THE GIRLS’ ROOM.
In writing about the girls’ room, I mean to consider a great deal more
than decoration, though naturally that will not be neglected, for I am
more and more convinced as years go by that something definite must be
done in the way of providing for the women who flood the market and
struggle--alas! that it should be so--in the open streets with men for
their living, instead of contenting themselves with being the helpmeets
of those with whom they wage this unseemly warfare. I have a very strong
opinion that people should not bring into the world any more children
than they can reasonably hope to equip in some measure for the fight.
Boys can always make their way, women cannot; and though I do not agree
with Mr. Besant, who declares that women hate work and do not wish ever
to do anything, I do think that no woman should be obliged to work for
mere food and clothes--at all events in the ranks above the lower middle
classes; and that no woman’s constitution can stand the anxiety of
providing her own sustenance, and at the same time doing work to procure
this sustenance; for anxiety paralyses a woman, and the more she is
obliged to take thought for the morrow the less able is she to ensure
the morrow’s being provided for by her work. She should, therefore,
never be placed in a position in which she is literally forced out into
public strife, unless from her very earliest days she has been brought
up among workers and taught that her future can be nothing but severe
toil.
Can one speak too strongly of the wicked selfishness of people who bring
ten or eleven children into the world, knowing that, were they to die
to-morrow, the unhappy creatures would either starve, or do worse than
starve in the workhouse or in one of those excellent and stony-hearted
institutions where the child becomes a unit among hundreds of uniformed
units, with never a pretty frock or sash among them, and never a chance
of anything save work outside the walls and of an ultimate grave?--of
the insensate and odious conduct of those parents who bring up their
children to have every single thing they require, and then, when the
girls do not marry and grow old at home, leave them penniless when
totally unable to work, because they have never known they must--never
have learned a single thing worth knowing, and that they must either
starve genteelly or live on their overburdened relations, or add to the
already fearful number of people who paint dreadful little tables and
tambourines, sew infamously, or try the thousand and one ways of making
a little money, which cheapen the market and bring institutions for the
sale of work done by ladies into the profoundest contempt? I say that
the State should interfere, and force a man to lay by for his daughters,
at least so much that will keep them from such an end, or to give them
such an education that at any moment they could work--could do the work
that from their earliest days they should learn is waiting for them in
the near future; and that if a man’s own sense will not teach him that
he has no right to make helpless women suffer (as women must suffer who
find themselves destitute in middle age), he should be treated like a
criminal and punished by a jury, which should be composed of women who
have suffered in their turn through their parents’ selfishness.
Naturally this would be impossible, but I do wish men’s consciences
could be awakened, and every successful man who is working hard,
spending all he makes, and adding yearly to the frocked darlings in the
nursery with scarcely an _arrière pensée_, would remember in the dead of
the night, when one’s sins generally find one out, that the day of
reckoning will come--that some day the children brought up in luxury and
accustomed to think the world their own will be faded spinsters (for out
of a large family some are sure to remain unmarried in these days), and
that all the sweetness and light of the early life will be forgotten,
and the father will be cursed when these faded, sorrowful women have to
look forward to nothing but patient starvation or a corner grudged to
them by their more successful relations, to whom they can never be
anything save incumbrances; for these disappointed ones of the earth
always resent prosperity in anyone else, and are apt to snarl and snap
at those who dole them out the bread they so unwillingly take.
Why should not the State compel every working man with two or more
daughters (after two the case should be legislated for) to pay in a part
of his income to some fund for providing for the women? And by working
men I mean those who have no capital except their brains--the artists,
lawyers, clergymen, professional men of all kinds, who have nothing but
themselves to depend upon. The man making and spending his 1,500_l._ a
year should be forced to put by at least 200_l._ a year for the poor
girls who come into the world without their own consent, and who are
left absolutely destitute, save of a certain amount of distaste for
anything save enjoyment, and an absolute dislike of doing anything save
just what it pleases them to do at the moment; while at the same time a
properly mapped-out education should be provided that will enable them
to earn something in addition to the pittance the State would be keeping
for them against a rainy day, but which would be something on which they
could rely with certainty, and which would allow them to contemplate
possible illness without the deadly sinking that fills the breast of any
woman who has absolutely nothing but her own self to rely upon, and who
knows she must starve or seek the cold comfort of the corner mentioned
before if she cannot continue her labour.
