In presenting this book in a completed and augmented form to the public, I think a few words of explanation are necessary, lest the way in which the chapters are written may lay me open to a charge of egotism.
About two years ago I began writing a series of short articles in the pages of the ‘Lady’s Pictorial’ on the absorbing subject of housekeeping, meaning to confine myself strictly to the house and home of the British matron who begins life with little money and less experience, never thinking anything more would come of them than a mere temporary access of work for a few weeks; but I had not begun them for more than a month when, through the office of the paper, a regular and increasing mass of correspondence began to reach me, asking questions on every subject under the sun, from the proper management of a house and the feeding of a baby to the fearful inquiry whether I thought a wife should leave her husband or not when she discovered all too late she liked somebody else better than she did her lord and master. Since then I have become a species of ‘mother confessor’ to hundreds of unknown and valued friends in all parts of the world. I have correspondents in New Zealand, India, America, and in all parts of the Continent, and they have demanded of me that I shall produce a book evolved from my articles and from the pages of ‘Answers to Correspondents,’ which have been my work and my great pleasure since the articles on the home began; and as they persist in asking for my experience and my opinions I am obliged to give them, though knowing and fearing I shall be accused of speaking everlastingly about myself; still I have never mentioned a thing I have not tried or experienced, nor spoken of a single chair, table, or, in fact, anything that I have not honestly and truly tried myself.
From my correspondence I have evolved quite a new profession, which I commend to any lady who has taste and may wish to earn her living, I go to people’s houses and advise them about their decorations, and tell them the best places to go to for different things; I buy things for country ladies, and write them long letters on every subject under the sun for a set fee, and have made some of the nicest friends possible through this means; and I feel sure that any lady who cares to take up the ‘profession,’ and is of sufficient social status to be above the suspicion of taking commission or bribes from tradespeople to advertise their wares, and who above all possesses a quick eye and a certain amount of taste, can make a good and steady income in a remarkably pleasant way, while a great future would be before any gentleman possessed of the same qualifications, for he could see to estimates for painting, repairing, &c., and could act as a buffer between the purchaser and the workman, and, being thoroughly acquainted with his business, would soon become the boon and benefactor, to the ordinary person who requires his house done up and furnished, who is much wanted, and that no lady can be, because of the necessary fighting powers and technical knowledge.
In connection with my work, we have now started a society for the employment of ladies who will either decorate a house entirely, make the chair-covers and curtains I recommend, or work at ladies’ houses at dressmaking and upholstering, so that I may justly pride myself on the fact that at least my particular column in the ‘Lady’s Pictorial’ has been of some small practical good already. The address of the ‘Workers’ Guild’ is 11 Kensington Square, W.
I may mention, in conclusion, that I have revised and rewritten the whole of the articles which appeared in the ‘Lady’s Pictorial,’ and in some cases entirely evolved new matter out of my inner consciousness; and if only the public extends to my book half the sympathy and appreciation I have received from my thousands of correspondents for my articles, I shall never regret the day when, at my editor’s request, I seized the sceptre and became the ruling genius of many and many an unknown home.
J. E. Panton.
The Manor House, Watford, Herts.
| FIGS. | PAGES | |
| 1. | Suggestion for Draping Arch in Hall | 42 |
| 2. | Suggestion for Draping Door in Hall | 43 |
| 3, 4. | Lamps | 47 |
| 5–8. | Chairs | 50–53 |
| 9. | Sideboard | 55 |
| 10. | Dining-room at Gable-end, Shortlands | 57 |
| 11, 12. | Window-seat | 59, 60 |
| 13. | Chair (Wicker) | 63 |
| 14. | Bookcase | 72 |
| 15. | Drawing-room at Gable-end, Shortlands | 79 |
| 16. | Manor House Windows | 95 |
| 17. | A Corner in a Bedroom, Gable-end, Shortlands | 105 |
| 18. | Draped Alcove for a Bed | 111 |
| 19. | Dressing-table | 117 |
| 20, 21. | Washing-stands | 124, 125 |
In the following chapters I propose to give young housekeepers, just launching their bark on the troubled seas of domesticity, the benefit of the experience that has been bought by me, occasionally rather dearly, in the course of some eighteen or twenty years; for I have often been struck with amazement at discovering how few really practical guides there are that even profess to help newly married girls past those first shoals and quicksands that so often wreck the little vessel, or that spoil and waste so much that could have been usefully employed had knowledge stood at the helm, and experience served as a lighthouse to point out the rocks and narrows. Naturally, no one ever uses another’s experience entirely: to do so would make life too near perfection and too monotonous to be pleasant. Still, there are a hundred little hints that I have constantly been asked to give, a great many helps to household arrangement that I have bestowed on many of my young friends starting in life; and I trust I may not be considered unduly egotistical if I lay before my readers the result of some years of life, and a good deal of experience obtained by looking about me generally.
