Household Organization
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I carried my point, when living in a villa near London, and locked the side door, retaining the key. I found great advantage in so doing on comparing notes with my neighbours, who told me their servants had threatened to leave directly there was a question of closing the side doors.
But this is only a recommendation where servants are kept. A responsible supervision of young servants is quite consistent with allowing them due liberty. This should always be granted them, as a dull imprisonment is misery to the young, and then they would not endeavour to take it in a clandestine manner, and surreptitious dealings with dishonest characters outside would be avoided.
To our present argument it matters little whether there be a side door or not, except that it affords greater facility to burglars; so we will treat of the principal door as the only one, because this is most frequently the case in town-houses where there is no area gate, and the use of that does not enter into our plan of proceeding at all.
One of the first difficulties that presents itself to the lady wishing to maintain a small household staff is the opening of the front door. The question meets us on the threshold, who is to answer the door? Who will be the slave of the ring?
A lady-help does not like to undertake this office, and to the mistress it appears still more unsuitable. But let us analyze the subject.
There are four classes of people who knock at our door: the family, tradespeople, visitors, and casuals. The first division of the difficulty may be easily disposed of. The master and mistress, for these titles must be strictly maintained, have each a latch key; the rest of the family may habitually use a particular knock agreed upon between them, and then the person who happens to be nearest to the door will open it.
Schoolboys and girls return at stated hours, and one is prepared for their appeal. For several years past my family has used four single knocks, which is a sign sufficiently unlike other knocks to be recognized immediately.
The postman's knock is well known, and in families where there is no great eagerness to get the letters, they fall naturally into the letter-box, which should be made deep, and the slit large enough to admit the Times newspaper easily.
In Italy it is usual to write the word fuori on a card, and stick it in the door when one is not at home; and in this case visiting-cards would also be left in the letter-box. We might adopt this method, or even the Temple fashion of saying when we are likely to be home again.
The tradesmen are the most difficult to arrange for, and here invention must be called into play. Tradespeople first call for orders, and then with supplies.
Suppose we had our doors fitted with a kind of turnstile door, something like the birdcage gates which used to be at the Zoological Gardens, only with the outside made of wood, closely fitting, so as to admit no draught. This, by a push, would allow the goods to be deposited within the door, on the table upon which the cage turns round. The opening should be of a size to admit a leg of mutton easily. The goods, once deposited, could not be removed from the outside, as the door only works one way.
Through this opening the lady-housekeeper might give her own orders without their interpretation by an underling, and without being exposed to the public gaze, as she would be if the front door were fully opened, while the leg-of-mutton aperture would be sufficient for both parties to see to whom they were speaking. In the case of a single door, instead of the very general folding doors, it would be necessary to have the cage made to fold back, and the table to let down with hinges, to allow of the door being opened back against the wall; the table might be lowered after midday. This arrangement would also dispose of most of the casuals – the beggars, pedlars, and others who haunt our door-steps – to the entire prevention of hall robberies.
And now we come to the last and most considerable division of the subject – our visitors; comprising relatives, friends, and strangers. If we lived in Arcadia, or in the Colonies, we should most likely be so glad to see our friends that we should joyfully run to welcome them. Or if we were very great people indeed, we should not mind doing as Queen Victoria does, going to receive them at the moment of their arrival. But as we are middling people, and neither shepherdesses nor queens, we dread being natural for fear of being thought poor.
For people are very much more afraid of being thought poor than of being poor, seeing how often they let themselves be dragged into poverty by idleness and extravagance. The best remedy I know for the fancied difficulty of opening our door to our visitors, is to have no friends but those whom we are glad to see, and to begin every new acquaintance by putting it at once on a footing of actual fact, letting people understand that we try to make the best of our means, and live within them. Then, if they will not take us upon our own terms, we need not regret that they do not wish for our friendship.
