Previously: Reasons Why I Would Make An Excellent Tudor-Era Lady-In-Waiting And You Should Consider Me For The Position.
1. I have a severe and forbidding aspect that I can only imagine will intensify with age, and plan on allowing my hair to whiten naturally (I already have at least seven growing in a very promising Bonnie-Raitt-like location).
2. I am terrible at keeping secrets with one notable exception: if the secret is for the greater good of a group I consider myself to be a part of. Give me the chance to be a faithful old retainer, and watch how far I’ll go to keep the family secrets hidden.
3. When I was in high school, I often wore an unnecessary carabiner clipped to my Dickies to hold my keys instead of using a purse, so I am prepared to hold a massive ring bristling with brass keys on my person at all times, and to wield it with terrifying authority.
4. Remember that scene in season five of Buffy where Giles asks Ben if he can move and then tells him that “Buffy’s a hero…not like us,” emphasis on the us, and Ben says “Us?” and then Giles stares him dead in the eye and deliberately smothers him with his bare hand, because he’s going to do something he knows that Buffy should never have to do but that at the same time absolutely has to be done, and he’s not going to try to hide from this act, monstrous as it is; if Rupert Giles is going to kill a man for the greater good, he’s going to really be present in the moment and not try to let himself off the hook? Anyhow, I really relate to that scene, and would do my best to bring that kind of unhinged energy to my work with whatever family I chose to bind my fate to.
5. My class loyalties are incredibly weak, and I would gladly spy on the rest of the household at my mistress’ command. I would also, should the need arise, help her poison her husband in the event that he has an affair. The housekeeper reports to the lady of the house, not its lord; the butler should protect him from poisonings and my loyalties are deeply specific.
6. I’m five seven and a half, almost five eight, and given to barely-audible grim mutterings like “No good’ll come of this, mark my words,” and “There’s been no joy in this land since Lady Sarah went a-walking by herself that cursed day on the moors.”
7. It is my understanding that housekeepers of great estates have their own servants to do their laundry and prepare their meals, which seems like a pretty sweet deal, as I would neither have to deal with the burden of being a great lady nor the responsibility of washing someone else’s sheets.
8. I would never breathe a word to any man, dead or living, of what I saw that day in the East Wing.
9. It is also my understanding that the housekeeper of a great estate is usually referred to as Mrs. [Lastname] despite often being unmarried, which in my opinion kind of solves feminism, so we are set in that department.
10. There is nothing I love more than being indoors. If the lord of the house decides to shut himself up and become a recluse after the mysterious loss of his family, I would devote myself to keeping out visitors and the curtains shut at all times. “The master can’t bear the light,” I would remind new scullery-maids, none of whom would last longer than three weeks in our strange, crumbling manor. “It reminds him o’ what he’s lost.”
11. I’m a great snob on other people’s behalf. I would never tarnish the family name, but I also know my place: I maintain the family name’s honor, I do not pretend any claim to it myself.
12. I have always longed to call someone “a clumsy slattern” and believe I could do so effectively in this position.
13. I like the idea of being paid once a year with a handful of gold coins by a man who wears mutton chops.
14. There is nothing I love more than telling people what to do, while at the same time I do not have a great eye for detail. I cannot remember what days Nicole and I have scheduled calls with the redesign team, but I can get large-scale tasks done if everyone just leaves me alone for a few weeks, so delegation is definitely a strong suit of mine.
15. I can walk softly around dark corners and have excellent hearing.
16. If necessary, I would be happy to take on a Mrs. Danvers-like role after the death of the first lady of the house, should her widower decide to bring home a younger, socially inferior replacement. I do not approve of new people, change, or social climbers, and believe strongly in punishing people for trying to get me to like them. I can also hold a grudge well into the grave and beyond.