I shall propose in the first two or three chapters to sketch out some ‘notions,’ as our American cousins would say, about the questions of house-choosing and house-furnishing, I shall then pass on to the question of servants; then babies will have their turn; education, more especially of girls, will not be forgotten; and I shall endeavour to do my utmost to state plainly and describe accurately, not only how a house should be furnished, but how it should be managed and kept going, literally from garret to basement.
As very rich people can place themselves unreservedly in the hands of a professional decorator, and can moreover depend on their housekeepers afterwards for all details of domestic management, I shall begin by supposing the model couple who wish to choose a house and furnish it are not rich; if they were they need not come to me for hints, for they would be able to gratify every one of their own tastes, and need only discover the best and most expensive shops, where skilled assistants would be ready to hang expensive papers and brocades, and to fit up all the thousand and one things that fashion calls necessary, without any of my assistance. But neither are they very poor: they are young, happy, and have taste, and are rather disheartened at finding out what a very little way their money seems able to go. They have looked longingly at Persian and Turkey carpets, at beautifully designed paper and exquisite hangings, and have come home from a long day’s investigation of shop-windows that has almost made Edwin forswear matrimony altogether, and that has plunged Angelina into an abyss of despair that makes her snappish to her brothers and sisters, and brings a sad look into her mother’s eyes, who seems to see the first shadow ‘of the prison-house’ close in around her child, and yet is powerless to help her escape, because, poor dear soul, she has no means of doing so herself; being as she is the victim of the old régime of flock papers and moreen curtains and heavy mahogany, and being conscious, too, of the vast sums it cost her to start in housekeeping. However, I refuse to hear any grumblings at all, and demand calmly enough to know if I may see the house that our young folks mean to inhabit. Ten chances to one that they do not even know where it is likely to be: how then, I ask, can they possibly know what they will want, or what is likely to suit the house or the locality, or, indeed, any of the many things that are positively necessary to know, before as much as a roll of wall-paper can be bought or a chair or table purchased?
Here is hint number one. It is from not knowing and understanding the house in which one has to live, and through purchasing furniture simply because we like it, and not because it suits us or our domicile, that such mistakes are made. First know your house; then, and not until then, can you proceed to furnish it in a manner that will result in pleasure to you and your friends for as long as you live in it.
To young people like my couple, I would strongly recommend a house some little way out of London. Rents are less; smuts and blacks are conspicuous by their absence; a small garden, or even a tiny conservatory (the joys and management of which ought to have a chapter all to themselves), is not an impossibility; and if Edwin have to pay for his season-ticket, that is nothing in comparison with his being able to sleep in fresh air, to have a game of tennis in summer, or a friendly evening of music, chess, or games in the winter, without expense; and with Angelina’s absence from the temptations of shop-windows in town, where, if she does not know of anything she wants when she goes out for her aimless walk, she soon sees something that she cannot resist, which she buys just because she has the money in her pocket, and likes the look of an article she would never have thought of had she been outside the range of temptation.
Another reason for choosing the suburbs at the commencement of married life is that in this case the rival mothers-in-law and the rival families will not be running in and out perpetually; and neither will Angelina be always contrasting the old ease, plenty, and amusements in her sisters’ lives, and which used to be hers, with the somewhat straitened and monotonous existence that she must put up with until Edwin has made a mark in the world, and is able to keep his carriage and live in style. Granted, then, that the suburbs have been selected, the first few months of the engagement can be advantageously spent in running down on Saturday afternoons to divers ‘Parks’ to look at houses that sound so beautiful on paper, and are too often the very reverse in the reality, in sauntering in the neighbourhood of each ‘eligible residence’ and in endeavouring to discover what are the pros and cons of each, and in finding out the soil and the aspect, and if there are or are not any pretty walks to be found in the country round. Avoid clay; let no persuasions, no arguments, persuade you that clay—at all events suburban clay—can ever be anything save depressing and rheumatic. You may drain, you may dig, but clay is like a ghost that will not be laid, and that sooner or later asserts itself in the most unpleasant and decided manner possible.
One of the prettiest suburbs we know of is utterly spoiled by its clay soil. In warm days it depresses, in damp it chills; and in an east wind the soil looks so dreary, so parched, that the mere sight of it is wretched, while fog and mist hang over it all the winter, and sour the tempers and warp the minds of the inhabitants until there is a lack of hospitality and an amount of work for the doctors that is wonderful, if unpleasant to contemplate.
