Catching one's prey

Sometime in the mid-19th century, schools of elegance for young ladies strove, according to their individual aims, to provide what was considered an all-round preparation for life for their pupils. An admirable aim, seldom achieved. Too few of the tutors were drawn from those who'd experienced life in sufficient depth and variety to acquire the skills necessary for such a task. Too many were bound to follow the pattern of their founder, in which case, their teaching centred on the fripperies of dress, deportment, entertaining afternoon teas and evening soirées.

Along the way the majority of young ladies attending such schools, being pliant and unaware that rocking the boat could have improved their lot, acquired the habit of how to be a dutiful and demure wife when and if that time arose.

There were some exciting and forcefully entertaining exceptions regarding the dutiful and demure bit. For starters, there's one notable living offspring of the Roberts family of Grantham in Lincolnshire. She didn’t attend a school for young ladies, but she changed things round a bit. Well, she changed things a great deal. Her husband, Denis, hung around in the background: he smiled a lot but wisely kept his mouth shut, while she played merry hell in politics and became a Baroness  I believe. (And yes, she has just recently died.)

The activities of the above schools make interesting reading these days and I was much entertained by a recent discovery of: 'The Isabella Sterne Academy for Young Ladies' while researching the distaff side of my own family. Isabella appeared to have bridged the gap between the lower and middle classes with some success. Her private journal offers more than just a titillating peep into the lives of titled and moneyed families scattered throughout the ruling classes of today.

As always, the best made schemes will go astray, as one story from Isabella's journal illustrates. It happened that a certain Lady Caroline sent her niece, Veronica to an academy as outlined above. After three years, Veronica began her statuary round of accepting invitations where other families had spare offspring of the male gender awaiting the net. Thus she arrived one day at Blamire Hall, where Hugh Blamire, eldest of the breed awaited inspection, snorting at the bit. His father, Sir Prentice Blamire, resembled a modern car salesman keen to see the bargain on his corner lot driven away by some equally high-spirited wench. Veronica was not impressed, and judging by the strong gammy aroma surrounding him she thought Hugh spent far too much time hunting, and she was off the estate by sundown.

Silly girl missed the point. Hugh was game in more ways than one. A pity that Young Ladies’ Academies were not familiar with a Mr Robert Smith Surtees, one of the most famous of England's sporting novelists.

One young lady, without the advantages they'd had, was, however. It chanced that Susan, a visitor from far away rough and ready New Zealand, found herself employment as a stable-hand at the Blamire Hall. She obviously had something of the modern touch about her and being a spirited rider, enjoyed the breathless heart-pounding thrill of the chase and many a tumble with the hunters. More so, after she'd heard Hugh quoting a well-known line from a Surtees story:

'Women never look as well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting'.

Aware that Hugh had quoted , where she would over-hear, Susan, the wise girl, eventually lessened her pace so that he could catch up with her. It's been a successful union for both of them.

Dennis Crompton © 1999
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)