How obnoxious will it be if I continue to “helpfully” note appropriate tag vs category usage? Like, is it actually helpful for someone to note this shit so that y’all can get used to the new process, or are you going to go through and audit this stuff on a semi-regular basis until it becomes a new habit anyway so me bouncing into comments to note that this *category* should probably be Please Consider My Application, otherwise it won’t find its friends—- will just be the sort of terrible annoying shit that’s more similar to people yelling about comma usage?
Asking for a friend.
I’ll be honest, I probably won’t pay attention to it.
I SHOULD, I know, but I can’t lie to you guys.
And yet, here you are, having paid attention to it.
YOU ARE SENDING MIXED MESSAGES MALLORY.
BUT ALSO, I do know the answer to that question, which is that something doesn’t become a category without a lot more entries than this series, so it makes sense to keep ‘please consider my application’ as a tag rather than a category.
LOL just kidding on literally all counts, Nicole just called and patiently explained why my entire last comment was wrong and now we fixed it!!!
I AM HUMAN TRASH
I appreciate this BTS look at the inner workings of the Toast Administrative Team.
Basically just a bunch of patient phone calls to Mallory?
I fixed it. Not going to lie, it is incredibly satisfying to just go in there and tidy things up and if The Toast doesn’t take my login away I will just keep doing it, forever.
Confession: If I had a The Toast login, this would be me.
My kitchen and bedroom closet are in total disarray, but The Toast would always be spic and span……
This will go on your 18th Cent. Housekeeper resume.
I deleted spam comments from The Hairpin for months until my editor login got shut down.
Nicole you are a delight.
Reasons Karen Would Make an Excellent Webmaster and You Should Consider Her for the Position
You are living the dream.
So basically what you’re saying is there should be a Toast-based remake of Rebecca where you’ll play Mrs. Danvers? Because if that’s what you’re saying then shut up and take my money and all of that.
W O U LD
WAAAAAA A A A ATCHHHH
At the very least, I would watch a trailer for that.
Can we do something like Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Joan Fontaine’s role, and then say Léa Seydoux as Maxime de Winter? Because that would be, um, amazing, and now I have to show myself out.
This is a very promising resume, I will forward it at once to Grimfast Abbey.
It is an old, crumbling place in a lonely spot on the moors, but what the family lacks in lucre they more than make up for with a kind of quiet, noble decrepitude.
Somehow it is always misty. The inhabitants doubt that the sun exists, perhaps just a fanciful notion from the Great City.
The lady of the house has left her chambers only three times in the last seven years and then only while wearing a heavy black veil.
There was a child once, a child thought to bring joy and laughter. And then she toddled off to the moors and was never seen again.
Since then, the apple trees lining the path have been gnarled and barren of fruit. The village-children have been cautioned to remain on the far side of Whispering Creek.
The first time was to bury her children. The second was to deliver poison to her sister. The third time was to stand menacingly at the top of a stairway.
Nobody is quite sure what she looks like, in fact. There’s a menacing portrait of a woman with a haughty and forbidding aspect above the fireplace, so everyone assumes that must be her.
The master of the house typically sits in his study and drinks, while staring at the fireplace.
Sometimes he goes for hunts — wild, loud, and reckless ones — but never returns with game.
Though children sometimes go missing from the village after his hunts. The villagers hanged a vagrant for it from the Old Mill and the disappearances stopped…for a time.
There is always a dog howling in the distance, no one’s sure to whom it belongs, or what business it has on the moors, but no one inquires too closely — people keep to themselves out here.
The housekeeper– is she a housekeeper? — sometimes can be seen by the moors under the full moon gathering a bitter root sometimes used in tea for dyspepsia. Her fingers are gnarled, grasping things and she looks almost pale green, as if she were covered in moss… best to leave her alone, she simply moans if anyone comes near to her on this task.
The moors are getting awfully densely populated. We have to keep siting new decrepit lonely mansions incredibly carefully so they can’t see in each others’ windows.
It helps to just put them at weird angles to each other.
