Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Two – Adaptation, Literary and Otherwise

Mike prepares for the role of a lifetime, but his classmates are all laughing at him, especially his girlfriend.

“Think of it as a challenge, Mike,” MacNair said blithely in response to my objections. “You showed you understood your character’s nature and motivation better than anyone else, so I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”

“But I’m a man!”

“Of course you are. So what? You want to be an actor, don’t you? That’s all about pretending to be someone else.”

But I didn’t really. I was there to study English. It was Holly who wanted to act; I was just along for the ride.

“But Mrs Bennet isn’t supposed to be a… a… a Pantomime Dame!” I spluttered.

“No, but there are plenty of examples of male actors playing middle-aged women in serious shows: Mrs Doubtfire; Miss Hannigan in Annie; Edna Turnblad in Hairspray; Miss Fritton in St Trinians. Lots of men have played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; and what about Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot?”

“Those are all comic parts.”

“So is Mrs Bennet, basically. I really don’t see the problem.”

“But Pride and Prejudice is a straight drama. It will throw the whole piece out of balance in the family scenes to have a drag queen mother!”

“So don’t be a drag queen!” he said, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice. “Look, you’re medium height and slim. Your features aren’t excessively masculine…” (At least he resisted calling me ‘baby-faced’.) “You have a flexible tenor voice. You could easily pull off a contralto. With a good wig and makeup, and in Regency dress, you will be quite convincing. Think of it as a challenge to your acting ability.”

I could see I wasn’t going to talk him out of this.

* * *

MacNair’s brief for my group was ‘to use selected material from the early chapters of the book to introduce the Bennet family, their (relevant) background, and their characters’. The scene would involve four of the five girls (Mary would be next door playing the piano), their parents, Mr Wickham, and the maid, Hill. So the eight of us duly assembled in one of the smaller seminar rooms at nine o’clock the next morning to make a start, which was delayed while the girls took the opportunity to laugh at me. Sad to say, the mockery was led by my own girlfriend.

“I can’t wait to see what you look like in your dress, Mama!” Holly said, chortling.

“Yes, Mama,” added Samantha. “You realise you’ll have to wear a corset!”

“Are you looking to win the ‘Best Actor’ or ‘Best Actress’ prize, Mama?” said Diane, who had had to settle for Kitty. Until then I had always liked Diane Simms, a quiet friendly little girl.

Douglas was smirking, enjoying my discomfiture. He had tried it on with Holly a couple of times, unsuccessfully.

“I see you girls are practising being ‘silly and immature’,” I replied sulkily. “I think you’ve got it down pat.”

Jack Bryce snorted, swallowing a laugh. He was the only other man in the room. We had always got on. He would be playing Mr Bennet, my husband (for God’s sake).

“Can we get on with this, please?” he said. “And let’s try and be grown-up about Dr MacNair’s strange ideas of casting, shall we?”

Sam and Diane looked suitably chastened. Holly just bristled.

“Well, I thought my boyfriend had a better sense of humour…” she began.

“And I’m certainly going to need it, aren’t I?” I shot back.

“It’s a good thing you’re not big and brawny like Jack and Douglas,” Holly said viciously. “You’ll probably make a very convincing middle-aged woman when you’ve got your corset and bloomers on.”

Where was this coming from? Had I done something to offend her?

“Thanks,” I said. “As if my self-confidence hasn’t already taken enough knocks today.”

“Sorry, Mike,” said Sam.

“Yeah, we didn’t mean to be hurtful,” added Diane. “It was just a bit of fun.”

I looked at Holly, hoping but not expecting an apology from her. None came, of course.

“Last time I help you get a leading part,” I said, quietly.

The others looked puzzled, as well they might. Jack cleared his throat in the hope of defusing the tension. It didn’t.

“Let’s try and work together as a team, huh?” he said. “Now does anyone have any thoughts about who should be our Director and Script Editor?”

“I think Mike should look after the script,” said Amy. “He’s really got a way with words.”

She had been landed with the lousy part of Hill, the housemaid, though she would be doubling up as Lady Catherine with one of the other groups. We could assume that Hill and Her Ladyship were about the same age, so Amy would be made up to look older – like me and Jack.

“But all the words will be Jane Austen’s,” Douglas objected.

“I second the motion,” said Jack, ignoring him. “Mike for Script Editor. “Any other candidates?” Nobody spoke. “Congratulations, Mike,” he said.

“Just don’t write a bigger part for yourself than is in the book, Mrs Bennet,” said Holly.

I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be welcome in her bed tonight.

“I suggest you’re the obvious nominee for Director, Jack,” I said, just in case someone suggested Holly or Douglas.

“I agree,” said both Samantha and Diane, almost simultaneously. Nobody demurred.

“OK, I accept,” said Jack. “Does our Script Editor have any ideas about what we should try and get into the scene?”

“I do, actually,” I said, thumbing through my copy of the book to find the passages I had marked. “We need to pack as much background exposition into ten minutes as we can, to present the characters and set the whole story up properly. Bingley and Darcy appear early on in the book, talking about renting Netherfield. But it’s very short and not really important. Anyway, we can’t use them; MacNair hasn’t put Derek and Rob in our group. The key scene is Mrs Bennet telling her husband about Bingley’s arrival. It actually happens outside the church in the book, but there’s no reason why we can’t do it all at Longbourn. I think we can set our scene in the house and involve just the Bennet family. Also we can mix Kitty and Lydia’s squabble about the bonnet into the same scene. That will show the audience something about them too.”

“That sounds good,” said Jack. “I remember Dr MacNair talked about how much fiddling with the locations and the sequence of events you can get away with, and he said that when you’re adapting a book for the stage, you often have to join scenes together, change settings, and so on. We have to use our judgement.”

“I remember him saying that too,” said Hilary Dunn, who was playing Jane.

I was aware of Holly looking daggers at me, as so far I hadn’t given her character anything to say or do. She shouldn’t really be grumbling as she was in all three of the ten-minute pieces. She and Hilary would be going straight from this session to that of the Netherfield group at eleven. We would need to coordinate with their plans, but I thought their first scene should come immediately after our first.

“Then for our second scene we should do Lizzy and Wickham’s conversation at the Phillips’ whist party,” I continued, “when Wickham bad-mouths Darcy and starts off Lizzy’s prejudice against him. Finally, it would be good if we can include some of Jane and Lizzy’s dialogue from elsewhere in the book to show how they are more mature and sensible than their younger sisters.”

Holly was mollified, at least partly. She knew her part would be much bigger in our other scenes.

Jack was looking worried. “I can’t see us fitting all that into ten minutes,” he said. “We’ll have to shift between the pieces very quickly.”

“Well, it was only some ideas to get us going,” I said. “Why don’t we start with that lot, then decide what to cut when we see how long it runs?”

“Maybe MacNair will let us do fifteen minutes,” Amy said. “He sounded like he’d be flexible.”

Everyone agreed, so we all opened our copies of the book and started looking at it together in detail.

* * *

The first planning session went well. We went through several scenes in the book together and agreed the rough shape of our time and what would be in and out. I slipped away quietly at the end and didn’t wait to talk to Holly. I went back to the flat to pick up some dirty washing and a few other things, then to my bedsit on campus. After our petulant and public disagreement, I thought it might be a good idea for us to spend a little time apart.

I only went to my small, poky room occasionally to get clean clothes and pick up any snail mail, so I hadn’t been there for a few days. I put a wash on in the launderette in the basement and settled down with my copy of Pride and Prejudice and my laptop to try and write up what we had worked on that day.

It wasn’t hard to envisage the Bennet family dynamic: the younger girls arguing; Mrs Bennet haranguing her husband to get him to meet Mr Bingley; the older girls watching the goings-on with amusement; Wickham attempting to charm Lizzy. There was a good scene between Jane and Elizabeth where they talked about marrying for love or money…

What I struggled to do was see myself as the frantic family matriarch. My imagination just wasn’t up to it. I was sure I was going to make a fool of myself.

The accommodation block’s laundry room was hot and sweaty. There were four washing machines and the same number of tumble dryers, but I was the only person using them today. My wash in the machine’s little window rotated scornfully, reminding me that soon I would be forced to wear some very different clothes…

Then Holly burst into the room.

“So there you are!” she said, in a tone that suggested she had caught me hiding from her, which I suppose I had. “In the basement, sulking! Bit of a cliché, isn’t it?”

“I had things to do,” I said, pointing at the washing machine.

“Well, you might have told me where you were going.” She stood angrily between me and my washing, her hands on her hips. “I’ve been looking for you for hours!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? Because I assumed we’d be spending the rest of the day together. We’ve got a zillion things to talk about! Planning our weekend. How we think the show is going. The Summer Ball. And we haven’t decided how we’re spending the Long Vac yet…”

Talk about a ‘butterfly mind’…

“I thought you were upset with me…”

“What made you think that?”

“Because I was upset with you!” Honestly, could the woman really be that insensitive?

“Well, really, if you can’t take a little leg-pulling…”

“You said I was small and weedy and effeminate!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did! You said it was a good thing I wasn’t tall and strong like Jack and bloody Douglas Miller, as I would make a good middle-aged woman. You certainly didn’t mean that as a compliment! Perhaps you should go and be with Jack or bloody Douglas Miller.”

“Is that what you want?”

Of course, I didn’t. But to say that would be me apologising to her, when it should have been the other way around.

“Is that what you want?” I said.

It felt like a yawning chasm was opening up in front of my feet, and Holly was on the other side of it. There was silence. She slumped down in a chair beside me.

“Of course it isn’t, you damn fool. You’re the best thing in my life. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only good thing.”

What the hell did she mean by that? I thought she was happy at home. Having been there many times since our schooldays I knew her parents well; they were good people. Still, I felt the abyss starting to close up. I might be on slightly firmer ground…

“Well, I could have done with a little support today. You know I’m going to be terrible in this show; Mrs Bennet is an awful part, and I’m going to make a complete fool of myself, and everyone’s going to laugh at me for all the wrong reasons…”

“None of that has to happen,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I was so nasty to you today. It was meant to be banter, but I accept that I got carried away. I never expected you to be so sensitive about it.”

She couldn’t apologise without making it half my fault, of course.

“I’m going to tell MacNair that I can’t do it,” I said.

“No, you’re not! Mrs Bennet is a great part. You’re going to do it; I’m going to help you; and you’re going to be brilliant, and win Best Actor, or maybe Best Actress…”

She had always been able to render me speechless. This was just one more time.

“Now,” she said, brightly, “what should we do for lunch? I’m starving.”

* * *

And she did help. In fact, I would have been lost without her. We watched all the TV and film dramatisations we could find, and decided to try and pitch my performance somewhere between Alison Steadman’s over-the-top vulgarity and stupidity, and Brenda Blethyn’s desperation and helplessness.

We went through all my lines together to help me find Mrs Bennet’s voice. I had to learn not just the words but the pitch and intonation, phrase by phrase. I had to use the top of my range without squeaking in falsetto. It was a constant challenge. When trying to vary the tone for different emotions, it was all too easy to let my voice drop down to masculine levels. Eventually I was managing to strike the right tone for a hysterical, not very bright, middle-aged lady of the Regency period.

But the really hard part was movement. I had to learn to take smaller steps and walk on tiptoe with my elbows cocked and my wrists limp. I had to get my hips and butt swinging from side to side. When I lost concentration I would regress into taking masculine strides with my arms swinging like a squaddie on parade. What made it even more difficult was that I dreaded being caught walking like a woman when I was supposed to be Mike.

Holly was reassuring. “It will all be much easier when you get the costume on,” she said. “In a corset and long flowing skirts you will have to move as an older woman. You won’t have a choice.”

“Terrific!”

Next: Dressing Mrs Bennet

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

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Mike, now a forty-year-old mother of five, starts to inhabit his new role.

Chapter Four – The Leading Lady

We stayed in costume for the rest of the morning. We used one of our hosts’ larger rooms as an impromptu rehearsal studio, running through our lines and moves. By now we were all familiar with the stage set that would represent the Longbourn family room, so we arranged the available tables and chairs as best we could to match the layout. Jack, Derek and Douglas did most of the heavy lifting. I tried to help but my corset, petticoat and skirts made me useless at moving furniture.