We shall find, in actual practice, that it makes very little difference to their opinion of us, if when we are at home we have the courage to tell them so ourselves; or if a dirty maid-servant, after an interval of waiting, receives their cards in the corner of her apron because her hands are black, and says she will go and see if "missis" is at home, or even if a neat parlour-maid fulfils the same office, and ushers visitors into a brown holland-encased room, leaving them to remark the time the lady of the house takes arranging her dress and her smiles previous to appearing.
In whatsoever way the ceremonial may be performed is of importance to none but ourselves. The visitor forgets it immediately, only retaining a general impression, cheery or dismal, as the case may seem; and if we are nice people and our visitors nice people, according to our respective ideas on that subject, we shall cultivate each other's acquaintance all the same.
It is immensely hard work to make five hundred a year look like a thousand. The effort to do so is seen through in an instant by a keen-sighted observer, and then it is ten chances to one if you get credit for what you really possess. It is never worth while to pinch and pare our everyday life for the sake of a few occasions of display.
Let us now go on to consider the best fittings and furniture for the entrance-hall.
Encaustic tiles make very good flooring for a hall, and are very easily cleansed with a mop or a damp cloth wrapped round a broom. A good thick door-mat is a great temptation to people to rub their boots well. This is really better than one of those delightful indoor scrapers all set round with brushes, which are seldom used after the first few weeks of their introduction. Mine is as good as new, and as highly polished, and I have had it for years. A couple of good door-mats are much more useful.
It is necessary to have a stand with a large drip-dish in a corner of the hall, to hang up cloaks and mackintoshes, and hat-pegs of course, but particularly a good-sized cupboard for boots, shoes, and goloshes, so that the family may change them in the hall on entrance. A carved bahut, or Italian linen coffer, is very useful in a hall for children to keep their school and garden hats and bonnets in, the lid serving for a bench; but many halls, which are often merely narrow passages, would be inconveniently crowded by one of these rather ponderous pieces of furniture; besides which, they are costly.
A deep bowl of Oriental china is as nice as anything for a card-dish, and the hall is a more appropriate place for it than the drawing-room.
Where it is thought necessary to warm the house, hot-water pipes laid from the kitchen are as cheap as anything. If the pipes are heated by a separate gas-stove in the hall, they will supply hot water to the bed-rooms also; but it is not a healthy practice to heat the passages of a house: it causes the cold to be so much more felt on going out. Where the influence of the stove is felt in the bed-rooms it often prevents sleep.
In many houses which are kept too close and warm the families are subject to constant headache, and in others to a perpetual succession of colds; according to their temperament requiring more oxygen, or their susceptibility to the sudden change from the heated to the outdoor air.
Unpolished oak is the most usual and the best material for hall furniture; it is cleaned by rubbing with a little oil, which shows the grain and enriches its colour.
One rule which in practice saves more dirt in the house than any other, is that no member of the family be allowed to go upstairs in walking-boots. I have carried out this law for some years, after having long been troubled by my schoolboys rushing up and down stairs with their dirty boots on; and the saving to my stair carpet is very considerable. Boys and girls do not run up and down so often, if compelled to exercise a little attention beforehand.
But little boot blacking or brushing need be done in the house. Gentlemen can easily have their boots cleaned out of doors, and ladies, by the use of goloshes, may reduce this work for themselves to a minimum, many kinds of boots being much better cleaned when sponged over lightly than when they are brushed or blacked. Every member of the family may not unreasonably be expected to take care of his or her own boots.
The door-step, or flight of steps, which is such an affliction to householders and such a joy to servants, may be kept sufficiently clean by being washed by the charwoman who comes one morning a week to do the scrubbing and scouring; which would be too menial – in other words, too public and too laborious – for any lady-help to endure.
Hearthstoning the step seems a very useless practice; the grey stone itself is a nicer colour, and only requires a mop or a broom to keep it free from dirt, according to the weather. Much white dust is brought into the house by the daily use of hearthstone, and precious time is wasted in the operation.
