waxen and silver limbs, and effigies, with articles of children’s
clothing and an endless assortment of plaited tails of hair. These are
all offerings made to ‘Our Lady of Consolation,’ in fulfilment of vows
or as tokens of thanksgiving for recovery from sickness; and there is
something very touching in the idea of these women giving up their most
cherished possessions (for every one knows how justly proud the Spanish
are of their magnificent hair) as tributes of gratitude to her from whom
they have received the favours.
The walls near the western door of the Church of Consolation are hung
with innumerable pictures, each bearing so strong a resemblance to the
other, both in style and subject, that they might have been drawn by
the same hand. As works of art they are valueless, for even the rules
of perspective are ignored in a most comical manner, and with slight
variations they all represent the same subject. On one hand is an invalid
man, woman or child, as the case may be, and on the other a kneeling
figure imploring aid for them of the ‘Virgin of Consolation,’ who is also
portrayed appearing to the suppliant, and encircled by a golden halo.
Beneath the painting is inscribed the name of the patient, the nature of
his disease, and the date of his recovery.
At the back of the church is a large garden belonging to one of the
richest proprietors in the neighbourhood of Utrera, and as the midday
heat became more oppressive it was a favourite haunt of ours during the
cool of the evening, when the air was laden with the perfume of orange
blossoms and other sweet-smelling flowers. The owners of the garden
permitted it to grow wild, but that circumstance only enhanced its
beauty. The orange trees were laden with golden fruit, of which we were
courteously invited to gather as much as we pleased. But our visits to
this charming retreat were necessarily short, for, as in most southern
latitudes, there was scarcely any twilight in Utrera, and it always
seemed as though the ringing of the Angelus were a signal for the nights
immediately to set in. But what glorious nights they were! The dingy
oil-lamps in the streets (for gas is an innovation which had not yet
found its way there) were little needed, as the sky always seemed to be
one bright blaze of beautiful stars.
The cemetery at Utrera is a quiet spot, surrounded by a high white wall
and thickly planted with cypress trees, which give it a most solemn and
melancholy appearance. They have the custom there (I am not sure it is
not prevalent in other parts of Spain) of burying the dead in recesses in
the walls, which are built expressly of an immense thickness; the coffins
are shoved into these large pigeon-holes, and the opening is closed with
a marble slab, which bears the inscription usual in such cases, somewhat
after the fashion of open-air catacombs. But little respect seemed to be
shown to the dead.
One day I met some children bearing a bier, upon which was stretched the
corpse of a little girl clothed in white garments, and with a wreath of
flowers placed upon the placid brow. The children, apparently quite
unaware of the reverence due to their sacred burden, carelessly laughed
and chatted as they bore it along the highway, sometimes sitting down
to rest, and then hurrying forward with unseemly haste, as though to
make up for lost time. A tall man, wrapped in a huge cloak, and who
evidently belonged to the little _cortège_, followed at a distance, but
he too performed the duty at his leisure, and seemed to find nothing
extraordinary or out of the way in the children’s want of decorum.
With the exception of periodical visits to the Church of Consolation
before mentioned, the people of Utrera rarely seemed to leave their
houses. To walk for the sake of walking is an idea which finds little
favour with a Spanish lady, and my friends and myself were looked upon as
very strange beings for taking so much exercise and caring to explore the
surrounding country.
But to our English taste it was pleasant to stroll up the Cadiz road
until we reached a small mound situated thereon, which was belted with
shady trees and amply provided with stone seats. This elevation commanded
the view of a vast extent of country, with the grand frowning hills of
the Sierra Nevada in the far distance, which the gorgeous sunsets always
invested with a strange, unearthly beauty. The intense solitude of the
scene, too, was not without its own peculiar charm. At intervals the
silence would be broken by the approach of a picturesque-looking peasant
bestriding a mule, the silvery jangle of whose bells had been heard in
the calm atmosphere for some time before he made his personal appearance.
