England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [41]
An establishment on such a scale was new to her. Behind the graceful fagade, armies of workers, controlled and disciplined by Sir Harry's powerful steward and housekeeper, slaved to keep up appearances. More than fifteen footmen and upper servants waited on Sir Harry, and thirty or so below them did the dirtier work. Housemaids scrubbed floors, laid fires, cleaned rooms, and made the beds. Scullery maids scoured the hearth and washed the dishes, and cooks feathered and skinned the catches for dinner, while laundresses dealt with the piles of hunting outfits, sheets, and linens. In the lower rooms, valets scrubbed boots and specialist servants cleaned and prepared guns. At times, more than one hundred servants were employed in the house. Outside, grooms and stable hands tended to Sir Harry's horses, and dog handlers cared for his hounds.
Uppark had its own large and efficient dairy as well as a smithy, which Sir Harry and his friends called on frequently to shoe their horses, and it probably had a brewery, granary, carpenter's, and candlemaker's. An additional fifty men came in from the village to work in the grounds as herdsmen, shepherds, laborers, carters, and wheelwrights. Only ships and army platoons had so many employees. Their uniforms and livery alone cost thousands.6 Sir Harry's return from Europe combined with the visits of his friends and their packs of servants trebled the expenses.
Emma's clothes added to Sir Harry's costs, for on many days she would have been expected to change her outfit four times a day: a breakfast gown, a riding habit, a tea dress, and an evening dress. An employee of Sir Harry's but able to command the servants like any visiting lady, Emma's position in the household was ambiguous. Sir Harry probably hired her a lady's maid, but his servants would have had ways of making their resentment known toward the impostor by "forgetting" to bring up her water or lay her fire.
Emma spent over a year at Uppark. Every day followed a similar pattern. Sir Harry and his friends rose at around eight, two or three hours after their servants, and breakfasted together from nine. As they ate, servants polished saddles and bits, brushed, fed, and exercised the horses. Soon after breakfast, the party of perhaps up to thirty men, now changed into riding habits, accompanied by servants, grooms, and their horses, set out over the estate with packs of hunting dogs in search of some of the eight hundred deer that roamed free. Occasionally they charged off to other estates. At around noon, servants arrived bearing crockery and a fortifying meal of meat and wine. The housekeeper and her maids had to stay alert: if the hunting proved poor or if it rained heavily, Sir Harry and his friends would return to the house expecting a hearty lunch. Emma grew up associating the country with dirt, squalor, and poverty, but for Sir Harry it was a place of pure pleasure, created to fit his needs.
Emma had never ridden before, but fear irritated Sir Harry and she made a determined effort to learn. She soon became an expert equestrienne, riding sidesaddle as all women did in the eighteenth century. When the hunt set off, she followed behind on a smaller lady's mount (to hunt required specific male servants, and they would not work for a woman). Accompanying the hunt conferred high status; Sir Harry would allow his steward to dine with him on occasion but never to hunt. Emma delighted in wearing a fashionable riding habit and was eager to go out with the men because this made it clear to everyone that she was a guest and not a servant.
When she did not accompany the hunting parties, Emma remained at Uppark to stroll through the grounds and prepare herself for the evening's work. Her maid could brush and air her dresses, but she had to supervise the grudging laundresses