Lark Rise to Candleford (25 page)

The wages paid would amuse the young housekeepers of to-day.
At her petty place, a girl was paid from one to two shillings a week. A grown-up
servant in a tradesman's family received seven pounds a year, and that was
about the wage of a farm-house servant. The Rectory cook had sixteen pounds a
year; the Rectory house-maid twelve; both excellent servants. The under servants
in big houses began at seven pounds a year, which was increased at each
advancement, until, as head housemaid, they might receive as much as thirty. A
good cook could ask fifty, and even obtain another five by threatening to
leave. 'Everybody who was anything,' as they used to say, kept a maid in those
days—stud grooms' wives, village schoolmasters' wives, and, of course,
inn-keepers' and shopkeepers' wives. Even the wives of carpenters and masons
paid a girl sixpence to clean the knives and boots and take out the children on
Saturday.

As soon as a mother had even one daughter in service, the
strain upon herself slackened a little. Not only was there one mouth less to
feed, one pair of feet less to be shod, and a tiny space left free in the cramped
sleeping quarters; but, every month, when the girl received her wages, a
shilling or more would be sent to 'our Mum', and, as the wages increased, the
mother's portion grew larger. In addition to presents, some of the older girls
undertook to pay their parents' rent; others to give them a ton of coal for the
winter; and all sent Christmas and birthday presents and parcels of left-off
clothing.

The unselfish generosity of these poor girls was astonishing.
It was said in the hamlet that some of them stripped themselves to help those at
home. One girl did so literally. She had come for her holidays in her new best
frock—a pale grey cashmere with white lace collar and cuffs. It had been much
admired and she had obviously enjoyed wearing it during her fortnight at home;
but when Laura said, 'I do like your new frock, Clem,' she replied in what was
meant for an off-hand tone, 'Oh, that! I'm leaving that for our young Sally.
She hasn't got hardly anything, and it don't matter what I wear when I'm away.
There's nobody I care about to see it,' and Clem went back in her second-best
navy serge and Sally wore the pale grey to church the next Sunday.

Many of them must have kept themselves very short of money,
for they would send half or even more of their wages home. Laura's mother used
to say that she would rather have starved than allow a child of hers to be placed
at such a disadvantage among other girls at their places in service, not to
mention the temptations to which they might be exposed through poverty. But the
mothers were so poor, so barely able to feed their families and keep out of
debt, that it was only human of them to take what their children sent and
sometimes even pressed upon them.

Strange to say, although they were grateful to and fond of
their daughters, their boys, who were always at home and whose money barely paid
for their keep, seemed always to come first with them. If there was any
inconvenience, it must not fall on the boys; if there was a limited quantity of
anything, the boys must still have their full share; the boys' best clothes
must be brushed and put away for them; their shirts must be specially well
ironed, and tit-bits must always be saved for their luncheon afield. No wonder
the fathers were jealous at times and exclaimed, 'Our Mum, she do make a
reg'lar fool o' that boo-oy!'

A few of the girls were engaged to youths at home, and, after
several years of courtship, mostly conducted by letter, for they seldom met except
during the girl's summer holiday, they would marry and settle in or near the hamlet.
Others married and settled away. Butchers and milkmen were favoured as
husbands, perhaps because these were frequent callers at the houses where the
girls were employed. A hamlet girl would marry a milkman or a butcher's
roundsman in London, or some other distant part of the country, and, after a
few years, the couple would acquire a business of their own and become quite
prosperous. One married a butler and with him set up an apartment house on the
East Coast; another married a shopkeeper and, with astonishing want of tact,
brought a nursemaid to help look after her children when she visited her parents.
The nursemaid was invited into most of the cottages and well pumped for
information about the home life; but Susie herself was eyed coldly; she had departed
from the normal. The girls who had married away remained faithful to the old
custom of spending a summer fortnight with their parents, and the outward and
visible signs of their prosperity must have been trying to those who had
married farm labourers and returned to the old style of living.

