I now had to look for another place, and got one from an advertisement
in the county newspaper, to go to Eastbourne, about sixty miles from my
home, as footman.
I had the usual good advice from my mother, who came to the station to
“see me off,” accompanied by the straining of heart strings on both
sides, as it was my first time of leaving home. The train started, and
as the poet sayeth:
“I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away this life of care,
Which I have borne, and yet must bear.”
Though I had to work hard I was fairly happy in this place, after my
homesickness had worn off. They treated me fairly well. There were
children in the family. I had twelve or fourteen pairs of boots to
clean before breakfast. There were compensations. When I got out I
would go down to the sea and hire a boat, for I could row; also,
I found a friend, a footman who lived near. We would go boating
and bathing together. One incident that happened there I have not
forgotten. On the 5th of November, at Eastbourne, also at Lewes, they
used to have a torchlight procession, bonfire, and burn the efigy of
the most unpopular person of that time. I got permission to go out,
the Master giving me some letters to post. I put on my buff livery
overcoat as it was very cold, putting the letters in my pocket. The
procession was approaching. Of course, I must join it. I got a torch
and lighted it, and marched on with the others. The next time I wanted
that overcoat, to go on the carriage as footman, I found it was covered
with spots of tar that had fallen from the torch; but this was not all.
I felt that there was something in a pocket. I felt: it was the letters
I had been given to post, a fortnight before. Now, what was to be done?
Burn them? No; that would not be right, as I did not know what they
contained. So, with “my tail between my legs,” I went up to the study.
The Master did not say much, but the look he gave me, over the top of
his spectacles, was enough. He said: “I have been wondering why I did
not get these letters answered.” In the excitement of the procession
I had forgotten to post those letters. At that place I learned to do
crochet work, and could beat any girl at making lace and wool work.
During my years in service I have made dozens of jackets for babies;
in fact, I think the women used to have the babies in order to get the
little wool jacket; also, no end of woolen crossovers for old women.
A servant has to stay within hearing of the bells and telephone, and
when the other work was finished for the time being, I would crochet. I
cannot bear to sit doing nothing but twiddle my thumbs, neither can I
bear going for a “walk” without some object in view.
I have often smiled to myself, when I see a photograph taken at the
time I was at Eastbourne. What a rig out? A very short frock coat, and
a round, flat Scotch cap, perched on a mop of curly hair. I thought at
the time I was absolutely “It.”
After about two years I thought it time I should make a move, and be
getting on, as I was worthier a better place. So I left and went home.
I was not there long. It is astonishing what a difference two years
make to a town: all my school-mates had gone. Strangers everywhere. I
went to see the house where the Doctor lived: strangers there too. I
looked at the nick in the wall where I used to put the toe of my boot
to climb over when I was late. I thought of the happy times I had spent
there, and I think I dropped a tear. No; I did not want to stay at home
long.
I soon got a place, as second footman to a Baronet, about forty miles
from home, being a tall boy for my age. Now I began to find out what
real gentleman’s service was. The butler was a decent, old-fashioned
sort. Here the beer was drawn in leather jacks, and drank out of
horns. We ate our food off pewter plates. It was a good, old-fashioned
country place: hunting, shooting, fishing was indulged in. The first
footman and I had sixty-three colza oil lamps to clean and trim, before
breakfast, after collecting them from all parts of the house. Her
Ladyship, a little old lady, had me in, and talked to me nicely. We
were all happy and comfortable. About twenty servants were kept. There
was no hurry and scurry like service is now-a-days. One felt at home. I
was quick to learn. The butler taught me how to polish silver properly,
and all my other duties, and such as running up and down stairs that
one cannot see, for the stairs are out of sight when one has a butler’s
tray full of silver and glass in front of one: it requires a bit of
judgment, especially when one thinks they are at the bottom and there
is another step to go. He soon saw he could trust me. After supper we
had dancing in the servants’ hall. I had learnt to play the concertina
(an instrument much in vogue in those days) but the sound of which I
now detest. Old rules were kept up, we were not allowed to converse at
the servants’ hall dinner, untill the “quality,” usually called “Pugs”
had left the hall, consisting of housekeeper, cook, lady’s-maids,
valets, butler, formed quite a procession to the steward’s room, where
they had--well, we were not supposed to know what they had.
One bank holiday, Good Friday, I think it was, my father came to see me
unexpectedly. The butler made him welcome. He sat down to dinner with
us in the hall, and would keep on talking on general topics, much to
the amusement of all the rest of us, and could not understand why no
one answered him. I explained to him afterwards.