“Sit down, Mama!” Holly said scathingly. “We ladies must leave the heavy lifting to the gentlemen. In any case you can’t lift a sideboard at your age.”

“And figure,” added Sam, with a chortle.

“That’s not funny,” I said, reprovingly.

“What?” asked Holly, a picture of innocence. “I’m just trying to help you get in character.”

“Absolutely,” said Sam. “Roll with it, Mama.”

I wondered if their teasing would ever end, but Holly had been quite right about one thing: it was much easier to move convincingly as Mrs Bennet when fully dressed as a middle-aged woman of the 1800s. In fact, in a corset and long flowing skirts it was next to impossible not to.

As Mike, I was an active twenty-year-old. I played squash and ran the occasional (OK, very occasional) half-marathon. As Mrs Bennet, I was trussed up so I could hardly move; I couldn’t see anything below eye level because of my huge bosom; and I was sweeping small objects off tables as I passed, misjudging the extra space required for my skirts and enormous backside. Even sitting down was problematic. My big padded buttocks meant I was never absolutely sure when I had made contact with a seat, and I couldn’t afford to lower myself into a comfy armchair, because I knew I would never be able to get up again without help.

Unfortunately, I had to be very active in our scene. One moment I’m scolding Mr Bennet for not calling on our new neighbours at Netherfield; the next I have to turn round suddenly to admonish Kitty and Lydia for fighting over the bonnet. Every time I turned, I bumped into something or knocked something over. All this action, and being limited to breathing at the top of my lungs, was leaving me short of breath in my confounded corset. Also, my bosom was heaving like crazy and attracting attention, particularly that of the male members of the cast.

“For heaven’s sake, Mama,” said Holly, when I had banged into the dining table for the third time, “can’t you watch where you’re going?”

“I don’t see why we have to do this thing in authentic costumes,” I panted. “It’s only supposed to be half an hour all told! Why not modern dress?”

“MacNair says the clothes convey important information about the characters;” said Amy, “age, social class, profession, and of course, sex. I don’t think your usual scruffy T-shirt and jeans would convince anyone you were Mrs Bennet, Mike.”

“‘Course you could always borrow some of my mother’s things, sweetie,” said Holly. “I can see you in a nice housedress and cardy.”

* * *

We ran through the first scene several times. Jack wasn’t too fussy when people forgot their lines. (He wasn’t word perfect himself.) He was more concerned, quite rightly, with our moves: Mr Bennet wandering around with his nose in a book, trying to escape his wife’s nagging; Mrs Bennet following behind him, tugging on his coat to get his attention; Kitty chasing her mother, demanding she order Lydia to return her bonnet; and Lydia prancing around triumphantly in the said bonnet, checking herself out in various imaginary mirrors. Amy as Hill the maid had no lines, but she had to chase frantically after Kitty, Lydia and me, waiting for instructions from anyone, and fully expecting to be blamed for all the chaos. The scene was hectic and should be funny if we could get the timing right. We weren’t quite there yet.

I wasn’t in the second and third scenes at all, so I spent quite a lot of the morning revising for exams. When I got bored with that, I watched the others, especially Holly who was in everything.

The next scene was my first sight of the second group’s work, Lizzy’s trip to Netherfield to look after her sick sister, Jane. Here the two awful women, Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, try to demean her, but she is too clever for them. This impresses the normally aloof Darcy. The team’s adaptation concluded with his awkward proposal from further on in the book, and Lizzy’s incredulous rejection of him.

Holly was very good, and thoroughly deserved her leading role. She reminded me of Jennifer Ehle, by far the best Elizabeth in all the adaptations we watched together. Pity Derek wasn’t a patch on Colin Firth.

MacNair’s brief for the third group’s work was to include Lady Catherine’s visit to demand that Lizzy doesn’t marry Darcy, followed by his renewal of his proposal and her acceptance. The core team was therefore Holly, Derek and Amy, who had now taken off her dull maid uniform and become Lady Catherine. In addition to donning a sumptuous and expensive-looking gown, she had replaced the utilitarian maid’s cap, which completely covered her own hair, with a bright red wig in absurd ringlets and an extravagant lace headdress.

Recognising that Holly had a lot to do as Elizabeth, the others had elected Amy to be Director and Derek to be Script Editor.

Amy’s Lady Catherine was a triumph. She captured the arrogance and unpleasantness of the old monster’s personality. She had found a walking stick from somewhere and hobbled about most convincingly, pounding the floor with the stick for emphasis. Her scene with Holly had us all cheering.

She then withdrew to the sidelines so that Holly and Derek could perform the last piece: the afternoon walk on which Darcy and Elizabeth were fully reconciled. It was, thanks to Miss Austen, a very moving scene, and our two leads made a very good fist of it – until Derek leaned in to embrace my girlfriend.

“No kissing!” I yelled from the cheap seats before I could stop myself.

Holly and Derek stopped guiltily at the sight of the angry matron leaping to her feet.

“Hang on, Mama!” said Holly angrily. “You’re not our Director.”

“No, but I am,” said Amy, “and she’s – he’s – quite right. There’s no way Lizzie and Darcy would have kissed in public. In fact, they might not actually kiss till their wedding night!”

* * *

Despite that little public spat between us, Holly was in a good mood again that evening and gave our bedtime manoeuvres her all. Afterwards, when we were lying happily in each other’s arms enjoying the afterglow, she murmured, “I quite liked what you did today, actually.”

“What? What did I do?”

“When you stopped Derek from kissing me. I like you asserting your rights.”

“Oh, I thought you meant something I did as Mrs Bennet.”

“Well, you were dressed as Mrs Bennet at the time, so it was like my mother and my boyfriend both together stopping another man from taking advantage of me.”

“I was afraid you might get to like it if I let him.”

“Derek? He’s alright, but he doesn’t make me laugh the way you do.”

“Well, you didn’t seem to be trying to stop him.”

“I was in character. I didn’t think Lizzie would have rebuffed Darcy.” I must have looked sceptical. “It was acting! Honestly.”

“OK, then,” I said, more or less convinced.

“It was still a bit like being told off by mother though,” she said with a grin.

I snorted.

“She’s a size 16 too, you know,” she said, mischievously. “You actually could wear her dresses.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“We should have taken your measurements while you were in costume.”

“Sheila did that. The padding made me 38DD-33-40, she said.”

“That’s almost exactly my mother’s figure!”

“Right,” I said. “Well, thanks for the warning.”

“What warning?”

“In middle age most women take after their mothers, figure-wise…”

“Where did you hear that?” she said, angrily. “It’s not true!”

“So when you’re forty, and have had our five kids, I’ll be married to a right porker…”

She punched me on the arm. I pretended it hurt.

“My Mum’s not a porker! Anyway, I don’t know what on earth makes you think I’d marry you, you creep!” she said.

“Well, there’s the sex, for one thing…”

“Oh yeah, right... Are you up for going again?”

* * *

The next week and a half belonged to our summer exams, so work on the end-of-term show was suspended. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the course and found the exams mostly plain sailing, and I seemed to spend most of my revision time helping Holly. For me, the far tougher challenge would be the following weekend.

Finally, on the Friday before the show, and with exams happily (or unhappily) behind us, we all trooped into the Little Theatre for the Dress Rehearsals. Fortunately, there was no other show on that week, so we University Drama Course students would have the premises to ourselves all day.

The offerings from the other three courses were before us on the stage. We were scheduled to start at four o’clock in the afternoon, though we were required to report no later than two. We were on last because our costumes and makeup were the most elaborate. The ‘Performing Shakespeare’ lot, who were on immediately before us, were in modern dress (naturally). Also our Regency Drawing Room was the most complicated set, and the crew wanted to put it up and strike it as few times as possible. It would stay on stage overnight, so we would be first on for the Saturday afternoon matinee, and last for the evening performance, after a late interval.

The first person I saw when Holly and I entered through the Stage Door at five past two was Sheila.

“Come along you two,” she said, “you’re late.”

She led us through the rabbit warren of dressing rooms beneath the theatre until we reached a door with a star on it.

“You’re in here, Mike,” she said, “on your own again, for obvious reasons. You’re at the end of the corridor, dear,” she said to Holly, “with the other girls.”

I half expected Holly to grumble at being in a communal dressing room – after all, she was the real ‘leading lady’ – but she just grinned.

“Make the most of the star dressing room, Mike,” she said. “It’ll probably never happen again!”

“I’ve reserved this room for you today and tomorrow, Mike,” Sheila said. “None of the other groups have complicated makeup or costumes, so they don’t need as much privacy or space.”

We went in. Another lady was already there, fussing with a wig on a styrofoam stand. She was wearing a maroon polyester smock over dark leggings. She looked up and smiled.

“This is Esther,” Sheila said. “She’ll be doing your hair and makeup.”

“Hello, Mike,” Esther said. “You’re very brave doing this. Aren’t you afraid all your friends will make fun of you?”

“That’s already happening,” I said ruefully. “I’m just hoping they’ll start to be a bit more professional about it soon. And I’m not brave at all. It wasn’t my choice. I was pressured into it.”

“In my opinion, the best thing you can do is jump in with both feet,” said Sheila. “Be the best Mrs Bennet you can be. Show them you’re a real professional, even if they’re not.”

It was good advice, I realised. I wanted people to laugh with me, not at me.

Esther nodded vigorously. “That’s right,” she said. “You want to be so good, everyone will be admiring your performance and knowing they couldn’t do as well themselves.”

“OK,” said Sheila brightly. “Take your top off first and Esther will give you a really close shave. I’ll help you with your underwear and petticoat. Then Esther will do your wig and makeup, and finally we’ll get you into your dress.”

She went over to a table against the wall. She started unpacking my costume from two large garment bags. I stripped to the waist and hung my jacket and shirt in a cupboard by the door. Then I sat down in a hairdresser’s chair in front of one of those mirrors with frosted light bulbs all the way round.

Esther was vigorously scraping a cutthroat razor on an abrasive leather strop. I had never had a shave with such a lethal instrument before and I fervently hoped she knew what she was doing. She saw me watching her.

“Don’t worry,” she said with a smile. “I have a steady hand.”

And she did, manoeuvring the razor around my Adam’s apple and following the contours of my face perfectly. She also removed my sideburns. When she’d finished I couldn’t believe how smooth my face and neck were. There wasn’t the faintest sign of stubble, let alone whiskers. I clearly needed a new electric razor.

“You’ll have to wear a wig cap to get your own hair as flat as possible so that the wig isn’t all lumpy,” Esther said, picking something up from her table. “This is a mesh cap. It’s good for long hair like yours.”

It was just like a hairnet and I must have looked dubious as she went on to explain, “It also prevents the wig from slipping, because of friction between the outer surface of the cap and the inside layer of the wig. That means we don’t have to use grippers or adhesives to secure it. Also a mesh cap aerates the scalp, so you don’t get a rash if you have to wear it for prolonged periods.”

“Well, OK,” I said, “but I obviously won’t have to wear it for long. “I’ll be putting it on just before going on stage for a quarter of an hour, then taking it off again. And I only have to do the whole thing twice…”

Sheila cleared her throat. “Actually, that might not be quite right,” she said.

“What? Why?”

“Well, I suppose we can get you out of your dress and petticoat, maybe even your corset, between the two performances, but you can’t expect Esther to remove all your makeup after the afternoon matinee and then redo it all again for the evening show.”

“She’s right. I’m sorry, dear,” said Esther. “I have to go on to another theatre tomorrow after doing your face and hair. I’ll start work on you at one o’clock. Your group is on last for the evening performance, so I’ll be back to touch it up at – what? – about half past eight, and I’ll turn you back into Mike after the show, but I can’t afford to stay here for seven hours, doing nothing.”

“And the same goes for me,” added Sheila. “Esther and I are both part-time and freelance, so we have to go wherever – and whenever – we can get work, and Saturday is our busiest day. So I’m afraid you’ll look like Mrs Bennet all day tomorrow, “no matter how you’re dressed.”

I slumped back in the chair. I’d been expecting to go back to the flat between shows and maybe take Holly out for an early dinner…

“I might as well put your wig cap on now,” said Esther. “Then I can see if I need to tidy up any extraneous hairs round your neck.”

