 | CHAPTER III.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE. Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE.
Mrs. Lee having made up her mind that Lucy
must go to service, tried to look upon the bright
side of the necessity, and to present the brightest
to her husband, but in her own secret heart she
had bitter conflicts. She had, as we have said, no
acquaintance in the city; she wanted not only a
place for this pure, good little girl, who had never
left the shelter of her mother's wing, but a good
place, where the weaknesses of childhood would
be considered; where its faults would be patiently
borne with, forgiven, and corrected; where its ignorance
would be instructed; where the employer
would feel the responsibility, and the privilege, we
may add, of training a young creature in virtue
Do these palpable duties enter into the calculations
of a majority of employers?
At the end of the week Mrs. Lee had saved two
shillings; and having provided for her husband's
comfort in her absence, placed her little lame boy
within reach of his books and playthings, and given
all necessary charges to the little girls, she set off
with Lucy at twelve o'clock on her pilgrimage for
a place. She entered a decent intelligence-office,
paid the fee, and obtained a reference to Mrs. Oatley's,
as a consequential man informed her, “one of
the most fashionablest houses in Broadway.”
“Can you tell me nothing else of the family?”
inquired Mrs. Lee.
“Not I, woman—what else can you want to
know?”
“If the place does not suit me, you will give me
other references?”
“Certainly—we'll suit your slip of a girl to a
place—there's no mistake about that.”
“Mrs. Lee sighed, left the office, and proceeded to
the place. The house verified her informer's
promise; everything in it and about it had a fashionable
aspect. She was shown into Mrs. Oatley's
bedroom, where that lady was sitting with a grownup
daughter. Both ladies, on learning their errand,
surveyed the humble strangers from head to foot.
Mrs. Lee the while, pale and exhausted with her
long walk, was left standing as if in royal presence
—and this in a land where we vaunt our equality
and democratic institutions!
“Do you think she will answer our purpose,
Anne?” asked the mother of the daughter.
“Nicely, mamma;” and then, in a lower but still
audible tone, “she is a tidy lassie, and pretty too
—just the thing to tend the door.”
“She looks pale, I hope she is not sickly? I
can't undertake a sickly child,” said Mrs. Oatley,
inquiringly.
“She is not in the least sickly, ma'am—she is
paler than is natural to her just now.”
“How does that happen?” It would have been
a long and sad story to explain how that happened,
and a hard one for Mrs. Lee to tell; she therefore
evaded the question, “You will find her strong
enough, ma'am, to perform any service you will require.”
Then followed the customary questions,
to which Mrs. Lee replied, as she had predetermined,
simply that she was a stranger in the city,
and that she was compelled, by the wants consequent
on her husband's protracted illness, to seek
a place for her child.
“It's much the best thing for your child, good
woman.”
“That depends!” thought poor Mrs. Lee. She
ventured to ask what service would be required of
Lucy.
“Oh, the work I want her for is just nothing at
all—merely to tend the door, bring up messages,
and occasionally to run of errands—you could not
find a better place for her—I'll give her four dollars
a month.”
“And if she is civil, &c., &c., &c.,” said Miss
Oatley, “she'll get plenty of presents.”
“The wages are very liberal, ma'am,” said Mrs.
Lee, after a little hesitation, “but—”
“Oh, if you object, it is not worth talking about
—it is a place very easy to supply.”
“The only objection I have to make, ma'am,
you will not perhaps think a very unreasonable one.
My child must be qualifying herself for the future,
and I fear the very light work she has here would
rather unfit than fit her for the future.”
“Oh, very well—as you please—a droll objection
though—hey, Mary? There is no end to the
whims and demands of servants nowadays—always
something new! but it really is a little too
much to expect to turn a gentleman's house into a
school!”
Mrs. Lee felt her heart rising, but she struggled
to keep it down, and asked, with the humility necessary
to her forlorn condition, “if she might take
till Monday to consider.”
“No—on the whole, I don't think your girl would
suit me—children that have never lived out are
very apt to have their heads full of whims.”
“Do let's go, mother,” whispered Lucy. And
they went without one kind word that would intimate
they were beings of the same human family
with the mistress of the mansion.
“What a goose the woman is!” said Mrs. Oatley,
as the door closed upon the disappointed applicants.
