Headscratchers / Emma: A Victorian Romance

Ages of the characters

Kaoru Mori did not give exact ages to the characters (except to Ilse whose fifth birthday was featured, but, instead, she gave the age order of the characters in the extra material of the ninth manga volume. Using this and other hints in the series, let's try to figure out their ages! And here comes the age list, from youngest to oldest. If they are on the same line, they equally old. You can add comments about them under the names!

• Theo the Squirrel
  • He is still alive after the timeskip. The lifespan of a Red Squirrel is 3-7 years, up to 10 in captivity.
  • Unless Erich got another squirrel and named it Theo, too.
• Ilse Maulders
  • Her fifth birthday was featured in Chapter 19 (anime episode 17).
  • After the time skip, she is still clearly a round-faced child.
• Nini the Monkey
  • He/She is older than Ilse and is still alive after time skip.
• Colin Jones
  • His mom asked in a letter of hers, "Can Colin write already?" So he may be around 6 or 7.
  • After the time skip, he is still a child to my eyes.
• Erich Maulders
  • In a forest trip in Extra Story Chapter 7, a maid (Adele) escorted him when he had to pee.
  • He also cried aloud when Theo went missing.
  • Extra Story Chapter 8 states that Erich's parents Wilhelm and Dorothea have been married for eight and half years. Giving the time period and their social status, it can be safely assumed that Dorothea was not pregnant with Erich when they were married. That would make Erich at most 7 years and 9 months old and at least 5 years and 9 months old due to his sister's age.
  • After the time skip, a border-line teenager? He has got ganglier limbs but not much shoulders.
• Vivian "Vivi" Jones
  • A bratty child before the time skip.
  • After the time skip, she has clearly reached puberty: her breasts have started to grow, and she mentions she had grown two inches since last year. Also, Grace forbids her from drinking alcohol, against which Vivi insists she is an adult already, and against that Grace tells that Vivi definitely isn't an adult yet.
• Arthur Jones & Jan
  • They look like teenagers before the time skip (Arthur is even shorter than Grace).
  • They look like young men after the time skip.
  • Arthur is studying at a boarding school at Eton and he's about to graduate there. Students there are 13-18 years old, making Arthur perhaps 17-18 years old.
    • The youngest students there, featured in Exta Story Chapter 15, can't be 13 years old to this troper's eyes!
  • After the time skip, Arthur is "still in the college/university", and reading between the lines, it appears that he is old enough to drink alcohol without anyone complaining (he talks about how he isn't into drinking alcohol and how alcohol belongs more into the society than into academics).
• Polly
• Eleanor Campbell
  • Old enough to be engaged in Victorian England.
  • She is not fully grown physically, as in the beach chapter in Extra Stories (yes, there is one, completed with authentic Victorian swimming dresses), she complains about how thin arms she has, and her maid Annie replies that she is just so young.
• Eleanor and Grace's three nameless gossiping lady friends
• Grace Jones
  • A comic strips in Extra Stories reveal that she has been mistaken into Colin's mother at least once, though most likely she isn't literally old enough to be his mother (she was a child when their mother Aurelia left the family to retire on countryside and Colin had already been born that time).
• Hakim Atawari & Emma
  • In his and William's childhood flashback (Extra Story Chapter 9), Hakim was maybe 2-4 inches shorter to William, so they can't have veryveryvery large age gap. I'd say William is 1-3 years older to Hakim. Plus, Indians are typically shorter to Caucasians: also when adult, Hakim is slightly shorter to William (see Chapter 6, the library scene, when Emma talks to a librarian and Hakim and William browse the book shelves).
  • Emma was 15 when she was employed by Kelly (Chapter 10, see more in Known dates in the series). Given that Kelly employed her right after she had quit working as a home teacher, Emma must be less than 25 years old in the present time.
  • In Chapter 15, Emma states that she had worked in Kelly's household for 5-6 years, making Emma 20-21 years old during the events of the main series.
• Tasha
• William Jones & Robert
  • Kelly was William's home teacher for four years when he was a child (roughly ten years ago as Kelly states) and she was still working as a home teacher (she was possibly around her 50s, see her notes). In the first manga chapter, Kelly jokes about that if William is still wetting his bed, hinting William's age that time.
• Alma & Hans
• Maria
• Tomas
• Annie
• Dorothea Mölders
  • In the age lineup, she comments, "I am still rather young." However, she is also Ilse and Erich's mother.
• Wilhelm Mölders
  • In the age lineup, he says, "I am rather young, too." However, he is also Ilse and Erich's father.
  • Extra Story Chapter 8 states that Wilhelm and Dorothea have been married for eight and half years. Wilhelm also comments that around the time when he proposed to Dorothea, he was old enough to grow a moustache without looking silly. That might make him 20-something years old at the time thus in his thirties at the time of the main series.
• Aurelia Hartwick Jones
• Johanna
  • Final epilogue in manga volume 10: Unless Maria is joking when calling Johanna "mother", she is Johanna's daughter.
• Richard Jones
• Viscount Campbell
• Mrs. Wieck
• Mr. Brupp
• Theresa
• Kelly Stownar & Al
  • The original Great Exhibition with the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park took place in 1851. Kelly attended and was already married to Douglas, so she was 18 or 19 years old then. She further says she was widowed at 20 and their visit happened a year before he fell fatally ill and died without seeing the next summer, so she must have been born in 1832 or 1833. She then served as a governess for "over 30 years" but retired during the decade between when she taught William and the start of the story. Long story short, she's over 60 by the time the story begins.
    • Mori at one point listed Kelly's year of birth as 1838, but that cannot be correct given all the other context, so she either changed her mind or realized her mistake.
  • Al is Doug's longtime friend. Both are assumed to have been born a little before Kelly.
• Stevens
  • In an extra comic, Stevens comments that he assumes he won't live long enough to see Colin become an adult.
• Martha
• In addition to that, Adele's age is unknown and Monica doesn't want to tell her age.