The wig cap was nylon mesh, shaped like an old-fashioned ladies’ swimming cap, except that it stopped at the hairline. It fit very tightly over my own hair. Esther pulled and tweaked it until she was satisfied with its position, then tucked in a few wisps of hair that had been protruding.

That done, she handed me over to Sheila, who was holding the dreaded body-shaper ready for me. I turned away from the ladies before stripping off my remaining clothes.

Sheila handed me the heavily-padded garment, ostentatiously avoiding looking at my nakedness.

“You have nothing to be modest about, by the way,” she said with a grin.

Esther laughed. Sheila realised that what she had said could be misinterpreted.

“No, no, when I say ‘nothing’, I don’t mean… Oh, you know what I mean!”

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” I said, stepping into the ‘body’, “albeit a cack-handed one.”

She helped me pull it up and adjusted the shoulder straps. I felt Mrs Bennet’s curves weighing me down again. I went to stuff my own clothes and my rucksack in the cupboard.

“OK, stockings and slippers,” Sheila said.

I was well prepared now for the challenges of donning hose when my bust prevented me from seeing my legs or feet, and I managed it with relative ease.

“Corset next,” Sheila said.

I groaned inwardly but stood uncomplaining while she applied the instrument of torture and tightened the laces.

“You’ve got him well-trained, love,” said Esther. “I would have expected more of a fuss.”

“Oh, we got all that over with last week,” said Sheila. “Mike’s a professional. He knows he has to suffer for his art.”

She tied off the laces and I had to get used to taking shallow breaths again.

“Ok, petal - petticoat,” she said with a grin, “then he’s all yours again, Esther.”

While Sheila made fine adjustments to my body shaper, corset and petticoat, Esther had been laying out her cosmetics on a side table.

I sat down, sweeping my skirts beneath me – from habit now. I noticed that I was higher in the chair than before, thanks to my well-upholstered behind, which was further emphasised by the corset pulling in my waist.

“You have really good skin for a man, sweetie,” Esther began, “so my first job is to make it look twenty years older. Also your face is too thin. You need a substantial double chin to match your overall plumpness.”

My professional curiosity was aroused. She saw I was interested and explained.

“This is liquid latex,” she said, showing me a little bottle. “I dab it on those areas where your skin wrinkles up. Then I get you to smile and squint and so on. The latex creases along the natural lines of your face and sets. Your young skin soon straightens out again underneath but the latex stays wrinkled. We’ll give you lines in your forehead; crows’ feet and bags under your eyes; and ‘laugh lines’ in your cheeks and round your mouth. I’ll also plump up your cheeks and spread more latex thickly across your neck. It will cover up your Adam’s apple and give you a nice wrinkly double chin.”

It took her more than half an hour to do all that. Then she applied a fixative and painted the white latex and all of my own skin the same colour, slightly redder than normal to reflect my advanced age. Finally she highlighted the lines with a darker colour. I watched, fascinated. The latex wrinkles were amazingly realistic. The result was that my face looked, as she promised, twenty years older and several pounds fatter. It also looked much more feminine.

“A little ordinary makeup to finish with,” said Esther. “Fortunately, in the Regency period women didn’t wear much – the French Revolution did away with all the heavy white paint, and beauty spots of the Georgian period. They really only wore a little rouge, more delicately applied. So I think we’ll just give you some modern eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick, to emphasise femininity, not to recreate any period look. OK?”

“You’re the expert,” I said. “Go ahead; emphasise my femininity.”

She laughed. “Good to see you taking it so well,” she said. “It will have to be a little brighter and bolder than a lady would wear for an evening date. This is for the stage, after all. There are footlights. We can’t have Mrs Bennet looking all washed out.”

When she’d finished, my first thoughts were that I now looked like an older lady who was trying too hard to look young, but as Esther said, stage makeup has to be exaggerated. Besides what difference could it make? I was already completely unrecognisable. I was aware that Sheila had stepped up to put the little crucifix round my neck. She also gave me my rings to put on.

“Just your hair to do now,” Esther said, reaching for the wig stand at the back of the side table.

The wig was medium length and all fussy ringlets, chestnut brown with more than an occasional hint of grey. Someone had mentioned that Regency ladies didn’t believe in dyeing their hair. Sometimes the aristocracy and the wealthy still wore wigs on formal occasions.

“Can you grip the front and hold it in place over your forehead, please?” Esther said. “I’ll pull it down at the back.”

She stretched and tugged at the wig until she was satisfied that it was in position. She tried jiggling it but as she had promised, it wouldn’t slide over the wig cap, which was tight on my head. So the combination kept my new feminine head of hair securely in place.

“Can you just shake your head a little, sweetie?” I did so. “You didn’t feel it moving, did you?”

“No, it seems to be fine.”

“Well, I still have to brush and spray it. That will be the acid test.”

“This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a fifteen-minute scene,” I said, while Esther was primping up my hairdo.

“You’re a drama student, right?” said Sheila. I didn’t point out that I only wanted to study English; the Drama option was all Holly’s idea. “So think of it as part of your education. You now know a lot more about what goes on behind the scenes to prepare actors for the stage.”

She was right actually. This was first-hand experience of the wonders of theatrical transformation by makeup, wigs, generous padding, and exquisite costumes. It had been very interesting, and the lesson was all the more effective from having had it done to me, rather than watching it happening to somebody else.

When Esther finished her brushing and spraying, Sheila put my shawl around my shoulders and gave me my lacy gloves. Then she tied my little cap on me and fastened its ribbon under my chin.

“Lift your head up, pet,” she said, “I need to check your neck. There’s no sign of his Adam’s apple under that latex double chin. Nice one, Esther!”

There was a knock at the door. Holly came straight in without waiting for an answer. She’d often seen me naked, so why did I suddenly feel bashful when fully dressed? She was already in full costume as Elizabeth Bennet, and stunningly beautiful.

“I couldn’t wait any longer to see how my Mama is turning out,” she said.

I swivelled round in the chair, curious to see her reaction. It didn’t disappoint.

“My God!” she exclaimed. “You’re so wrinkly and wizened! And I love your hair! You’re perfect!” Suddenly a doubtful look appeared on her face. “Are you really in there somewhere, Mike?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

I spoke in my butchest voice, to confirm my identity to myself as much as to her. I stood up, again very conscious of my additional weight, wobbly breasts and buttocks, and my petticoat and dress. I glanced at myself in the mirror. The last vestiges of Mike Bradshaw had completely disappeared; only Mrs Bennet remained. I was even standing like a middle-aged woman, my hands clasped together and tucked under my bust. The stance had been instinctive.

This was starting to worry me. What did it say about me that a wig, makeup, and a body-shaper were all that was needed to make me a completely convincing woman? And how could Holly possibly see me as her man after all this?

I could feel Sheila and Esther grinning. Fair enough; they had a right to be proud of their achievement.

“You should carry a reticule, Mrs Bennet,” said Sheila, passing me a little bag. “You have no pockets in your dress. You’ll need this to carry your kerchief, lipstick, a little mirror, a hairbrush…”

“…your mobile phone,” added Esther, with a smile.

The reticule was a small pouch with a drawstring. It looked like it was made of some modern artificial fibre made to resemble silk or muslin.

“You can hang it from your shoulder or wrist,” added Sheila.

“Hold that pose, Mama!” Holly called. She was snapping away with her Smartphone camera. “Come on,” she said, “let’s go and show the others!”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the door.

“Gently, gently, dear,” I objected. “Mama can’t run like you young people.”

Well, I couldn’t. Not with my chunky figure, and my petticoats, and my dress, and not being able to see my feet, or where I was putting them…

* * *

The Green Room, where the actors wait for their cue to go on (so that they don’t get in the way of backstage staff), was on the same level as the stage. Holly had dragged me up the stairs from the dressing rooms. Carrying all my extra weight, my lungs crushed in my corset, I was quite out of breath now.

All eyes turned to me as we entered the Green Room. There were gasps and laughs and one or two half-hearted attempts at clapping. Most rushed to offer their congratulations, even though I had done nothing to deserve them.

“Thank you, everyone,” I said. “But I can’t believe I look so old!” I added, mournfully.

Holly chuckled. It was alright for her. She was gorgeous as Lizzy.

“You’ll get away with it easily!” said Sam, who unlike me had been made up to look as young as possible – Lydia was supposed to be fifteen. “You’re a totally convincing middle-aged woman. You look just like my Mum!”

“You look older than my Mum,” said Amy.

She could talk! Thanks to one of Esther’s colleagues, she was old too, and dowdy in her maid costume. Presumably her makeup would be pimped up a bit when she became Lady Catherine.

“Now you know what you’ll look like in twenty-five years!” said Hilary. Never the sharpest knife in the box, she reconsidered. “No, wait…”

Jack approached to inspect me more closely. He and Amy were the only other members of the cast who had been subjected to ageing makeup. He now had white hair and long bushy sideburns.

“You’re still a damn handsome woman, m’dear,” he said with a twinkle.

“Oh, Mr Bennet!” I trilled in character, trying to look pleased but embarrassed. A couple of my daughters laughed.

Holly had obtained an advance copy of the programme from somewhere. She thrust it under my nose.

“You should see this,” she said.

In the cast list for our part of the show I read:

Mrs Bennet ………………………… Michelle Bradshaw.

“Dr MacNair’s idea of a joke, I assume,” Holly said. “But it means we can keep your cross-dressing a secret – if everyone agrees?”

She looked around. Everyone was nodding.

But I knew they would all be calling me ‘Michelle’ for the foreseeable future.

Next: Performance on Stage and off

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Mike, now ‘Michelle’, gives his ‘Mrs Bennet’ at the end of term show.

Chapter Five – Performance on Stage and off

The dress rehearsal went well. Everyone knew their lines by now, and apart from the frenetic little scene with Lydia and Kitty, none of our moves were particularly complicated. I received several compliments for my impersonation of a hysterical middle-aged matron, but I had the impression that every kind remark was paired with a puzzled look. I saw behind their eyes: ‘How could he be as good as that – unless he’s… you know…?’ But maybe I was being paranoid.

Mind you, there are always hangers-on at a dress rehearsal – stage hands, lighting engineers, and so on – and some of the compliments came from people outside our little group who had no idea I was a man underneath it all.

Dr MacNair had mostly left us to our own devices for the last four weeks, but he came to the Green Room half an hour before we were due to begin our last rehearsal to wish us success. When he saw me getting ready to go on, he made no attempt to conceal his delight.

“I told you you’d be great as Mrs Bennet, Mike,” he hooted. I smiled weakly.

MacNair sat in the front row of the stalls throughout. When we finished he summoned our three Directors. They passed his observations on to us in the Theatre bar afterwards over some stiff drinks. I fancied a lager but we had all been told to stay in costume in case further work was required, and I wasn’t sure I could make room for a pint of gassy beer in my corseted tummy. I settled for a Bacardi and coke.

MacNair was pleased with our attempts at Literary Adaptation. He congratulated us on producing coherent scenes which captured the essence of the novel. His notes were mostly about stagecraft and timing. He was happy that everyone knew what to say and do, but we should try to be slicker. We needed to pick up our cues faster and react more to everything that was going on around us – a common failing of amateur thesps.

When he finished we needed to hurry to get changed; Sheila and Esther would be waiting impatiently. As Holly and I made our way down the narrow stairs, she said casually, “My mother and father are coming to the afternoon performance tomorrow.”

Terrific! What on earth would they make of their daughter’s boyfriend dragged up like this? I didn’t want them to think I had chosen to play a female part, and knowing Holly, she would thoroughly enjoy embarrassing me.

“I asked my Mum to bring some of her old clothes – stuff she was planning to throw out,” she went on.

“Why?”

“For you to wear between the shows.”

“No way!”

“Well, I’m not going to sit around in costume from three o’clock, when our piece will be finished, till nine when we go on again, and Esther won’t be available to remove your makeup, will she? So you’ll look like a middle-aged woman whatever you’re wearing. If you change into an old dress of my mother’s, we can go home, can’t we?”

“And do what?”

“Whatever we want. We could…” She trailed off and took tight hold of my arm suggestively.

“You mean you want to… you know what… with me looking like this?”

“Oh yes! I’m really keen to know more about what is under all that stuff. I’ll need reassurance that your vital equipment is still present and correct.”

