“I AM glad to see, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “that the Women’s Domestic
Guild of America has succeeded in solving the servant girl problem—none
too soon, one might almost say.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the bacon and gave an
extra polish to the mustard-pot with her apron, “they are clever people
over there; leastways, so I’ve always ’eard.”
“This, their latest, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “I am inclined to regard as
their greatest triumph. My hope is that the Women’s Domestic Guild of
America, when it has finished with the United States and Canada, will,
perhaps, see its way to establishing a branch in England. There are
ladies of my acquaintance who would welcome, I feel sure, any really
satisfactory solution of the problem.”
“Well, good luck to it, is all I say,” responded Mrs. Wilkins, “and if it
makes all the gals contented with their places, and all the mistresses
satisfied with what they’ve got and ’appy in their minds, why, God bless
it, say I.”
“The mistake hitherto,” I said, “from what I read, appears to have been
that the right servant was not sent to the right place. What the Women’s
Domestic Guild of America proposes to do is to find the right servant for
the right place. You see the difference, don’t you, Mrs. Wilkins?”
“That’s the secret,” agreed Mrs. Wilkins. “They don’t anticipate any
difficulty in getting the right sort of gal, I take it?”
“I gather not, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied.
Mrs. Wilkins is of a pessimistic turn of mind.
“I am not so sure about it,” she said; “the Almighty don’t seem to ’ave
made too many of that sort. Unless these American ladies that you speak
of are going to start a factory of their own. I am afraid there is
disappointment in store for them.”
“Don’t throw cold water on the idea before it is fairly started, Mrs.
Wilkins,” I pleaded.
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I ’ave been a gal myself in service; and
in my time I‘ve ’ad a few mistresses of my own, and I’ve ’eard a good
deal about others. There are ladies and ladies, as you may know, sir,
and some of them, if they aren’t exactly angels, are about as near to it
as can be looked for in this climate, and they are not the ones that do
most of the complaining. But, as for the average mistress—well it ain’t
a gal she wants, it’s a plaster image, without any natural innards—a sort
of thing as ain’t ’uman, and ain’t to be found in ’uman nature. And then
she’d grumble at it, if it didn’t ’appen to be able to be in two places
at once.”
“You fear that the standard for that ‘right girl’ is likely to be set a
trifle too high Mrs. Wilkins,” I suggested.
“That ‘right gal,’ according to the notions of some of ’em,” retorted
Mrs. Wilkins, “’er place ain’t down ’ere among us mere mortals; ’er place
is up in ’eaven with a ’arp and a golden crown. There’s my niece, Emma,
I don’t say she is a saint, but a better ’earted, ’arder working gal, at
twenty pounds a year, you don’t expect to find, unless maybe you’re a
natural born fool that can’t ’elp yourself. She wanted a place. She ’ad
been ’ome for nearly six months, nursing ’er old father, as ’ad been down
all the winter with rheumatic fever; and ’ard-put to it she was for a few
clothes. You ’ear ’em talk about gals as insists on an hour a day for
practising the piano, and the right to invite their young man to spend
the evening with them in the drawing-room. Perhaps it is meant to be
funny; I ain’t come across that type of gal myself, outside the pictures
in the comic papers; and I’ll never believe, till I see ’er myself, that
anybody else ’as. They sent ’er from the registry office to a lady at
Clapton.
“‘I ’ope you are good at getting up early in the morning?’ says the lady,
‘I like a gal as rises cheerfully to ’er work.’
“‘Well, ma’am,’ says Emma, ‘I can’t say as I’ve got a passion for it.
But it’s one of those things that ’as to be done, and I guess I’ve learnt
the trick.’
“‘I’m a great believer in early rising,’ says my lady; ‘in the morning,
one is always fresher for one’s work; my ’usband and the younger children
breakfast at ’arf past seven; myself and my eldest daughter ’ave our
breakfest in bed at eight.’
