Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [93]
A valet was often given his master’s cast-off clothes as a perquisite and deliberately cultivated good manners to match.115 Prince Pückler-Muskau, an early-nineteenth-century traveller to England, remarked that a visitor there might easily mistake a valet for a lord, if he thought courtesy and good breeding were the attributes of the nobility.116 On the other hand the Duke of Wellington remarked grumpily to Lord Strangford ‘that I shave myself and brush my own clothes; I regret that I cannot clean my own boots; for menservants bore me and the presence of a crowd of idle fellows annoys me more than I can tell you’.117However, he was said to have had a good relationship with his own faithful valet, Kendall, who was famously protective of his master.118
Lady Violet Greville, who denounced the superfluity of the footman, wrote in The National Review in 1892 that the well-trained valet was a most invaluable servant: ‘He never forgets a single portmanteau or bag or hat-box; he reads Bradshaw [the railway timetable] excellently, he takes tickets, and tipping the guard efficiently, secures a reserved railway compartment; he brings his master tea, or brandy and soda, at the stations; he engages the only fly [a horse-drawn taxi] at their destination . . . He has the soul of a perfect army commissariat.’119
The great country houses continued to employ the male cook or chef, who was ‘now a requisite member in the establishment of a man of fashion’ and was ‘generally a foreigner’. He ‘has the entire superintendance of the kitchen while his several female assistants are employed in roasting, boiling, and all the ordinary manual operations of the kitchen’.120 The exacting nature of his work, ‘with the superior skill requisite for excellence in his art, procures him a liberal salary, frequently twice or thrice the sum given to the most experienced female English Cook’. Male cooks were often the highest-paid servant in a household after the steward. The Dukes of Sutherland paid their French chefs £108 annually in 1818, and £200 in the 1870s – the value of the latter in modern-day money would be around £114,000 p.a.121
In England, the Adamses observed that ‘men cooks are kept only in about 3 or 400 great and wealthy families, and in about 40 or 50 London hotels. But it is usual in smaller establishments to engage a man cook for a day or two before an entertainment.’122 The grandest houses often had their own dedicated pastry chefs and confectioners. There is a delicious, if somewhat unbelievable, anecdote concerning one Duke of Buckingham who was being forced by circumstances to scale down his spending. When it was suggested that, as he already had a French chef and an English roasting cook, he might dispense with his confectioner, he is said to have replied: ‘Good Gad, mayn’t a man have a biscuit with his glass of sherry?’123
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the famous French chef, Joseph Florance, worked for three Dukes of Buccleuch for whom he became not just a servant but a confidant and family friend. He was also admired by the novelist Sir Walter Scott. On one occasion when the celebrated author dined at Drumlanrig Castle, the chef created a dish called Potage à la Meg Merrilies, after the character in Guy Mannering. His excellent portrait, painted in 1817 by John Ainslie, survives, showing an upright, elegant figure pointing to an elaborate menu, his cook’s knife tucked in his belt.124
Florance travelled to Lisbon with the 4th Duke, and in July 1827 wrote a letter to the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, significantly advising him on the wise management of his household:
It must be gratifying to a Nobleman to know how he stands with the world, with his income, and with his expences. To facilitate this, the greatest regularity must be established and your Grace must set the example of enforcing your commands, your Orders will always be given with moderation and reflection . . .
My plan is simple & will be gratifying to all honest men. The expenses of your household must be laid before your Grace once a week