I hesitated. She seized her chance. “And we could go to dinner afterwards.”

“I can’t go to a restaurant dressed as a woman!”

“I don’t see why not. You’re completely convincing.”

We had reached the Star Dressing Room. She opened the door and pushed me inside.

“We can discuss all this later,” she said. “I’ll wait for you upstairs in the bar.”

She closed the door behind her.

* * *

First Sheila took my shawl, gloves, cap and jewellery. Then she undid my bodice and helped me out of my dress, inspecting everything to make sure I hadn’t got any makeup anywhere.

“Can you take the corset off now?” I begged. “I’m not sure I can stand it much longer.”

Sheila smiled and lifted up my petticoat to remove the corset. Then she sent me over to the hairdressing chair in just my remaining underwear and stockings.

Esther removed my wig first. “We’ll leave the wig cap on for the moment. It will be easier to fix your face without your own hair getting in the way.” She began attacking my makeup with cleanser. “Got to get this lot off first,” she explained, “then the latex.”

When she was satisfied that all the warpaint was gone and all that remained was my own skin and the deposits of latex, she filled a washing-up bowl with ordinary shower gel and warm water. Then she started sponging my face and neck wherever there was latex.

“It’s actually quite easy to get this stuff off,” she explained. “In fact, the longer it’s been on you, the more easily it comes off. Your sweat and your skin's natural oils loosen it. But if you don’t want to wait…”

“I don’t!”

She laughed. “Then warm soapy water is enough.”

After a few minutes sponging, she decided the detergent had loosened the latex enough, and it was time to try to lift it off. She started on the bags under my right eye. She found an edge using her fingernail, and pulled it up gently, pushing down on my skin so that it didn’t come up with the latex and hurt me. The stretchy goo came away quite easily. She used a warm flannel to wipe down the skin underneath.

She repeated the exercise with all the wrinkles round my eyes, cheeks and mouth. She left my double chin till last. She had to saturate it with soapy water and massage it gently but eventually it came away in a big lump.

“This is why I had to give you such a close shave,” she said, soothing my raw skin with her washcloth. “Imagine if lots of little hairs had been stuck in the latex! Pulling out even short stubble would have been painful. I don’t suppose you’ve ever had your legs waxed?”

“Certainly not,” I said with feeling, “and I never will.”

“Never say ‘never’, sweetie,” said Sheila, “especially not if you’re going to make a habit of female impersonation!”

I couldn’t think of a polite response to that, so I said nothing.

Esther removed the wig cap, and then it was back to Sheila to help me out of my petticoat and body shaper. Naked, I rushed to the cupboard to get my own clothes. With Mrs Bennet’s extra poundage removed I couldn’t believe how light I felt.

I thanked the ladies, promised to be punctual tomorrow, and rushed off to the bar to meet Holly. I knew I would have kept her waiting because it took so long to put Mrs Bennet to bed.

I burst into the bar to be greeted by the entire company. Holly led the cries of, “Hi, Michelle!”

At least I could have a pint of lager now.

* * *

Dr MacNair had generously left enough funds for us all to enjoy two free drinks in the theatre bar, and most of us could manage a couple more after that. Holly kept tugging at my sleeve to get me to go, but I insisted we stayed till the bar closed. It was important to me that my friends saw that I was Mike again, raucous and manly and drinking everyone else under the table, and that I had no connection with prim, plump, middle-aged Mrs Bennet. I had put my hysterical alter ego, firmly back in her box. If that entailed keeping my girlfriend waiting through a couple more rounds of drinks, well that’s what we macho types do, right? A man gets thirsty. The little woman has to put up with it.

Holly wasn’t on board with that unfortunately, as she made very clear when we eventually left. It was a bracing midnight walk home and she was fuming silently all the way. The combination had me nearly sobered up by the time we got back to the flat. I suppose I should have been grateful she hadn’t sent me back to my little bedsit in the Hall of Residence.

The silent treatment continued even after we got into bed. I reached for her in the dark but she shrugged off my hand. I sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know exactly why you’re angry, but I couldn’t help it.”

She snorted – a snort of derision, not a ‘snore’ snort. So she was still awake.

“I… I felt I had something to prove…” I stumbled.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“People have been treating me like… well, like a woman for days…”

“So you thought you needed to drink all night like a boozy neanderthal to prove you were still a man?”

“Well, I couldn’t find any dragons to kill or damsels in distress, so… yeah.”

She sat up and put her bedside light on.

“You’re serious?” she said. I didn’t answer. “You idiot! Nobody thinks less of you for playing a female part in a play. Quite the reverse – everyone is impressed at how good you are.”

“But they’re all thinking, he must really be effeminate to be that good at playing a woman.” She looked sceptical. “In any case, nobody has called me Mike for ages, just ‘Mama’, ‘Mrs Bennet’ and now ‘Michelle’.”

She was incredulous but not unsympathetic. “Oh, go to sleep, Mike.”

She put the light out and turned over. But she didn’t shrug my arm off when I put it around her and cupped her breast (as you do).

* * *

Holly’s parents, Richard and Susan Woodbridge, turned up at the flat at about ten-thirty. It was great to see them. They had always been nice to me, especially after my father died. We’d all had breakfast early so we went for elevenses at one of the town’s many coffee shops.

Holly explained that we would probably have to go straight on to the theatre. On hearing that, Susan took a plaid holdall from the boot of their car as we passed. Holly handed it straight to me to carry for her. I knew what was in it. I couldn’t help noticing that Susan’s figure was pretty much identical to mine as Mrs Bennet.

“You never explained what you needed all that for, dear,” said Susan.

“It will become obvious after the show,” Holly said with a grin and a wink at me. “You can stay for a quick drink afterwards, can’t you?”

I sighed. It didn’t look like there was any way I was going to get out of this. My confessions of the previous night had clearly made little impression on her.

At the coffee house, Richard asked, “Have you guys thought about what you’re doing for the summer yet?”

“We’d like to split the time between work and travel,” Holly said.

“In that order,” I added. “I’ll have to work to be able to afford to travel.”

They nodded sympathetically. “But you do know we’ll sub you if you’re short, don’t you?” said Richard. “This is an important time in your lives. You need to go out and see the world. Plenty of time for work later.”

“That’s very kind,” I said.

But they all knew that I wouldn’t be comfortable taking their money. I would need to find a temporary job for a month or two.

“I’m hoping to find something that will count toward my CV as an actor,” said Holly. “I don’t want to work…” She lowered her voice. “…in a coffee house!”

After a very pleasant hour, we parted – Richard and Susan to the shops; Holly and me to the theatre.

* * *

At one o’clock I was back in the dressing room, ready and willing (just about) to be turned back into Mrs Bennet again. At least I knew what to expect this time, which made the experience a little easier. As I was stripping off, Sheila was preparing my body shaper, while Esther was stropping her razor again, to rid me of the microscopic stubble I had grown in the last twenty-four hours.

Forty minutes later, I was fully dressed and made up, and Esther was putting the finishing touches to my hair. Sheila had noticed the holdall. It had been left open and she was rummaging through it.

“What’s all this then?” she said.

“They’re some old clothes of Holly’s mother’s,” I said. God, this was embarrassing! “Holly thought I might like to wear them between shows, as I can’t go back to being Mike.”

“That was a good idea. I don’t have to be at my next job till three o’clock, so I’m going to watch your group’s show. I’ve just about got time to help you change afterwards, if you like”

“Me too,” said Esther with a smile.

Something else to look forward to. Still, if I had to look like a middle-aged woman outside the theatre this afternoon and evening, at least I would have a professional makeover.

* * *

The curtain rises. Distant piano music can be heard with the occasional mistake. It isn’t loud enough to be distracting or to drown out the dialogue.

I give the audience a few seconds to take in the Regency drawing room and see Jack, aged and bewhiskered as Mr Bennet, sitting in an armchair, front left. He is reading a suitably old-looking book.

I burst in through the double doors, upstage centre, followed by a worried-looking Amy, as Hill the maid.

“Mr Bennet! Mr Bennet!” I cry.

Startled, Jack drops his book and his reading glasses fall off his nose. They are on a cord so they just swing from side to side across his chest. I take my shawl off and toss it on the sideboard to my right as I pass.

“My dear! Wonderful news! Netherfield Park is let at last!” I squeal.

“Is it?” says Jack testily. He picks up his book and replaces his glasses.

“Yes, it is,” I say, trying to look annoyed that my husband isn’t giving me his full attention. “I have just had it from Mrs Long. And do you not want to know who has taken it?”

“You want to tell me,” he says, once again fully engaged in his book, “and I have no objection to hearing it.”

It is quite clear he isn’t really listening.

Sam, as Lydia, runs in from upstage right carrying a pretty bonnet, which appears to be in a state of some disrepair. Diane, as Kitty, follows close behind her, also at a run. They wrestle for the bonnet, Sam laughing, and always holding the bonnet so that Diane can’t quite get it. Amy is fussing around them trying to be helpful, but Sam won’t let her get close to her.

“Lydia, that’s mine!” screams Diane.

“It’s mine now,” Sam says contemptuously. “You’d never wear it anyway.”

“I would! I wanted to wear it today! Look what you’ve done to it! Mama! Mama!”

I turn to give the girls my attention, and at this point Holly, as Elizabeth, enters upstage left. She ignores me and the other girls and peers over Jack’s shoulder to see what he’s reading.

“Girls!” I say crossly to Sam and Diane. “Would you tear my nerves into shreds?”

“Lydia has torn up my bonnet!” wails Diane. “She has made it up new, and says she will wear it to church! Tell her she shall not, Mama!”

“I shall wear it, Mama!” insists Sam.

I can’t see them, but behind me Jack will be rolling his eyes and smiling at Holly.

“I beg you would tell her so,” says Diane, plaintively, “for it’s all my own work, and she would be a fright in it, because she’s too plain to look well in it!”

Holly smiles at Jack, rolls her eyes, and wanders away to look out of the window, stage left.

“Oh! Girls!” I yell.

Diane ignores me. “No, you shall not have it!” she shouts. “Mama, tell her it is so!”

Diane tries to grab the bonnet again, but misses, and chases Sam around me trying to get it. Sam manages always to be on the opposite side of me from Diane. I flap hysterically.

“Oh, let her have it, Kitty, and be done,” I shriek.

“But it’s mine!” Diane wails. “You let her have everything that is mine.”

Diane runs out crying. Sam puts on the bonnet in front of a mirror on the back wall and preens. As Diane runs out, Hilary, as Jane, enters.

“Oh, what is to become of us all?” I cry.

Sam leaves, following Diane. Holly and Hilary come over to comfort me. I turn back to Jack.

“Oh! Oh! Netherfield Hall!” I cry, remembering that I was in the middle of telling him something important. “It is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England. A single man of large fortune, my dear! He came down on Monday in chaise and four to see the place. His name is Bingley, and he will be in possession by Michaelmas, and he has five thousand a year!”

Holly and Hilary look at each other, and then at Jack, who doesn’t react at all.

“What a fine thing for our girls!” I say, disappointed at his indifference.

Jack turns to look at Holly and Hilary. “How so? How can it affect them?”

“Oh, Mr Bennet, how can you be so tiresome?” I say. “You must know that I’m thinking of his marrying one of them!”

“For a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” says Holly to Hilary. They giggle.

“Yes, he must indeed!” I say firmly to Holly. I turn back to Jack. “And who better than one of our five girls?”

“So, that is his design in settling here,” says Jack, “to marry one of our daughters?”

“Design?” I answer, baffled. “Oh, how can you talk such nonsense? But you know, he may very likely fall in love with one of them.”

“Oh,” says Jack, unimpressed.

“Therefore, you must visit him directly he comes,” I say.

“Visit him?” says Jack. “Oh, no, no. I see no occasion for that.”

“Oh, Mr Bennet!” I squeal, aghast.

“Go yourself with the girls. Or, still better, send them by themselves.”

“By themselves?!”

“Aye, for you’re as handsome as any of them. Mr Bingley might like you best of the party.”

“My dear, you flatter me,” I say, simpering at his flattery, apparently not realising he is teasing me. “I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty…”

“In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of,” Jack says with a smile.