I cannot put the case too strongly before the fathers and mothers who
may read this book; for, after all, they must be their own State, and do
their own legislating. They must not have enormous families that they
cannot feed, clothe, or educate respectably; and they must so manage
their affairs that the girls can rely on the 100_l._ a year, which is
all I ask for--all that is absolutely necessary to keep a single woman
in comfort, but not luxury; the luxuries must be earned or gone without.
They must do this, I say, unless they wish to look down from whence they
may go after death, and have their hearts lacerated and torn by the
sight of the women they have left to starve and to curse those who have
entailed so much misery on them. There surely would be some insurance
company who would undertake to do for all what the Edinburgh Life
Assurance Company, 11 King William Street, E.C., does for
schoolmistresses who like to pay in a certain amount yearly--viz. pay
them a pension at a certain age, or else a sum of money, whichever they
prefer; and the parents could, as soon as they added another daughter to
the household, begin providing for her. If they cannot do this, I
maintain they are absolutely wicked in adding that little life to the
overwhelming population already here.
There is no misery to be compared to the misery of a woman who, never
having imagined her future can be aught but a sheltered one, finds
herself at middle age absolutely destitute and at the mercy of her
relations. She has no claim on anyone but her parents, and she knows
this, and suffers infinitely. Therefore those parents must contemplate
this: must understand that marriage does not come to the lot of
everyone, and that, even if it does, the woman should not go penniless
to her husband, but should have some small allowance to enable her to
feel independent, and to add to her house, or her children’s pleasures,
out of her own resources. Here, again, I mention the 100_l._ a year.
Each girl in an upper middle-class family--the professional man’s
family--cannot possibly cost any amount less than that; in the case, of
course, of some, 50_l._ would be amply sufficient, and this sum should
be allowed yearly as long as the father lived; after which, insurance
money should be forthcoming that would insure something at all events,
if not quite as much as they have been having.
If, however, it is absolutely impossible for a man to give his daughters
anything--in which case they ought most distinctly never to have been
born--he is bound to tell them so honestly from their earliest days, and
he is equally bound to give them such an education that at any moment
they can earn something, either as domestic servants--and, for my part,
I would, and far rather, be a parlourmaid than a nursery governess--or
as Board school teachers, designers, or as members of such of the home
branches of toil as are open to women who cannot aspire to the higher
education and the advantages of Girton and similar establishments.
Of course the subject of woman’s work is one on which volumes have been
written, and volumes might still be compiled from the same source, and I
could not naturally go into all the _pros_ and _cons_ of each occupation
in this chapter, even if I knew them all, which I do not; but I do
strongly beg my readers to dissuade their girls from competing with the
men; they only lower prices, and, finally, prevent the men from marrying
them by giving themselves one less chance of fulfilling the proper end
of their sex--viz. to make a home in the fullest sense of the word.
There is plenty for women to do without scratching and fighting with the
men. If only they can realise that fact I shall not have written in
vain.
I have had lately a great deal to do with women who have to earn their
own living, and I have never found one who really could and would work
at anything that turned up who could not add in an appreciable manner to
her income; but I have also found hundreds who would not even try to do
what I could offer them, but who preferred to dabble with paint, to
embroider hideous cushions no one wants, and which cost pounds to make,
to undertaking the ‘smocking,’ the upholstery, and, above all, the
dressmaking and cooking with which any sensible woman, who is honest and
hard-working, can keep herself and manage to get along comfortably. No;
if they can’t get just the work they want, they will not take any; or,
if they take it, they grumble; don’t return it at the time they promise;
and, finally, are so unbusinesslike that their employers are in despair,
and vow that, come what may, they will never employ a so-called lady
again.
And it is also astonishing to me how the mere fact of being gently born
seems to these poor things to excuse all their failings. Rickety
screens, impossible pictures, frightful woollies--all must be sold at a
higher rate for them than for anyone else, because they are made by
ladies. And so it should be if ladies understood that, because they are
ladies, they should be more punctual and better workers than the poorer
classes, if their ladyhood were a hall-mark instead of a screen for
their misdemeanours. But they will not see this, and in consequence they
bring discredit on their order, and make the very words ‘Poor lady!’
synonymous with everything that is bad and absolutely unsaleable.
To be a successful worker one must take the work which comes before one,
and one must be trained to work, to punctuality, and to business habits;
therefore, if there be one of the families of daughters no other nation
produces in the reckless way our own does, it is imperative that the
training to work begins in the nursery, and that the defenceless girls
are given this equipment at least, even if the parents can do no more
for them.
