Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [109]
Horne found a more congenial berth in the service of an employer better tempered than the baron:
It was not long before I met with an under-butler’s place to a Noble Earl, who had a house in London, in the country, and one in Scotland. It requires great strength to polish silver, also great care and endurance . . . Here our livery was very smart. Scarlet breeches and waistcoat, blue coat with scarlet collar and cuffs, trimmed with inch wide silver lace, and one epaulet on the left shoulder, white stockings, and buckles.72
The earl’s household was substantial: ‘There were twenty-five indoor servants at this place, besides housemaids at the other houses. The butler did no manual work, he only superintended the men, the work was all done for him. All he had to do was to walk into the dining room, the boy carrying his wine basket, at the last minute, cast his eye over the table, when all was ready to begin.’73
Mr Horne had more respect for this employer than he did for many of his later ones:
This place was the best regulated situation that I have ever been in . . . When the bell rang to clear breakfast, the butler would answer it. Her Ladyship was the sister of a Duke. She would remain in the breakfast room, give the butler his orders for the day, how many visitors (if any) and which rooms they would occupy, the number that would be at meals, also orders for the carriages.
Then he would come out, and the housekeeper would go in and get her orders, she would come out and the cook would go in. Then the butler would ring the bell twice for the footman to clear away the breakfast. All this took only a few minutes to do. The butler would come to the pantry and give us our orders. Perhaps he would say to me, Eighteen, or twenty, for dinner, use the silver, or the gilt service, as the case may be . . .
The housekeeper would give her orders to the head housemaid, and stillroom maids. The cook would do the same to her kitchen and scullery maids. Everything went like clockwork, no confusion, no jealousies, no treading on each other’s toes; no occasion for saying I didn’t know this or that; for each department got their orders, and acted up to them.74
Mr Horne was touched, as many servants seemed to have been, by the history, tradition and atmosphere of the house in which he lived and worked:
The Castle was a fine old place, with a wide moat . . . Often I sat up all night with ‘Old Daddy’ as we used to call him. He had brewed the beer for the Castle for over fifty years, and listen to his tales of olden times, of what they used to do in previous lords times. Still, a great many of the old customs were kept up; we still ate our food off pewter plates and dishes, each with the coronet and crest engraved on them, we also drank our beer out of horns. We had the choice of small beer or tea for breakfast (as tea on its first introduction into England was only drunk by the gentry). [Whether these customs were genuinely old or revived, there is no way of telling.]
Also, no conversation was allowed until after the cloth had been removed, and the health drank. The under butler stands up at the bottom of the table, holds a horn of old ale up in his hands, taps the table twice, and says: ‘My Lord and Lady’ [and] the others reply, ‘With all my heart’. This old custom was observed every day.75
In such a well-run and well-cared for house, the turnover of staff might be slower than in many others:
Servants seldom wanted to leave that place, unless they had been there some time and wanted promotion. I think what kept them together to a great extent was [that] we were allowed a dance on the first Tuesday in every month. The mason who worked on the estate, played the ’cello, his son played second fiddle, the tailor played first violin. I played sometimes as well . . . Our programme consisted of lancers, quadrilles, waltzes, schottisches, polkas, Valse of Vienna, Polka, Mazurka, and country dances . . . I think this sort of thing keeps