These muleteers never failed to interrupt the monotonous chants they
are so fond of singing, to wish us a friendly ‘Buenas tardes’ (‘Good
evening’) while proceeding on their way, and then we would listen to the
sound of the mule’s bells and the low rich voice of his master until both
died away in the distance, and the scene resumed its normal condition of
undisturbed tranquility.
We made an expedition once, by the new railroad, to Moron, a very old
town perched on an almost perpendicular rock and visible for miles
distant. The heat was intense, but we toiled manfully up the steep and
execrably-paved street from the station, and, weary and footsore, were
thankful to find ourselves within the cool walls of the fine old church.
It possesses some valuable Murillos—one of which, representing the head
of our Blessed Lord, is especially beautiful. The altar-rails, screen
and reredos are all richly gilt, and the sacristan, taking us into the
vestry, unlocked several massively carved chests, which disclosed some
valuable plate and precious stones; referring to which, he boasted,
with pardonable pride, that Utrera could not produce anything half so
handsome. And indeed the inhabitants of Moron may well congratulate
themselves on these treasures having escaped the grasp of the French
during the war, for the sacristan related to us how everything had been
hidden away and miraculously preserved from the hands of the spoiler.
But my chit-chat is drawing to a close. It was not without a certain
regret that we bade farewell to Utrera, for during the whole of our
stay there we had experienced nothing but kindness from all with
whom we had come in contact, and the memory of our sojourn in that
little out-of-the-way Andalusian town, if not fraught with brilliant
recollections, will, at all events take its rank with that portion of
the past which has been too peaceful to rise up again to trouble us. And
it were well if we could say the same for every part of our storm-ridden
lives.
THE END.
[Illustration]
THE SECRET OF ECONOMY.
Apparently, there has been much to say and write lately upon domestic
economy. From the time, indeed, that the question of the possibility of
marriage upon three hundred a-year was mooted, the subject has never
fairly been dropped.
Men with incomes of less than three hundred a-year do not seem to like
the idea, that they are bound in consequence to renounce all thoughts of
matrimony, and inquiries respecting the matter from aggrieved bachelors
are constantly cropping up in those corners of the weekly papers devoted
to correspondence. They have even gone so far lately as to suggest, since
it seems impossible in this century of riots and rinderpest to curtail
one’s expenses, whether it may not be both lawful and feasible to
curtail one’s family.
The question of, on how much, or on how little, a certain number of
persons can exist, is certainly one which affects the mass, but which,
to be answered with fairness, must be put individually. There are women
and women. What one housekeeper can accomplish on three hundred a-year,
another cannot effect on three thousand, for it is not incompatible with
many luxuries to possess very little comfort; and comfort is, after all,
the essence of domestic felicity.
Yet, it is not fair to lay the whole blame of the impossibility of
marriage in these days upon a moderate income, on the extravagance
of women, for the difficulty is just as often attributable to the
disinclination of men to resign the luxuries to which they have been
accustomed. For every really extravagantly disposed female mind there
may be found two thriftily disposed ones; and had such minds but been
endued with the proper knowledge to carry out their efforts to do well,
existence might not be found so difficult a matter as it appears to be at
present.
It is true that the ‘girl of the period’ (not the _Saturday Reviewer’s_
‘girl’ by any manner of means), is, generally, better dressed and more
accustomed to luxury than her mother was before her. But it must be
remembered that the expenses of a girl before marriage are regulated by
the wishes of her parents, and because they like to see her sail about in
the last Parisian fashion, it by no means follows that she will always
expect to be dressed the same, or that she will not cheerfully resign
some of the luxuries she has been accustomed to, to meet the means of the
man who has taken it upon himself to support her.
Apropos of which I have far oftener been called upon to remonstrate with
newly-married female friends on their folly in stripping the trousseaux,
which had been prepared for them with such care, of all their pretty
trimmings of lace and ribbon and embroidery, in order to adorn the
little frocks and caps which are scarcely ever noticed but by the mother
herself, than to blame them for outrunning their husbands’ means in order
to procure such vanities.