It may be well to understand, at the outset of our description of the work of a house, what parts of it cannot usefully or practicably be undertaken by women who have been gently nurtured, before discussing the portions which their knowledge and skill are best calculated to perform. For although we may by forethought reduce within a small compass the toilsome part of the duties, there will always remain some functions which it would uselessly tax a lady's valuable time and strength to perform. For, after all, the office of the mistress is to raise housekeeping to the level of the fine arts, "where the head, the hand, and the heart work together."
Incidental mention has already been made of the charwoman; she may be employed for the harder work in the following manner: —
The charwoman should not have her meals in the house, but she should be paid by the piece for certain work done; say, door-step, 1d. or 2d., according to size and number of steps; kitchen floor, 4d.; passages, according to size and requirements. Many charwomen would gladly undertake work on this plan, and many poor women or strong girls would rejoice to do a morning's work and get home early to their family with what would pay for their dinner.
It is impossible to lay down fixed prices for piece-work, as this must necessarily vary with the size of houses and the habits of the owners.
The charwoman can shake the heavy door-mats, and sweep out the kitchen flue, if the species of stove used require sweeping – and most of them do. She may also break the large lumps of coal into knobs of the size necessary for the patent ranges needing fuel of a certain size, and she might place the week's supply of coal in the fuel-box.
It would be better in many cases to employ for this hard work a strong boy with a Saturday half-holiday. He could do it all quite as well as a woman, and much more easily; but as we find we shall be taxed for a man-servant if we employ any arms but a woman's, we must make the best use we can of the worse means, consoling ourselves with the idea that the woman will use the money paid better than the boy might do.
BREAKFAST
Lighting gas-fire – Difficulty of rousing servants – Family breakfast – Cooking omelet – Hours of work and enjoyment – Duties of mothers and householders – What is included in six hours' daily work – Clearing away the breakfast – Bowl for washing the vaisselles – Ornamented tea-cloths – Muslin cap worn while dusting – Use of feather-brush – Cleaning windows – Advantages of gas-fire.
The gas-fire is the key-note of my system of domestic economy. The thing most impossible for a lady to contemplate doing, unless compelled thereto by duty, is to get up early, and before the shutters are open or the household stirring, to lay and light a fire, or light one already laid. The thought of going to a coal-cellar, shovel in hand, to bring in a scuttle of coals on a winter's morning is enough to make the bravest shudder. It is work only suited to those who have strength and hard nurture.
But can the most delicate woman think it a hardship to light the gas-stove, or tripod, in the dining-room, whereon stands an enamel-lined kettle ready filled overnight, or else a coffee-pot already full, and only waiting for the match to be struck to make it hot?
This is less trouble than to rouse one's self at seven o'clock to ring the bed-room bell, which often fails to summon a sleepy maid: and few English servants are early risers. Those who keep foreign servants have greatly the advantage in this respect.
Very many of us require our servants to rise and be downstairs before seven, as most gentlemen have to be in the city, or at their offices or chambers, by nine, and all schoolboys and girls at school. In the great majority of families breakfast must be ready punctually at eight.
While the family is assembling and prayers are being read, the kettle is boiling, and the tripod is soon ready for eggs to be boiled upon it, and bacon or kidneys fried.
My experience of another plan for a very comfortable every-day breakfast is, where a spirit lamp (methylated spirit, not petroleum) stands on the breakfast-table at the mistress's right hand, and from a plate containing eggs, butter, and some rashers of bacon, she cooks a savoury omelet, and fries the rashers in a small china fryingpan over the lamp, passing to each person the hot slices as they are done, and serving the omelet fizzling from the pan to all.
This process of cooking only takes five minutes, and the food is ready to be eaten as soon as the tea is made or the coffee poured out; and it is a pretty and cheerful occupation while letters are being read and talked of, or the Saturday Review cut.
A few savoury herbs, such as parsley or chives, are a great addition to the omelet; and it is easy to chop overnight the teaspoonful that is sufficient for the purpose, and put it on the plate with the other preparations. A few slices of cold potato are easily fried when the bacon is taken out of the pan; the bacon fat fries them deliciously. The china frying pans may be bought at many shops, particularly at No. 9, Oxford Street, London.