Of course, all the S. or S.W. and S.E. suburbs are the most fashionable and the most sought after; and although, to my mind, Penge and Dulwich are dreary and damp, they are evidently well supported and much lived in, but the higher parts of Sydenham are to be preferred; while Forest Hill, the higher parts of Lordship Lane, Elmer’s End—where there are some extremely pretty and convenient villas—and the best parts of Bromley, Kent, are all they should be. Still, to those who do not mind the north side of London, Finchley, Bush Hill Park—where the houses are nice to look at and excellently arranged—and Enfield are all worthy of consideration.
Edwin’s work and its locality must, after all give the casting vote, for, if it be at the West End, Liverpool Street Station is out of the question, and Victoria, is a sine quâ non, and, of course, he may choose to live in town. If he does, I should strongly persuade him not to be guided by fashion, and to prefer a good-sized, old, well-built house in an unfashionable locality, to a small, heated, stuffy, badly put together residence in one of the parts of town that are inhabited by those with whom he can never hope to associate.
Indeed, when I have seen the tiny hovels in Mayfair where ladies and gentlemen crowd together, and where their servants herd under tiles or in the damp, dark cellars, I have thought that Fashion and Folly were two names for one thing, and have had but a small opinion of those who could condemn themselves and their poor domestics to such an unhealthy and miserable existence, just because Park Lane is close by and it is fashionable!
Doubtless the great thing that strikes us when we are house-hunting is that if women architects could get employment houses would be far better planned than they are now. In each bedroom, it seems to me, that I have inspected—and their name is legion—the male mind that designed the rooms never took into consideration that a bed should not stand between the windows and the door; which, by the way, is always put so that the moment it opens the occupant of the bed has a full view of the passage or landing; he has given us no recesses in which we can put shelves, and by a judicious curtain arrangement do away with the necessity of buying large and expensive wardrobes; he puts the fireplaces where, if we are ill, we could not possibly enjoy ourselves with sitting over the fire and warming ourselves; and he gives us far too many windows as a rule, and almost ruins us in blinds and curtains, to prevent the neighbours from gazing at us when we are dressing.
He forgets cupboards, and in fact insists on producing month after month an excellent shell, but one that requires altering considerably by a lady before it really can be lived in at all; and I would strongly suggest that female architects for domestic architecture solely would be a great help to all who have to live in houses planned and executed by men who have no idea of comfort, and but small appreciation for the trifles light as air that make all the difference between that and great discomfort.
If Edwin be at all handy at carpentering he could do a great deal to make even a builder’s design much better—he could rehang doors and extemporise screens; but I look forward to a time when it shall be necessary for houses to be passed by a sanitary commission before they are allowed to be let at all; when all these discomforts will be minimised, and when dust-bin refuse and bad drainage shall be penal if used for foundations and put into houses; when the lesser evils of badly placed doors, windows, and fireplaces will be looked after, as making parts of what should be a perfect whole.
Before taking his house in the suburbs, Edwin must see he holds it on a lease that does not include structural repairs. He must give a properly authorised inspector, from a distance, a fee to inspect all the drains; he must examine the foundations and look to soil, see that the doors and windows really fit, and that the skirting board has not shrunk away from the flooring. He must look to the roof and the chimneys, and, if possible, get a character for it from the last tenant; and then, and then only, need he and Angelina come to me and say, ‘We have settled on our Paradise; now please come and see it and tell us what we had better buy first, and what we must do to furnish it and make it look as pretty as we intend it to do.’
And yet, even when Edwin and Angelina have at last settled on their house, and have sensibly inspected it from top to bottom, I should, long before buying any furniture, decide definitely which room was to be dining-room, which bedroom, and which drawing-room, and, being guided by the sunshine obtainable in each, rather than the builder’s plan, utterly refuse to enter a shop until I had made up my mind how the rooms are to be appropriated.
Sunshine is the very first necessary of life; without it sickness comes, low spirits are one’s portion, and a thousand and one tiny ailments hang about us, until we sum up a tremendous doctor’s bill, utterly ignorant that we could have cured ourselves comfortably had we had any sense, and dispensed with our blinds, regardless of the fading of our carpets and curtains; or moved our morning-room into the sacred precincts of the drawing-room, which obtains all the early sunshine, and has none at all during the hours when we should be sitting there. But the possession of a large and hideous, white marble mantelpiece and a tiled hearth to the ugly, wasteful grate says ‘drawing-room’ too plainly for the ordinary mind to rise above the builder’s dictum; and so a cheerful breakfast table is sacrificed, for conventionalities that I, for one, never see without longing to disregard, simply because of their family likeness to every one else’s possessions, and gloom and low spirits seize their victim, and work their wicked will, sending off the husband to town with an aching head, and causing the wife a long, laborious morning of snapping at servants and children, simply because she had not begun her day with a proper amount of sunshine. I could fill a whole chapter with praises of the life-giver, the mighty, beautiful sun; and whenever I see blinds hardly raised, or carefully adjusted to save the furniture, I know that I shall find inside those guarded windows faded cheeks, even if the chairs are fresh, and weary, tired people, who are hardly aware what sort of a day it is outside, and who are shivering over a fire that would not be wanted were the fire nature has given us allowed to do its work. Therefore, do not be guided in your choice of rooms by the fact that the builder has made a sunless, dark-looking room the dining-room, and a cheerful, light, and pretty chamber the drawing-room. The white marble mantelpiece does not matter one bit.
