Chapter IX What the Maid Saw and Heard
Revelations—Sauerkraut and Turnips—What the Dachshunds Did
FRAU MARTHA to FRAU KRUPP,
née BARONESS VON ENDE.
BERLIN, SCHLOSS, Christmas.
GRACIOUS LADY,—May it please the Gracious Lady, we arrived safely and sound, and Fraulein just started off on a sleigh ride with the little Princess, who is as foolish as the poor Mueller orphan in our hospital, but, mind, she had something warm before I let her go.
Fraulein don’t want me to say nothing, but duty compels me. Gracious Lady, I must tell you that Fraulein got up still hungry from table and ate four ham sandwiches, three doughnuts and a cream tart, which I bought for her with my own money (no matter about that) ere I let her go. After I made her warm inside, I made her warm underneath, and put on her the beautiful sables the late Gracious Gentleman, God rest his soul, got given to him in Russia. With all respects to Majesty, the little Princess, in her cheap iltiz (patois) garment, looked like a mere rag doll compared with our Bertha, please excuse me, Gracious Lady.
Gracious Lady will forgive an ignorant girl, but the three of us, Fritz and Lenchen and me, call the Schloss Starvation Hall.
Except Fraulein and Fritz and Lenchen, I haven’t heard a decent word since we left home. They just snarl and hiss. Because Fraulein is called the richest girl in the world, they fetch and carry for her, like the mealy-mouthed menials they are; but if it wasn’t for the tips, I don’t think they’d do a thing for her.
Fraulein won’t tell you, so I do, that the three of us rode to the Schloss in a hired coach, because Uncle Majesty was too mean to send a carriage for us—and to think of what at home we always provide for his twenty and more attendants and the fine time we give them!
I see now why they are always so greedy in Essen. They never get such meat and vittel as we give them, in Berlin or Potsdam; they hardly have enough peas in the husks and potatoes in the jackets.
Gracious Lady can’t imagine their meanness in the Schloss. I am told there isn’t enough linen to give Majesties a daily change. And how the hundreds of menservants keep clean, with only two bathrooms, and hot water which must be carried up four flights of stairs, I can’t make out. As to the maids, they don’t.
But the poor things can’t help it; all they get is two marks fifty (half a crown) a day for from twelve to sixteen hours’ work, and not a cup of coffee or a spoonful of soup in this fierce, cold weather. And think of it, they don’t get their wages weekly, as the law allows, but on the third day of the month. The poor wretches haven’t even got a place to eat.
I won’t say a thing about Fraulein’s rooms.
Thought Gracious Lady would be pleased to know that I am looking after the child, trying to keep her in good health, no matter what trouble and expense, and I remain, with respects from Lena and Fritz, the Gracious Lady’s most obedient servant,
MARTHA.
P.S.—I had to send for towels to the car, for the ones given to Fraulein were as hard as boards and there were only two, and the maids said they would be changed every second day; and I beg the Gracious Lady’s pardon, but myself and Lenchen and Fritz were given two small huckaback towels to last through the week, and a tin wash-bowl no larger than those we feed the Great Dane out of at the villa, and no pitcher or foot-tubs. What are we going to do?
MARTHA.
Letter from FRAU MARTHA to HERR L——,
Superintendent of the Household, Villa Huegel.
BERLIN, SCHLOSS, Christmas.
HONOURED HERR L——,—This Schloss is a big pigsty, excuse the hard words, and I can tell Gracious Lady only half our troubles. There is no bathroom for Fraulein, no running water—our poorest cottagers in Essen are better off. It takes about half an hour to get a cupful of lukewarm water from the kitchen, and the maid looks daggers if you don’t tip up the tin every time.
If we could only get Fraulein’s car into the courtyard (there is plenty of room) and live in it, we would be all right, for Fraulein’s meals I could cook on the new-fangled kitchen range, which makes no smoke, and she could have her bath regularly.
