Okay, first of all, I love your icon! Louisa May Alcott, one of my favorite authors ever. *g*
Secondly...I'm not 100% certain of the mother's social standing. The fandom is Sherlock Holmes; the woman, Mrs. Hudson (Holmes' and Watson's landlady). She's a widow (in my world, she and her husband had four children together, and her husband died before the youngest--who's the soldier in my story--left home), living in a reasonably nice home but renting half of it out to tenants. She may or may not have servants (she has at least one maid in the books, but I don't think we've seen any yet in the 2009 movieverse). I suppose she'd probably be considered middle-class, but I don't really know; I've never had a good hold on class distinctions at all, let alone in that period, when the middle class was really first coming to be. :-/
(Oh, and, when I said I didn't realize the rank would be relevant, I meant that I didn't realize it would be relevant to the method of notification. It really isn't relevant to the whole of the story in this case, because it's not going to be mentioned in the text, the focus of the scene being on Mrs. Hudson's reaction to the news, rather than the news itself. But I always do like to know these things about my characters, even if I doubt I'll continue writing in the 'verse.)
A book I've got about the First World War describes notifications coming in buff envelopes with OHMS (On His/Her Majesty's Service) on the outside. All government correspondence in fact used to have OHMS on the envelope, but most people wouldn't normally receive letters from the government, hence why it became a sign of bad news.
Mrs Hudson would certainly have at least one servant, to do the rough work such as scrubbing floors, cleaning out grates and so on. Maybe even two - a kitchen maid and a boy, perhaps.
Being working class needn't preclude having a servant. Mrs H. could be upper working class, lower middle class, or middle-middle class. It would depend on her own and her husband's background and education, what her husband did, etc. I don't think there are any clues in the canon, are there?
Personally I see her as upper working or lower middle. She could be an Army widow herself, perhaps. I'd imagine that her son, in his mid thirties, would be an NCO, but not an officer. But that's my opinion. (If any of the scene is from Watson's pov, or he speaks to Mrs H. about her son, he'd certainly know his rank and refer to him as 'Sergeant Hudson' or whatever, being ex-Army himself.)
Going in somewhat backwards order: yeah, it did dawn on me that were Watson to speak of Mrs. Hudson's son, he would most likely refer to him by his rank; however, as this particular fic actually has literally NO dialogue, and is written in a minimalistic third-person POV style, it really won't come up this time (though, I admit, I am warming to the idea of making this my primary Holmes 'verse, if I ever do write anything else in the fandom, so I will likely need to figure it out at some point in the future).
As to canon: I actually haven't read all the stories yet; I'm working my way through them. To the best of my knowledge, though, there aren't any clues in canon at all (and if there are, apparently I'm ignoring them, since I'm writing this story before reading the books).
For now, I think I'm going to write it as the notification coming in a letter (I like the detail of the envelope a LOT), with the idea that I'll change it round if I get more definitive conflicting information.
Thanks again SO much for ALL your help! :-)
(Oh, and, he could be even 40; I don't mention his age in the story, so I can fudge at least a bit.)
Having been thinking about this a bit, I vaguely recall mention of a page boy called Billy. But I have no idea where he's mentioned, or how he fits into the household - he could conceivably be employed by Holmes and/or Watson rather than Mrs Hudson. But she'd still also have someone to help with the rough work.
Secondly...I'm not 100% certain of the mother's social standing. The fandom is Sherlock Holmes; the woman, Mrs. Hudson (Holmes' and Watson's landlady). She's a widow (in my world, she and her husband had four children together, and her husband died before the youngest--who's the soldier in my story--left home), living in a reasonably nice home but renting half of it out to tenants. She may or may not have servants (she has at least one maid in the books, but I don't think we've seen any yet in the 2009 movieverse). I suppose she'd probably be considered middle-class, but I don't really know; I've never had a good hold on class distinctions at all, let alone in that period, when the middle class was really first coming to be. :-/
(Oh, and, when I said I didn't realize the rank would be relevant, I meant that I didn't realize it would be relevant to the method of notification. It really isn't relevant to the whole of the story in this case, because it's not going to be mentioned in the text, the focus of the scene being on Mrs. Hudson's reaction to the news, rather than the news itself. But I always do like to know these things about my characters, even if I doubt I'll continue writing in the 'verse.)
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Mrs Hudson would certainly have at least one servant, to do the rough work such as scrubbing floors, cleaning out grates and so on. Maybe even two - a kitchen maid and a boy, perhaps.
Being working class needn't preclude having a servant. Mrs H. could be upper working class, lower middle class, or middle-middle class. It would depend on her own and her husband's background and education, what her husband did, etc. I don't think there are any clues in the canon, are there?
Personally I see her as upper working or lower middle. She could be an Army widow herself, perhaps. I'd imagine that her son, in his mid thirties, would be an NCO, but not an officer. But that's my opinion. (If any of the scene is from Watson's pov, or he speaks to Mrs H. about her son, he'd certainly know his rank and refer to him as 'Sergeant Hudson' or whatever, being ex-Army himself.)
Reply
Going in somewhat backwards order: yeah, it did dawn on me that were Watson to speak of Mrs. Hudson's son, he would most likely refer to him by his rank; however, as this particular fic actually has literally NO dialogue, and is written in a minimalistic third-person POV style, it really won't come up this time (though, I admit, I am warming to the idea of making this my primary Holmes 'verse, if I ever do write anything else in the fandom, so I will likely need to figure it out at some point in the future).
As to canon: I actually haven't read all the stories yet; I'm working my way through them. To the best of my knowledge, though, there aren't any clues in canon at all (and if there are, apparently I'm ignoring them, since I'm writing this story before reading the books).
For now, I think I'm going to write it as the notification coming in a letter (I like the detail of the envelope a LOT), with the idea that I'll change it round if I get more definitive conflicting information.
Thanks again SO much for ALL your help! :-)
(Oh, and, he could be even 40; I don't mention his age in the story, so I can fudge at least a bit.)
Reply
Having been thinking about this a bit, I vaguely recall mention of a page boy called Billy. But I have no idea where he's mentioned, or how he fits into the household - he could conceivably be employed by Holmes and/or Watson rather than Mrs Hudson. But she'd still also have someone to help with the rough work.
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