Now let us consider the ideal house and the ideal kitchen, and I cannot see myself why both should not exist; let us build our washing-stands so that hot and cold water are able to be turned into the basin which can overtip and empty itself; smaller conveniences could be managed in the same manner, and all the housemaid would have to do would be to wipe out the basins daily, to sweep up the pieces with the ‘Ewbank’ carpet-sweeper, which makes no dust and picks up every morsel off the floor, to make the beds and dust, the very making of the beds being simplified by the chain and hair mattresses now general. All that has to be done is to turn the mattress daily, to spread the under blanket and sheet absolutely smoothly over it and tuck them in, to replace the bolster and pillows, and the over supply of blankets, &c., carefully straightened and tucked in. Is that harder than tennis, more menial, forsooth, than living on one’s relations, or husband-hunting genteelly under the greatest of all difficulties, the difficulty of looking nice and merry, and being good-tempered, on absolutely no means at all?
Now let us take the ideal kitchen, the kitchen as made and designed by Mr. G. Faulkner Armitage, of Stamford House, Altrincham, Cheshire, who has most kindly drawnfor me the different pieces of furniture with which he decorates this charming room of his, and which, in the Manchester Exhibition, were stained green and decorated with brass hinges and locks, and see how we could adapt this to our present style of house, the house with the tiny kitchen, the smaller laundry, pantry, and scullery, and where there is not an atom of sitting-room apart from where all the work is going forward. In that case is it worth while to make a pretty room, and if we do can it be possibly kept so? I think it can, even with our present maids, whose taste for the beautiful is not largely developed; it most certainly could if we are given the maid of the future, the real lady-maid, who may come forward to the rescue of those unhappy beings who at present haunt the precincts of registry offices and spend small fortunes on advertisements which can have only the most barren results.
But before I go on to speak of the ideal kitchen and the cook of the future; who will hardly concern my readers, as she is not born at present, or if she be is certainly not ready for engagement, I should like to say a few words about the best manner to obtain servants, repeating continually that if we require good ones we must take them ourselves and train them ourselves. I am always met, when I state this fact, by the unanswerable argument, ‘I have neither time nor patience to teach my servants; I can pay good wages. I want to engage skilled labour.’ Skilled labour may be had for money, there is no doubt, but the person who engages her maids on these lines will never have good or affectionate servants. She will be waited on, dressed, cooked for admirably, no doubt, but she will obtain nothing beyond her mere bargain. For better wages, a more aristocratic place, her cook will leave her in the lurch, despite the fact that she may expect to be laid up or to have most particular and important visitors at the very period when the old maid departs and the new one comes in. Her nurse will extract her pound of flesh in the shape of holidays and outings, whether the baby is teething or not, or whether the children are all miserable with colds, or she herself long to lie down with a bad headache. The housemaid will go to her ‘church or chapel,’ to her promenade with her ever-changing young man, whether she has unexpected guests or not; and she will never know the extremebliss and comfort of possessing friends in the kitchen, who give up their own holidays because they are sure their mistress is not fit to be left, who regard the children as if they were as much theirs as they are the mistress’s, and who finally think of her and hers, and her comfort, as she does herself. No mere hired help will do all this. You must have maidens whom you have carefully trained; you must take trouble—aye, and never-ending trouble—about them, unless you wish to join the ranks of those who are always abusing their maids and yet would not lift their fingers to assist themselves. And then, again, you must undoubtedly train yourself at the same time not to expect perfection.
Think of our own girls. Are they always to be trusted at tennis and at balls to maintain that serene and demure deportment which of course we always did, and which we naturally expect from our daughters, especially where young men are concerned?
Do they never flirt? Are they never found missing at critical moments, for example, when the carriage is at the door, and Paterfamilias is divided between anxiety for his horses and wrath at being kept waiting? Do foolish little notes never pass? Are flowers never given to the most detrimental youths of one’s acquaintance? And finally, do our own daughters always keep men at arm’s length? Are they always truthful, always obliging, always careful about their own rooms and the things which are committed to their charge?
I leave each mother to answer for her own daughters. I should not like to answer for all the girls I know, and I seem to remember episodes in my own past (was it mine, or did it belong to some one I once knew very well indeed, I wonder?) which I should rather not confide to my daughter, and indeed which I should not care to hold up to her as an example of what all girls should do, and which often make me very kind to the maids when I meet them promenading with the youth who calls for orders or the man whom I scarcely recognise out of his livery; and it is far better to know such things will happen, and to keep a kindly eye over these affairs, than to scold vigorously and declare that whatever happens no followers of any sort or kind shall enter your chaste abode. Neither should they until the engagement is abonâ-fideone, andone that you know is allowed and smiled upon by the girl’s parents. This you should ascertain for yourself—another reason for taking your maids young and from a family of whose antecedents you know something from your own observation. And I never think much harm can happen from these promenades if great stress is laid upon the fact that all must be at home after dark, and that in winter no one must stay out after 8.30. Then the house door should be locked and the key brought upstairs, either in town or country; there is always the front door to come to, and there is no reason why everyone should not come to that.
