A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain (28 page)

These social calls were a means by which people of ambition could attach themselves to a world that they aspired to inhabit, for if one left a card at somebody’s home there was a possibility that it might be acknowledged. People could drop hints that they wished to be called upon by a particular family, though this risked a wounding snub. Part of the card-leaving ritual was the ‘cut’. A family that saw itself as above its neighbours would not acknowledge a card left by them. A man who was not a suitable companion for a lady’s daughter would not be invited into the house if he sent in his card, and if someone unacceptable left a card and then saw the recipients in the street, his greeting would not be returned, thus making it clear that there should be no further attempts to cultivate their acquaintance. A cartoon that appeared in
Punch
shows a matron with her two daughters strolling in Hyde Park. One of the girls, referring to another woman with similar daughters whom they have just passed, says: ‘There go the Spicer Wilcoxes, Mamma! I’m told they’re dying to know us. Hadn’t we better call?’ Her mother replies: ‘Certainly not, dear. If they’re dying to know us, they’re certainly not worth knowing. The only people worth our knowing are the people who don’t want to know us!’
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While all of this may seem to modern sensibilities both tiresome and unnecessary, it actually made a good deal of sense. It offered a means of expanding a circle of acquaintance while keeping strict control over who was allowed within the sanctity of one’s home. If people would not have made suitable friends, the system of etiquette made it possible to put them at
a distance while at the same time ‘letting them down gently’ before a relationship went to lengths that could cause greater embarrassment. Those who think this a dated concept might like to be reminded of two present-day practices that represent precisely the same attitude. If someone receives every year a Christmas card from a person they do not wish to continue acquaintance with, they fail to send a card in return. That is usually enough to make sure that the following year they will not be troubled again. Secondly, a young woman may spend an evening with a man she decides she does not like enough to see again. When he asks for her telephone number, she gives him a false one. Both are ways of ‘snipping the thread’ of acquaintance without giving serious offence.

The chaperone is a Victorian stock figure, imagined as a humourless old maid whose fixed purpose was to prevent others from having a type of companionship that she herself had never enjoyed. It is assumed that she was hated by both her female charge and by the young man whose designs she was frustrating. The reality was usually very different. Chaperones – at least the type that appeared at social gatherings – were seldom old maids. No one who did not have a sociable disposition and was not herself at home at a ball or a card-party would be of much use in the role, for part of her task was to introduce her protégé to agreeable companions both young and old. Her duties were defined in a book on manners:

She must not show fatigue nor look cross, no matter what her feelings may be. It is a part of her duty to be entertaining and agreeable, and thus form an attractive background to her young charge. A brilliant woman who is also an amiable
and unselfish one has great opportunities for helping her young people to ‘have a good time’. Young men like to talk to her, and she takes care to introduce them. If she has good spirits, they are contagious to all around her, and her cleverness and ready answers inspire and amuse the young people and put them at their ease. She must not, however, endeavour to shine too brightly, lest she put out the lesser lights which it is her duty to tend and brighten.
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A chaperone was very often the young woman’s mother. Alternatively she might be a youngish aunt, a family friend or an older sister, married or otherwise. She needed to be someone with experience of Society, for she would have to give advice as well as protection. Her greater experience might have made her conversation interesting and entertaining, so she could be popular in her own right. She had to be not only a guide for the younger woman through the jungle of social behaviour but a mentor, or what would now be called a ‘role model’, for her behaviour could be studied and her mannerisms copied. One of her duties was to introduce the young lady to her female friends, who could then invite her to their own entertainments. Through her contacts, she could know something of the reputation and character of men who asked her protégé to dance, and would be able to nip in the bud any unsuitable friendships, for chaperones were there to ‘guard young girls from bad and designing people, and from penniless young men and rash romantic marriages as well’.
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She was on the lookout for suitable partners to introduce. When dealing with a gentleman considered worth encouraging, a good chaperone was often adept at disappearing, or becoming distracted, at strategic moments, and many engagements were the result of such tactful momentary withdrawals. A chaperone, after all, would have passed her own rites of passage,
perhaps only a few years previously, and could often be relied upon to be sympathetic.

Chaperones were not only to be found at formal evening functions, they went wherever young girls did. They attended the theatre, race meetings, sports matches, picnics. For a debutante to be seen at this type of event without one would have struck others as unusual and improper. One book stated that:

At country out-of-door gatherings, such as garden-parties, lawn-tennis parties, archery parties and so on, the chaperonage is of comparatively slight nature, but at all other entertainments it is imperative that a young lady be accompanied by a chaperone, whether it be a dinner or a dance, an afternoon tea or an evening assembly, a concert or ball, or theatre etc; and a young lady who attempts to evade this received rule would be considered unconventional and unused to the conveniences prescribed by society. The bias of many young ladies of the present day is to assert as much independence of action as opportunity offers, but any dereliction in this respect is noted to their disadvantage.
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Chaperones – and here the girl’s mother was most likely to fulfil the function – would also expect to be present when a man called upon her at her home. So long as the mother was present somewhere in the vicinity, it was not necessary for her to be obtrusive – especially if she actually wanted the relationship to develop:

Mamma does well to sit in the other parlour with her book or work and give the young people a little freedom. Whether she remains in the parlour or not, however, she must never go to bed until all callers have left the house.
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It was of course as easy for Victorians as it is for us to become passionate. One important difference was that they knew very little about contraception. Pregnancy in the wrong circumstances would have ruined the prospects of any young gentlewoman (in spite of which it was not uncommon. Ways had to be contrived for the ladies affected to be sent abroad, or into the country, until the child was born and farmed out). It was imperative to keep a daughter’s marriage prospects healthy by seeing to it that she had a blameless character – no matter how much this went against her own nature – and to give gossips no ammunition. Such women had to be protected not only against caddish members of their own class but against insolence and embarrassment from those of lower station.

