Jane Austen For Dummies (24 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
When a young lady attended a ball, whether a private affair or a public assembly, she was dancing in front of her parents, siblings, neighbors, and friends. If her mother was unavailable, she was accompanied by an older woman serving as her chaperone.
Chaperones for young ladies had several responsibilities:
Accompanied their charges wherever they went in public
Ensured the young lady's safety
Reminded her charge about protocol â the rules of dancing, general conduct, and adherence to the customs of the day
Advised her young woman about clothing, courtship, men, and manners
Ensured that the two-dance rule was followed
Protected the young lady from fortune-hunting men
As noted earlier in this chapter, Jane Austen, herself, eventually saw herself as a chaperone. When at her brother Edward's huge country house in Kent, Godmersham, she accompanied her nieces, nephews, and their friends to a ball in the nearby city of Canterbury and enjoyed her wine as she observed the dancers from the sofa!
A ball, whether private or a public (an assembly), always had activities for the older male and female non-dancers (as opposed to the young women who were sitting, waiting to be asked). A ball was a social event for all who attended â dancer or not.
Both the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms in Bath had Card Rooms, where many of the older men (fathers, uncles, and husbands of chaperones) in Austen's day went to spend the evening of an assembly. At private balls, a card room was always available for the older guests, male and female, to head off for games of whist, quadrille, casino, and other card games.
Look at the characters who head to the card rooms in Austen's novels, and you'll see that card rooms aren't places of romance!
Mr. Allen:
The gouty Mr. Allen goes to the card room when he accompanies his wife and Catherine Morland to the Upper Rooms, leaving them in the ballroom (NA 1:2).
John Thorpe:
The card room is also where John Thorpe talks of trading dogs when he should be dancing with Catherine, whom he has engaged for the first dance (NA 1:8).
Mrs. Norris:
When Mrs. Norris isn't moving the chaperones around the Mansfield Park ballroom, she is “making up card tables” for the older guests (MP 2:10).
Tom Bertram:
During the earlier, impromptu ball at Mansfield Park, Tom Bertram asks his cousin Fanny to dance simply to avoid having to make up a card table for the older people at the request of their aunt, Mrs. Norris, who's always busy doing something (MP 1:12).
Mr. Elton:
When Mr. Elton is shamed for refusing to dance with Harriet by Mr. Knightley's dancing with her, he retreats to the card room provided at the Crown Inn ball (E 3:2).
So with card games being played, dogs being traded, and people hiding from humiliation, the card room was a busy place. But not for young couples!
While the young people danced at the balls and assemblies, the non-card-playing parents could simply observe the dancers and chat with friends. The balls were opportunities for people to meet, and those meetings didn't have to be on the dance floor between the dancers. Simple socializing among the older folks was a pleasant way to pass the evening.
As observed earlier, Jane Austen as a chaperone enjoyed drinking wine as she watched the younger people. Mrs. Allen liked having her old friend Mrs. Thorpe as a companion during the assemblies in the Upper Rooms because Mrs. Thorpe provided her with a fellow tea-drinker in the Tea Room. This was a pleasant change from her first visit to the Upper Rooms, when Mrs. Allen and Catherine found themselves in the Tea Room with “no party to join, no acquaintance to claim, no gentleman to assist them” (NA 1:2). Their experience is probably familiar to many of us: attending a social event, even a dance, where you know nobody! Nowadays, we can introduce ourselves to others. But unfortunately for Mrs. Allen and Catherine, the ball was so crowded that apparently they could not even find the Master of Ceremonies to introduce Catherine to a partner â the only way strangers could be introduced at a ball unless they had mutual friends to introduce them.