Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (472 page)

“‘And I ‘ope,’ says the lady, ‘you are of an amiable disposition. Some gals when you ring the bell come up looking so disagreeable, one almost wishes one didn’t want them.’

“‘Well, it ain’t a thing,’ explains Emma, ‘as makes you want to burst out laughing, ‘earing the bell go off for the twentieth time, and ‘aving suddenly to put down your work at, perhaps, a critical moment. Some ladies don’t seem able to reach down their ‘at for themselves.’

“‘I ‘ope you are not impertinent,’ says the lady; ‘if there’s one thing that I object to in a servant it is impertinence.’

“‘We none of us like being answered back,’ says Emma, ‘more particularly when we are in the wrong. But I know my place ma’am, and I shan’t give you no lip. It always leads to less trouble, I find, keeping your mouth shut, rather than opening it.’

“‘Are you fond of children,’ asks my lady.

“‘It depends upon the children,’ says Emma; ‘there are some I ‘ave ‘ad to do with as made the day seem pleasanter, and I’ve come across others as I could ‘ave parted from at any moment without tears.’

“‘I like a gal,’ says the lady, ‘who is naturally fond of children, it shows a good character.’

“‘How many of them are there?’ says Emma.

“‘Four of them,’ answers my lady, ‘but you won’t ‘ave much to do except with the two youngest. The great thing with young children is to surround them with good examples. Are you a Christian?’ asks my lady.

“‘That’s what I’m generally called,’ says Emma.

“‘Every other Sunday evening out is my rule,’ says the lady, ‘but of course I shall expect you to go to church.’

“‘Do you mean in my time, ma’am,’ says Emma, ‘or in yours.’

“‘I mean on your evening of course,’ says my lady. ‘‘Ow else could you go?’

“‘Well, ma’am,’ says Emma, ‘I like to see my people now and then.’

“‘There are better things,’ says my lady, ‘than seeing what you call your people, and I should not care to take a girl into my ‘ouse as put ‘er pleasure before ‘er religion. You are not engaged, I ‘ope?’

“‘Walking out, ma’am, do you mean?’ says Emma. ‘No, ma’am, there is nobody I’ve got in my mind — not just at present.’

“‘I never will take a gal,’ explains my lady, ‘who is engaged. I find it distracts ‘er attention from ‘er work. And I must insist if you come to me,’ continues my lady, ‘that you get yourself another ‘at and jacket. If there is one thing I object to in a servant it is a disposition to cheap finery.’

“‘Er own daughter was sitting there beside ‘er with ‘alf a dozen silver bangles on ‘er wrist, and a sort of thing ‘anging around ‘er neck, as, ‘ad it been real, would ‘ave been worth perhaps a thousand pounds. But Emma wanted a job, so she kept ‘er thoughts to ‘erself.

“‘I can put these things by and get myself something else,’ she says, ‘if you don’t mind, ma’am, advancing me something out of my first three months’ wages. I’m afraid my account at the bank is a bit overdrawn.’

“The lady whispered something to ‘er daughter. ‘I am afraid, on thinking it over,’ she says, ‘that you won’t suit, after all. You don’t look serious enough. I feel sure, from the way you do your ‘air,’ says my lady, ‘there’s a frivolous side to your nature.’

“So Emma came away, and was not, on the whole, too sorry.”

“But do they get servants to come to them, this type of mistress, do you think, Mrs. Wilkins?” I asked.

“They get them all right,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “and if it’s a decent gal, it makes a bad gal of ‘er, that ever afterwards looks upon every mistress as ‘er enemy, and acts accordingly. And if she ain’t a naturally good gal, it makes ‘er worse, and then you ‘ear what awful things gals are. I don’t say it’s an easy problem,” continued Mrs. Wilkins, “it’s just like marriages. The good mistress gets ‘old of the bad servant, and the bad mistress, as often as not is lucky.”

