Part 5 (2/2)
This expedition will have given our young heroine the necessary morning air and exercise, and it need not be so long as to prevent her enjoyment of a more ornamental walk in the afternoon--visits, or a cruise in the rink.
In the case of there being only one grown-up daughter, a young lady-help may be thought an agreeable addition to the family. She would be a pleasant companion to the daughter, and they might share the work in the same manner as two sisters would do. If she were more accomplished, or better read, than the daughter of the house, this would be a source of improvement to the latter; or if the superiority were on the other side, the benefit resulting to the companion would be such as to make her endeavour, by increased usefulness, to show her sense of the advantages whereby she would be enabled to add to her acquirements.
Much ease in daily life is obtained by dining early; but as this is seldom possible where fathers and husbands are out all day at their employments, the necessarily late dinner involves a sacrifice of our time and pleasure, which we must try to render as small a hards.h.i.+p as may be, and take as a duty what is such in reality.
Luncheon for ladies is easily provided where there are no ravenous schoolboys and girls to cater for, because, as they will dine late, the luncheon need not be a hot spread meal. A tray with slices of cold meat, bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese, or perhaps some cold potatoes fried, or any easily warmed little dish remaining from yesterday's dinner, will make an ample luncheon, with a gla.s.s of beer or some claret. But if there are schoolboys and girls who come home to an early dinner, it is indispensable that it should be a real dinner, and no make-believe. The experience of schools and large families shows us that the cheapest and most wholesome fare for children is a joint of meat, with potatoes and another vegetable, a daily pudding, varied according to circ.u.mstances, bread, and beer. No adjuncts; neither pickles nor condiments, cheese nor dessert. All these _etceteras_ are superfluous and unwholesome, and entail extra plates and additional trouble to everybody.
The joints of meat, with potatoes and Yorks.h.i.+re pudding, are as well cooked at the baker's as at home, and with much saving of heavy work.
The following is a good working-plan for a large family: a joint of meat roasted the first day, the next day cold, which is better for the children than having the joint cut in two and both parts eaten hot--cold meat is very good for them. The remainder may be stewed, or otherwise warmed up on the third day; and so forth, varied with boiled meat occasionally and fish once a week--on Friday in preference, as there is a better choice of it on that day, it being purveyed for the Roman Catholics and others who eat it on principle. Monday is the worst day for fish.
The daily pudding should be simple, without sauce, and with very little spice. Spices become valuable medicines when not habitually taken with the food.
It is a mistake to feed children entirely on meat and potatoes; this diet does not afford sufficient variety. Fruit and milk puddings are very wholesome and nouris.h.i.+ng for children, and so is simple pastry, when made without baking powder, the frequent use of which is very lowering, as is the case with all alkalies.
Luncheon over, the hours from two till half-past four are free for everybody. Now is the time for music-practice, walks, visits, and general recreation.
Visitors drop in about this time, and may be encouraged to stay by the sight of the afternoon tea-table standing ready arranged in a corner of the drawing-room. The descent for five minutes of one of the ladies will be sufficient time to make the tea and produce a plate of biscuits, or the cake-basket. The gas may be lighted under the kettle at the time the door is opened to visitors.
At half-past four the fire must be made up in the kitchen, and all things put in readiness to prepare the late dinner. This, in the interest of the health of all, and especially of those who return home tired and hungry, should not be later than six o'clock, where it is possible.
The dinner and dessert occupy little more than an hour, and half an hour is sufficient to clear all away, and set the things ready for the next morning's breakfast. The cloth may be left spread on the table, only brushed and neatly laid.
We have then a pleasant social evening left us; two hours and a half before ten o'clock, which may or may not be broken by an evening cup of tea, according to taste.
Luxurious people, whose days hang heavily on their hands, are the fortune of the doctors. Among them we may include servants in large houses, who are, perhaps, more self-indulgent than any. And it is the habitual five meals a day required to fill up time in an opulent house, that contribute most to fill the pockets of the physician.
It is pleasant, certainly, for an occasional change, to stay in a house where at nine o'clock the butler and two footmen stalk in with the tea-tray and its appurtenances; but the main, though unacknowledged, cause of the ceremonial is, that it may be seen that the men-servants are at home in the evening, and not at the public-house.
As a daily habit, however, the continual breaking up of time caused by the ever-recurring meals is very tiresome to those whose occupations are so unnecessarily hindered.
It has been shown that the daily housework for a small family is not too arduous to be undertaken by the members of that family, in any case where the grown-up ladies in the house are two or more. But in the circ.u.mstance of a young wife and mother, it were better that she should not attempt to cope with the greater part of the household work, especially if she be alone in the house all day, or with young children only. The sense of solitude is too depressing, and all unshared labour is much heavier.
In case of her having no sister, or female friend or relation, to whom she might be glad to offer a home, she should seek a cheerful lady-help, who would be pleased to feel she is putting her time to profit. And if strong, healthy, and a skilful manager, the lady-help will find how far more interesting this varied work may be made, than the drudgery of sitting in a dreary school-room as governess to a tribe of tiresome children, where her only recreation is the monotonous daily walk; or the more independent, but far more laborious, occupation of a fine-art needleworker, to whom eight hours' continuous daily toil are obligatory.
As far as I can see and judge by letters written to the _Queen_ and other papers, and the jokes in _Punch_, the difficulty, almost impossibility, of getting gentlewomen as helps is the drawback to their being put forward as a solution of the domestic difficulty. The engagement of half-educated or pretentious daughters of small tradespeople is by no means desirable, either for themselves or for us.
We do not wish them to be our companions, yet they must be treated with a greater degree of familiarity than ordinary servants; and if they are allowed to be on a nominal footing of equality, it can only tend to lower the tone of the whole household. But the lady-help, in an establishment suited to the feelings of such an one, may easily be a gentlewoman by birth and education, and not a lady in name merely.
As regards the invasion of domestic privacy, which has ever been found such a disadvantage where a companion, or a governess, is always the sharer of our meals and conversation, it is by no means necessary, hardly even possible, that this should be the case with a lady-help; except at breakfast, when it is surely no hards.h.i.+p, but the contrary--indeed, it must be a pleasure--to have at our children's most important meal the a.s.sistance of a lady whose care of their wants prevents our own breakfast being uncomfortably hurried.
For breakfast is unlike dinner-time in this, that as husband and wives have already had plenty of time for all they wish to say to each other, the presence of a third person is not inconvenient, while at their reunion about dinner-time, when each has the day's adventures to relate and comment upon, a stranger is sometimes in the way.
Indeed, it is one of the greatest difficulties in the lady-help system, that of necessity she cannot sit at table while serving the dinner.
The greater number of ladies will be as well pleased to have their spare time for their own pursuits, as to be obliged to sit in the drawing-room all the evening, trying to seem amused with doing nothing.
A lady offering herself for work of this kind will generally be of an energetic temperament, and able to employ her leisure profitably in reading, drawing, or needlework, or perhaps she may have her own piano in her room.
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