With the girls away, the young men of the hamlet would have
had a dull time had there not been other girls from other homes in service
within walking distance. On Sunday afternoons, those who were free would be off,
dressed in their best, with their boots well polished and a flower stuck in the
band of their Sunday hats, to court the dairy-maids at neighbouring farms or
the under-servants at the big country houses. Those who were pledged would go
upstairs to write their weekly love-letter, and a face might often be seen at
an upper window, chewing a pen-holder and gazing sadly out at what must have appeared
an empty world.

There were then no dances at village halls and no cinemas or
cheap excursions to lead to the picking up of casual acquaintances; but, from time
to time, one or other of the engaged youths would shock public opinion by
walking out with another girl while his sweetheart was away. When taxed with
not being 'true to Nell', he would declare it was only friendship or only a bit
of fun; but Nell's mother and his mother would think otherwise and upbraid him
until the meetings were dropped or grew furtive.

But such sideslips were never mentioned when, at last, Nellie
herself came home for her holiday. Then, every evening, neighbours peeping from
behind window-curtains would see the couple come out of their respective homes
and stroll in the same direction, but not together as yet, for that would have
been thought too brazen. As soon as they were out of sight of the windows, they
would link up, arm in arm, and saunter along field-paths between the ripening
corn, or stand at stiles, whispering and kissing and making love until the dusk
deepened and it was time for the girl to go home, for no respectable girl was
supposed to be out after ten. Only fourteen nights of such bliss, and all the
other nights of the year blank, and this not for one year, but for six or seven
or eight. Poor lovers!

Mistresses used to say—and probably those who are fortunate
enough to keep their maids from year to year still say—that the girls are
sullen and absent-minded for the first few days after they return to their duties.
No doubt they are, for their thoughts must still be with the dear ones left
behind and the coming months must stretch out, an endless seeming blank, before
they will see them again. That is the time for a little extra patience and a
little human sympathy to help them to adjust themselves, and if this is
forthcoming, as it still is in many homes, in spite of newspaper
correspondence, the young mind will soon turn from memories of the past to
hopes for the future.

The hamlet children saw little of such love-making. Had they
attempted to follow or watch such couples, the young man would have threatened them
with what he would have called 'a good sock on the ear'ole'; but there was
always a country courtship on view if they felt curious to witness it. This was
that of an elderly pair called Chokey and Bess, who had at that time been
walking out together for ten or twelve years and still had another five or six
to go before they were married. Bessie, then about forty, was supposed not to
be strong enough for service and lived at home, doing the housework for her
mother, who was the last of the lacemakers. Chokey was a farm labourer, a great
lumbering fellow who could lift a sack of wheat with ease, but was supposed to
be 'a bit soft in the upper storey'. He lived in a neighbouring village and
came over every Sunday.

Bessie's mother sat at the window with her lace-pillow all
day long; but her earnings must have been small, for, although her husband
received the same wages as the men who had families and they had only Bess,
they were terribly poor. It was said that when the two women fried a rasher for
their midday meal, the father being away at work, they took it in turn to have
the rasher, the other one dipping her bread in the fat, day and day about. When
they went out, they wore clothes of a bygone fashion, shawls and bonnets,
instead of coats and hats, and short skirts and white stockings, when the rest
of the hamlet world wore black stockings and skirts touching the ground. To see
them set off to the market town for their Saturday shopping always raised a
smile among the beholders; the mother carrying an old green gig umbrella and
Bessie a double-lidded marketing basket over her arm. They were both long-faced
and pale, and the mother lifted her feet high and touched earth with her umbrella
at every step, while Bess trailed along a little in the rear with the point of
her shawl dangling below her skirt at the back. 'For all the world like an old
white mare an' her foal,' as the hamlet funny man said.

Every Sunday evening, Chokey and Bess would appear, he in his
best pale grey suit and pink tie, with a geranium, rose, or dahlia stuck in his
hat. She in her Paisley shawl and little black bonnet with velvet strings tied
in a bow under her chin. They were not shy. It was arm in arm with them from
the door, and often a pale grey arm round the Paisley shawl before they were
out of sight of the windows; although, to be sure, nobody took the trouble to
watch, the sight was too familiar.

