1914: Housekeeper’s Ledger, Mallard House, 1914–1925
(in the trembling hand of Miss Clarissa Blandy, now nearly blind, with annotations in ink by her successor, Miss Harriet Blandy, who “saw the end.”)
1914 (Before the War)
– Staff numbers remain near 500 indoors, 1,000 outdoors, as in 1900.
– Men-servants (valets, footmen, grooms, clerks) taken by the dozen for war service.
– Duke refuses all entreaties to send a Mallard to battle: “Petty global squabbles are not for us; we fought the Hundred Years’ War and that was sufficient.”
– Rumour spreads of a Mallard deformity—flat, faintly webbed feet—“which makes cavalry charge impossible.”
1918 (Armistice)
– Footmen: 6 remain (from 28), four maimed, one blinded.
– Valets: 2 left, one embittered, the other refusing to touch His Grace’s boots.
– Kitchen staff: halved. Monsieur Lefèvre deported for “suspect loyalties.” Replaced by a Mrs Pottle, who boils everything.
– Gardeners: many women now; “females spade like demons” noted in margin.
– Choir mistress eloped with chauffeur to Canada. Organ pipes sold for munitions.
– Laundresses: 5 (from 28). Some now cycle in from villages, smoke cigarettes and demand wages in cash.
1925 (After the Great Changes)
– Indoor staff: 53 (from 512).
– Outdoor staff: 120 (from 1,000).
– Lodges of Dowagers shuttered. Many Dowagers themselves gone—some died, some “simply left, declaring they preferred London flats.”
– Women servants no longer deferent: “They walk as if equal, speak as if free. One maid told His Grace she would rather type for wages in town than polish silver unseen.”
– Butlers reduced to one—Mr Jasper Blandy—who notes bitterly: “We are but ghosts among the silver.”
– Gas lamps extinguished. Electricity never fitted. Guests stumble by candlelight, remarking: “One might be forgiven for thinking this a mausoleum, not a seat.”
Final Note by Miss Harriet Blandy (1930):
“We survived plagues, fires, taxes and kings. But the War has undone us. Not for lack of money, nor even men but because women refused to return to silence. They have left and without them, Mallard House is not alive. We cannot pay servants enough to believe themselves lesser.
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