The Gilded Cage - Accepting My Place

Back to the Future

"Stop making such a fuss, Hermione...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...or so I am told...you won't catch me dead in one of these medieval torture contraptions, but you have to wear one and you will do so without making all this fuss, unless you want to irritate me?" Miss Davenport said happily, smiling broadly as she tugged brutally on the laces of my corset, trying to break my ribs. I was standing in the middle of the nursery wearing just the corset and my clean diaper. My sweet sisters were downstairs with Helen and Annie eating their tea and I was being dressed for dinner with the adults, as I had done well enough during the day to earn my little reward. "Fashions are getting much more severe this year...like everything else around here from what I can see...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, for which I apologise." I replied, respectfully. "My waist is out of practice, which is all my fault...I hope you will help me regain my best shape, Nanny?"

"Oh, you can count on it, Hermione...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. And everyone else.

"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, on her advice," Karen told me as she finally tied the laces off, whilst I tried to breathe. "I will never be doing that again, I promise you!"

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

"I didn't talk about my family at school...although you bored me with your tales of life in middle-class heaven, and your Grammar school adventures when I was babysitting you...but my mother came from a very well-connected family...however, she got out of all that stuff when she was just 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? And my father knows a Mr Ellesmere..."

"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, which was rather strange, as I had met most people in the upper echelons of the first congregation one way or another. 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 real test, I realised as Miss Davenport helped me into my undergarments and I started to disappear beneath my attire. 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 on the first day of my second chance. 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 Hermione have been cruelly misled by the modern world," Sheila Blackstone suggested, once we were all settled down 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, as usual. "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 truly desire, outside of the community. That is not a criticism of you, Barry and Elizabeth...or you, Colin and Helen...until we all saw the light, the notion that women should be equal and should have a career had some prevalence...and made even those of us who lived here seek lives that we were neither made for, or indeed meant for. I had to work after my husband died, and I believe that my occupation is worthy, but I often find it hard to reconcile with my faith...I am sure you agree, Edwina?"