by placing three narrow shelves, one above the other, the top shelf enamelled the colour of the paint in that special passage, and the whole concealed from view by a double serge curtain, nailed along the top shelf with ornamental nails. This curtain must not be run on a rod, for it isno trouble to lift it; while if it be on a rod, it will be always out of place, and leave the boots and shoes on view in the most embarrassing manner. The contents of the shelves can be kept from dust by nailing Holland on the shelves of a sufficient width to fold over the boots, and so keep them quite safely from any undue accumulation of dust, while the top of the outside shelf can be used for ornaments. But the fewer of these there are in any passage the better, especially in a small house; one does not require more dust traps than one is absolutely obliged to have lest the place should appear barren and devoid of prettiness and attractive plenishings.
The over-mantel must serve as a toilet-glass, and this arrangement I personally prefer to any other, especially in the winter; but if the husband shaves—as it seems to me so many more men do nowadays than formerly—despite the hateful influenza, fogs and other trifles born of the end of the century, a regular shaving-glass can be set for him when the room is put ready for him at night; this canbe removed to the bathroom during the day and the room need not give it a home then on any pretext whatever!
It is an excellent thing to have instead of either the ottoman or the courting settee a sofa-bed which resembles a couch by day, and can be turned into a regular bed at night, for often such a bed can be most useful. I like the ‘grasshopper’ couch, which I have only seen at Hamilton’s, at Ship Street in Brighton, but this has no provision for the bed-clothes. These could be placed quite well in a drawer made under the couch; or Shoolbred has a species of convertible box-ottoman which would perhaps be best, as the bed-clothes could be quite well placed there during the day. Yet another cheaper method would be to purchase one of the folding beds with wire mattresses complete, sold by Story & Triggs for about 18s. 6d. These could have the extra mattress and pillows put into frilled cretonne covers all day, the bed-clothes being folded and put under the mattress comfortably during the same period.
Of course, a deep cretonne flounce should be placed round the frame of the bed, which under these circumstances would look like an ordinary low broad sofa. The bed should be pushed against the wall, against which pillows and cushions should be placed, and this would make a species of back, against which it would be possible to lean most comfortably. Given this, the desk washing-stand, and two or three low and comfortable chairs, and I think little else is necessary.
If much sewing has to be done, a little work-table can always be brought here from any other larger room, for there are plenty to be had now which hold a great deal of work, and yet can be carried by one hand. I have seen one specially good table the top of which is deep and is fitted for all kinds of sewing, while the under tray has a bag-like top of sateen or tapestry drawn together by strings, and this, I am assured, is invaluable for holding socks and other garments which require mending and overhauling by materfamilias herself. I am no ‘stitchist,’ and I do not think I ever possessed a thimble since my very earliest schoolroom days, and even then it was more often lost than availablefor its purpose, and I can most certainly say that I never had the smallest desire to know how to sew, but there are heaps of women who love to work, and of course there are more still who are obliged to do it and take it as a matter of course. And if the special mistress who may want to use the dressing room during the day is in any way devoted to her needle, she must have a good work-basket which she can remove when not in use, and which can stand in the bedroom or sitting-room when she does not require it. If the dressing-room is thus arranged I am sure it will add immensely to her comfort, for here she will have a refuge from everyone, and be able to be alone for some hours during the day, in a room where she will not be easily accessible and which will have nothing of the bedroom about it. That, by the way, is a great consideration; for let no one, not even in the smallest house, fall into the desperate error of sitting in the room in which she sleeps. I have twice had similar rooms where, of course, the bedroom portion has been carefully screened or curtained off, but unless one is a chronic invalid, such an arrangement is no goodat all, and even if one is ill, and yet is able to get up, it is far better to go into a second room on the same floor, for no screen or curtain can give one any sense of real seclusion, and no one can have a room properly aired or cleaned unless it is left when one rises and not entered, save perhaps for dressing purposes, for the rest of the day. Therefore resist the temptation of the idea of a combined bed and sitting-room, unless you are reduced to one room only for all purposes, or are not a householder, or are a ‘paying guest’ (polite language for ‘lodger’) in someone else’s abode. Under these circumstances, Wallace’s ‘worker’s room’ must be sought after and found, and its arrangements of course, make any room habitable at once. If the dressing-room is used, as suggested, for a retreat, the bathroom must be arranged in such a way that the master of the house can dress there with comfort; but no garments of any sort must be kept there, neither must the linen closet be on any account near the hot-water apparatus which dominates the bathroom. If it is, the linen will become yellow androtten, and in a small house it is much better to apportion the linen into so many special amounts for each room, and keep these portions in the rooms for which they are intended. An extra cupboard being put up somewhere: perhaps in the maids’ sitting-room, in which all table-linen can be kept. Great attention must be paid to the linen closet, and something should be bought for it every year without fail. As a rule I am no friend to ‘sales,’ and believe not one jot in the ‘ruinous sacrifices’ and ‘vast reductions’ which characterise them, but linen can often be purchased most wonderfully reduced in price at such times, more especially at Walpole Brothers in New Bond Street, and the house-mistress should always avail herself of these opportunities to keep up her stock, not laying in vast quantities, but keeping it up to its full strength. Unless this is done it is wonderful how soon a small stock of linen wears out and disappears, and one has the vexatious and expensive task of renewing the whole at once, which no one should ever be called upon for one moment to do.