I am no advocate either of very hard and fast rules, and I maintain that it is very difficult to make, and still more difficult to keep, set regulations which circumstances may alter at any given moment. The only thing that must be insisted on is punctuality; without punctuality no household can go on, no establishment can be in the very least degree managed or carried on. The servants become slovenly; and it is impossible to get through the work, because no one knows when the meals are to be, or when the beds can be made. Therefore, the first rule, and indeed the only really important rule, is that which makes the meals regular, and the attendance thereat compulsory on all members of the family, children and temporary members, such as visitors, alike. After that, and when we have demonstrated how the work is to be done, we should stand aside and not interfere unless it is absolutely necessary; then a few quiet words are enough. Whatever you do, do not ‘nag;’ a servant that requires acrimonious scolding and continual ‘telling’ had better go, and another should be had at once.
The best way to find a servant (if your ‘place’ has a good name) is to inquire among the tradesmen. If a good servant is leaving her place, she always tells the butcher and baker; she never goes to a registry office. If she is leaving to better herself, her mistress can soon find her a place among her own friends; there would be no need for her to go elsewhere, and I do not think a really first-rate maid ever goes anywhere except to her mistress or to the tradespeople, who are all delighted to help her to find what she wants. An advertisement in the ‘Guardian’ or ‘Morning Post’ is another excellent means of obtaining arecommended servant, and I hope some day to find that the clergyman’s wife in each country parish will turn herself into an amateur registry office for all the young girls under her husband’s charge. She should teach them in the kitchen and nursery and train them in nice ways, and be always possessed of some maiden she can send out into a better place. Of course the Girls’ Friendly Society does something of the kind, but the good that it does is largely discounted by the evil ways of many of the ‘associates,’ who cannot help interfering egregiously and stupidly, and so bringing what ought to be an absolutely perfect organisation into contempt.
In London there is only one way of finding good servants, and that is by advertising in either of the papers I have suggested, saying ‘Apply by letter only,’ or else the advertiser will be inundated with a class of persons who apply on the chance of picking up something in the hall, or of getting their ‘expenses’ paid. No unknown person should ever be left alone for a moment in the hall, and on no consideration should anyone pay the ‘expenses,’ which often exist in the imagination only, and would be amply recouped were twopence handed over to the applicant to cover her omnibus fare; that even should be given with caution, for, absurd as it may sound, there are people who exist on applying for situations, which they accept and give excellent references to empty houses, and promise to come in at once, to commence the duties required immediately. The mistress, overjoyed at the idea of securing such a treasure, gladly pays the fare to some country station, to be refunded, of course, out of the first quarter’s salary, and goes off for the treasure’s character, when she promptly discovers she has been done, and that if such a house does exist at all it is either closed entirely or lived in by someone who has never heard of the treasure, who naturally is also not to be found at the home address, that was given so glibly and written down so very carefully.
A written character should also never be taken. The most exquisite handwriting, the best of all note-paper, duly embellished with a crest, address, and monogram complete, are no safeguard, for servants have been known to steal note-paper, and in these days of universal education a good hand is not to be trusted in the least. Even if the familywith whom the servant lived has gone abroad—and this is the favourite reason always given when a written character is produced—there must be some relation or friend of the last employer still left in England who would not object to speak for a maid, who if worth anything at all must be known to someone outside the mere inner circle of the house itself; and this should be insisted on, especially in London, where an unknown servant is often the friend of the gentle burglar, and can do an immense amount of mischief. Indeed, when I thoroughly sift the numerous complaints which reach me about servants, I invariably find them caused by the fact that the maid has either been procured by a registry office or taken with only a written character in the most careless way, and with not half the precautions we should take before we engaged ourselves to call on a new comer to our especial district. We demand very strict credentials from anyone we admit to our house as a mere acquaintance; we let anyone into the house to live as a servant who can produce any scrap of writing, or procure any registry-office keeper to speak for her capabilities and character.
I am not speaking without due thought on the matter. Of course there are absolutely trustworthy registry offices, and some written characters may be genuine; but as a rule neither is to be trusted, and it is far better to do one’s household work oneself than to engage someone of whom we know no more than can be told us by an individual eager for the hiring fee, or from a bit of paper probably written on by the applicant herself.
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 asunduecare, 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, andmuch 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 refillthe 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
Image unavailable: Fig. 17.—An Ideal Kitchen.Fig. 17.—An Ideal Kitchen.
likely to stay with us and that she is to be trusted not to make hay with it.
Our artist has made a sketch of ‘an ideal kitchen’ from Mr. Faulkner Armitage’s designs, which I hope will some day be the kitchen of the future. Here the dresser and mantel-piece arrangement provide for all the necessary pots and pans, while the furniture is as simple as it is pretty, and in consequence has an artistic effect which is really charming.
