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A Season Lost

Page 68

by Sophie Turner


  This then falls into that gap of socialization that sometimes characterises the Stantons: Matthew has spent far more time on naval ships than forming part of a shooting party at a country house, and Georgiana was out in society for a limited time before marriage. As well, one cannot think such activity would have been encouraged by a somewhat overprotective brother more than ten years her senior, although the Mr. Darcys junior and senior do encourage her participation in equestrian sports.

  Founder

  Laminitis is a debilitating condition in horses resulting from an inflammation of the hoof, which can lead to founder, where the bonds within the hoof essentially fail. It has a number of potential triggers, including overeating lush or frozen pasture. By the time Kingfisher’s condition is seen by Elizabeth, it has been some time since the incident that triggered it.

  Even today there is no cure, although after the first acute attack it can sometimes be controlled with a careful diet and changes to the way the horse is shod. Once the first attack occurs, however, the horse can be highly susceptible to it for the remainder of its life.

  Jane’s and Georgiana’s Births

  Jane suffers not from post-partum depression, but from post-partum PTSD, which happens even today for women who have had traumatic births, and I believe must have been common back then, given how strange and relatively new procedures such as forceps births were.

  As for the cause of Dr. Alderman’s intervention, many women experience muscular shakes during birth, which are nothing to be worried about. Yet eclampsia also comes with violent convulsions. A physician with relatively minimal experience in attending births but who has read Thomas Denman’s An Introduction to the Practice of Midwifery would have known that the child needed to be removed immediately for convulsions, but not whether what Jane was experiencing were true eclampsia convulsions. As to what sort of convulsions they truly were and whether the rapid intervention saved Jane’s life, I will leave each reader to their own interpretations.

  Forceps had been commonly used beginning in the 18th century, but Denman was a proponent of the referenced vectis, which is in essence a sort of half forcep which would have hooked around the baby.

  The use of a basin of warm water in the fictional birth invented by Jane and Elizabeth is based on Admiral Lord Nelson, who so disliked the feel of the cold knife during the amputation of his arm that he ordered instruments be warmed, in subsequent amputations within his fleet. While Nelson is of course a singular person, if he could think of such a thing it seemed likely Jane would have, as well.

  A labour of Georgiana’s length would undoubtedly have ended in a c-section in our modern era. Despite tales of vicious royal and noble husbands willing to have their wives cut open in order to retrieve their heirs, the caesarean section was not often done during this time, as it meant almost certain death for the mother. Denman’s book makes very clear that when possible the lives of both child and mother are to be saved, but if not, the life of the mother is to be prioritised. A c-section would only have been done if the mother was surely not to live. A more likely outcome would have been that once the child had died in utero, it would have been removed (note: the squeamish should stop reading now) by “lessening the head” and then allowing the mother to push out the easier remaining body, or taking the baby out in portions. The physician was supposed to wait until the child had died, but within the lines of Denman’s book is an indication that this was not always done, if the mother was weakening and they thought the child needed to be removed sooner rather than later.

  Caleb

  The reference to reading Caleb, which Mary does just before giving birth, is to Hannah More’s Coelebs in Search of a Wife. Jane Austen rightly found the hero’s name ridiculous, and referred to him as Caleb, and so while this seems precisely the sort of novel Mary would have read, when she did read novels, I have used Austen’s spelling.

  Christening a Child

  Occasionally, I learn of something I got wrong after a book is published, when it is too late to go back and correct it. In this instance, what I learned is that couples were superstitious about naming a child until the child was actually christened in church. However, as it would be odd to change that for children born in this and future books (and indeed, who knows what was discussed behind closed doors; it is possible that parents, at least, had some manner of conversation about names before the church announcement), I will carry this through the rest of the series, even as a known error makes me cringe.

  I have also read differing accounts of when children were christened at home. Some have indicated that the sort of home ceremony performed for Georgiana Darcy, who was born sickly, was done only for those children who might not survive to the church christening, while others indicate it was done for all children, and that they were later (sometimes many months later, when the weather was good enough to take them out of doors) christened again at a naming ceremony, with their godparents present. This naming ceremony/public christening was the first time their name was given aloud.

  Childrearing

  In a time when very few options for birth control existed, breastfeeding was one of the few with some degree of efficacy (condoms made from animal intestines did exist at this time, but were to prevent the spread of STDs from intercourse with prostitutes, and were therefore taboo for genteel relations between man and wife). Popularised by Rousseau, breastfeeding was unexceptional among the upper classes by this time – perhaps because elite women had ample leisure time to devote to it. Maintaining this natural birth control, Elizabeth weans her children naturally. Other women – including Jane Austen’s mother – who needed to make a sooner and more complete return to household duties, would wean their children early (Jane Austen was at three months) on pap, flour or bread cooked in water (possibly with beer or wine mixed in!) and fed to them in a pap-boat, a special basin with a trough to go into the child’s mouth. In an age when nutrition was not at all understood (indeed, pap put babies at risk for scurvy), many mothers thought it better to start their children on solid food early, well before their stomachs could properly handle it. So perhaps the Darcy twins ought to be thankful for Mr. Rousseau and their mother’s sentimentality.

  One of the things I have been unable to find sources on is travel with very young children: namely how and how often it was undertaken. Given most women gave birth in town, where accoucheurs were readily available, and then usually sometime after went to their family estates or somewhere else to convalesce, and these same women were the ones following Rousseau’s direction to breastfeed, it seems written within the lines that they were travelling in carriages with babies perhaps less than a month old. Lacking verified details, I have attempted to colour in as best I can – woven basket cradles were used as permanent cradles for the lower classes, and it seems a basket would have been the best option for transporting a baby in that time. At the same time, once children got past the breastfeeding dependence on their mothers, it was not unusual for parents to hie off to London, Bath, Brighton, or any other fashionable spot for a season, leaving the children back at the family estate under the care of their nurse. As with many things in this series, there is always a delicate balance I am trying to strike, between Georgian/Regency and modern mentalities. It is entirely possible that the “real” Georgian Darcys would have been one of those leave-the-children-behind-in-the-nursery couples, and there would have been nothing odd about this at the time. Yet as modern readers, we want a couple we can like and empathise with, and therefore they must be parents with a strong bond to their children (even as these children have a nursery full of caretakers in their support); parents who are not content simply to leave the children behind.

  The preferred word for George’s locomotion today would be “scoot,” but while it was in use at the time to refer to moving quickly, I have not been able to tell whether it was yet in use for moving oneself along on one’s bottom. I decided to use “wabble,” the less common use of “wobble,” as it seemed a good descriptor for
a child moving in that manner. As George did, babies sometimes do skip crawling and move in this manner until they begin to walk.

  Tailclouts or clouts were what diapers or nappies were called in those days. They were made of calico or a chequered pattern called diaper, which is where the American term came from.

  Very helpful in writing the childrearing portions of the novel have been Yesterday’s Children: The Antiques and History of Childcare by Sally Keuill-Davies and Children of the Great Country Houses by Adeline Hartcup.

  London Society

  Viscount Castlereagh had the surname of Stewart; it is an invention that Lady Stewart was a cousin of his by marriage.

  Accounts are mixed as to whether Countess Esterházy should have been addressed as princess or countess during this time. Her husband was not a prince until later, but she was born Princess Maria Theresia of Thurn and Taxis and some accounts refer to her as Princess, rather than Countess, Esterházy at this time.

  It was not at all uncommon for women to go out into society even into the eighth month of their pregnancies, so Marguerite’s going to Almack’s and other events while pregnant was acceptable, but I think that would not stop the more vicious gossips seeking something to criticise from speaking of it.

  As to the fashions of London, we are entering into the time when trim became more pronounced, and waistlines began drifting back downward again. Dresses also became fuller in the skirt and at the bosom and sleeves, although still not anywhere near the proportions they would reach in the Victorian era.

  The Annals of Almack’s by E. Beresford Chancellor was particularly helpful in recreating that famous club.

  Poetry

  Darcy reads the poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats. Keats’ first volume of poetry was published in March, 1817. It is still “in boards” because books were sold then with cheap board bindings, as they were intended to be rebound by collectors in their leather covering of choice, thus assuring the aesthetically pleasing country house library had no rogue volumes marring its shelves.

  Further Reading

  In addition to the books already listed in these notes and those of my other books, I have found the following titles to be particularly useful: Creating Paradise: The Building of the English Country House, 1660-1880, by Richard L. Wilson; Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History by Mark Girouard; Jane Austen and the State of the Nation, by Sheryl Craig; and Mr. Langshaw’s Square Piano: The Story of the First Pianos and How They Caused a Cultural Revolution, by Madeline Goold.

  About the Author

  Sophie Turner worked as an online editor before delving even more fully into the tech world. Writing, researching the Regency era, and occasionally dreaming about living in Britain are her escapes from her day job.

  She was afraid of long series until she ventured upon Patrick O’Brian’s 20-book Aubrey-Maturin masterpiece, something she might have repeated five times through.

  Alas, her Constant Love series is only planned to be seven books right now, and consists of A Constant Love, A Change of Legacies, A Season Lost, and the in-progress A Generation’s Secrets.

  She blogs about her writing endeavours at sophie-turner-acl.blogspot.com, where readers can find direction for the various social drawing-rooms across the Internet where she may be called upon.

 

 

 


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