I can soon alter that, and a tiled hearth is not such a dear or precious luxury that one cannot afford to put in another in the drawing-room, and it is extremely nice to have a hearth where we can put down our plates and dishes to keep hot should any one be late; and the other details are generally so small in their differences that I am sure there is no reason why we should not have strength of mind to be different to our next-door neighbour, who most probably has taken things as she found them, and in consequence is rarely, if ever, without a headache.
Even in the smallest houses in these days there is generally a third room, and this I should advise being kept entirely to sit in. I cannot imagine anything nastier than to sit in a room in which one has one’s meals; the mere worry of seeing them laid would annoy me so that I don’t think I should be able to enjoy them afterwards; and then nothing seems to me to quite clear away the terrible sensation, and smell of meals, that appear to saturate the walls of any room where food is constantly served, while the additional fire that seems the only reason that compels people to remain all day in one atmosphere is paid for over and over again by the extra warmth of the house itself, and the satisfactory manner in which damps and draughts are exorcised, while no one can tell the advantage it is to health to have a change of rooms, and to sit in a place where food and the evil odours attending meals never can come.
And here let me impress upon you, my readers, always to be guided by common sense, not by fashion and conventionalities; to do a thing because it is healthy and sensible, not because Mrs. Jones next door and Mrs. Smith over the way do it; to buy a thing because it is required, because it is pretty and suitable to your house and your means, not because it is ‘so very expensive,’ and so can never become ‘common,’ or because it is the ‘very last thing out’; and, above all, do not mind taking advice and using your eyes, being quite sure that older folks, even if they are stupid and slow-going, have probably seen more and know more than you do, simply because their lives have been longer by a great many years than yours are at present. And do not be above letting other people have the use of your talents, for the world would be much nicer and happier altogether if we were not all so profoundly selfish and exclusive, and were not so desperately afraid of soiling ourselves and our garments by rubbing shoulders against anything or any one to whom we can apply the word ‘common.’
I myself should like to see every beautiful thing common. I should love to know that all the world saw, possessed, and cared for art colours and art furniture, and had nice tastes, and I look forward to a time when even our poor brethren will appreciate all the inexpensive lovelinesses that are to be had now by those who know where to get them, and I trust that some day free art exhibitions and lectures may teach them what real beauty is, and so enlighten and enliven lives that at present are of the dullest and most sober description.
In stating that life itself may be changed by sunshine and by cheerful surroundings, and that even the bitter lot of the poor would be bettered by art, I am aware I lay myself open to the same jeers that greeted the Kyrle Society—that blessed society that, regardless of cold water, goes on its way, giving of its talents to the sick and needy; but I maintain my position for all that, and regardless of the ridicule levelled at them, anent sunflowers and dadoes taking the place of bread and clothes, I point to the hospital wards, transformed from bare whitewashed prisons into artistic, charming, home-like rooms, and I should like to have the statistics given me of all who have recovered there, and the time they took to recover in, in the two different aspects of the walls, being perfectly certain that there would be more and quicker recoveries in the reign of the Kyrle Society than when the wearied, suffering creatures had nothing to look at or think about save their own painful, cruel lot.
Or if you wish another example still, take the well-known famous description of the sour tempers and hard days possessed and lived by Thomas Carlyle and his wife, and then go and inspect the house in which they lived together for some thirty-eight years. The house itself is delightful—an old-world place, full of beautiful corners—and could be made charming with a little money and taste, but the hideous paper and paint still lingering behind them, the dark windows, in some cases half-filled with ground glass to keep out the view of a building that looks singularly like a workhouse—all accounted to me for a great deal of Mrs. Carlyle’s ill-health and low spirits, and for a vast quantity of Mr. Carlyle’s dyspepsia and ill-tempered behaviour; for he could be nothing else in sunless rooms and with walls papered in the ugly, depressing manner in which he doubtless considered them satisfactory, or, still more likely, thought that any paper did as long as the walls were covered.
