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Category: Rant

house-maid-by-william-pyneDo you ever catch yourself wishing you had a cook and a housekeeper? How about a lady’s maid to do your hair, or a footman you could send to the store? My schedule imploded this week thanks to a big surprise project at work, and once again I caught myself wishing for that kind of extra help.

My family has already pointed out to me that clones wouldn’t do. They would be just like me, and therefore likely to enthusiastically embrace new projects, rather than merely help complete the existing ones, so they would multiply the problem rather than solve it. (sigh)

If you could have whatever servants you wanted, which ones would you choose? Our modern conveniences have made some servant jobs obsolete –scullery maid, for instance. In a large Regency household, the scullery maid washed all the dishes, pots, and pans, not only for the family, but also those used by the other servants, all of whom outranked her. Today the dishwashing machine handles most of that.

I don’t think I need a butler, either, even though in the Regency the butler might reign supreme over all the other servants in a household where there wasn’t a steward over him. The butler managed the wine cellar, looked after the good silver cutlery and plate, and supervised all the male servants in the household under him, especially the footmen who served the family and guests at dinner. He sorted the mail (well, on second thought, that still might be useful to me), and welcomed or turned away the visitors who came to call. (We have few visitors. Could a butler manage my social media?)

The housekeeper was, in many households, moreland_henry_robert_500_the_laundry_maid_ironing_1785of nearly equal rank with the butler, and often was trusted with keeping accounts and other management duties, which might have been shared with him. It was her job to supervise all the female servants under her, which would have included all the different types of maids (chamber maids, house maids, laundry maids) and sometimes, the cook, although male cooks were preferred in the wealthiest households, and in many homes the cook and housekeeper were equals.

A housekeeper and a couple of maids would be very welcome in my house –for paying the bills, keeping track of supplies, tending to my clothes, and getting rid of the unwanted stuff that accumulates around here! Most especially, for CLEANING. Everything! And a cook would be worth her weight in gold in my household.

Footmen. Well, who wouldn’t want a couple of those? In the Regency, footmen seeking positions often included their height as part of their qualifications. It seems that you wanted your footmen to come in matched sets, and the more handsome, the better! Experience, reliability and character were not enough. Footmen were handy because they could accompany you on errands and carry your packages, open doors, or if visiting, they would go to the door and present or leave your card. They could assist you in and out of you high carriage if you actually needed to get out. They waited on table at meals, and might be charged with answering the door if the butler was busy with other tasks. These days? I would love to send my footman to run my errands –think of all the time that would save!!

I admit I don’t have need for a coachman or a groom, thank you, but a gardener would be heavenly! For a place that has no lawn, our property needs an awful lot of pruning, weeding, and other kinds of yard care.

exhausted-servantOf course, having servants meant having enough of the ready to cover the cost. During the Regency, there was a tax to be paid on male servants in addition to their wages, their room and board, and the additional expense of clothing them and providing for incidentals. (A candle to light their room at night? Extravagant!) That was one reason the more modest households often employed only female servants. Females were also paid lower wages, even for similar work. (Hmm, some things take a long time to change.) Servants also had to be paid “board wages” if the employer’s family was not in residence for any length of time.

Even other people’s servants cost you money in the Regency, for tips (called vails) were expected, especially if you were visiting. Do you remember to leave a tip for your chamber maid when you stay at a hotel? Well, the same was expected then when you stayed at someone’s country house, and not only for the maid who tended your room, but any other servant who gave you service, whether it was the butler, the groom, or the host’s valet on loan to help your husband with his attire. (A valet today would probably refuse to work with my husband’s wardrobe!) These costs had to be considered before accepting just any invitation.

Employers not only had to follow the terms of the employment contracts, but they had to observe the strict social pecking order among the servants themselves. Heaven forbid if you asked one servant to perform a task that was the duty of another!

