A letter to a sister, by Lucy Dene

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1849, a young woman who has been married for six weeks writes to her younger sister, who is soon to be married herself.

My dearest Fanny, You asked me to tell you honestly how I find married life, and as you are to be married yourself in the spring I suppose I owe you honesty, though I hope you will burn this letter as soon as you have read it.

Crispin is everything that is good. He brings me violets on a Saturday from the stall by the bank, and reads to me in the evenings when he is not too tired, which, I must own, he generally is. He leaves the house at eight and is seldom home before seven, and the hours between are very long. I had not understood, at home, how much of the day is filled by talk. Here there is nobody to talk to but Jemima, and Jemima does not care for talking, or for me.

You will remember that Mamma always said I should never make a housekeeper. She was right. In my first week I ordered a leg of mutton large enough for twelve, because the butcher asked how many we were and I was ashamed to say two. We ate it cold until Thursday and Crispin never said a word, which was worse than if he had. On Monday last I sat down to the household book, which Crispin’s mother gave me with a great deal of advice, and found that I could not make it come right by four shillings and sevenpence, though I added it nine times. I cried over it, which did not help the arithmetic.

Crispin’s mother calls every Wednesday. She runs her finger along the mantelshelf when she thinks I am not looking, and she has twice told me how her son likes his eggs, as though I had not been boiling them for him for six weeks. I am very civil to her. I am so civil that my face aches afterwards.

There, I have told you all the bad, and I see that it fills a whole sheet. Now you will think I am miserable, and I am not. Last Sunday evening it rained, and we did not go out, and Crispin found the four shillings and sevenpence in ten minutes (I had copied two entries wrongly), and then he laughed until he had to sit down, and so did I. We toasted crumpets at the parlour fire and burnt every one. I have never been so happy in my life, and I mean that, Fanny, though I could not tell you why.

So my advice is this: learn to add, buy a small joint, and do not expect the days to be like the evenings. Your loving sister, Lucy.

“The writer is finding married life a disappointment.”

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