Chambermaid

“ It seemed a little unusual when presently, from the windows of the coffee-room, we saw the chambermaid (a tall and handsome lady, with manners that quelled any suggestion of familiarity from us) go forth to the pleasure-ground, and, having seated herself, proceed to tell a convulsingly funny story to the tourists. ”

“ Some person that does not know anything about the life of a chambermaid will tell you that the "chambermaid has no protection, no morality, and is without the influence of a fixed place or home atmosphere;" ”

“ Then Claudia raised the window to ventilate the room, and rang the bell to summon the waiter.
"Take this service away and send the chambermaid to me," she said to him when he came.
And a few minutes after he had cleared the table and left the room the chambermaid, accompanied by old Katie, entered.
"Is there a dressing room connected with this chamber?" Lady Vincent inquired.
"Law, no, mum! there isn't sich a place in the house," said the chambermaid.
"This is intolerable! You may go; my own servants will wait on me." ”

“ The chambermaid is at the door, or on the stairs, or on the landing, talking with somebody’s valet: she runs in on hearing or seeing you. Your servant is laying the cloth in a most leisurely style, stopping to look out of the window or to lounge, and coming and going like a person who knows he has plenty of time. ”

“ I do not like to see funereal faces. You have a very disagreeable way of doing your work."
In spite of my pain, I could have boxed her ears.
Amid these trials, I am always thinking of my former places. To-day it is my place in the Rue Lincoln that I most regret. There I was second chambermaid, and had, so to speak, nothing to do. We passed the day in the linen-room, a magnificent linen-room, with a red felt carpet, and lined from ceiling to floor with great mahogany cupboards, with gilded locks. ”

“ Every morning, after the chambermaid has done her duty, (the room of the visiter is the first to be put in order,) the hostess should go in to see that all is right. This done, no further inspection is necessary for that day. There are ladies who, when a friend is staying with them, are continually slipping into her chamber when she is out of it, to see if the guest has done nothing amiss—such as moving a chair to suit her own convenience, or opening a shutter to let in more light, at the possible risk of hastening imperceptibly the fading of the carpet. ”

“ He went downstairs with his straw hat on the back of his head, casting a smile at a pretty chambermaid who passed him coming up. The girl laughed and glanced back, but whether she was laughing at or with him, it would be hard to say. Chambermaids have strange tastes. ”

“ I left them there in my suit-case, and they're gone."
"Yes, sir. Perhaps the chambermaid—"
"Now, look here; I've had about enough of this! I don't know who took them, and I don't care. I know there was a pair of trousers in that suit-case, and they're not in the room now. I want them. Great Scott! I've got to have them! I'm to meet a lady at seven-fifty-three in Jersey City, and I've no time to lose. Now, you hustle!"
"Yes, sir. I'll ask the chambermaid—"
"I asked the chambermaid! ”

“ The first chambermaid attends to receiving lady passengers, seeing that they are furnished with berths, and giving them such attention as they need. She cleans the state rooms, and wakes any lady passengers that are to land in the night. ”

“ The Ménagier further advises his wife that chambermaids of fifteen to twenty years of age are foolish girls who do not know the world, and that she should always cause them to sleep near her in an antechamber, or a room without a skylight or a low window looking on to the street, and should make them get up and go to bed at the same time as herself. ”

“ And with the young wife comes a joyous procession of keen pages and artful chambermaids, who are versed in all sorts of tricks and waggeries, and run up and down the stairs and galleries, hide in the big aumbries, and are always inventing some fresh mystery, though the fable is always much the same. ”

“ The poor chambermaids sprang up in terror, but one of the most courageous said: "I am a woman, and so is this one; she will not eat me." To cut the matter short, she took off the dress, and when it was removed Ermellina began to get out of the casket to walk about and see where she was. The chambermaids fell on their knees before her and begged her to tell them who she was. She, poor girl, told them the whole story. Then she said: "I wish to know where I am?" Then the chambermaids called the king's mother to explain it to her. ”

