Must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the
butler, or _her cousin_, or has otherwise settled into a character
distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly
called the domestic. The Maid-servant, in her apparel, is either
slovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times
snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter
case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and
a neck-handkerchief pinned cornerwise behind. If you want a pin, she
just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and
holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings
for white, puts on a gown of better texture and fine pattern, sets her
cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a
high-body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is
something very warm and latent in the handkerchief--something easy,
vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like
a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She
looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her
chucked out of doors into a cart, with as little remorse as a couple
of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the
handkerchief, and is to the other what the young lady is to the
servant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in Sir Richard
Steele; the other of Fanny in "Joseph Andrews."
[Footnote 51: In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait
must be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty years ago.]
But to return. The general furniture of her ordinary room, the
kitchen, is not so much her own as her Master's and Mistress's, and
need not be described: but in a drawer of the dresser or the table, in
company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her
property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissors, a thread-case,
a piece of wax much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of
"Pamela," and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as "George Barnwell," or
Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking-glass in the
window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find
a good looking-glass on the table, and in the window a Bible, a comb,
and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the
mighty mystery,--the box,--containing, among other things, her
clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the
penny; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet; the "Whole Nature of
Dreams Laid Open," together with the "Fortune-teller" and the "Account
of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;" the "Story of the Beautiful Zoa" "who was
cast away on a desart island, showing how," etc.; some half-crowns in
a purse, including pieces of country-money, with the good Countess of
Coventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver penny
wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before
she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten or been
forgotten by her, she is not sure which;--two little enamel boxes,
with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "a
Trifle from Margate;" and lastly, various letters, square and ragged,
and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters
for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school,
is directed "Miss."
In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her young
mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and
occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and
condition overcome all sophistications of this sort: her shape,
fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and
exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her
temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is
over-saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or
when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty
shoes,--or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she
much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; and
sometimes she catches herself saying, "Drat that butcher," but
immediately adds, "God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with their
compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The
milkman bespeaks her good-humour for the day with "Come, pretty
maids:"--then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, etc., all
with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to
the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from
its roller with more than the ordinary whirl, and tosses his parcel
into a tie.
Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and
grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected
with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the
area-steps or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a
troop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out of
a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house,
when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary
obstacles between. If the Maid-servant is wise, the best part of her
work is done by dinner-time; and nothing else is necessary to give
perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she
calls it "a bit o' dinner." There is the same sort of eloquence in her
other phrase, "a cup o' tea;" but the old ones, and the washerwomen,
beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other
servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts-like, and tells Mr.
John to "have done then;" or if there is a ball given that night, they
throw open the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by.
In smaller houses, she receives the visits of her aforesaid cousin;
and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks of
her young master or mistress and Mr. Ivins (Evans); or else she calls
to mind her own friends in the country; where she thinks the cows and
"all that" beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she
snuffs the candle with her scissors; or if she has eaten more heartily
than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks
that tender hearts were born to be unhappy.
Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad,
to be anything but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The Maid-servant,
the sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy a
holiday beyond all the rest of the world;--and all for the same
reason,--because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of
being with persons of circumstances or thoughts above them, give them
all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of the
money-getters is a vegetable compared with them. The Maid-servant when
she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all
pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play or the
music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of
apples and gingerbread, which she and her party commence almost as
soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy,
because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general;
and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in the
love-scenes. Her favourite play is "Alexander the Great, or the Rival
Queens." Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to
look at the pictures in the windows, and the fine things labelled with
those corpulent numerals of "only 7_s._"--"only 6_s._ 6_d._" She has
also, unless born and bred in London, been to see my Lord Mayor, the
fine people coming out of Court, and the "beasties" in the Tower; and
at all events she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which she
comes away, equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at
the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most.
One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an
endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and
wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous and well-dressed people,
as if she were a mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, where
the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white,
calls her Ma'am; and says to John by her side, in spite of his laced
hat, "Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady."
Ah! may her "cousin" turn out as true as he says he is; or may she get
home soon enough and smiling enough to be as happy again next time.
_Leigh Hunt._