Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Mike learns how to dress as a fashionable lady of the Regency period.

Chapter Three – Dressing Mrs Bennet

Eventually our script began to take shape. Jack was finding his feet as Director and coming up with lots of good ideas for how the complicated first scene should go. I would be at the centre of it, trying to persuade my husband to call on his new neighbour, while at the same time being harangued by Lydia and Kitty over the latter’s bonnet. Our next scene would be Wickham trying to seduce Lizzy, and the last one would be Jane and Elizabeth’s discussion of love and marriage. And… scene. We were still well over ten minutes, though.

By now no one was laughing at my increasingly authentic feminine performance. My confidence levels rose, though it still felt weird to be mincing around the rehearsal room in T-shirt and jeans, while pretending to be a middle-aged mother of five.

On the second-to-last Saturday before the show, with a fortnight to go till the big day, we were all summoned to be fitted for our costumes. For most of us this was a welcome interruption in our revision for the end-of-term exams, though like everyone else I took my lecture notes with me to do more cramming whenever I wasn’t involved in costume fitting.

The college’s arrangement was actually with a professional costuming organisation which also worked with the National Theatre, so all twelve of us trooped down to their headquarters that morning. I had to go with the ladies of course, but the girls weren’t keen for me to be present while they were stripping off, so I was confined to a side room by myself. That meant I had the benefit of my own personal dresser. This turned out to be a jolly lady called Sheila Brown. She was casually dressed in a pink jumper and black nylon slacks.

“So you’re Mike, are you?” she said, not giving me time to answer. “And you’re playing Mrs Bennet? This will be fun! Stand very still, please. Hands on your hips.”

She walked around me appraisingly, tutting frequently.

“The main problem is that you’re the wrong shape, of course, so our first job will be to correct that using whatever modern methods we can. Only then can we fit you out with authentic Regency clothes.”

I didn’t know whether she was expecting me to comment on her headlong rush of verbiage, but the question was academic as she continued quickly before I could draw breath.

“So I’ve got some lovely shapewear for you to start with.”

She looked at me as though she was expecting something to happen. Not knowing what she meant by ‘shapewear’ I hadn’t budged.

“Come on then! Strip off.” I hesitated. “No time to be bashful, dear, and don’t worry. I’ve seen it all before.”

No doubt she had. But not mine. I sighed inwardly and started undoing my jeans. When I was down to just my underpants, she handed me a fearsome-looking one-piece garment. It was surprisingly heavy.

“Now you’re not only middle-aged, you’ve also had five children. They started young in those days, so you’re probably not much more than forty, but I think we can assume that you’re at least plump, if not actually obese. That’s good because you’ll need wide hips and a big bust to draw attention away from your masculine waist and shoulders. I’ve already padded this body-shaper out to what I think you’ll need.”

I was still hesitating to remove my last item of clothing.

“Come on, dear, pants down!”

I turned my back to her, dropped my Y-fronts, and stepped into the thing she had called a body-shaper. We had all been asked for our vital statistics a couple of weeks earlier (Holly and I had quite enjoyed taking each other’s most intimate measurements), so Sheila had been able to make sure this strange garment fitted me closely. It was stretchy but tight everywhere, and it was a major challenge to pull its grossly swollen thighs and abdomen over my legs and hips up to my waist, which now sported a little round feminine pot belly.

After much struggling and wriggling, and a lot of help from Sheila, I got the thing high enough up to enable me to thrust my arms through the shoulder straps, at which point it was clear that the wobbly pseudo-flesh around my lower portions was as nothing compared to the great globes now hanging on my chest. The ‘body’ was very low-cut, exposing my new boobs scandalously. It came down to my knees where it ended in lacy cuffs. At least, I think it did. I could see nothing below my new bust, certainly not my feet, and not even the floor.

There was a mirror on the other side of the room behind a rack of female costumes, but I was too far away to see myself. Nevertheless I suspected I now had the breasts, hips and bottom of a middle-aged woman. It certainly felt like that, just going by the weight of my newly-acquired flesh.

“Yes, yes, that looks very good,” Sheila said.

I stretched my neck round to look over my shoulder, and sure enough, I could see my new backside all too clearly. I wasn’t used to being able to do that, at least not without a mirror.

“Are you sure?” I said. “Don’t you think you might have overdone it a little? It feels like I’m sticking out a mile – both in front…” I indicated my massive chest. “…and behind.”