Therefore, in selecting house and furniture, and choosing your rooms and appropriating them, remember the first thing is to be cheerful. Dark days will come in life to us all, but they will not be hopeless and too dreadful to be endured if we cultivate a cheerful, contented spirit, and insist on having cheerful surroundings.
Do you recollect, I wonder, the orthodox dining-rooms of twenty-five years ago?—the heavy, thick curtains of red or green cloth or moreen damask; the tremendous mahogany sideboard, generally with a cellarette underneath it, which, I recollect, made an admirable tomb in which to bury one’s dolls or obnoxious books, generally triumphantly taken from the schoolroom; the chairs that required two people to lift them; the carpet that seemed immovable, and that was too heavy to be shaken more than once a year; and the woolly-bear hearthrug that always smelt of dust, and that was a receptacle for all sorts of cinders, toy-bricks, leaden soldiers, and bones dragged in and buried there by a delinquent dog or cat? Why, the mere shaking of that rug once a week resulted in the discovery of all sorts of treasures that had been lost, and the dust that came out was enough to choke the neighbourhood, and doubtless would have done so had the other inhabitants not all been engaged with their own. Ah! if you do not all of you remember the dining-room of the past, I do; but never without a shudder, or a wonder how we managed to live in such a dark and dusty atmosphere, where work, reading, drawing, and writing all had to be hustled out of sight and out of the way of the parlour-maid, who came to ‘lay the cloth,’ and renew the foul odours, which had only just been exorcised, which breakfast had left behind it to poison the morning with. I should think that domestic furniture was at its very lowest depths of despair then; but that is thirty years ago, or perhaps forty, and nothing turned the tide for quite twenty years!
In the beginning of those evil days the graceful furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton was pushed away and consigned to attics, or sold cheaply at country auctions to fit up inn parlours or rooms behind shops; and the heavy ‘handsome’ furniture of mahogany and damask bore down upon us, and made us for a time the most depressed of people, heavy with our ugly furnishings, and the mock of all nations that had better taste and lighter hearts than we were possessed of.
It would take too long to trace the gradual development of taste and cheerfulness since then, neither do I know to whom is due our present state of emancipation and love of pretty things, but even sixteen years ago light was only just beginning to be vouchsafed to us. Now it is impossible to buy an ugly thing in good shops, and each person’s house is no longer the reflection of one particular upholsterer’s shop or of one particular style; but it is a carefully arranged shrine, cared for and looked after, and judiciously managed by the owner, who, if she have not taste herself, is now shamed into using some one else’s, by the contrast she cannot help seeing her home presents to all the others into which she enters; and one of the most hopeless people I know, who began life with gilt legs to her chairs and a collection of family plate (plated) on her sideboard, has become unobtrusive, even if she can never be tasteful, simply by seeing how different her own notions were to those of the cleverer people with whom circumstances brought her into contact!
However, this chapter will become too long if I relate any more ‘fearful examples,’ and, impressing on my readers the great necessity of sunshine and cheerfulness in their scheme of furnishing, I will pass on to the subject of the house itself, which must be most carefully chosen after long and deliberate inspection thereof, as I remarked before; one of the most necessary of all mottoes to be recollected in starting in life being, ‘Do nothing in a hurry. More haste, less speed.’
The other day I was asked, as I so often am by young couples, to go with them to look over a house they had just taken, and to give them some advice on the decoration and management generally thereof; and when we had thought about all the pretty colours and graceful draperies we considered suitable, I asked to look at the kitchen department, and I was truly horrified to discern that my young folks had only been into the kitchen once, and had no idea of its capabilities.
I at once departed to look at it, and found all the accommodation for the unfortunate maids consisted of a square box, one half stove, the other half door, a couple of shelves for all the bridal glass and china, and a larder in which one could have placed the meat, butter, and bread without moving from the fireside, and which, useless enough in winter, would be doubly so when summer came, and added another trial to those of the already overburdened cook. However, the agreement was signed and the house taken for five years, during which, I am quite certain, no servant would remain a moment over her month, and in consequence of which that establishment will, I know, be in a continual state of misery and turmoil.
Of course one can hardly expect young people to think of these prosaic and disagreeable details for themselves, but they are most necessary details for persons to consider. Personally I would much rather regard life as a smooth chariot gliding along a rose-embowered road, propelled by some mysterious and wonderful power called Love, who is, of course, entirely ignorant of anything save kisses and blisses. I do not want in the very least really to know how dinner is cooked, how houses are managed, and the very names of chairs and dusters are properly obnoxious to me—or rather would be if we could only do without them. But, alas! we cannot; we must be clean, we should be healthy, and it is imperative that we should have kitchens and be warmed and fed; and, as fairies are extinct and brownies no longer appear and do work mysteriously and pleasantly before we are up in the morning, even a bride must be told about these unpleasant localities, and must learn to take an interest even in her scullery and the position of her dust-bin. Therefore, on the principle of getting rid of our disagreeable duties first, we will begin with hints for kitchen management before thinking about the purchase of the rest of the furniture; for it is a very good rule to buy what we must have first, and then keep any surplus we may have to spend afterwards; and we will begin with the kitchen, for that department is always the most uninteresting to the young housekeeper, for she has only a certain amount of money to spend on everything, and she grudges, I am sure, every pound she has to spend on pots and pans, that she thinks would be so useful if added to the small sum she has at her disposal, for extras and ornaments in the other rooms in her house.