I was perfectly happy while there. It was the sort of a place one could
live at all their days, if contented with a country life--miles from
anywhere--but we were a little comunity in ourselves.
Nothing pleased me better, when it was my turn off duty, to go and find
the gamekeeper and get a shot at a rabbit. On Sundays a large brake
came to the side door to take such of the servants who wished to go
to church, a drive of three miles across the Downs. I took alternate
Sundays with the first footman, always returning with a double-barreled
appetite for the twenty-five pounds of roasted ribs of beef at one end
of the table, and a boiled leg of mutton and trimmings at the other;
followed by large black plum puddings, such as is usually served at
Christmas.
While at this place I began the habit of having a cold bath (which I
put ready overnight) on jumping out of bed every morning. Often I have
had to break the ice on the water before I could begin, our bedrooms
were so cold, but we fortified ourselves against it by making a jack
of hot spiced ale before going to bed in winter.
Unfortunately, after I had been there nearly two years, her Ladyship
died. There was an enormous funeral: the house was packed with guests.
After all was over, and things had quieted down a bit, we were told
that great alterations and reductions would take place, as the Baronet
was now alone in the house. About half the servants got a month’s
notice to leave, myself among them. So again I went home.
During my absence my youngest sister had gone away into service, also
my brother had got a pageboy’s place. This is what gentleman’s service
does. It scatters and seperates members of a family all over the
country. One never knows where they will have to go next. Perhaps not
seeing each other for years.
So I found my mother all alone, though she had the consolation of
my father coming home from his work in the evening: that was all.
I wandered round the town, but met scarcely anyone I knew. All my
schoolmates had grown into young men and young women; some had left
the town; some had got married; and several I knew had died. I saw the
old schoolmaster at his gate. His hair had turned quite white. His son
had turned out to be a rascal, which helped it a bit, no doubt. Which
goes to show that though he had the best education, unless the good
principle is there, it is of no avail; as witness the verger’s son who
had, through influence, been educated in the Blue Coat School, where
they were supposed to get a better commercial education than we had.
On leaving school he got a post as clerk at the railway station. One
day he delivered a parcel to my mother, saying there was tenpence to
pay. She gave him the money. On opening the parcel she found nothing
but a brick and some straws. My mother would always laugh at our boyish
escapades, but this was dishonesty. She took no action but told his
father what he had done. The meadow next the school was built over,
which I looked on as a sacriledge, when I remembered the stolen games
of cricket we used to play there. The cricket ground, where the County
teams used to play, was all cut up with roads, and covered with villas.
Everything about the place seemed so small. I went and hired a boat a
few times, dug up the garden, but soon got tired of being about, where
everything was so different to what it was when I left home.
I had kept up a desultory correspondence with the footman who I lived
with at the Doctor’s, and who was now a butler in London. I wrote to
him. He strongly advised me to come to London, where he would quickly
get me a situation. We talked the matter over, and I decided to go. I
shall never forget the morning I started. My father got half a day to
see me off and came to the station. When the train was about to start,
he actually kissed me. That was the last time I ever saw him in a state
of consciousness, for the next time I saw him he was on his death-bed.
As the train neared London I began to wonder how I should find my way
in such a maze of houses and streets. But one need never get lost, as
long as one has a tongue: so by constant enquiry I found my way from
Waterloo Station to Belgrave Square.
I arrived in London to seek my fortune. Not with the proverbial
half-a-crown in my pocket, for I think I had a little more than that,
but not much. I found my friend. He had found lodgings for me in some
mews quite handy. I was no longer home sick, only a bit confused at
the size of London. Still, I meant to push my way onward and upward.
We scanned the advertisements for servants. I forget to mention that I
arrived in London wearing a straw hat with a cerice ribbon round it,
thinking it was quite smart, but my friend, the butler, told me that it
was not the right thing at all for London wear; so I struck my colours,
and put on a black ribbon.
It is curious how a single letter in the alphabet may alter the whole
course of one’s life. In an advertisement it stated that a footman was
wanted in Walton Street, whereas it was in Wilton Street that the
footman was wanted; by the time I had been to Walton Street (someone
suggested it meant “Wilton”) and back to Wilton Street, I was too late,
the place had just been taken.
On occasions when scouring the West End of London in search of a
situation often I could not afford to have a cookshop dinner, but would
go to a baker’s shop and buy a twopenny loaf, also a quarter of a pound
of cheese, take it to some isolated part of the Green Park, or Hyde
Park, and eat it.
