Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Jane Austen For Dummies (43 page)
While the housekeeper took charge of seeing that the country house was well-run, the lady of the house â the estate owner's wife â really set the tone for the house. This is why a gentleman who owned an estate â if he was smart â looked for the right woman to be his wife and helpmate. Of course, I said “if he was smart.” But as we all know, in matters of love, sometimes the heart rules the head. That's what happened to Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park: He married the beautiful Maria Ward, who â according to society â didn't even have the dowry worthy of a baronet (MP 3:1)! Miss Ward turns into the lazy, unconcerned Lady Bertram, who lets her sister, Mrs. Norris, run things, only to have dire results.
When Elizabeth Bennet sees Pemberley for the first time, she observes to herself, as noted earlier in this chapter, that being its mistress is “something!” (PP 3:1). She's not pointing out that the material gain must be glamorous but that being mistress of such a vast estate must be a huge responsibility. While Mansfield Park's Lady Bertram spends her life resting on her sofa, oblivious to what goes on around her, we can assume that when Elizabeth becomes Mrs. Darcy, she'll be an excellent helpmate to her husband, who, as Mrs. Reynolds, the longtime Pemberley housekeeper attests, is an excellent master of the estate (PP 3:1).
The mistress of an estate supervised the housekeeper. She met with the housekeeper periodically to discuss menus and purchases for the household. Depending on her intelligence, she might also aid her husband with overall estate business. For example, in
Persuasion,
the late Lady Elliot, whose husband was the master of Kellynch Hall, provided the family with “method, moderation, and economy, which had kept [her husband] within his income” (P 1:1). With her death came the end of all sense in spending.
Country house families with good heads and hearts had a real sense of
noblesse oblige
â that the rich should help the poor:
The lady of the house also met with the local clergyman to find out the needs of the local poor to see what could be done. Emma, who functions as the mistress of her father's estate, Hartfield, visits a poor, ailing woman to comfort her and then sends the woman's child back to Hartfield to fetch soup for the family (E 1:10). Emma provides the poor with compassion, as well as financial relief. Knowing that Mrs. and Miss Bates are in need, Emma sends them pork from Hartfield's farm.
Austen's older friend, Madam Lefroy, began a school for the poor children of her neighborhood and personally vaccinated everyone in her husband's parish against smallpox. (For more on Madam Lefroy, see Chapter 3.)
As hostess to guests, the mistress of the estate saw to it that her company was comfortable and entertained:
Sitting at the foot of the dinner table, she was expected to keep up her share of the conversation.
She was also expected to dress with taste and keep in fashion, for this showed her family's financial well-being.
After dinner, the lady might play the pianoforte for dancing or for musical entertainment.
Of course, Austen knew that not all ladies of the house would earn top grades in the execution of their duties. While
Sense and Sensibility
's Lady Middleton is livelier than the ever-dozing Lady Bertram of Mansfield Park â she's dull at conversation and ignores her music. Her main job is to decorate her husband's home. At least she has produced a son. (For the importance of the birth of sons, see Chapter 10.)
Wealthy women had nursery maids to whom they handed over such tasks as bathing and dressing the children and entertaining them during the day. But in Austen's fiction, we are also in a time of childrearing history when children were regarded as children, rather than as little adults. Mothers didn't totally disregard their maternal duties. They frequently breastfed their babies and were encouraged to hold and nurture them. At times during the day, the nursery maids would bring the children to their mother. From everything we see in
Emma,
Isabella Knightley, Emma's sister, is an affectionate mother to her five young boys and girls.
But in Austen's novels, more deficient mothers than model mothers are represented, such as:
Lady Middleton:
In
Sense and Sensibility,
the children enter the room and immediately act up, and throw a guest's handkerchief out the window and gain attention by screaming and sobbing (SS 1:21).
Mary Musgrove:
In
Persuasion,
Mary Musgrove can't control her two little boys.
Mrs. Bennet:
In
Pride and Prejudice,
this mother has been and continues to be a casual mother, who lets Lydia get away with far too much freedom. She also embarrasses her daughters Elizabeth and Jane with her careless talk about Jane and Bingley's relationship.
While children of wealthy families had tutors and governesses at home and also went to school, the mother also may have helped with their early education. She taught them how to read and write, and discover basic geography. This education really depended on the individual mother. In
Mansfield Park,
for example, Lady Bertram is so lazy that she surrenders her maternal responsibilities to her sister, Aunt Norris. The aunt so spoils her nieces that they grow into self-involved adults with no sense of moral responsibility.
