The Country Maid Companion Blog Part Seven - The Norfolk Accent

“I’m sick of Cook and the others saying they don’t understand us,” Eliza declared as they descended the servants’ staircase.

Welcome to Part 7 of the companion blog for my Victorian Upstairs, Downstairs series The Country Maid, which is currently appearing weekly in The People’s Friend Magazine. This time, I’ll be touching upon the Norfolk accent, the life of a young highborn lady and fish glue.

While working on their chores, maids Grace and Eliza try to fit in with the other servants by softening their accents. Some indicators of a Norfolk accent (also known as an East Anglian accent) is that it sounds like a flat drawl with the Ys becoming Rs, missing out the Rs in the middle of words, such as cart or garden, and not dropping your Hs. It’s difficult to replicate. Most actors who try instead sound like they come from Cornwall.

Probably the most popular saying in Norfolk, which shows how we pronounce our words, is the Singing Postman’s ‘Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy’.

To a stranger, it might seem as if there is little difference between this county’s rural and city accents, but, as can be seen in the divide between the city folk and the two maids, they aren't quite the same. When I was a teenager, I remember a drama teacher telling me I should keep hold of my accent as it was quite strong, but back home my grandparents were even broader. I’m considered ‘Norwich-lite’, the differences being my accent is faster and more nasally, with some pronunciations taken from London rather than Norfolk and I do drop a few of my Hs.

Have a listen to a rural Norfolk accent with the Singing Postman.

While here’s me and my Norwich accent reading one of my earlier People’s Friend short stories.

Interested in the Norfolk accent and its region-specific words? Visit Friends of Norfolk Dialect ~ FOND – ‘Keeping Broad Norfolk Alive’ for more information.

But Grace reminds Eliza it doesn’t really matter. After all: 

“Servants are meant to be like ghosts. We shouldn’t be heard.”

There’s one other ghost in Marchant manor – Rebecca Marchant. Society has yet to see this upcoming debutante who hides amongst her books, dreaming of adventures she’ll never get to experience once she enters the marriage market. When Grace accidentally eavesdrops on Rebecca and her mother arguing about the future, the maid ends up picking up the literal pieces.

It was a Victorian mother’s goal in life to ensure her daughters found suitable husbands to support them in the luxuries they were accustomed to. Matching highborn women with suitable husbands could be as tricky as negotiating a trade deal with another country – will the match join two business empires or help clear the debts of the parents? Might the social clout the young man brings help dispel any scandals the bride’s family need burying? Often, the couple themselves had little say in the matter.

Lady Marchant herself was forced into an arranged marriage. Her family needed their eldest son’s debts cleared while the Marchants desired the prestige of an old family name and their vast social connections to legitimise their new money status.

If a young lady refused to marry or even went against her parents’ wishes and ran off with someone unsuitable, would she be able to support herself?

Depending on how many bridges she had burnt, the young lady might be able to rely on charity from relations and move in with them. However, if she found herself without a friend, her later years could end without a single coin in her purse or roof over her head.

Some unmarried ladies worked as governesses, teaching middle class children what they themselves were taught growing up. These self-sustaining women were often ridiculed by their charges and dependent on the family they lived with. A governess was an in between creature not lowly enough to be a servant yet seen as lesser than her employers.

Those who had a creative streak might try and support themselves as an artist or writer but, as I and other freelancers can attest, it’s still a precarious way of supporting yourself.

For now, as Rebecca decides on her options, she must obey her mother and prepare herself for her debut.

“I’m no more than a pretty painting. Traded between houses, put on display.”

Rebecca’s entire morning is dedicated to pleasing her mother by keeping up with the latest fashions. The aim of a lady’s beauty regime was to stop herself from looking like a woman from the lower classes, whose hands were often sore and cracked from working.

Freckles, blemishes and moles would first be faded by rubbing a lemon slice over them. The almond water Rebecca submerges her hands in would soften the nails and make them easier to cut and file. A little offcut of leather would be used to buff the nails into shining as a translucent nail, without spots or discolouration, was highly prized.

Victorian women were expected to look radiant at all times, and it was believed at the time a woman’s beauty became dull and tainted if she did not follow a faultless, Christian lifestyle. Any hint of makeup would have her condemned as vain, possibly even a woman of loose morals. Natural beauty hacks had to be used instead, such as cheeks being pinched and lips bitten to make them redden.

Magazines were filled with advertisements for creams and powders that could fool the world into believing you had simply stepped out of bed looking like this. Some were lethal. One example being eye drops to make the pupils larger and more seductive. Women wanting an at home method could squirt orange juice into their eyes to brighten them (ouch!), but an even more deadly version was on the market – belladonna. Often, overuse of these poisonous drops led to the woman going blind.

A lady’s hair would also need seeing to. It was only in the 1850s that regular washing of the hair was promoted. Before that, a twice daily brushing of the hair was seen as the best method of removing dirt. By the time of The Country Maid, ladies would cleanse their hair in an herbal wash and then brush it to replenish the hair’s natural oils. The fashion at the time was smooth hair with only one or two curls to conceal the ears and drawn back into a low bun so that a small bonnet could be worn.

I wonder what Victorians would make of today’s fashion and makeup? Beauty standards might have changed, but the marketing feels the same.

A more in-depth look at a Victorian woman’s morning routine can be found in Ruth Goodman’s How to Be a Victorian. It’s a fantastic book and a lot of my research for this series stemmed from this.

The glue Grace uses to fix Rebecca’s figurine (which was shaped like an oystercatcher in the original submission) is made from the bones and skin of fish. It took longer to harden, but was strong and often used for ceramics. It could be applied cold compared to other hide glues at the time.

Next time, there’s trouble brewing in Marchant house, but might the family and staff put aside their worries with a fun seaside excursion to Cromer?

(Series breakdown)

Part 7: During her duties, Jane spies Ruth helping Rebecca with her hair and make-up. When Ruth leaves, commenting her daughter should think on her future, Rebecca lashes out and breaks an ornament. Jane helps her fix it and listens to the girl’s complaints about being kept indoors due to ill health. Rebecca found an escape in books, yet now she’s expected to enter the marriage market after barely experiencing the world.