Lady's Maid

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It is Lily who smuggles Miss Barrett out of the gloomy Wimpole Street house, witnesses her secret wedding to Robert Browning in an empty church, and flees with them to threadbare lodgings and the heat, light, and colors of Italy. As housekeeper, nursemaid, companion, and confidante, Lily is with Elizabeth in every crisis–birth, bereavement, travel, literary triumph. As her devotion turns almost to obsession, Lily forgets her own fleeting loneliness. But when Lily’s own affairs take a dramatic turn, she comes to expect the loyalty from Elizabeth that she herself has always given. In a small household there are many duties performed by the lady’s-maid which would not be expected in a large house. For example, if only one manservant was kept, and he, in the afternoon went out with the carriage, the lady’s-maid answers the front door bell while he is out. She would also assist in dusting the morning room used by her mistress, and very likely be required to help in cleaning valuable china and drawing-room, ornaments. But whatever extra duties are required of her, they should always be named to her when she is engaged, so that she can, if she likes, refuse to take the situation. Today this role is still sought after and Marshall Harber have placed many successful lady’s maids. The role can encompass so much more, for example a lady’s maid can take care of the male and female wardrobes of the house. They can also offer a personal shopping and styling service as they often have their training in high end fashion and design. This would be a lady’s maid / wardrobe and personal grooming assistant. Providing expert advice on high-end fashion, current trends, seasonal changes, and appropriate attire for various events.

The book that affected her most deeply was probably Significant Sisters (1984), a history of feminism. She was reluctant to take on the job; she had always thought herself at best “a feeble feminist”. The research she embarked on into the lives of women such as Florence Nightingale, Emily Davies and Emma Goldman made her feel humbled, ashamed that she had not recognised before what they had done for her. “I benefited directly and enormously from every feminist gain and I am immensely grateful that I did.” The couple had three children, Caitlin, Jake and Flora. Forster revelled in being a mother (it was the tending she loved, she once said; she wasn’t very good at playing with them) as she did in all things domestic; journalists coming to interview the distinguished author could well find her mopping the kitchen floor.Despite her position as a servant, lady’s maids were often the most educated and refined of all the female staff as her position required a knowledge of fashion, skill at hairdressing, a steady hand with a needle and thread, and more practiced manners and speech than most servants. In the absence of the housekeeper, a lady’s maid could be called upon to prepare tea and coffee for company, so she could not embarrass her mistress! It was also very fashionable to have French servants, though if a lady’s maid was not French she was required to have a store of French phrases committed to memory. Knowledge and training in spa or beauty treatments, including manicures, pedicures, facials or massage.

Although lady’s maids were responsible for many of the physical aspects of her mistress, she was first and foremost required to keep her mistress’s secrets. This was because a lady’s maid usually had a close relationship with her mistress and was involved with the family at an intimate level. This also meant there were things the lady’s maid needed to keep private. In fact, gossiping servants were said to belong to the bottom rung of society, and nothing destroyed a servant’s reputation more thoroughly or swiftly than gossip. It was for this reason that a lady’s maid was advised: A lady’s maid is often referred to in fiction as an ‘abigail,’ which was indeed a term used during the Regency period. The term abigail is in reference to II Samuel, versus 24-28 when Abigail refers to herself as David’s handmaid on four occasions. It is unclear why one lady might prefer to use one term over another, though ‘abigail’ in research is referred to as slang.Her reputation as a writer had grown rapidly. She wrote intensely and her output was prodigious, but it was with Georgy Girl in 1965 that her reputation was secured. The story of a lumpy and lachrymose girl in search of love had immense popular appeal and was made into a successful film the following year with Lynn Redgrave in the title role.

The Library’s buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We’re Josephine March (and later, her youngest sister Amy) is a companion to her wealthy great-aunt in Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women. The lady’s-maid’s duties are much as follows; she rises in good time, brings her mistress her early morning cup of tea, and arranges her room, prepares her bath— the housemaid bringing the cans of water, hot or cold— and lays in readiness everything which will be required for dressing, then she retires until rung for; this time she will employ in brushing and looking over the things worn yesterday. Then she has her own breakfast in the “housekeeper’s room,” and is ready to attend to her mistress directly her bell summons her, when she dresses her hair, removes her dressing-gown, and puts on her dress, doing all the finishing touches to her toilet. Marie von Flotow (1817–1909), the lady's maid and influential favourite of the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark). Heidi, in the eponymous children's novel, is taken from her Swiss mountain home at the age of eight to become the companion of an invalid girl in Frankfurt, Germany.She had, she realised, the best of both worlds; she was wife, mother, housekeeper, writer. Domesticity was a delight for her, with all its rituals of cooking, cleaning and caring. She was puritanical to a degree: she did not drive, she loved going on buses, she never watched television, and although she loved clothes – she had a simple elegance all her own – she hated the display of flesh paraded in the name of fashion. She could have a sharp tongue and she could be fierce in her condemnation of what she saw as false or ugly. But the fierceness, like the fire in her writing, concealed a deep compassion. La Toilette,” painted between 1880 and 1900 by Spanish-Italian painter Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Foreign maids, excepting Swiss, are not generally useful in a small house: they are extravagant, and too grand to accommodate themselves to the ways of the household, if it is not what they term ” a good place.” With a very wealthy mistress, who considers style everything, and does not mind paying for it, they are in their element. Today’s LM/PA has experience and a good knowledge in areas that contribute to her expertise in this role. The eponymous heroine of Emily Fox-Seton, Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1901 novel, had worked as a companion before, Cinderella-like, marrying a wealthy nobleman.

A little off-topic, but the lives of ladies’ maids is so intriguing! Have any of you read “Longbourn” by Jo Baker? It shows P&P from the POV of one maid-of-all-work who doubles as a ladies’ maid to the five Bennet sisters at Longbourn while Mrs. Hill “triples” as ladies’ maid to Mrs. Bennet, housekeeper, and cook!! Yikes…talk about being worked to the bone! This novel shows the nitty-gritty of being a servant in this time period with such realism. It’s an amazing novel. 🙂Thanks for these insights into the life of a ladies’ maid! We definitely get a peek at that life through Downtown Abbey although it’s set more than a century after Austen. We see how one can abuse the position as Miss O’Brien did with the Countess, and we can also see how helpful the relationship can be between Mary and Anna Bates…who isn’t called by her last name since her husband, the Earl’s valet, is known by “Bates” as well. So “Anna” the housemaid isn’t promoted to using her last name when she becomes a ladies’ maid. 😉 But we also see the lengths a good family will go to care for their ladies’ maids and valets when first Bates, then Anna, are accused of murder. If she had one constant preoccupation, it was the role of women in society, and in one of her most moving books, Hidden Lives (1995), she took herself and her family as prime examples of social mobility in Britain in the 20th century. Her grandmother was in service and led a life of pitiful drudgery. Her mother was bright, got a place in a high school and a job as a clerk – a job she had to give up as soon as she married. Third generation Margaret went to Somerville College, Oxford, where she read history.