Steward

The person who runs the domestic affairs of a household, including the kitchen, hired workers, and expenditures. A major-domo.

Much care had gone into the planning his garden. Though the ponds and hillocks were as they had always been, the prince gazed listlessly out upon a garden returning to nature. His stewards being of a not very diligent sort, there was no one to fight off the decay. The garden was rank with weeds, and creeping ferns took over the eaves as if the house belonged to them. The freshness of the cherry blossoms in spring, the tints of the autumn leaves, had been a consolation in loneliness while he had his wife with him. Now the beauties of the passing seasons only made him lonelier."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.