“ We came there every morning and every afternoon, heaps of us,—cooks and chambermaids, gardeners and valets, coachmen and butlers,—and we spent our time in telling each other of our misfortunes, in running down the masters, and in wishing for extraordinary, fairy-like, liberating places. Some brought books and newspapers, which they read passionately; others wrote letters. Now gay, now sad, our buzzing conversations were often interrupted by the sudden irruption of Mme. Paulhat-Durand, like a gust of wind.
"Be silent, young women," she cried. "It is impossible to hear ourselves in the salon." ”

“ She penetrates his disguise, and, after closing the door of the solar upon him, sends a servant to give him a good beating, as an importunate suitor whom she desires to cure of his annoying passion. The husband, too mortified to reveal his identity and disclose his doubts as to his wife, has no redress but to sustain his assumed character and to escape down the outer stairs, pursued by the servants. The chamber soon came to be the most important part of the house, and frequently its name was given to the whole dwelling, a house with a solar being called an upper-storied chamber. ”

“ I have, after all, obtained some refreshment, and towards midnight a little chamber also, in a house or magazine out of the hotel. It is true, the chamber is like a prison cell, with cobwebs in every corner and at all heights; iron bars before the dirty window, and so on; but it contains, nevertheless, a bed, a chair, and a table. A little active “Nina” assists me to prepare my bed, and then I rest deliciously, whilst I listen, at intervals, to the loud claps of thunder, and the torrents of rain which again pour down through the livelong night. ”

“ The woman took her hand, and led her through a long range of chambers hewn from the solid rock, against which the house was built; and the affrighted girl almost closed her eyes to shut out the view of the skeletons, monsters, and strange forms which seemed to gibber and grin at her as she passed along. They reached a spacious chamber, and she was left alone in utter darkness for some moments. A silence like that of death prevailed; she dared not move, for fancy pictured a deep abyss at her feet, down which one step, nay a single breath, might plunge her. ”

“ These two ladies dwelt alone in the tower, together with their women, in a chamber by themselves. There the damsel might have speech of none, except at the bidding of the ancient dame. More than seven years passed in this fashion. The lady had no children for her solace, and she never went forth from the castle to greet her kinsfolk and her friends. Her husband's jealousy was such that when she sought her bed, no chamberlain or usher was permitted in her chamber to light the candles. The lady became passing heavy. ”

“ Our sleeping chamber with its dome is of such elegant form that I should like to transport it afar, but spoiled with gaudy frescoes on wall and ceiling, by dirty floor, and ragged furniture. The eating room, a noble hall, with a range of pillars down its centre, and hung round with paintings for sale—some few good, several curious; luxury and poverty, dirt and elegance, everywhere blended—even in the yard, which is an abomination, yet where a coved trellis-work forms a roof which a splendid vine covers with its thick leaves, making the loveliest of ceilings. ”

“ I know only that it passed, I being in our common bed-chamber, that holiest of all temples that are consecrated to human attachments, whenever the heart is pure of man and woman, and the love is strong—I being in that bedchamber, once the temple now the sepulchre of our happiness,—I there, and my wife—my innocent wife—in a dungeon. ”

“ Fruit trees and flower beds grew thickly about the garden, and a pleasanter place of perfume and colour and shade it would be difficult to imagine in the summer heat. The third room of which we hear continually in these romances is the lady's chamber. ”

“ The moon shines dim in the open air, And not a moonbeam enters here. But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously, Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver’s brain, For a lady’s chamber meet: The lamp with twofold silver chain Is fastened to an angel’s feet. ”

“ The chamberlain prayed the lady to attire and make her ready to join her friend. The day was spent in preparing for the adventure, according to such plan as had been devised. When dark was come, and all was still, the damsel stole forth from the palace, and the chamberlain with her. For fear that any man should know her again, the maiden had hidden, beneath a riding cloak, her silken gown, embroidered with gold. About the space of a bow shot from the city gate, there was a coppice standing within a fair meadow. Near by this wood, Eliduc and his comrades awaited the coming of Guillardun. ”