“‘That’ll be all right, ma’am,’ says Emma.
“‘And I ’ope,’ says the lady, ‘you are of an amiable disposition. Some
gals when you ring the bell come up looking so disagreeable, one almost
wishes one didn’t want them.’
“‘Well, it ain’t a thing,’ explains Emma, ‘as makes you want to burst out
laughing, ’earing the bell go off for the twentieth time, and ’aving
suddenly to put down your work at, perhaps, a critical moment. Some
ladies don’t seem able to reach down their ’at for themselves.’
“‘I ’ope you are not impertinent,’ says the lady; ‘if there’s one thing
that I object to in a servant it is impertinence.’
“‘We none of us like being answered back,’ says Emma, ‘more particularly
when we are in the wrong. But I know my place ma’am, and I shan’t give
you no lip. It always leads to less trouble, I find, keeping your mouth
shut, rather than opening it.’
“‘Are you fond of children,’ asks my lady.
“‘It depends upon the children,’ says Emma; ‘there are some I ’ave ’ad to
do with as made the day seem pleasanter, and I’ve come across others as I
could ’ave parted from at any moment without tears.’
“‘I like a gal,’ says the lady, ‘who is naturally fond of children, it
shows a good character.’
“‘How many of them are there?’ says Emma.
“‘Four of them,’ answers my lady, ‘but you won’t ’ave much to do except
with the two youngest. The great thing with young children is to
surround them with good examples. Are you a Christian?’ asks my lady.
“‘That’s what I’m generally called,’ says Emma.
“‘Every other Sunday evening out is my rule,’ says the lady, ‘but of
course I shall expect you to go to church.’
“‘Do you mean in my time, ma’am,’ says Emma, ‘or in yours.’
“‘I mean on your evening of course,’ says my lady. ‘’Ow else could you
go?’
“‘Well, ma’am,’ says Emma, ‘I like to see my people now and then.’
“‘There are better things,’ says my lady, ‘than seeing what you call your
people, and I should not care to take a girl into my ’ouse as put ’er
pleasure before ’er religion. You are not engaged, I ’ope?’
“‘Walking out, ma’am, do you mean?’ says Emma. ‘No, ma’am, there is
nobody I’ve got in my mind—not just at present.’
“‘I never will take a gal,’ explains my lady, ‘who is engaged. I find it
distracts ’er attention from ’er work. And I must insist if you come to
me,’ continues my lady, ‘that you get yourself another ’at and jacket.
If there is one thing I object to in a servant it is a disposition to
cheap finery.’
“’Er own daughter was sitting there beside ’er with ’alf a dozen silver
bangles on ’er wrist, and a sort of thing ’anging around ’er neck, as,
’ad it been real, would ’ave been worth perhaps a thousand pounds. But
Emma wanted a job, so she kept ’er thoughts to ’erself.
“‘I can put these things by and get myself something else,’ she says, ‘if
you don’t mind, ma’am, advancing me something out of my first three
months’ wages. I’m afraid my account at the bank is a bit overdrawn.’
“The lady whispered something to ’er daughter. ‘I am afraid, on thinking
it over,’ she says, ‘that you won’t suit, after all. You don’t look
serious enough. I feel sure, from the way you do your ’air,’ says my
lady, ‘there’s a frivolous side to your nature.’
“So Emma came away, and was not, on the whole, too sorry.”
“But do they get servants to come to them, this type of mistress, do you
think, Mrs. Wilkins?” I asked.
“They get them all right,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “and if it’s a decent gal,
it makes a bad gal of ’er, that ever afterwards looks upon every mistress
as ’er enemy, and acts accordingly. And if she ain’t a naturally good
gal, it makes ’er worse, and then you ’ear what awful things gals are. I
don’t say it’s an easy problem,” continued Mrs. Wilkins, “it’s just like
marriages. The good mistress gets ’old of the bad servant, and the bad
mistress, as often as not is lucky.”