Books on manners state that it is unthinkable, for instance, that a young lady should arrive at a railway station without having some man to meet her there. If she did not, she would be obliged to secure a porter and a cabbie herself, which could involve her in unpleasant exchanges, or she might get lost, and become vulnerable to comment from undesirables. If a stranger offered to carry her luggage, she would then be put under an obligation to him, which would be awkward. If she were to maintain her good character, she must not be seen with men for whose presence there was not a good explanation. This matter is touched upon by an author in relation to girls enjoying even the company of their own class:

It seems hardly necessary to say that a young lady must not go to a restaurant with a young man unless a chaperone accompanies them; neither must she go on ‘excursions’ of any sort. Especially should she avoid the fascinations and uncertainties
of the sailing-boat. If the boat be becalmed, it may be hours before a landing can be affected; indeed, a sailing-party is sometimes obliged to stay out all night. Hence much unfavourable comment arises; and perhaps a single careless act of this sort may be remembered spitefully against a girl for many years. Especially will this be the case if she is pretty and attractive, and if she has frank and cordial manners.
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Women in all eras have been subject to both gossip and unwanted attentions. In Victorian times there was no legislation to protect them against ‘sexual harassment’, and this task had therefore to be undertaken by family and friends. Marriage – the only acceptable domestic arrangement other than spinsterhood – was expected to be entered into responsibly and undertaken only when the man was able to afford it. The passions of young people had to be kept in check until that time. It was also necessary to fend off any unsuitable marriage that might be entered into for romantic reasons. However much a woman’s head might be turned by love for someone, divorce was both extremely difficult to obtain and a very considerable disgrace, and would affect not only the couple themselves but their entire families.

Ironically – and this is a sitting target for those who like to dwell on the hypocrisy of the Victorians – it was well known that in the ‘faster’ sections of Society a young woman, once married, was regarded as having crossed a threshold of sexual availability and that she could have extramarital affairs wherever she wanted. Until then it was accepted that the young and impressionable needed guidance from their elders if they were to avoid rash mistakes that might have consequences for years afterwards. While chaperones busied themselves with arranging the dance-cards of their young women, the girls themselves might be signalling, unobtrusively but directly, to men whom they favoured or wished to avoid.

Until the Victorian era, with its techniques of mass-production, well-made fans had been too expensive for more than a few ladies to use. They were chiefly confined to royal courts, and there was an etiquette regarding their use. They were normally carried closed, and for a woman to manipulate and wave about a fan in the way that the later Victorian code suggests would have been seen as evidence of very low breeding. The Dutch court had, in the eighteenth century, a certain tradition of signalling with fans, though it was not extensive. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the fans carried by ladies in British society came from Paris – as did the etiquette that went with them – but there is little evidence of gestures being used. It was not until the sixties that the great French fan-maker Duvelleroy sent one of his sons to London to open a shop in Regent Street, where it was an immediate success. Its proprietor, however, deliberately fostered the notion of a code of signals – and invented a number of them – as a means of selling his wares. The Victorian language of the fan was therefore to a large extent simply an advertising gimmick.

The fan was an essential part of the social equipment of any female member of polite society. It was necessary not only for keeping cool in overheated ballrooms but for a number of other purposes. Holding it over the face when enduring the conversation of bores meant that one could hide one’s expression – and indulge in a surreptitious yawn – without seeming impolite. For those who wished to flirt, or conversely to discourage the advances of others, there was a language of signals that, to those with the necessary understanding, could convey precise reactions or opinions. For instance, touching the right cheek with the fan and leaving it there meant ‘yes’, doing the same on the left cheek meant ‘no’. Fanning oneself slowly gave the
information ‘I am married’. To fan quickly meant that the young woman was engaged, but to place the fan, in the left hand, in front of the face meant ‘I desire to be acquainted with you.’ To make this gesture with the right hand was even more unambiguous, for it meant ‘follow me’. Opening the fan wide said ‘wait for me’. Placing it open over the heart was an admission that a suitor had won the woman’s affection, as did the gesture of drawing the fan across the cheek, while presenting the fan closed to someone was a mute way of asking ‘do you love me?’. Drawing the fan across the cheek meant that she loved him, and a half-opened fan pressed to the lips invited him to kiss her, though twirling a fan in the right hand informed him that she loved someone else, and drawing it through the hand told him she hated him. An open fan, held clasped in both hands, meant ‘forgive me’, and drawing it across the eye meant ‘I am sorry’, while holding it over the left ear signalled that the woman wished to get rid of the man. Dropping the fan altogether meant ‘we will be friends’.

Even allowing for the considerable difference in cultures, it is hard to take all this seriously, and one wonders how many young women found themselves half-way to being engaged because of signals they may inadvertently have made while fiddling with fans in mixed company. Though there is often an assumption that Victorian ladies communicated through a widely understood code of such gestures, it is highly unlikely that this was defined and regimented to such an extent – and if it was, everyone in the room would understand the signals, which would ruin any attempt at secrecy!

Regardless of the wiles they employed, many thousands of women stood little chance of marrying. For the Victorian
respectable, there were so many restrictions of class and income that a great many women had little hope. There were just not enough men of sufficient wealth and status to go round. William Tayler, the London footman, wrote of a social gathering at his employer’s home in 1837, at which he observed women flirting with a touching desperation. There is something deeply sad about the scene he described: