As usual when Martha started to tell me a story I felt myself becoming the person who was the heroine of the tale. I felt myself become Amelie. Unlike my 20th Century self I was a tall, fairly large young woman, dressed in the fashion of the late 1840s with a large skirt held out by multiple stiffened petticoats that were heavy.
I was standing beside my sisters Ruth and Joyce and facing our cousin Edward. Although we call him cousin, the relationship is more distant than that but we have known him since childhood since his family's estate adjoins ours. In our teens, we had had the same tutor. It wasn't that we needed to save money, it is just that our parents felt that one tutor for the four of us might make us apply ourselves to our studies more. It had. If women had been accepted, we three sisters could have followed Edward to university.
"Please, Edward," I was saying, "We need the family coach. The landau won't do."
"But the coach is so large and clumsy, Amelie," Edward replied, "It will take longer to get to the town and back."
"But our shopping won't fit in the landau and it might rain. We don't want our purchases to get wet."
"The landau has a hood that could be raised," Edward objected.
"But not enough space, particularly when the hood is up. Please Edward?"
"Very well, Amelie, if you must. But you'll owe me..."
He got the first repayment immediately. I hugged and kissed him. He was slightly started and even more so when Ruth and Joyce followed me.
I knew we were asking a lot of Edward. Our family coach is large and heavy. It is very comfortable on a long journey and could hold eight people inside. But it needed four horses to pull it, unlike the landau that would hold four and have two horses.
Our coachman had recently been kicked by a horse and was hobbling around with a stick. The young ostler had never driven four horses. But Edward frequently drove four. He was very proud of his high-perch phaeton with four matching greys. By comparison, the family coach might be a farm cart.
After lunch, the coachman and ostler had harnessed the coach and it was outside our portico. Edward got up on the box as we sisters clambered inside, awkwardly because of our large skirts held out by so many petticoats. We spread ourselves inside as Edward set off. The journey was slow but we felt comfortable and cosseted. Although the outside temperature was low, with the windows shut and rugs over our knees we were warm. After about an hour we drew up outside the town's large drapery store. Edward walked the horses as we made our purchases, two brand new steel framed crinolines each. We had been told about them by one of our friends in London who was very enthusiastic about the lightness compared with all the petticoats previously needed.
We were right. We could not have fitted them in the landau with the three of us. Soon Edward was driving us back home. I felt slightly guilty as the rain started to fall. Edward was outside on the box. Yes, he had his many-caped coat on with a broad hat, and he would still have been in the rain if we had come by landau, but with the coach, he would have to endure the rain for far longer.
When we arrived back at the family home, sheltered by the portico, we three got out and our personal maids brought the crinolines inside. Edward climbed down from the box.
"Amelie, where did your family get those horses? They are slugs."
"They may be," I retorted, "but they are strong, placid, and can go for twenty or twenty-five miles a day for a week. They are ideal for taking my grandparents to London."
Edward snorted.
"Grandparents! Yes, the coach is about as old and old-fashioned as them. Driving it was so slow..."
"I know you like driving fast, Edward, and racing, but we needed the coach, and you. Thank you."
"And for those new-fangled contraptions? What use are they?"
"I'll show you tonight, after dinner," I said.
"I can't see what's different," Edward said.
"You will. Edward, you will."
Edward went off to shed his wet coat.
+++
We three sisters went upstairs to change into a new crinoline each. They change was astounding. We wore a single petticoat over the frame and then our skirts. We had so much freedom of movement compared with the multiple petticoats that had impeded our legs before. We plotted together to show Edward this evening just how restrictive our petticoats had been. We got our maids to take all our discarded petticoats and the ones we would wear when the ones we had been wearing today would be in the wash, into the second guest bedroom. They put them o the four-poster bed and drew the curtains to hide them. I went to our family's seamstress bearing an antique slip and asked her to make some quick modifications. When she finished, she added it to the top of the heap.
The three of us went out into the gardens and enjoyed running around, perhaps showing more ankle than we should, but just enjoying being able to actually run. That had been impossible before. Our crinolines bounced and swung around us like balloons. There wasn't much of a wind but it was enough to show us we would have to be careful in a strong wind. If the wind got under the crinoline we would show far more than a fashionable young lady should.
+++
After dinner, I persuaded Edward to join us in the second guest bedroom for an explanation of the advantages of a crinoline frame. He was intrigued but reluctant until we made it clear it would be with all three of us, not just me. I think he was already beginning to see that we could move much more freely than we had but he still wasn't convinced that a crinoline frame was worth his effort in driving us into town.