Toast is not easily managed; but with hot rolls from the baker's, marmalade, honey, and potted meat or ham, on the table, a very substantial breakfast may be had with little trouble, and no delay in its preparation.
We will suppose the gentlemen of the family have left the house for the business of the day, and the boys gone to school, and we will now, before continuing our description of the house and its furniture, give an outline sketch of the proceedings of the ladies during their absence.
For England expects every woman to do her duty, as well as every man, and to prove herself a help-meet for man before pretending to rivalry. The division of our time given in the old lines seems to be a very rational one —
"Six hours to work,To soothing slumber seven,Ten to the world allot,And all to heaven."This allows ample time for rest and enjoyment, and sets apart an hour for daily service in the church for all who wish to attend it.
In Utopia, Sir Thomas More allots six hours a day for work to all men and women, and no longer; as he holds it to be important that we should have more time available for enjoying the living we work for, than for working to sustain it.
We give ourselves so little enjoyment in our play, that a great man once said, "Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its pleasures." We have come to treat our play as if it were our work – and no wonder, since we have made it so very troublesome – and having thrown our appointed work upon the shoulders of other people, we now complain how badly they do it.
We mothers have a certain work given us to do, not by man, but by our Maker, whose servants we are. This is to take care of our children. Instead of doing this, we leave them almost entirely in the hands of strangers, and during great part of the day we know nothing of their doings, nor of what they are learning or thinking.
What should we say to a nurse or a governess who neglected them as we do, and how shall we answer for our lack of care?
We householders have laid upon us the care of our houses. Yet it has come to be a recognized thing that we are to touch nothing in them with our own hands – at the utmost, we are to give our orders; and the wealthy among us do not even do that, but are waited upon with every luxury, and then sent ready-dressed into society.
We are not our own, and we have little to do with the making of our position in life. We must accept the status quo and make the best of it; so we may as well acquiesce cheerfully in our circumstances, doing as much as we can, and see if regular occupation will not make our hearts lighter, and help to bring back the days of Merry England again.
But we have no time for preaching now, and I would not willingly give a sermon in any case. I only threw out that suggestion of six hours' work for fear you might think I meant you to be busily employed all day, and then you would drop the book in disgust. But go on a little longer, and you will find that I am less hard than the Ladies' Art-Needlework Society, which insists upon eight hours of close application, and far less hard than the Cambridge Board of Examiners, which drives you on night and day, leaving no time for household duties; much less for dancing, or picking flowers in country lanes.
No; my six hours' work will include your music-practising, and your attentive reading for purposes of study. For unless yours be the only pair of feminine hands in the family, you will not find more than three hours occupied with household work, and part of that time will comprise a daily walk, a constitutional with an object, and the remaining part will not be disagreeable; at least, I hope not, but it will be work and not play.
After this explanation let us return to our subject. We will take it for granted that there are at least two ladies at home. One, the lady-help or eldest daughter, for example, will dust and set in order the drawing-room, whilst the mistress of the house proceeds to clear away the breakfast somewhat after the following manner.
When the coffee-pot was taken from the gas tripod to be placed on the breakfast-table, the kettle was refilled from a tap fixed on one side of the dining-room fire-place, and the water will be by this time hot enough to wash the cups and plates in.
Immediately under the tap stands a large bowl of Delft, or other ware sufficiently strong for daily use, and yet ornamental or picturesque enough to remain always in the dining-room. Terra-cotta is a good material for this purpose, as the colour is always decorative to a room. One might have a bowl of very elegant design made at the Watcombe terra-cotta works. Better still, in the case of its being required to be movable, would be a wooden bowl of the Norwegian carved work manufactured by peasant artists of Thelemarken, under the direction of M. de Coninck, of Christiania. Some one of Minton's vases or jardinières would answer the purpose very well; but unless it had a plug and a pipe for letting off the water, like many washstands have, it would be heavy to lift with water in it. But a bowl with these fittings, placed on a fixed stand near the fire-place, would be well worth while taking some trouble to procure for the dining-room. It would be quite as ornamental, and no more expensive, than the china flower-pots on unsteady pedestals which are so universally popular; indeed, it might balance one of these on the window-side of the fire-place, if it were thought proper. A piece of oilcloth might be spread under the pedestal, if it does not stand on the varnished floor.
