The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
the children, for whom perhaps they have worked and slaved,
comfortably settled in life; and it is folly for men with barely
sufficient money to keep themselves to rave against fathers who refuse
to sanction their daughters’ starving with them.
But the idea as to what constitutes starvation has risen with the
times. A little while ago, it used to be the clergyman with a large
family on eighty pounds a-year: a twelvemonth back it rose to the
celebrated “three hundred;” and but a few weeks since I heard a lady
gravely affirm that any one who contemplated marriage now-a-days with
an income of less than two thousand, must be either a madman or a
fool.
Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this
paper of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to
maintain a family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few
words upon what I consider to be the secret of the economy which has
need to be exercised in these days in the largest household as well as
in the smallest.
The order of her household is a true woman’s battle-field, and the
better she can manage it, the more comforts she can command, and the
more regularity she can enforce upon a small income and with few
servants, the greater is the triumph of her victory. If means are
unlimited the triumph is lost; and the woman who has a thousand a-year
for her housekeeping, and is content to let her husband enjoy no more
luxury upon it than his friend who spends five hundred, allowing the
surplus to be wasted for want of a little thought or supervision, is
not a true woman or a good one. For if prodigality is not a sin in
itself, it arises from the indulgence of a combination of sins,
amongst which selfishness holds chief rank.
Take the care of her household out of a woman’s hands and what remains
for her to do? As a generality she would sit in idleness, for these
are not the days when mothers nurse and look after their own children,
and, thanks to the sewing machine, the toil of needlework is over,
even in the poorest families.
She would probably take up a novel the first thing in the morning,
thereby unfitting herself for any solid work for the remainder of the
day; or she would waste her time on fancy-work, or unnecessary
letter-writing, or on anything but what sensible people who know they
will be called to account hereafter for the use they have made of the
brains God has given them would do.
And, as a rule, I believe few women would like to be lightened of
their trouble in this respect. The sex is uncommonly fond of a “little
brief authority,” and even those who have every aid at their command,
generally choose to dabble in their housekeeping affairs. And it is
just this “dabbling” which does harm, which often increases the
expenses instead of lessening them.
I am not a second Mrs. Warren; I have no ambition to try and teach my
sex how to manage their husbands, houses and children on two hundred
a-year, by wiping out the bread-pan every morning with a clean cloth;
and making one stick of wood do the duty of two by placing it in the
oven to dry the night before.
Mrs. Warren’s plan of economy is the general one; or rather, she
follows the general idea of what economy consists of, namely, in
exercising a constant supervision over servants, and straining every
nerve to make the leg of mutton last a day longer than it does with
other people. And I for my part believe that the women of England will
never know the secret of true economy until they have dropped all such
petty interference with the kitchen, and learned to guard their
husbands’ interests with their _heads_ instead of their _eyes_. There
is no doubt that in order to be thrifty it is necessary in a great
measure to limit one’s expenses, and it is a good plan habitually to
ask oneself before completing a purchase “Can I do without it?”
In nine cases out of ten debts and difficulties are incurred
unnecessarily, for articles which added neither to our respectability
nor our comfort, and which, if seriously asked, we should have
acknowledged we could have done just as well without. Take the
generality of English families, cut off all the superfluities in which
they indulge, all the things which are necessary neither to their
existence nor their position as gentle-people, and, as a rule, it will
be found that such absorb a third at least of their income.
It is not only men who have interested themselves in the questions
which have lately sprung up respecting the general rise in prices, and
the increasing difficulties which assail the householder. Women are
constantly comparing notes with each other; wondering “where on earth”
the money can go to, and lamenting the exorbitant weekly bills they
are called upon to pay.
Some have tried to meet their increased expenses by diminishing their
number of servants; others by curtailing the kitchen fare (the worst
and most unprofitable species of domestic economy); a few have gone
another way to work, and simply tried with how many superfluities they
could dispense; and I think these few have succeeded the best.
It was much the fashion a short time back for women to write to the
papers complaining of the worthlessness of their servants, and it was
not until more than one impertinent letter reflecting on their
mistresses had been published from the pens (or the supposed pens) of
servants themselves, that the correspondence was perceived to be
_infra dig._, and dropped. We all know that we are very much in the
power of our servants, both as regards comfort and economy; and to
regulate their actions, we must sway themselves.
As a class, they are much what they have ever been; their characters
varying with the authority placed over them. If ignorant, they are
bigoted; if educated, presumptuous; they regard their superiors as
their natural enemies, and not one in fifty of them is to be entirely
trusted. They no longer look upon the house they enter as their home;
they think of it more as a boarding house which they can vacate at
their convenience, and themselves as birds of passage, here to-day and
gone to-morrow.
