Yes.But that spot removed, why not come down at six, and wash the doorsteps? I dare say the early rising and exercise would do me a great deal of good.The housemaid, in that case, might lie in bed a little later, and have her tea and the morning paper brought to her in bed: then, of course, Thomas would expect to be helped about the boots and knives; cook about the saucepans, dishes, and what not;the lady's-maid would want somebody to take the curl-papers out of her hair, and get her bath ready.You should have a set of servants for the servants, and these under servants should have slaves to wait on them.The king commands the first lord in waiting to desire the second lord to intimate to the gentleman usher to request the page of the ante-chamber to entreat the groom of the stairs to implore John to ask the captain of the buttons to desire the maid of the still-room to beg the housekeeper to give out a few more lumps of sugar, as his Majesty has none for his coffee, which probably is getting cold during the negotiation.In our little Brentfords we are all kings, more or less.There are orders, gradations, hierarchies, everywhere.In your house and mine there are mysteries unknown to us.I am not going in to the horrid old question of "followers." I don't mean cousins from the country, love-stricken policemen, or gentlemen in mufti from Knightsbridge Barracks; but people who have an occult right on the premises; the uncovenanted servants of the house; gray women who are seen at evening with baskets flitting about area-railings; dingy shawls which drop you furtive curtsies in your neighborhood; demure little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the pantry.Those outsiders wear Thomas's crest and livery, and call him "Sir;" those silent women address the female servants as "Mum," and curtsy before them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean aprons.Then, again, those servi servorum have dependants in the vast, silent, poverty-stricken world outside your comfortable kitchen fire, in the world of darkness, and hunger, and miserable cold, and dank, flagged cellars, and huddled straw, and rags, in which pale children are swarming.It may be your beer (which runs with great volubility)has a pipe or two which communicates with those dark caverns where hopeless anguish pours the groan, and would scarce see light but for a scrap or two of candle which has been whipped away from your worship's kitchen.Not many years ago--I don't know whether before or since that white mark was drawn on the door--a lady occupied the confidential place of housemaid in this "private residence," who brought a good character, who seemed to have a cheerful temper, whom I used to hear clattering and bumping overhead or on the stairs long before daylight--there, I say, was poor Camilla, scouring the plain, trundling and brushing, and clattering with her pans and brooms, and humming at her work.Well, she had established a smuggling communication of beer over the area frontier.This neat-handed Phyllis used to pack up the nicest baskets of my provender, and convey them to somebody outside--I believe, on my conscience, to some poor friend in distress.Camilla was consigned to her doom.
She was sent back to her friends in the country; and when she was gone we heard of many of her faults.She expressed herself, when displeased, in language that I shall not repeat.As for the beer and meat, there was no mistake about them.But apres? Can I have the heart to be very angry with that poor jade for helping another poorer jade out of my larder? On your honor and conscience, when you were a boy, and the apples looked temptingly over Farmer Quarringdon's hedge, did you never--? When there was a grand dinner at home, and you were sliding, with Master Bacon, up and down the stairs, and the dishes came out, did you ever do such a thing as just to--? Well, in many and many a respect servants are like children.They are under domination.They are subject to reproof, to ill temper, to petty exactions and stupid tyrannies not seldom.
They scheme, conspire, fawn, and are hypocrites."Little boys should not loll on chairs." "Little girls should be seen, and not heard;" and so forth.Have we not almost all learnt these expressions of old foozles: and uttered them ourselves when in the square-toed state? The Eton master, who was breaking a lance with our Paterfamilias of late, turned on Paterfamilias, saying, He knows not the nature and exquisite candor of well-bred English boys.