“But how is it,” I argued, “that in hotels, for instance, the service is excellent, and the girls, generally speaking, seem contented? The work is hard, and the wages not much better, if as good.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “you ‘ave ‘it the right nail on the ‘ead, there, sir. They go into the ‘otels and work like niggers, knowing that if a single thing goes wrong they will be bully-ragged and sworn at till they don’t know whether they are standing on their ‘ead or their ‘eels. But they ‘ave their hours; the gal knows when ‘er work is done, and when the clock strikes she is a ‘uman being once again. She ‘as got that moment to look forward to all day, and it keeps ‘er going. In private service there’s no moment in the day to ‘ope for. If the lady is reasonable she ain’t overworked; but no ‘ow can she ever feel she is her own mistress, free to come and go, to wear ‘er bit of finery, to ‘ave ‘er bit of fun. She works from six in the morning till eleven or twelve at night, and then she only goes to bed provided she ain’t wanted. She don’t belong to ‘erself at all; it’s that that irritates them.”

“I see your point, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “and, of course, in a house where two or three servants were kept some such plan might easily be arranged. The girl who commenced work at six o’clock in the morning might consider herself free at six o’clock in the evening. What she did with herself, how she dressed herself in her own time, would be her affair. What church the clerk or the workman belongs to, what company he keeps, is no concern of the firm. In such matters, mistresses, I am inclined to think, saddle themselves with a responsibility for which there is no need. If the girl behaves herself while in the house, and does her work, there the contract ends. The mistress who thinks it her duty to combine the
rôles
of employer and of maiden aunt is naturally resented. The next month the girl might change her hours from twelve to twelve, and her fellow-servant could enjoy the six a.m. to six p.m. shift. But how do you propose to deal, Mrs. Wilkins, with the smaller
menage
, that employs only one servant?”

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it seems to me simple enough. Ladies talk pretty about the dignity of labour, and are never tired of pointing out why gals should prefer domestic service to all other kinds of work. Suppose they practise what they preach. In the ‘ouse, where there’s only the master and the mistress, and, say a couple of small children, let the lady take her turn. After all, it’s only her duty, same as the office or the shop is the man’s. Where, on the other ‘and, there are biggish boys and gals about the place, well it wouldn’t do them any ‘arm to be taught to play a little less, and to look after themselves a little more. It’s just arranging things — that’s all that’s wanted.”

“You remind me of a family I once knew, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said; “it consisted of the usual father and mother, and of five sad, healthy girls. They kept two servants — or, rather, they never kept any servants; they lived always looking for servants, breaking their hearts over servants, packing servants off at a moment’s notice, standing disconsolately looking after servants who had packed themselves off at a moment’s notice, wondering generally what the world was coming too. It occurred to me at the time, that without much trouble, they could have lived a peaceful life without servants. The eldest girl was learning painting — and seemed unable to learn anything else. It was poor sort of painting; she noticed it herself. But she seemed to think that, if she talked a lot about it, and thought of nothing else, that somehow it would all come right. The second girl played the violin. She played it from early morning till late evening, and friends fell away from them. There wasn’t a spark of talent in the family, but they all had a notion that a vague longing to be admired was just the same as genius.

“Another daughter fancied she would like to be an actress, and screamed all day in the attic. The fourth wrote poetry on a typewriter, and wondered why nobody seemed to want it; while the fifth one suffered from a weird belief that smearing wood with a red-hot sort of poker was a thing worth doing for its own sake. All of them seemed willing enough to work, provided only that it was work of no use to any living soul. With a little sense, and the occasional assistance of a charwoman, they could have led a merrier life.”

“If I was giving away secrets,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I’d say to the mistresses: ‘Show yourselves able to be independent.’ It’s because the gals know that the mistresses can’t do without them that they sometimes gives themselves airs.”

WHY WE HATE THE FOREIGNER.

The advantage that the foreigner possesses over the Englishman is that he is born good. He does not have to try to be good, as we do. He does not have to start the New Year with the resolution to be good, and succeed, bar accidents, in being so till the middle of January. He is just good all the year round. When a foreigner is told to mount or descend from a tram on the near side, it does not occur to him that it would be humanly possible to secure egress from or ingress to that tram from the off side.

In Brussels once I witnessed a daring attempt by a lawless foreigner to enter a tram from the wrong side. The gate was open: he was standing close beside it. A line of traffic was in his way: to have got round to the right side of that tram would have meant missing it. He entered when the conductor was not looking, and took his seat. The astonishment of the conductor on finding him there was immense. How did he get there? The conductor had been watching the proper entrance, and the man had not passed him. Later, the true explanation suggested itself to the conductor, but for a while he hesitated to accuse a fellow human being of such crime.