“You’re exaggerating. Your new figure is very realistic,” said Sheila tartly. She clearly wasn’t used to having her work criticised by mere drama students. “You’re a curvy size 16, 38DD-33-40. Totally average nowadays for a woman your age, especially one who’s had five children. I agree that women are bigger today…”

She paused, as if daring me to say something unflattering about her figure, which was certainly not ‘petite’. I didn’t dare.

While she was talking I took a few experimental steps. The first thing I noticed was the additional weight I now had to carry around. This would be quite tiring. Also, with every move some part of my new anatomy wobbled, jiggled, or vibrated. My inflated bottom was going up and down in an unfamiliar and alarming way, and although I couldn’t actually feel anything, I could tell that my expanded thighs were rubbing together. I was also aware of expansion going on in my personal groinal area, for some reason. Thankfully, it just looked like more surplus flesh between my pot belly and tree-trunk thighs, and it soon subsided, there being no immediate prospects of relief.

My God, how could anyone live in a body that wobbled and jiggled like this? I suppose you can get used to anything if you have no choice. I was just thankful that for me it would all be temporary.

I was aware that Sheila had fallen silent and was watching me with a sardonic look on her face, as though she knew what I was thinking.

She resumed her lecture.

“…In fact, even in 1950 the average woman was only a size 12, and in Regency times, they would have been even smaller...”

“OK, OK,” I said, hoping to interrupt her flow. I was studying English, not History. “What’s this thing made of anyway? Is it Lycra?”

“Spandex,” she said. “Lycra is a brand name.”

“What about the padding? It seems very heavy.”

“Ah, now that’s actually interesting,” she said. “It’s another quite different artificial material, a supple plastic that replicates soft tissue. I get it from an old friend of mine. She’s never told me what it’s made from, but she buys it from a German company who are big in making prosthetic limbs using 3D printing or something. I use the stuff a lot. Everything else I tried was lumpy and didn’t move realistically. This stuff is easy to shape and it behaves just like real flesh. What’s more, it’s exactly the right weight, so you’re getting the full experience of carrying around an extra thirty pounds of fat.”

“Oh, good,” I said. I intended it ironically but Sheila didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve got a spare ‘body’ for you here, because you’ll probably sweat a lot when you’re fully dressed, so you’ll need more than one.”

“I thought ladies ‘perspired’?” I said.

“Horses sweat; men perspire; ladies ‘glow’,” she corrected me with a smile. “Anyway, you should probably only wear each ‘body’ once before washing it. They’re machine washable.”

She walked around me again, poking, prodding and adjusting.

Apparently satisfied, she continued, “OK, so now that you’re the right shape underneath, we can start on your actual costume. Stockings and shoes first.”

She was rummaging in a chest of drawers and pulled out a pair of thin white hose.

“Regency ladies wore cotton or silk stockings, held up by garters,” she said. “These are nylon, of course – more comfortable than cotton and much cheaper than silk – but they’re indistinguishable from the real thing from a distance, and they’re nearly opaque so you won’t need to shave your legs. Not that the audience will see more than the occasional flash of your ankles. These should reach up to above your knees, just short of the bottom of your body-shaper. They have elastic tops to keep them up, so you shouldn’t need to mess about with garters.”

I took one stocking from her and tried to pull it up my left leg. I struggled at first as I couldn’t see what I was doing below my humongous bust.

“It’s like getting dressed in the dark,” I said. “I have to do it all by feel.”

“Welcome to the world of large-breasted ladies,” Sheila said with scant sympathy.

Somewhat to my surprise, the top of the stocking seemed to stay up quite securely over my knee. I repeated the exercise with my right leg.

Sheila now produced a pair of soft leather slippers. “These should fit,” she said. “You wear nines, don’t you? They’re ladies’ slippers, specially made in men’s sizes.”

“Not high heels then? Thank God for that.”

“No, Regency women only ever wore high heels for dancing, and fairly low ones by modern standards even then. Their indoor everyday shoes were like modern ballet slippers without points. They were made from kid leather, satin, or velvet.”

I slipped them on. They were very comfortable.

“Good,” Sheila said. “Underwear next.”

She went over to the rack on which were hanging some of the frilliest, laciest garments I had ever seen.

