During the Regency, private courtship was often carried out in the most public of places: the ballroom. English country dancing was as orderly and symmetrical as the landscape and architecture of the period. Palladian country houses boasted rows of Grecian columns and balanced staircases, and "improvements" to garden and park imposed order on the land that surrounded them. A pleasing but controlled view of nature was the goal. The same rules held true for the dance in order to make it visually enjoyable for the onlookers as well as challenging to the dancers. Dancers stood in two lines, called a "set," with partners facing each other. Each couple progressed down the set, creating and recreating symmetrical patterns. These patterns, or "figures," were made up of movements such as casting off, gating (revolving around a neighbor and coming together in the center to touch hands like the two halves of a gate), figure eights, and stars (four dancers forming a small circle and extending one arm into the center).

The dance was a metaphor for an orderly community in which both dancers and onlookers had a part. Park Honan, in his biography of Jane Austen, says, "Those who always flouted its rules would show the failure and harm of wilful egotism; a dancer succeeds only when her rhythms and style are in perfect accord with the harmony of the music [and] creates a share of the community's beauty by attending to the needs of the whole."

The ballroom was a means of observing the community's prospective partners for both the next dance and marriage. The dance made several distinctions: between girls who were "out" and those who were not, between women who were married and those who were not, and even between women who were eligible and those who were spinsters. A girl who was not out could not attend a dance until she had been presented to society. Married women could dance, but usually did so with their husbands, or to make up numbers when there were not enough on the floor. A woman might be distinguished by her ability to play the piano, but when she was asked to play for a dance it took on a whole new meaning--it meant she was to assist others in their courtship while removing herself from the arena. There is a reason Mary Bennet was always asked to "play a jig" for her sisters!

Dancing offered a man and a woman the opportunity not only to touch each other with a frequency that was otherwise not permitted, but also to communicate in other ways. The speaking glance and degree of proximity to one another could convey a preference more subtly but no less clearly than the pressure of hand upon hand.

With all this in mind, we may write the first major dance scene in a Regency novel. Our heroine, Caroline, is officially "out," or available as a prospective bride. Our aim in this scene is not only to show that she is in love with her partner, Mr. Wakefield, but to give the couple a chance to make love under the very noses of her parents.

Wakefield is taking no risks in view of the other young bucks who have been invited. He secured his lady for two dances well in advance of the party--the previous afternoon, in fact. Though Caroline would rather dance half the night with him, propriety dictates she must not. Any more than two dances would be a scandal, and she would be ruined. She knows she must be prepared to accept the invitation of any gentleman who asks her to dance, if she is not otherwise engaged, or be forced to sit down the rest of the evening.

Since Caroline and Wakefield are standing closest to the orchestra hired for the evening, they are at the top of the set. The oldsters she can see near the fire at the other end of the long room are at the bottom of the set. She and Wakefield are also the lead couple, and since Caroline is the daughter of the house it is her privilege to call the set, or instruct the other dancers in the patterns and steps they will be performing.

This is a private ball, the most desirable kind. Attendance is by invitation only, so Caroline's doting parents can guarantee that the "right sort" of people will be present. If it were a public ball at the town hall, such a guarantee could not be made, since anyone with the right clothes and the means to get there could attend. Two of her married friends had been to a subscription ball the previous week, where the attendance was limited to those who had permission to buy tickets. The least desirable sort of dance would be a charity ball, where any mushroom who had the price of admission could mix with the gentry and possibly even fool a person of the opposite sex into a flirtation. There is a lady in the crowd tonight whom Caroline knows for a fact is dressing above her station in order to attract a good catch.

Caroline's parents want her to mix with people of her own social status. Wakefield and the other eligible gentlemen would not willingly leave a lady without a partner. If a man were to remove himself from the floor, he would effectively remove himself from the marriage market.

As Jane Austen says in Pride and Prejudice, "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained." In other words, Bingley (and his five thousand a year) is not only eligible, but available. Darcy's refusing to dance when there were girls like Elizabeth Bennet actually sitting down for want of a partner was unforgivable simply because he was declaring himself ineligible and--insultingly--unimpressed by the local gene pool.