So many people possess what is called a ‘hotcloset’ in or near the bathroom, that these words of advice are not so out of place as they appear to be at first sight when writing about this special chamber; but the charms of this said ‘hot closet’ must be resisted if the linen is meant to wear, while great care must be taken to see that every single thing sent home from the laundress is properly aired, not only before it is put away, but also before it is taken into use. Damp clothes may kill or maim a person for life, and clothes may quite well become damp again after the first airing, more especially if they are kept in the ordinary cupboard of the very ordinary suburban residence.
Now if the bathroom should have to be used as a dressing-room, it must not have more furniture in it on that account than would be placed there under ordinary circumstances, but it should be papered with a really good tiled and varnished paper, and the wood-work should be enamelled ‘real ivory.’ I think Godfrey Giles’s ‘Mexican Tile’ paper simply perfect, but this is a little expensive; still, if it cannot be afforded, it will serve as a hint to go upon, and Mr Giles must be asked for something in the same admirablecolouring, but in a less expensive make. At the same time a cheap paper will not do in a bathroom; if we use one, the steam from the hot water will soon destroy it and make it flabby and untidy; and we shall either have the expense of re-papering or have to endure the sight of a torn and spoiled wall, which will make us unhappy every time we enter the place. The ceiling in the bathroom should always be colour washed the same pale cream colour which is used for the cornice, and the floor should be entirely covered with cork carpet. If the window is overlooked at all, it should be filled in with cathedral glass in leaded squares, or else should be stippled all over; we should then have serge curtains to draw easily over the glass, but we should never put muslin here: it rots at once, and is always flabby and disagreeable to look at and touch, and no decorative considerations should allow us to put it where it must be so singularly out of place.
In writing of the bedrooms, I quite forgot to urge upon my readers the fact that they should never under any circumstances allow themselvesto be talked into buying the detestable regulation towel-horse, which is always in the way, and can never under any circumstances be necessary, while no skill can make it anything save an eyesore. Its place can usually be taken by putting a brass rod on very small brackets at each end of the ordinary washing-stand, or on the wall itself should the washing-stand be a round or a corner one, while a good brass rod must be put on the bathroom wall for the same purpose, sufficiently out from the wall so that the wet towels do not touch the paper. Moreover in well-regulated houses, the bath towels should be dried by the housemaid at the fire, and each person should bring his or her towels into the bathroom when he or she is about to use it, and take them away again when the bathing is finished, the brass rod being used merely to hang up the bath blankets, though they also must be duly dried by the fire, and not be laid down on the floor except the bath be in the process of being used.
