 | CHAPTER XI.
ALL GOES WRONG. Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
ALL GOES WRONG.
“I never was so tormented before,” said Mrs.
Ardley to her husband.
“What now, my dear?”
“My new seamstress plagues me so! From
morning to night she is coming to me with, `Please
to show me how you wish this done, Mrs. Ardley,'
and `would you be so good as just to fix this for
me, Mrs. Ardley?”'
“If she don't suit you, why not get another?”
“She does suit in some respects—she is quick
and very neat—she only does not understand fitting.”
“Can't you teach her?”
“Ardley, how absurd! I might as well turn
seamstress at once—I sha'n't worry my life out
about it; if she don't get on I shall look out for
somebody else—change is the order of the day.”
“How does the girl in Sophy's place make out?”
“So so. She is a firstrate worker, but she annoys
me so!”
“In what way?”
“She has no manners. She has always lived
in the country and in mechanics' families. She
slam-bangs about the house—shuts the doors as if
she were in a tavern—sings when I am in the room
—sits down when she is taking my orders—never
to me—and all that sort of thing.”
“These are all subordinate matters—is she not
good-tempered and well disposed? can't you teach
her?”
“She is the very soul of good temper, and she
seems as if she could not do too much for you;
but this drilling is so tiresome. I wish I could
have one perfect servant!”
“We must have perfect mistresses first.”
“That is just like you, Ardley. It is their business,
and they ought to perfect themselves for it.”
“The part of a mistress is not less a business,
my dear, nor does it require a less preparation.
Don't be offended, but I must say that I beg our
girls may be made acquainted with domestic affairs.
I should be ashamed to impose them on any man,
as ignorant as many young ladies are.”
“Oh, it's very easy talking, but you men know
nothing about domestic troubles.”
“You women, my dear, certainly do your best
to enlighten us.”
“I think you are very unkind, Ardley, when you
see me so annoyed—but your turn is coming, for
David is talking of going.”
“David! Heaven forbid!”
“He is, and it is half your fault, for ever harping
to him about saving his wages, and investing them
for him, till his head is fairly turned. He is going
to get married, and buy a farm in Michigan, the foolish
fellow!”
“Not so very foolish either, to exchange a manservant's
place in the city for a wife, a farm, and
independence in Michigan! Upon my word, it
out so well!”
“Your tune will change when David really
goes.”
“I hope not, my dear; we will try to lose the
sense of our loss in David's gain.”
“Charity begins at home, Mr. Ardley.”
“But should not stop at home, Anne.” Mr.
Ardley was a man of sense and benevolence; but,
unfortunately, he had begun with his wife as she
had with her domestics. He found her not qualified
for her place, and “it was too much trouble to
teach her.” It required too sustained an effort to
awaken her to a sense of her deficiencies, and to
inspire her with energy to supply them; so he consoled
himself with her favourite adage, “What
can't be cured must be endured.”
One raw disagreeable day, when the mercury
was just enough above the freezing point to allow
a heavy snow to thaw, Lucy came into the nursery
with the two little girls whom she had led from
school, that being one of the duties included in her
“odds and ends.” “My dear Belle,” said her
mother, “why are you crying?”
“It's so cold, mother, Lucy could hardly help
crying. Lucy, please make haste and take off my
rubbers.” Lucy did her best, but her hands were
benumbed, and she was less dexterous than usual.
“What ails you, Lucy? your fingers are all thumbs.”
“I should think they would be, mother,” said
little Belle, who had inherited her mother's constitutional
kind-heartedness; “she had not any
gloves, and she could not keep her hands under
her cloak, because she had to take hold of our
in them, and her feet are wet.”
“My dear, if girls will go out with ragged shoes,
they must expect wet feet. Why did not you change
your shoes, Lucy?”
“I have no others, ma'am.”
“Then pray buy a pair the first time you go
out; but, in the mean time, look in my closet; you
will find a basket there with half a dozen pairs'
more or less worn—take them all, if they suit you.”
“Oh, thank you, ma'am! May I give a pair to
mother, Mrs. Ardley?”
“What an idea! Your mother wear my shoes!
did you ever notice my foot, child?”
“Yes, ma'am, but mother's is very small too;
and noise troubles father so much that a pair of
light shoes will be a great comfort.”
“Do what you like with them, child, you are
both welcome to them. But don't let me see you
with holes in your shoes. If there is anything I
can't put up with, it is an untidy-looking servant.
That's just the way,” continued Mrs. Ardley, after
Lucy had gone in quest of the shoes, “servants
never provide themselves with walking-shoes, and
they go spattering about in the wet, and then bark,
bark all winter—it is too annoying to hear them.”
Poor Lucy, the immediate cause of this denunciation,
having, before earned, predestined every cent
of her wages to her mother's necessities, had
looked with dismay upon her decaying shoes.
