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THE LADY-HELP

True position of a lady-help – Division of work in a family – The mother the best teacher – Marketing – Young lady-helps – Luncheon – Early dinners for children – Recreation – Preparing the late dinner – Evening tea – The lady-help a gentlewoman – Her assistance at breakfast – Her spare time – Tact.

I use this title, not because I think it is the best, but because it is already in general use; though, as yet, very few people have any clear idea of what the true position of a lady-help should be. Some persons suppose they must treat her as a visitor, in which case she would be worse than useless, and such a situation could not possibly be permanent. Others think she must be employed precisely like an upper servant, and only look upon her as a means of escape from the penalties of their own position.

In houses where there are grown-up daughters it is not necessary, nor even advisable, to employ any labour outside of the family beyond that of the charwoman, as previously described.

The work may be so divided as to press too heavily on none, always bearing in mind, however, that, as "Life is real, life is earnest," there is real work to be done in every household, the aim being to lighten it by contrivance, and by utilizing modern inventions; in fact, making of science and social economy two valuable servants, instead of exalting them to be our masters, as we have all been doing lately. For, notwithstanding all our brilliant inventions, we have so multiplied our wants that life is neither easier nor cheaper than it was in the days when we knitted our own stockings, spun our own flax, and used strong handloom sheetings, and woollen cloths which were not made of shoddy.

Let us take as a typical family a mother and three daughters, two of them grown up and one still a child – a by no means uncommon instance. The men and boys may be many or few, it makes little difference to our example.

Probably the mother is not so strong as the grown-up daughters. She might make choice of the needlework department, or the teaching, supposing her own education to have been good; in which case she would add the benefit of her experience to every lesson given, rendering it far more valuable than instruction from a young teacher; as in all branches of study she would distinguish what is good and lasting from what is merely ephemeral, and we should have fewer flimsy pieces of music learnt to the exclusion of great masters, and fewer meretricious drawings on tinted paper, as we grow out of our admiration for these things at an early period, and home education would have a more solid groundwork. Young teachers are too apt to think they know everything, and only aim at their own standard of education, finished as they believe it to be.

Perhaps the mother might prefer to reserve a general oversight, with only such lighter work as the breakfast-table as already described. The daughters could share the remaining work in the following manner.

While the breakfast is being cleared away, one daughter, accompanied by her youngest sister, will arrange the bed-rooms, and dust the drawing-room and such parts of the dining-room as have not been included in the work of setting in order after breakfast. The little girl would rejoice in helping in this way – all children do; and when they have no real work of this kind, they imitate it with dolls' houses. Housekeeping is one of a girl's natural instincts; it is only quenched by accomplishments being put in its stead.

While the manager of the needlework sees what requires her attention in that department, and plans it for unoccupied hours – keeping, perhaps, some fancy portion of it for pleasant work in the evening, while music or reading is going on – the daughter who is housekeeper for the week attends to the culinary arrangements, and considers what marketing will be required. She will, either alone or accompanied by one of her sisters, proceed to give her orders at the various shops, or go to the market and make her own selection. She will bring home some of the purchases herself – any parcel, for instance, that is no heavier than a little dog – but mostly the things will be sent to the house.

Co-operative stores may or may not be an advantage to their customers – it is a disputed point; but two good things they have done for us: first, making us pay ready money for what we buy; secondly, doing away with the ridiculous fear we formerly had of being seen carrying a parcel.

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 hardship 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, butter, 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 glass 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 circumstances, 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 Yorkshire 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 nourishing 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 circumstance 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 hardship, but the contrary – indeed, it must be a pleasure – to have at our children's most important meal the assistance 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.

It would frequently conduce to the comfort of all parties if she had an invitation, which she might accept or refuse, to join the drawing-room circle; and this should be given on occasions when it is likely to be agreeable to her, at such times as her necessary duties will cause no awkwardness to herself, the mistress, or the guests. Exercise of tact will be frequently called for, no doubt, in this avowedly the weak part of the scheme; but with wit, invention, and a hearty endeavour to make a subordinate position as little painful as possible, many difficulties will be tided over, and when once the novelty of the method is worn off, many little complications, by being less thought of, will be less felt.

Where a governess is kept as well as a lady-help, the two ladies could enjoy life together quite independently of the general company; and it might be found perfectly compatible with their avocations to give them permission to invite their personal friends to spend their evenings occasionally with them.