I gape at him, before it slowly dawns that he is mocking me. In a huff, I storm out of the double doors, upstage centre, followed by Amy. Jack smiles. Holly and Hilary giggle.

* * *

So that was my first appearance as Mrs Bennet over with until the curtain call, but I would be stuck with her face and hair all day.

I hovered around backstage to see how it was going. I could see the audience through a little slit in a side panel, above the Stage Manager’s desk. It seemed to be packed out, presumably from friends and relatives of the cast. There would be no one from my family there, and all my friends were in the show.

I tried not to get in anyone’s way backstage but as I was still in full Mrs Bennet costume, my lack of manoeuvrability caused problems. Also, my skirts made rustling noises whenever I moved, so I was soon exiled. As in all theatres a loudspeaker system relayed the actors’ voices through to the Green Room, so that everyone always knew where the performance was up to and wouldn’t miss their cues.

The cast were on top form – Holly was especially impressive – and from what I had seen of the audience in the dark, they seemed to be enjoying our efforts.

The next scene was the Netherfield gathering at which Jane and Elizabeth socialise with Bingley and Darcy. This was the responsibility of our second group. Jane and Bingley spend enough time together to fall in love, but then Jane takes to her bed with a heavy cold leaving Lizzy at the mercy of Bingley’s spoilt and snooty sisters. She handles their cattiness brilliantly and it is then that Darcy first begins to realise there is more to her than he had thought.

Our team’s next scene should have been set at a party at the home of Mrs Phillips, Elizabeth’s aunt, but we didn’t have enough actors for a big gathering, so we cut it down to just Elizabeth, Jane, and Lydia playing whist with Mr Wickham. In the book this soon reduces to a dialogue between Lizzy and Wickham in which he seeks to charm her and disparage Darcy.

We open with the four of them finishing a hand of whist. Lydia loses and she throws down her cards in disgust and excuses herself. The others laugh at the fifteen-year-old’s immaturity and put the cards away. As Script Editor I reassigned some of Lizzy’s lines to Jane, to make the scene a little more balanced. (Jack approved although Holly wasn’t too happy about it.)

Our last scene was the well-known one in which Lizzy and Jane talk about marriage. They’re both in favour of marrying for love, but are determined only to fall in love with a rich man. I just hoped Holly didn’t feel like that in real life, though her parents’ wealth would give her a wider choice than that of Elizabeth or Jane.

Darcy’s proposal and Elizabeth’s incredulous refusal came next and Derek and Holly did it very well – so much so that, to everyone’s surprise, there was a spontaneous round of applause from the audience. I wondered whether Richard and Susan might have led it.

In the penultimate scene, Amy swept on imperiously as the ghastly Lady Catherine de Bourgh, followed a little timorously by Holly as Lizzy. It would be very easy to overdo Lady Catherine but Amy pitched it just right. Holly showed Lizzy growing steadily bolder throughout the scene as she was increasingly angered by Lady Catherine’s appalling condescension and bad manners. There was another ripple of applause as both of them stormed off in different directions.

I made my way back to the stage now, as there was only one scene to go: Darcy’s humble renewed proposal, renouncing his pride, and Lizzy’s embarrassed acceptance, overcoming her prejudice. This is one of the most famous scenes in English Literature, and Derek and Holly made a wonderful job of it. As the last words of love are uttered and he takes her hand, the curtain falls.

Healthy applause began immediately; the auditorium lights came up again; and we all trooped on for the curtain call.

Next: Mrs Bennet in 2021

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

In between performances, Holly takes Michelle out for dinner.

Chapter Six – Mrs Bennet in 2021

“I really enjoyed that,” said Sheila back in the dressing room after our half hour (OK, forty minutes) synopsis of Miss Austen’s five-hundred-page novel. “You were all really good. You must be so proud of Holly.”

“Oh I am,” I said, “but I already knew she was brilliant from seeing her in school plays and a couple of other productions here.”

“You were great too,” Esther said. “You may not want to hear this, but if I hadn’t known it was you, it would never have occurred to me that Mrs Bennet was being played by a boy – man, I mean.”

“Thanks... I think.”

“I overheard people talking on my way out of the auditorium,” Sheila continued. “Quite a few singled you out for praise as well as Holly, even though you were only on for a few minutes at the beginning. I’m quite sure nobody had the slightest suspicion that ‘Michelle’ was actually ‘Michael’.”

She started undoing the buttons of my bodice. I still couldn’t reach them round my back. I took my silly gloves off.

Suddenly I heard voices outside in the corridor. I realised I had left the door ajar. I didn’t want anyone to come in and see me getting undressed, so I broke away from my lady’s maid and my beautician and moved to close it properly. I stopped when I realised the voice was Holly’s and she was arguing with her parents.

“But you said you’d stay for a drink afterwards,” she was saying.

“You just want to humiliate poor Mike, don’t you?” said Richard angrily.

“I saw his face when I handed you the holdall this morning,” Susan said. “He knew what was in it, didn’t he? And he clearly wasn’t happy.”

“I’m very disappointed in you, Holly,” added her father. “We really like Mike, and I’m sure he would be horribly embarrassed if we saw him dressed as a woman. Any man would.”

They had passed the door now and their voices were fading as they reached the stairs at the end of the corridor.

“No, he wouldn’t; he’s an actor! Anyway, you said you thought he was really good as Mrs Bennet,” Holly argued.

“He was,” said her father, “and make sure you tell him from us.”

“Why can’t you tell him yourselves?”

“We’ve explained why,” he said. “Dressing up as a woman outside the theatre is completely different. Believe me, he won’t want us to see him like that.”

“Bye now,” said Susan. “Give him our love and tell him we’ll see him sometime over the holidays.”

Holly was still arguing but I didn’t hear any more after that. I turned back to Sheila and Esther, who had heard everything.

“I bet that’s a relief,” Sheila said with a smile. “Come on, let’s get you changed. I need to check your costume for damage and stains.” She reached to untie my cap.

“Since you can’t remove all your makeup, presumably you’ll leave your wig on?” said Esther.

“I suppose so. If I’m stuck with this old woman face until tonight, I’ll attract less attention with a feminine hairdo.”

“Not to mention the outfit in the holdall,” Sheila said.

“I can tone down your makeup a little, if you like,” said Esther, “so it doesn’t look like you’ve just come off stage.”

She quickly wiped away some of the more garish colours and replaced them with an ordinary modern daytime makeup. When she finished I looked frighteningly like my mother.

“I’m off,” said Esther. “I’ll leave you the lipstick and powder I’ve just used. See you at half-past eight tonight. Don’t be late.”

“I must go too,” said Sheila. “Let me finish undressing you.”

She removed my petticoat and – thankfully – the corset. I took off my slippers and stockings.

“Aren’t you going to need those shoes?” said Sheila. “I don’t know if Holly’s Mum included any of hers, but they probably wouldn’t fit you if she did. Actually, I think I have a pair of outdoor shoes in the same size in my locker.”

She went off to have a rummage and returned five minutes later with a pair of black pumps with one-inch heels. They looked about my size in length but a bit narrow. By now I was down to just the body shaper.

“I suppose I’ll have to keep this thing on – for the padding?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “Assuming Holly’s right about her mother’s sizes, that’s the only way these clothes will fit. I’ve got your other body shaper here, by the way. That one is probably a little sweaty. Can you have a shower and change into the clean one before you come back tonight?”

I grunted acceptance.

“With your ‘body’ you don’t need a bra or knickers, so you can put these on next.” She passed me a pair of tights from the holdall. “Do you know how?”

“Why? Is there some special trick to it?”

“There certainly is. If you’re not careful you can ladder them.”

So she gave me a lesson in putting on tights without ruining them. (When would I ever need that again?)

“Roll them up until you can put your foot all the way in. Then pull them up your leg as far as your knee. Then slide in the other foot in the same way. Then stand up and pull the whole thing up to your waist.”

I assumed the tights were in Susan’s size. I wasn’t much taller than her and supposedly my ‘body’ gave me the same shape. In any case the tights stretched enough to go over my big padded hips and bum. They reached my waist and seemed to be staying up.

Sheila was eyeing me dubiously. “We should have shaved your legs after all,” she said. “Oh well, let’s see what it all looks like together.” She reached into the holdall again. “Ah,” she said, “I think I can see why Holly’s Mum was throwing this dress away.”

She held it up for me to see. It was red with white flowers. It was calf-length with sleeves that stopped at the elbow, and frills everywhere. It wasn’t hideous, exactly, but even I recognised that it was out of fashion – way out.

“This appears to be the only option,” Sheila said pityingly. “At least it doesn’t need a slip, which as just as well as she didn’t include one. It’s long enough that most of your legs will be covered. There’s a white cardigan that is actually quite nice, so you don’t need to worry about your forearms being exposed. But there are no other clothes in here, just a slightly worn handbag.”

She helped me drop the dress over my head, making sure not to disturb my wig or my makeup, and zipped it up. I turned to check myself in the mirror. I changed my mind about it being hideous. That was an understatement. It was low-cut with absurd frills around the neckline. The waist was just below the bust, very like the Regency dresses we were all wearing in the show, but for some reason the only effect of that was to emphasise my over-large bosom and battleship hips.

I doubt any woman my age – I mean the age I’m supposed to be – would ever choose to wear this. I wondered what possessed Susan to buy it in the first place. She normally had better taste.

“You’d better give me that cardigan,” I said. “I need to cover up as much as possible of this monstrosity.”

I shrugged it on and it helped – a little. I sensed the door opening behind me, but I was still captivated by the gruesome image in the mirror.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll wear my own clothes, even with old lady makeup. I’ll put a bag over my head or something.”

“Oh no, you won’t! You look lovely,” said Holly behind me.

I turned to her, preparing to argue. She was back in her own clothes, jeans and a pretty peasant top that hung off the shoulder and emphasised her perfect breasts. She had removed her stage makeup but kept her hair in Regency style. I sighed. She had that determined look. I wasn’t going to win this, at least not without upsetting her. Suddenly I could see my future: years and years of losing arguments with this woman.

“I thought you might try and chicken out,” she said, cutting off any protest. “But I want you to stay just as you are. My real Mum and Dad might have rushed off, but at least I can spend the rest of the day with my substitute Mum!”

Sheila cleared her throat. “I’ll be off then, you two. I’ll see you tonight.”

She obviously didn’t want to be present when Holly and I started our ‘discussion’ of what I would be wearing for the next five hours.

“Yes, thanks, Sheila,” I said. “See you later.”

“I’m a little surprised Mum gave you that dress though,” said Holly when Sheila had gone. “It was a birthday present from my Dad about five years ago. I helped him pick it out.”

Which explained that, I suppose. It seemed neither father nor daughter shared Susan’s fashion sense, and she had taken a golden opportunity to dump the dress. No wonder she didn’t want to see me in it. Quite apart from the mutual embarrassment, she probably wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face.

“But if you really don’t like it, we can go and buy you something new. Then I can give it to Mum for her next birthday.” She grinned. “I’ll know that if it fits you, it will fit her.”

“No!” I said hurriedly. “No, it’s actually not that bad.” I did a little twirl in front of the mirror, as I’d seen women do when trying on a new outfit. (Well, only Holly really.)

“Well, if you’re sure… Pity. I would have enjoyed going round the shops with my new Mum.”

“No, that’s all right, dear,” I said, unintentionally sounding like a mother. “Didn’t we have plans for… other activities back at the flat?” I added, trying to sound like a lecherous boyfriend. I was going to get a split personality if I wasn’t careful.

I packed my own clothes and the clean body shaper into the holdall. Then I reached for Susan’s old handbag and started putting my wallet and keys in it.

“Don’t forget your makeup, Mum!” Holly said with a triumphant grin.

* * *

The walk back to the flat that afternoon was more convivial than the previous one in the small hours when Holly wouldn’t let me touch her. We were arm-in-arm now, like a mother and daughter, and we went much more slowly because of my new weight and girth. It took me a while to get used to the unfamiliar heels too. I was thankful they were only one-inch. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could manage anything higher. They seemed to make my backside swing from side to side even more.

But as far as I could tell nobody we passed saw anything amiss; certainly nothing that suggested I had been spotted as a fraud. I did see a couple of teenage girls with curled lips, but I think that was because of my ugly dress.