“ Some one finds a switch, and the room is illumined, with the effect that the garden seems to have drawn back a step as if worsted in the first encounter. But it is only waiting.
The apparently inoffensive chamber thus suddenly revealed is, for a bachelor's home, creditably like a charming country house drawing-room and abounds in the little feminine touches that are so often best applied by the hand of man. There is nothing in the room inimical to the ladies, unless it be the cut flowers which are from the garden and possibly in collusion with it. ”

“ I grew just underneath the solitary window of the small chamber wherein the poor woman slept,—the whole but consisted of only two rooms,—and I climbed and sprouted and twisted my head in and out of the network of shrubs about me, and clung to the crumbling stone of the wall, and stretched myself out and up continually, until I grew so tall, that I could look in at the casement and see the inside of the room. ”

“ Will not your mind misgive you, when you find yourself in this gloomy chamber—too lofty and extensive for you, with only the feeble rays of a single lamp to take in its size—its walls hung with tapestry exhibiting figures as large as life, and the bed, of dark green stuff or purple velvet, presenting even a funereal appearance. Will not your heart sink within you? ”

“ As I slumber in the night-tide it laps me soft and sweet; And through the chamber window when I waken in the morn With the wind of the sun's arising from the meadow is it borne And biddeth me remember that yet I live on earth: Then I rise and my might is with me, and fills my heart with mirth, As I think of the praise of the people ”

“ He then crossed a court paved with marble, went up the stairs, and came into the guard chamber, where guards were standing in their ranks, with their muskets upon their shoulders, and snoring with all their might. He went through several rooms full of gentlemen and ladies, some standing and others sitting, but all were asleep. He came into a gilded chamber, where he saw upon a bed, the curtains of which were all open, the most beautiful sight ever beheld—a princess who appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and whose bright and resplendent beauty had something divine in it. ”

“ In the enormous chimney glimmered the powerless embers of a few sticks of wood, round which, however, as many of the sick women as could approach, were cowering; some on wooden settles, most of them on the ground, excluding those who were too ill to rise; and these last poor wretches lay prostrate on the floor, without bed, mattress, or pillow, buried in tattered and filthy blankets, which, huddled round them as they lay strewed about, left hardly space to move upon the floor. ”

“ These, along with a spinet and a guitar, and countless other quaint and pretty sundries indicating the habitual presence of feminine refinement and taste, abundantly furnished the chamber. In the window stood some choice and fragrant flowers, and the light fell softly upon the carpet through the clustering bowers of creeping plants which mantled the outer wall, in sombre rivalry of the full damask curtains, whose draperies hung around the deep receding casements. ”

“ All over the roof of one of the palace chambers winged lions flit like bats, the size of every one is the size of the lions of God, and the wings are larger than any wing created; they are one above the other more than a man can number, they are all carven out of one block of marble, the chamber itself is hollowed from it, and it is borne aloft upon the carven branches of a grove of clustered tree-ferns wrought by the hand of some jungle mason that loved the tall fern well. ”

“ One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture, and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the wall-paper. One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and stand at the bedside,—those narrow, canopied beds there in the distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral. It must be a fearful thing to be a royal person, and dwell in a palace, with resounding rooms and naked, waxed, inlaid floors. ”

“ The next instant she is upon the floor of the chamber, and, still bending slightly forward to express the eager concentration of her mind, she glances at the bed and the figure upon it with a scornful sneer, that indicates how clearly she sees the pretence of sleep, and how evidently somebody has been there, or something has happened which justifies all her suspicion, and then, with panther-like celerity, she darts about the chamber to find some trace of the false lover—a hat, a glove, a plume, a cloak—to make assurance doubly sure. ”