Mr. Wakefield is both fond of dancing and falling in love. The orchestra plays the opening two measures of the dance, and he and Caroline honor, or salute, each other: Wakefield bows; Caroline has been schooled in the art of the courtesy, or curtsey, by her dancing master: "The lady, in making her address, moves her foot to the second position, the other into the fifth forward, then sinks directly down, which is performed by making a middle bend of the lower limbs, at the same time keeping the body and head exactly perpendicular, then raising straight up again. She is required to salute her partner in like manner, when she joins the chorus or dance." (A Treatise on Dancing, 1802.) All this and the music hasn't even started yet!

As they move down the set, he takes courage from her adoring eyes and graceful form, and manages a compliment or two. This is no time for "talking to rule," the formal verbal exchange between partners who are not much acquainted. Wakefield knows Caroline doesn't want to talk about the weather, or the state of the roads, or the number of couples making an appearance this evening. As Caroline crosses the set on the right, their shoulders brush. He seizes the opportunity to request her company for the light repast being served at midnight. As they re-cross to the left, he is heartbroken when she whispers that she must dine with her parents and brother. However, the speaking glance she gives him across the revolving hands-four reassures him that perhaps they might snatch a few precious minutes of conversation over a glass of punch later on.

"Most dances did not allow much in the way of vocal interaction, especially early in the Regency," says Allison Lane, award-winning author of Signet Regency novels. "But people could accomplish a lot through an exchange of glances." She points to the A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice as a particularly good example. During the ball at Netherfield, while Elizabeth (Jennifer Ehle) and Darcy (Colin Firth) were verbally sparring their way down the set, Jane (Susannah Harker) and Bingley (Crispin Bonham Carter) illustrated the subtler forms of communication as they looked over their shoulders at one another, smiled, and generally gave the impression of being completely besotted. "The exchanges in a ballroom were of particular importance early in a courtship, for a gentleman had to decide whether a particular lady would make a good wife," says Lane. "Once he escalated his attentions to escorting her on walks, drives and the like, he raised expectations that made crying off difficult, if not impossible."

Our Caroline learned to dance when she was a child, courtesy of a dancing master who came to her home. Dancing was one of the few forms of exercise a woman could indulge in with propriety. "The country dance was mannered and lively in a gentle, gracious way, with its gaiety toned down to suavity, and in the light running and slipping steps it had vitality with decorum" (Honan). It is interesting, however, to contrast the propriety of the chaste touch in the dance with the gown a lady might wear--a filmy India muslin, with a neckline cut to display her assets as a marriageable female. The lady was meant to be looked at, both as she moved gracefully down the set, and at rest.

My own experience with English country dances has been courtesy of the Bay Area English Regency Society, which hosts dance practices, balls, and afternoon diversions. In a parish hall with a spacious hardwood floor, the dance master calls figures familiar to Jane Austen and instructs the modern couples in the steps' execution. Regency dress is "admired but not required" ... most of the women wear modern, high-waisted dresses and low-heeled shoes. The Divertimento Orchestra, consisting of piano, flute and recorder, plays country dances, seamlessly improvising from set to set upon the dance master's instructions. After two sets, one's bosom is heaving, and not from the assiduous attentions of one's partner! Even the "mannered" dances, which feature graceful steps and turns rather than the stamping and galloping enjoyed by the lower classes during the Regency, are hard work.

Park Honan says of Jane Austen that "… dancing, especially in a small and friendly set, was the keenest social delight of her life. Nothing else appealed so to her body, mind and sense of aesthetic decorum and elegance." When she was twenty, she wrote in one of her letters, "We had an exceedingly good ball last night … There were twenty dances, and I danced them all, without any fatigue."

I salute her.

References

Aldrich, Elizabeth. From the Ballroom to Hell: Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1991.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice, ed. Tony Tanner. Penguin Books, 1985.

Bay Area English Regency Society, Survival Guide for the Country Dance, (pamphlet) 1998.

Handler, Richard and Daniel Segal. Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture: An Essay on the Narration of Social Realities. Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 1990.

Honan, Park. Jane Austen, Her Life. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1987.

Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen's World: The Life and Times of England's Most Popular Author. Key Porter Books, 1996.

Monaghan, David, ed. Jane Austen in a Social Context. Totowa, Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.

Pace, Susan writing as Allison Lane. Online communication.

Thompson, James. Between Self and World: The Novels of Jane Austen. London, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.