THE CHAPTER KNOWN AS THE SECOND Downstairs things went rather differently for Cinderella. At first she wore the same rough clothes as the rest of the servants, and if she yearned for the finery her stepsisters were given she was careful to say nothing about it. She got little enough to eat, mainly vegetables and lean cuts of meat, and she was often hungry. The other servants made sure she had a fair helping of milk and other things necessary to a growing girl, so she grew straight and strong; but she was usually hungry, and never had a chance to accumulate any fat. As she passed ten and eleven she began to change and to look like her mother; which was a great advantage to any girl, as her mother had been one of the Court’s finest beauties. Her hips remained slim and her stomach flat, but she began to develop signs of that magnificent bust with which her mother had driven grown men to distraction. Her hair grew out straight and soft, very dark, and her eyes were enchanting. The old cobbler watched her growing up, and smiled; and on her twelfth birthday he brought her a present, a bundle wrapped in cloth. "What is it, Godfather?" "Open it and see." Cinderella unwrapped the package. Inside was a strange thing: a garment made of soft brown leather, almost conical in shape, heavily stiffened in one direction with bones ingeniously sewn into a smooth cotton lining. There were two straps, evidently designed to pass over the shoulders, and fastened with ribbon bows so that they could be adjusted. It was slit open up the back, and on either side of the gap holes had been punched into the leather: a sturdy lace zig-zagged back and forth among them, with a knot near the bottom. She turned it over carefully, admiring it, enjoying the way it was stiff in one direction but flexible in the other, its combination of elegant lines and obvious yet subtle strength… "Godfather, it’s lovely! What’s it for?" "This, child, is your very own corset. All ladies wear corsets to give themselves the figures they need. You’ve seen your stepmother’s, surely?" "Yes…I never really knew what it was. But that’s different—it’s not made of leather." "Corsets have to be very strong, Cinderella. Your stepmother can afford the finest work and the highest quality of material. I’m not so fortunate, and the strongest fabric I can get hold of is leather. Besides, that’s what I work for a living. If I’d tried to build it out of something else, you might not be able to trust it. With leather, I know how to make things that are strong enough to stand up to anything and tough enough to last for years. This corset will be standing by you for a long time to come." Cinderella looked at the corset again. It was beautiful, certainly, but…"Godfather, why have you given me a corset?" The old cobbler gave a sigh, and sat down on one of the rough kitchen chairs, looking at her grimly. "Cinderella, you’ve been robbed of the childhood of a lady, which you deserve, by your stepmother’s venom and your father’s foolishness. I can’t give that back to you, but I can give you part of your birthright. A young lady is always corseted from the moment she leaves childhood, night and day if possible, to make sure that her figure develops into the lines that fashion requires. Your two stepsisters are a very good example of how a young lady can grow up if her figure is left to run wild. You may not have fine gowns to wear, but if you put this corset on, lace it tight, and keep it tight all the time except when you have to wash, then your figure will develop in just the way that it should, and you’ll look like a lady for the rest of your life. ‘Manners makyth Man,’ some old philosopher said, but in my opinion Lacing makyth Lady, and as long as your stays are tight you will have the graceful figure and elegant poise of a lady of the court. One day you’ll be as beautiful as your mother, perhaps even more so, and if you’ve kept your figure in mind too, then nobody will compare to you." Cinderella looked back at him in silence for some time, thinking about this. Finally she said "That’s very kind. Thank you." It was a different voice: not the voice of an enthusiastic girl, but the voice of a young lady who had considered the issue and knew it was important. Already she was coming to understand. The old cobbler smiled, wiping his eyes a little, and said "Don’t thank me yet, child—you haven’t even tried it on. Come on, let’s get you laced up." He pulled out the laces down the back of the corset and untied the ribbons that secured the straps; then, after checking that nobody was about, Cinderella took off her outer clothes and slipped into it. She clasped it to her chest and smiled avidly, feeling the rigidity of the bones and busk beneath the leather. Putting on a corset in those days was a very complicated business. Even now, of course, it takes time to do it right, but the design of corsets has changed—for the better, in my opinion. If you ever see Mummy taking her