“They get them all right,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “and if it’s a decent gal, it makes a bad gal of ’er, that ever afterwards looks upon every mistress as ’er enemy, and acts accordingly. And if she ain’t a naturally good gal, it makes ’er worse, and then you ’ear what awful things gals are. I don’t say it’s an easy problem,” continued Mrs. Wilkins, “it’s just like marriages. The good mistress gets ’old of the bad servant, and the bad mistress, as often as not is lucky.”
“But how is it,” I argued, “that in hotels, for instance, the service is excellent, and the girls, generally speaking, seem contented? The work is hard, and the wages not much better, if as good.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “you ’ave ’it the right nail on the ’ead, there, sir. They go into the ’otels and work like niggers, knowing that if a single thing goes wrong they will be bully-ragged and sworn at till they don’t know whether they are standing on their ’ead or their ’eels. But they ’ave their hours; the gal knows when ’er work is done, and when the clock strikes she is a ’uman being once again. She ’as got that moment to look forward to all day, and it keeps ’er going. In private service there’s no moment in the day to ’ope for. If the lady is reasonable she ain’t overworked; but no ’ow can she ever feel she is her own mistress, free to come and go, to wear ’er bit of finery, to ’ave ’er bit of fun. She works from six in the morning till eleven or twelve at night, and then she only goes to bed provided she ain’t wanted. She don’t belong to ’erself at all; it’s that that irritates them.”
“I see your point, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “and, of course, in a house where two or three servants were kept some such plan might easily be arranged. The girl who commenced work at six o’clock in the morning might consider herself free at six o’clock in the evening. What she did with herself, how she dressed herself in her own time, would be her affair. What church the clerk or the workman belongs to, what company he keeps, is no concern of the firm. In such matters, mistresses, I am inclined to think, saddle themselves with a responsibility for which there is no need. If the girl behaves herself while in the house, and does her work, there the contract ends. The mistress who thinks it her duty to combine the rôles of employer and of maiden aunt is naturally resented. The next month the girl might change her hours from twelve to twelve, and her fellow-servant could enjoy the six a.m. to six p.m. shift. But how do you propose to deal, Mrs. Wilkins, with the smaller menage, that employs only one servant?”
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it seems to me simple enough. Ladies talk pretty about the dignity of labour, and are never tired of pointing out why gals should prefer domestic service to all other kinds of work. Suppose they practise what they preach. In the ’ouse, where there’s only the master and the mistress, and, say a couple of small children, let the lady take her turn. After all, it’s only her duty, same as the office or the shop is the man’s. Where, on the other ’and, there are biggish boys and gals about the place, well it wouldn’t do them any ’arm to be taught to play a little less, and to look after themselves a little more. It’s just arranging things—that’s all that’s wanted.”
“You remind me of a family I once knew, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said; “it consisted of the usual father and mother, and of five sad, healthy girls. They kept two servants—or, rather, they never kept any servants; they lived always looking for servants, breaking their hearts over servants, packing servants off at a moment’s notice, standing disconsolately looking after servants who had packed themselves off at a moment’s notice, wondering generally what the world was coming too. It occurred to me at the time, that without much trouble, they could have lived a peaceful life without servants. The eldest girl was learning painting—and seemed unable to learn anything else. It was poor sort of painting; she noticed it herself. But she seemed to think that, if she talked a lot about it, and thought of nothing else, that somehow it would all come right. The second girl played the violin. She played it from early morning till late evening, and friends fell away from them. There wasn’t a spark of talent in the family, but they all had a notion that a vague longing to be admired was just the same as genius.
“Another daughter fancied she would like to be an actress, and screamed all day in the attic. The fourth wrote poetry on a typewriter, and wondered why nobody seemed to want it; while the fifth one suffered from a weird belief that smearing wood with a red-hot sort of poker was a thing worth doing for its own sake. All of them seemed willing enough to work, provided only that it was work of no use to any living soul. With a little sense, and the occasional assistance of a charwoman, they could have led a merrier life.”
“If I was giving away secrets,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I’d say to the mistresses: ‘Show yourselves able to be independent.’ It’s because the gals know that the mistresses can’t do without them that they sometimes gives themselves airs.”
WHY WE HATE THE FOREIGNER.
The advantage that the foreigner possesses over the Englishman is that he is born good. He does not have to try to be good, as we do. He does not have to start the New Year with the resolution to be good, and succeed, bar accidents, in being so till the middle of January. He is just good all the year round. When a foreigner is told to mount or descend from a tram on the near side, it does not occur to him that it would be humanly possible to secure egress from or ingress to that tram from the off side.