This furniture is stained malachite green or russet brown, whichever is preferred; with the green furniture, the tiled paper on the wall, which is much nicer to live with than mere colour-wash and is quite as clean, as it can be wiped over with a damp duster quite easily, should be red and white, and the paint a dark shade of red; with the brown, the paper should be blue and white, and the paint a good blue, and all along the wall on the floor should be a two-inch band of wood; this keeps the chairs away from the wall; but if the base of the wall becomes shabby a dado of oilcloth can always be added with a real dado rail; this keeps a wall tidy for years, and can always be washed, and finally painted over should the pattern crack or become in any measure worn and untidy. The ordinary boarded kitchen should be covered entirely with a good, well-seasoned linoleum, and a square of carpet lined with a thin American cloth should be given to the cook to place down on Sundays, or after the worst of the work is over; this gives a finished and furnished look to the room, and adds a great deal to the comfort of the maids. A stone floor should be painted with Hoskyn’s Ben Trovato red, and some rugs laid down at all times, as this is very bad to stand upon. I had linoleum laid all over the only stone floor I ever possessed, and that answered excellently; it was put down so that it adhered to the stone in some manner, and lasted a very great many years in excellent condition; but should anyone object to this I can also recommend a square of Treloar’s cocoa-nut matting, bound all round with a wide binding; but this should be rolled back for cooking, as grease adheres to it dreadfully and soon makes it shabby.
The kitchen windows are always rather a trouble to arrange, as generally they are basement windows, and muslin so soon gets out of order with the steam and generalmess; but if the cook takes pride in her windows and likes to wash her curtains herself there is no reason why she should not have the same kind of white curtains that there are in the bedrooms; but let all come from the top of the window, half-blinds being dreadful, and looking worse, in my opinion, than no blinds at all. In windows on a level with the garden or street one must have obscured glass, either cathedral or ribbed glass. This, of course, is rather hard on the maids, who are not thus able to look out, but it cannot be helped: it is impossible for the kitchen to be so much in evidence as it otherwise would be, and no muslin is as effective a screen as the obscured glass is.
There should always be inside bars and shutters to any basement or ground-floor windows, and nothing should be kept downstairs which can possibly or in any way tempt the prowling burglar. All silver should be taken upstairs to the master’s room, and there should be a small dog loose downstairs; a dog frightens a thief dreadfully, as he is quite as much afraid of his bark as ever he is of his bite.
The basement in a London house is often a dreadful possession, as there are so many places where a thief could conceal himself in the daytime. No doors, then, should ever be left unbolted; and the master should, furthermore, make a practice of going round the very last thing at night to see that all is safe, or else there can be no security at all. Sometimes the servants may descend again and hold unholy revels; sometimes an open or unguarded door leaves access to the place; and an unexpected visit from a tramp may alarm us as much as would a professional visit from a burglar. We cannot impress this on our servants too often, and we impress it on them a thousand times more forcibly than we otherwise should when they see our nightly patrol, and know we have supplemented their bolts with a visit of inspection. Then the door at the top of the stairs should be bolted, barred, and locked, and the key removed. This should be given into the care of the butler if there be one, or into the safe keeping of the cook; and we may retire to rest feeling safe that even if the tramp comes, or the thief is in hiding below, he will remain in the lower regions, and can do nothing worse than have a feast in the larder or break a few panes of glass in his efforts to escape.
It will seem to my readers that one has to take endless trouble, to see perpetually about endless trifles, as long as we are householders, and have the management of a family on our hands. Yet once started on good lines, and matters are not so difficult as they appear; still, of course, no life of great responsibility—indeed, no life at all—can ever be entirely happy and entirely easy. Those who have least to do become bored and tired by mere inactivity; those who have most, wearing out instead of rusting out.
All comes to an end some day; there is no doubt about that. Strive as we may, death waits for us all, and our carefully trained household falls apart and drifts away; our furniture wears out, our carefully amassed hoards are turned over and parted among our successors; some one else takes our house, and obliterates with his personality the last traces of ours; and if we have refused to do our work, or let things slide, we shall speedily be forgotten; but if we have honestly done our work, what of it? Our maids carry on our good lessons elsewhere; our hoards make someone else happy, and the example we have set bears fruit a hundredfold, and someone is always happier, some household better for the work we have done. No matter, then, if we have fallen out of the ranks, tired out; we have done our work, and so can retire gracefully, being quite sure that none of our trouble is wasted, and that not one of us has toiled in vain.
And I maintain that we cannot ever take too much trouble about our homes, that we cannot have them too pretty or too well managed, and that, moreover, once they are started, they are easy to keep going, always supposing that we have regular ways and rules, that we do not muddle, and that we pass over nothing that requires attention, let it be a braid off a chair, or the misdemeanour or disobedience of a servant or child; the one should be mended, the other spoken to at once, then things will go on like clockwork, and we shall be fairly astonished to find how well things progress and how admirably they manage themselves.
Start well, start carefully, and then all one has to do is to steer straight; after all, steering is not very hard work, and that is all one has to do once the ship is fairly loaded and under way.