If their household consist of two maids and Edwin and Angelina alone, their batterie de cuisine need be neither an extensive nor expensive one, for after a lengthy experience of maidens and their ways I have come to the conclusion that the fewer things they have the fewer they will spoil, and that we are far more likely to have clean saucepans and pots if there are none to put aside and no others to use, if, as the maid thinks, she has not time at her disposal for the moment in which to clean them. Now if she have only the saucepans in actual use they must be cleaned as soon as they have been used, or the food will most certainly tell tales of her.
The position of the kitchen in a house makes an immense amount of difference in the work, for if it be situated underground it makes quite one servant’s work difference. Fortunately builders are more and more inclined to think of this, and it is now rare to find in a new house the unpleasant and unhealthy arrangement that exists in most London houses. First of all, the staircase to the kitchen is always a dreadful source of worry. We must cover the stairs to deaden the noise, and the wear and tear is so great that the covering has to be renewed well-nigh yearly if we are in any way to preserve a tidy appearance. The best material to use on these stairs is a species of harshly woven Dutch carpeting. It is made in art colours, and is about 1s. 6d. a yard; or Treloar’s pretty crimson cocoanut matting, which is a trifle less in price, and lasts more time, when, if it should show signs of wear, it can once more be covered with oilcloth, and then I think the stairs will look as nice and keep as tidy as long as possible.
If there be any passages in and round the kitchen and servants’ apartments generally, I have discovered that a most excellent plan here is to have a high dado of oilcloth, headed by a real dado-rail painted black, and then papered above with one of the blue and white washable papers that resemble tiles, are moderately inexpensive, and always clean and bright. At one time my passages in those regions were my despair; they were narrow, and bits and corners—paper, plaster, and all—were continually knocked out in the most depressing way, especially at the back door, where, moreover, every boy who came for orders or with parcels solaced himself while waiting by leaning his greasy head or putting his dirty hands on the wall-paper, until the whole place looked disgraceful almost before the paste was well dry. I was at my wits’ end. Cretonne and matting were decidedly out of place. At last the idea of oilcloth came into my head, and for six years it has now been up, and is as good as the day it was purchased. I continued this up the back staircase, with very favourable results as regards wear and tear, for a box knocking against it does not hurt it in the least, and any marks can be rubbed off at once with a dry duster. The oilcloth is not stretched too tight, and it is nailed top and bottom, then secured at the top with the dado-rail, which, being made of what is technically called ‘scantling,’ is most inexpensive; a neat pattern is chosen in oak-browns.
The oilcloth made like an old Roman mosaic would of course be preferable as far as appearance goes, but this costs double, and therefore I was obliged to have an ordinary and commonplace-looking one instead; but should the æsthetic eye revolt against the ugly colours of cheap oilcloth, I may mention it can be painted any colour easily, and this can make it at once pretty to look at.
I am of opinion that such a dado would be a great thing in the kitchen itself, where the walls so speedily become soiled by the heat from the hot-water pipes that the kitchen soon becomes dismal for the servants to sit in. I do wish it would enter into the plan of even quite a small house to have a tiny room where the servants could sit and work, or have their meals, out of the kitchen atmosphere; and then perhaps I should not mind the look of the kitchen quite so much; but even in a large house there is seldom a room one can set aside for this purpose, and often enough the only place a maid has to live in is the one in which all the cooking is done, and where, winter and summer alike, a large fire has to be kept going from morning until night.
But until that happy day arrives we can make the orthodox kitchen almost a model one, with a dado of oilcloth as high as we can get it, and a light varnished paper above the dado; the varnishing allows of constant washing, and though this is, of course, an expensive process, it insures cleanliness, and, the first outlay once made, it does not require renewing for some years. The ceiling, however, should be whitewashed, with the scullery walls and ceiling, and those of the cellars, &c., regularly once a year—about May. Nothing should be thought more necessary than this; and once a year, when this is done, the mistress should overlook every single possession she has, comparing them with a list made at the time she entered the house, which she should never let out of her own possession, and which she should alter from time to time, as things are broken or lost or bought.
