Manservant & Maidservant
1947
This novel was also published successfully in the United States under the title Bullivant and the Lambs. Whenever Ivy was asked which of her novels were her favorites, she always mentioned Manservant and Maidservant and A House and Its Head.
BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY
It’s a freezing cold Christmas, yet Horace Lamb, a sadistic self-righteous skinflint who married his wife Charlotte for her money, starves his family of coal, decent clothes, and presents. His five children live in fear of him, while Charlotte has turned for comfort to an affair with his cousin Mortimer. In the servants’ quarters, pompous butler Bullivant struggles to train the brash, insubordinate workhouse boy George, while cook Mrs Selden dominates the meek orphan Miriam. Both young servants embody contrasting attitudes toward subservience.
When Charlotte is called away to nurse her sick father, Horace’s behaviour mysteriously softens - he becomes generous and kind, to the children’s wary disbelief. Upon her return, Charlotte and Mortimer discover that Horace has learned of their affair. He gives Mortimer an ultimatum - marry or leave - and pushes him toward Magdalen Doubleday, the smitten daughter of the children’s new tutor. The revelation of the affair is due to an intercepted letter Charlotte sent via the village shop run by the illiterate and fearsome Miss Buchanan. Magdalen had secretly kept the letter and planted it in the house, leading Mortimer to break off his engagement when the truth emerges.
Meanwhile, Horace’s young sons Jasper and Marcus knowingly allow their father to walk toward a dangerous, unrepaired bridge over a ravine, hoping he will fall to his death. Horace survives this near-fatal accident, realises their intent, and confronts them with chilling calm. The incident drives Mortimer back into the household. Later, the manservant George, terrified of facing Horace after being caught stealing food, decides to kill himself by jumping from the same bridge. In a twist, he leaves behind a knife (stolen from young Marcus) at the scene. When the bridge is found sabotaged again, suspicion briefly falls on Marcus until Gertrude Doubleday reveals she saw George with the knife earlier that day.
Horace forgives his sons warmly and leaves George’s punishment to Bullivant. In the kitchen, Bullivant delivers a surprisingly lenient verdict, but tensions flare when George mocks Miss Buchanan’s illiteracy. Miriam quietly offers to teach the shopkeeper to read. Horace falls gravely ill and appears near death. Charlotte and Mortimer reflect bitterly that they - and eventually the children - are condemned to lifelong emotional servitude to him.
Yet Horace unexpectedly recovers, leaving George dismayed to face the master he once wished dead. The household settles back into its uneasy rhythm of dominance and reluctant service, with Bullivant finally declaring he can no longer train George. As another smoking fire calls the butler upstairs, the cycle of tyranny, resentment, and quiet rebellion continues in both the drawing room and the servants’ hall.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"Miss Compton-Burnett is immensely unfair to most other contemporary British novelists.... Her apparently effortless skill shows them up. They seem to be breathing too hard by comparison."
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New York Herald Tribune