Various reasons may combine to make the parent, who can afford it, take
pleasure in seeing her daughter well dressed. A true mother is naturally
proud of a girl’s good looks; and anxious to show them off to the best
advantage; or the feeling that her child may not long be with her may
make her desirous to please her to the utmost whilst she remains. Of
course, the indulgence may arise from lower and more mercenary motives,
such as have been attributed for many a long year to the stereotyped
‘Belgravian mother;’ but even in such a case it does not follow that
the girl will never be able contentedly to accommodate herself to a
lower range of comfort. It is not to be expected that, single-handed,
she should put away from her the luxuries which her parents’ income can
command; but it remains to be proved whether she will not willingly
exchange them to become the mistress of a house of her own, even though
it may be smaller than the one to which she has been accustomed.
Naturally parents wish to see the children, for whom perhaps they have
worked and slaved, comfortably settled in life; and it is folly for men
with barely sufficient money to keep themselves to rave against fathers
who refuse to sanction their daughters’ starving with them.
But the idea as to what constitutes starvation has risen with the times.
A little while ago, it used to be the clergyman with a large family on
eighty pounds a-year: a twelvemonth back it rose to the celebrated ‘three
hundred;’ and but a few weeks since I heard a lady gravely affirm that
any one who contemplated marriage now-a-days with an income of less than
two thousand, must be either a madman or a fool.
Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this paper
of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to maintain a
family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few words upon what I
consider to be the secret of the economy which has need to be exercised
in these days in the largest household as well as in the smallest.
The order of her household is a true woman’s battle-field, and the better
she can manage it, the more comforts she can command, and the more
regularity she can enforce upon a small income and with few servants, the
greater is the triumph of her victory. If means are unlimited the triumph
is lost; and the woman who has a thousand a-year for her housekeeping,
and is content to let her husband enjoy no more luxury upon it than
his friend who spends five hundred, allowing the surplus to be wasted
for want of a little thought or supervision, is not a true woman or a
good one. For if prodigality is not a sin in itself, it arises from the
indulgence of a combination of sins, amongst which selfishness holds
chief rank.
Take the care of her household out of a woman’s hands and what remains
for her to do? As a generality she would sit in idleness, for these are
not the days when mothers nurse and look after their own children, and,
thanks to the sewing-machine, the toil of needlework is over, even in the
poorest families.
She would probably take up a novel the first thing in the morning,
thereby unfitting herself for any solid work for the remainder of
the day; or she would waste her time on fancy-work, or unnecessary
letter-writing, or on anything but what sensible people who know they
will be called to account hereafter for the use they have made of the
brains God has given them would do.
And, as a rule, I believe few women would like to be lightened of
their trouble in this respect. The sex is uncommonly fond of a ‘little
brief authority,’ and even those who have every aid at their command,
generally choose to dabble in their housekeeping affairs. And it is just
this ‘dabbling’ which does harm, which often increases the expenses
instead of lessening them.
I am not a second Mrs Warren; I have no ambition to try and teach my sex
how to manage their husbands, houses and children on two hundred a-year,
by wiping out the bread-pan every morning with a clean cloth; and making
one stick of wood do the duty of two by placing it in the oven to dry the
night before.
Mrs Warren’s plan of economy is the general one; or rather, she follows
the general idea of what economy consists of, namely, in exercising a
constant supervision over servants, and straining every nerve to make the
leg of mutton last a day longer than it does with other people. And I
for my part believe that the women of England will never know the secret
of true economy until they have dropped all such petty interference with
the kitchen, and learned to guard their husbands’ interests with their
_heads_ instead of their _eyes_. There is no doubt that in order to be
thrifty it is necessary in a great measure to limit one’s expenses, and
it is a good plan habitually to ask oneself before completing a purchase,
‘Can I do without it?’
In nine cases out of ten debts and difficulties are incurred
unnecessarily, for articles which added neither to our respectability nor
our comfort, and which, if seriously asked, we should have acknowledged
we could have done just as well without. Take the generality of English
families, cut off all the superfluities in which they indulge, all the
things which are necessary neither to their existence nor their position
as gentle-people, and, as a rule, it will be found that such absorb a
third at least of their income.
It is not only men who have interested themselves in the questions
which have lately sprung up respecting the general rise in prices, and
the increasing difficulties which assail the householder. Women are
constantly comparing notes with each other; wondering ‘where on earth’
the money can go to, and lamenting the exorbitant weekly bills they are
called upon to pay.
Some have tried to meet their increased expenses by diminishing their
number of servants; others by curtailing the kitchen fare (the worst and
most unprofitable species of domestic economy); a few have gone another
way to work, and simply tried with how many superfluities they could
dispense; and I think these few have succeeded the best.
It was much the fashion a short time back for women to write to the
papers complaining of the worthlessness of their servants, and it was not
until more than one impertinent letter reflecting on their mistresses
had been published from the pens (or the supposed pens) of servants
themselves, that the correspondence was perceived to be _infra dig._, and
dropped. We all know that we are very much in the power of our servants,
both as regards comfort and economy; and to regulate their actions, we
must sway themselves.
As a class, they are much what they have ever been; their characters
varying with the authority placed over them. If ignorant, they are
bigoted; if educated, presumptuous; they regard their superiors as
their natural enemies, and not one in fifty of them is to be entirely
trusted. They no longer look upon the house they enter as their home;
they think of it more as a boarding-house which they can vacate at their
convenience, and themselves as birds of passage, here to-day and gone
to-morrow.
To deal with and to control such minds effectually, it needs to show them
that ours is infinitely the superior. If we let them perceive that we
have no means of keeping watch over them except we do it personally, we
lower ourselves to their level, and fail to gain their respect.
Make your servants admire you; make them wonder at the clearness of your
perception, the quickness of your calculations, and the retentiveness of
your memory, and inwardly they will acknowledge themselves the inferior,
and be afraid to disobey.
You will always hear servants speak with admiration of a mistress who has
(to quote their own phraseology) ‘eyes in her back;’ the fact being that
it requires a mind not only educated in the popular sense of the word,
but sharpened by friction with the world, to enable one to _perceive_
without _seeing_; and that is a state to which the lumpish minds of the
mass never attain, and which consequently commands their wonder and
respect.
The ‘excellent housekeeper’ who trots round her kitchen every morning
as a rule, opening each dresser-drawer, and uncovering the soup-tureen
and vegetable-dishes, to see that no ‘perquisites’ are concealed
therein, may occasionally light on a piece of unhallowed fat, but she
loses a hundred-fold what she gains. While she imagines she has made
a great discovery, her servants are laughing in their sleeves at her
simplicity; for they have a hundred opportunities of concealing to
her one of finding, and are doubtless as cunning as herself. And for
such a mistress—for one who is for ever prying and trying to find out
something—the lower classes have the greatest contempt; they will neither
obey nor save for her; they will even go the length of wasting in order
to annoy.
But, by this, I have not the least notion of maintaining that the
members of that community, of whom I said, but a page before, that not
one in fifty is to be trusted, are to be left to do the housekeeping by
themselves.
A lady of my acquaintance, married to an extremely obstinate man, was
asked how she managed to influence him as she did. ‘Because I never let
him know I do it,’ was the reply. ‘I always have my own way, but I make
him think my way is his.’
Something of the same sort of management is necessary with servants. Have
your own way, but make them imagine that your way is theirs. They are
truly but ‘children of a larger growth.’
But, in order to do this, you must prove yourself cleverer than they are.
Let no one grumble at the stir which has been made lately regarding
the improved education of women, nor that public schools and colleges
are being organised for their benefit. If the knowledge thus acquired
is never needed for the female doctors, and lawyers, and members of
Parliament, which, as fixed institutions, England may never see, it will
be only too welcome in domestic life; for the usual style of conducting a
woman’s education is sadly detrimental to her interests in housekeeping.