The boys are born to work; they are carefully trained and brought up for
this end, but there are hundreds of cases where the fathers have either
been suddenly ruined or become poor through illness or their own
selfishness, and who turn the girls out in their turn, and are much
astonished when the poor things flounder hopelessly about and cannot
keep themselves, because they have had absolutely no training which
shall fit them for work.
I feel, in writing this chapter, which concerns the girls of the
household, that I cannot say too much about the subject of some
provision being made for them, and that they should be relieved not only
from the necessity of having to find a market for unskilled labour, but
also from the trial of marrying if they do not want to do so, or if they
do not see anyone they really love, because their parents are
continually telling them it is their duty to marry in order to make room
for their younger sisters.
Now, incredible as it may sound to male ears, there are very many women
to whom marriage and the obligations and responsibilities entailed
thereby are absolutely distasteful and disagreeable. As a rule, these
women make the best wives and house-mothers, but they are not the
happiest people in the world, and would probably have been both happier
and better had they followed out their own inclinations and lived their
own lives in their own way, without the constant presence of a man and
the unceasing cares of a household on their shoulders. They do not
understand Love with a big L, and passion and they are strangers for
ever, and always would be, but they marry at their parents’ request, to
clear out the nest, and they certainly miss the higher happiness which,
perchance, might have come had they waited, either from their work or
from meeting the one individual who might have roused their sleeping
souls and shown them a glimpse of the paradise that exists, I believe,
for those lucky natures who understand what we may call the ‘Ouidaesque’
aspect of the case; albeit I also think they use up rapidly in that
short sojourn in Paradise, which serves more sober-minded folk for the
whole of life’s journey. For myself I cannot speak. I am a prosaic,
unsentimental individual, and so far have got on without sentiment very
well indeed; but other people may not be as I am, and may endure misery
by marrying the first man who asks them because they see plainly how
desperately they are grudged the room in the house which should have
been theirs for ever, and from which they should have been allowed to go
reluctantly to the husband, who appreciates his wife a thousandfold if
he understands he is only allowed possession on sufferance, and that she
was wanted by her own people quite as badly as ever he could want her
himself.
And this brings me round to the question of giving the girls their own
room in the house, where they can do just what they please, and where
they can ask their own friends to tea should they desire to do so; not,
however, in the American way, which empowers the young people to have
festivals whenever they like, and to ask whom they like to them, but in
a mitigated form, which compels them to ask permission to entertain, and
furthermore to produce a list of names, so that full knowledge may be
the mother’s portion, and that she may know exactly who is coming, and,
moreover, what is going on. If the girls have their own sitting-room,
they feel their residence under the paternal roof is meant to last as
long as the roof itself, and they have not that hurried, disagreeable
feeling some unfortunate girls must be given by the parents who make no
provision for their permanent comfort, and who openly speak of what they
shall do when So-and-so gets married; poor So-and-so, who has never had
an offer in her life, and shrinks away from every man she sees, as she
cannot help regarding him as the monster who carries off a damsel
whether she wishes it or not, because the fetish of home has to be
appeased, and the fabric kept together by the quick sacrifice of those
who are old enough to be chained to the rock to await his advances.
The home--of the making and the decorating, the management, and the
keeping together of which I feel I can never say too much--cannot
possibly be made too happy, too pleasant for the younger members of it;
but they in their turn must understand that they, too, have their part
in the whole to perform. The grown-up daughter in such a home is a most
precious possession; she can save her mother endless trouble, she can
and does take the burden of most of the detail on her shoulders, and for
her, therefore, should be arranged some place, no matter how small, that
she can call her own, and where she can in some measure do much as she
likes, for she is sure to have some pet occupation--friends to write to,
work to do, all sorts of things to see about, and which she can only
attend to in a room set apart for her and her belongings.
In many cases the schoolroom makes an admirable girls’ room, but should
this room be occupied by the younger children when the elder daughter is
‘out’ and requires a room to herself, a capital arrangement could be
made for her by copying the French fashion of a boudoir-bedroom, an
arrangement for which is illustrated here, and which my artist has
adapted from a room I used to have in my Dorsetshire house, where space
was a great object, and where the downstairs rooms were so badly managed
that it was impossible to have a morning-room in which I could sit,
although there were two tiny rooms beside the dining-and drawing-rooms,
which we turned into bachelors’ bedrooms, and which constituted our only
spare rooms for some time. These rooms were larger than need be bestowed
on the eldest girl of a house, and were made by removing the partition
between a bed-and dressing-room; the bed and dressing-table, which also
served as a washhand-stand, were completely screened off by a long and
very tall Japanese screen; the cabinet, which stands by the side of the
bed, held a quantity of linen, &c., and always looked very decorative,
and not in the least like the humble chest of drawers that it
undoubtedly was; while the couch in the first window served as a sofa,
and, furthermore, held any quantity of dresses, supplemented as it was
by the cupboard, the doors of which are panelled with Japanese leather,
put in nearly twenty years ago, and verily, I do believe, the very first
doors in England that were ever treated in this manner. I never saw any
elsewhere, though, of course, now to find a door with undecorated panels
is rather an impossibility,
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Boudoir-Bedroom.]
at all events in any house the owner of which aspires to be in the least
degree artistic.
