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The Two Maids
Harry Furniss
1910
12.6 cm x 8.5 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Bleak House, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Chapter 27, "More Old Soldiers than One" — facing XIV, 384.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whose thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life."
"A protegée of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester.
"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty perhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!"
Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the rouge, appears to say so too.
"Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her discovery."
"Your maid, I suppose?"
"No. My anything; pet — secretary — messenger — I don't know what." [Chapter XXVII, "The Ironmaster," 396]
My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws too eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is almost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language; consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon stage of that performance.
Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed — absolutely caressed — by my Lady on the moment of her arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty you are, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old are you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!" Oh, how droll! It is the best thing altogether. [Chapter XII, "On the Watch," 159]
Left: Fred Barnard's realisation of Hortense's confronting Tulkinghorn: "Turn the key upon her, Mistress." Illustrating with the cellar key — Chap. xliii. Centre: Sol Eytringe, Jr.'s Diamond Edition portrait of the severe French maid: Mademoiselle Hortense (1867). Right: Barnard's description of the English maid, Rosa: "Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" — Chap. xii (1873).
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Created 10 March 2021