800 Years of Women's Letters (23 page)

I have to attend to the direction of the House, the table, &c., as well as literary studies; to assist in entertaining company in the parlour; and give directions to the servants. I am studying the art of carving, and learning, as far as books will teach me, as well as giving instructions. Mr P. has a most excellent library.

Mrs Pedder was a dairy maid at Darwen-Bank, Mr P.'s house near Preston, when he fell in love with her. Her father heard of the connexion and fearing his daughter might be seduced, sent for her home. He lives nearby here. Mr P. followed her, took her off to Gretna Green and married her. They lived some time at Darwen-Bank, and then took this house, where he intends to live retired until his wife (every way worthy her present rank, in my opinion), is fit to appear in the presence of his relations; and her improvement is so rapid, her application so close, and her disposition and understanding so superior, that a little time will make her all he wishes. He is a lucky fellow to have hit upon such an one. She is not eighteen yet. She expresses herself as much pleased with me, and satisfied with my attentions; and Mr Barton told me, Mr Pedder did the same. – How gratifying!

ED. E. HALL,
MISS WEETON: JOURNAL OF A GOVERNESS
(1936)

Difficulties in housekeeping at Buckingham Palace were greater than we might imagine. Queen Victoria often complained that her windows were never clean enough, because one department was responsible for washing windows inside, and never co-ordinated its work with the government department responsible for the cleaning of the exterior. Here she writes to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert
Peel.

Pavilion, 10th February 1845

Though the Queen knows that Sir Robert Peel has already turned his attention to the urgent necessity of doing something to Buckingham Palace, the Queen thinks it right to recommend this subject herself to his serious consideration. Sir Robert is acquainted with the state of the Palace and the total want of accommodation for our little family, which is fast growing up. Any building must necessarily take some years before it can be safely inhabited. If it were to be begun this autumn, it could hardly be occupied before the spring of 1848, when the Prince of Wales would be nearly seven, and the Princess Royal nearly eight years old, and they cannot possibly be kept in the nursery any longer. A provision for this purpose ought, therefore, to be made this year. Independent of this, most parts of the Palace are in a sad state, and will ere long require a further outlay to render them
decent
for the occupation of the Royal Family or any visitors the Queen may have to receive. A room, capable of containing a large number of those persons whom the Queen has to invite in the course of the season to balls, concerts, etc., than any of the present apartments can at once hold, is much wanted. Equally so, improved offices and servants' rooms, the want of which puts the departments of the household to great expense yearly. It will be for Sir Robert to consider whether it would not be best to remedy all these deficiencies at once, and to make use of this opportunity to render the exterior of the Palace such as no longer to be a
disgrace
to the country, which it certainly now is. The Queen thinks the country would be better pleased to have the question of the Sovereign's residence in London so finally disposed of, than to have it so repeatedly brought before it.

ED. A.C. BENSON,
LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA
(1907)

Mrs Gaskell here writes to a friend, Eliza Fox, on the difficult balance between household duties and the development of the individual.

Feb 1850

One thing is pretty clear,
Women
must give up living an artist's life, if home duties are to be paramount. It is different with men, whose home duties are so small a part of their life. However we are talking of women. I am sure it is healthy for them to have the refuge of the hidden world of Art to shelter themselves in when too much pressed upon by daily small Lilliputian arrows of peddling cares; it keeps them from being morbid as you say; and takes them into the land where King Arthur lies hidden, and soothes them with its peace. I have felt this in writing, I see others feel it in music, you in painting, so assuredly a blending of the two is desirable. (Home duties and the development of the Individual I mean), which you will say it takes no Solomon to tell you but the difficulty is where and when to make one set of duties subserve and give place to the other. I have no doubt that the cultivation of each tends to keep the other in a healthy state, – my grammar is all at sixes and sevens I have no doubt but never mind if you can pick out my meaning. I think a great deal of what you have said.