The room illustrated here was papered with a very soft brown-and-gold
paper, and had a dado of red-and-white matting, and a hideous shade of
terra-cotta paint. In those days one could not find a ceiling paper
anywhere, and I was obliged to content myself with a species of
_café-au-lait_ wash on the ceiling, which much exercised the mind of the
local decorator, to say nothing of my own, for though I knew I hated the
ordinary whitewash, I did not quite know how to set about a change; but
notwithstanding that, my _café-au-lait_ ceiling was rather smeary, and
was profoundly jeered at by the good local housekeepers, to whom a
spotless ceiling and a clear conscience were synonymous, and to whom
anything new or strange meant undoubtedly an unsafe spiritual condition.
The relief from the white glare of the ordinary ceiling was so great
that I stuck to it manfully, and even added a blue ceiling to one of the
other rooms until I came across a pretty paper, and had that put up, to
the intense disgust of the builder and the open horror of the
inhabitants, who since my day have papered their ceilings too, and done
all sorts of other things which I used to preach in my bridal-days, but
of which they took no heed until they saw me in print; then they were
quite sure I was right, and began to alter their houses and make them
prettier than they had ever been before.
I should not now put terra-cotta and brown together, but that room
somehow always looked very harmonious; the short frilled curtains were
of a charming soft terra-cotta and white cretonne, which unfortunately
has been out of stock for something like fourteen years. The muslin was
a very soft Madras with frills also, and the couch was covered in the
same patterned cretonne, only in blue and white; when the paper became
shabby and a little dull I added a frieze of Japanese fans all round,
and they gave just the colour I required to the room. One cannot somehow
buy such good fans nowadays as those were, unfortunately; and this is
not imagination, for I possess a good many of these identical ones now,
and I can never find in any of the numerous Japanese shops which have
succeeded Liberty & Hewitt, or I should say followed them, any paper
fans that are half such good colours or such pretty designs as those
which formed the frieze in that particular room. I had the floor covered
entirely with matting, and rugs were placed about. The whole of the
furniture, with the exception of the writing-table shown in window No.
2, was wickerwork, and as in those days there was no Aspinall, I had to
beg my varnished paint from the man who mended our carriages, and who
could never produce anything except a very good black and a particularly
awful blue, which I only tried once, and eschewed in favour of black,
which remained on for years, and finally succumbed to the superior
charms of Aspinall’s hedge-sparrow-egg blue and other delicate and
pleasant colours.
The shelves, both in the recesses by the fireplace and between the
windows, will give an excellent idea how to manage these dwarf
bookcases, which hold a quantity of books, while the tops serve as
cabinets or stands for china. The corners of the room had a series of
long wooden brackets in each, edged with frills of dark-blue velveteen,
and the mantel-piece had on a painted board for the shelf edged with a
deep frill or flounce, also of the same dark-blue velveteen; a narrow
strip of looking-glass was placed along at the back, as overmantels were
not invented, and I had always a horror of the great glass sheets then
in vogue; while above that hung pictures, fans, &c., which made a
species of overmantel arrangement for myself, with which I was quite
satisfied. The room altogether always looked pretty and nice, and was
much admired; it was always full of ferns and palms and flowers too,
without which no room can ever look well, spend what one may on the
furniture and decorations thereof. This species of boudoir-bedroom is
always a capital possession, and were space no object in a house I
should always arrange the bed-chambers in a similar manner: there should
be a dressing-room and bath-room to each, where all the dressing
operations could be carried on; and the bath should be shut off by
double doors from the passage. Such an arrangement is quite delightful
both for visitors and when one has to remain in one’s room from
ill-health, for once up and on the sofa the whole appearance of a
bedroom vanishes when the screen is in place, which is put straight
along between the bed and the cabinet. All the housework is done behind
the screen, the housemaids entering by the curtained door, and the
invalid is not worried by the sight of bed-making operations, while her
room always looks nice, and she can receive there anyone she may care to
see, which she could not do were the room frankly a bed-chamber and
nothing else.
