The Jane Austen Handbook (7 page)

• 
Oversee agricultural activity
. The landowner usually has a bailiff to whom many of the daily tasks are designated, but a wise landowner will keep his hand in, riding out to inspect the crops or herds and conferring with his tenants firsthand.

• 
Improve the estate
. This can involve anything from landscaping to constructing greenhouses or even overseeing the design and construction of a whole new house.

• 
Participate in local government
. In many cases, the master of an estate is also the local magistrate, responsible for tending to criminal matters and sorting out disagreements among the locals. He might be a churchwarden as well, requiring him to maintain the parish church and ensure that the rector receives the tithes to which he is entitled.

• 
Maintain an open-door policy
. The tenants, especially the younger men, often approach the estate owner with questions and problems about their crops, livestock, and love life. Listen to them and give advice and guidance.

• 
Provide social security
. Ensure that everyone dependent on your estate has adequate shelter and enough to eat; however, don’t let the lazy bums take advantage of your good nature. Be compassionate, but prod tenants to action when necessary.

SERVANTS, BY DUTY & RANK

There were no labor-saving appliances in Jane Austen’s time, but human labor could be purchased cheaply. In
Emma
, even the Bateses, who were grateful for gifts of produce from more well-to-do neighbors, had a maidservant, Patty. Large estates had a bewildering retinue of servants to tend to one’s every need.

Bailiff:
Acted as middle manager between the master and the laborers regarding the estate’s agricultural concerns.

Steward:
Dealt with household administrative issues, hired and fired domestic staff, paid bills, and assisted with the master’s correspondence. Stewards were sometimes also responsible for the bailiff’s duties. In smaller establishments without a steward, the butler performed some of these duties.

Butler:
Answered the door and admitted callers, supervised the footmen, lit and extinguished candles, tended to the fires, oversaw the polishing of the silver service, and cared for the wine cellar.

Housekeeper:
Supervised the maids, oversaw house-cleaning and laundry, and liaised between the mistress and the cook.

Cook:
Supervised the kitchen, including dishwashing and meal preparation.

Valet:
Cared for his master’s clothing and personal needs. Did not mingle with the other servants.

Lady’s Maid:
Cared for the mistress’s clothing, occasionally sewing them herself or making gowns over to reflect
changing fashions; looked after her jewelry; and styled her hair. She kept for her own use any clothes her mistress no longer wanted.

Governess:
Taught and cared for older children. Did not associate with the lower servants.

Footmen:
Served at dinner, fetched things, conveyed messages, carried purchases home from the shops, delivered their mistress’s calling cards, and generally made themselves useful. Usually chosen for their good looks.

Nursemaid:
Fed, dressed, and played with the children who were too young for a governess, generally keeping them out of their parents’ way.

House
maids:
Cleaned and tidied public areas of the house, under the housekeeper’s supervision. Chosen for their youth and beauty.

Coachman,
Grooms,
Stable Boys:
Drove and maintained the carriages and cared for the horses.

Gardeners:
Tended to landscaping. Some large houses had a head gardener and underlings.

Scullery Maids:
Washed dishes and performed difficult scrubbing and cleaning tasks. Usually very young girls or women deemed too unattractive to be housemaids.

Manservant:
Executed heavy lifting; cleaned up after cows; and other messy tasks in households insufficiently grand to have footmen.

Washerwoman:
Generally not on staff; came from the village as needed and either did the laundry on-site or took it to her home.

“I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases’ last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least.”

—
M
RS
. B
ENNET IN
P
RIDE AND
P
REJUDICE

1. Consult with your housekeeper. She will have all the information you need at her fingertips: the condition of the household linens, the state of the pantry, and any problems with staffing levels that might interfere with the smooth running of your event.

2. Plan your menu. Consider what is available in the current season and what kind of food can be obtained locally, and choose your dishes accordingly.

3. Plan your guest list. Keep in mind the temper of your guests. If there is someone who does not like large
dinner parties, he might make the party unpleasant.

4. Write out your invitations. Inscribe each note individually, tailoring each to the recipient.

5. Speak with your cook. Finalize the menu; be sure to serve the favorite dishes of your most prominent guests, especially potential suitors to any of your daughters.

6. Have your husband discuss the wine list with the butler. Give them the menu and let them handle it. It’s one less detail you will have to concern yourself with.

7. Prepare to meet your guests’ special needs. If you have invited someone who is an invalid, be sure that you have a special screen for the fire; if there is a drafty area, be sure the young ladies will have shawls to wrap themselves up.

SCHEDULE OF MEALS

Breakfast
.
Around 10
A.M.
A light meal of toast and bread served with tea, coffee, or perhaps chocolate (a bitter brew more like liquefied dark chocolate than the creamy, sweet beverage to which modern palates are accustomed). Grand houses might provide cake and rolls and even cold meat left over from the previous day’s dinner. Older gentlemen might expect the heartier breakfast of their youth: A fried chop and a mug of ale.

Luncheon/Nuncheon
.
Midday
. Not a formal meal; if one is peckish in the middle of the day, a snack of cold meat and bread and butter might be wheedled from the cook. One also might expect to be served tea and cake or perhaps even fruit, cold meat, or sandwiches while paying a morning call.

Dinner
.
3–5
P.M.
in the country; 6–7
P.M.
or later if following “town hours” in very fashionable households
.

Tea
.
An hour after dinner
. This is not the formal meal it became in Victorian times. One might be invited to a house not to dine but only to “drink tea,” which means arriving after dinner for tea, coffee, and perhaps cake.

Supper
.
9–10
P.M.
if dinner is early; if dinner is fashionably late, it might be dispensed with entirely
. Supper can be a hot sit-down meal or a light snack of English muffins, toast and butter, tea and coffee, and perhaps a bit of wine mixed with water as a digestive and sleep aid. Valetudinarians such as Mr. Woodhouse will accept nothing more than a bowl of nice thin gruel.

“Had I a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an improver, I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice, and acquired progressively
.

I would rather abide by my own blunder than by his.”
—E
DMUND
B
ERTRAM IN
M
ANSFIELD
P
ARK

1. Find the perfect situation for the house. If the current house is in a low spot where no one can see it properly, build a new house on rising ground, or reshape the existing grounds to better show off the house and give a good prospect from inside.

2. Fix the landscaping to highlight natural beauty. Root up straight avenues of ancient trees and sell them off—the price of the timber will pay for the improvements, and the tree removal will open up the view from the house. Flower gardens should appear as though flowers have sprung up naturally here and there, spilling out into the gravel walkways rather than laid out symmetrically or in straight lines.

3. Add useless but pretty outbuildings. An Ionic or Doric temple is just the thing for private assignations, or go all out and build a tiny castle—people will come from miles around to see it.

4. Add rustic touches. A hermitage is lovely—recruit an actual hermit to live in it for full realism. Add some ruins, a gravel walk, large rocks covered with moss, and shrubbery for private conversations or even just a shady walk on a hot day. Let sheep roam wild, preferably in groups of three or five, with a sunken fence if you’d prefer to keep them in one area without ruining the view.

5. Use water to good advantage. If you are so fortunate as to have a stream on your property, redirect it to cross the front lawn for the most picturesque effect. Perhaps some of it can be dammed up to make a pond or lake, which can be stocked with fish.

6. Change the look of the house. Add a new neoclassical wing to the house, or at least a new façade, with columns, domes, and windows. An Eastern influence is also quite fashionable.

THE “PICTURESQUE”

In the mid-eighteenth century,
William Gilpin, a clergyman and amateur artist, published several travel journals that incorporated his ideas on picturesque landscape and paintings depicting it. In contrast to the common wisdom of the time, in which gardens were manicured into evenly-shaped beds, he felt a natural state was best, with no straight lines and a rough, rustic feel—a blasted tree, a moss-covered rock, a ruined castle, or other such gloomy items were desirable, arranged in the foreground, middle ground, and distance. If sheep or cows were to be part of a painting, they should be in unevenly numbered groups, with three considered particularly picturesque. If these characteristics did not appear in the landscape in front of the artist, it was perfectly acceptable for the artist to insert them.

Gilpin’s wildly natural aesthetic worked its way into architecture and landscape design as well as the literature of the time. A Gothic novel, such as
The Mysteries of Udolpho
, would always include a mysterious castle or abbey on the verge of ruin, as well as lengthy poetical descriptions of the rugged mountain country in which it was inevitably located.

“You know it is very bad to have children with one that one is obligated to be checking every moment; ‘don’t do this,’ and ‘don’t do that;’ or that one can only keep in tolerable order by more cake than is good for them.”
—
M
RS
. M
USGROVE IN
P
ERSUASION