Jane's Wedding Dress & Harriet's Fur Coat

Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers 

published 1937

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

published 1847

 

I recently blogged about my talk for the Dorothy L Sayers Society, and in particular the wedding in her Busman’s Honeymoon.

And there’s still more to say – going back to something I looked at in the early days of the blog: the link between Busman and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

Early in the Sayers book, a few select friends are invited to see Harriet Vane’s trousseau. Is there an implication that Lord Peter is there? Because we are on to the groom’s wedding gift, a mink coat costing 950 guineas… which roughly speaking would be worth around £50,000 now, although Peter wouldn’t offer and Harriet wouldn’t accept real mink now – you would think. Fine in 1937.

 

A photo from the era, and one of the wonderful ‘paper doll’ illustrations created by the crime writer Jane Langton for the book Murderess Ink.

However - if I may voice a criticism – it seems to me to be the height of vulgarity? We know Dorothy  L Sayers liked a fur coat herself, but still.

Harriet’s gift to Peter is a John Donne letter in manuscript, and hate figure Helen, the new sister-in-law, is much mocked ‘no doubt she’d think a gold cigarette lighter would have been much more suitable’ – but then where does a fur coat come on this spectrum? A lot more down the cigarette lighter end, I would venture to say.

Peter’s mother describes the scene where the fur is handed over:

‘It is a lovely cloak, and H[arriet] hadn’t the heart to say more than ‘Oh Mr Rochester!’ – in fun and meaning Jane Eyre, who I always think behaved so ungraciously to that poor man – so gloomy to have your bride, however bigamous, insisting on grey alpaca or merino or whatever it was, and damping to a lover’s feelings.

In fact Jane Eyre wears ‘pearl-grey silk,’ and there’s not much more description except for the beautiful and doomed veil.

In my early post I didn’t attempt to show a 19^th century Jane Eyre, I chose a modern picture because I didn’t want to show a ‘severe Victorian portrait of the governess in grey’.  I decided to look again this time, and was in for a big surprise when I  started investigating. I think we are all used to seeing Jane Eyre in Victorian dress, perhaps a crinoline, and I would say all screen adaptations and illustrations show her that way – look at these examples.  

But – internal evidence in the book of Jane Eyre shows incontrovertibly that it is set around 1808, and forwards and backwards from that date.

Some time AFTER the abortive wedding, Jane’s cousin St John Rivers comes to visit her:

“I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favoured…

I eagerly glanc[ed] at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for “Marmion” it was)…

 

Walter Scott’s Marmion, a great favourite of the Bronte sisters, was published in 1808.

So Jane Eyre is going to be dressed a lot more like a Georgette Heyer or Jane Austen heroine. Or governess. Something like these?

Well there’s always something new to learn, I haven’t really got over that…

Has anyone seen Jane Eyre illos that reflected the actual date? Was this as much a surprise to everyone else as it was to me?

Brontes and Sayers all over the blog - use the tags below.