Once we were behind the closed doors of the bedroom Holly demanded I do a striptease so she could learn something of the dark arts that had transformed her boyfriend into a near clone of her mother. I agreed, but only on condition that she also shed an item of clothing for each one that I removed. She complied with alacrity, giggling seductively throughout.

Soon I was down to my body shaper and she was in just her bra and pants. While I was, as usual, paralysed by the sight of Holly in her lingerie, she had paused for a proper appraisal of Mrs Bennet’s foundation garment. Embarrassed by this forensic examination, I stepped forward to deal with the clasp of her bra. She immediately started tugging at the shoulder straps of my ‘body’. She managed to peel it halfway down but doing more was beyond her. The damn thing was much too heavy. It was nearly too heavy for me. I did the rest of the work and tossed it aside, while she stepped out of her knickers.

And then we were falling into bed, a beautiful girl and a man with the head of a middle-aged woman.

“I love the flavour of your lipstick, Mummy darling,” she said, panting. “What is it?”

“Fucked if I know,” I said, concentrating on sustaining my rhythm.

She giggled at the mild obscenity from the mouth of the middle-aged lady on top of her.

* * *

“Is it just me, or was that the best you-know-what we’ve ever had?” I said as we lay in our post-coital bliss.

“No question,” she murmured into my chest.

“The question is why?”

“Not sure,” she said. She lifted her head and looked me in the eyes. “Something to do with what you were wearing and your little striptease, maybe?”

“Do you mean the dress, or the un-dress?”

“Yes – one or the other.” She smiled. “But you should find it reassuring, shouldn’t you?”

“How so?”

“Well now you know I’m not put off by your cross-dressing.”

“My what?”

“If anything, quite the reverse…”

“I’m not proposing to make a habit of wearing your mother’s old clothes!”

She sat up and stretched. She jumped out of bed and went over to our piles of discarded clothes. She picked up my body shaper.

“I had no idea the padding in this thing was so heavy,” she said, changing the subject abruptly, as was her wont.

“And I have to wear a corset, petticoat and dress on top of it too,” I said, glad of a little sympathy.

“Yes, but all we ladies have to wear those things,” she protested. “Still, it’s no wonder you’re so slow and clumsy.”

“Yes, you’ll just have to be patient with me now,” I said, suddenly conscious of sounding like an old lady.

“But it means I’ll be able to get to the shower first for once, slowpoke!”

She jumped up and dashed to the bathroom. That was fine. I could have a little doze…

* * *

…which didn’t last long. It seemed like no time before she was shaking me awake. She was fully dressed, in an actual dress, and made up. Not for the first time, I reflected that Holly could never look less than gorgeous if she tried.

“Up you get, babe. Shower,” she said, “and shave your legs.”

“What? No!”

“People will be looking at you oddly if you don’t.”

“Nobody noticed on the way back here.”

“Nobody saw you for more than a few seconds as we passed them. Tonight you’ll be sitting still in a restaurant for an hour and a half. Someone will be bound to notice then, and if they see hairy legs they may wonder why and look for other clues – like a deeper than average voice. Want to risk it? What if you need to go to the Ladies? You could get arrested.”

“I’ll hold it till we get to the theatre.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Shave your legs. I’ll help you if you like. You have a razor in the bathroom, don’t you? If not, we can use my Ladyshave.”

“Yes, madam,” I sighed.

I don’t always do absolutely everything Holly tells me to do, just most of the time.

“And you’ll need to take your wig off to shower, won’t you? Hurry up, the table’s booked for six-thirty.”

* * *

The promised ninety minutes in Mario’s was the most terrifying of my life, thanks in part to Holly’s picture of what might happen if I was exposed as a male – which no doubt was her intention. She kept calling me ‘Mummy’ which meant I had to employ all my acting skills and imagination to play the part.

At least I was confident of my appearance. Holly had helped me repair my makeup after the shower and she did her best with my wig. I wore the clean body shaper, the ugly red floral dress, my tights, and the white cardigan. I had no coat of course, but it was a warm night. I didn’t have to worry about exposing my newly smooth legs, which were tingling in a pleasant way from continual contact with my hose. Nevertheless I couldn’t help resenting having had to shave them. We were seated in a quiet corner of the restaurant with subdued lighting and candles on the table. I couldn’t see my ankles in this light, so nobody else would. I could have got away with hairy legs.

“Now remember, Mummy, you are a little, er, portly,” she said, sotto voce, “so your usual plate of Spaghetti Bolognese and a huge Mixed Grill aren’t suitable at all. Minestrone soup and a Goat’s Cheese salad would be more sensible, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t tell whether she was having a laugh. She was too good an actress.

“I would have thought Spag Boll and a big plate of meat and chips would explain how I got to be 'portly' in the first place,” I said. “Tell you what, I’ll compromise. I’ll have a Seafood Platter and a Fillet Steak.”

As I said, I don’t give in to her all the time. I dig my high heels in for the really important stuff.

“Hmph. Not very Italian,” she grumbled. “And just one glass of wine. You’re on stage tonight, remember.”

“As if I could forget,” I said. “And you’re paying for all this, right? You know I’m skint.”

“Yes, yes, but get your act together, for Heaven’s sake! My other mother never uses words like ‘skint’.”

Holly mellowed after that exchange, and in the end we had a very pleasant evening. I found myself slipping into the role of the other Mrs Woodbridge with no great difficulty and Holly seemed delighted by my performance. The food was excellent; I wasn’t paying for it; and the waiters were especially attentive to ‘two such beautiful ladies’.

‘I could get used to this treatment,’ I caught myself thinking, and quickly gave myself a mental slap on the wrist for thinking it.

We lingered over coffee and made a quick trip to the Ladies to relieve ourselves and repair our lipstick. Then we made our way slowly, arm-in-arm, to the theatre, arriving at about a quarter past eight.

* * *

Having been wearing my body shaper, with its heavy padding and voluptuous curves, for most of the day, getting dressed as Mrs Bennet again with Sheila’s help had become almost routine. My corset, petticoat, stockings and dress were like old friends. Esther checked my latex wrinkles and double chin; restored my stage makeup; and tidied up my wig (which had got a little tangled in bed that afternoon). I was ready for my five minutes on stage as the harridan Bennet matriarch.

I joined the others in the Green Room while we waited for the show before us to finish.

“I’ll be sorry when this is all over,” said Amy to me, fiddling with her maid’s dress, “won’t you?”

“You’re joking, aren’t you?” I scoffed. “When this is all over, you won’t see me for dust. I’m dropping Drama next year. I’m never going on stage again.”

“Oh you mustn’t talk like that,” she said. “You’re really good. I can understand you not wanting to play a female part again, but you’ve proved you could be a great character actor.”

“He’s just afraid he’ll get to like his women’s clothes,” said Sam, who had been eavesdropping. We ignored her.

“Does Holly know this is how you feel?” Amy asked.

“We haven’t discussed it,” I admitted, “at least not in so many words. Anyway, one thing is for sure: no one will ever see me in women’s underwear again.”

At which point the Stage Manager’s voice came over the tannoy: “Pride and Prejudice beginners, please.”

* * *

The second performance went really well. We all knew our parts, and it would be our last chance to show off what we had learned over the year – in Literary Adaptation and all our other courses. We were determined to enjoy ourselves (even me) and it showed. There was at least ten percent more zip in every scene.

The reaction of the audience at the curtain call was especially enthusiastic. Perhaps they hadn’t enjoyed the other more ‘modern’ offerings as much, and we had saved their evening. As we lined up, I manoeuvred myself next to Holly.

After our second bow, when I thought the applause was starting to die down, I shoved her in the back, forcing her to take a couple of steps forward to preserve her balance. She was about to turn round and hit me or something, when she realised that the audience were laughing and the applause had redoubled, just for her.

I led the rest of the cast in joining in. Everyone in the theatre, including all her fellow actors, were now applauding her as the undoubted star of the show. She blushed and curtseyed beautifully.

Eventually the curtain fell. Everyone made to walk off but Holly stopped and slapped me on the shoulder.

“Don’t you ever do that again, Mike!” she said.

“I promise,” I said, “but you deserved a solo bow.”

And I knew I would never be on stage with her again anyway.

Then she threw her arms around me and kissed me hard. At least I was ‘Mike’ again, at least for the moment, rather than ‘Mummy’, ‘Mama’ or ‘Michelle’.

Next: Awards and Opportunities

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Seven – Awards and Opportunities

Interlude: Mike’s time as Mrs Bennet is over – or is it? A new opportunity comes up and Holly is determined to make the most of it…

The casts of all the four shows were told to gather in the auditorium after we had changed out of our costumes. Holly had saved me a seat next to her on the front row. She knew I would be the last to arrive as it took so long to remove my costume and Mrs Bennet’s makeup and wig. My face was pink and blotchy after cleaning off all that latex. Sheila and Esther came along with me and found seats directly behind us.

Dr MacNair and three of our other lecturers were sitting on the stage. Soon Professor Rooney, the Head of the English and Drama Department, got to his feet and called for hush.

“Well done, everyone,” he began, “and thank you for an excellent evening’s entertainment. Speaking on behalf of the lecturers and staff in the Department, we know that you’ve all worked very hard this year, as I’m sure will be reflected in your exam results, due out on Monday…”

Groans from the audience.

“…and we would like to wish you all a very fruitful and enjoyable summer holiday, to return refreshed and eager to learn next term.”

Do all senior educators get their speeches from the same book? His audience was getting restless.

“But before we let you go, there is the small matter of awards.” A hush fell. “First, the Best Actress award – and I should say that all four of us were unanimous in this – goes to Holly Woodbridge for Elizabeth in the Pride and Prejudice adaptation.”

So Holly received her second solo round of applause of the evening, the most vigorous clapping coming from our group, of course.

“Come up here, Holly,” continued the Prof. “We have an envelope for you.”

Holly bounced up onto the stage. You could tell it was the best day of her life (apart from when she met me, of course).

The Prof handed her an envelope, saying, “Open it later, dear, then no one will see how disappointed you are.” Laughter from the audience. “Did you want to say anything?”

For a moment she looked blank, then she realised what he was suggesting.

“Oh! Oh, yes,” she said. “I’d like to thank Dr MacNair for the brilliant Literary Adaptation course and for setting all this up for us.”

I heard Derek and Douglas calling, “Hear, hear!” The rest of us made enthusiastic but unintelligible mutterings. Holly ploughed on.

“And I must thank my partner, Mike, for his unflinching support.”

Actually I would say I had flinched quite a lot over the last few weeks, but I wasn’t going to argue. It was just good to be appreciated.

“And finally I want to say ‘thank-you’ to Amy Longhurst, who directed my biggest scenes and was also a wonderful Lady Catherine. Most of the ideas for how I should play those scenes came from her, and I’d like to say here and now, that if she eventually decides she doesn’t want to act after all, she will be a brilliant Director!”

As it happens Amy was sitting on my other side. I turned to her and she was grinning and blushing and couldn’t seem to decide which of the two to focus on.

The ‘Best Actor’ award went to the boy who had played Othello in the ‘Performing Shakespeare’ group’s piece. From what I’d heard, that was well-deserved. We had hoped that we might win the ‘Best Group’ award, but that went to the ‘Improvisation’ course team. I had never had the chance to see their effort, but Esther leaned forward and whispered to us that it was utter rubbish, but ‘everyone must get prizes’.

With the awards over, we all got up to go home, but Dr MacNair had rushed down to the edge of the stage and stopped us.

“Would all the Pride and Prejudice cast just stay for a minute?” he asked. “Something interesting has come up.” He squinted through the dim auditorium into the audience. “I see Sheila and Esther are out there. You might like to hang on for a moment too.”

He sat down between two footlight units, his legs dangling into the tiny orchestra pit. He waited till the rest of the audience had filed out and all his students had made their way down to the front row.

“I don’t know what arrangements you’ve all made for the summer,” he began, “but I have something that may interest you. It’s six weeks’ work from late June to early August, so it won’t take up all your holiday time. It’s fairly well paid, as these things go, and it will be good for your CVs and count towards membership of Equity.”