These bath blankets can be purchased ready embroidered of Mrs Hanbury-Jephson,Towcester, and, like every other thing, should be bought to harmonise with the colours already used in the decorations of the room. If we have some good brass hooks on the door on which to hang the raiment we either take off or are about to put on, and have also one good strong kitchen or Windsor chair, and a proper lavatory glass with a shelf to hold brushes and combs, we shall not require any more furniture here, for remember steam and heat spoil anything in the way of good wood or manufacture; but I do plead very hard for a lavatory basin, with hot and cold water laid on and a self-emptying basin. It does not seem very much to ask for, but I wonder how often such a contrivance is to be found in the orthodox small house? Yet it is in just such a residence that these necessities should be found, for if hot and cold water be easily get-at-able, what an amount of servants’ work is saved! No one minds washing his or her hands in the bathroom, while if there is no such convenience, the maids have continually to be placing hot water in the bedrooms and emptyingbasins, to say nothing of the fact that heavy jugs have to be lifted and replaced every time the bedroom washing-stand is used. This is a thing which is bad even for a strong servant and hurts a delicate woman in a serious way, therefore let us hope that lavatory basins will soon be found in all houses, small and big, and that the labour-making washing-stand may soon be numbered among the dead-and-gone mistakes of an ignorant past.
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 asnothing 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 noportièreinside 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 coveredin 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 conscientiousmaids 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!
Inthe 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 tobe 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 thebreakfast 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 bestto 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 andin 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 parlourwork 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 marrymust 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.
People are continually writing to me, and also to everyone else who gives advice on the special subjects of house management and decoration, about this servant question, and, moreover, as continually ask how to divide or apportion their special incomes to their special wants; but they cannot see how utterly impossible it is for a complete stranger to do more than vaguely generalise on either subject. The servant question has always been simplicity itself to me, and I cannot understand the difficulties which beset so many women in these days, simply because I have never come across them myself. But then, I do not expect perfection. I give fair wages, and am as considerate to the maids as they are to me, and I am not unduly dismayed or cast down when I discern faults and failings that are human after all, and denote that at present,at least, we have not reached the golden age. At the same time, I am convinced that the real trouble, as I said before, is caused in small houses by the ‘composite maid’ being called a cook, or house parlour-maid, when she is just either a general servant, or else a housemaid; and in larger ones by sufficient care not being taken to obtain the kind of maiden one really does want, and by expecting too much from her when she is in our service.
The life of the ordinary domestic servant, despite the delirious joy of the tradesman’s daily calls, is an extremely dull one. The routine is everlasting, the relaxations few, and the changes still fewer. In many households a friend to tea is a crime; an unexpected holiday an impossibility; while the days follow each other in a wearisome routine which would tell on the nerves of anyone even far more highly educated than is the orthodox maid-servant. How many brilliant summer days pass, and no one suggests an afternoon or evening stroll, or even a drive through the country lanes. How many dreary winter days go by, and no one says thereis a good play at such and such a theatre, go and see it. Or who takes concert seats, and sends off the maids for a couple of hours from the everlasting kitchen and the weary round of unending duties? Well, some people do, and where this occurs there the maids often stay on and on, giving real and loving service, and doing their utmost for those who try to do their utmost for them.
Then once more how few maids really have and possess their mistress’s confidence. They hear a vast amount of grumbling about ‘the books,’ and the dreadful waste which does go on, often enough more through ignorance than through their carelessness; but they do not comprehend that there is an all-important reason why such waste should not be allowed, because the mistress has never explained matters to the maids, or told them there is necessity for great care in all the household departments. As a rule servants have what they consider the ‘honour of the house’ very near their hearts; and they cannot endure the notion that their mistress shall even be suspected of ‘meanness.’ And this is often the cause of the needless ordersgiven in those establishments where the tradesmen are allowed to call; for, rather than send them away without an order, the servants will rack their brains to think of something, not because they really desire to swell the bills, but because they like their house to be one of which the tradespeople speak well, and because they will not have it spoken of as a ‘mean sort of place, where every halfpenny is counted and made to do the duty of a penny piece.’ Then too, at the bottom of a great deal of domestic mismanagement is the utter and really ghastly thriftlessness of the lower classes, which no one who has not seen it could credit.
I have had to be a great deal away from my own house, owing to long-continued illness, and in consequence I have seen a great deal of the way in which other people manage, and I boldly say that I have seen more waste and real extravagance among people who ought to save absolutely every bone and piece of bread than among those who could really afford to waste, did they not consider it wicked to do so. While the lower one goes in the social scale, themore one finds waste the order of the day; and not only actual waste, but the waste of having the best joints, the most expensive butter, and the continual variety of food that no one in the upper middle classes can afford, even should they think it necessary to have it. I have noticed real want existing among a specially improvident set of people, while, at the same time, I have been shocked to see great lumps of meat and bread (unpaid for) in the pigs’ tub. The young people of these households would have their boots blacked for them, their hot water and bath water carried up for them, and be waited on, before they went out to their shops or work, as one’s own children would never dream of being waited on, in a much much higher rank of life. In these households the servants have simply an awful time of it, and hence class prejudice is fostered terribly, while the unthrifty ways of the household leave their mark on all who pass through it, and help to build up a class that is in every way unsatisfactory.