Gracious Lady will have told you about Fraulein eating at Uncle Majesty’s table. What do I say—eating? Fraulein comes back every time half dead of hunger. Bertha says it’s the quick serving, but I had a talk with the stewardess last night, and she told me things. The allowances even for Majesty’s table, she said, are cut so fine, there is never enough for all, family, officials and guests; and, to cover up the shortness, the courses are served quickly as if shot from the new machine-gun I have heard Herr Franz talk about. Some of the guests get skipped, others are given just a mouthful, and part of the food is carried out again for the hungry wolves of lackeys.
Mean, now, isn’t it, Herr L——? But we, I mean Fraulein, has to put up with it while here. As to grub allowed to Fritz, me and Lenchen, it’s sauerkraut and turnips and herrings and black bread; but we don’t mind, as we can buy outside. But I can’t take Bertha into eating places, and make up for what she goes short at the royal table; she has to live on sandwiches and cake for the most part. Other arrangements as bad. I would be ashamed to tell you of the servants’ accommodations: back-stairs, rotten-smelling oil lamps. We won’t be comfortable until we get back home once more.
For Fraulein’s bed I got the linen from our car, but as we took just enough for a night’s run and back you must send some more. I wanted to save you the trouble, and asked the housekeeper to have some washed. Not here, she said; too few in help, no extra tubs, no place to dry. When I offered to pay for the soap, that seemed to tickle her immensely, but she had to refuse in the end.
Honoured Herr L——, tell the servants at the Villa they don’t half know how well they are off. I never did until coming across all this high-sounding stop-a-hole-in-the-sieve business.
You cannot imagine, worthy Mr. Superintendent, too, what funny things there are too—the War Lord’s dachshunds, for instance, all jaws and stomach. They look like those yellow-skinned truffle Leberwursts held up by Frankfurters, and—what do you think?—have been taught to snap and nibble the calves of people of quality only.
Mine they leave severely alone, thank God; but I told Fraulein not to put on too many “lugs,” lest they mistake her for a “von.”
Of course I can’t swear to it, but they do say that “Uncle Majesty” has a way, by a mere look, of setting the dachshunds on people he dislikes; they must be as smart as Herr Director-General’s French poodles, I reckon. Anyhow, they seem to know when “Uncle Majesty” is cross with someone and go for him.
I heard you tell Herr Franz of meeting Count Posadownk in Bielefeld and what a great man he was. And surely he is a man with a lot of authority, but here no one is bigger than a ten-pin before “Uncle Majesty.”
George, the chief Jaeger who stands behind his chair at table and knows everything and everybody, has become quite friendly-like with me. Well, George says Count Posadownk “gets the War Lord’s goat” every time he reads those long-winded reports of his. But the War Lord must listen, says George; “part of Majesty’s business to hear the ministers’ gab.” And listen he does—the Lord knows how he manages—but ten minutes is his limit; after hearing someone else talk approaching a quarter of an hour, he is “ready to explode,” says George.
By that time the Count is just warming up, and you would think nothing short of an earthquake could stop him. But the dachshunds are as good as the fire-spitting mountain we saw in Italy—or was it Switzerland?
A wink from “Papa”—“raising or wagging an ear,” says George—shows the dachshunds that Posadownk ought to make himself scarce, and in a twinkling they get ready for attack round the short clothes and silk stockings.
While the Count talks his head off, first one, then the other bowwow sets up a dismal howl. Posadownk raises his voice, the dachshunds yelp more loudly, and Majesty, pretending to call them off, makes the hullabaloo worse still.
Just the same the Count is crazy to finish, and the dachshunds go on inspecting his legs. Maybe he gets in a good kick or two, but the hounds are experts in pulling at silk stockings without drawing blood. Once or twice his Excellency went away with stockings in ribbons.
The same thing happened to others having business at the palace; the wonder is that no one poisons the beasts. If they bit me—a dose of something strong for them, you bet.
Remember, nothing about Bertha-and-nothing-to-eat to Her Ladyship.—The Herr Superintendent’s very humble servant,
MARTHA.