Of course on ordinary days the windows must be opened as soon as
dressing is over, and left open for a good two hours’ spell of airing,
and the room should not be sat in after tea or after luncheon if
possible. This gives ample time for a due course of airing, the only
objection anyone could make to this arrangement being that probably the
room might be stuffy, or the air in it exhausted by being used during
the day as well as slept in during the night. This objection vanishes
into thin air when the windows are opened widely and kept open from
about two till bedtime; indeed, I say after bedtime, for whatever the
weather may be I have one window open all night, and whenever possible
every window which will open remains so; indeed, one window in our
present house has not been closed for a moment during three years.
Now, in decorating a room on a smaller scale for a girl, her own
individual taste should be in some measure consulted, but nothing can
possibly be or look better than the delightful ‘Watteau’ paper, sold by
Haines, at 2_s._ 6_d._ the piece. It is a paper of which one never
tires, and has also the capital quality of being no distinct colour, and
of allowing any colour being used in the room with it; while at the same
time, should a distinct hue be desired, a room decorated with the
‘Watteau’ paper can be made distinctly blue, moss-green or coral-pink,
according to the manner in which the room is painted, or according to
the frieze or dado selected. For example, the paper could be hung above
a dado of cretonne sold by Shoolbred at 1_s._ 4½_d._ a yard, which
almost matches the paper, the paint in this case being ivory, and the
ceiling paper Land & Co.’s ‘Watteau’ in yellow and white, at 3_s._ the
piece. The curtains could be either of the same cretonne or of a Louis
XVI. brocade, sold by Colbourne at 2_s._ 11½_d._ a yard, double width.
The floor could be covered with matting, and there should be some rugs
about on the floor, thus making one decoration without any distinct
colour. Another could be the ‘Watteau’ with a plain green frieze or a
frieze of Haines ‘rose’ paper, at 10_s._ a piece. This is run round the
room, not put on in strips like wall-paper, and therefore would not be
as expensive as it sounds. The frieze-rail and all the woodwork could be
stained green with Jackson’s malachite green stain; the ceiling paper
could be pink and white; the carpet, Wallace’s green ‘lily;’ and the
chairs could be stained green, and upholstered either in the pinky
terra-cotta Louis XVI. brocade, of which the curtains could be made, or
else of the ‘Watteau’ cretonne mentioned above. The bed should be
covered with a worked quilt--a good occupation for any girl would it be
to make such quilts; while the towels and pillow-cases should all bear
embroidered monograms, marking-ink being a positive badge of disgrace in
a household where there should be useful fingers.
There are a great many floral papers, such as the ‘rose,’ at 3_s._
9_d._, sold by Giles; the ‘carnation,’ sold by Maple; and the ‘wild
rose,’ sold by Haines, which are all charming for such rooms, or,
indeed, for any room; but should a severer form of decoration be
required, my readers cannot go wrong with any of Pither’s papers, or of
Liberty’s new damasque papers, which are all as good and artistic as
they can be, and which can be used fearlessly by anyone who is not sure
enough of his own taste to allow himself to select a paper on his own
account, or has not time and patience to encounter the invariable battle
with the decorator, who will not produce, until he is absolutely
obliged, any paper on which he cannot see his way to making an
exorbitant profit, and who sets forth paper after paper, trusting to his
own ingenuity and his powers of wearying his victim to enable him to
sell some venerable ‘shopkeeper’ which has long vexed his soul by its
unremunerative existence on some back shelf.
I am delighted myself with Liberty’s damasque papers, which have only
been brought out since I wrote my first book, and which, therefore, have
not had the honourable mention there that they so very richly deserve to
have had, the blue and silver ‘tulip damasque,’ at 2_s._, being a
perfect paper, and one that would be quite satisfactory in a
boudoir-bedroom, unless it happened to be a very small one; in that case
the blue and silver marigold, at 1_s._ 6_d._, would do equally well.
With these papers a dado is imperative, as I do not consider they have
sufficient substance in them to withstand the wear and tear inseparable
from their position at the base of the wall. A dado of Treloar’s thin
matting or of a good red-and-gold Japanese paper would look well. With
the matting the paint should be ivory, with the leather paper a good red
paint should be selected which will harmonise with the blue. In any case
a red carpet, such as Pither’s dull red ‘cottage’ carpet, or Wallace’s
dull red ‘anemone,’ should be selected, and the curtains should be the
same red in serge, or else in a dull blue cretonne, the ‘algæ’ made on
purpose to harmonise with this paper by Oetzmann.