He appealed to the passenger himself. Was his presence to be accounted for by miracle or by sin? The passenger confessed. It was more in sorrow than in anger that the conductor requested him at once to leave. This tram was going to be kept respectable. The passenger proved refractory, a halt was called, and the gendarmerie appealed to. After the manner of policemen, they sprang, as it were, from the ground, and formed up behind an imposing officer, whom I took to be the sergeant. At first the sergeant could hardly believe the conductor’s statement. Even then, had the passenger asserted that he had entered by the proper entrance, his word would have been taken. Much easier to the foreign official mind would it have been to believe that the conductor had been stricken with temporary blindness, than that man born of woman would have deliberately done anything expressly forbidden by a printed notice.

Myself, in his case, I should have lied and got the trouble over. But he was a proud man, or had not much sense — one of the two, and so held fast to the truth. It was pointed out to him that he must descend immediately and wait for the next tram. Other gendarmes were arriving from every quarter: resistance in the circumstances seemed hopeless. He said he would get down. He made to descend this time by the proper gate, but that was not justice. He had mounted the wrong side, he must alight on the wrong side. Accordingly, he was put out amongst the traffic, after which the conductor preached a sermon from the centre of the tram on the danger of ascents and descents conducted from the wrong quarter.

There is a law throughout Germany — an excellent law it is: I would we had it in England — that nobody may scatter paper about the street. An English military friend told me that, one day in Dresden, unacquainted with this rule, he tore a long letter he had been reading into some fifty fragments and threw them behind him. A policeman stopped him and explained to him quite politely the law upon the subject. My military friend agreed that it was a very good law, thanked the man for his information, and said that for the future he would bear it in mind. That, as the policeman pointed out, would make things right enough for the future, but meanwhile it was necessary to deal with the past — with the fifty or so pieces of paper lying scattered about the road and pavement.

My military friend, with a pleasant laugh, confessed he did not see what was to be done. The policeman, more imaginative, saw a way out. It was that my military friend should set to work and pick up those fifty scraps of paper. He is an English General on the Retired List, and of imposing appearance: his manner on occasion is haughty. He did not see himself on his hands and knees in the chief street of Dresden, in the middle of the afternoon, picking up paper.

The German policeman himself admitted that the situation was awkward. If the English General could not accept it there happened to be an alternative. It was that the English General should accompany the policeman through the streets, followed by the usual crowd, to the nearest prison, some three miles off. It being now four o’clock in the afternoon, they would probably find the judge departed. But the most comfortable thing possible in prison cells should be allotted to him, and the policeman had little doubt that the General, having paid his fine of forty marks, would find himself a free man again in time for lunch the following day. The general suggested hiring a boy to pick up the paper. The policeman referred to the wording of the law, and found that this would not be permitted.

“I thought the matter out,” my friend told me, “imagining all the possible alternatives, including that of knocking the fellow down and making a bolt, and came to the conclusion that his first suggestion would, on the whole, result in the least discomfort. But I had no idea that picking up small scraps of thin paper off greasy stones was the business that I found it! It took me nearly ten minutes, and afforded amusement, I calculate, to over a thousand people. But it is a good law, mind you: all I wish is that I had known it beforehand.”

On one occasion I accompanied an American lady to a German Opera House. The taking-off of hats in the German Schausspielhaus is obligatory, and again I would it were so in England. But the American lady is accustomed to disregard rules made by mere man. She explained to the doorkeeper that she was going to wear her hat. He, on his side, explained to her that she was not: they were both a bit short with one another. I took the opportunity to turn aside and buy a programme: the fewer people there are mixed up in an argument, I always think, the better.

My companion explained quite frankly to the doorkeeper that it did not matter what he said, she was not going to take any notice of him. He did not look a talkative man at any time, and, maybe, this announcement further discouraged him. In any case, he made no attempt to answer. All he did was to stand in the centre of the doorway with a far-away look in his eyes. The doorway was some four feet wide: he was about three feet six across, and weighed about twenty stone. As I explained, I was busy buying a programme, and when I returned my friend had her hat in her hand, and was digging pins into it: I think she was trying to make believe it was the heart of the doorkeeper. She did not want to listen to the opera, she wanted to talk all the time about that doorkeeper, but the people round us would not even let her do that.