If the generosity with which Mrs. Ardley had lavished
half a dozen pairs of but half-worn delicate
kid shoes upon Lucy had provided her with a single
pair of stout walking-shoes, the child would
But she had not yet learned that it was her
duty to know the actual condition of her domestics,
to watch over their health, and, as far as she was
qualified by superior judgment, to regulate their expenses.
If she had even inquired into Lucy's, she
would have been touched with the child's virtue;
for Mrs. Ardley was far from being an unfeeling
woman; she was only thoughtless, indolent, and
self-indulgent. Few women are exposed to glaring
vices, but let them beware of the moth and rust
that consume their virtues.
The consequence of Lucy's exposure was soon
apparent in a severe cold. The running up and
down stairs in the irritated state of her lungs gave
her pain, and, ignorant as she was of diseases, sad
forebodings.
After crawling about for two or three days with
a burning cheek and short breath, she was laid on
her bed, and Mrs. Ardley's physician being summoned,
he pronounced her very ill with inflammation
of the lungs. The virtues of Betsy (Sophy's
successor) were now called into requisition, and
they amply atoned for the want of the graces that
belong to polished service. Like most American
bred domestics,[1]
she had been accustomed to multifarious
service. Her talents had been developed
by a life of exigences. She used her head as
well as her hands, and, as Lucy found, her heart for
the direction of both. “What is your mother's
Ardley says David shall go for her.”
“Oh, please, Betsy, don't send to mother—she
cannot come, and it will only make her miserable
to know that I am sick. I will give you as little
trouble as I can—set the drink by my bed—that is
all I want.”
“It is not the trouble I mind, Lucy, but your
mother is the fittest person to be with you. Why
cannot she come?” Lucy explained the sad why,
and Betsy, brushing off a tear, said, “You are right
—we must not put another drop in a cup too full
already. If Mrs. Ardley will only allow me time,
I can do everything for you. Let me see your
blister.” The blister was just opened, when Mrs.
Ardley's bell rung. “There—I must go—let it be
till I return.” Betsy went down two pairs of stairs
to Mrs. Ardley's room. “It was Miss Anne rang
the bell, Betsy—tell Betsy what you want, my
dear.”
“Have you seen my doll's muff, Betsy?” Betsy
had not. “Just look for it, please, Betsy.”
“Dolly can wait, I guess—I must go back to
Lucy's blister.”
“Look first,” interposed the mother. “Miss
Anne wants to take her doll down Broadway.
Have you sent David for Lucy's mother?” Betsy
explained why she had not. “How annoying!”
resumed Mrs. Ardley; “how is she to be taken
care of here?”
“Oh, I can manage well enough if the children
won't ring me down to wait on their babies.
There's your dolly's muff, Anne; and now, if you
blister, you'll be sorry for her.”
“May I go, mamma?”
“No, my dear, those upper rooms are freezing
—you will take cold.”
“If a sick person can stay in them, it won't hurt
me just to go in, mamma!”
“Servants are accustomed to cold rooms, my
dear.”
“But, mamma,” insisted the little girl, who was
sagacious, and not accustomed to blind submission
in any form, “I am sure the servants are part of
their time in our warm rooms.”
“You are talking nonsense, Anne.”
“There is one thing that is not nonsense, mamma;
I know, if I was a servant, I would not live anywhere
that I could not have a fire when I was
sick.” “The child is fit to be a mistress,” thought
Betsy as she remounted the stairs, “and that's what
can be said of few.” Betsy had just nicely arranged
her dressing to proceed, when the bell again sounded.
“There it goes again—ring-a-ding!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, please go, Betsy—it makes my head snap
so to hear it when you are staying just for me.”
Thus entreated, Betsy went.
“Bring me my fur-shoes, Betsy, from the next
room.” The shoes were brought, and Betsy half
way up stairs, when the bell again rung. “I forgot
to ask you for my cloak and hat, Betsy, but you
should have thought yourself.”
“Is there anything else I ought to think of, Mrs.
Ardley, before I finish the blister?” she asked, as
she handed in the cloak.
“Bless me! is not that blister done yet? Why,
you began it half an hour ago!” Mrs. Ardley saw
a cloud gathering on Betsy's brow, and she added,
“I know the sick must be taken care of. Give
Lucy plenty of lemonade, or anything in the house
she wants.” Betsy perceived Mrs. Ardley was
very bountiful of what cost her neither exertion
nor sacrifice. Is it surprising that such generosity
excites little gratitude?
Betsy had scarcely reached the top of the stairs
when the bell again rung most importunately.
“Oh, Betsy, I entirely forgot that Mr. Ardley
wishes dinner half an hour earlier than usual—run
down and tell Ferris. Dear me! I gave David
leave to go out—you'll have the table to set—
please, Betsy—oh, how inconvenient it is to have
servants getting sick—mine always are.”