You might say the moors are literally being gentrified.
Eldritch angles, following some uncanny and unsettling non-Euclidean geometry reminiscent of … oh, wait. Wrong genre.
Ripe for a crossover, though, now that you’ve mentioned it.
Why, you can’t even get a good lonely ramble going without tripping over a dread child in white lace or a crumbling pile of stones haunted by an ageless horror or a distraught young gentleman in ruined finery bewailing his accursed name.
I like to think a drafty, echoey, crumbling estate would be an ideal place to sing to oneself as one works. You get that permanent shower-acoustics, plus singing wards off ghosts. So what I’m saying is that is the very specific joy I would take in that position.
Only haunting lullabies in minor keys, though, you don’t want to spoil the mood.
Songs of betrayal and revenge, or sometimes about stillborn babes.
Yeah. Lullabies.
I was merely specifying the types of lullaby. Lullabies about the forest trying to murder all who are foolish enough to venture into its uncharted depths, for example, are best saved for journeys to the misty moors to gather unspecified herbage.
And if it’s the “someday I’ll be dead and then you’ll be sorry” genre, you should sing them at someone.
Preferably to the infant heir to the estate, thus helping to ensure his subconscious loyalty and reverence in later life.
When a new maid whistles a jaunty tune whilst scrubbing the windows to let the springtime light in, she will be promptly dismissed and likely tossed into the bog.
It depends – if the quality of her cower as you loom up in front of her and grind out ‘no singin” is high enough, she might be allowed to stay. For a time.
Crimson Peak needed you as Lucille’s sidekick.
I… believe strongly in punishing people for trying to get me to like them.
Thank you for succinctly putting a name to that thing I do with every new person who comes into my life. I guess it’s time to brush up the ol’ resume and try to compete for one of these sweet ornery housekeeper gigs.
As a possessor of imposing height that ends in a half-inch, I just say 5’9″ and take out the “almost.” If it’s good enough for the DMV, it’s good enough for me.
Mrs. Ortberg, once I am independently wealthy and find a dreary estate, you will be the very first to receive my summons. This I vow.
Work for NEW MONEY? I’d sooner die.
If I’m a rich social upstart but marry into an impoverished aristocratic family with a crumbling manor house whose interior is half in Holland covers, will you apply?
ANOTHER CSA Standards ad, hooray
This reminded me of The Remains of the Day, so I looked it up on imdb, and apparently Meryl Streep was turned down in favour of Emma Thompson to play the housekeeper. Apparently she was only turned down 3 times in her career. And frankly, when I think about it, I am totally team Emma.
If you’re going to be turned down in favor of anybody, Emma Thompson’s a pretty darn good choice.
Re: #9, I always figured that they were widows, possibly intentionally putting themselves in that category.
Putting themselves in that category is the first test for the job.
Not necessarily! It was very often used as a courtesy title for unmarried senior servants.
I did not know this! Thanks for letting me know!
…I have assumed so many women were self-made widows, what does that say about me?
The cook and the housekeeper were always “Mrs.” This was called a “courtesy” title. Go figure. Apparently calling her Miss would be impolite.
I called my kitchen porter a clumsy slattern only last week!!!
Alas, he is Sicilian, and just gawped at me blankly instead of being suitably cowed and impressed.
But it was nonetheless extremely satisfying. I urge everyone to try it on their nearest available minion.
Can you call a man a clumsy slattern? I thought men could only be clumsy oafs.
I run a gender-equal kitchen. Oaf, slattern, trollop, wastrel, numpty, dunderhead, muppet, dipstick – all are equally and liberally applied.
No slattern-shaming!
Yes, I have frequently imagined how excellent I would be as a superior servant or housekeeper for precisely these reasons. Although I tend to slot myself more in thr Upper Ladies Maid type of positions: less dealing with scullery maids, more assisting my mistress with intrigues and social scandals and passing notes to her lovers and providing a convenient alibi to her husband. “No, sir, Lady Sarah and I were receiving the milliner all afternoon,” when Sarah was off boning the latest in a string of virile footmen. Then, of course, I will work some behind the scenes magic to ensure the footman is fired after Sarah is tired of him.
