COURTSHIP BELOW STAIRS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5504, 16 November 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

COURTSHIP BELOW STAIRS.

(Prom chu World)

Courtship in the servants' hall was a rite than which, in the old days, nona could have been more respectable. It came as a matter of course, and in the majority of i stances it had its sequel in an eminently sensible marriage. Sometimes the lovers, as they were, or imagined themselves to be, were so well pleas -d with their single condition that they did not care to change their state. They were always going to settle down after a bit. But youth passed into maturity, and maturity mellowed into age, and the footman and the parlormaid still sat in their accustomed places and accumulated their savings. What may once have been love toned down to a neutral drab tint of mutual esteem j aud the pair, as happy probably as if they had launched their cra't upon the storm-vexed waters of life together years ago, died as they had lived, the faithful imd unwedded servants of their master and mistress. With more enterprising and passionate natures marriage was no mere visionary scheme of the future. It was not, iudeed, a contract hastily entered into. The engaged couple had far too prudent a dread of a leisurely and life-long repentance to do anything rash. If a kitchenmaid felliu love with a day-labourer, she took the counsel of her betters before she named the day. She saw that her swain had no encumbrances, no aged relatives to support, no contraband babies scattered throughout the contiguous parishes, and was well able to keep a decent comfortabl-i roof above their heads. But your domestic servant of the old school seldom sought for a wife or a husband outside the limits of your own household. The housekeeper and the butler never made a match of it. The heart of tho former had, there is reason to believe, been blighted by au infelictious attachment in early youth, aud the soul of the latter was wrapped up in his cobwebs and wine-bins. You had probably fancied there was something between the footman and the cook. You had. noticed tender looks exchanged at family-prayers, and it was a matter of general knowledge that their Sunday walks were taken' together. One fins morning the he-lover entered your library with a particularly sheepish air, nervously fidgeted about with the fireirons,asked whether yau wanted anything, and then told you how matters stood. He and cook had thought of petting up together, if your honor approved. They had something in the bank ; and they thought, with a small cottage and a pig and, a cow, they might take each other for better or worse. But it was invariably thrown out as a suggestion conditional on your ratification. You were the head of the household, and the lovers agreed to refer the matter to you, just as a young lady tels her suitor to interview her papa. The idea never apparently crossed the minds of the couple of biuding themselves by an engagement to which you might object ; and the manner iu which tho tender theme was mentioned invariably implied that they wou!d on no account allow their passions to run riot against their employer's wish. Of course it was their bu-iuess to make two menial bosoms happy. You gave them a cottage free of rent in a corner of your park, or you decided to instal them as landlord and landlady of tho village inn. You considered it a well-deserved piece of promotion; and as for them, they wont away invoking blessings on the head of their beneficent patron.

The guise in which Hymen now makes his appearance below stairs is very different Gone is the deferential air; gone any show of submission to the master's will. He snaps his fingers in your fnce; he tells you to suit yourself; he goes away whistling a defiant tuuo. When your favorite parlor-mu'd came to you six mouths ago she assured you that she had no friends in London, and as for followers she was scandalised at the bare idea. She was country horn and bred, and she did not like town folk. She had not been in your service a week before she—and you—discovered she hal an annt at Walham Green. Other relatives duly appeared in other metropolitan suburbs; while the amount of country correspondence whioh that young person received was a new and crucial illustration of the disadvantages of the penny post. A little latter you. could not help observing a gawky, vapid, lanky, red-haired youth perpetually on guard outside the arearailings. Your nymphe-in-waiting displayed a new eagerness to go out in the week, and was subjecting herself to perpetual reprimands for unpuuctu dity as to the hour of her return Presently it transpired that she had " a young man," and that that young man's inteutions were strictly honorable. It ceased to be a mere question of keeping company ; and, as you subsequently discovered to your cost, the next stage wa3 one of affianced betrothal. Au engaged housemaid of the modern type is an abomination to the most tolerant of mistresses. The old sentiment of service, the spirit of loyalty, which once existed on the part of the domestic to his or her employer has died out of the land. When the prospect of marriage once clearly presents itself to the menial eye, the lowest dopth of demoralisation has been reached. Gratitude is not a virtue greatly cultivated by the race of contemporary servants. They have, indeed, but one idea; to get as much out of their place, and do as little work in return for their wages, as a perverse ingenuity renders possible. It is an idea, it miy bo said, which is not exclusively confined to the recions of the servants' hall and kitchen. But what really does seem limited to these regions is the crass and stubborn refusal to recognise in any way kindnesses perpetually bestowed. A servant fills ill, and is tended with immense personal care and at considerable expense. She communicates to you the distress which has fallen upon her family, and in all probability you relieve out of your own purse the impoverished household. Charity, beneficence, is not even followed by that degree of thankfulness which is a live'y sense of favors to come. " Neat handed Phyllis " merely congratulates herself on having scored one against you in the duel between employer and employed. She has the free run of your kitchen for her sick friends. She can practically secure for them many of the luxuries which wealth canpurchase. Butshehasnottheslightest notion of indi atlntf that she is in any way sensible of these kindnesses. Children fall ill, or some sudden domestic crisis arises which would render Abigail's abandonment of her weekly holiday a matter of great convenience. It does not seem much to ask ; but Abigail either "point-blank refuses the application, or sulkily complies with it, and by way of preventing its repetition in the future giveß you notice the next morning. There is an explanation of this to bn found low in the depths of servants' nature. It does not really indicate such au abyss of moral infamy as might be thought. On the contrary, it is the result of a determined effort to oultivate what the lower orders are taught is a political virtue—independence ; and there is reason to believe that servants are honestly convinced that any temporary relapse into a grateful mood is an act of servile weaknoss, unworthy the inheritor, or the inheritress, of the freedom which is the Briton's birthright. Prospective matrimony is, then, to servants much what measles, or any other infantile maladies, are to children. It brings into exceptionally trying relief all their least lovely qualities ami mo3t exasperating faults. When you happen to observe a brass ring on the engaged finger of your parlormaid, you will bo obeyiug a wise impulse if you get rid of her at once. The vulgar caricature of the period of courtship which one is doom-d to witness might be thought amusing if it was not intolerably annoying. There is no doubt something very beautiful and touching in the awakening sense of womanly responsibilities which the anticipatory proprietorship of a husband giv s to the bride-elect in polite life. It is a very different affair when the bride-elect is Mary Jane. Sentiment and service do not go well together ; and when love flies in at the kitchen window, domestio usefulness at once departs out of the door. Servants' minds are constructed so as only to carry one Bet of ideasata time. They can duet a room, or wait at table, or make a bed in a perfectly satisfactory maiuner, if thoy have one, and one only, of these occupations, not merely to discharge, but to think about. The servant mind has yet to be found whoso intellectual facul. ties are capable of grasping at the same time

the idea of love and duty. There is a poiut beyond which the most long suffering of us cannot go ; aud when day after day there is the same tale of work wholly neglected or in doleutly scamped, it is excusable to enter a slight protest. This is a liberty which the devotion of the innamorata to the, hideous image of the accursed young man requirt s to be resented ; and proud in the possession of that marplot of all peace below stairs, the nymph informs you that you had better suit yourself. By this time she will have completed her trousseau, and she will be contemplating the enjoyment of a little holiday before the happy day arrives. But will it arrive ? and if s>, what then ? Young uieii are perfidious ; and if they are true, their fidelity, in the majority of caßes, means to its object a return to the squalor and discomfort from which that objpet sprang.