Part 25 (1/2)
”And you don't mind hard work?”
”I love it, mum.”
”And you're an early riser?”
”Oh yes, mum, it upsets me stopping in bed after half-past five.”
”You know we do the was.h.i.+ng at home?”
”Yes, mum. I think it so much better to do it at home. Those laundries ruin good clothes. They're so careless.”
”Are you a Unitarian?” continued the lady.
”Not yet, mum,” replied the girl, ”but I should like to be one.”
The lady took her reference, and said she would write.
The next applicant offered to come for three pounds--thought six pounds too much. She expressed her willingness to sleep in the back kitchen: a shakedown under the sink was all she wanted. She likewise had yearnings towards Unitarianism.
The third girl did not require any wages at all--could not understand what servants wanted with wages--thought wages only encouraged a love of foolish finery--thought a comfortable home in a Unitarian family ought to be sufficient wages for any girl.
This girl said there was one stipulation she should like to make, and that was that she should be allowed to pay for all breakages caused by her own carelessness or neglect. She objected to holidays and evenings out; she held that they distracted a girl from her work.
The fourth candidate offered a premium of five pounds for the place; and then ”A. B.” began to get frightened, and refused to see any more of the girls, convinced that they must be lunatics from some neighbouring asylum out for a walk.
Later in the day, meeting the next-door lady on the doorstep, she related her morning's experiences.
”Oh, that's nothing extraordinary,” said the next-door lady; ”none of us on this side of the street pay wages; and we get the pick of all the best servants in London. Why, girls will come from the other end of the kingdom to get into one of these houses. It's the dream of their lives.
They save up for years, so as to be able to come here for nothing.”
”What's the attraction?” asked ”A. B.,” more amazed than ever.
”Why, don't you see,” explained the next door lady, ”our back windows open upon the barrack yard. A girl living in one of these houses is always close to soldiers. By looking out of window she can always see soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her or even call up to her.
They never dream of asking for wages. They'll work eighteen hours a day, and put up with anything just to be allowed to stop.”
”A. B.” profited by this information, and engaged the girl who offered the five pounds premium. She found her a perfect treasure of a servant.
She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a sofa in the kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her dinner.
The truth of this story I cannot vouch for. Myself, I can believe it.
Brown and MacShaughna.s.sy made no attempt to do so, which seemed unfriendly. Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache. I admit there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average intellect.
As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by Ethelbertha, who had it from Amenda, who got it from the char-woman, and exaggerations may have crept into it. The following, however, were incidents that came under my own personal observation. They afforded a still stronger example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them.
”The heroine of them,” I said, ”is our Amenda. Now, you would call her a tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?”
”She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability,” answered MacShaughna.s.sy.
”That was my opinion also,” I replied. ”You can, therefore, imagine my feelings on pa.s.sing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a Panama hat upon her head (_my_ Panama hat), and a soldier's arm round her waist. She was one of a mob following the band of the Third Berks.h.i.+re Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate. There was an ecstatic, far-away look in her eyes. She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand she beat time to the music.