Country house owners were farmers. But they never did the job of farming. They had workers to do that, and stewards who oversaw the farm's day-to-day business. Yet the conscientious estate owner â like his wife with their house â had the responsibility to take an active interest in his property.
The ideal estate owner would assume the following responsibilities:
Consult frequently with his steward
Advise his young tenant farmers
Take an interest in the lives of his workers
See to it that his property (livestock) doesn't inconvenience his neighbors
Offer assistance to his friends and neighbors
Among Austen's fictional estate owners, Mr. Knightley in
Emma
acts as the model owner of his estate. In real life, Austen's brother Edward was an excellent estate owner. Witnessing Edward's management of his great Hampshire estate, Chawton, she writes to their naval brother Frank that “Chawton is not thrown away upon him,” adding that he's doing things to make it “better,” such as making a new garden (Letter, July 3â6, 1813).
But not all estate owners act responsibly toward their property, neither in real life nor in Austen's fiction.
Mr. Rushworth:
When the Bertram party travels to Mr. Rushworth's estate, Sotherton, they proceed through the woods and then to the village, where Maria Bertram â soon to be Mrs. Rushworth â casually observes that the estate's tenants' cottages “âare really a disgrace'” (MP 1:8). While Rushworth is interested in improving the landscape around his house, he's careless of his tenants' well-being.
Sir Walter Elliot:
As another of Austen's incompetent estate owners, Sir Walter Elliot from
Persuasion
overspends his income and must lease out his estate and home to tenants. Sir Walter then rents living quarters in Bath in an effort to earn money from the rental.
When children were away from their nursery maids, they spent time with their mother. But some more proactive fathers enjoyed time with the children, too. A father might teach his sons how to hunt and fish, and with the groom, teach them to ride. In
Emma,
Mr. John Knightley takes his boys for a visit to see their uncle, and the boys enjoy a run home. His sons also have a kite, and their father may well have taught them how to fly it.
Mr. Austen actually ran a small boys' boarding school in the family's home, enabling him to spend teaching time with his sons. Likewise, other fathers did take an interest in their sons' intellectual development. In
Mansfield Park,
Sir Thomas Bertram emphasized good reading with his sons (MP 3:3). As boys, Tom and Edmund had to practice this skill with their father.
The owner of a country house sometimes had church livings to bestow. This gift meant that he could choose whom he wished to serve as clergy of the church(es) on his property. In so doing, he could give the living as a gift to someone, frequently a family member or friend, who was ordained. He could also sell the living to make money on it.
The sale of the living is exactly what Sir Thomas Bertram is compelled to do with his best living in
Mansfield Park.
He sells it to Dr. Grant because his elder son, Tom, has been a wastrel. Sir Thomas needs the money Grant pays for the living to help pay Tom's debts. The jury is still out on whether Dr. Grant was an effective clergyman, but he sure likes to eat good food and drink fine wine.
While the lady of the house saw to her guests' comfort and entertainment, the master saw to it that the visiting gentlemen, in particular, were well occupied. Ideally, he supplied good conversation, good hunting, good riding, and good wine. Of course, he would have consulted with his butler about the wine, his groom(s) about the horses, and his gamekeeper about the hunting, also known as shooting. He might even arrange a ball to entertain his family, guests, and neighbors.
Austen's novels show several estate owners and their guests, and in so doing, she allows us to assess the owners as hosts.
Darcy invites his male guests to fish in the well-stocked stream at Pemberley (PP 3:1, 2). When he meets Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, he is chatty and welcoming. He also encourages his shy younger sister to be hospitable to the visiting ladies, especially Elizabeth (PP 3:3).
Even the reclusive and sedentary Mr. Bennet, who loves to retreat to his library with a book, invites and accompanies Bingley for a morning of shooting (hunting) on the Bennets' property (PP 3:13). It wasn't unusual for the result of the hunt to appear on the dining room table soon after the gentlemen returned.
In
Sense and Sensibility,
Sir John Middleton of Barton Park is Austen's liveliest host. A man who hates being alone â even with his own wife â Sir John gathers young people to his home and hosts impromptu balls, making him the favorite of the neighborhood's young people. (For more on impromptu balls, see Chapter 5.)