stays off at the end of the day you’ll see that there is a series of hooks down the front of her busk, which she can unfasten once the laces have been slackened to release herself quickly; and in the same way when she dresses in the morning she passes the corset round herself and hooks up the busk again, and then Daddy or the maid tightens her laces. In Cinderella’s time, though, nobody had found a way of fastening a corset which could be opened and closed quickly but was strong enough not to burst open when the laces were pulled really tight; so the laces were the only fastening her new leather corset had. Before Cinderella could get the corset on the cobbler had to loosen the laces a terribly long way, and then of course once she was in it he had a very long way to pull them back in before they began to have any effect. For a long time she just stood there, proud to be a young lady, but wondering what all the fuss was about. Then the corset came close to the size of her own figure, and things started to happen. She became aware of the sturdy fabric surrounding her on all sides, the tough bones that held it stiff pressing into her body. It was a strange sensation, like nothing she’d ever experienced before, slightly frightening, but the more exciting for it. She gasped and gently rubbed her hands down her sides. The cobbler stopped pulling. "Starting to pinch, are they?" he asked. "You want me to give up?" "What? No, no! Tighten me in more, tighten me in more!" He laughed. "That’s what your mother was like—her maid told me about it. Well, now. Breathe in, and we’ll see what we can do for you here." Cinderella did as she was told, taking a deep breath and holding it. The cobbler pulled hard; the new leather of the corset creaked quietly as it grew tighter. From inside there was now no doubt as to what was going on: the corset was determined to keep her under control, to impose its will on her. She had a sudden image of a prison with walls of leather and bars of whalebone, and laughed. "Don’t do that!" the cobbler grunted. "You breathe, you’ll put me off." "I’m sorry." Cinderella took a deep breath again—or as deep a breath as she could manage, for the corset was now beginning to cut into the space she normally used for breathing down at her waist. She held her breath as long as she could while the stays grew tighter, then let it out with a gasp and panted heavily. "How are you doing?" she asked breathlessly. "I think that’s tight enough for now," the cobbler said, and began tying off the laces. "No, no! I can stand it tighter than this! Please!" "Now, don’t be silly. If you lace too tight first time you’ll only get uncomfortable and put yourself off. You take my advice." He finished tying the laces—"There. That won’t slip!"—and then turned Cinderella around to face him. Her budding bosom was heaving steadily above the low neckline of the leather corset; her face was flushed but happy. "Oh, thank you, Godfather! It’s lovely!" "It does suit you," the cobbler said, trying not to look proud. "Now, are you comfortable? Tell the truth, mind," he added, as he saw Cinderella’s mouth open. She thought a bit, came up with an answer, looked him in the eye, revised it, and finally said "Not quite." "Not quite. That’s good. You’re trying to develop your figure, Cinderella, and that means you have to keep demanding more of yourself. If you ever find you’re comfortable in your stays that means they’re too loose and you should lace them tighter." She nodded. "I can remember that." "Mind you, this pair won’t go much tighter—I didn’t realise quite how tight you’d be able to lace when I made them. You’ve obviously quite a talent for this. Just like your mother, again…" he trailed off, and gave a heavy sigh. "Well, I hope you’re pleased with it, anyway." "Oh, I am, Godfather! I did tell you!" "Good. Well, you take care of those stays now. Here’s a spare lace," and he passed her a neatly rolled length of leather cord, many feet long. "Remember to keep working at it—any time you no longer feel your stays are putting pressure on you, that means it’s time to lace them tighter. And today you must lace them tighter still after a couple of hours, because they stretch." "I will. Oh, Godfather, they’re just so lovely!" She pirouetted into the middle of the kitchen, and for all the drabness of her clothes with her full skirt spinning out below her tiny waist she looked almost like a noble young beauty at a ball—like her mother, in fact. The cobbler shook his head at the cruelty of what had happened and rubbed at a tear which was threatening to come out. "They suit you. Now come to me if you need another lace, and of course I’ll alter the corset for you if it ever gets too loose. Good luck, and be beautiful." "I will be, Godfather. I’m going to be the tightest-laced maid in the house!" Chapter One Chapter Three Return to Original Classical Fiction Page
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 07:29:06 +0000