Thursday – I've been reading over yr note, and believe I've only been repeating in different language what you said. If Self is to be the end of exertions, those exertions are unholy, there is no doubt of
that
– and that is part of the danger in cultivating the Individual Life; but I do believe we have all some appointed work to do, which no one else can do so well; Wh. is
our
work; what
we
have to do in advancing the Kingdom of God; and that first we must find out what we are sent into the world to do, and define it and make it clear to ourselves, (that's
the
hard part) and then forget ourselves in our work, and our work in the End we ought to strive to bring about. I never can either talk or write clearly so I'll e'en leave it alone.

ED. J.A.V. CHAPPLE,
LETTERS OF ELIZABETH GASKELL
(1967)

In 1865 a young schoolteacher, Mary, married a farmer who was also a preacher. She moved with him from a relatively prosperous home to a tough homesteading. She had five children in nine years, and had to do virtually all the work single-handed. Even so, she hoped to earn a living teaching the melodeon. She died young.

[Mary Abell to her mother, 12 November 1871]

The rain is falling out of doors and has been all day – but we are snug and warm in comfortable quarters. We never thought of having such a good home for this winter; we are indeed thankful you may be sure. I have commenced giving Alice Fullington music lessons, am going to give her three lessons a week. She is an only child, and they (her parents) are very anxious she should learn music as she has never learned much at school, she is seventeen years old and quite diffident – her father is wealthy, they are all pleased with the idea of my teaching her. I think she is going to do first rate. I could have a large class if I could manage any way to leave home and give lessons or have them come here. I can do nothing till I get my melodeon here. . . .

I had to lug all the water, and do most of the chores for several days. Carrying the water up the hill was the hardest work for me, but Rob is now able to attend to his wonted work himself – though his leg troubles him – pains him a good deal of the time, he is lame in both knees now. He has picked corn two half days – was intending to work a good deal this fall, but he will be able to do scarcely anything. His school commences the first of Dec. . . .

I expect to earn money to get some things after a little. I get all our provisions now by my sewing – Mother Abell sent us two lbs. of tea which will last us at least all winter – so the most we have to get in the grocery line will be sugar. We have soda to last six months at least, the children have got to have new every day aprons, dresses – and must have doublegowns – they have worn their old duds patched and repatched all summer till they are good for nothing but paper rags. Indeed I cannot let them go looking so any longer. You see I have a good winter's work before me – with the ‘little sewing' I have to do. I shall take all the sewing I can get aside from Mrs H's [Humphrey]. . . .

The calico you sent, I am very much obliged for. I needed it so much for the children, shall have to get twice as much to make up besides, for I must do my sewing for some months to come – I can not do much in that line after another ‘little stranger' comes, even if I could my eyes are always so weak, my limbs swell badly, but have not felt as bad for a few days. I've not been on my feet as much.

[Mary Abell to her mother, 31 December 1871)

This is the last day of 1871. The 1st I spent in Attica [her parents' home] and I remember it quite well – I wish I were there this year, but it will be perhaps many years before I shall see you again – my cares increase instead of diminish. No sooner are the children a little out of the way than another comes – and so they come along. I have been quite nervous for a couple of weeks. More so than before this winter. The children worry me completely out by night – and none of them sleep any through the day, and it is a continual worry – when I am sewing as hard as I can all the time.

H. JORDAN,
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
(1979)

Isabella Bird trekked through the Rocky Mountains, on horseback, mainly alone. Her letters home given an informative picture of the life of the new settlers in America in 1873.

Great Platte Canyon Oct 23

Denver is busy, a distributing-point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of civilisation. A shooting affray in the street is as rare as in Liverpool, while asthmatic people form a veritable convention of patients cured and benefitted.

Numbers of invalids who cannot bear the rough life of the mountains fill its hotels and boarding-houses, and others who have been partially restored by a summer of camping out, go into the city in the winter to complete the cure. It stands at a height of 5000 feet, on an enormous plain, and has a most glorious view of the Rocky Range. I should hate even to spend a week there. The sight of those glories so near and yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy. Denver is at present the terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

