Holidays being looked forward to with unmixed delight by all whose
opportunities of enjoying them are dependent upon others, a sketch of
character at such a season may amuse those whose inclination is not
sufficiently strong to study the original, and just enough to feel
pleasure in looking at the picture. The outline and finishing of that
which is here exhibited prove it the production of a master hand.
“The maid servant 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 or 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
neck-handkerchief pinned corner-wise 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 a 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 the ‘Guardian;’ the other of Fanny in ‘Joseph Andrews.’ 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 of 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 scissars, a thread-case, a piece of wax
candle 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 also 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 half-penny 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
desert island, showing how,’ &c.: 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 her 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
spelling, chiefly with little letters for capitals. One of them, written
by a girl who went to a day school with her, 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, &c. 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 ordinary whirl, and tosses, as
it were, his parcel into a tie,--for her, the cheesemonger weighs his
butter with half a glance, cherishes it round about with his patties,
and dabs the little piece on it to make up, with a graceful jerk. 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 all the
doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. In smaller
houses, she receives the visit of her aforesaid cousin; and sits down
alone, or with a fellow maid servant, to work; talks of her young
master, or mistress, 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 scissars; 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 any thing but a creature of sheer
enjoyment. The maid-servant, the sailor, and the school-boy, 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 or circumstances or thoughts above
them, give them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most
active of 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 nuts, 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 patterns in the window, and the fine
things labelled with those corpulent numerals of ‘only 7s.’--‘only 6s.
6d.’ 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, well dressed people as
if she were the 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.”
* * * * *