Yet Mrs. Oatley was not a hard-hearted
woman; she only had never considered the feelings
and rights of her inferiors in position. Strange
reverses and revelations would there be to the
more favoured classes if an intrinsic graduating
scale could be applied.
Mrs. Lee retraced her way to the intelligence-office.
The man was civil, and looked over his
wants a girl from twelve to fifteen—the very
thing, ma'am.”
“No, sir. I cannot put my child into a boarding-house.”
“Pshaw! must not be more nice than wise. If
she's clever and handy—looks so,” winking at
Lucy, “she'll pick up plenty of presents.”
“Please to give me another reference.”
“Here's one in Grand-street and two in Bleeker-street.
If one shoe pinches, another may fit.
There's Mrs. Tom Clark, a lawyer's lady—there's
her number, Grand-street. There's Mrs. Aaron
Sadwell, her husband made a fortune last summer;
and there's Mrs. Kidder, a fashionable shoemaker's
wife—so there's a choice for you.” To Mrs. Tom
Clark's they first went. Mrs. Clark, after a long
interrogation, dismissed them, saying, she made it
a rule never to take girls that had not lived out—
they required too much teaching!
Mrs. Sadwell inquired if the child knew how to
work, and Mrs. Lee, warned by her last experience,
replied that she had herself taken great pains to
teach her.
“Ah, well, then,” said Mrs. Sadwell, “she'll
not do. I shall have to unlearn her the ways of
such sort of people as you, my good woman, and
those of a gentleman's family are so different!”
As they went down Mrs. Sadwell's steps, Mrs.
Lee, struggling to hide her emotions from her child,
said, in a cheerful voice, “Well, Lucy, dear, we'll
go next to Mrs. Kidder's; those who know what
work is ought to have most consideration for their
servant.” And to Mrs. Kidder's, a full mile from
a rude, dirty boy (Mrs. Kidder's eldest hope), who,
running to the landing-places on the stairs, shouted,
“Ma—I say, can't you come down—here's somebody
after a place.”
“Tell 'em to come up here, Lorenzo.”
“Follow your nose, ma'am,” called out the boy,
“and go to where you hear the tum-tumin.”
Mrs. Lee obeyed the direction; and passing an
open parlour door, she saw two communicating
apartments gaudily furnished. Lucy followed her
mother, and, as she reached the bottom of the stairs,
Mr. Lorenzo came sliding down on the baluster,
and, as he landed beside her, he threw his arm
round her neck, kissed her cheek, and ran shouting
out of the house. Lucy, confounded, called, “Mother,
mother!” and would have implored her to turn
back; but Mrs. Lee was already at the turn of the
stairs, where she had been met by a slatternly Irish
girl, who had spilled half a basin of dirty water at
her feet. Not being in the least aware of the impertinence
offered to her child, she had sprung forward
to avoid the inundation, and was already in
the presence of Mrs. Kidder, who sat before the
open door of the room whence proceeded the
tum-tumin—that is to say, the notes of a cracked
piano, whereon one of the Misses Kidder was
thrumming. “You come from the intelligence-office,
I take it?”
Before Mrs. Lee could reply, one of the half
dozen children in the room shouted out, “Ma,
mayn't Matilda give me my horse?”
“No, I say I won't, 'cause he snatched my slate
yesterday.”
“Come to me, Orlando—you're as dirty as a pig
—here, blow your nose,” taking his apron for the
office. “Matilda, stop your noise, and go and
comb out your hair—it looks like a hurra's nest—
you're wanting a place for your girl, I suppose?”
“Not here!” thought poor Mrs. Lee; but she
merely replied, “I am looking for one.”
“Can she do all kinds of work?” Before Mrs.
Lee could reply there was another outbreak from
Orlando, who was now indeed Furioso, “Ma, shan't
Anna Maria be still? she is putting pepper-corns
into my ear.”
“Come to me, Anna Maria.” Anna Maria received
a cuff from her mother, and went bawling
back to her place. The young practitioner at the
piano meanwhile proceeded. “Is your girl handy
at work in general?” resumed Mrs. Kidder.
“She understands work, and is as capable as
most girls of her age. She has always lived at
home, and has been my only assistant.”
“Well, you both look neat and clean, and that is
a very good symptom.”