The number of ‘saloons' in the streets impresses one, and everywhere one meets the characteristic loafers of a frontier town, who find it hard even for a few days or hours to submit to the restraints of civilisation, as hard as I did to ride sidewise to ex-Governor Hunt's office. To Denver men go to spend the savings of months of hard work in the maddest dissipation, and there such characters as ‘Comanche Bill,' ‘Buffalo Bill,' ‘Wild Bill,' and ‘Mountain Jim,' go on the spree, and find the kind of notoriety they seek. A large number of Indians added to the harlequin appearance of the Denver streets the day I was there. They belonged to the Ute tribe, through which I had to pass, and ex-Governor Hunt introduced me to a fine-looking young chief, very well dressed in beaded hide, and bespoke his courtesy for me if I needed it. The Indian stores and fur stores and fur depôts interested me most. The crowds in the streets, perhaps owing to the snow on the ground, were almost solely masculine. I only saw five women the whole day. There were men in every rig: hunters and trappers in buckskin clothing; men of the Plains with belts and revolvers, in great blue cloaks, relics of the war; teamsters in leathern suits; horsemen in fur coats and caps and buffalo-hide boots with the hair outside, and camping blankets behind their huge Mexican saddles; Broadway dandies in light kid gloves; rich English sporting tourists, clean, comely, and supercilious-looking; and hundreds of Indians on their small ponies, the men wearing buckskin suits sewn with beads, and red blankets, with faces painted vermilion, and hair hanging lank and straight, and squaws much bundled up, riding astride with furs over their saddles.

I. BIRD,
A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
(1982)

Hannah Cullwick (1833–1909) was the daughter of a servant. She began ‘service' at the age of eight, and moved to London in her teens when her parents died. She met the writer Arthur Munby, who was so interested in the details of dirt and drudgery that he asked her to write about her work. This extract was written in 1864 when she was a servant in a boarding-house:

I often thought of Myself & them, all they ladies sitting up stairs & talking & sewing & playing games & pleasing themselves, all so smart & delicate to what i am, though they was not real ladies the missis told me – & then
me
by myself in that kitchen, drudging all day in my dirt, & ready to do any thing for 'em whenever they rung for me – it seems like been a different kind o creature to them, but it's always so with ladies & servants & of course there is a difference cause their bringing up is so different – servants may feel it sharply & do sometimes i believe, but it's best not to be delicate, not mind what work we do so as it's honest. i mean it's best to be really strong in body & ready for any sort o rough work that's useful: but keeping a soft & tender heart all while & capable o
feeling
. How shamed ladies'd be to have hands & arms like mine, & how weak they'd be to do my work, & how shock'd to touch the dirty things even, what i black my whole hands with every day – yet such things must be done, & the lady's'd be the first to cry out if they was to find nobody to do for 'em – so the lowest work i think is honourable in itself & the poor drudge is honourable too providing her mind isn't as coarse & low as her work is, & yet loving her dirty work too – both cause it's useful & for been content wi the station she is placed in. But how often poor servants have to bear the scorn & harsh words & proud looks from them above her which to my mind is very wicked & unkind & certainly most disheartening to a young wench. A good hard day's work of cleaning with a pleasant word & look from the Missis is to my mind the greatest pleasure of a servants life. There was two Miss Knights, & one was always in bed, & couldn't bear a bit o noise, so it was tiresome often to be stopp'd doing a job when i was doing it as quiet as ever i could, but i bore it patient knowing she was ill & that it vex'd the Missis so to have her disturb'd, & Miss Julia (the Missis) was the first real lady that ever talk'd to me, & she doing all the light part o cooking was a good deal wi me in the kitchen – she lent me a very nice book (The Footsteps o St. Paul), & said she was sure I shd not dirty it & I read it through wi a bit of paper under my thumb & give it her back as clean as when she give it me. She used to tell me things too about the moon & stars & fire & earth & about history that I knew not of & it surprised me, & she advised me to read the Bible now i was got older for that i may understand better than when i was younger – But she said it was difficult in some parts even to her & she'd study'd a great deal having bin a governess – And so I enjoy'd Miss Knight's company in the Kitchen & she sat one day ever so long seen me clean the paint, & she said she could watch me all day, there was something so very interesting in cleaning & that i seem'd to do it so hearty & i said i was really fond of it. But the poor thing couldn't wash a plate or a saucepan or peel a tato, nor even draw a cork of a bottle, which was unlucky for her, been so poor in pocket – & she
did
wish she could afford to give me more wages.