The planning and talking over the arrangement of this room will be a
great amusement both to mother and daughter, and I strongly recommend
the mother to attempt nothing in the way of a surprise, but to frankly
take her daughter into her confidence and consult her tastes on the
subject if she wishes the room to be a real success. I am compelled to
recommend this course from an experience of my own, because I have never
forgotten my unconcealable dismay at returning home after a long visit
to find my own mother had planned such a surprise for me, but had in all
innocence, and with such kindness, done such dreadful things to my pet
belongings that I often recall the remembrance of my start of horror and
exclamation of dismay with the profoundest contrition, for I did not
know then what I have only realised in after years, that I must have
pained her dreadfully, for, dear soul, she had done all the renovations
out of her own savings, and had taken much trouble and pains about it,
and I could not help saying, ‘Oh, why did you let them do this?’ before
I realised that this was a surprise, and I ought to have been enchanted
instead of dismayed at her renovations--renovations that were in
absolute good taste, for her taste was perfect, and her house charming
long before anyone else cared for their house, but which somehow were
not my ideas, and which annoyed me dreadfully because the arrangements
were not mine at all, and which I never dared alter afterwards, because
I had already received the changes so ungraciously, instead of realising
that I should have been enchanted with the forethought and goodness
which had prepared all this for me.
Remembering my own reception of a similar surprise, therefore advise
that the daughter should be consulted in every way about the room she is
to inhabit, unless, of course, she has no tastes of her own, and does
not care what the room looks like so long as she has it to herself; then
the room can be made as pretty as the mother likes. But there are few
girls nowadays who do not care for their rooms, and are not as eager as
anyone else to make themselves a pretty nest that they may regard as
their own, and not as a perch on which they rest on sufferance until
they are pushed out by the on-coming juniors into the arms of the first
man who appears in the least degree anxious to have her for a wife.
I do hope that, whatever else happens, the daughters of the household
may never be sent away to schools, or urged at a high school to overwork
their brains and go in for those wretched competitive examinations. I am
no advocate for the higher education of women, for votes for women, for
anything which shall take them out of the sheltered home atmosphere,
where women alone can breathe comfortably and live properly, and force
them into the arena of life; and I do hope mothers who may read this
book will consider what they are doing when they force their girls
forward, and delight in the hard work and successful examinations which
ruin their constitutions, and make them irritable and nervous and old
before their time. I know only too well that there are women who are
compelled to work, but I shall always maintain this should not be; and,
to return once more to the subject with which I began my chapter, I
state boldly that neither would they be were the families of English
people smaller, and were we less extravagant, less determined to snatch
all we can from life, doing absolutely nothing for ourselves that we can
get someone else to do for us. Why, I know myself one family of five or
six daughters who, if their father died to-morrow, would not have 50_l._
a year, yet who go out night after night to balls, who take cabs at
every moment, never saving a shilling, who are waited upon by half a
dozen servants, and yet who ought to do the housework themselves, who
ought to be content with a quarter of the gaiety they insist upon. The
poor silly things even went to Court, though, Heaven knows, the Queen
would have sent them back again had she known what their dresses
cost--a price, moreover, that would never be paid--and who finally
would have far more chance of happy marriage than they have now, when
every man they know looks askance at their garments, and then at their
father’s worried face, and avoids them, justly declining to put
themselves in the noose which is round his neck, and which will surely
kill him, even if he can keep his head above water for much longer. This
case is the case of hundreds of families at present, and therefore I
feel I cannot say too much about it, and I do hope mothers will
therefore think a little more about their daughters, and endeavour to
restore a little of the quiet and simplicity which are almost extinct in
this rushing era of ours, and which can never be found among those who
are cast out from the shelter of home and forced into competition--a
competition that is as odious as it is unnecessary in most girls’ lives,
and that would be altogether unnecessary were there fewer girls in the
world, and were we content to spend one quarter of the money we do on
all sorts of nonsense and on extra servants, who only make our daughters
lazy and luxurious when they ought undoubtedly to be up and doing.
The moment a girl leaves the control of the schoolroom and the watchful
eye of the governess she should be told that, though now she is to some
extent her own mistress, she must not consider her education finished,
but rather that the real part of education is just beginning, and that
it is absolutely necessary that every day should begin with some steady
work; and it is also well that some definite rule should be made on this
subject: certain small household duties should be given to her, and
certain studies should be continued, leaving it to her to select in some
measure what those studies shall be.