What is the use of their being able to play and sing and imperfectly
splutter German and Italian, when they are puzzled by the simplest
bookkeeping? Hardly a woman of modern times thoroughly understands
arithmetic, either mental or otherwise; and many have forgotten, or never
properly acquired, even the commonest rules of addition, subtraction,
and division. How is it to be expected then that they are fit to be
trusted with money, or having it in their hands to lay it out to the best
advantage.
But to return to ‘head-economy,’ as it should be exercised with regard to
servants.
We will suppose that a mistress, desirous of keeping within her allowance
without curtailing the real comfort of her husband and children, has
asked herself that simple question,—‘Can we do without it?’ on more
than one occasion, and found it answer, in so far that, though several
superfluities, such as dessert after dinner, and preserves and cakes
for tea have disappeared, all the solid necessaries remain, and the
weekly bills are no longer higher than they ought to be. How should she
act in order to keep down her expenditure to a settled sum; to be sure
that as much, but no more than is needful, is used in the kitchen, the
dining-room, and the nursery; and yet to prevent her servants resenting
her interference, or exclaiming at her meanness?
It is really very easy, far easier than the other plan, if women would
only believe it to be so. It needs no store-room full of hoarded goods,
with the key of which the servants are more familiar than yourself; no
stated times for measuring out half-pounds of sugar and dispensing tea
by ounces; no running down to the lower regions a dozen times a day to
give out what may have been forgotten; or to satisfy oneself whether they
really _do_ cut the joint at the kitchen supper, or revel in fresh butter
when they should be eating salt.
But it does require the knowledge necessary to keep the housekeeping
books properly. A thorough acquaintance with the prices of articles, and
the different quantities which a household should consume; and above all,
to have what is commonly called ‘one’s wits about one.’
If every tradesman with whom you deal has a running account with you; if
nothing in his book is paid for but what you have written down yourself;
if your cook has orders to receive no meat without a check; has proper
scales for weighing the joints as they come in, and makes a note of any
deficiency (the checks being afterwards compared with the butcher’s
book); it is impossible that the tradespeople can cheat you, and if your
money is wasted, you must waste it yourself.
It is an old-fashioned plan to pay one’s bills at the end of each week;
but it is a very good one. Little things which should be noticed may slip
the memory at a longer period. Besides, it is a useful reminder; it shows
how the money is going, and if the tradesmen find you are careful, it
makes them so.
Following this plan, a quarter of an hour every morning sees the
housekeeping affairs settled for the day, leaving the mistress at leisure
to pursue her own avocations, and the cook to do her business in the
kitchen. It is simply a glance at the larder, and then to write down
all that will be required until that time on the morrow; the dinner
and breakfast orders on a slate, and the other articles in the books
appropriated to them. After a little while it will be found that the
labour is purely mechanical; in a quiet family the consumption is so
regular that the weekly bills will scarcely vary, and the mistress’s
eye will detect the least increase, and find out for what it has been
incurred.
At the close of each month the debit and credit accounts should be
balanced, and then, if the allowance is at any time exceeded, it will
generally be proved that it has gone on the superfluities before
mentioned, and not on the actual expense of maintaining the household.
When people talk of the difficulties of ‘living,’ the thoughts of their
listeners invariably fly to the cost of bread and meat, and they unite
in abusing the tradespeople, who send their children to fashionable
schools on the profits which they extort from us. But there are various
ways in which men and women can save, besides dispensing with unnecessary
eatables.
What woman, for instance, in these days, buying a dress, does not pay
twice as much for its being made and trimmed ready for her use as she
did for the original material? And who that has feet and fingers, and a
sewing-machine, could not sit down and make it in a few hours for herself?
But she will tell you, most likely, that she cannot cut out properly,
that she has not the slightest taste for trimming, and that she was
not brought up to dressmaking like a dressmaker. Ah, my dear sisters!
are not these the days when we should all learn? _Men_ may go through
life with the knowledge but of one thing—for if they are acquainted
with the duties of their profession, they succeed—but women need to
know _everything_, from putting on a poultice to playing the piano; and
from being able to hold a conversation with the Lord Chancellor, to
clear-starching their husbands’ neckties.