The next morning Lucy was worse. “I shall
never be better, Betsy,” she said, “while I have
such dreadful nights. Mrs. Ferris comes to bed
so tipsy, and I loathe her so that I get upon the
very edge of the bed, and she snores so horribly
that I cannot close my eyes—but pray, don't tell
Mrs. Ardley—she knows as well as we do Mrs.
Ferris drinks, and it will just end in my being sent
home to my mother, and that I could not bear.”
“So your life is to be lost, and all of us burnt
up alive, maybe, just because she can tickle their
palates; well, it's a comical world!”
“If I only might have any little bit of a bed on
your floor, Betsy?” Betsy explored the house in
vain for extra servants' bedding. She was, however,
a woman of expedients. If she had been in
a log hut in the western wilderness, she could have
in a rich merchant's luxurious establishment in
the city of New-York. An old sofa-cushion was
brought from the garret, and various articles of apparel
substituted for pillow and blankets. Betsy
then put Lucy into her bed, agreeing with her bedfellow,
the seamstress, that they would alternately
occupy the pallet on the floor. Lucy now reaped
the reward of the kindness she had shown these
women when they were strangers in the family.
To her frequent repetitions of “How kind you are,
Betsy—how much trouble I give you!” Betsy
would reply, “Shut up, child—it's contrary to
Scripture and reason to be `forgetful of good turns.'
Many a time have your weary little legs run up
and down stairs to show me where to put or to find
this or that fiddle-de-dee of Mrs. Ardley's—and, after
all, maybe it was not that, but something else she
wanted. She often put me in mind of a fellow that
was laying on to his ox, and screaming haw! haw!
`He is hawing,' said a man, who ached to see the
poor beast whipped. `Oh, I meant gee!' said the
fellow.”
In spite of a good physician's advice, and all the
care her voluntary and most kind nurses could give
her, Lucy's disease, though abated, continued.
Two weeks passed away. How long they seemed
to poor Lucy, who, in addition to the usual pains
and penalties of sickness, felt the constant dread
of adding to her mother's burdens, and the failure
of the rent-money from her loss of time. “Our
Father in Heaven will not forsake us—mother has
often said so—and I will try to remember this when
I feel too bad,” thought Lucy; and with such reflections
patient of yours never to get well, doctor?” asked
Mr. Ardley one morning, when the physician came
into the breakfast-room.
“I cannot answer for it, unless she can have a
room with a fire in it.”
“Bless me, is she in a cold room all this time?—
Mrs. Ardley, my dear, how is that?”
“You know, Mr. Ardley, the servants' rooms
have no fireplaces, and she could not have a room
with one without turning out one of the family.”
“Would she not be better off at home, doctor,
even if her family are poor, than in a damp, cold
atmosphere?—it must be bad for inflamed lungs.”
“It is, undoubtedly; and if the child has a home
and a mother, as the day is fine and mild, I should
advise her being sent there at once.”
So the carriage was ordered; Lucy's wages paid
without any deduction for loss of time; a basket
with medicines, and another with provisions, put up
for her, and Betsy permitted to attend her home.
As the carriage drove off, “That's a very good
little girl!” said Mrs. Ardley; “I hope she will recover;
but, if she does not, what a comfort it will
be to think we have done our duty by her?”
“I hope the poor child has not suffered from the
cold room; you should have thought of that, Anne.”
“My dear, how can I think of everything?”
“I am more dissatisfied with myself than with
you at this moment, Anne. I see that it is a shocking
neglect of our duty for people of our condition
not to provide for the comfort, no, the actual wants
of those they employ. I do not wonder servants
are always ready to change their places, hoping
year, those upper rooms shall be made comfortable!”
The tiresome domestic perplexities, even poor
Lucy's illness, might have been avoided by proper
qualifications and due attention on the part of Mrs.
Ardley. There was not in her case, nor do we believe
there often is any want of indulgence or liberality
to be complained of. We hope we shall
not be accused of imputing all the blame to the
mistress, because it is our ungracious task to illustrate
her shortcomings. We know that the general
low character of domestics and their perfect independence
involves the mistress of a family in
much inevitable perplexity. But the fault is not
all the domestic's. We believe the difficulty would
be materially lessened if young women were educated
for their household duties, and if they carried
into their relation to their domestics the right spirit;
if they regarded them as their “unfortunate friends,”
whom it was their religious duty to instruct, to
enlighten, to improve, to make better and happier.
It has been well said, that, when domestic economy
was perfected, there would be no need of political
economy. We would venture further, and say, that
when our family communities are perfectly organized
the Millennium will have come. Will it
sooner?
| CHAPTER XI.
ALL GOES WRONG. Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated | |