Posted by Robert Hill on 09/15/00 from 129.11.153.35 via proxy proxy2.leeds.ac.uk:
In Reply to: Re: PM-Beckfoot servants. posted by Jon on September 15, 2000 at 13:46:08:
My copy of Swallowdale is not to hand, but my recollection is that the
housemaid is mentioned only once in the book, when Nancy tells the
Swallows that she (the maid) celebrated the GA's departure by dancing a
jig. This is hard to reconcile with the idea that she was only hired
for the GA's visits. If she seriously needed the money, she would have
been unhappy at losing the work; if not, she wouldn't have taken it on
in the first place.
One can get round this by postulating that the maid had not previously
met the GA, or that she felt some sort of bond of friendship or loyalty
to Mrs Blackett and was reluctant to let her down. But it seems much
simpler to assume that, at the time of writing Swallowdale, AR thought
of the maid as permanently employed at Beckfoot.
The question then arises of why there is no maid in PM. Explanations
can be sought on two levels: within or outside the story.
1. Possible explanations within the story are (1a) that the maid was on
holiday (perhaps Mrs Blackett had given her a holiday for the duration
of her own absence on the cruise); (1b) that the Blacketts could no
longer afford to keep her on (incidentally, do we know whether the mine
was making or losing money?), or (1c) that the maid had retired or moved
away and Mrs Blackett had decided that, now that the girls were older
and often away at school, she could manage without a maid.
If 1a is the answer, it's surprising that the maid is never even
mentioned in PM.
2. Looking outside the story there seem two possible explanations:
(2a) AR decided that the maid's presence would unnecessarily complicate
the plot, or would make it difficult to include plot lines that he
wanted to include; (2b) AR felt at the time PM was written that it
would be better not to make the family seem too privileged, and thereby
too distant from the circumstances of his readers.
I have not thought through any possible details of 2a. A year or two
ago I argued here for what I now call 2b. Though PM is set circa 1933,
it was written when readers were undergoing wartime privations. It may
also be (I don't know - does anyone?) that families with two or more
servants had become rarer during the 1930s.