Length of the time skip

Another question: How long is the time skip between the end of manga volume 7 (the end of the actual series) and the final epilogue of the series in the volume 10, or William and Emma's wedding? Some notes:

• The start of the series is set at "the end of the 19th century", and we have the Victorian era here; The epilogue is set at "the start of the 20th century", and we have the Edwardian era here.
  • Queen Victoria died in January 1901, so this was the switch point between the Victorian and the Edwardian eras.
• Theo and Nini are still alive after the time skip – according to The Other Wiki, red squirrels, assuming they survive their first winter, live 3-7 years in the wild but up to 10 in captivity. Theo would count as "captive" but still…
  • Unless Erich got another squirrel and named it Theo, too.
• During the time skip, Grace had gotten married and given birth to a son who is "soon six months old" during William and Emma's wedding. Also, William's conversation with Bill the Gardener hinted that Lionel and Grace's wedding was set to late spring or summer, and it looks like there is late spring or summer after the time skip, too. This troper's guess is that there has been at least almost 6 months (son's age) + 9 months (pregnancy) = almost 15 months when Lionel and Grace's wedding was held, and when this is rounded to whole years, it may be possible that their wedding was held at least two years before William and Emma's one. Unless Grace was pregnant during her wedding.
• Children and teens have clearly aged (see earlier), while no notable appearance changes have happened to adults.

Known dates in the series (to support two earlier questions)

Kaoru Mori operates on a bizarre cross between Broad Strokes and Shown Their Work. Nonetheless, because this series takes place in a place and time where a LOT of Real-Life things can be dated to give Emma context, let's do it.