Inall large houses there ought undoubtedly to be some provision for infectious illness. Of course I know that there are excellent fever hospitals, where one can be despatched at almost a moment’s notice, where an ambulance will deposit you, and where the best nursing and doctoring can be had at a most moderate outlay; and I, for one, highly applaud those courageous souls who telegraph for the proper conveyance, and depart, cutting themselves off from their homes, and at the same time from any chance of handing on their complaints elsewhere, with one fell swoop. But, much as I admire and applaud, nothing would, I fear, induce me to follow their laudable example. To know how to be ill is a fine art, and this accomplishment is quite thrown away on those who regard one merely as a ‘case,’ and talk about one as if one were a mere chattel left with them to repair, and return with the utmost speed. Moreover, I maintain always that one’s bodily health depends immensely on one’s surroundings, and that it would take double the time to get better in a hospital than one would in one’s own home, where one could see one’s friends out of the window and catch even a far-off whisper of what was happening, and see even from the greatest distance some of one’s old, accustomed sights. In an ordinary house, as at present arranged, it would be absolutely impossible to have even the smallest amount of infectious disease without running the greatest risk of handing it on to all the rest of the family; but there could be in most houses such arrangements made, were the builder a man of sense, that we could have a hospital room, a room sufficiently isolated to ensure immunity from infection, and yet near enough to do away with the hopeless feeling which seizes the ordinary mortal the moment he hears he has ‘something catching,’ and which enables him to understand what were the feelings of the lepers of old, who had to flee from the sight of their fellow-creatures, calling out aloud as they ran, ‘Unclean!unclean!’ Of course we ought not to feel angry with those who refuse to come near us; indeed, had I my way no one should ever enter a house where there was small-pox, scarlatina, or diphtheria; but we do resent it somehow, despite our own common sense and the knowledge that we should forbid the call our friends are so anxious not to make if they attempted to come near us; and there is no more miserable feeling than that which seizes us when we are told that we have a complaint in our midst which may prevent us from being on the same footing as the rest of mankind for several weary weeks, or may be months. But, before going into the matter of what we should do when infection is in our house, let me for a moment speak about the room we should all of us possess ready for an emergency and into which we could retire were we ill at all, not only ‘infectious’ but ill in such a way that we may require careful nursing, many fires, and absolute quiet and rest.
We should select a room at the top of the house unless we are building our house; in that case we should have a couple of rooms added on at one end, with a bathroom, lavatory, and tiny kitchen range in a third room. This should make a sort of annexe to the house; it should be reached from outside, and a passage, closed at one end with a plate-glass door, should communicate with the rest of the house. I once knew such an arrangement as this, and have always hankered after it, more especially as it allowed one member of a family of eight children to have scarlet fever at home without in the least endangering the lives of any others of the family, while the mother could see the child daily through the plate-glass door, although she could not nurse her herself. She ran absolutely no risk; the plate-glass door was as safe as the solid wall, and over it always hung a sheet steeped in carbolic acid. The child was nursed among familiar surroundings; the doctor could visit it without passing through the house; all the food could be placed so that the nurse received it without the smallest risk, and, in fact, the arrangement was so absolutely perfect that I cannot understand why possessors of large houses and good means do not always keep some rooms of the kind ready. No family can go through life without illness; it is much easier to bear when all is prepared for it, and there is nodreadful domestic upset to add to our natural anxiety and trouble when illness comes upon us all.
Now, given such houses as these, or even the single room quite at the top of the house, which would be next best (and although these have their disadvantages, they are generally quieter than any other), I should proceed to decorate them prettily. I should paint the walls first, and then I should paper them with the very cheapest blue paper I could find. I think Maple’s 4½d.blue and white paper would be best, and I should have ivory paint, the 4½d.a piece white and yellow ceiling paper, and curtains of 1s.6d.a yard serge in art blue double. There is nothing here which cannot be replaced at a very small cost; yet everything would look pretty and bright and fresh; and I should have the floor parqueterie or else covered with matting and rugs. The rugs could be removed in a moment if anything infectious were the matter, while the matting could be disinfected or destroyed; but this should remain. It smells fresh, it never accumulates the dust, and always looks nice, in my opinion. In illness looks are everything, and it is absolutely necessary for things to be neat and pretty; else the patient will be worried to death without really understanding why he is being worried.