To deal with and to control such minds effectually, it needs to show
them that ours is infinitely the superior. If we let them perceive
that we have no means of keeping watch over them except we do it
personally, we lower ourselves to their level, and fail to gain their
respect.
Make your servants admire you; make them wonder at the clearness of
your perception, the quickness of your calculations, and the
retentiveness of your memory, and inwardly they will acknowledge
themselves the inferior, and be afraid to disobey.
You will always hear servants speak with admiration of a mistress who
has (to quote their own phraseology) “eyes in her back;” the fact
being that it requires a mind not only educated in the popular sense
of the word, but sharpened by friction with the world, to enable one
to _perceive_ without _seeing_; and that is a state to which the
lumpish minds of the mass never attain, and which consequently
commands their wonder and respect.
The “excellent housekeeper” who trots round her kitchen every morning
as a rule, opening each dresser-drawer, and uncovering the soup-tureen
and vegetable-dishes, to see that no “perquisites” are concealed
therein, may occasionally light on a piece of unhallowed fat, but she
loses a hundredfold what she gains. While she imagines she has made a
great discovery, her servants are laughing in their sleeves at her
simplicity; for they have a hundred opportunities of concealing to her
one of finding, and are doubtless as cunning as herself. And for such
a mistress--for one who is for ever prying and trying to find out
something--the lower classes have the greatest contempt; they will
neither obey nor save for her; they will even go the length of wasting
in order to annoy.
But, by this, I have not the least notion of maintaining that the
members of that community, of whom I said, but a page before, that not
one in fifty is to be trusted, are to be left to do the housekeeping
by themselves.
A lady of my acquaintance, married to an extremely obstinate man, was
asked how she managed to influence him as she did. “Because I never
let him know I do it,” was the reply. “I always have my own way, but I
make him think my way is his.”
Something of the same sort of management is necessary with servants.
Have your own way, but make them imagine that your way is theirs. They
are truly but “children of a larger growth.”
But, in order to do this, you must prove yourself cleverer than they
are.
Let no one grumble at the stir which has been made lately regarding
the improved education of women, nor that public schools and colleges
are being organised for their benefit. If the knowledge thus acquired
is never needed for the female doctors, and lawyers, and members of
Parliament, which, as fixed institutions, England may never see, it
will be only too welcome in domestic life; for the usual style of
conducting a woman’s education is sadly detrimental to her interests
in housekeeping.
What is the use of their being able to play and sing and imperfectly
splutter German and Italian, when they are puzzled by the simplest
bookkeeping? Hardly a woman of modern times thoroughly understands
arithmetic, either mental or otherwise; and many have forgotten, or
never properly acquired, even the commonest rules of addition,
subtraction, and division. How is it to be expected then that they are
fit to be trusted with money, or having it in their hands to lay it
out to the best advantage.
But to return to “head-economy,” as it should be exercised with regard
to servants.
We will suppose that a mistress, desirous of keeping within her
allowance without curtailing the real comfort of her husband and
children, has asked herself that simple question--“Can we do without
it?” on more than one occasion, and found it answer, in so far that,
though several superfluities, such as dessert after dinner, and
preserves and cakes for tea have disappeared, all the solid
necessaries remain, and the weekly bills are no longer higher than
they ought to be. How should she act in order to keep down her
expenditure to a settled sum; to be sure that as much, but no more
than is needful, is used in the kitchen, the dining-room, and the
nursery; and yet to prevent her servants resenting her interference,
or exclaiming at her meanness?
It is really very easy, far easier than the other plan, if women would
only believe it to be so. It needs no store-room full of hoarded
goods, with the key of which the servants are more familiar than
yourself; no stated times for measuring out half-pounds of sugar and
dispensing tea by ounces; no running down to the lower regions a dozen
times a day to give out what may have been forgotten; or to satisfy
oneself whether they really _do_ cut joint at the kitchen supper, or
revel in fresh butter when they should be eating salt.
But it does require the knowledge necessary to keep the housekeeping
books properly. A thorough acquaintance with the prices of articles,
and the different quantities which a household should consume; and
above all, to have what is commonly called “one’s wits about one.”
If every tradesman with whom you deal has a running account with you;
if nothing in his book is paid for but what you have written down
yourself; if your cook has orders to receive no meat without a check;
has proper scales for weighing the joints as they come in, and makes a
note of any deficiency (the checks being afterwards compared with the
butcher’s book); it is impossible that the tradespeople can cheat you,
and if your money is wasted, you must waste it yourself.
It is an old-fashioned plan to pay one’s bills at the end of each