From the sideboard-drawer will be taken a neatly folded tea-cloth, ornamented most probably with open work at each end, or adorned with colour in the style of the Russian household linen in the collection of the Duchess of Edinburgh, and the lady will proceed to rinse and wipe the breakfast cups and saucers, together with the teaspoons, milk-jug, and the cleaner plates, and will then lay the plates that have grease upon them to soak in the hot water, to which some additional hot water has been added.
Before taking out the plates, the china which has been used at breakfast should be neatly arranged on, or in, the sideboard. This saves the trouble of carrying about trays of crockery, and the consequent breakage. I will describe the china cabinet as I go more particularly into the details of the dining-room.
The remaining plates may now be wiped, and the etceteras replaced, the cloth brushed, neatly folded, and laid in a drawer with the table napkins, and the fryingpan cleansed by relighting the spirit-lamp for a minute while some hot water bubbles in it to clean it; the towel itself taken away to dry, and the tea-leaves, and a small basin of eggshells and scraps carried into the kitchen; the raw eggshells to be used to wash decanters and glass, and the tea-leaves reserved for dusting purposes.
The windows are opened and the gas fire turned out, and this important ceremonial of the day is at an end.
By this time the drawing-room will have been dusted by the second lady, the week's duster being kept in a convenient drawer. The feather-brush is wielded as a wand by the graceful mistress of the instrument, whom I should recommend to wear a muslin cap to keep the dust from falling on her hair.
These caps, when made of Swiss muslin and trimmed with a frill border edged with Valenciennes lace, are most becoming. They are best and prettiest when made in the shape of a large hair-net. A pretty bride used to come down to breakfast at Interlaken wearing this kind of cap, and other ladies at once adopted the style for wearing at their morning work or sketching. This was some years ago, but a good shape is always good.
To any one unused to the mysteries of dusting, it is surprising to find how easily the ornaments of a drawing-room may be kept in order, and how well the gilt frames of pictures preserved, by a light play of the feather-brush every morning. The French use the plumeau in nearly all cases where we rub with a hard duster, and with great advantage, especially in the case of gilding.
A man or woman hired once a month will keep the windows bright; they are all the brighter if cleaned with newspaper dipped in cold water – some mordant in the printer's ink has the property of rendering them so – and they are the more easily wiped, having less fluff about them than if cloths are used.
A light rub with a leather makes bright stove bars more brilliant, and in summer the fire-place will give very little trouble; though for ladies managing their own work, andirons and a wood fire will be found easier to keep in order, as well as being more picturesque.
A gas fire, built with pumice and asbestos, lasts without needing a touch for three years, and though less delightful than wood or coal, is infinitely cleaner, and gives no trouble at all. A gas apparatus with four jets can be laid in any ordinary fire-place, and fitted with pumice and asbestos complete for seven and twenty shillings, perhaps for less; but that is what I have paid. And when one considers the saving of labour in carrying upstairs heavy scuttles of coal, besides the original cost of the scuttles, with the ludicrous inappropriateness of the ornamental varieties, the total abolition of fire-irons, including that absurdity seen in many houses, the supplementary or deputy poker, besides requiring no chimneysweep in the drawing-room at all, it may be thought well worth while to have a gas fire laid at first. The superior cleanliness and security against smoke are great arguments for its general use, besides the ease with which it can be lighted, or turned out when not wanted for use. Being in the fire-place, the gas finds vent in the chimney, so there is no feeling of closeness in the room. The disadvantage of a gas fire, in some people's opinion, is that it may not be poked or touched; but this is soon forgotten. Its appearance is like a clear fire of cinders, except when the sun is shining, and then it burns with a greenish tint not at all pretty.