The most important thing now to consider is the grate, and nowhere, I think, does the ordinary landlord or builder ‘skimp’ more than in this; and let me ask any young bride to put her pride in her pocket here, and to consult her mother, or the last bride but four, or any one who has had a grate in her own possession, before she passes the grate that the landlord has provided her with. Of course I can only hope any new householder will take advice; the dear things always know so much better from theory than we do from practice, and are never going to make the mistakes we did, and from which sprang the knowledge we are as anxious to give them as they are unwilling to take, that I can only humbly ask them to see about the grate before they really put themselves in its power, and I beg them to insist on having a new one; for on no other portion of the house does so much of our comfort depend, a bad grate spoiling the cook’s temper and wasting the food horribly, while a good one is an endless treasure, of which we really cannot make too much.
If our young folks are too proud to ask advice, let them go to Steel and Garland’s, on the Holborn Viaduct, where I have seen some most picturesque kitcheners, which I must confess to hanker after in a manner that perhaps is not right; but I cannot help it, they look so charming, and are, I believe, so satisfactory in their working. They have blue-tiled backs, and have also delightful ovens and a broad expanse over the fire that would heat any amount of saucepans at the same time; and if Angelina goes to live in her own house, I should certainly recommend her to see these before buying any other kitchen grate. They are most economical as regards coal; and if Angelina be wise enough so to manage her cook as to impress upon her what an excellent fire can be made and kept up in a kitchener using the small coal almost like dust, that is so very inexpensive, and that the best Wallsend need not be taken for the purpose, she will soon save the cost of her stove over and over again in the difference in the price of the material she uses to keep it going.
Of course this small coal can be burned in a kitchener that has not blue tiles, and is a simple, ugly thing; but these are not as reliable as a good stove is, and the ovens burn and spoil so much, owing to the inferior iron of which they are made, that an effort is worth making to secure a good and reliable grate, else Edwin’s dinner may occasionally not be quite as nice as could be wished for him to come home to. But, cheap grate or dear grate, never allow for one moment that an odour therefrom should pervade the house. This may require a battle; but it is one to be won by the mistress if she exhibit firmness, and, above all, a due knowledge of her business as manager of the household. The terrible and sickening smell that so often has been known to fill a house simply comes from grease having been allowed to fall on the oven plates inside. This waxes hot, and then is followed by the odour, which there is nothing like anywhere besides. To obviate this, a cook should always carefully look after any spot or drop of grease, and if by any chance the oven has become foul, it must be cleansed by burning some hay or straw in it; but this need not occur at all if the cook be commonly careful, any more than that green-water need smell, if a small crust of bread be placed in the water while it is boiling, and then the water should at once be emptied away into a corner of the garden, or down the sink if there be no garden, when a little carbolic acid should be added, which would take away the odour at once. These may appear very trivial matters to write about, but a great deal of our comfort and, in consequence, of our happiness depends upon these trifles. I know nothing more disagreeable and trying than a bad smell, and if Edwin comes home to a house reeking of dinner and the oven, what wonder that he flies to his pipe and wishes himself back in his club; while his wife cannot possibly smile and look pleased to see him, when she is suffering untold miseries from the refractory grate, and a cook who would be only too glad to save her the odours if only she knew how.
I am no advocate for mistresses spending their lives in a perpetual harassment of their unfortunate servants, but there is one thing that should never be left to the tender mercies even of the best servant that ever lived; and that is the sink, or, in fact, any drain that may be in the kitchen regions. I cannot tell how it is, but a domestic appears to me to be born into the world bereft of any sense of smell. They never can smell anything. You will go into the kitchen and discover an odour enough to appal you, and you will say, ‘What is this terrible smell, I wonder?’ but your cook will reply, ‘Smell, mum? Oh, I don’t smell anything; perhaps it have drifted in at the window.’ But do not be daunted by that. Do not for one moment think you are wrong and she is right, but persevere, and hunt that smell down, and ten chances to one you will find something that requires your immediate attention in the sink line, or else that, despite most stringent orders, cook has started a private dust-bin, and has put away and forgotten something that is breeding a fever under your very nose.