In the case of the daughters of the house taking its duties upon themselves (and no one can consider it an ungraceful service to wait upon a father), the way would be smoothed by common endeavour of all the members of the family, and much kindly courtesy would be aroused, and earnest effort to give the least possible trouble; all of which should be done in the case of the lady-help.

When we go more deeply into the detail of the dinner, which is the pièce de résistance of the day's programme, we will endeavour to show how, by careful fitting and steady guidance, the wheels of the domestic machine may run smoothly and noiselessly in their grooves, especially if the oil of good humour be plentifully supplied. And several suggestions will be offered, which, however, must be looked on merely as suggestions, and not as essential parts of the system; for in every household there will be modifications, according to the infinite variety of tempers, tastes, and habits of the family.

THE DINING-ROOM

Carpets and curtains – Picture hanging and frames – Distemper colouring for cornices – Oval dining-table – Sideboard for breakfast service – Beauty of English porcelain – A London dining-room – Giulio Romano's banquet – Growing plants – The large sideboard – Dinner-service – Styles of dinner – Food in due season – Gracefulness of flowers and fruits – Fresh fruit better than preserves – Communication between kitchen and dining-room – Remarks on plate – Table decorations.

Having given a sketch of the kitchen, I must now fill up that of the dining-room, which we left after the breakfast was cleared away.

As the gas-tripod, the spirit-lamp, and the large bowl for washing the china and other crockery have been already described, we may proceed to consider what more immediately relates to the dinner-table; since the rest of the furniture need not materially differ from what is at present in use.

In selecting a carpet for the dining-room, let us remember that a Brussels carpet is more easily brushed and kept clean, than are Turkey or Indian carpets.

If it be made with a border, and the floor stained and varnished all round at a width of from one to two feet from the wainscot, beside being cheaper to begin with than a fitted carpet, it is more artistic in appearance, and more readily taken up periodically to be beaten; while a long brush easily dusts the varnished margin, and a damp cloth tied over a harder broom will wash it in case of necessity. Bordered square carpets are the more durable, as they are able to be turned round as one part becomes unduly worn.

The best kind of curtains for a dining-room are of some rich-looking woollen stuff, thick enough not to require lining. Rep is very serviceable, but there are many more curious foreign fabrics which may sometimes be met with at no very great cost.

Curtains ought to run easily on a pole, either of wood or metal. If of metal, it should not be very large, as the size of a hollow rod does not add to its strength. Curtain rings can be sewn on at home, and so can any cord that may be thought desirable at the edge, though this does not often improve curtains from an artistic point of view. There is no need of the upholsterer's intervention, which mostly doubles the price of the curtains.

The height from the floor to the top of the window should be measured, and the requisite number of yards of material bought, allowing a margin for curves in the folds of the drapery. The rods should be sufficiently long to allow the curtains to hang entirely upon the wall, not overhanging the window in the least. This preserves the drapery, and keeps it from fading, while it does not exclude the light.

The curtains should be ample enough to cover the window completely when the shutters are shut, without leaving a streak of opening. They should likewise extend to the ends of the pole, so as comfortably to keep out the draught.

If muslin curtains are used, they may conveniently be tacked inside the woollen ones about half-way; this will keep the latter from some dust. A few additional rings can be slipped on the pole, to which the remaining central parts of the muslin will be gathered.

Curtains should touch the floor, or nearly so, but they need never be allowed to lie in heaps on the ground, as was formerly the fashion; and the voluminous folds sustained by brackets have been advantageously exchanged for a simple band to hold back the curtain.

Our mothers and grandmothers were certainly victims to their upholstery; we have improved in this respect. It does not take many minutes to unhook our curtains, shake them free from dust, and hang them up again; we have no complicated pulleys to get out of order perpetually, nor ponderous cornices with heavy valances, and wonderful gimp and fringe. Those were fine times for the upholsterers!

Do not hang your dining-room pictures very high; few of us tower above six feet, and it is easier for those who do so to stoop, than for the rest of us to stand on tip-toe; we must consider the convenience of the majority.

Money is well expended on picture-frames, as when they are handsome and chosen with taste, they enhance our enjoyment of the pictures. But a costly frame is not always a good one, and when gilt composition runs riot in ferns and fantastic flames, as we frequently see it do around mirrors, its effect is barbaric, rather than elegant.