If you’re interested in more information about types of servants, wages paid, and more, the blogpost at: https://countryhousereader.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/the-servant-hierarchy/ has some of that information and a good bibliography at the end of it. Another good article is at: http://rth.org.uk/regency-period/family-life/servants. Authors Donna Hatch and Geri Walton, among others, have done more in-depth articles on this and related topics. Thanks to my crazy week (and lack of servants), this had to be a quick one!!

Having some live-in “help” seems like such a great idea, until you begin to weigh the complications of it. I have a feeling the maids would take one look at my house and run away screaming. (or I would need a bunch of them!!)

pearline-soap-ad-1890-granger-revisedMaybe I’m okay just muddling through on my own, thank you –unless a big enough chunk of cash comes along with the fantasy servants I’m wishing for!

How would you have fared in the Regency world having servants? Which ones would you still wish you could have today?

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George VI spoke those words in a broadcast on September 23, 1940, during the London Blitz, but are they not as true today?

I wish I were in London today to stand with Londoners, resolute and undismayed.

On Saturday night, June 3, a white van hit pedestrians on London Bridge, then three men got out and stabbed people in Borough Market. Seven people were killed and 48 injured. The police shot and killed the three attackers.

My friend Kristine Hughes Patrone of Number One London Tours is in London with our friend Denise from the Duke of Wellington Tour. Their Sunday plans were to include  visiting Borough Market. She said on Facebook yesterday that they walked across Waterloo Bridge and that Londoners were out and about.

Resolute and undismayed!

Last May Kristine and I wandered through Borough Market…

It is difficult to believe anyone would want to terrorize such a lively, unique, nurturing place.

The Borough Market dates back to medieval times. During the Regency, the market was an institution of national significance, devoted solely to the fruit and vegetable wholesale trade. Now it offers retail food items from both British traders and International ones.

My heart is there, at Borough Market, today. I know that in no time it will return to its former vitality.

Because that is the spirit of London and Londoners.

Tell me something you love about London! Let’s celebrate the city that features so prominently in our Regency romance novels.

Long time visitors to the Riskies know I have a complicated relationship with Christmas. I detest the whole commercial aspect and I also despise the idea that the season magically fixes things. However, I embrace the season in my own way—which is to accept the darkness as well as the light.

Each year, I think of people who are lonely, and of the various wars, large and small, raging through families and countries. Right now it feels as if the whole world is bleeding, and it seems that every day brings more heartbreak.

I know some people like to look away, to lose themselves in a blaze of Christmas lights, of shopping, even of obsessing about “not being ready” for Christmas. (What does “ready” really mean?)

My own way of coping is to allow the sadness in as well as the joy. Music is one of the ways I can stay in touch with both.

This year I found another version of the Coventry Carol, arranged by Ola Gjeilo, performed by the CORO Vocal Artists. Its haunting melody helps me find that stillness where I can feel the heartbreak and then let it lead me toward whatever healing action I can take for myself and others.

On the more joyful side and in the spirit of the Regency, here’s a version of the Gloucester Wassail and the Holly and the Ivy by the Waverley Consort, with assorted interesting Georgian and Regency imagery. The Gloucester Wassail was first published in the Oxford Book of Carols in 1928, but it believed to date back to the Middle Ages, so it could definitely have been part of a Regency Christmas. An early mention of The Holly and the Ivy is in a book dated 1823, and the lyrics are reprinted in an 1861 collection, A Garland of Christmas Carols, where it is stated that it was found in “an old broadside, printed a century and a half since” (around 1711), so this is another carol that our Regency characters might have sung.

Here’s the refrain from “The Gloucester Wassail”:

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to visit some of my posts from past years about traditional Christmas music that hasn’t been used to sell cars, watches, or anything else:

Holiday Music, Traditional and Reinvented

Antidote for Carol of the Bells

Carols and Winners

What are your favorite carols?

Elena

I’ve been thinking a lot about Gail’s post last week “About Those Dukes”, and also about this this article in the Smithsonian Magazine, “Why Can’t Romance Novels Get Any Love?”