The bed should be a good wide one—a double one. This gives room for the patient to move about in. It should have a wire mattress and a good hair mattress at the top, four pillows, and a bolster, and it should have an ample supply of venerable blankets for under use. Those for over use should depend on what is the matter. New blankets and an eider-down are lighter and warmer than anything, and if these are required they must be had, even if afterwards they have to be destroyed. There should be no washing or dressing apparatus visible (these can be kept in the lavatory), but there should be two or three of the stained wooden chairs sold by Pither, 38 Mortimer Street, W., which are comfortable enough for the doctor and an occasional visitor or for the nurse on duty (too much comfort often induces sleep), and which can be wiped over daily. There should also be a wide, deep wicker armchair, nicely cushioned, and there should be a long chair for the invalid, where he or she could rest while the bed is made or remainwhen convalescence has begun, and the bed may be left for some hours at least. The long deck chairs are not suitable for this purpose, as, being made of wicker, they creak in the most awful manner, and are not comfortable in the least; but there are some long narrow beds used as camp beds, which can be put up at any angle, and have an iron frame filled in with sacking, on which a cushion is placed. This makes the most comfortable lounge of which I know, and should be in every sick room or room set apart for the purpose of nursing. They can be bought at almost any ironmonger’s, or at any place which caters for Volunteers or those who do any luxurious camping out. There should be pictures on the walls, and a bookcase, and above all there should be a screen of some kind or other. The pictures should be of the cheapest; some of those lately issued by the ‘Illustrated News’ people, which resemble old Bartolozzi prints, would do admirably, as the frames could be disinfected, the glass washed, and the pictures themselves destroyed. The bookcase could be varnished or re-Aspinalled, and the books burned. Books are fearful methods of conveying infection, and carelessness about this cannot be too harshly condemned. It is far better to destroy everything, no matter how precious it may be, than run the very smallest risk of passing on even what may be considered a mild complaint, for that which is mild in one patient often causes death or great suffering in another whose constitution is unfitted to cope with that special disease.
Once the room is ready and looking pretty, the next care must be to see that it is kept properly aired and that nothing gets out of order, and that all the things for use are in their places; then we need not think any more about the room, which should be under the charge of the head-nurse of the establishment; but, especially where there are children, it is absolutely necessary that we should be prepared for emergencies, and know exactly what to do should there be any necessity for prompt action. There are a series of rules printed by the National Health Society, which should be hung up in every nursery, and there should be, moreover, a box containing simple remedies for sprains (arnica), cuts (calendula), and burns (oiled silk, oil, and cotton wool), and the nurse should keep the key. But, whatever happens, her remedies can only be temporary ones; all her instructionsshould end like those to the ambulance experts, ‘Send for the doctor.’
Now, although I am certainly no advocate for constantly sending for the doctor, and though I maintain that for small children a good nurse is worth all the doctors under the sun, I do maintain that immense comfort and safety are procured by an early visit from the doctor if we are fearful that anything is wrong above the common. But I maintain equally strongly that to be able to do this we must be very sure of our man; we must be able to trust him, and we must be quite certain that he is an honest man, who will not trespass on our credulity or fatten on our fears, and who will have the necessary courage to tell us straight out that we have nothing to fear and that we need not send for him again, or at least that he will not come again until we do send for him. Above all, let us, if possible, keep to the same doctor. Nothing is more stupid than to change him, unless we are absolutely obliged to do so, for he understands his patients’ constitutions if he has always had to see after them. A new man cannot possibly do so at first, and much more depends on a doctor understanding what he has to deal with, as far as heredity is concerned, than one quite comprehends. People would not be quite so ready to change their medical attendant as they very often seem to me to be if they thoroughly believed in this.
And now comes the great subject of nursing. I was much amused the other day to see an indignant article from someone who abused the present generation of mothers because they did not nurse their children themselves in cases of infection, and because their first idea in an emergency was to send for a nurse. Now I maintain that that is the very wisest thing anyone can do. A mother, as a rule, is the worst person in the world to nurse her own child; her fearful anxiety makes her nervous and communicates itself to the patient, who ought never to know that anyone is the least anxious about him. Her face betrays her, and her shaking hands play her false, and on a thousand grounds it is far better to have a trained nurse than to trust to unskilled though loving nursing. A mother may never have had the smallest experience of nursing until she is called upon to exercise any little talent she may have for it on behalf of her nearest and dearest. She becomes franticallymiserable at symptoms a nurse understands, and are often enough symptoms for good; she cannot raise a patient and give him food comfortably, as does a woman trained to the work, and she cannot be the ‘half-doctor’ all nurses ought undoubtedly to be, and indeed are nowadays, unless she has had training; a course of training, by the way, which would be most distasteful to many and absolutely impossible to the few.
A nurse is born, not made; of that I am absolutely convinced from my own experience. I do not think anything would make me personally fit to nurse anyone, much as I should like to do it. Were I called upon to turn nurse I could undoubtedly keep a room neat, smooth a pillow, and fold a sheet over properly; but I stand by in amaze and watch a friend of mine who has never been trained, but is a born nurse, who knows exactly how to lift her patient, when and how to give beef-tea and medicine, and who does easily and without effort what I cannot do at all, try as hard as I may to follow her excellent example. She may be anxious, she never shows it in the least; she may be tired to death, she does not look it; her voice is always at the right pitch, and though she naturally is not merry when there is danger, she maintains an even cheerfulness which is delightful, and as restful to the patient as it is most undoubtedly restful and reassuring to the patient’s friends. Now, sentiment apart—and sentiment should never be considered in the very least degree where real work has to be done—surely my friend is better able to nurse, and a much safer nurse, than I should be; I, who have honestly and seriously tried to overcome my stupidity and dread of sick people, and who visited at a hospital regularly until I was utterly and completely routed by seeing a man in a fit, since when I have avoided hospitals and have quite come to the conclusion I should never be a nurse. Therefore, is it not wiser for people in real cases of dangerous illness to engage women who understand their work? I am convinced it is, and strongly recommend anyone who is advised by the doctor to send for a nurse to do so. He will always be able to tell them where to send; if not, they can find any amount of addresses in that most useful and excellent little book ‘Dickens’s Dictionary of London.’ But the doctor should find the nurse in infectious cases, for, as a rule, he knowssomeone with whom he has worked already, and of course these nurses have to be sent for in a hurry; one does not make preparations for and look out for fevers as one does when a small baby is expected; about that I have said all I have to say in my other book, and shall not therefore say anything here on that absorbing subject.