Now in the richest households there are many things which should never
be left to servants if one wishes the house to look like the abode of a
lady, and not of a _nouveau riche_ one, the principal one in my eyes
being the arrangement of the flowers. The best gardener in the world has
only a gardener’s ideas, and cannot know what to bring in and how to
place what he brings in in an absolutely satisfactory way, and, as dead
flowers and fading plants are disgraceful and worse than an utter
absence of floral decoration, the first duty a girl should undertake is
that of going round the rooms the moment breakfast is over, to decide
which plants are to be removed and which vases should be refilled. In
the country the gardener should wait her orders, and have the flowers
gathered dry and before the heat of the sun is on them, and should
himself exchange the plants, the position of them being determined by
his mistress, as the arrangement of the flowers should be left to her
alone. If done systematically in the manner here indicated, all the
house will look fresh and nice, and there would be no chance of
overwork.
To arrange the flowers an old dress should be worn, also a large apron
and sleeves should be donned. Despite the fact that the gardener should
bring in the flowers, there is always something extra to gather at the
last moment, and one rushes out, gets one’s skirts covered with damp
mould and dew from the grass, or shakes down a quart or so of water from
the trees all over one, and a dress is spoiled in a moment--a serious
matter at all times, but something more than serious when one has
forestalled one’s allowance, and can’t afford another garment anyhow.
The arrangement of the flowers in most houses nowadays would occupy at
least an hour, after which the girl should sit down for a steady read at
some standard work carefully chosen for her, or else to any sewing work
she may care for; then she should take up her hobby--and I trust she may
have one for her own sake--and she should either practise, paint or
write, or do anything she likes (save read novels) until the hour before
luncheon, when she _must_ go out. If she be wise she will continue her
regular walk with the schoolroom party; if not, she must be sent out to
see her friends, do ‘errands’ about the village or town, or else arrange
for a game at tennis--anything to ensure some exercise. The girls of the
present day don’t care for walks for walking’s sake, but they must have
open-air exercise somehow, whether they care for it or not.
In London, I maintain, any girl who knows how to behave, and who is told
plainly how to conduct herself, can safely go about the streets alone
from the day she is eighteen. I have done so ever since I can remember,
and though I do not consider myself lovely, I certainly was nice-looking
(please, I am not conceited), and I never met with any adventure of the
very smallest kind; and given a straightforward walk, an air of having
something to do and doing it, no peeping into shop-windows, for example,
and not a suspicion of loitering anywhere, I maintain any ordinary girl
can go about alone perfectly, should it be inconvenient to send someone
with her, or should she have no girl friend or sister with whom to walk;
anyhow, London is much safer than the country, with its crawling tramps
and its suspicious cows at every corner, to say nothing of mad bulls and
dogs and all kinds of perilous adventures.
The morning walk disposed of, after luncheon then could come any
pleasures. There are sure to be calls to be made, tennis to go to,
afternoon parties, concerts, and all kinds of small dissipations; then
would come dinner, after which, if there were no going out, amusing
books could be allowed, and, in fact, any amusement that she
particularly cares for should now be indulged in. The evenings should be
entirely her own; and if she has any hobbies, and wishes to continue the
morning’s work, let her do so. You will very likely be as glad to be
left alone for a little with your husband as she is anxious to return to
her own quarters and resume the special employments on which she was
engaged.
I am now writing about those lucky girls who have an assured future of
some kind, who, though they may not be rich should their father die,
will not have to join in the fearful battle for bread, and who should
represent the sex universally had I my way; and, therefore, I do not
dwell on the necessity for toil that would be inevitable were the girls’
parents aware of the sword hanging over their heads. In this case the
girls should know the truth, and should themselves elect whether they
should prepare armour against the fray, or hang about, hoping against
hope that they may be married before the evil days that must come fall
upon the household. But girls who are pretty well off, and who, as I
said before, cannot starve if their parents die, should still endeavour
to find some real occupation for themselves; they may never want to make
much money by it, but they should always be able to save money by it;
and if they cannot do anything definite, or that will be likely to be
heard of in the world, they should cultivate their fingers, and should
learn to embroider and sew, in order that their room at first, and their
houses afterwards, should be made beautiful by them, and should show
evidences of their industry, and the excellent uses they have made of
their time.