We hear a great deal of the competition ofthe foreigner, and there are loud shouts for ‘protection’ and ‘fair trade,’ but the ‘protection’ we want is against our own wasteful habits and ways of living, and we can never have ‘fair trade’ until we comprehend what waste really is, and know what is necessary to keep a household going and what is not. And this servant question is the verycruxof the whole matter, and, alas! is very little understood by the public at large, which seems quite incapable of grappling with the problem, although few people exist who have not a more or less loudly-expressed opinion on the subject.
It is also a problem which can never be solved until all have learned real thrift and carefulness, and until all classes learn how to trust each other, and the special conduct which should be maintained in all relations in life. Though the tendency nowadays to live in flats, and have as many meals as one can at a restaurant or hotel, may solve the servant question quicker than in any other way, regardless of the fact that a class of useful women will thus be improved off the face of the world in a manner I, for one, shallbe extremely sorry to see. But flats are fleeting joys at best. I have heard of many people going to live in them, and have never known anyone renew his or her lease; so perhaps the pendulum may swing back again, and houses become the order of the day.
As long as servants are required, the best way to obtain them at first is for the young mistress to train them herself, always keeping on hand an under-study for the part of the upper-servant in the shape of kitchen and under-housemaids; in this way lie a sure success and comfortable domestic arrangements. Of course there are hundreds of small establishments where a couple of maids is all that can be allowed. These must be as described before, general and housemaid, then all will go rightly, providing care is taken to obtain good girls from good families, who have not been spoiled by a careless or bad mistress, or ruined by an unhappy and thriftless home training, which is often indeed worse than none. In a larger house where there are children; six maids and a boy to help, are the maximum; namely, cook and kitchen-maid,parlour-maid and housemaid, nurse and nursemaid; here again things will be all right, and there will be no over-work or under-work in the matter. Lucky is she who, by tie of birth or friendship, is connected with some country town or village, which shall act as her preserve, and from whence she can always draw fresh supplies should matrimony or other cause thin her domestic ranks and compel her to look out for another maiden.
But in all and every case should the registry office be most carefully avoided. If a servant or mistress has a ‘good name,’ exceptional indeed must be the circumstances that drive her to make use of these places. If a decent maid is leaving her place, the tradespeople know all about her and will tell her of the good places which may be open; and in the same way a really ‘good place’ doesn’t go begging. The tradesmen know of that too, and often act as a sort of informal registry-office which I have invariably found most useful in every manner. Then having caught one’s maids, let us consider how best to keep them, and undoubtedly is thisdone by making them as comfortable as we can, and by showing that we have a real interest in whatever they may have or do.
I have already written about the room they should have to sit in. Now let us consider those they should have for sleeping purposes, for often these are as badly arranged as they can be; economy is studied on the one hand, which on the other results in an amount of expenditure which is as unnecessary as it is worrying and distasteful to all concerned. One of these petty economies is that which consists of making a couple of maids share one bed, and that one anything but a comfortable place of rest and refuge. Now this should never be done. The economy consists in the saving of the washing of a pair of sheets, the misery comes in when the unwilling bedfellows quarrel and determine to move on elsewhere. In no case should more than two maids sleep in one room, and in every case such room should hold a couple of beds and a double set of washing-stands, drawers and toilet-table, and, moreover, there should be a good hanging wardrobe of some kind. If possible, once more theever-useful P. T. C. from Wallace’s should be pressed into the service, and should decorate a couple of the room corners, one being devoted to the use of each maid, whose dresses will last twice as long if she have proper room for them, and if she have not to cram them into her small chest of drawers, shared all too often by her fellow-servant.