On one of these occasions I was lunching on one of the seats in Chelsea
Churchyard, when a poor looking man came towards me. I thought to
myself, “I suppose the poor fellow is hungry.” He did not ask for
anything, but remarked, “It’s a very keen wind!” I said it was, and
asked him if he had dined, if not, that he was welcome to some of mine.
“No,” he said, “I have some cabbage on cooking now.” “Only cabbage?”
I asked. “Just cabbage,” he replied. “But God is my other satisfying
portion. He satisfieth me. And God expects the very best that is in us,
nothing shoddy, half-hearted, but the very best.” He got up and went
away. I fancy he must have been a tailor in a small way, living in one
of the small cottages near the Churchyard.
At this time I found myself a strong, healthy young man. Height, 5 feet
8 inches. Quick to take offence, but quicker to forgive. I only hoped
that I should continue to grow, so as to enable me to serve in some of
the highest families in the land. For, in those days, footmen in good
families had to be not less than six feet, and taller if possible, to
show off the family livery, and look important. “Swank.”
There is a great difference in boys. Some are adaptable to be trained
for service, some are too slow and dull, others are sharp. I have
trained several in my time, to be, I believe, good servants, but as
to whether they have lived to thank, or curse, me for doing so, is a
question.
When I first came to London, in my spare time, when I was not actually
looking for a place, I tried to learn my way about. I got a map and
would sally forth; sometimes I got lost, but one can always ask the
way. Thus I learnt most of the West End of London. One day I started
to see the Tower--before I got the map--after I had followed the river
Thames for an hour or so, thinking that would surely bring me to it,
I found I had gone the wrong way altogether, and found myself at
Hammersmith.
I soon got a place as second footman in a large place in ----shire,
with a Nobleman, who I call “The Bold Bad Baron,” for he was the
surliest, bad-tempered man I ever met. Here they kept twenty-five
indoor servants. We had to powder, and wear breeches and white
stockings. The livery was green, covered with yellow and black brading,
the family crest being worked in the brade. The under butler previously
had valeted his Lordship, but he gave notice to leave, so they offered
him the post as under butler, if he would stay on. He took it, and the
valeting of his Lordship fell to me, and well I knew it: a galley slave
could not have been treated worse than I was. I soon understood why the
under butler wanted to leave. The butler was a pompous sort of a man,
though a very good sort. He had previously served the Rothschilds. As
long as we did our work properly he would not trouble us, in fact he
very seldom spoke to us liverymen.
The house was very large, an old Elizabethan mansion, partly modernised
inside, but in the rooms upstairs Moderator colza oil lamps were used,
and wax candles; gas was used in the basement, made on the estate; the
passages were so wide a horse and cart could easily go up them. These
passages all met in a large stone flagged square, so that it took some
time to find the way about.
It was then the fashion for gentlemen to part their hair in the centre
at the back of the head. I had to do this for the Baron, he would then
take the handglass, and say that it was not a straight parting, or
that I had put more hair one side than the other, and I had to do it
all over again, he moving his head about, and using some very flowery
language. But I was as full of life as an egg, and free from care. The
Baron’s bad language was like water on a duck’s back: it did not soak
in; but after a time came to be a bit monotinous. Being miles from
anywhere what amusements we had we had to make ourselves.
There was a goodly company of us in the servants’ hall at night, as
the grooms and the under-gardeners would come in, and wash up all
the silver and glass in the pantries; more for company than anything
else, for there was nowhere for them to go for miles, in the evenings.
So that by the time we had finished waiting dinner, all the glass
and silver would be washed up and put away: all we had to do was to
adjourn to supper. There was the usual old-fashioned usages observed
in the servants’ hall, such as drinking the “Health” every day, etc.,
also a certain amount of “Esprit de Corps” among us all, which at the
present day is entirely absent. I shall never forget one day. The head
laundry-maid took my face between her hands and kissed me before them
all, said she could not resist it. She was a woman of forty, stout and
buxom, and I a chubby boy of eighteen, though I went as aged twenty.
I also went crimson. I think it was one day that I had got an extra
whigging from the “Bold Bad Baron,” so she kissed it all away for me:
for they all knew what sort of a man he was. But it would take more
than that to make me blush now-a-days.