Everybody should remember that illness, instead of deadening our faculties, undoubtedly and at once heightens every one we possess. We see more acutely most certainly; our smell and taste are exaggerated in the most painful degree, and little annoyances and inferior cooking, which we scarcely notice, or indeed notice not at all, when we are well, try us most dreadfully. If we are to eat at all, all must be absolutely clean and free from grease, and sent up spotlessly; there must not be a suspicion of carelessness, or inevitably we shall turn against the food and send it down untouched. Likewise, creaking shoes, rustling paper, banging doors, crooked pictures, dusty tables and chairs must not exist where there are invalids; and, above all, I am convinced that until a person is actually and positively dead no one should talk about them over their bodies, thinking they are insensible. I am certain that insensible people, so called, are often far more sensitive than either doctor or nurse will allow, and I know I myself have often heard things which were never meant for me to hear when people have thought me asleep, but when I have really simply been too tired to open my eyes; and I shall never forget the expression that flitted across the face of a dear old lady who was absolutely dying, who had not swallowed for two days, or spoken for a great many more, when her daughter and maid spoke of the mourning and funeral by her bedside heartlessly. She heard and understood, although she undoubtedly had no power of letting us know that she did so. And I, moreover, have been told by a cousin whose recovery from a frightful attack of blood-poisoning was miraculous, and who most certainly was merely saved from death by her doctor’s unremitting care and the excellent nursing she received from him—he never left her once for over forty-eight hours—that she knew absolutely everything that went on, that she heard every single word and whisper, and that she most certainly would never say a word in the presence of any ‘insensible’ person thatcould pain or agitate him in the least, for when she appeared most insensible to on-lookers she was really far more sensitive than she had ever been in all her life: her hearing was absolutely acute, and every sense seemed on end, a feeling I can corroborate from my own experience, though I have had no really very serious illness, but have been ill enough to comprehend this supersensitiveness and to understand how absolutely quiet and restful should be the conditions of any invalid. It sounds absurd to say that noise can kill anyone, but noise can; a sudden shock can undoubtedly snap the thread of life, while noise constantly wearing on the brain can do endless harm, especially to those who are predisposed to notice and resent continually unpleasant sounds. And now I want to give a hint to many among us who are abjectly miserable because they fancy they have some incurable complaint, and yet have not the sense or courage to really go to a good doctor and learn what is the matter, or indeed whether there is anything the matter at all. The tiny lump which appears on the neck may be nothing but a little swelling of a gland, or it may be cancer; the dreadful pain that seizes the chest may be heart or it may be indigestion; anyhow, whatever it is, it is far better to know what is the matter than to wear oneself to death in wondering if we have or have not a fatal disease.
If we have not, well and good; if we have, what, after all, does it matter? We have all fatal diseases, if it comes to that, and we are all absolutely sure, unpleasant as is the fact, that we must die, and it is something to know a little about the means and time by which we shall have to shuffle off this mortal coil; and, moreover, we can undoubtedly save ourselves endless trouble, and stave off the last day of our lives, if we learn early in the day what we have to avoid, and how best we can manage our lives, many having lost them entirely because they literally had not the courage to go to the doctor, or went to him so late that he had sorrowfully to confess he could do nothing, albeit he could have done much had the patient come to him when she or he first began to suspect there was anything amiss. I could, I am sorry to say, quote examples from my own dear and intimate friends of the evil done by this cowardly dislike to face the worst, and I therefore feel very stronglyon the subject, and implore any of my readers who may suspect a lurking disease to face it. It may be nothing but fancy; even so, the fancy should be exorcised. It may be fatal; then the doctor will lay down rules at once for guidance, and even if death is imminent it is just as well to know this. There are things to do quietly, and one’s house to set in order, albeit there is no need to make the lives of all one’s relations burdens to them; neither need we make ourselves miserable beforehand by everlasting contemplation of the inevitable parting. Be quite sure, whether it comes at 100, at 20, at 40, we none of us realise or relish the idea, but when a thing must be it is best to accept it gracefully; people will remember us much more kindly if we go cheerfully, and do not make them all wretched by kicking against the pricks.
And, above all, remember if you have a disease to keep the fact to yourself and to your doctor; no one else wants to hear about it, and it is interesting to no one else. If you become an invalid you can be both cheerful and useful, although I know how hateful—how truly hateful—it is to put up the once active feet, and cross the once busy hands, and simply listen to what we once used to do. I know too that a good listener is highly appreciated, and that many a happy home finds the heart of the house round the invalid sofa, where can always be found someone who is always at home, always disengaged, always willing to help and anxious to hear, and who has a most profound interest in all that is going on, despite the fact that she is out of the action, and can only take a passive part in the life that seemed once as if it could never go on without her.
Moreover, an invalid should never become absorbed in herself, in her treatment, her medicine, and the progress of her malady; having found her doctor to be trustworthy, she should do as he tells her, and after his visit she should utterly decline to speak of herself; she should read, if possible work (how I do wish I could sew, or knit, or do anything on earth save read and write!), and, above all she should be absolutely nice and particular about her clothes, which should never degenerate (unless it is absolutely necessary) into the dressing-gown stage. Loose garments are untidy, and anything untidy or ‘dressing-gowny’assists the invalid idea, which should be kept in the background as much as possible.
Then there is another thing I should like to mention, and that is that invalids should always have their affairs settled, and their wishes as regards the future of their children or their property entirely and properly understood—that is to say, understood and settled as far as anything can be settled that is so unknown as the future—and while a man is an absolute criminal who neglects to make his will, a woman is equally foolish who, having strong feelings on subjects which will concern her children, or may be the place of her burial, does not write such a letter on the subject to her husband, to be opened after her death, as shall lay all her wishes before him, but only as wishes: the dead hand should never fetter anyone; at best it should only indicate the course which the owner would have followed.
In but one case should a man or a woman who has property put an emphatic embargo on the future proceedings of the husband or wife, and then only if there are children, and that is in the case of the husband or wife remarrying. Under these circumstances the property should go absolutely into the hands of trustees, to be administered entirely for the use of the children, who are often enough defrauded of their father’s or mother’s money, which goes to keep some lazy man or extravagant woman who in their time may produce children to share that which was only meant for the owner’s own offspring.
This rule should never be departed from under any circumstances: it should be absolutely out of anyone’s power to defraud children of what was intended for them alone by the one parent who had money. This does not prevent a man or a woman marrying again; they had the same chances, if they wanted them, as they had before; but it does prevent the children being robbed, as I have known them robbed, in more than one case, by their silly mothers, who, yearning for the love and protection they have lost, cast themselves into the arms of number two, doubly flattered at being wooed when their first bloom has vanished, and find themselves saddled with men who neglect the business they were supposed to keep together, or squander the money saved so hardly and set aside so carefully for thosewho cannot help themselves or stay the marriage that will inevitably spoil their home life if it do not wreck their futures.
Let the wife have all control until she marries again; then someone else should step in, as undoubtedly if a woman does not care to remember her husband she will not care to assure herself and protect his children from an extravagant, improvident man; and of course a man should be treated in the same way; all control as long as he remembers his wife, none when he ceases to do so and would maintain a successor out of the money she meant for her children’s welfare.
Now all this can be managed, and, indeed, should be managed, on the wife’s part by a letter written to her husband, and on a man’s by a calm conversation with his wife, who of course will vow that nothing on this earth would induce her to marry again; but, unfortunately for her argument, example can be brought against her of people who have said just the same, who have wept in the marketplace and wrung their hands in high places, ‘so to speak,’ and yet have married generally ‘for the sake of the dear children’ before they had worn out their mourning, and therefore her protestations can be gently set on one side with the quiet statement that in that case the money will be in her own power. This can show no lack of confidence in the wife; it simply shows a lack of confidence in any possible future husband, and a consummate knowledge of human nature, which forgets disagreeables speedily, alas! and accepts hurriedly any chance that may present itself of obliterating a mournful memory and changing one’s trappings of woe for newer and far more beaming garments.
I never could understand the sensitiveness that prevents some wives and husbands from ever speaking of the future that must come when they will be separated. There need be no continual discussion of the mournful subject, but it should be discussed thoroughly when the will is made; it need never be spoken of again until circumstances arise that may cause some alterations to be made, or codicils added; anything that may be too painful to discuss can be written in the final letter of farewell. Then, if one has no accumulations of other folks’ letters, if one’s drawers are tidy, one’s bills paid, and one’s conscience clear, there willbe nothing to make anyone extra-miserable after we have departed; we shall have done our work, left everything in order, and shall leave nothing but a pleasant memory behind us.