“I don’t actually have to wear a corset, do I?” I whined. “Not with this ‘body’ thing you’ve already got me in?”

“Of course you do – that’s one reason why we put your shoes and stockings on first, because you’ll find it more difficult to bend when you’re in your corset.” She grinned. “But actually you’re lucky,” she said.

I couldn’t see how that could be. She explained.

“In the Regency period fashion designers were obsessed with presenting the natural female form. It was called the Vertical Epoch. They liked simple column dresses with minimal flouncing; no hoops; and one simple petticoat, except maybe for formal occasions like balls. The waist of the gown would be just below your bust and the skirt would hang free from there. They threw out the whalebone stays of Georgian times, and those didn’t come back till the Victorian era.”

“Thank heavens for small mercies,” I said.

“But you still need a corset…” I groaned. “…Because bras didn’t come in until the twentieth century. ‘Stays’ and ‘corsets’ are quite different, by the way. Regency corsets were softer. They were for controlling the figure under casual wear, or for pushing the bosom up into an attention-grabbing shelf for formal occasions – much like a modern push-up bra. But your scene is set within Longbourn during the morning, isn’t it?” I nodded. “So you won’t need anything that puts Mrs Bennet’s luscious assets on display. You just need something supportive – like this.”

She indicated a dirty-brown cotton contraption on a plaster bust in the shape of a woman’s torso. The material was quilted and formed an attractive, feminine hourglass shape. There seemed to be a lot of straps, tapes and laces.

“It’s a modern replica, of course,” Sheila said, “not authentic. This one was made to fit size 16. Come on, let’s get it on you. Lift your hands above your head.”

She took the corset off the plaster bust and started wrapping it around me.

“You should be wearing a shift next to the skin and beneath your corset,” she said, as she started pulling on the laces, “but that would be one layer too many on top of your ‘body’. You’d be sweating buckets. You won’t need drawers either, for the same reason.”

“Oh? I expected to be wearing bloomers or something.”

“No. Nobody’s really sure, but most authorities agree that Regency women rarely wore drawers anyway. They were considered racy.”

The corset was beginning to feel tight. She put her knee up against my back and pulled the laces even tighter.

“You realise that I don’t actually need my breasts to be supported?” I said, panting a little. “I’m sure they’ll stay all perky by themselves… Hey, this is getting very tight! I do have to able to breathe!”

“Oh hush,” she said. “I’ve hardly started. In any case, it’s not you the corset’s squeezing; it’s only your plastic padding.”

I was about to point out that the said padding was then squeezing me inside it, but she did stop soon after that, which was just as well. She tied off the laces. The corset concealed the body shaper around the bust area. Presumably my dress would finish the job, concealing the body’s shoulder straps.

I tried moving a little. I quickly realised I could barely bend at the waist at all. Worse – I could hardly breathe.

“You need to learn how a lady breathes when wearing a corset,” Sheila said. “Take shallow breaths, but more frequently. It’s perfectly safe, but it does take a little getting used to.”

I tried to follow her advice. It was manageable – just.

She explained further. “When you’re fully laced up, the lower portion of your lungs is compressed, so you need to get used to breathing with just the top part. You don’t actually need your full lung capacity unless you’re taking vigorous exercise. You’ve heard of a woman’s ‘bosom heaving’?”

I nodded. What healthy male hasn’t? It was one of nature’s greatest vistas.

“Well, that’s where it comes from - opening out of the upper torso to make space for the top part of the lungs to expand and fill with air.”

I took a few more practice breaths, concentrating on just using the upper portion of my lungs. My bosom heaved – it was quite sexy actually – but it seemed to work. At least, I wasn’t suffocating.

“I’ll need help to get out of this lot, won’t I?” I panted.

“That’s what lady’s maids are for,” Sheila said indifferently. “Again, you’re lucky. Your fellow actresses will help each other, but because you’re a ‘special case’, I’ll probably have to do everything for you. You’ll be doing just two shows on the same day, I understand? A matinee and an evening performance?”

I nodded. She was reaching for another feminine undergarment from the rack.

“This is your petticoat. You put it on over your head and slip your arms through the shoulder straps. There’s a drawstring to tighten it up under your bust.”

I did my best with all that but I still needed Sheila to play lady’s maid. She pulled down the petticoat and straightened it out. It reached almost to the floor. She stood back to assess the fit.

