Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [97]
Mrs Beeton warned strongly against habitually complaining of servants’ deficiencies:
It is the custom of ‘Society’ to abuse its servants, – a façon de parler, such as leads their lords and masters to talk of the weather, and, when rurally inclined, of the crops, – leads matronly ladies, and ladies just entering on their probation in that honoured and honourable state, to talk of servants, and, as we are told, wax eloquent over the greatest plague in life while taking a quiet cup of tea. Young men at their clubs, also, we are told, like to abuse their ‘fellows’, perhaps not without a certain pride and pleasure at the opportunity of intimating that they enjoy such appendages to their state. It is another conviction of ‘Society’ that the race of good servants had died out, at least in England.150
In a delightful piece of well-observed and well-aimed social critique she wrote: ‘When the lady of fashion chooses her footman without any other consideration than his height, shape, and tournure of his calf, it is not surprising that she find a domestic who has no attachment for the family, who considers the figure he cuts behind her carriage, and the late hours he is compelled to keep, a full compensation for the wages he exacts . . . and for the perquisites he can lay his hands on.’151
Her next point could apply equally to other servants: ‘Nor should the fast young man, who chooses his groom for his knowingness in the ways of the turf and in the tricks of low horse-dealers, be surprised if he is sometimes the victim of these learned ways. But these are the exceptional cases, which prove the existence of a better state of things.’152
Just as Hannah Wolley’s treatises did in the seventeenth century, she took the view that it was mere common sense to treat servants generously and well.
The sensible master and the kind mistress know, that if servants depend on them for their means of living, in their turn they are dependent on their servants for very many of the comforts of life; and that, with a proper amount of care in choosing servants, and treating them like reasonable beings, and making slight excuses for the shortcomings of human nature, they will, save in some exceptional cases be tolerably well served, and, in most instances, surround themselves with attached domestics.153
Mrs Beeton emphasised the importance of the role of the mistress in the household: ‘As with the commander of an army, or the leader of any enterprise, so it is with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment; and just in proportion as she performs her duties intelligently and thoroughly, so her domestics will follow in her path.’154
Engaging domestics was a duty which required good judgement on behalf of the mistress: ‘There are some respectable registry-offices, where good servants may sometimes be hired; but the plan rather to be recommended is, for the mistress to make inquiry amongst her circle of friends and acquaintances, and her tradespeople.’155 In their turn, servants would look out for potential recruits among their own families and acquaintances. Individuals were recruited young with the intention of training them for life, and whilst junior servants might stay in post with ambitions of moving up, others might have to leave altogether if they wanted to get married.156
Great landowners seem to have had a longstanding presumption against employing married servants (especially married indoor servants) or allowing servants, and especially indoor servants, to marry while