Free Georgette Heyer's Regency World by Jennifer Kloester

and aware of life’s realities was often disguised or kept below the surface veneer of respectable and acceptable behaviour.
    Beauty, taste, modesty, manners, a strong sense of duty and a desire to make a good marriage were esteemed as the most desirable female attributes and girls were trained from birth to abide by the restrictions placed upon them and to conform to their parents’—and later their husband’s—expectations. In The Foundling , Lady Harriet’s mother made it quite clear that, once married, her daughter should turn a blind eye to her husband’s affaires but that she too could take a lover once she had given birth to an heir. That many upper-class women stepped outside the boundaries once they were married, and especially once they had produced an heir, is clear and the lives of society women such as Lady Cowper, the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Oxford, Lady Hertford and even the Regent’s wife, Princess Caroline, all bear witness to the flexible morality and often dynamic choices that these women made. Upper-class Regency women understood their world and its often contradictory rules, and frequently chose not only not to play by them but also to manipulate and use them to their advantage. While the general expectation was that a woman should be docile and tractable and look to the man for leadership, in many cases women found their own paths to some form of independent thought or behaviour. Lady Hester Theale in Sprig Muslin , at twenty-nine and still unmarried, was regarded by her father and her family as an ‘encumbrance’. When she turned down an offer of a brilliant marriage, they were furious and tried to persuade her to do otherwise, but Hester’s mind and inner life were very much her own and she responded to their demands through a mist of vague responses and an apparent acquiescence that disguised a strong will and a delightful sense of humour.
    Within the highly structured class system of England during the Regency, one of the ways in which the aristocracy kept themselves apart from the masses was by creating their own rules, restrictions and a system of etiquette that enabled them to recognise and connect with those of their own order. This system of behaviour was instilled into young women from an early age and they quickly learned that to forget propriety or step outside the rules was the prerogative only of the royal, the very rich, the eccentric or the outcast. In considering her future, Venetia Lanyon in Venetia was aware that some women—like Lady Hester Stanhope and the Ladies of Llangollen—chose to renounce the world and live free of social convention, but she also recognised that it was not a choice available to her. A woman’s reputation was among her most important assets, along with her breeding, her fortune and her looks. Propriety demanded that emotions be kept tightly controlled in public, and it was expected that most situations would be met with composure and an appropriate degree of gravity. Displays of temper or too much humour or levity were considered quite unbecoming, ‘funning’ being acceptable only within certain subject boundaries and in appropriate situations and environments. Anthea in The Unknown Ajax was ‘too-lively’ for absolute propriety and had a ready tongue which her mother constantly tried to curb. Ironically, however, hysterics, fainting fits and swooning were accepted—even expected—where a woman, such as Mrs Dauntry in Frederica , was known to have an ‘excess of sensibility’.
    Language was also carefully regulated since a young woman could quickly be stigmatised as a ‘hoyden’ if she showed herself to be too familiar with the language of the stables, spoke her mind or showed herself to be knowledgeable about male pursuits such as gambling, boxing and the muslin company. Hero, the youthful and disastrously innocent bride in Friday’s Child , was chastised by her husband for asking about his ‘opera-dancer’ and had to be