“A competent judge!” thought Mrs. Lee, as
she looked at the carpet saturated with grease, the
defaced furniture, and the filthy persons of the uncombed,
unwashed mother and children.
“I want,” continued Mrs. Kidder, “a girl that's
handy in assisting about cooking—that can make
up beds, and sweep out rooms, and set tables, and
wait and tend when the girls have company, and
understands washing dishes, and cleaning knives,
and is handy at ironing, and helping the girls clearstarch;
washing I calculate to hire; but I have concluded
not to keep any steady help but a young
thinks, and so do I, the wages is too much.”
Mrs. Lee saw Lucy's eye turning with most
earnest appeal to her, and she was thinking how
civilly to break off a treaty to which she was from
the first determined not to accede, when they were
again interrupted, this time by the entrance of the
eldest Miss Kidder, followed by a milliner's girl
with a bandbox, which was immediately opened,
and two hats displayed for the mother's inspection.
“Oh, ma, do say I may have this one,” said the
young lady; “it's only seven dollars and a half;
Madame l'Epine asked ten at first, but she said it
was so becoming to me it was a pity I should not
have it! Oh, is not it a love? Madame says it's
just like Mrs. —,” mentioning a name well
known in the fashionable world and the milliner's
world, and thence handed down to the humblest
devotee to feathers and flowers in the city. “Do
say yes, ma.”
The hat was tried on, and gave the daughter to
the mother's eye so decidedly the air of bon ton,
that the desired “Yes” was promptly spoken.
This matter settled, Mrs. Kidder turned to Lucy.
“Well, child, if you are a mind to come and do
your best, I'll give you three dollars a month, and
that is more than such a child as you can possibly
earn.”
“My child cannot undertake the work you expect
from her for any wages,” said Mrs. Lee.
“Oh, very well! very well! there are enough
that will.” Mrs. Lee was scarcely out of the room
before the mother and young ladies vituperated
the whole race of servants, who, they said, expected
finished by saying she thought three dollars generous
wages; at any rate, she could not afford to pay
more. And she could not, and pay seven dollars
and a half for a dress hat. Alas! the justice that
is concerned in giving a fair and adequate reward
to labour, is incompatible with the expensive gratification
of vanity.
Mrs. Lee was not encouraged by the result of
her inquiries thus far; but long trials had taught
her patience; and when Lucy said, as they left the
Kidders' door, “Oh, mother, let me go home and
starve with you!” she replied in a cheerful tone,
“One swallow does not make a summer, Lucy,
nor one frost a winter.”
“But, mother, you will be so tired!—and it's so
dreadful to you to be talked to so by people that
don't know you!”
“I am a little tired, Lucy, but that a night's rest
will cure. And as to being talked to, as you call it,
in this way, there are good uses in it. It gives
me a realizing sense of some of the trials endured
by those whose lot is a menial condition that I
never had before. It is good for us, for a little
while at least, to take the place of our fellow-creatures,
and feel the weight of their burdens. And
after all, my child, it is quite as well to be the
humble, disdained, and questioned place-seeker, as
those who so thoughtlessly pain us. Oh, what
opportunities are lost for want of a little consideration!
If these women had known what a comfort
a kind word, fitly spoken, would have been to
us, they would not have treated us in a way to
shock you. We must try not to think too harshly,
wrong.”
“Well, I shall try, mother—but I feel first, and
afterward you make me think—what shall I do
when I am away from you?”
Again our poor pilgrims retraced their way to
the office, and received from the man, who seemed
no way surprised at these repeated demands, three
more references. One to Mrs. Louis, in Barclay-street,
and that being nearest, thither Mrs. Lee
went. Mrs. Louis's establishment indicated the
wealth of the proprietor. A servant announced
Mrs. Lee to her lady. “Do, Ellen,” said Mrs.
Louis, looking up from the “last new novel,” and
addressing her seamstress, “go down and speak
to her—I can't be bothered.”
Ellen returned with a most favourable report, to
which her mistress, as she did not lift her eyes
from her book, could have given but half an ear.
When Ellen stopped talking, she said, “She'll do,
no doubt, but I can't speak to her now—tell her to
call again in an hour or two.”
“She looks very tired, ma'am.” Mrs. Louis neither
heeded nor heard. “The child is a pretty child
—and they have had a tedious long walk, Mrs. Louis
—and if you would please to speak to them now?”
