Fraulein won’t tell you, so I do, that the three of us rode to the Schloss in a hired coach, because Uncle Majesty was too mean to send a carriage for us—and to think of what at home we always provide for his twenty and more attendants and the fine time we give them!
I see now why they are always so greedy in Essen. They never get such meat and _vittel_ as we give them, in Berlin or Potsdam; they hardly have enough peas in the husks and potatoes in the jackets.
Gracious Lady can’t imagine their meanness in the Schloss. I am told there isn’t enough linen to give Majesties a daily change. And how the hundreds of menservants keep clean, with only two bathrooms, and hot water which must be carried up four flights of stairs, I can’t make out. As to the maids, they don’t.
But the poor things can’t help it; all they get is two marks fifty (half a crown) a day for from twelve to sixteen hours’ work, and not a cup of coffee or a spoonful of soup in this fierce, cold weather. And think of it, they don’t get their wages weekly, as the law allows, but on the third day of the month. The poor wretches haven’t even got a place to eat.
I won’t say a thing about Fraulein’s rooms.
Thought Gracious Lady would be pleased to know that I am looking after the child, trying to keep her in good health, no matter what trouble and expense, and I remain, with respects from Lena and Fritz, the Gracious Lady’s most obedient servant,
P.S.—I had to send for towels to the car, for the ones given to Fraulein were as hard as boards and there were only two, and the maids said they would be changed every second day; and I beg the Gracious Lady’s pardon, but myself and Lenchen and Fritz were given two small huckaback towels to last through the week, and a tin wash-bowl no larger than those we feed the Great Dane out of at the villa, and no pitcher or foot-tubs. What are we going to do?
_Letter from_ FRAU MARTHA to HERR L——, _Superintendent of the Household, Villa Huegel_.
HONOURED HERR L——,—This Schloss is a big pigsty, excuse the hard words, and I can tell Gracious Lady only half our troubles. There is no bathroom for Fraulein, no running water—our poorest cottagers in Essen are better off. It takes about half an hour to get a cupful of lukewarm water from the kitchen, and the maid looks daggers if you don’t tip up the tin every time.