Insist upon a regular flushing of every drain or sink every week, as a matter of course; and I should advise you to see this done for yourself, and, furthermore, that you should yourself supplement the flushing by using liberally some disinfectant. If you do this yourself, keeping the disinfectant locked up and labelled ‘Poison,’ there will be supplied to your servant’s mind a reason why you should personally superintend the flushing part of the business, and she will not then have the idea in her mind that is so often in the mind of the ordinary servant, that you are spying after her because you cannot trust her. The drains are far too important a matter, you can tell her, to leave to any one, and therefore you must see after them yourself. Sanitas in saucers is a very good disinfectant, and smells most pleasantly; and permanganate of potass diluted largely with water is excellent to put down the sinks and drains themselves; but there is no smell about this, so I, personally, prefer carbolic or chloride of lime, because then I know for certain that something of the kind has been used, and the rather pleasant odour from the disinfectant also seems to send away at once any disagreeable smell that may have been hanging about. In the sinks themselves should be kept a large lump of soda; this should weigh half a pound or more, and be renewed every day or two; this prevents the grease from the saucepans clogging the pipes, as such a large piece dissolves very slowly, and all the water that passes over the soda serves to cleanse the pipe in a most satisfactory way. It is always an excellent thing to set aside particular days and hours for different duties. They are not half so likely to be slurred or omitted as they are in a house where any time does for anything. Therefore Saturday, immediately after the orders have been given, is an excellent time for seeing to the drains. Saturday morning most people are at home, and a quarter of an hour takes little out of the morning, while a good deed has been done, and the house has been purified for Sunday.
And here let me just for one instant dwell on the great necessity of regularity, order, and, above all, early rising, in a small household. If you lie in bed, Sundays or weekdays, things cannot possibly prosper with you; you cannot possibly either keep beforehand with life if you live in a muddle or breakfast late; and should you be late on Sundays you not only hurry to church yourself, or stay away altogether—a wretched habit—but you prevent your servants attending, or allow them to go when the service has begun, and they are too hurried and worried to properly appreciate the weekly rest that should be such a help to them. Every member of the household and every visitor should be punctual at the breakfast table, and nothing save real illness should excuse a breakfast in bed. A headache is more often cured by getting up than by remaining in the bedroom atmosphere; and be sure of this, lying in bed upstairs means waste, laziness, and unsatisfactory behaviour generally in the regions of the kitchen. Hence I feel I cannot say too much against it, or in favour of regularity, punctuality, and early rising, without which excellent qualities no household can get along practically or become anything save a place of hopeless muddle.
Though it would be waste of space to write out an exact list of kitchen utensils in these days, when every respectable firm publishes one at the end of their catalogue, and which, by the way, may generally be halved as regards the quantities with advantage, it may not be out of place here to give a few general hints on the subject. And we may begin by stating that ‘plenty makes waste,’ and that ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ and then we will make up our minds to purchase only just sufficient kitchen articles for the cook’s use, at all events until we know our cook and learn if she be to be trusted; though even then I see no reason why she should have more material at her command than she can use; for I believe this idea of superfluity has done more harm in the kitchen than enough, no servant being sufficiently strong-minded to resolutely put aside anything she can do without.
In a small and, shall I say, impecunious household it is not so much what we want as what we can do without that has to be considered; and it is really astonishing on how little we can ‘get along,’ as far as mere existence is concerned, if we resolutely turn our back on all that is not positively necessary for us, although I must confess that under such circumstances life is certainly not worth living, and has to be a very bare and barren matter altogether; and I hope that Angelina, at all events, will not have to live quite such a Spartan existence as this; still, great care must be exercised, especially in the kitchen, if she be to have a pleasant time of it among nice and pretty things.
In the first place, Angelina must show her cook that she really does know her duties as mistress of a household, and she must be able to hold her own when cook demands extravagant supplies; while at the same time she must not expect a quart of milk a day to suffice for a household consisting of a baby, two servants, the master and mistress, and last, but not least, two cats, as a friend of mine did; but she must diligently study beforehand quantities of divers things, so that she may be ready when called upon to prove she really does know what she is talking of; and a judicious selection of kitchen utensils will point out to her cook at starting that her mistress has ideas of her own on the subject of household management.
Now six saucepans must suffice, and this is really a most liberal allowance, as four might be made to do; two must be nicely lined with enamel, and must be kept entirely for milk and white sauces, such as melted butter, for nothing else should ever be cooked in a saucepan that is required for delicate cookery. After a long experience, I must confess that no one’s kitchen utensils please me as much as Whiteley’s do; they are good and reasonable, and can be relied on to be as cheap and wear as long as any one else’s. Indeed, for these things he is really cheaper than any one I know of, and I now buy all there that I require for kitchen use. He supplies a list of goods suitable for different-sized houses; but no one requires, I think, all that he considers necessary, and a little weeding should be done from even his smallest list, according to the number of the rooms in the house. Still, these lists are a great assistance, and Angelina would do well to write for one before she finally makes up her mind what to order.
There are generally three or four prices quoted for nearly all domestic articles, such as fryingpans, gridirons, saucepans, &c., and it is safe to make it a rule to take a medium quality. At a shop you can trust, the very best, no doubt, must always be best, but ‘good enough