That certainly sounded attractive to me. I needed the money, and if it was valid acting experience I knew Holly would be keen. We might have the chance to work together! Then afterwards I could afford to accompany her wherever she wanted to go for the rest of the Long Vacation. Looking around at my friends, I could see that many of them were excited too.

“Before I go into detail, I don’t want to waste your time if you aren’t interested, or are already committed to other activities during the relevant period.” He smiled. “I know it’s been a long, demanding day for you all, so if this opportunity isn’t for you, please feel free to get off home to bed.”

“Thanks for thinking of us, Dr MacNair,” said Jack, as he got to his feet. “It sounds interesting, and I would have liked to take you up on it, but I’ve arranged to do camp counselling in North Carolina all summer.”

Two of the girls said something similar about prior commitments and got up to leave with him.

“That’s fine, guys,” MacNair said, “and many thanks for all your hard work on this little production. Have a great summer!”

After they had left, he turned back to his remaining audience. “OK, everyone. I invited Dennis Vaughan, an old friend of mine, to this afternoon’s performance,” he continued, “because I knew he was looking for young actors for something he’s setting up. He was very impressed with you all and is prepared to offer many of you roles in his project.

“It’s like this: a large eighteenth century property not far from here is currently being renovated. A lot of progress has been made, but the owners are running out of money to finish the job. So they’re looking for ways of using the building to raise revenue. Since it’s much like Jane Austen’s description of Longbourn, and still contains a lot of Regency furniture, decorations, and knick-knacks, they’ve hit on the idea of opening it up to the public as ‘The Pride and Prejudice Experience’. Dennis has been asked to organise it. Visitors will be decked out in Regency costumes and will wander round the house and grounds, seeing how life was lived at that time, and talking with members of the Bennet family and their guests.

“You will play the roles you played today. There will be no script but Dennis has drafted in experts to give you detailed briefings about the lives of the sorts of people you’ll be playing. Customers will come in and see you at various times of the day – getting dressed in the morning, mealtimes, recreational activities, dressing for dinner, maybe even going to bed at night. You will improvise conversations with them and answer their questions in character.”

My earlier excitement evaporated. I couldn’t play Mrs Bennet at close quarters in the bedroom or drawing room even if I wanted to. It was all very well to convince people I was a middle-aged woman for five minutes from twenty feet away, when I was in stage makeup and under harsh lighting. I couldn’t do it for half an hour or so sitting round the dining table with them. It would be obvious I was neither forty nor a woman. Still, maybe I could get one of the other male parts? Maybe Mr Bennet, as Jack wasn’t available? After all, it would be better to play Holly’s father than her mother!

“Dennis is prepared to guarantee each of you £1,500 for six weeks’ work, with bonuses possible if the venture is more successful than they have budgeted for. That’s on top of free accommodation and catering, by the way,” MacNair said.

He focused on Sheila and Esther for a moment. “Dennis wants to involve you ladies too. Obviously there will be lots of work in costuming, makeup and hairdressing – for the visitors as well as the cast – and he was particularly impressed with your contributions today. He promises to make the arrangements with your other employers, if you want. He realises you won’t want to lose any of your regular contracts. Now, is everyone here still interested?”

“What about Mike?” asked Holly abruptly, before anyone else could respond.

“Ah yes,” said MacNair, “Mike… First, let me say that the main reason why Dennis came today was because of the difficulty of finding appropriate young actors. You’re all better qualified than most drama students. You have the benefit of two years of university education, plus a focus on the Regency period through your work adapting Pride and Prejudice, to say nothing of your detailed knowledge of the characters. But he didn’t expect any of you to play the older roles, like Mr and Mrs Bennet or Lady Catherine. So he wouldn’t have cast Jack as Mr Bennet, for example. He gave a fine performance, but it was obvious he wasn’t middle-aged, despite the excellent makeup.”

He turned to Amy, the only other member of the cast playing older than her actual age.

“Dennis doesn’t envisage using Lady Catherine at all I’m afraid, Amy,” he said, “but he would be happy for you to play Hill, the maid. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t be your own real age, of course. You won’t need ageing make-up.”

I looked at Amy. She was clearly disappointed that she wasn’t going to reprise her star turn as Lady Catherine, but even playing the dull part of the maid would be useful acting experience, as well as earning her some money. I knew she had been looking for a summer job; her family weren’t wealthy.

“Which brings me to Mike,” MacNair continued. “Let me put it this way. Dennis was very keen that the talented mature student he saw playing Mrs Bennet should join the project. He thought she was brilliant and would hold all the scenes inside the house together.”

He paused to let his words sink in. So Mr Vaughan thought I was a mature student and a woman? I was pleased that I had fooled this friend of his, but I really didn’t want to spend the first half of the summer vacation pretending to be a forty-year-old mother.

“I wanted to ask you what you thought, Mike, before telling Dennis that ‘Michelle Bradshaw’ wasn’t quite what she seemed. Of course, I’d support you if you think you could get away with it, but I doubt he would be so keen if he knew the truth. It would be too risky for him. If you were exposed as a man, it might wreck the whole project. Also, I realise that playing Mrs Bennet for six more weeks might present certain practical difficulties for you…”

“You’re not kidding!” I said. “I might be able to fool people on stage but I could never do it face-to-face in normal light!”

“Nobody suspected anything in the restaurant tonight though, did they?” said Holly. “I think you’d get away with it easily.”

MacNair looked at her in surprise. There were startled reactions from the others around me too, mostly terminating in sniggers.

“Actually, I might have a suggestion…” Sheila said. Everyone turned round to look at her. “An old colleague of mine runs a very successful business making people look like other people. I’m quite sure she could fix you up. She’d make it so that no one would suspect a thing.”

“Fantastic!” said Holly. “How do we get in touch with her?”

“Just a minute!” I protested. “I’m not sure I want to…”

“Course you do,” she said firmly. “Money, acting experience for your Equity card – what’s not to like?”

“I… I…”

“We’ll have six weeks of fun in Regency England, then a month on the Riviera… Florence, Rome, Venice…”

I wasn’t sure whether Holly knew that Florence, Rome and Venice weren’t on the Riviera, but that wasn’t uppermost in my mind at that moment.

“Well, if he isn’t keen, Holly…” began MacNair, but even he couldn’t derail the Holly Express when it was getting up steam.

“It’s fine, Dr MacNair. You can tell Mr Vaughan that Miss Bradshaw – or is it Mrs? – and I will be delighted to join him. Sheila, can I have your clever friend’s contact details?”

She went off to consult with Sheila and Esther.

“Well… er… fine,” said MacNair. “OK, if everyone who wants to join ‘The Pride and Prejudice Experience’ would just sign this sheet, I’ll get the ball rolling.”

He put a pad of paper and a ballpoint on the stage and stood back.

Sam was one of the first to sign. Then she came up to me while Holly was talking to Sheila.

“Holly does rather walk all over you, doesn’t she?” Sam said. I think she was being sympathetic.

“She’s a very strong-minded person,” I said. “But she can never make me do anything I really don’t want to do.”

“But you really didn’t want to play Mrs Bennet in the first place, did you?” Sam persisted. “She told me she had to talk you into it. You were going to go to MacNair and refuse.”

Why had Holly told Sam that? Sam, of all people!

“I just think a relationship should be about give and take,” she continued. “I can’t imagine ever making a boyfriend of mine dress up as a woman.”

She patted me on the shoulder and walked off.

I noticed she was quite sexy, Sam, actually. I had wondered whether my exposure to all this femininity in the last couple of weeks might have had some lasting effect, but apparently not.

“Come on then, Michelle,” called Holly. “I’ve signed the sheet for us both. I’m going to set up a WhatsApp group for the cast so that we can keep in touch easily.”

* * *

The next day, Sunday, we slept late. I didn’t try to get Holly to change her mind. I just figured Sheila’s friend’s efforts would prove a bust (as it were). Holly would realise it and I’d be off the hook. Besides, arguing with her was tiring and usually pointless, as I’ve explained. Maybe there would be some other job I could do at The Pride and Prejudice Experience.

Apparently, you couldn’t call Transformations (as it turned out they were called). They were super-secretive and would only deal with people they knew. That didn’t sound like a viable business model to me, but what did I know? Anyway, Sheila promised to talk to her friend, explain what we needed, and give her Holly’s number.

Perhaps they wouldn’t be interested. Perhaps they wouldn’t call.

* * *

Monday marked the beginning of the last week of term. E-mails arrived with our exam results mid-morning. I was very happy with my 2:1. Holly got a 2:2, which was quite a relief for her, as her parents had threatened economic sanctions if she didn’t manage at least a Lower Second. She acknowledged that she couldn’t have done it without my help. I tried to trade on that to persuade her not to make me be Mrs Bennet again, but she ignored my pleas and changed the subject.

My e-mail included a summons to see my tutor in the afternoon, to discuss the year that was ending and to talk about next term. When we met, he said I could get a First in my Finals next year if I put my mind to it. I said that I wanted to drop Drama to concentrate on Creative Writing.

He tried to talk me out of it. He had seen me in the show and been impressed. He asked what I had in mind for my career, and I had to admit that the only thing that appealed was writing for stage or screen. He persuaded me that in that case dropping Drama would be daft. Also, if I went into Teaching (say), Drama would be another string to my bow. I promised him I would think about it further, and he wished me happy holidays. (I didn’t mention that I might be spending the next six weeks as a mother of five in 1813.)

On Tuesday, Transformations called Holly to offer us a morning slot the following Wednesday to discuss turning me into a middle-aged lady for the next six weeks. She quickly accepted on my behalf. This would be only just in time as we (or maybe just Holly) were due to join The Pride and Prejudice Experience on Friday. That meant that if they were successful I had only eight more days as myself.

The rest of the last week of term was all parties. Sam and Amy arranged the best one at the Students’ Union. Sam had suggested fancy dress but she was shouted down, as most of us were going to be spending quite enough time in costume that summer. So it was just a standard modern party: DJ, strobe lights, too much booze, and lots of fumbling in the dark. A couple of unsavoury characters who nobody seemed to know were circulating, apparently offering chemical delights, but they didn’t seem to get many customers and they left early.

A good time was had by all, except that at one point Douglas insisted on slow dancing with Holly. I was about to protest when Sam grabbed me and dragged me onto the dance floor. She was warm and cuddly and she couldn’t keep her hands to herself. As always with slow dances between young people lacking proper dance training (apparently we would get that in Drama next year), each couple just rotated slowly, trying not to tread on each other’s feet.

At one point in our rotations Holly and I were looking straight at each other. She seemed cross, perhaps because Sam’s hands were exploring my backside. I shrugged. Nights in White Satin came on next and we both separated from our partners and grabbed each other. So nothing came of either temporary mismatch. I noticed Douglas approaching Sam, but she just turned her nose up and stalked off.

Saturday was the University Summer Ball at the biggest hotel in town. Hired dinner suits for the men, posh frocks for the women. Some of the girls claimed to resent how much easier it was for us guys at these old-fashioned formal balls, but they tended to calm down when they saw our jaws dropping at the sight of them in their finery.

Holly was far and away the most beautiful woman there (as some of the other girls grudgingly admitted). I suggested she should consider a career in modelling, rather than acting.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, scathingly but obviously pleased by the compliment. “I’m not tall enough.”

“Or thin enough,” said Sam, who always seemed to be in the right place to put her oar in.

Holly and I stayed up all night and got stupidly drunk. When we did eventually get to bed we found ourselves discussing marriage for some reason – purely academically, of course. We discovered that neither of us was against the idea in principle, but we fell asleep without making any coherent plans.

* * *

I had to move out of the Hall of Residence on the Sunday morning. We weren’t allowed to leave any of our stuff as the room would be used for summer schools and conferences during the Long Vac. This was no hardship for me as I could leave everything at Holly’s flat. From there we were both heading back to our parents’ homes and expected to be apart until my appointment at Transformations the following Wednesday.

I got home late on Sunday afternoon. My mother and stepfather were upstairs in their bedroom. Open suitcases covered every surface. Keith was brushing down his dinner suit.

“Oh good! You’re back,” my mother said, and rushed over to hug me. “We were afraid we were going to miss you. Why didn’t you call?”

“Er, I’ve been busy – exams, end of term show – you know.”

“You were in a show?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us? We’d have come!”

Which of course is exactly why I didn’t tell them.

