Life Downstairs/ servents

Those familiar with “Pride and Prejudice” know that, midway through the Jane Austen novel, Elizabeth Bennet embarks on an expedition to Derbyshire with her aunt and uncle, where she and the Gardiners visit the magisterial grounds of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy’s estate. But few readers wonder who looks after the four Gardiner children while their parents are away. We read that the little ones stayed behind in Longbourn, with the Bennets, but, swept up in the impending romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, we don’t give these practical arrangements much thought. But in Baker’s retelling, which is centered on the Bennets’ young housemaid Sarah, the Midlands trip is the cause of “a deal of extra trouble, and noise, and meals, and washing…. shitty nappies, the wetted beds: the work.” Read more on: newyorker/life-downstairs-the-popularity-of-the-literature-of-servants

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