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If they did, it ended in the boys pouring water down the girls' necks or the girls trying to put little black crabs into the boys' pockets. So Mrs. S. J. and the poor lady-help drew up what she called a "brogramme" every morning to keep them "abused and out of bischief." It was all competitions or races or round games.
All the circumstances, accompaniments, and results of domestic jealousy in their completely typical form, are well illustrated by a very serious episode in the history of the Pepys household, and have been fully and faithfully set down by the great diarist. The offence an embrace of his wife's lady-help, as she might now be termed was a slight one, but, as Pepys himself admits, quite inexcusable.
"That's what I tell her," snorted Miss Peckham. "Folks that have had the off-scourings of the earth, like you have had, Broxton Day, in your kitchen, ain't used to having lady-help about the house." "I hope Janice and I will appreciate Mrs. Watkins' efforts, if she wishes to try the place," Mr. Day said, in rather a bewildered tone.
The man-servant, on closer inspection, resolved himself into a French-Swiss waiter, whose agility and condition were such that he could negotiate the whole ninety stairs of the house, three at a time, without once pausing for breath till he reached the top. Little Miss Bunting, the lady-help, who lived with Mrs.
Mrs Bray, one of those very everyday folk whose god was mammon, and who naturally hung on every word issuing from a person of means while she would ignore the most inimitable witticism from an impecunious individual, began to regard the lady-help from a new point of view. "She mightn't have done so bad for herself after all.
She was neither servant nor guest, and in no way the least like what I imagine a "lady-help" to be. She was older than Madame, older, I fancy, even than Monsieur, and she went to Mass every morning. Madame was more moderate in her religion. Monsieur, I think, was, or once had been, a little anti-clerical. Madame was the most tender-hearted woman I have ever met.
George sat down. "I want," he began "that is, my uncle wants, a lady-help " "Name, please," rapped Miss Ram, opening the ledger. George gave it; stretched a leg to indicate a confidence he did not feel; pitched his voice to aid the presentment. "When I say lady-help " "Address, please," said Miss Ram with a pistol-snap. George withdrew the signs of confidence with a jerk. He gave the information.
"I'll take that out," said Louis, indicating the tray which Rachel had drawn from concealment under the Chesterfield, and which was now loaded. Mrs. Maldon employed an old and valued charwoman in the mornings. Rachel accomplished all the rest of the housework herself, including cookery, and she accomplished it with the stylistic smartness of a self-respecting lady-help. "Oh no!" said she.
"But, surely," said Diana hesitatingly, "you are not Mrs. Lawrence?" Miss Bunting laughed, outright. "Oh, dear no," she answered. "Mrs. Lawrence is out, and she asked me to see that you had everything you wanted. I'm the lady-help, you know." Diana regarded her commiseratingly. She seemed such a jolly, bright little thing to be occupying that anomalous position. "Oh, are you?
I'm only Carry the lady-help general slavey like, earning my living, only that I eat with the family and not in the kitchen. In the summer they hire a cook and others, but in the winter there are only me and Dawn and the old woman," said this frank and communicative individual in the frank and communicative manner characteristic of the Clay household.
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