Death as a rule is either made unduly awful, or is a time of the most extravagant expenditure. The immense quantities of florists’ wreaths sent nowadays have brought into disrepute one of the most charming ideas possible, and the money once devoted to black plumes and undertaker’s millinery of all kinds, to extravagant mourning and absurd woe, is now squandered equally extravagantly and absurdly on wreaths, which cost from 15s.to 30s.each, and which are simply thrown into the earth to perish there untimely. Not for one moment would I deprecate the use of flowers entirely, but let them be arranged by people who loved me, and really bound them together because they knew I loved them. I would rather spend money, or have money spent, on some useful memorial than on a perishable wreath; and were I to die to-morrow I should say, Give me as simple, as cheap a funeral as you can, and give the money to my pet charity. It could be done in my name, and would be a practical remembrance of me, and a far more useful one than hundreds of wreaths. Why, I once saw a funeral in mid-winter where there were over 300 wreaths. This would have almost built a ward in the Hospital for Sick Children; it would certainly have helped the good Sisters at Kilburn, and have done great good to the children there, who had always been loved by her whose funeral it was. And in the same way would I deprecate a ‘handsome’ coffin and elaborate headstone; neither can do any good to the dead, and the memory of those we have loved can be perpetuated a thousand times longer should we content ourselves with the simplest oak coffin we can get and the plain cross, which will last as long as anyone could wish it to, while the money saved can be given elsewhere. Everyone has some pet scheme that could be benefited by his or her death; no one but the undertaker and florist is benefited now.
Another reason why we should not encourage the sending of an immense quantity of flowers from our friends is, that there is something almost ghastly about the false air of festivity given by the constant receipt and opening of the parcels and boxes in which they are sent; in the listof names which, must be written out, in order that all who sent may be thanked or their names mentioned in the local paper; and in the smothered remarks of the servants and children as they look at the beauties, and compare the present one with the last one laid on the coffin in the room which is so familiar and yet has become so fearfully and wonderfully strange.
But if flowers need not be sent (and I wish I could think all would send the money instead to some special fund), letters should always be written. They may not be read at first—nay may never be really read at all—but the name of the writer will always be remembered warmly, and as that of one who knew that sympathy is the most precious gift we can any of us receive when we are in the depths, and that dark curtain descends which seems as if it would lie for ever between us and the outside world. Ah me! no matter who has died, it will rise again, and life will flow on just the same as if we had never lost those who were so near and so dear to us.
Undoubtedly, too, though we should none of us ever call at the house to inquire after a scarlet fever, small-pox, or diphtheria case, we should let our friends know through the post that we are thinking of them. If their child is ill we can make up tiny parcels to send. A few flowers; a paper doll; a few old books, which can be burned as soon as read; ‘scraps’ to paste into books; odds and ends which cost nothing and can be destroyed without a pang, often making a small child’s day of tedious weariness and slow convalescence, an entirely different thing to what it might have otherwise been; and the idea of what to-morrow’s post may bring has, to my knowledge, more than once soothed a tired little girl to rest; for she would go to sleep easier when she remembered that the sooner the night was over the sooner the familiar ring would be heard, and the lovely parcel would arrive, which might contain nothing more costly than glass beads for stringing, or some roses and a cheap little vase to put them in, but which was a never-ending source of wonder and delight, until the child was well and able to take her place again among her brothers and sisters.
In the sick room, which may be the death chamber, sympathy, always precious, becomes an absolute necessity, and a tedious day of pain is often borne more courageouslythan it otherwise would have been, and passes quicker than it otherwise might have done, if we know that people are thinking of us and wondering if there is anything they can do to lighten our time of trouble and to help us bear the inevitable misery of it all. A sick person, or an invalid, should never be forgotten. I verily believe half our dread of death comes from the fact that we know that soon we shall be as if we had never been, and that our place shall be taken by another and shall know us no more.
When we are quite sure that there is an infectious disease in our house, we ought to be compelled by Act of Parliament to register the fact at some convenient place, where a list of houses similarly infected should undoubtedly be exposed in a prominent place. None should be exempt from this law, and the doctor should be the person responsible for the registration, a severe penalty, moreover, being inflicted in any case of wilful misrepresentation or of the withholding of proper information of the outbreak.
That the penalty is necessary is proved by the fact that I once knew a country doctor speak of a bad attack of scarlet fever as a mild case of rose rash, because he was abjectly afraid of losing the patronage of the dame whose child it was, and who objected to the isolation which would have been her portion had the truth been known. Still the disease spread, owing to her selfishness and the doctor’s supineness, and the truth came out, but not before she had done endless mischief and caused the death of a child of one of her relations, who was sent into the house with his nurse to inquire after the ‘rose rash,’ and who would never have been allowed to pass even the same side of the street had his mother known the truth; and both the doctor and the patient’s mother were in consequence ostracised and isolated from their fellow-creatures far more completely and for a much longer period than they would have been had they boldly and at once told the truth.
Nowadays, with the slight exception of the law that we must not wilfully expose anyone suffering from an infectious disease in a public conveyance, we may do pretty much as we like.[A]We can send other members of thefamily to church or the theatre; we can send our washing to the public laundry, we may let our friends come and see us without mentioning what is the matter, and, in fact, there is no law except the moral law (which governs so few of us) to prevent us handing on the complaint to as many people as we can comfortably manage to infect. The registration would prevent this, as it would prevent us from stopping in a fever-bed or (as happened to me not a month ago) from sending a cat to be doctored in a house where there was a fatal case of scarlet fever; and how that cat didn’t bring it back to us is more than I can understand, but it did not. Albeit, any mother can understand what I felt until I knew all chance of infection was over from that source at all events.