I consider Knowles’s sanitary papers quite ideal for the maids’ bedrooms, and there is a dainty ‘daffodil’ paper that no one can dislike or despise, and which can be wiped over once a month, if necessary, with a damp duster and come out as clean as a new pin. With this paper we could have earth-brown paint, and Liberty’s ever-useful dark blue and white butterfly cretonne, edged with frills, and blue and white dhurries on the stained floor. But if the floor is bad, and in the least degree draughty, it must first be covered with cork carpet, on which rugs or the ever useful dhurries can be laid down. Some suburban floors are amenable to no other treatment. We may plane them carefully, and ‘stop’ them ascarefully too, but they will begin to gape at the smallest change in the weather, or at the sight of the first fire, and one can neither keep out the draughts nor the gently-drifting dust that penetrates at every corner, and spoils tempers and properties alike. Cork carpet I consider a most blessed invention, as it makes a capital background, and is warm and comfortable and quite spotlessly clean. This should be ‘gone over’ once a week in bedrooms of this class with a damp duster; and once a month should have a healthful polish with Jackson’s camphorated beeswax polish, made on purpose. The rugs should be shaken out of doors once a week, and, whenever possible the beds and bedding should be alike exposed to the sun and air in the garden; or, if not, in the rooms themselves, taking care that all windows and doors are open and a thorough draught ensured.
Indeed if we got more sun and more air into all our houses, every girl’s health would be far better than it is now; but despite all the preaching in the world, English women stuff up the windows with blinds and curtains, and shiver at the ideaof fresh air, while they dread the fading of their curtains and carpets in a manner that would be ludicrous were it not so essentially harmful. Naturally too the genus domestic servant dreads open windows more than her mistress does, and will not air her bed if she can possibly avoid doing so. But if there is a rule that a fine, hot day shall see the mattresses, blankets and pillows on chairs in the garden for at least an hour after breakfast, the airing is ensured without the ‘poking and prying about,’ which is as distasteful to the mistress as it is disagreeable to the maid. In all cases too, the beds here as elsewhere, should consist of good hair mattresses laid on chain mattresses. These chains should be covered first by a square of holland, tied at the four corners, and this should be sent to the wash about every three months. The mattresses and pillows should be covered also, either with crash or holland cases, capable of being washed whenever necessary, and these covers will save the beds immensely from wear and tear, and ensure cleanliness at the same time. Wallace has a very good suite of servant’s furniture to sell for something under£5, but I think we should spend rather more on the bed, which is a very fair one, but not quite good enough if we are very particular, as we should be, about the comfort of the bed, as a hair mattress is impossible for this sum, and a hair mattress must be had if the bed is to be a real place of rest. Furthermore, I think the beds should have two pillows, as well as a bolster, and a second pillow should therefore be added, and all beds should have five blankets: one for the under blanket, and two pairs for over use. These should be sent to the wash in the spring; one pair at a time; and the beds should be supplemented with good heavy coloured counterpanes; the colour looks cheerful, and also ensures the quilts not looking dirty before they ought to.
The simpler the sets of ware the better, for, somehow, china never lasts long in the ordinary servant’s room. I think she rushes up at the last moment to wash and dress; she certainly gets up in the morning at the last possible instant she can, and the usual results of haste ensue. The handles come off the carelessly-seized jug, the soap-dish flies about, and thebasins are literally ‘whacked’ down, because there is not time to treat them properly, therefore the excellent sets of blue and white ware Wallace sells at about 4s. 6d. should be the outside price to which we should go, taking care all the sets are alike; then one can supplement the other when smashes begin; and quite plain glasses and water-bottles should also be procured, in as stout a make as possible. Glass tumblers literally vanish in servants’ bedrooms, and I am often amazed at the way in which they disappear, one after the other, to a grave on the ash-heap or in the dust-bin.
Another thing on which we may with advantage spend a little more money is the looking-glass, and that without unduly encouraging vanity, for the usual one sold with the cheap suits is much too small to be of any real use. A girl cannot do her hair and arrange her dress neatly unless she has a glass large enough to allow of her doing so by its aid, and we should therefore choose the maid’s looking-glass as carefully as we should our own; but we should allow one each, if we wish for peace. More domesticquarrels are caused by the usual one small glass than many house mistresses are probably aware take place at all.
