Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [40]
Later, Sir Ralph Verney’s bachelor uncle wrote confidentially to advise his nephew that he had engaged a maid who would travel with them into France ‘For £3 per annum. Because you writ me word that you were in love with Dirty Sluts, I took great care to fit you with a Joan that may be as good as my Lady in the dark, and I hope I have fitted you with a pennyworth.’ It is not known whether the maid was subject to her master’s advances after this lascivious introduction, although the letter goes on to hint that Sir Ralph had already slept with his wife’s faithful maid, Luce.68
When Lady Verney returned home to Claydon House in Buckinghamshire after four years’ absence she learnt what might happen to a dwelling when no longer sufficiently cared for, complaining to her husband: ‘the house is most lamentably furnished, all the linen is quite worn out . . . the feather beds that were walled up are much eaten with Ratts’, the roasting spits were ‘eaten up with rust’ and ‘Musk-coloured stools . . . spoiled, and the dining-room chairs in rags’.69
In January 1653, when his exile came to an end, Sir Ralph Verney wrote from Brussels to a friend, Dr Denton, of his preparations to return to the house at Claydon, reflecting on his new situation and the need for economies against the awareness of status: ‘If I must keepe house which I am willing to doe if you advise it, I will keep but one woeman kind, who must wash my small Linnen (bed & board linen shall bee put out) and cleane both house & Vessels which she may doe for I sup not; if she could cook also I should not bee sorry.’
He had views too about the men he might employ: ‘for men I intend to keep only a Coachman & 2 footmen; or a Vallet de chambre & one footman; or which I like much better a Page & a Footman, but if persons of my condition keep not pages in England I will not bee singuler, though they are used here and in France, & by reason they ride behind the coach, not in it, are better than any Vallet de chambre.’70
He then addressed the matter of the housekeeper, who continued to live at Claydon, asked what other servants were still in place and what new household supplies would be needed. He later sent down a new male cook and asked the steward to encourage the new arrival to use his leisure in learning to read and write, as he was worried that ‘Idlenesse may spoil him’; presumably he hoped the new cook could make use of the growing number of printed cookery books. He wrote later to ask whether the housekeeper approved of the newcomer, stressing his views on smoking and drinking: ‘I shall suffer no man that’s either debauch[ed] or unruly in my house, nor doe I hier [hire] any servant that takes tobacco, for it not only stinks upp my house, but is an ill example to the rest of my Family.’71
Sir Ralph wrote to his faithful steward William Coleman, in preparation for a return to the house many years later, after a trip to London on 7 July 1696, and asked that two village men be employed to lie in his bed and air it, as in those days there was a great fear of the consequences of sleeping on damp linen: ‘When Hicks and Parrot lie in my bed give them strong beer and keep my coming as private as you can.’ Later he wrote to Coleman, asking after his health: ‘Pray be careful of a cold and advise the other servants to be so too . . . I had much rather my business be undone, than you should receive any prejudice [harm] by doing it.’ Sir Ralph’s relationship with his housekeeper in his final years was such that she often chided him when she thought him in the wrong. Between 1692 and 1717, she wrote him at least 106 letters.72 Sir Ralph also had a trusted secretary, Charles Hodges, who not only wrote his letters and looked after his money but witnessed legal documents. At the end of the century he was one of the three most senior servants at Claydon.73