The housekeepers in those days wore a black silk dress, a little silk
apron trimmed with beads, a lace collar, and a large gold brooch, a
small apology for a cap, made of white lace, and a black velvet bow
on top. The under-maids were more afraid of her than they were of her
Ladyship.
On Sundays the maids had all to troop off to church, which was in the
grounds, and had to wear small black bonnets, with ribbons tied in a
bow under the chin, similar to bonnets worn by nurses. The pews for the
servants were opposite to those of the gentry, so that we were under
observation all the time. One Sunday the Bold Bad Baron sent for the
butler after church and asked him if we had been drinking too much
beer as he noticed several of the men servants were asleep during the
sermon. The parson was brother to the Baron, the living was in his
gift, so of course he preached a sermon to please him; generally about
the lower orders being submissive to their betters. Servants to be
obedient to their masters, and satisfied to be jumped on and trodden
down generally. No wonder we went to sleep. Still, we managed to be
fairly happy amongst ourselves, though there was plenty of work for
everybody. At this time I discarded the concertina, and started to
learn to play the violin. Some people say I play well, and could get
my living at it; at any rate, I know I play with expression.
The first footman was a dare-devil, in disposition similar to the
footman I lived with at the Doctor’s in my first place. He would glory
in any sort of mischief, especially in tormenting the under butler.
All the men slept in the basement. The under butler let his bed down
in the pantry, across the front of the plate room door, so as to guard
the plate at night. To get at it, burglars would have to move his bed:
if that did not waken him nothing would. I was supposed to sleep at the
porter’s lodge, down two hundred yards of passage, where two grooms and
the usher slept, but I could not hear his Lordship’s bell so far away,
so by arrangement with the first footman we changed bedrooms. One night
we arranged to have a game with the under butler, so we got a reel of
cotton, put it on top of his let-down bed, taking the end of the cotton
down the passage round the next corner with us. When we saw him put out
his light we gently began to pull the cotton. We heard him get out of
bed, strike a light to see what it was rattling on the top of his bed.
Then we thought it prudent to disappear to our own rooms in stockinged
feet. Another night we tied a string to the corner of his bedclothes,
waited till we thought he had gone to sleep, then we began gently
to pull his bedclothes off. But he had not gone to sleep, but had
discovered the plot, and was waiting for us with the wooden bar that
kept his bed up in the day time. He shot out after us, and laid on with
the bar. We all being in our nightshirts, the bar fitted pretty close
to the part we generally sit on, but it was all taken in good part;
but as we had to pass the butler’s door we dare not cry out, or make
a noise. After “Lights Out,” the secretary, who slept in his quarters
near the porter’s lodge, would go into the butler’s room, about midway
down the passage, to have a chat, and doubtless tap a bottle of the
best.
One night, after “Lights Out,” we arranged to go to the porter’s lodge
to have a game of cards, generally brag or nap. We did not notice the
flight of time. Suddenly we heard the butler and secretary coming down
the passage, the butler to see that the back entrance was bolted, the
secretary to go to bed.
Immediately the gas was turned out, as a window looked out on the
passage. The under butler got under one of the beds. He was rather
a stout chap, and inclined to “embompoint,” the first footman and I
got into the bed and pulled the clothes up over our heads. The under
butler groaned out, “Get off, get off, you’re squeezing me to death.”
Our weight had made the bed go down and so pinched him; the others had
hid themselves as best they could, in cupboards, anywhere, and were
as quiet as mice. There was only one door: that led out to where the
butler stood. He stood there a second or two, apparently listening,
then went on. What would have happened if he had opened the door,
goodness knows. A pretty picture he would have seen. Two footmen in
bed with their livery and powdered hair, and the under butler’s white
stockinged legs sticking out from under the bed. For in those days
butlers were butlers. We had to say, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” when
he spoke to us, which was not very often; and when he told us to do
anything we had to jump to it quick. When all was quiet, we all crept
up the passage, a little light came through the lights in the roof
(which was a garden terrace outside). When we had got fifty yards up,
and nearly opposite the butler’s door, he locked it: we thought he was
opening it, so all turned tail; in the retreat I caught my forehead
against a projecting part of the wall and had a lovely big bump there
next day. I also dropped one of my pumps I was carrying. After a time
we tried again, and got through successfully. All this fun helped to
neutralise the bullyings and jawings I got from the Bold Bad Baron when
valeting him. He seemed to meet everything “edge on,” all his money and
power did not make him happy; his wife and family were afraid of him
whenever he appeared on the scene; the scowl on his face never left
him: no doubt it was there when he died.