Mariana is not good landlady. Mariana does not care about her servants also tenants. She treats the tenants as she wish. She also likes to buy some expensive
clothes and jewelries then do not care about the manor‟ expenditure.
Mariana preferred to avoid all the people working on the estate or in the village, except on the rare occasions when she developed a sudden taste for
playing the lady of the manor. Then she would put on an ensemble extravagantly calculated to offend country folk, descend from her carriage,
and decipher in her tenants’ startled expressions their shiftless and foolish natures. Finally she would instruct Kate to jettison them from their homes.
James, 2010: 8
Mariana Daltry is a manipulative woman. When she wants Kate to do something she will threaten a servant or tenant, so Kate will do everything she wants. When
Mariana wants Kate to go to the Prince to substitute Victoria, she threaten one of the tenants, Mrs. Crabtree just to makes Kate agree to go:
You will go to Pomeroy Castle, Katherine, because your sister is carrying a child and needs the approval of the prince. You will dress as your
sister, you will take the bloody mongrels with you, and you will make this work.”
Mariana looked tough, and more tired than she usually did. “In that case, you will keep the Crabtrees in their cottage,” Kate stated.
Her stepmother shrugged. She didn’t really give a damn either way, Kate realized. She had launched the Crabtrees into the situation just in case the
plea of blood relations failed. James, 2010: 25
Mariana is a prodigal woman. Mariana likes to spruce herself and Victoria. She bought many expensive clothes and jewelries though never gives Kate any proper
clothes. Mariana obsession is to marry Victoria to aristocrats that already fulfilled since Victoria betrothed to Algernon Bennett, Viscount Dimsdale.
4. The Character of Victoria Daltry
Victoria is the daughter of Mariana and Victor Daltry outside the wedlock. She is eighteen years old woman. Different from her egoist mother, she is
kindhearted and soft nature. Victoria is a woman that is easy to be loved. Because of her soft nature, Kate feels that it is impossible to hate Victoria.
“Though she loathed her stepmother, she had never felt the same hatred for her stepsister. For
one thing, Victoria was too soft natured for anyone to dislike. And for another, Kate
couldn’t help being fond of her” James, 2010: 12
Kate also thinks that his father married Mariana who is not a good woman, because he wants to protect Victoria. When Victor Daltry married to Mariana,
Victoria would become his legal daughter. As an aristocrat daughter, Victoria could have seasons and has an aristocrat husband.
“Kate had wondered for years why her father married Mariana. But now, looking at her pretty, silly, sweet sister,
she knew why ” James, 2010: 314
Victoria is a beautiful and fashionable woman. She is the most beautiful woman in the season. She is betrothed to Lord Dimsdale, an eighteen years old
viscount, she also carrying his child. When Kate scolds about that matter, she just said that she is in love with Dimsdale and they will be marry soon. Victoria also
does not have any conscience since she is three month pregnant though she just meets Lord Dimsdale for three month:
“March,” Kate said. “You met him in March and now it‟s June. Tell me that darling Algie proposed, oh, say three months ago, just after you
fell in love, and you‟ve kept it a secret?”
Victo ria giggled at that. “You know exactly when he proposed, Kate
I told you first, after Mother. It was just two weeks ago.” James, 2010: 14
It seems that Victoria does not understand about her condition and the risky situation because of it. Victoria is not smart though she is a sincere woman. She
does not quite understand when people talks about something tricky. Victoria just accepts her mot
her‟s act and never rebel. She is a passive woman who never thinks about objection and defenses. She just accepts her surrounding as a matter
of fact.
B. The Social Condition of 19
th
Century British Depicted as Setting in the Novel
In the novel A Kiss at Midnight there are some social conditions that depicted as setting.
1. Classes
In the 19
th
century British, society was divided into three social classes. British in the 19
th
century were divided into Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class. In the novel A Kiss at Midnight shows two classes, The Upper Class
and the Lower Class. The characters of the Upper Class are Katherine Daltry and Prince Gabriel.
Katherine Daltry is a granddaughter of an Earl, and then Prince Gabriel is a brother of a Grand Duke. The upper class society also known as the aristocrats.
The title is inherited by blood and sometimes marriage. The aristocrats are usually
live in the mansion. Such as Kate that lives in Yarrow House, Prince Gabriel even live in a Castle. Mansions are big house which cannot manage only by the family
member, so the aristocrats have some servants. Upper class people also have large land that is rent to the tenants. The
landlords take some responsibility toward his tenants‟ welfare in change to the tax that the landlords collect from them. From the tax the aristocrats could live superb
without a real job. For the aristocrats to have some jobs is big scandal. They like to party and show their wealth by some expensive cloths and jewelries. Mariana is
the owner of Yarrow House and the large land surrounding it. Mariana should takes responsibility of her tenants, though in reality she abandon her tenants and
just takes the money from them to spent on expensive clothes and jewelries. Sometimes the aristocrats does not really care about the lower class and just do
whatever they wants, like what Mariana did, because they have the power over the lower class:
It should be said that the condition wasn’t unfamiliar to her [Kate]. Before
her father died seven years earlier, she found herself sometimes irritated with her new stepmother. But it wasn’t until he was gone, and the new Mrs.
Daltry —who had held that title for a matter of mere months—started ruling
the roost, that Kate really learned the meaning of anger. Anger was watching tenants on the estate be forced to pay double the rent or
leave cottages where they’d lived their whole lives. Anger was watching the crops wilt and the hedges overgrow because her stepmother begrudged the
money needed to maintain the estate. Anger was watching her father’s money be poured into new gowns and bonnets and frilly things . . . so
numerous that her stepmother and stepsister couldn’t find days enough in the year to wear them all.James, 2010: 2-3
