However, I read on to discover this story is not of that brand.
Jo Baker tells the story of the servants who, apart from Mrs Hill, exist namelessly in the background of Pride and Prejudice. The Bennet family and their lives form a loose structure, a background only.
This story opens on laundry day at Longbourn. The young servant Sarah, the heroine, at 4.30am on a freezing day, is pumping extremely cold water with chapped and chilblained fingers. This then must be hauled up to the house. She is more than a drudge, however, and has a mind of her own.
There is an undermaid, little more than a child, and Mrs Hill, who manages the household and is the cook, providing firm handling with affection for this little band.
The family are not deliberately cruel; rather, unthinking about the burdens carried by, and the needs of, their servants.
These characters are joined by a young man who brings a history of hardship and brutality of another sort, from the war against Napoleon.
With some irony, slavery is touched upon, with the prosperity derived from the trade in sugar, slaves and products. The author interweaves the stories of each of these beautifully delineated characters with the events of that tumultuous time with great skill, and her descriptions of the Hertfordshire countryside are to be savoured.
- Margaret Bannister is a retired Dunedin psychotherapist and science teacher.