They always made for the turnpike and strolled a certain
distance along it, then turned back and went to Bessie's home. They seldom
walked unattended; a little band of hamlet children usually accompanied them, walking
about a dozen paces behind, stopping when they stopped and walking on when they
walked on. 'Going with Chokey and Bess' was a favourite Sunday evening
diversion. As one batch of children grew up, another took its place; though
what amusement they found in following them was a mystery, for the lovers would
walk a mile without exchanging a remark, and when they did it would only be:
'Seems to me there's rain in the air', or 'My! ain't it hot!' They did not seem
to resent being followed. They would sometimes address a friendly remark to one
of the children, or Chokey would say as he shut the garden gate on setting out,
'Comin' our way to-night?'

At last came their funny little wedding, with Bess still in
the Paisley shawl, and only her father and mother to follow them on foot
through the allotments and over the stile to church. After a wedding breakfast
of sausages, they went to live in a funny little house with a thatched roof and
a magpie in a wicker cage hanging beside the door.

The up-to-date lovers asked more of life than did Chokey and
his Bess. More than their own parents had done.

There was a local saying, 'Nobody ever dies at Lark Rise and
nobody goes away.' Had this been exact, there would have been no new homes in
the hamlet; but, although no building had been done there for many years and there
was no migration of families, a few aged people died, and from time to time a
cottage was left vacant. It did not stand empty long, for there was always at
least one young man waiting to get married and the joyful news of a house to
let brought his bride-to-be home from service as soon as the requisite month's
notice to her employer had expired.

The homes of these newly married couples illustrated a new
phase in the hamlet's history. The furniture to be found in them might lack the
solidity and comeliness of that belonging to their grandparents; but it showed
a marked improvement on their parents' possessions.

It had become the custom for the bride to buy the bulk of the
furniture with her savings in service, while the bridegroom redecorated the interior
of the house, planted the vegetable garden, and put a pig, or a couple of pigs,
in the sty. When the bride bought the furniture, she would try to obtain things
as nearly as possible like those in the houses in which she had been employed.
Instead of the hard windsor chairs of her childhood's home, she would have
small 'parlour' chairs with round backs and seats covered with horsehair or
American cloth. The deal centre table would be covered with a brightly coloured
woollen cloth between meals and cookery operations. On the chest of drawers which
served as a sideboard, her wedding presents from her employers and fellow
servants would be displayed—a best tea-service, a shaded lamp, a case of silver
tea-spoons with the lid propped open, or a pair of owl pepper-boxes with
green-glass eyes and holes at the top of the head for the pepper to come
through. Somewhere in the room would be seen a few books and a vase or two of
flowers. The two wicker arm-chairs by the hearth would have cushions and
antimacassars of the bride's own working.

Except in a few cases, and those growing fewer, where the
first child of a marriage followed immediately on the ceremony, the babies did
not pour so quickly into these new homes as into the older ones. Often more
than a year would elapse before the first child appeared, to be followed at reasonable
intervals by four or five more. Families were beginning to be reckoned in
half-dozens rather than dozens.

Those belonging to this new generation of housewives were
well-trained in household work. Many of them were highly skilled in one or
other of its branches. The young woman laying her own simple dinner table with knives
and forks only could have told just how many knives, forks, spoons, and glasses
were proper to each place at a dinner party and the order in which they should
be placed. Another, blowing on her finger-tips to cool them as she unswathed
the inevitable roly-poly, must have thought of the seven-course dinners she had
cooked and dished up in other days. But, except for a few small innovations,
such as a regular Sunday joint, roasted before the fire if no oven were
available, and an Irish stew once in the week, they mostly reverted to the old
hamlet dishes and style of cooking them. The square of bacon was cut, the roly-poly
made, and the black cooking-pot was slung over the fire at four o'clock; for
wages still stood at ten shillings a week and they knew that their mothers' way
was the only way to nourish their husbands and children on so small a sum.