It is certain that all mistresses should, at least twice a year, thoroughly inspect all the furniture in the maids’ rooms, and replace then if possible, all that has been worn out during the past six months, but under no circumstances should this inspection take place without the presence of the maids, or when it is not expected. Nothing is more disagreeable to the ordinary mind than the idea that one’s room is not one’s castle; and many mistresses have made themselves eternal enemies by insisting on their undoubted right to enter any room in their own houses whenever they wish to do so. That the right is so undoubted should render it unnecessary to exact its performance. By all means see the rooms are all right, but do it at a proper season, and without the smallest idea of ‘pounce’ in it.
I do not think it wise to have gas in the maids’ rooms, unless it is turned off at the meter by the master at a certain hour, and yet it is undoubtedly safer than any other light,and is as undoubtedly cleaner. I have for years used nothing save the little ‘Butterfly’ lamps sold by A. & A. Drew, of Wareham, Dorset, but these are not good in careless hands, because the chimneys are so constantly being broken, and because the oil is capable of being spilled. Candles are worse possessions, as so many maids will read in bed, will smash the shades without which no candle can possibly be safe, and will drop grease from them on every available space. Remembering also that the dark winter mornings have to be considered, I am fain to retract my old belief that gas in a servant’s room spelt ruin, and to allow it reluctantly, placed near the looking glasses and not near the beds, and having woven-wire globes to protect the flame, similar to those used in places of business and in large schools; as the ordinary glass globe has even a shorter existence than the tumbler, and is broken in less time than it takes to tell about it.
If in any way possible, the beds should be placed against the wall, and foot to foot, with about 2 feet space between the ends of thebeds. In this case a dado should be run round that portion of the wall where the beds stand, and this should be of plain brown patternless oil-cloth, and should have a real dado rail; this would keep the wall tidy for years. In no case must the dressing-tables be placed in the window, and blinds must never be allowed. If there is much sun, the dark blue and white cretonne curtains can be lined with still darker blue sateen, and if the windows are large muslin can be stretched upon them as in all other windows in the house; but blinds are an expense and an abomination. They are always out of order, are very rarely drawn up straight, and are as needless as they are dear and unsatisfactory. The dark curtains draw easily and cannot be drawn crooked, and are in every way much more sensible and useful than blinds.
I think that there should be fireplaces in all servants’ rooms. First because of the ventilation a chimney affords,—and the bi-annual inspection should include a glance at the chimney to see it is in nowise stuffed up—and secondly, becauseit is imperative that we should be able to have a fire there if necessary. It may sound improbable, but it is true, that the average suburban villa is colder than the cottages from which country maids come, where the thatched roofs and the thick walls often keep out extremes of temperature in a manner a jerry-built house ever can.
And here is one more hint. Let the roof of the house be white-washed in summer, if it be slated and the bedrooms come right up under it, for this makes an enormous difference to the temperature of the rooms, which is often enough simply awful even in a merely average summer without any very abnormal heat, while, should we have any real heat, these rooms become similar to ovens, and are really terrible for anyone to have to sleep in. Then have outside blinds of some kind; plain strips of dark green or blue linen placed outside the glass are better than nothing, though Williams’ green reed blinds are the best things in the world, if they can be afforded; and above all white-wash your roofs. You will berewarded in the difference in the maids’ tempers, and health, which, are very often one and the same thing.
Now just one word more, and that on the vexed subject of food. You should feed the servants as much as possible as you feed yourselves, and then will you have peace and not otherwise. In another place I have dwelt at large on this matter; here it is sufficient to say that if a thing is good enough for the dining-room, it is good enough for the kitchen. Allowancing should never be resorted to, there is something about it that revolts the kitchen or servants’ hall, and it is as unnecessary in a well-managed house as it is useless and suspicious.
It will be seen, from the perusal of this little book, that the art of living in a suburban house is not quite as easy as it appears at first sight. At the same time it is without doubt one that can be acquired, and if our lot should be cast in the suburbs, it is positively necessary that we should learn to live there comfortably, unless we wish to be always on the move. Should what I have written on the subject help anyone tocircumvent the special house he or she has selected, and to turn it from an unsatisfactorily-built villa into a comfortable home, I shall not have written in vain. At all events, the book has one merit, it is the outcome of real experience, and there is not a single ounce of imagination in the whole of it!
THE END.
Colston and Coy., Limited, Printers, Edinburgh.
STORY & TRIGGS
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