“But how is it,” I argued, “that in hotels, for instance, the service is
excellent, and the girls, generally speaking, seem contented? The work
is hard, and the wages not much better, if as good.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “you ’ave ’it the right nail on the ’ead, there,
sir. They go into the ’otels and work like niggers, knowing that if a
single thing goes wrong they will be bully-ragged and sworn at till they
don’t know whether they are standing on their ’ead or their ’eels. But
they ’ave their hours; the gal knows when ’er work is done, and when the
clock strikes she is a ’uman being once again. She ’as got that moment
to look forward to all day, and it keeps ’er going. In private service
there’s no moment in the day to ’ope for. If the lady is reasonable she
ain’t overworked; but no ’ow can she ever feel she is her own mistress,
free to come and go, to wear ’er bit of finery, to ’ave ’er bit of fun.
She works from six in the morning till eleven or twelve at night, and
then she only goes to bed provided she ain’t wanted. She don’t belong to
’erself at all; it’s that that irritates them.”
“I see your point, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “and, of course, in a house
where two or three servants were kept some such plan might easily be
arranged. The girl who commenced work at six o’clock in the morning
might consider herself free at six o’clock in the evening. What she did
with herself, how she dressed herself in her own time, would be her
affair. What church the clerk or the workman belongs to, what company he
keeps, is no concern of the firm. In such matters, mistresses, I am
inclined to think, saddle themselves with a responsibility for which
there is no need. If the girl behaves herself while in the house, and
does her work, there the contract ends. The mistress who thinks it her
duty to combine the _rôles_ of employer and of maiden aunt is naturally
resented. The next month the girl might change her hours from twelve to
twelve, and her fellow-servant could enjoy the six a.m. to six p.m.
shift. But how do you propose to deal, Mrs. Wilkins, with the smaller
_menage_, that employs only one servant?”
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it seems to me simple enough. Ladies
talk pretty about the dignity of labour, and are never tired of pointing
out why gals should prefer domestic service to all other kinds of work.
Suppose they practise what they preach. In the ’ouse, where there’s only
the master and the mistress, and, say a couple of small children, let the
lady take her turn. After all, it’s only her duty, same as the office or
the shop is the man’s. Where, on the other ’and, there are biggish boys
and gals about the place, well it wouldn’t do them any ’arm to be taught
to play a little less, and to look after themselves a little more. It’s
just arranging things—that’s all that’s wanted.”
“You remind me of a family I once knew, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said; “it
consisted of the usual father and mother, and of five sad, healthy girls.
They kept two servants—or, rather, they never kept any servants; they
lived always looking for servants, breaking their hearts over servants,
packing servants off at a moment’s notice, standing disconsolately
looking after servants who had packed themselves off at a moment’s
notice, wondering generally what the world was coming too. It occurred
to me at the time, that without much trouble, they could have lived a
peaceful life without servants. The eldest girl was learning
painting—and seemed unable to learn anything else. It was poor sort of
painting; she noticed it herself. But she seemed to think that, if she
talked a lot about it, and thought of nothing else, that somehow it would
all come right. The second girl played the violin. She played it from
early morning till late evening, and friends fell away from them. There
wasn’t a spark of talent in the family, but they all had a notion that a
vague longing to be admired was just the same as genius.
“Another daughter fancied she would like to be an actress, and screamed
all day in the attic. The fourth wrote poetry on a typewriter, and
wondered why nobody seemed to want it; while the fifth one suffered from
a weird belief that smearing wood with a red-hot sort of poker was a
thing worth doing for its own sake. All of them seemed willing enough to
work, provided only that it was work of no use to any living soul. With
a little sense, and the occasional assistance of a charwoman, they could
have led a merrier life.”
“If I was giving away secrets,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I’d say to the
mistresses: ‘Show yourselves able to be independent.’ It’s because the
gals know that the mistresses can’t do without them that they sometimes
gives themselves airs.”