• 1832 or 1833: Kelly Stownar was born
• 1851: The Great Exhibition (when the Crystal Palace was in Hyde Park)
• 1852-1853: Kelly's husband Douglas fell fatally ill a year after the Great Exhibition and died "without seeing the next summer".
• 1872: Richard and Aurelia met in Wiltshire
  • In a spoiler after Volume 4, Mori wrote that the next volume was going to go back in time "24 years". 24 years from 1872 puts us in the current year of 1896 when the story begins. It is a fair bet that Aurelia and Richard were married soon after. Also, in the beginning of Volume 1, Kelly tells William that she hadn't seen him for 10 years. The picture on the mantle is of William when he was 13 (according to him when he talks to Emma). As Kelly had the picture taken the year she left the Jones house, this puts William's age at 23. This means Aurelia was pregnant very quickly after she and Richard were married. William was then most likely born in 1873.
• 1896 or 1897: Kelly's death year – the events of Victorian Romance Emma. (The numbers 1, 8 and 9 are visible on Kelly's grave stone, but the final number is blurry.)
• October 8, 1896: The 5th Extra Story Chapter ("The Times") is basically about people reading (and using) The Times around that time, judging by the date on the newspaper on the cover page.
  • Judging by where Violet appears, who is with her and what they are talking about in this chapter, most likely this chapter is set after the events of main series but not long after it. So have we found the event year of Victorian Romance Emma?
• 1901: Queen Victoria dies on January 22nd. Switch between Victorian and Edwardian eras and thus also a year included into the time skip.

In addition to these, we know a few related events:

• Preteen!Emma was hired as a maid for Kelly when Kelly was about to retire from her home teacher job: This had to happen in 1880s, as Kelly has stated she worked as a home teacher for "over 30 years" since her husband died in 1850s.
  • She was not preteen but 15 years old when Kelly hired her. Stated in manga Chapter 10. That said, Emma was very late to mature, which does make sense given her hard early life. Only Kelly took her in, she blossomed both emotionally and physically.
• Prior that, Kid!William had been taught by Kelly for four years roughly a decade ago (in Chapter 1, Kelly states that William "has not changed in ten years").
• When the Jones Kids' mother Aurelia left her family to retire to countryside, Colin was an infant, Vivi was a toddler, Arthur was wearing a sailor suit typical for children, Grace was still clearly a child, and William appeared like a preteen.

Ilse and Erich's English skills

How was it possible that Ilse and Erich, who apparently were unable to speak anything else than their native language German before the time skip, speak apparently at least quite good English after the time skip? (They chat with Colin and Vivi respectively and apparently have no big language barriers. Though they don't talk about very complicated issues.) Mad English studying motivated by the contacts to Joneses? Well, also depends on how long the time skip was. And of course, children can be amazing what comes to learning new things.

• Really, you would basically have to actively separate them from English-speakers for kids that age not to learn the language of the country they are living in. They are a bit sheltered in the story, but this troper thinks it's fairly safe to assume that they would eventually meet other kids their own age, and once they do, language acquisition should go fast. Kids learn languages much faster than adults, hence why you're quite likely to see the kids of immigrant families acting as interpreters.

Kelly Stownar's legacy

Kelly Stownar seems to have been a fairly well-to-do lady. Not rich by any means, but she had a comfortable house with lots of books and nice furniture, jewelry, etc. When she dies, all of this... just disappears into the ether? Emma's left with "a little clothing, and some odds and ends". Al takes some furniture to the house of an old friend of Kelly's... and apart from that, there seems to be no mention of what happens with the rest. Now, it seems to this troper that Kelly was quite alone in the world - widowed at a young age, no children, and no other close relatives to speak of (or, surely, they would have been mentioned at some point?). It seems Emma was the closest Kelly had to a daughter. So, why would she not leave everything to her? She knows Emma has basically nothing in this world, and that inheriting Kelly Stownar's things and money could really set her up in the world and make life much easier for her (and surely, if she had enough money to stop being a maid, that might make her a little more acceptable to the Joneses?)... It's not like Kelly wasn't aware that she was getting on a bit, and she had plenty of chances to call for a lawyer to amend her will if she wanted to...

• It IS curious, but the fact that Kelly owned her home at all is impressive. Women often weren't allowed to own property in their own name unless – as in Kelly's case – the man dies with no male heir. If Kelly did own that townhouse outright rather than renting it, the only logical excuse is that it devolved to some distant family member upon Kelly's death since she never adopted Emma (nor intended to). More likely, though, it was a long-term rental from some aristocrat – during this period, it become more and more common for the blue-bloods to give up their "city manors" in London due to rising costs and either sell them outright or have them redeveloped into housing they could rent; the Crown Estate does this too and is a big source of its funding (one reason why the British Monarchy isn't as expensive as republicans claim) – thus, when Kelly died, her property reverted to its original owner who promptly sold it or re-rented it.

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