“Do, Ellen, hush!” said her mistress, looking
up from the tale of fictitious distress that was
drenching her face with tears. “If the woman is
tired, tell her to call Monday.”
“You engaged to go out early Monday morning,
Mrs. Louis.”
“How you interrupt me, Ellen! If I am out,
can't she call again?”
“I would not advise you to come, if you have
another place in view,” added Ellen, kindly, after
delivering Mrs. Louis's message; “Mrs. Louis has
an engagement out, and you don't look able to take
a long walk for nothing.”
Mrs. Louis was not naturally more selfish than
others. The sensibility that was poured out over
a novel, or exhausted upon herself, if directed into
proper channels, would have made her estimate
rightly the value of time, the expense of labour,
and the pain of hope deferred to a poor woman;
would, in short, have given her that lively sense of
the rights and wants of others that is manifest in
justice and kindness.
The next lady to whom her references admitted
her was a Mrs. Ardley, a good-humoured, self-indulgent,
easy-tempered woman. She asked few
questions, and was satisfied with the answers
given. “All I want,” she said, “is a civil, obliging
child, that is handy and willing—who will be
ready to do a turn for the waiter, run out for the
seamstress, help the cook, run up and down for
the nurse—odds and ends, you know. If my people
are satisfied, I shall be.”
Mrs. Lee hesitated. These multiplied employers
seemed to her like a many-headed monster; but
the hope of anything better was fast fading away.
While she hesitated, the cook sent up to know if
Mrs. Ardley would lend her a certain dress-cap for
a pattern.[1]
“I have done with the cap,” said Mrs. Ardley,
her wardrobe a soiled cap, decked with bows and
flowers; “tell Ferris she's welcome to it.” She
was evidently pleased with her own generosity, as
well as amused at her woman's enterprising vanity.
“Well, we seem to be agreed,” she said to Mrs.
Lee; “let your child come on Monday.”
“There is one favour I would ask before concluding,
ma'am—can my child have a room or a
bed to herself?”
“Oh, no—there is no one, I believe, more indulgent
than I am to my people—but this is a
stretch a little beyond me—pray, does miss have a
room to herself at home?”
“No, ma'am, I have but one room for my husband,
myself, and my four children.”
“I beg your pardon, ma'am!” said Mrs. Ardley,
almost involuntarily. There was a gentle dignity
in Mrs. Lee's manner, that made her feel for a
moment, in spite of their apparent relative stations,
as if she were in the presence of a superior.
“Sophy,” she said, turning to her maid, “you
know better than I—can you make up a separate
bed for this little girl?”
“No, ma'am—not a comfortable one—there is
not a mattress, nor even a blanket out of use.”
“Why, Sophy, you make us out rather poverty-stricken.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Ardley! you know I did not mean
that—there's piles of bedding in the trunk-room—
it's only the servants' that is scanty!”
“Oh, ho! then we are not quite paupers yet?”
“Mrs. Ardley!”
“You see how it is,” resumed Mrs. Ardley to
a mother has peculiar feelings, let her situation in
life be what it will; but your child will do very
well with the cook—hey, Sophy?”
“I don't know, Mrs. Ardley—you remember
Mary Orme?”
“Oh, it was that drunken wretch, Morris, that
Mary Orme objected to sleeping with.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ardley—but—”
“But what, Sophy? you are always making
mountains of molehills.”
Mrs. Lee waited anxiously for the explanation
of Sophy's “but.” Sophy, however, though sympathizing
with Mrs. Lee's scruples, did not like to
risk offending Mrs. Ardley by telling the truth,
that Ferris, the present cook, was strongly suspected
of her predecessor's infirmity.
“At any rate,” said Mrs. Ardley, “let your little
girl come and try. I take a fancy to her.”
This first expression of good-will that she had
heard that day brought Mrs. Lee almost to a conclusion;
but still she shrunk from exposing Lucy
to such contact with a stranger, of whose good
character neither mistress nor maid ventured to
give an assurance, and it was finally settled that if.
Mrs. Lee did not find a place to suit her better,
Lucy should come on Monday morning. “And at
any rate, if she does, let her call and let me know,”
said Mrs. Ardley.
“How silly it is in the woman to strain so at a
gnat!” said Mrs. Ardley, after Mrs. Lee's departure;
“when, by her own account, they live in such
a mess at home.”