Broad flats in gilt plaster are less excellent than gold laid on the wood itself.

For prints, where economy has to be much considered, few frames are better than those of flat oak with a bevelled edge, and on the flat a slight design of graceful lines made with the parting-tool, and only the lines gilt.

Pictures, if small and numerous, should not be dotted about the walls, but grouped. One sometimes see walls as spotted as a currant-dumpling. A band of wood, called a grazing line, behind the chair-backs protects the wall, and is an aid to picture hanging, by giving a line from which we may measure their bases.

If there are many large pictures, they should be hung from a rod placed near the ceiling, or a foot lower, if an ornamental band of paper is carried round the top of the room below the cornice. If the cornice is not already "picked out," as the decorators term it, in colour – that is, delicately tinted in distemper – it should be done, as it is a great improvement.

It is not difficult to do this for one's self. The necessary materials are a pennyworth of whitening, a pennyworth of size, and of the required tints a pennyworth. Break up some whitening into saucers, mix it with water until it is of the consistence of thick cream, add a tablespoonful of melted size to each saucer, shake in about a teaspoonful of powdered colour to each, and apply with a badger or hog-hair paintbrush.

Strong colours become pale tints when mixed with the whitening, and the mixture dries paler than it is applied. To paint the ground on which the plaster design is embossed gives a cameo effect and is elegant, but sometimes it is better to colour the raised ornaments. Taste must be the guide here. This quantity of material is sufficient to tint every cornice in the house. Splashes of the colour are easily wiped off while the mixture is wet.

Where the family is small, an oval table, like we generally see in France, is the most convenient form; as the master and mistress sit facing each other at the narrowest part of the oval, where they can communicate freely with each other, and more easily dispense the general hospitality. A table of this shape is lengthened by leaves inserted in the central division; when quite closed it is a round table.

A dumb-waiter placed at the right hand of the mistress enables much personal waiting to be dispensed with.

If the dining-room be large, it is desirable to have two sideboards, one larger than the other. The breakfast things should adorn (for that is what they really ought to do) the smaller sideboard.

With all the beauty and comparative cheapness of our Worcester and other pottery, we ought, in every family, to possess such a collection of beautiful objects for daily use as should for ever prevent our sighing after the palmy days of Greek art. I was at Sèvres not long ago, and while going over the porcelain factory there, I mentioned that I had been over that at Worcester. "Ah, then, madame," said the official, "we can show you no more; you have indeed seen all."

And had we no careless and ever-changing servants to shatter our elegant treasures, we might have in daily use objects which would enrich a museum, and train our eyes to a higher perception of beauty; and we should learn to value our porcelain, not for its rarity, but for its intrinsic merit.

Look at our picturesque coffee and tea pots, our elegant cups, and well-painted bowls. Why should they always be concealed in china closets, or consigned to kitchen-dressers, while our dining-room walls are too often bare and cheerless? – a few dismal prints, hung too high to be seen or easily dusted, being frequently the only adornments of a darkened room, like a waiting-room at a railway station for emptiness of anything to occupy the mind, yet which ought to be one of the pleasantest and brightest in the house. Instead of which cheerful appearance, here is a sketch of a regulation dining-room in one of London's broadest brown streets: a room always dark in winter, but in summer exposed to glaring sun and a plague of flies.

As soon as a window is opened to cool the stifling air, a simoom of dust rushes in from the road, and from the dust carts heavily moving to the slow music of the "Trovatore's" Miserere, adding a bass to the noise of cabs whirling by to the waltz tunes of "Daughter Angot" and "La belle Hélène."

Tables, chairs, and sideboard are remarkable for nothing but representing so many tons of mahogany embellished with the grinning heads of griffins. Curtains powerfully scented with dust, a large chimney-glass made over to the flies, a heavy bronze machine with ponderous weights and pulleys, all smelling very strongly of gas, chiefly useful for casting deep shadows upon the dining-table. The bean-green carpet, monotonizing with the pea-green walls, whereon hang divers prints of subjects undiscoverable, because they are skied as high as the ceiling will allow, and two "old masters," as two oil paintings are called; one a bitumen-brown Wouvermans, or somebody else, with the hind leg of a gray horse in the foreground, and in the sky a patch of cloud caught in a tree. The other "gem" had been bought at a sale under the impression that its subject was "Angels adoring the Infant Saviour," but which on closer investigation turned out to be two wicked old drunkards playing at cards, purporting to be by a Dutch master.

Could even Giulio Romano's artistic festival have been enjoyed in such a room as this, which is only a fair specimen of the modern British banquet hall? Hear a short extract from Benvenuto Cellini's description of it. After speaking of the rich dress of all the guests and the beauty of the ladies, he continues: "When they had taken their seats, every man produced a sonnet on some subject or other" – for they were a company of poets and artists – "and Michelagnolo read them aloud in a manner which infinitely increased the effect of their excellence. The company fell into discourse, and many fine things were said, and dinner was served up. Behind our backs there were rows of flower-pots, filled with beautiful jessamines, which seemed to heighten the charms of the young ladies beyond expression. Thus we all, with great cheerfulness, began to regale ourselves at that elegant dinner. After our repast was over we were entertained with a concert of music, both vocal and instrumental, and an improvisatore recited some admirable verses in praise of the ladies."

We could only on very rare occasions have rows of pots of jasmine placed behind our chairs, but we might easily grow an elder plant to keep off the flies. The Swiss scarlet-berried elder (Sambucus rufus) is graceful in growth, and will endure some hard usage.

Flower-pots may also be allowed to remain on the table, unless the plants are cherished pets, and then they will be placed where they can receive the sun and air.

Plants growing outside the windows, especially climbers wreathing the window-frames, give an appearance of size to rooms by bringing air into the perspective. The picturesque effect of the forms of foliage relieved against the paler sky is very pleasing, and it breaks the stiff straight lines of the window better than any drapery.

The glory of the dining-room is its large sideboard. This, where there is a second sideboard, may be either in the same style or in complete contrast to it. Here the larger pieces of earthenware and porcelain should be displayed to advantage. These are such things as salad bowls and outside pie-dishes, which may always remain in the dining-room, and the whole of the dessert-service, with the ornaments and table decorations.

The glasses and decanters should always be elegant, and although in my opinion the Venetian glass is by far the most beautiful kind, still our own crystal and engraved glass is often exquisitely lovely, and the sunshine playing through the prismatic decanter knobs, and other cut glass ornaments, gives an unrivalled lustre to the summer dinner-table. Breakages under careful, delicate handling would be less frequent than they are now, so that the expense of procuring glass and porcelain the best of their kind would not be felt to be the extravagance it is now.

It will be said that for all this display of glass and china an enormous sideboard will be required, at as enormous a cost. And the first objection I concede, without, however, admitting it to be a fault.

Why should not the sideboard be, if necessary, as large as the side of the room? But the cost may be less than that of an ordinary dinner-waggon. It might be constructed as a series of shelves, ranged as high as can be conveniently reached, broken by cellarettes and other cupboards or cabinets, hung with worked curtains, the shelves merely backed by paper made like embossed leather. There is an infinite variety of styles and forms in which the sideboard may be made; from the gorgeous mass of carved oak and velvet, set with golden shields, and cups, and services of gold plate, such as I have admired on the dining-room walls of a palace built on the ruins of an abbey, down to the stained deal dresser-shaped sideboard of a house of fifty pounds a year, where it would only be decked with graceful, yet unpretending, china and terra-cotta, where its curtains would be of brown holland worked in crewels, and its intrinsic ornaments the burnished brass locks, hinges, and handles. Yet as fine taste might be visible in one as in the other.

The table-cloth, table-napkins, and spoons and forks should be laid in drawers, as such seems their befitting place; and salt-cellars, and other diminutive articles containing condiments, may be put away behind small curtains, or veils, of decorative needlework, to shelter them from the dust, as well as to give an opportunity for the display of rich and elegant furniture embroidery, adapted in style to the carvings, plaques, inlaid work, or other adornments of the sideboard.

The piles of plates – as many of them must almost of necessity be in piles – will be also concealed and protected by curtains, or behind doors turning on pivots, which, where they are available, are far better than hinges.

The quantity of plates wanted for the daily use of the family must be kept in the kitchen, as they will be washed there, and need to be warmed in readiness for dinner; but dinner and dessert plates that are not used for greasy comestibles will be rinsed in the dining-room, and rearranged at once.