The article talks about Germaine Greer’s “feminist call to arms”, The Female Eunuch (1970) in which:

“Greer was skewering the authors of romance novels, and the readers who made them bestsellers, suggesting they were submitting to nothing short of serfdom to their heaving, rippling fictional heroes: alpha males with giant pectorals, important lives, patriarchal views and very little interest in love…until just the right petite, witty heroine comes along.”

I love the idea that literary scholars like Sarah Frantz Lyons, who started the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, want romance to get the same attention from scholars as other popular genres such as mystery and science fiction.

“We’ve been talking about this for 30 years: since the 1980s at least, it’s been about empowerment versus oppression. Is this narrative empowering or oppressive to women?” she says. “We need new approaches to romance fiction.”

temptationIt’s the sort of thing Jennifer Crusie has been saying, probably even before this 1998 article “Defeating the Critics: What We Can Do About the Anti-Romance Bias”.

“But romance fiction insists that women be front and center, demonstrating over and over again that women can solve their own problems. Reading that kind of narrative empowers women and therefore attacks the basic assumption of patriarchy.”

I love this statement, and this is part of why I write romance. (I hope Crusie’s smart and sexy books are among those that will be studied.)

I’ve also read romance novels that tapped into fantasies that may or may not work with the idea of women solving their own problems.

I suspect part of the appeal of Duke and billionaire stories is the fantasy of never having to work a boring job or worry about money again. For personal reasons, it’s not a fantasy that appeals to me, but I can understand it. When I’ve been too busy taking care of others to care for myself, I daydream about tropical vacations where all I have to do is snorkel with pretty fish, get massages, and sip umbrella drinks. But I don’t really need a life of luxury. I need to rearrange my life so there’s more time for self-care on a regular basis. I’m working on that, but the vacation fantasies help me get through bad days. Likewise, a woman whose job is unpleasant or unrewarding, or who is struggling to make ends meet, has every right to enjoy an escapist story, even though she may also be actively trying to improve her situation.

I feel the same way about domineering, alpha heroes and “forced seduction” stories. Personally, I find some heroes cross the line from “alpha” to “abuser” and especially if I don’t see a real transformation, the story isn’t going to work for me. It is very, very important to me to see that at least by the end, the hero treats the heroine as a real person and an equal, neither domineering nor putting her on a pedestal. But each reader has the right to decide for herself which stories work for her. Perhaps some women can’t distinguish between the fantasy of being conquered and how healthy relationships work, but that’s no reason that others should not enjoy those books.

I do not care for censorship. What I do believe in is dialogue. Dialogue is good. Criticism is good. I’m thinking about all the conversation about Fifty Shades of Grey. I didn’t participate because I haven’t read it, but from the articles and blogs I skimmed, I could see there were intelligent points made. I believe we should all discuss, criticize, even argue about the books if we want, but judging people personally for their reading choices is just an exercise in ego.

Which gets me back to the academic study of the romance genre. Scholars will likely find many stories featuring strong heroines and the development of healthy relationships.

They’ll also likely read some of those old contemporaries I used to find around the house as a child, where the nurse always marries the doctor and the secretary gets the boss. (And in those old stories there were never any female doctors or bosses.)

purityspassionScholars may also include books like the one in this review on the Smart Bitches/Trashy Books site: Purity’s Passion. A quote, just to give you an idea:

We’re at the midpoint of the book, and let us tot it up: Purity has had consensual sex twice, been raped by six men (two of them multiple times), and nearly raped by a seventh.

So I don’t think a broad study of the romance will lift the genre as a whole to respectability. That’s not important to me. Although some romance novels are complex and beautifully written, not everything needs to be literary. Although I prefer to read and strive to write romances that end in what I think are healthy relationships, I do not deny others the right to read and write what speaks to them.

What I do hope is that the study results in some good discussion. Maybe some of those who haven’t yet tried a romance will do so, at least out of curiosity.

What do you think? Which romance authors or books do you think are most feminist, or most literary? Any favorite guilty pleasures you’d like to share?

Elena

A cartoon of Astley's by Richard DoyleWhen you’ve spent more than a decade reading books from the 19th century, reading books set in the 19th century, writing books set in the 19th century, and researching everyday life in the 19th century, you’ve got a fairly good idea what life was like in the 19th century. Or at the very least, you’ve got a fairly good idea where you can look stuff up, and chances are, you have the relevant research books somewhere on your bookshelves.

You are familiar with all the itty-bitty details: ice cream from Gunter’s, betting book at White’s, weak punch at Almack’s, circus at Astley’s. You also have a fairly good idea what kind of clothes your characters would have been wearing, from what kind of tableware they would have been eating, and what their homes would have looked like.

But one day you let yourself be persuaded by a bunch of people on Twitter that it would be an awfully good idea to write a book set in a time period you’re only superficially familiar with (let’s say … um … how about the time of the Roman Empire?). You’re suddenly faced with all these questions about things like underwear (what the heck did a Roman legionary wear underneath his tunic??? a loincloth or the kind of thing that real men wear under a kilt?), normal everyday clothes (to wear a toga or not to wear a toga, that is the question!), food (fried dormice – really????), about tableware (glass – thumbs up or down?), sexual practices (eh … um …), or names (yes, that’s right, names; the naming problem alone would justify that I hide behind my couch sobbing quietly).

And then there are the things that you think you know (haha!) like, say, gladiators. After all, everybody knows that the Romans loved going to the circus in order to watch guys kill each other in interesting ways and people being torn apart by wild animals, right? We have seen Spartacus, after all! (Well, as far as the TV series is concerned, one might have at least watched a few bits and pieces – not all the ugly, bloody fighting stuff, mind you! – but the romantic bits. They had some truly great romantic subplots in that show!) (Unfortunately, nearly all of the romantic couples died in gruesome ways – except for the cute gay couple. Yay for the cute gay couple!!!)

So there you are, thinking you know all those wonderful things – until you decide that it wouldn’t hurt to properly check up on them, say, one or two days before you’re supposed to send the manuscript to your editor.

OMG! *breaks down*

And suddenly you have a host of horrible problems at hand:

  1. Nope, gladiator fights were not held at the circus. (Duh, Sandy, duh! You’ve seen Ben Hur! You’ve read Ben Hur!) (Okay, so the latter was when you were 12 or 13 and you were mostly impressed by the intriguing bits about Ben Hur’s manly beauty.) The Circus Maximus was a purpose-built building for chariot races. If you wanted to see gladiator fights, you needed to go to the Colloseum.
  2. In Imperial Rome, the staging of gladiatorial games was actually quite rare (in contrast to how such things were organized in the republic) and typically happened on specific holidays (*frantic googling for exact dates ensues*)
  3. Trying to find out on which days of the year (or at least around which time) the gladiatorial games were held, you stumble over a lot of extremely vague info as well as a lot of conflicting info: gladiatorial games happened only during the Saturnalia in December – happened during the Saturnalia and in March – were put on as often as possible!!!!! (*sobs quietly*)

Why exactly did I think it would be a good idea to write a romance set in ancient Rome????? That book is killing me!!!! And it’s still not finished!!! I’m still working on one scene that seems to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and…. *runs out of breath*

In happier news: the digital art experiment is progressing nicely and apart from the occasional guy with skin made of green brocade, I’ve actually managed to produce a number of pictures with people who look like real (!) people. I’ve already put together one new cover that I rather like. It’s not live yet, and you’re the first to see it. I hope you like it! Also, please wish me luck with that dratted manuscript!

the new cover of BETRAYAL by Sandra Schwab
Edited to add: I’VE FINISHED THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!! FIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNIIIIIIIISHHHHHHHHHD!!!!!!!!! And it’s already with my editor! Woooohooooo!!!! *hops around the room waving her arms*

(Of course, as always, I now worry that the book is utterly horrible and that reading it will probably kill of my poor editor. *sigh*)

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