The Ideal Servant

更新：2023-11-22

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[00:01.50]Lesson 49
[00:03.32]The ideal servant
[00:12.33]What was Bessie's 'little weakness' ?
[00:17.35]It is a good thing my aunt Harriet died years ago.
[00:20.99]If she were alive today
[00:23.03]she would not be able to air her views on her favourite topic of conversation: domestic servants.
[00:30.06]Aunt Harriet lived in that leisurely age when servants were employed to do housework.
[00:36.01]She had a huge, rambling country house called 'The Gables'.
[00:41.15]She was sentimentally attached to this house,
[00:44.00]for even though it was far too big for her needs, she persisted in living there long after her husband's death.
[00:51.53]Before she grew old, aunt Harriet used to entertain lavishly.
[00:56.86]I often visited The Gables when I was a boy.
[01:00.54]No matter how many guests were present, the great house was always immaculate.
[01:06.62]The parquet floors shone like mirrors;
[01:09.66]highly polished silver was displayed in gleaming glass cabinets;
[01:14.24]even my uncle's huge collection of books was kept miraculously free from dust.
[01:19.87]Aunt Harriet presided over an invisible army of servants that continuously scrubbed, cleaned, and polished.
[01:28.98]She always referred to them as 'the shifting population',
[01:32.73]for they came and went with such frequency that I never even got a chance to learn their names.
[01:39.15]Though my aunt pursued what was, in those days an enlightened policy,
[01:44.24]in that she never allowed her domestic staff to work more than eight hours a day, she was extremely difficult to please.
[01:52.45]While she always criticized the fickleness of human nature,
[01:56.87]she carried on an unrelenting search for the ideal servant to the end of her days,
[02:03.24]even after she had been sadly disillusioned by Bessie.
[02:08.33]Bessie worked for aunt Harriet for three years.
[02:11.86]During that time she so gained my aunt's confidence, that she was put in charge of the domestic staff.
[02:19.52]Aunt Harriet could not find words to praise Bessie's industriousness and efficiency.
[02:25.63]In addition to all her other qualifications, Bessie was an expert cook.
[02:31.61]She acted the role of the perfect servant for three years before Aunt Harriet discovered her 'little weakness'.
[02:38.96]After being absent from The Gables for a week,
[02:41.68]my aunt unexpectedly returned one afternoon with a party of guests and instructed Bessie to prepare dinner.
[02:50.09]Not only was the meal well below the usual standard, but Bessie seemed unable to walk steadily.
[02:57.24]She bumped into the furniture and kept mumbling about the guests.
[03:01.93]When she came in with the last course--a huge pudding--she tripped on the carpet
[03:07.47]and the pudding went flying through the air, narrowly missed my aunt, and crashed on the dining table with considerable force.
[03:16.29]Though this caused great mirth among the guests, Aunt Harriet was horrified.
[03:21.98]She reluctantly came to the conclusion that Bessie was drunk.
[03:27.25]The guests had, of course, realized this from the moment Bessie opened the door for them and, long before the final catastrophe,
[03:34.77]had had a difficult time trying to conceal their amusement.
[03:38.60]The poor girl was dismissed instantly.
[03:41.56]After her departure, Aunt Harriet discovered
[03:44.36]that there were piles of empty wine bottles of all shapes and sizes neatly stacked in what had once been Bessie's wardrobe.
[03:52.32]They had mysteriously found their way there from the wine cellar!