Nanny Diaries 3 - Pride and Prejudice

Back to the Future

"Stop making such a fuss, Daphne...a twenty-inch waist will be your minimum from now on and we will need to get you down to eighteen for any special occasions...waists are much smaller this year." Miss Davenport said happily, smiling broadly as she tugged brutally on the laces of my corset. I was standing in the middle of the nursery, wearing just the corset and my clean diaper. My sisters were downstairs with Helen and Annie eating their tea, and I was being dressed for dinner with the adults. "Fashions are getting more severe...like everything else around here...but it is not for you to complain about it, young lady."

"I beg your pardon, Nanny...it was not a complaint, but an involuntary reaction to my own weakness." I replied, respectfully. "My waist is out of practice, which is my fault...I hope you will help me regain my best shape, Nanny."

"Oh, you can count on it, Daphne...if you manage to cope with your maidenhood for more than five minutes, of course." Miss Davenport said, pulling again as I breathed out. She did not approve of my reinstatement, of course. Much to my dismay, she seemed to enjoy looking after me as much as I used to enjoy myself with Nicola, and I knew that I needed to take care around her, or she would get me into trouble somehow. I really only had one foot out of the nursery and she would still be helping me, a lot, and her paddle would still be available, so I intended to be on my best behaviour with her.

"Thank you, Nanny."

"My mother wore one of these things when she was a maiden...and I wore one once, to get into my prom dress at Cheltenham Ladies College," Karen told me, as she finally tied the laces off, whilst I tried to breathe.

"You never told me your mother was a Reformist, whilst we were at college, Nanny."

"I didn't talk about my family at college...although you bored me with your tales of life in middle-class heaven, and your Grammar school adventures...but my mother came from a well-connected family, but she got out of all that stuff when she was eighteen, thank goodness...I am actually related to the Ellesmere's."

"Oh, I met a Miss Ellesmere at bible class, Nanny." I said, remembering the name. "She must be your cousin, Nanny?"

"I am aware of that, Miss Nosey...now, do you need the potty again before I dress you?"

"No, Nanny...thank you, Nanny." I replied, as she clearly expected, but I must admit that I was rather curious about her family. No one else had mentioned her Meadvale links, and other than briefly meeting her cousin at church, when I was a nursling, I did not know the Ellesmere's at all. As she dressed me, I decided that I would try to find out more, before my mind turned to the ordeal ahead of me that evening. My first dinner party as a maiden would be a test, I realised as Miss Carpenter helped me into my undergarments. I knew all of the guests, and even more importantly perhaps, they all knew me, but it was rather a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. But as Miss Davenport eased the peach silk gown over my head, I stared at my elegant reflection in the mirror and told myself that I could do it, if I kept my temper and my head, and that a good performance would go a long way towards making my new life better.

"Girls like Arabella and Daphne have been misled by the modern world," Sheila Blackstone suggested, once we were all settled in the drawing room for some pre-dinner drinks. My former mentor was sitting in one of the armchairs, the skirts of her dark green gown billowing around her, sipping a sherry whilst she held court. "And I am afraid that we were equally fooled, as it is our generation who allowed our children to reach for things that no Christian girl should ever desire. That is not a criticism of you, Barry and Elizabeth...or you, Colin and Helen...until we all saw the light, the idea that women should be equal and should have a career had prevalence and made even those of us who lived here seek lives that we were neither made for, or indeed meant for. I am sure you agree, Edwina?"