After the usual inquiries concerning the children and her son-in-law, the old lady turns again to us, and, for the fiftieth time, reverts to a project she has much at heart—that of arranging a matrimonio for one of my cousins; and again, for the fiftieth time, she is gravely reminded that an insuperable barrier exists to anything of the kind. Any allusion to controversial subjects being, by long-established consent, interdicted between my uncle's family and their Anconitan acquaintances, the marchesa is fain to content herself with a sigh and expressive shrug of the shoulders; and tapping me on the cheek, inquires if I, too, have such an objection to change my religion and farmi Cattolica as my poor cousins are imbued with. “Ah, carina,” said she, confidentially, “I could get good matches for you all, if you had not these unhappy scruples!”
However, I laughingly assure her I am as obdurate as the rest, and we rise to take our leave. The same process of kissing is gone through as when we came in, and we are asked anxiously whether our cameriera is in waiting, as it invariably shocks her rigid ideas of propriety that we should cross the street unattended. On being answered in the negative, the marchesa insists on summoning a grey-headed old man, dressed in rusty black, denominated her valet de chambre, and confiding us to his care to see us safely to our home, she especially charges him not to leave us till the door is opened, as if some danger lurked upon the very confines of our threshold.
This is only one among the many instances of the extraordinary restraint exercised in Italy upon the freedom of unmarried women. A girl of fifteen, if married, is at liberty to walk about alone, while I have known a woman of forty—the only Italian old maid, by the by, it has been my lot to meet—who was not allowed to move a step without at least one trusty servant as her body-guard.
Our remonstrances and entreaties are unheeded, and we depart with our veteran escort: the marchesa is so pleased that she kisses us again, and notwithstanding her infirmities, insists on tottering across the great hall and accompanying us nearly to the door; while the dirty man-servant, after showing us out, with an anxious, perturbed expression, returns to his mistress, to replenish her scaldino, give her any fragment of news he has collected, and comment upon our extraordinary English infatuation.
The old man, who feebly hobbled after us in the steep, unevenly-paved street we had to traverse, was an excellent specimen of that race of servants such as we read of in Molière and Goldoni, but are now rarely seen in real life. He had lived upwards of forty years in the family, was identified with its cares and interests, and gradually, from being the personal attendant of the old marchese, had after his death assumed the same office towards his widow, who, as an invalid, required constant care. Hence his title of the marchesa's valet de chambre, which, strange to say, was a literal one, as he assisted her maid in her toilet, sat up at night in her room when her frequent illnesses required it, brought her her coffee every morning before she got up, and was servant, nurse, confidential adviser, as the occasion needed.
Another old man in the establishment, who held a post somewhat equivalent to the duties of house and land steward, had entered the service of the marchesa's father when a boy, and on her marriage had followed her to her new abode; he died not long after my arrival, and was mourned by the whole family with a degree of regret alike creditable to themselves and the departed. Indeed, the attachment mutually subsisting between masters and servants in the old families of the Italian nobility is one of the most amiable features of the national character. Almost every family we knew had at least one or two of these faithful old domestics in their employment, who, when no longer capable of even the moderate exertion demanded of them, were either retained as supernumeraries, or dismissed to their native villages with a pension sufficient to support them during the remainder of their days. It is very rare to hear of a servant being sent away; their slatternly and inefficient manner of discharging the duties allotted to them being overlooked, if compensated by honesty and attachment. A much larger number of servants are kept than the style of living would seem to require, or the amount of fortune in general to authorize; but it appears to be a point of dignity to have a numerous household, a remnant of the feeling of olden times, when the standing of the family was estimated by the number of its retainers. Many more men than women are employed; and to this it is owing that the former discharge duties we are brought up to consider exclusively devolving upon females. Besides the culinary department, which is invariably filled by them, they sweep the rooms, make the beds, and are very efficient as sick-nurses. We knew a lady whose man-servant sat up for eighty nights to tend her during a dangerous illness.
The wages paid are excessively low to our ideas, a very small sum being given in money to female servants, the amount not exceeding from a dollar to fifteen pauls a month (4s. 6d. to 6s. 9d.), and to men from two to three dollars; but then there is always a liberal allowance of wine and flour, the produce of the family estates, generally much more than they can consume, and the surplus of which they are permitted to dispose of. Their daily fare is of a description that would ill suit the taste of English domestics, even in the most limited establishment: the quantity of meat provided for each is at the rate of six ounces per day, which is boiled, and furnishes the never-failing soup and lesso. This constitutes their first, or mid-day meal; breakfast not being usual, or at most consisting of a draught of wine and a crust of bread. In the evening they sup; this repast being supplied by the resti di tavola—that is, remains of their master's table, which are carefully divided amongst them by the cook, who is usually a personage of great authority, having under him an assistant in his noble art, besides sundry barefooted little boys, who pluck poultry, run on errands, or idle about most satisfactorily.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the low scale of wages and living here mentioned is not applicable to English or other foreign families: it was always understood that forestieri paid more than natives; and yet, with these advantages, the servants seemed to think they were scarcely compensated for the absence of the freedom of intercourse which they had enjoyed under their former masters. We were considered proud, because we discouraged the system of gossiping carried on among the natives, who allowed their servants to mingle a remark in the conversation while they were waiting at table, or to relate anything of the news of the town they might have heard. The contrast presented by our English reserve must indeed have been striking; and it was difficult at first for our attendants to reconcile themselves to it, or to be persuaded it did not really arise from harshness or displeasure. I have often thought we might with advantage copy a little in this respect from our continental neighbours, and, by treating our servants less like machines, cultivate the kindly feeling which should subsist between them and their employers; although I am very far from admiring the familiarity here described, which arises from the inherent love of talking and horror of solitude or silence, common to all Italians.
I witnessed some traits of this invincible garrulity, which amused me very much. A noble lady, living next door, used every morning to hold conversations with the nursery-maid of a German officer's family, from opposite windows: the street not being more than ten feet across, it required scarcely more elevation of voice than is peculiar to Italian women, to possess herself of numerous interesting particulars respecting their mode of life, manner of feeding, dressing, and rearing their children, of the length of time this maid had been in their service, and so forth. My uncle's man-servant was detected in the gratification of a similar curiosity towards an opposite neighbour, the wife of a lawyer, to whom, from our hall-window, he was repeating the names of the signorine and the cugina forestiera, my unworthy self, with many little details of our tastes and pursuits, which apparently were received with avidity.
One of our acquaintances, with more than a usual share of inquisitiveness, used, whenever a message or note came from our house, to summon our envoy to her presence, and, while inditing an answer, would ply him with questions about our domestic arrangements, what we had for dinner, whether any of the signorine were going to be married, and other inquiries of the same nature; which would have been considered insufferably impertinent, were we not aware that every servant entering her house was subjected to a similar interrogatory, and that nothing unfair or unfriendly was intended by it. And yet it is wonderful to notice that the servants thus talked to, and let into all the prying weakness of their masters' dispositions, are never impertinent, nor outstep the boundary of the most obsequious respect and humility.