"And there's the rooms to be got at, and all the rough"

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if I'm misquoting cos I don't have the book in front of me, but does anyone know exactly what mrs bertis means by "getting at" rooms and what "the rough" is since, at the risk of exposing myself as a slob, I am no wiser than Peter about housework that isn't washing up and laundry and the like...

Long time listener - first time caller as they say

Comments

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Which novel?

[richenda.livejournal.com]

The rough means things like scrubbing floors ans whitening doorsteps and cleaning lavatories.
I'm not sure about "getting at", unless she means "getting round to them", which probably means getting the rough done in time to do the rooms.
Another possibility is that she means finding the rooms available for cleaning - not in use by someone.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'd have said it was 'getting round to them' as well. Like we might say 'have a go at'.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I always vaguely assumed it involved scrubbing floors and cleaning ranges and grates and other hard, heavy work of that sort. I had a look in Mrs Beeton to see whether she had anything to say about it, but the only even vaguely relevant line seemed to be:

The lady of the house, where there is but one servant kept, frequently takes charge of the drawing-room herself, that is to say, dusting it; the servant sweeping, cleaning windows, looking-glasses, grates and rough work of that sort.

which isn't all that relevant at all. There's also a bit about maids-of-all-work cleaning boots and knives and doing other 'dirty work in the scullery' which sounds like a murder mystery but I think is probably just aggravated washing-up - and I think it's Peter who blacks the boots, anyway.

Sorry I couldn't be more help!

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

Someone from a long line of charwomen chiming in here.

Peter's Room was published in 1961. However, like many of Forest's books, the "continuous present" of the novels (in which the time mysteriously updates itself to a roughly contemporaneous date to that of publishing, even if that means people have been at boarding school for the last 36 years without noticing it) also contains seeds of the "current past"; that is, the context in which Mrs Marlow lost all her brothers in WWI, could not ride except side-saddle and where her early married life took place "between the Wars".

"The rough" purely and simply are the household jobs where one assumes no mechanical aid to speak off; physically scrubbing floors on hands and knees with scrubbing brushes, doing loos - ditto - ; getting in goal; breaking coal into smaller lumps; laying fires; black-leading grates; polishing brass with a rag etc. The sort of jobs that made "housemaid's knee" the first recognised RSI. Given the erratic state of Trennels' hot water the "rough" is physical, nasty, takes forever, and hasn't changed much in a hundred years or so.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Also, I bet the likes of Lawrie do not consider Mrs B's prior claim on the copper when running hot baths.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

"Getting at" to my mother meant "turning the whole room out and cleaning it from top to bottom"

Slob here: in my case, it means clearing enough things off the floor to get into it!