Make the girls’ room pretty, and the girls will like to sit there and
spend their time carefully within the charming walls; but do not for one
moment tolerate laziness, lounging, or novel-reading; and as long as the
girls are at home, see that the mornings, at all events, are properly
employed. The results of the day should be seen, should be inspected,
and the masters or mistresses, who should still attend to continue some
lessons (German, music, and painting being the best, I think), should be
interviewed now and again about the progress of the pupil; and a
watchful but not inquisitorial eye should be kept on all that goes on in
the room, else we shall find it turned into a rubbish-place, or a spot
where all is play and nothing useful is ever done.
Lessons in dressmaking and in cooking should be given, if possible, to
every girl; and she should also at the earliest age possible be taught
to knit socks and stockings, and, above all, she should, in the very
fullest sense of the word, learn her duty to her neighbours, and be
taught that her superior advantages both of time and money should be
tithed for those whose lives lack so much, and could be made so very
much brighter were we all to do our duty by them. I am not an advocate
for slumming; I do not consider any girl should have a district, and,
unless in the country, Sunday-school teaching is not always to be
attempted; but some part of the day should be set aside, either for
working for the poor--amply represented to me by the Sisters at the
Kilburn Orphanage--or in making some life brighter. In the country it is
easy to collect flowers for hospitals, or to ask dwellers in courts to
tea in the garden in London, to make things which will be useful, and to
take girls and boys occasionally to some museum or picture gallery, just
for an hour’s change from the crowded streets.
I think girls should always do one thing during the day, as a matter of
custom, for the poor; but whatever is done should be done under some
direction. Young folks are enthusiastic and hurried, and often do more
harm than good by indiscriminate charity. But then the clergyman of the
parish can sometimes be consulted, and when he cannot, I say, Send to
Kilburn, to the Orphanage in Randolph Gardens. There, without
consideration of creed, with large and vigorous minds and hearts, all
are helped; and all work can be used, all help received, with the
perfect assurance that what we send there will emphatically reach those
for whom it is meant, and that there are no highly paid secretaries to
come before the poor and suffering.
These are all large matters to be discussed in this book, but I cannot
think they are out of place. I am thankful to say that far more people
trouble themselves now about their poorer neighbours than in bygone
days; that rich men realise that they are only stewards of their
property, and that they should administer their goods for the poor as
well as for themselves; that while the owner of a large park and
magnificent pictures is not bound to cut up the former for
allotment-grounds, or distribute the latter among the denizens of
Whitechapel, he is bound to allow them to see both, under proper
control, whenever he is called upon to do so; that garden-parties for
the poor are far more necessary than garden-parties for the rich; and
that all who regard life rightfully and have had a large share of life’s
best things are bound, by their duty to God and their neighbour, to
administer them in some measure for the poor, who will gradually become
more fit to share them as we show them our possessions and teach them
how to regard them properly. Under these circumstances there is great
hope that our girls may advance farther than we have done, and, being
most carefully trained from their earliest days to remember God’s poor,
may do so as a matter of course, and may consider that day wasted indeed
which cannot show at least one thing done to alleviate some of the
misery and poverty there is in this overcrowded world of ours.
The weaker sex indeed! We may be weak physically--we are, we allow that;
we allow that our impulsiveness, our weakness, our very structure,
forbids us battling with the men, shoulder to shoulder, in that dreadful
scrimmage for life in which some women would cast us all; and all we beg
is to be allowed to confess that, and have some shelter provided for us,
where we can do our part of the world’s work--our part, that a weak mind
cannot undertake, but that is essentially the woman’s part--the part of
beautifier of the home and administrator of the finances, and, through
the home, of the outside world, too, where we see all men as our
brothers and sisters, and where we recognise our place as helpers (not
rivals), of consolers (not competitors) of the men, who should do the
sheltering and home-providing that no woman, except under most
exceptional circumstances, can possibly manage by herself alone.
Therefore, if all who have girls remember this, and instil in their
hearts the fact that we want them at home, that even if they should not
marry or become senior wranglers, or anything else equally prominent and
unpleasant, their lives can be busy and useful and fully occupied, and
of infinite use in their generation, we shall do something for the world
at large even if we let all this grow only out of the innocent
preparation of the girls’ room when they have reached the end of the
first stage of their life, and become in some measure mistresses of
themselves. But, for fear I may be considered too solemn and serious,
and for fear that my readers may think I am adverse to gaiety, and would
not let girls enjoy themselves under any circumstances whatever, I will
finish this chapter, and pass on to consider far more frivolous
things--namely, how to manage one’s dress allowance, and, furthermore,
how best to arrange for any festivities we may be able to afford when we
have maidens in the household who are anxious to ‘come out.’