I want to be one of those valets to a disreputable gentleman who is always getting involved in weird adventures and needs someone to forge letters and help him break into places and maybe occasionally kick a fish-man in the teeth or something.
“Braak, dear fellow, I’m afraid I may have gotten into a spot of bother with the local murlocks, if you take my meaning…”
“Very good sir, I shall prepare the elephant gun at once.”
Mrs. Childermass!
I still do number 3. *bows head* It’s very convenient when you use a bike for transportation.
That being said, I always envisioned myself as the slightly prickly, slightly aloof aunt who never married for reasons no one discusses and who thus lives in her own little set of rooms on the family manor. I’m not sure how well said aunt would get on with the housekeeper.
I figure either they hate each other with a burning passion that eclipses all other activity in the house, or the housekeeper spends all her nights in the “maiden” aunt’s rooms, also for reasons no one discusses (with a burning, all-encompassing passion of a different sort).
Honestly both options sound pretty awesome. Trading bon mots with an equally strong-willed and intelligent woman vs. cunnilingus… it’s a tough choice.
I would especially be interested in a location where I can discomfit visitors and orphan wards with a foreboding “They call it wuthering, that sound.” I would be prepared to provide my own cat to glower suspiciously at curious children and leap down from high perches for jump-scares as needed.
Also, I am experienced at shutting horrifying amounts; way too many; I really should get rid of them items into chests and pushing said chests into dusty corners to be forgotten about.
I … believe strongly in punishing people for trying to get me to like them. I can also hold a grudge well into the grave and beyond.
i do believe i am QUITE suited to this position. there is no quicker way to make me hate you than to tryyyyyy to make me like you. i am having none of it!
also: grudges, revenge, and everlasting seething disdain are squarely within my wheelhouse.
Hired!
I’d much rather be Flora Poste 🙂
So you are the kind of person who would actually ask someone what they saw in the wood shed?
the nerve!
“15. I can walk softly around dark corners and have excellent hearing.”
I assume this means you can appear just out of shot wherever you need to be, such as when the family is about to call for you, or when the heroine is snooping into Things That Don’t Concern Her.
#4 Of course I remember that scene…who doesn’t…but as I’ve lived in my 18th century estate since the 15th century, your fluency in Slayer lore causes me pause.
Not gonna lie, I’m kinda into the idea that you become a Mrs when you reach an esteemed and respected position, regardless of marital status.
Although it probably wouldn’t work in a modern world. Sigh.
It seems to work like that in Spanish actually. I live in Colombia and due, I assume, to a combination of professional position and having passed 30, I have become a Señora and I am not (yet) married to anyone! It’s just a title of respect. For a culture with some problematic attituds towards women, it’s a nice plus.
I would make a terrible housekeeper; whenever I read stuff about domestic service (I like social history), I end up frothing with rage and class hatred, howling that I would smash the system and burn the place to the ground if I was in that position.
I’m sometimes very unsettled when Mallory writes a piece that seems to be taking my very essence and putting it on display.
Also, I would be really good at picking one heir to cherish above all others and one to unreasonably and relentlessly despise, probably due to his/her family resemblance to a nemesis of my beloved mistress
I'm sometimes very unsettled when Mallory writes a piece that seems to be taking my very essence and putting it on display.
Also, I would be really good at picking one heir to cherish above all others and one to unreasonably and relentlessly despise, probably due to his/her family resemblance to a nemesis of my beloved mistress
And don’t even get me started on the Governesses. Those uppity, overeducated snippy girls. They never stay long, of course. Not once they start making eyes at the Master. I see to that. Amazing how gullible they are about what might be hidden in the attic.