“Yes, ma'am—but I suspect she has seen better
days.”
“She never hinted at any such thing.”
“No, ma'am—but I somehow feel as if she had;
and to them that has, Mrs. Ardley, it must be
pretty hard to put up with what we have to gulp
down, and say nothing about it.”
“How ridiculous, Sophy! when everybody says
servants have it all their own way nowadays.”
“Do servants say so, Mrs. Ardley?”
“I am sure I don't know what they say:”
Sophy was not addicted to the classics, or she
might have aptly reminded Mrs. Ardley of the lion's
comment on the sculptor's giving the victory to man
over him.
“I do remember,” resumed Mrs. Ardley, recuring
to the applicants, “thinking once while they
were here that that poor body had something superior
to her condition. If so, it must be shocking
for her to go about so among strangers, looking up
a place for that nice little girl—if she calls Monday
morning, I will try and keep her, even if she
has engaged a place.” Mrs. Ardley felt a sympathy
for a fallen possible lady, that she never
would have dreamed of for a mere poor woman.
When Mrs. Lee and Lucy again went on their
way the lamps were lighting. There was still
one application to be made, and, both wearied in
body and spirit, they proceeded to the upper end of
Greenwich-street, to a Mrs. Broadson's.
Mrs. Broadson asked innumerable questions, relevant
and irrelevant. Where Mrs. Lee was born;
where she came from when she came to the city;
how long she had lived in New-York; how many
children she had; what was her business; what
was her husband's. “Strange,” she said, “that
writing, he should be so very poor—is he a sober
man?”
Mrs. Lee's faded cheek glowed as she replied,
“He could scarcely be otherwise in his present
condition.”
“Is he kind to you?”
Lucy looked up to her mother with tearful eyes.
“Excuse me, ma'am,” said Mrs. Lee, “from answering
questions that have nothing to do with my
child's qualifications.”
“Hem! I understand—why have not you put
out your child before?”
“I wanted her at home.”
“The old excuse! Let me tell you, good
woman, it's a very poor one. I am patroness of
an infant school—I know children can't be taught
too early.”
“I have an infant school at home,” replied Mrs.
Lee, somewhat proudly.
“Oh, yes, I know; but your children get such
shocking habits sosling about, and doing nothing,
and living all in a clutter.”
“What work do you wish to employ my child
for, ma'am?”
“Oh, you should not be too particular. I make
it a rule that a child should be willing to be called
on for anything. I have two servants, and at most
her work will not be worth speaking of. There
are but two of us, I and husband.”
At this juncture Mrs. Broadson was called out,
and an Irish servant who remained in the room
asked Mrs. Lee to sit down, and kindly drew a low
chair for Lucy to the fire. “Warm ye, child,” she
at this way, and no use either.” Lucy
was exhausted, and the kind word, and not the
concluding intimation, opened a fountain of tears.
“Och, child! ye should not fret,” continued her
consoler, “ye'll be after soon finding a place. It
is not with you as with them that an't born in
their native land—like my poor Judy M'Phealan!”
Mrs. Broadson's return interrupted this flow of
kindness; and that lady, after higgling about wages,
and making many comments upon the extravagant
demands of servants, and their worthlessness
“nowadays,” agreed to receive Lucy the next
Monday morning. This was almost a measure of
desperation on Mrs. Lee's part. She had fruitlessly
exhausted her day, and this was apparently
the best situation that had offered. The family
was small. There was an air of order and thrift
in the house, and that, with the kindness of the Irish
woman, Lucy's only fellow-servant, had decided
Mrs. Lee. “Sure!” said this same woman, as
the door closed after Mrs. Lee, with a face so
changed that she scarcely seemed the same, “sure
you do not mane to give this one the place you
promised to Judy?”
“I mean to have two strings to my bow. If
Judy don't come—”
“But sure she'll be after coming.”
“Well, if she does, Biddy, you may take time
to look her up another place. It's natural, you
know, I should prefer an American girl.”
“And this is the way you ladies keep your word
to us, and then complain that we are not up to the
mark! Poor Judy! God help her!”
Is the failure in the performance of contracts
between employers and employed so generally
complained of confined to one of the contracting
parties? We ask the experienced.
| CHAPTER III.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE. Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated | |