The Gentleman's Daughter (38 page)

Having reconstructed the substance of sociability, the discussion now turns to a consideration of the meanings attached to social conduct by one sensitive commentator. It explores those manners thought perfect and those found wanting. Elizabeth Shackleton's diary bristles with the adjectives ‘polite’, ‘civil’, ‘genteel’, ‘well-bred’, and ‘polished’, and this reliance on the language of civility to describe best social practice makes clear her
debt to early eighteenth-century courtesy literature. She and her circle drew deeply on the early eighteenth-century vocabulary of Addison and Steele. They exchanged copies of the
Tatler
and the
Spectator
(works famously admired by ladies), quoted readily from Richardson's
Sir Charles Grandison
(1753–4) and debated the content of Chesterfield's
Letters to His Son
(1774). So much for the theory. What did civility mean in practice for Elizabeth Shackleton? She had a conventional appreciation of decorum, protocol, elegant ease, polite conversation and amiable consideration between men and women. She expected to be treated with the respect which was due to her ancient lineage, or in her own words ‘proper for her consequence’, and the consideration due to one of her ‘age and infirmities’. Therefore, it seems that those who showed her overt respect and kind consideration were,
ipso facto,
polite.

That she clung to this gratifying way of judging the civility of others is made clear in her positive descriptions of social encounters. A successful evening in the autumn of 1778 took place at Langroyd Hall, where the Shackletons, Tom Parker and a local gentleman Mr Whitaker enjoyed tea and a ‘a very neat & pritty supper’. Mrs Shackleton noted that she was dressed out in her best satin, that the host Mr Bulcock lent her the
Works and History of Flavius Josephus
and that her son Tom accompanied her home in the chaise. ‘Civily Entertaind much made on’, was her verdict on the event. Fluent praise was lavished on a wedding visit to her newly married nephew John Parker and his bride Beatrix Lister, at Marshfield, their elegant villa in Settle. Mrs Shackleton found the house beautiful, tasteful and neat, the table splendid and their new plate magnificent. Her fellow visitors were accomplished and she enjoyed recitals on the piano, harpsichord and John Parker's playing of the guitar. Of the young Parkers she concluded, ‘nothing co'd exceed the friendly Civility with which they recd us’. However, it was also possible to be ‘most civilly Entertain'd’ by those lacking gentry status. At Roughlee (the home of a local cabinet maker), Elizabeth Shackleton was satisfied by the wide choice of wines, tea and fruit laid out, and by the basket of apples and the beautiful nosegay with which she was presented. Similarly, she commended a card party at Broadbank (the second house of a London merchant), since the house was ‘very clean & neat’, a sumptuous dinner was laid on and the subsequent entertainment was ‘all conducted with great Decency and good order’.
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Elegant dinners had a recognizable set of components. The tables groaned with unusual delicacies or wholesome produce. The other guests were socially exalted and amiable, or suitably well behaved and courteous. Mrs Shackleton and the company were dressed according to the occasion and all proceeded with propriety. Often, she bore away a gift or a loan to
savour subsequently and was gallantly conducted home. Doubtless, she enjoyed all these elements in themselves, but it is also apparent that she welcomed the respect for her person that the ceremonies and courtesies also demonstrated. Not unnaturally, she relished being singled out for attention and ‘obliging kindness’, being ‘much made on’, or cherished, in Dr Johnson's definition of the word. After an evening of such warm civility, Elizabeth Shackleton felt valued and ease with the world.

It is apparent that Mrs Shackleton believed civility to issue most naturally from those of superior birth and breeding. Her praise for friends and acquaintances demonstrates the way that manners had an affinity with rank, witness her obsequious reception of hospitality from a leading member of the county gentry: ‘Myself, son and Mr S. all dined at Royle. Civily received much made of. Great good manners from generous Mr Townley,’ and the associations with exalted status she made in praise of a helpful Lawyer: ‘Mr Wainman behaved like a Prince. Honourably like a Gentleman and Genteley.’
⁴³
Yet as we have seen, she could appreciate the civil behaviour of those she considered beneath her. Furthermore, while those without gentle birth could through cleanliness, neatness, regularity and unaffected generosity achieve a civil entertainment, friendly civility was not always forthcoming from those she considered her superiors. Elizabeth Shackleton was watchful of her dignity and quick to resent a slight. When she was not singled out for attention, she could be querulous: ‘My Bror just civil no great joy to see me’; ‘No enquiring after poor me all night’; ‘I came all by myself. No one with me. Small notice of poor me. All things change.’
⁴⁴
When openly insulted she was implacable. She never forgave the
arriviste
Cunliffe of Wycoller for having the temerity to patronize someone of her lineage: ‘Mr Cunliffe was most Sneakingly submissive to me. I told him of the Condescension to the wife of a shabby Tradesman. Bid him ask his Relations Walmesley & Shaw of Preston if I disgraced the Acquaintance of Cunliffe. I knew what he was. Bid him enquire after me.’
⁴⁵
Feelings often bruised by perceived social neglect or condescension, Mrs Shackleton had a tendency to harp on the pretensions of the local gentry, sneering at their ‘formal grandeur’, their ‘pomp and suite’ and their ‘great fuss over fine folks’, laying the charge of haughty conceit by way of revenge. By the rule of decorum, pomp, grandeur and magnificence were the proper attributes of noble hospitality, the appropriate expression of genteel hospitality being the more restrained elegance and liberality. So, through her choice of adjectives, Mrs Shackleton charged her neighbours with ideas above their station and smirked at their impertinent affectation.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Shackleton herself could be punctilious
about the precisions of etiquette. A newly arrived commercial clan, the Bulcocks of London, demanded a degree of respectful notice from this ailing gentlewoman because of their known local connections, but they did not meet with her approbation and were pronounced ‘a most free & easy family – Very impertinent, very Intruding’. Their major sin was arriving unannounced and uninvited, late in the evening upon only slight acquaintance: ‘Never let me know she was to come. An entire stranger … put me much out of my old beaten road & quite overturn'd all my Schemes & Engagements.’ In like manner, two trading couples, the Conyers and the Brindles, lacked an appropriate sense of polite distance and insisted on dropping in unasked: ‘Much put out of the way by the arrival of Mrs Conyers & Betty Brindle that moment after we had dined.’ They made far too free with Mrs Shackleton's hospitality leading her to complain, ‘I wonder they did not shame to call so often … making this house just like a publick one.’ She presented herself wearied by these flagrant breaches of protocol, ‘I hope I shall not have the fatigue of vulgar intruding people this week as I had the last’,
⁴⁶
perhaps because she lacked an effective strategy (between the simple measure of withholding further invitations and the extreme step of having the servants see them off the premises) for excluding those insensitive to etiquette. A frosty demeanour sent a clear message only to the tactful. However, to emphasize Elizabeth Shackleton's punctiliousness is not to suggest that she strove for excessive formality in her interactions. A starched formality was emphatically not the desired effect, since Richard ‘Beau’ Nash had done so much to make ‘Gothic haughtiness’ appear old-fashioned and absurd. Dignified ease and cheerful friendship were the hallmarks of modern, effortless elegance. Yet this was a delicate balancing act, the distance between ‘elegant and easy’ and ‘free and easy’ being very small indeed.
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The practice at the heart of polite sociability was conversation. The whole purpose of conversation was positively to please other people, yet the art had to be well-judged. Elizabeth Shackleton was gratified by encounters which proved ‘very Chatty & good’ or ‘Chatty, Civil & most Agreable’, but could vilify acquaintances for their garrulousness if she so chose. Talkativeness in those she considered her inferiors was particularly irksome. The chatter of Mrs Fielden, the mantua-maker, was pronounced ‘tiresome and disagreeable’. The discredited Mrs Knowles subjected Elizabeth Shackleton to ‘an unmerciful clack her tongue never stood still. She let in go on most sillyly wo'd permit no one else to talk. It was very hot and disagreeable.’ Smoking like a kiln all the while, ‘Mrs Knowles has dedicated all this day to Sir Walter. She has reeked it away.’ Predictably, the uppity Mancunian Mrs Cunliffe proved a formidable chinwag: ‘a great
talker a high head & her hair very rough … [she and her husband make] a quere pair and Uncouth.’
⁴⁸
But it was William Hargreaves of Roughlee, a local cabinet maker, who seems to have had all the conversational vices: he raised an uncongenial topic, was over-talkative and over-zealous, he did not display good nature or consideration for his hosts and he undoubtedly did not know when to stop: ‘Call'd here about 5 staid till 11 at night. Brawl'd & talk'd upon Religion. A most terrible Argument. Am not of his opinion, an Ignorant man. Much fatigued, quite ill with with his discourse & noise.’
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What the Methodist William Hargreaves manifestly failed to do was please his hostess. He exhibited none of the courtesy and deferential gallantry of the ideal gentleman. The pattern gentleman was under an obligation positively to please women, extending to a lady of equal rank that respect usually due to a social superior. He was advised to keep a check on his language, raillery and disputatiousness in the presence of ladies.
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Indeed, it was a commonplace of courtesy literature that the company of accomplished women was itself crucial to the production of civilized masculinity. Yet, in practice, unpolished masculinity seemed to pose a chronic threat to polite sociability as the conduct books understood it. In practice, amiable consideration between men and women was often conspicuous by its absence.

Elizabeth Shackleton detected a want of delicacy and respect in many men of her circle. Lawyer Shaw almost suffocated her with his tobacco smoke over breakfast, while the unmarried Tom Parker, who must have fully appreciated his mother's disapproval did the same. He also let a gun go off in the parlour and often stormed out on to the moors or hunting field ‘very saucy and cross’. John Parker also exhibited a churlish lack of manners on occasion: ‘John took possession of my chair, read the newspaper, never spoke, went away from here immediately after he had got his breakfast – very uncivil, underbred Behaviour indeed.’
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And her nephew, John Parker, was lacking in
savoir-faire
before the fragrant Beatrix Lister got to work on him. As an unmarried young blood, he left dilapidation in his wake, romping about Alkincoats as if it was inn: ‘My nephew makes this an entire Hotel – spoils books, tables & all sorts of Furniture … I wish my nephew was safe & well at Browsholme. He dos make such violent, monstrous hurrys.’
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Moreover as male sociability was usually propelled by alcohol, drunken disorder was latent in almost all evening gatherings of gentlemen, as even her positive comments testify: ‘all our Gents returned safe from the Wycoller Rout. No Quarrelling all Peace.’
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When men were unaccompanied by their wives, some had a tendency to forget Addisonion niceties: ‘Whitaker Riotous to a degree. Barton Dumb.
Cunliffe Moralizing. Shackleton sulky, quarellsome, Cross.’ In liquor, some proved coarse and offensive; if Elizabeth Shackleton was not already abed, then such behaviour quickly drove her there: ‘Most terrible drinking & quarrelling. George Ormerod very abusive. Mr S. set up till five a clock in the morning.’
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Although Mrs Shackleton did not disapprove of alcohol
per se
(she noted the oddity of a male visitor who drank only water), and enjoyed dinners in her husband's company at the White Bear, she deplored the vulgarity which the alehouse seemed to encourage in gatherings of men, as two characteristic incidents from 1774 show:

In particular, Elizabeth Shackleton disapproved of the promiscuous social mingling which the alehouse licensed: ‘Mr Emmott made himself very Popular in the Hole in the Wall great Chamber, it being the Bull Bate. He appeared very Loving with his own Maids – treated them & the rest of his servants with tea & coffee at Petty's afterwards. Had a Dance with them. So much for a tiptop Education.’
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In like manner, cockfighting and bull-baiting were deprecated because of the informal social mingling they promoted, not because these sports were seen as barbarous. Quite simply one rubbed shoulders with too much mean company.

If Elizabeth Shackleton expected considerate encounters with well-bred gentlemen, she was most spectacularly disappointed in her husband. In fact, the diary presents him as the absolute antithesis of the polite partner, his varied offences revealing the myriad rules of civility in the breach rather than in the honouring. Throughout the 1770s John Shackleton sought escape from and compensation for the problems of his marriage in hunting, shooting and fishing. To this end, he habitually left the house before his wife had emerged from the bedroom and only returned well after dark, fortified by liquor. When he was in the house, he often refused to acknowledge his wife by word or gesture. Of course, his behaviour only made matters worse, fuelling the chagrin of his wife who smarted at such blatant discourtesy: