Once again we visit the Victorian household of our would-be domestic goddess, Mrs Beetroot. We find her suspicious of the servants and struggling to maintain her place at the head of the household. It must have been quite challenging, when the mistress was many years junior to the wily old servants, who had probably seen lengthy service in several houses and undoubtedly learned a trick or two. Poor Mrs Beetroot, not only does she have a place to keep in the eyes of her servants and her friends, she must do so preserving dignity at all times.
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Receiving guests – instruction to the servants.
It is of the utmost importance that guests are correctly received. They obtain their impression of the manner in which the household is conducted from the very moment the door is opened to their knock. To this end a mistress needs sizeable bells. Large bells may be had that connect an imposing brass pull handle at the door directly to a larger bell in the servants quarters and also to a small bell in the parlour, permitting the mistress time to replace her book or needlework and compose her features prior to reception of visitors. Otherwise a large knocker in brass, which must be regularly polished by the footman, would suffice but it must be audible to the servants, or else the mistress could find herself opening her own front door, an occasion too ridiculous to contemplate.
It is advisable that the servant who opens the door, if not a true trained doorman, should be instructed in his duties by the mistress. To this end, I determined myself to undertake the training of our new footman, Achey, or, possibly, Archey, who has been passed on to me at the recommendation, of Caroline, Lady Standingham, who I am proud to number among my friends. I had merely let drop, at one of her excellent soirees, to which I am quite regularly invited, a suggestion that we might be in need of a new footman as our household expands. At once she leaned over and said ‘I could let you have our latest, my dear, for in truth we find ourselves in difficulty as to his accommodations. I discover myself in some perplexity as to his intercourse; I am a little hard of hearing. Indeed if you were to accommodate him I would be inexpressibly obliged, he seems a willing worker.’
I could not be more conscious of the honour bestowed, whereby the Lady Standingham should be obliged to me, that I needed to fan myself for fully twenty minutes and thereafter ingested so many fruit cups to steady my nerves as to necessitate assistance to my carriage by two footmen. They were cheerful servants who laughed heartily when I told them that their newest fellow worker was to come to my household; they promised to send him without delay in the morning.
Unfortunately the following morning, I found I had arisen with a headache, which persisted through the day and could only be borne by lying in my bedroom with the blinds drawn. Feeling somewhat improved by mid afternoon, I enquired of the butler if a new footman had presented himself for duty and was told he had been accommodated in the quarters above the stables. He duly appeared in the parlour and does seem a little strange. He is a tall wiry fellow with a shock of red hair and a beard to match. I enquired his name to which he replied what sounded like ‘Aachey wull dee hen.’ To which rejoinder I must confess I found myself at a loss. I asked again, he repeated the phrase, somewhat irritably, I thought. I remarked that whatever his name was, he would do well to mind his manners and talk sense, for there were no hens in the room that I could see, unless he was telling me something of his previous employ, with livestock. He replied, with unnecessary loudness, I felt, ‘Aye there’s a hen ferr sure an’ a boiler a’ tha’.’ At which point I felt it politic to request him to return to the stables and that he would be sent for in due course. He left the room grumbling and I at once sent for the butler to give the housemaid a hastily penned message to be delivered to Lady Standingham to elucidate some form of translation of his utterances, as I suspect he may hail from foreign climes, possibly Russia, he is so unintelligible.
Within a half hour the housemaid returned with a note on Lady Standingham’s own crested notepaper, which I shall keep, informing me that the footman was of the Scottish nation and not from Russia at all. I was most surprised, having believed that a Scotsman would be more genteel, for does not the Scot come highly recommended by our own dear Queen, who may be attended by nothing but that nation in the Highlands? Though having a German husband she may be possessed of facility with foreign language taught to her for diplomatic purposes.
I sent again for the footman and expressed my surprise that he was a Scottish person, adding it was my previous belief that such would be attired in a form of skirt with a reticule tied around the waist. Indeed I am sure this is so, I saw it in a coloured magazine once. He became truculent (I think) and began to speak of hens once more, spitting a great deal as he did so. I replied with all the hauteur I could muster, aware of the difficulty of the situation, that there was not a hen in the building, though the cook keeps a small pig in the wash house, whereupon he fell to laughing and uttered a phrase that I fear may have contained strong language, though there is no means of being cognisant that this is so. Uncertain as to his mood, I joined in with the laughter and for some time we laughed most heartily, if uneasily on my part. At the conclusion I required him to follow me to the front door, explaining, as we arrived, that I should step outside and pull the bell, instructing him to answer in his usual manner, which I would then correct, as necessary, utilising my extensive familiarisation with etiquette.
I stepped without, for verisimilitude closing the door behind me and waiting a moment, noticing, as I did so, that the boot scraper has hardly been polished at all and bore traces of actual soil. I must speak to the butler and require him to follow the other servants on his day off, to seek examples of such laxity and correct them. Having made mental notation of this necessity, I rang the bell, expecting the door to be opened. I waited some moments and rang again. Having waited, once more I pulled the handle of my own imposing bell, feeling glad that the large shrubs in the front garden would prevent the neighbours observing my predicament. After the third ring of my substantial bell I began to wonder if the cord that links it to other parts of the house had somehow become detached. Wherefore I pulled the handle sharply, immediately laying my head upon the door to detect the sonorous echo from within my building. Imagine my consternation when at once the door was wrenched open, causing me to fall upon the mat as if I were a handful of letters! Worse was to come, for my crinoline having become trapped in the hat stand, the cook, drawn by my cries for assistance, rushed down the hall and hoisted me to my feet in such a vigorous manner that my dress was torn away by the Valenciennes lace completely. Of the new footman, or whoever had opened the door, there was no trace and I was obliged to withdraw to my room, subsequently essaying to change my dress entirely without assistance, as Alice has Thursday afternoons off.
By tea time I had managed a change, albeit into a morning gown, it being the only gown I could find with buttons down the front. So attired, I summoned the butler and required him to undertake the training of the footman himself. To my astonishment he replied that the new footman was packing his bags prior to quitting my employ, the reason given, that he could not understand a word I was saying! This is clearly a lie as I speak perfect English, my governess having appraised me in the arts of diction at an early age. Indeed I was frequently summoned to give recitation at dinner parties whilst still under the age of ten years and by the age of sixteen was accustomed to give renditions of dramatic soliloquies I had learned by heart in, I believe, the Ancient Greek Language, for my Grandmamma, God rest her soul, who frequently laughed with delight! The fault therefore cannot lie with me. I informed the butler that we were not so much in need of another footman and that I had only employed him as a favour to her Ladyship. I requested him to pay the man off with five shillings that I handed to him, asking that Alice be sent to me to be trained in door duties by myself as soon as her afternoon off was over. Alice is fourteen, I believe, and so, more trainable than an adult male, she is also much smaller than me, speaks English and will do as she is told. Indeed I may instruct her in the arts of opening a door with a curtsey, which would not only look pretty, but be an accomplishment I feel sure no Scottish man with a horrid red beard could acquire. Not even in the employ of our dear Queen. Unless it can be instilled by a German. Though I doubt it.
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JaneLaverick.com savouring the silliness of yesteryear.