ALONE AT LAST

In a world where women and men work together every day, it’s rare to even think twice about being alone with a colleague of another gender. Usually, we only notice it if there’s a reason, whether innocent or – occasionally – inappropriate.
But in the 19th century, men and women who were not either married or related to each other would not have been alone together in a room without considerable risk to their reputations. BOTH their reputations, by the way.
While chaperonage wasn’t as strict as it might have been in earlier centuries, women, whether married or unmarried, were still expected to be extremely cautious about their behavior, and anyone in charge of them was expected to keep a good eye on the proprieties. By the late 19th century, it extended to the work environment, as women moved into offices and factories.
Early factories, like the New England mills, made a strong point of assuring parents their daughters would be well supervised. With time, the emphasis faded, but it was still very clear a “respectable” employer would never allow a male boss to be alone with a young female worker.
The same applied to the young lady clerks and typists who were starting to take jobs in offices. Their bosses would have been carefully formal, and rigorously avoided being alone with them. Part of it was the simple fact men weren’t entirely sure how to deal with female co-workers. They hadn’t had them before, after all!
By the way, it wasn’t only out of a desire to protect the ladies’ reputations. Victorians were exceedingly concerned with virtue and respectability for men, too. A “bad reputation” would not be the same kind of social death for a man as a woman, but a man who could not be trusted with women could not be trusted in other areas, either.
These mores are very much in play for Ella Shane. She’s a woman who has made a successful life for herself in a respectable opera career, to be sure, but one who plays men on stage and hasn’t troubled to marry. So, it’s not just for love and companionship that she lives with her cousin Tommy Hurley – or he with her.
He provides her with the appropriate male protector a woman is expected to have. She provides him with a reason for not being married, so people don’t, as Ella puts it “ask questions they don’t really want answered.” Modern readers figure out pretty quickly Tommy is gay, and it’s simply not discussed in his world. (Tommy’s orientation and his life are a whole different #ThrowbackThursday post!)
Everywhere Ella goes, she’s with either Tommy, her dresser Anna, or later, her lady’s-maid, Rosa.
In their first outing, A FATAL FINALE, the Duke visits Ella in her dressing room, and they have a very personal conversation about the murder – and other things. During the editing process, someone asked me if Anna should be in the room. I assured them not only should Anna be there, she had to be. Neither Ella, nor the Duke, would ever risk being alone together, especially not in such an obvious place as her dressing room.
Fast-forward to A FATAL RECEPTION, where Ella and Gil are left truly alone together for the first time, days before their wedding. It’s odd, and awkward, despite the love and bond between them…and sets up some fun, and slightly cringey bedroom comedy moments.
More about the bedroom, and the comedy, in next week’s post!

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