing save water can pass through it. The sink basket sold by most ironmongers is a very good possession, and acts in much the same way, but the netting does just as well, and should be nailed across the housemaid’s sink about an inch above the bottom, and be erected just above the plug-hole in a lavatory basin, thus saving endless heartburnings, and endless sending for that fearsome creature, the regulation British plumber. There should be no portière inside the bathroom door, but most certainly there should be one outside. It prevents sudden surprises, and, furthermore, conceals the room from passers by, should the door be left open, as is all too often the case, by either a careless maid, or a yet more careless user of the room!

There is one more aspect of the suburban villa to consider, I am sorry to say, and that is the one where there is neither a bathroom nor a room which can be adapted for the purpose, and where all baths have to be taken in the different rooms themselves. In such a house as this there must be large squares of American leather ready for use, to be covered in their turn by bath blankets, on which the bath itself can be placed. These would be for use in the bedrooms, and then the dressing-rooms must be used as dressing-rooms, and will allow of no compromise or other use at all. In this case, I very strongly advise a high dado of plain brown patternless linoleum or oil-cloth, having the paint the exact shade of the dado, above which can be either a good blue or yellow sanitary or tiled paper, while the floor must be covered entirely with plain brown cork carpet, on which one or two rugs can be placed, the inevitable bath-blanket being put under the bath itself, and the rugs put out of harm’s way for the time. These precautions will allow of the wondrous amount of splashing which invariably marks the progress of a man’s bath, while the furniture for such a room should be regular dressing-room furniture, removed as far as possible from the spot sacred to the bath. A good housemaid will carefully look over the furniture when she ‘does’ the room, and will rub off at once any marks of soapy water she may come across. But such excellent and conscientious maids are few and far between, except in the ‘highest circles,’ and they don’t inhabit Suburbia; therefore should every mistress cast an eye over every room once a day, and see for herself that the depredations of her husband, and all too often those of her visitors too, are carefully eliminated.

It used to be difficult, nay well nigh impossible, to buy really good and suitable dressing-room furniture, and I have had many a painful hunt after wardrobes which were not evidently meant for the raiment of females alone; but now all is altered; and should we be able to afford it, we can buy an admirable wardrobe at Wallace’s which has a place for everything a man can possibly require, and this with a boot-cupboard, an ingenious combination toilet-table and washing-stand, a couple of chairs, and a comfortable basket chair, form the most perfect equipment a man can want, whether he reside in the suburbs or in any other part of the civilised globe. But he must have no room for unending hoarding, else will the heart of the house-mistress fail her by reason of the fearful amount of rubbish he will accumulate, and from which nothing will induce him to part!

CHAPTER X
THE GREAT SERVANT QUESTION

In the chapter about the kitchen arrangements, the most burning question of the hour was just touched upon, and a few hints were thrown out as a species of guide to solve the knotty problem, which certainly is more acute in the suburbs than in any other place. First, because it is often found impossible to coax the best maids away from the wiles and entrancements of the town; and secondly, because the accommodation for them is often little short of disgraceful. Though for the matter of that, I have seen worse servants’ rooms in big houses in grand localities in London than in any other, while the rooms set apart for them in flats would be ludicrous if they were not so pernicious, and did not so largely account for the unpopularity of what ought to be an almost ideal place of residence for a husband and wife, who have either settled their children in life, or have no children to settle or think about in any way.

We have described at length how we should circumvent the ordinary suburban kitchen, now for a while, let us think about the servants’ bedrooms, which are often quite as difficult to manage, and are all too often much too few to be in any way comfortable or decent. Should the general number of four maids be kept, or should a fifth be required, it is almost impossible to make an arrangement that only allows of the work being done properly and in order. I have had a large, a very large, experience of servants in more ways than one, and I venture to remark that where they are a nuisance it is because, first of all, they have not been chosen with care and common sense; secondly, because no attempt is made to make them comfortable or cause them to feel part of the household; and thirdly, because what I may call ‘composite maids’ are engaged. That is to say that the cook is required to clear the breakfast and answer the bell in the morning, and do a certain amount of housework; while the parlour-maid has to help with the beds, and the nurse to do the washing as well as look after, dress and walk out with the children. Now I state boldly that such a division of labour can never be either necessary or successful, and if the dwellers in the suburbs will amalgamate the several duties of a servant in this way, they can never know the least peace, for no servant worth her wages or even her salt will take such a nondescript position unless under very exceptional circumstances. These may include places where the mistress has taken her maids from the first, and has carefully instructed and brought them up herself, or they may be personally greatly attached to her themselves, and value not only her kindness but the comfort and comfortable home she gives them. But these circumstances are as rare as they are satisfactory. Therefore unless these things are the case, let no one abuse the maids unmercifully because they will not one and all be maids of all work, but rather consider how best to arrange the day’s routine, so that each shall stick to her task cheerfully, giving presently a helping hand to another out of real good-will, and not because she is imperatively requested to do so as a matter of course.

Unfortunately there are hundreds of women who can neither give good wages nor keep a sufficient number of maids; and these are the miserables who join their wails to those others who, more unhappy still, have not the slightest idea how to manage another woman, whose one idea is that a maid is a thing whose capacity for work is endless, who can never tire, never want to go out, and who, above all, can never be ill. Such a mistress treats her servant as he or she does a horse who has never been used to possess this quadruped, and seeing only that it is made to go, drives or rides it to death, because previous experience has been wanting to teach the driver or rider the amount of work which can be obtained without undue exertion and pressure. Now it is necessary to point out that, if a sufficient number of servants cannot be employed to do the work decently and in order, the work must be lessened in some way or another, by the mistress herself giving a helping hand, and not only directing it but doing some of it. She must be content to call a spade a spade, and not have any hankerings after ‘agricultural implements.’ A cook she may not possess, a good general servant is what she requires, while a housemaid who can wait at table replaces the house parlour-maid who never did and never could have a decent existence or be anything save a miserable sham! If a good general servant, who can cook is engaged, at once the way is made plain before all concerned. Such a woman cheerfully keeps her own kitchen, the hall staircase (if in a basement), and front steps in order, and has the dining-room under her charge. She will likewise clear out the breakfast and answer the front door up to twelve, but she must not be called a cook; if she is, she will cook, but she will not for one moment step out of her province to do anything else whatever.

In the same way must the housemaid be managed, for in such an establishment the parlour work can but be of the most meagre description, and if the mistress is house-proud, and really has desires after fine and careful living, she must keep silver, glass and china clean herself, and see herself to the laying of the cloth and all the thousand and one items which go to form the finer portions of housekeeping. An occupation which will no doubt trouble and disgust the woman who demands to ‘live her own life’ and ‘develop her soul’ at the expense of the comfort of the household which she has undertaken to guide when she became the wife of the bread-winner. I am not going to express an opinion on the merits of a career, bounded by the nursery on the one side and the kitchen on another, there will always be a difference of ideas on the subject; but I am going to say very forcibly, that when a woman marries she undertakes this special business; and should she regret it or allow the reins to slip out of her hands, she is ‘obtaining money under false pretences,’ and is undoubtedly neglecting the work she solemnly promised to perform. Therefore, all women who marry must be prepared to face the situation and to know that before they can ‘live their own lives’ and ‘develop their souls’ as mentioned before, they must see that their houses are in order and that their houses are homes in the widest sense of the word.