“That will work, I think. Now I want to try a few outer dresses on you.”

“This all seems like a lot of unnecessary clobber,” I grumbled. “Can’t I do without a petticoat?”

“No, sorry. All the dresses are too thin,” she said. “From the turn of the eighteenth-century lighter materials were used for gowns, mainly muslin or silk. With the new column dresses a petticoat was essential. Otherwise the thin fabric would stick to you, and get tangled between your legs. The petticoat was usually made of stiffer cotton and served both to keep you warm – there was no central heating, remember – and to stop your outer dress from clinging.”

Despite myself I was finding her specialist knowledge interesting. She must have taken my polite attention for enthusiasm and happily rambled on.

“Of course, we don’t use silk or muslin for our costumes today – much too expensive. All these dresses are made from modern synthetic fibres – rayon, mostly. You need petticoats with them too, for much the same reasons, and because rayon can irritate the skin.”

She chose a frilly white dress from the rack. “Now – hands up high again.”

She dropped the flimsy-looking garment over my head. I worked my arms through the sleeves, while she pulled the skirt down over my petticoat. This was the most feminine thing I’d ever seen. I felt stirrings down below again but my body-shaper was too tight to permit much growth. I hoped any swelling was concealed by the bulk of my dress and petticoat. Sheila didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss.

“Most pictures you see of day dresses of the time have short sleeves,” she said, “but long sleeves were common enough for married women, and we can’t have you showing your hairy, virile arms, can we? Actually, yours aren’t too muscly, are they?” She chuckled – meanly, I thought. “You won’t want to shave them though, will you?”

I didn’t know which of her questions to answer, if any, so I just nodded. She didn’t seem to need a reply anyway.

“The bodice is closed with three buttons at the back,” she said, going round behind me to fasten them.

“That all looks pretty good,” she said, standing back to assess my ensemble. “There’s just a few more things you need.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Well, we have to think about accessories – jewellery, hats, gloves, handbags, a shawl, an outside coat…”

She gave me a pair of white lace gloves in a man’s size.

“These feel like… nylon?”

“Yes, all of the cast’s gloves will be made from modern materials. Authentic Regency period gloves are rare now. They were made of animal skins, silk or linen – all much too expensive or politically incorrect to use for reproductions today. In Regency times everyone wore gloves most of the time, and always when they were outside. It was considered poor breeding to be seen without gloves and very bad form for a gentleman to touch a lady without his gloves on. About the only time ladies didn’t wear gloves was while eating.”

I put the silly, delicate things on. I was afraid I would tear them if I wasn’t careful, but they completed my picture of femininity.

“Now jewellery…” She opened a little case on her table and took out a few sparkly items. “I think we can dispense with earrings,” she began. “Obviously you don’t have pierced ears and clip-ons would be uncomfortable and distracting. But I think you should have a simple necklace and definitely a wedding ring and an engagement ring. As I said, in the Regency period the trend was toward ‘simple and elegant’, and that applied to jewellery as much as to clothing. Big flashy jewels were right out of fashion.”

She showed me a little crucifix on a simple chain. She put it round my neck and went behind me to fasten its clasp.

“In fact, if you look at Regency era portraits of women, very few of them are wearing earrings or even necklaces.”

She held out two simple rings. I looked dubiously at them. One was plain; the other had a small white gemstone.

“They should fit. They’re the biggest I could find, but you don’t have huge fingers anyway. They both go on the third finger of your left hand, the plain wedding ring first.”

I took my gloves off again, then with a little wiggling I managed to get both rings past my knuckle. I just hoped I could get them off as easily. They were clearly visible through the lacy netting of my glove, but I doubted anyone would see them from the audience.

“Now, about coats and hats: I’ve read the script,” Sheila continued. “It’s pretty good. Your work, isn’t it? I mean, you’re the Script Editor?”

I nodded. In fact, I could take the credit with a clear conscience. Everybody had approved my efforts but no one else had actually contributed anything. That had meant that I could limit my own involvement to a few minutes at the beginning of the scene.

“It begins with you – Mrs Bennet – entering with news for your husband,” Sheila continued. “That implies that you’re coming in from visiting a neighbour or something. But you have to start talking as soon as you enter, so you don’t want the hassle of taking a coat off, or faffing around with a bonnet.”

“God, no,” I agreed. “I’ll find it hard enough just to deliver my lines and remember where to stand while I’m wearing all this stuff. I couldn’t handle anything more.”

“Right, but I think we’ll give you a shawl. You can whip it off and drop it on a chair or something as you enter. That will suggest to the audience that you’ve been out of the house. You’ll need a cap too. Married women, widows, and old maids usually wore caps of lace or muslin at home. Apparently, Jane Austen started wearing one at twenty-three. She never married, of course. Very sad. But then if she had, maybe we wouldn’t have her wonderful novels.”

Sheila was obviously an Austen fan. So was I.

“Anyway, I have a couple of caps that will work well with your dress,” she went on. “You can try one now, but we might need something different when you have your wig on. That won’t be till the dress rehearsal on Friday week, I believe. My friend, Esther Routledge, will be joining us to do hair and makeup.”

So saying, she produced an absurd lace confection and reached up to put it on my head. It was smaller and lighter than a bonnet, but more substantial than a headband. I couldn’t imagine what practical purpose it could serve. It was ridiculously frilly and feminine. Sheila pulled a pair of ribbons down from the sides and tied them in a big bow under my chin.

“Hopefully, this will conceal your Adam’s apple too,” she said.

She went back to the rack and fetched a pretty shawl, which she put round my shoulders. She stood back to assess the complete ensemble. I posed nervously.

“Would you like to see how you look?” She indicated the mirror over by the wall. “Remember to take hold of your skirt with both hands as you move. You need to lift it up to avoid tripping over it or dragging the hem over a dirty surface.”

I grasped the material as instructed. She led me over to the mirror without waiting for a reply.

“Little steps,” she said.

I had been practising walking like a lady in our rehearsals, but apparently I needed to restrict my stride even more. The girdle, petticoat and dress combined to prevent me from taking long, masculine steps, even if I were so inclined.

We reached the mirror. With everything I’d been through that morning, and all of Sheila’s lectures on Regency ladies’ fashions, I should have been more prepared for what I saw, but my appearance still came as a major shock.

As long as I could ignore the familiar face peeking out from under the lacy cap, the figure before me was an undeniably female, emphatically female, person in a pretty white gown. The dress had a subtle floral pattern and copious frills of something like chiffon at the neck and cuffs.

I turned to view my profile. The woman in the mirror was plump and matronly but with a pronounced hourglass figure. She had big boobs and a big backside (both of which I was only too well aware of) and a narrower waist, high up beneath her generous bosom. But I had to admit that Sheila had been right. My Mrs Bennet was overweight certainly, but not excessively so. You see plenty of modern women – and men – who are much worse.

“That will do nicely, don’t you think?” said Sheila with a self-satisfied smirk. “It’s just a pity that we’re not doing your wig and makeup at the same time. Then you could see the entire picture.”

“Yes, I guess it will do,” I said hoarsely. “Th-thank you.”

I still couldn’t believe what I was looking at. How could this ridiculous outfit so completely obscure my masculinity? The lace cap even hid the fact that my hair wasn’t as long as a woman’s. And I had to admit that my face was sufficiently androgynous that it didn’t clash with the outfit or give away my actual gender. The only fault I could find with the image of the lady in the mirror was that she didn’t look forty, just an overweight twenty-something. MacNair and Holly had been right. As long as I kept my voice up in the lower contralto range – which I had become quite good at now – no one was going to suspect that Mrs Bennet was being played by a man.

“That is my favourite dress,” Sheila said, interrupting my stupor, “but we should try some other colours on you.”

We went back and tried three more dresses in different shades and designs, but we both agreed her first choice was the best.

I was just glad that my one scene didn’t require any changes of costume. This lot was quite bad enough.

Sheila helped me put the first dress back on, as we were going to do some rehearsing that morning. At that point, with perfect timing, Holly and a couple of the other girls burst in. They were gorgeous in their Regency dresses with short sleeves, high busts, and proud cleavage.

They were impatient to see how ‘Mrs Bennet’ was turning out. I thought about hiding behind Sheila, but I knew they were going to see me eventually. Let them get their mockery over with now, then we can concentrate on the show.

But when they saw me properly no one was laughing – gasping, but not laughing.

There was an awkward silence. I fiddled nervously with the collar of my gown.

“And you thought you were going to the leading lady, Holly!” said Sam.

Holly was strangely silent.

Next: The Leading Lady