“It was nothing important. I was only on stage for five minutes. So… you’re going somewhere?” I said.

“We booked a last minute cruise – Caribbean and the Gulf coast,” said Keith. “Didn’t you get our letter?”

His company having suffered badly from hacking in the past, Keith had something of a phobia about e-mails and texts. He still believed in snail mail. It was sweet, really.

“If you sent it to the Hall of Residence, I haven’t been there since last weekend,” I said. “I only picked up my mail today when I checked out, and I haven’t opened any of it yet.”

“Oh, Darling…” my mother began reproachfully.

“Never mind,” I said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I couldn’t have got back any earlier. Term only ended this week and last night was the Summer Ball.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “How is Holly?”

“Amazing,” I said happily. “She won Best Actress in the show. I’ve got some pictures I can show you.”

There wouldn’t be any pictures of me though – obviously.

“That would be lovely! We can have dinner together. Only leftovers, I’m afraid. But there’s plenty of food for you in the freezer for the next week or so.”

“When are you off?”

“At Sparrow’s Fart tomorrow morning,” said Keith. “Taxi to Southampton. We have to be on board by half ten. We sail at noon.”

* * *

It was a great evening. Keith was generous with the wine and conversation. I took the opportunity to ask him about his work.

“A Property Developer adds value to land or property,” he began. “This might be something small like building an extension, or doing a loft conversion, or just renovating or redecorating. On a larger scale, we might convert a big house into flats, or buy up an old office block and convert it into smart new apartments. Then we can sell the property on for more than we paid for it and turn a nice profit; or rent it out and get a steady income that way. That’s how I started out. I concentrated on flats for singletons and starter homes for young marrieds – small stuff at first. Nowadays I have the funding to take on much bigger projects, like buying undeveloped land and building new estates, or blocks of flats, or commercial offices on it. Sometimes I buy a dilapidated property, knock it down, and build something new. I spent most of today on a site where we’re building new warehouses. Every day’s different.”

“It sounds much more interesting than I expected,” I said when he paused to refill our glasses.

“You should think about it,” he said, seriously. “It would be great if someone in the family joined the firm, for when I… retire. Hannah certainly doesn’t want to know. Her only concern is spending money, not making it.”

He smiled ruefully, but there was sadness behind his eyes.

“It’s my own fault,” he said. “Her mother spoiled her rotten, and I was too busy building my business to take any interest in raising my daughter properly. I thought packing her off to boarding school would help, but it just made things worse.”

My mother took his hand. He looked tired. He was probably well overdue a good holiday.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “Hannah’s not your concern. Tell me more about what you want to do. Maybe I can help.”

“I’m hoping for a writing career of some kind,” I said, “but lots of struggling writers have to work a proper job while waiting for their first publishing success. Property development certainly sounds more interesting than…” I couldn’t think of a suitable comparison. “Well, than anything else I’ve thought of.”

“I can arrange an internship at the firm, if you’d like,” he said. “Let’s talk about it when we get back.”

“I’ve got something lined up until mid-August. But after that, definitely.”

They wanted to know what I was going to be doing, of course. I mumbled something vague about historical re-enactment.

Next: A More Convincing Transformation

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Previously Mike only had to put up with a little padding and makeup, but to become Mrs Bennet properly, something much more dramatic is needed.

Chapter Eight – A More Convincing Transformation

Bright and early the following Wednesday Holly picked me up and drove us to Transformations in a hire car. Once again I was reminded that I needed to make some money to keep pace with her. I could never have afforded to hire a car for a day.

“You really mustn’t be disappointed if – when – this doesn’t work out,” I said on the way. “To play Mrs Bennet in The Pride and Prejudice Experience, I would have to be completely convincing as a middle-aged woman when people are as close to me as you are now, and indoors, and in ordinary daylight. There’s no way they can do that.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t ask you to go through with it unless you’re one hundred percent convincing. It would be embarrassing for both of us, and would only ruin the entire project. If you can't be Mrs Bennet, perhaps we can get you a job as a gardener, or something.”

“Thank you,” I said, with relief. “But I still can’t see what they can do. I am a man, after all.”

“I’m well aware of that!” she said with a grin. “However…” Ominous pause. “You must promise to be absolutely honest about this. If these people really can do what Sheila thinks they can, you have to accept your fate with good grace.”

I agreed, not expecting to have to worry about that.

We drove past the entrance to Transformations twice, once in each direction, before we realised the anonymous-looking entrance half-hidden within stands of tall trees led to the place we were seeking. There were no advertising signs or company logos anywhere, but when we turned into the drive, Holly was confident that the description of the outside of the main house matched the instructions she had been given over the telephone.

She parked in a Visitors spot outside and I tried to remind her one final time that this was in all probability going to be a wasted journey, and she should not be too disappointed.

“I get it. I get it!” she tutted. “Come on, we’re late.”

Inside, the building was quite different. There was a modern office entrance hall with a hospitality desk, behind which sat a very pretty receptionist.

“Welcome to Transformations,” she said. “I’m Angie. May I help you?”

“I hope so. This is Michelle,” Holly said, indicating me. “We have an appointment at nine-thirty.”

While Angie was checking her list, Holly turned back to me, knowing I was about to remonstrate with her for introducing me by the annoying feminine version of my name.

“They don’t want to know either of our real names,” she explained, “just the name you will be known by after your transformation.”

Well, I suppose that was reassuring. I didn’t want there to be any record of Mike Bradshaw being a client of these people.

“Your consultant will be with you shortly,” said Angie. “Would you like to take a seat for a moment?”

We sat down in some huge leather-bound armchairs to wait.

“The lady on the phone explained that they never ask their customers why they want to change their appearances,” said Holly. “If Transformations know that their client’s motives are dishonest, they would have to decline to help. That’s another reason why they prefer to operate through intermediaries and never ask for real names.”

“Then how on earth do they get paid?” I asked.

“Oh, they ask for a deposit by bank transfer up front, returnable if we’re not satisfied.”

I hadn’t even thought about the cost of this exercise. I hoped Holly hadn’t splashed out a lot of money.

“Then if the customer doesn’t pay the balance afterwards,” she continued, “they’re not too much out of pocket.”

“And no one has let us down so far,” said a stout lady in a smart grey skirt suit, who had materialised silently during our discussion. “I’m Ingrid MacLaughlin, your consultant for this morning. We spoke on the phone, I believe, Madam?”

She didn’t leave time for Holly to confirm or deny her assertion. “Would you like to follow me?”

Ingrid was tall and authoritative, even mannish. Her voice was deep for a woman but within the normal female range. She reminded me of my primary school headmistress, a forceful lady who had played hockey for England. I wondered whether Ingrid might be one of Transformations’ own creations, but there were no other indications of masculinity. If she was a man under the tweedy suit, frilly blouse, makeup and perfect coiffure, then she was very convincing indeed – which was worrying for my prospects of leaving here still male.

As we passed the Reception desk, Ingrid said, “Would you have some refreshments sent along to Vera’s room, please, Angie?”

She led us behind the desk and tapped at a keypad. A security door opened and we stepped through into a long, brightly-lit corridor. We stopped at the third room we came to. It looked like a doctor’s surgery. In the middle of the room there was a leather-covered examination table on castors. There was a workbench against one wall with various bottles and hairdressing implements on it, and a dressing table with a large mirror. Around the other walls were several glass-fronted cupboards containing vials of fluids. I wondered what role their contents might play in a client’s transformation, and whether they were taken orally or rubbed on.

Against the far wall there was a desk with several chairs around it. Another large lady in a white medical coat was seated and staring at a computer monitor. She stood up when she saw us and came over. She smiled and we shook hands.

“This is Vera,” Ingrid said. “She will be doing most of your transformation, once we have decided what you need.”

There was no need to introduce us of course. I was ‘Michelle’ and Holly was ‘Madam’. We all took seats around the desk.

“Now, my understanding is that Michelle will need to present herself as a middle-aged lady for approximately six weeks, during which time she will be continually meeting people in various domestic circumstances and lighting schemes, and with close contact. Is that right?”

“Exactly,” said Holly. “I think these pictures might help you to understand the circumstances better.”

She opened her phone and scrolled through to the Gallery. She handed it to Ingrid, who held it so that both she and Vera could see it. They were looking at the photos Holly had taken of me in costume on the day of the Dress Rehearsal.

“Oh, I see,” said Ingrid. “Would this have something to do with The Pride and Prejudice Experience?”

“Yes! How did you know that?”

“There are adverts for it all around here,” said Vera. “It sounds fantastic! We’re all going.”

“It’s at a place called Hadleigh House,” said Ingrid.

“That’s not far from here, just outside the village of Hadleigh,” added Vera. “We know… some people there.”

It sounded like she had been about to say more, but she stopped suddenly due to a stern look from Ingrid. Maybe someone in the Hadleigh area was a Transformations client?

“We performed a few scenes from Pride and Prejudice at our end of term show,” Holly continued. “Michelle was brilliant…”

I couldn’t let her get away with that. “You won the Best Actress prize,” I said.

I realised that was the first time I had spoken since we arrived. I could see Ingrid was thinking about my voice.

“…anyway, Dennis Vaughan, who’s running the Experience project invited us all to take part. He was particularly keen that Michelle should play Mrs Bennet, but…” Holly trailed off, not knowing quite how to continue.

“But he doesn’t know that Michelle isn’t a woman?” Ingrid said.

“Right, and it’s one thing to pass as a woman on stage for a few minutes, and with scripted lines, and in full makeup…”

“And quite another in the drawing room serving tea to guests and telling them about life in 1813. I see.” Ingrid was a sharp lady (and clearly another Austen fan). “Please don’t be concerned,” she continued. “We can be discreet. If Mr Vaughan has said he wants Michelle, an accomplished forty-something actress, then we will make sure that he has her, and you won’t be taking his money under false pretences.”

“These are great pictures,” said Vera. “I assume Mr Vaughan saw Michelle like this?”

“Ah yes,” said Holly, seeing her point immediately. “We will need her to have a very similar figure, and you can’t change her face too much.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Ingrid, looking at me carefully. “He doesn’t have pronounced masculine features.”

Great! Someone else who thinks I have a ‘baby face’. She probably thinks I’m ‘small and weedy and effeminate’ as well but is too polite to say so.

“By that I mean he has unexceptional, unlined features and an oval face, not long and thin,” she continued. “Also, he doesn’t have a big nose or a pronounced supraorbital ridge. We can attach a few facial prostheses to conceal his masculinity and bring out feminine features, without changing his overall image. Any discrepancies will be attributed to the exaggerations of stage makeup.”

Thus far she’d been talking to Holly exclusively, which I found a little annoying. Now she turned to me.

“How tall are you?” she asked.

“Five foot eight,” I said.

“You’re a little below the average height for a man. Tallish for a woman, but not conspicuously so. You’re slim, so we can easily pad you out to any shape we want.”

“He’s 38DD-33-40 in the pictures,” said Holly. “Your friend, Sheila, used a padded body shaper to do that. Is that what you’ll do?”

“I don’t think so actually,” said Ingrid. “According to the brochure for The Pride and Prejudice Experience, visitors will be able to see members of the cast getting dressed and undressed, showcasing the clothes people wore in Regency times. I’m sure you won’t have to appear totally nude, but I expect you will be seen ‘scantily clad’, shall we say?”

“So you will need realistic female flesh bulging out of your shift and corset,” said Vera, with a mischievous grin.

“Er, yes, exactly,” said Ingrid.

“Oh, that’s it!” I said, angrily. “I’m out!”

“Why?” said Holly. “No one will see you, or any of your real… private parts. Everything of yours will be concealed by fleshy padding and frilly underwear.”

It took the three of them a little while to persuade me to see it through, but in the end I ran out of viable excuses, as I always seemed to do with Holly when she had set her mind on something.

At that moment an elderly maid appeared with coffee and cookies. I calmed down a little and tucked in.

* * *

For the first stage of my transformation, I had to strip down to my underpants and put on a dressing gown (pink) and a pair of women’s slippers (also pink). Vera led me to a small dark room that turned out to be the facility’s photography booth. She waited outside while I had to stand on a little dais, drop the gown and my briefs, and stay still while cameras whizzed round me taking pictures from every angle. I put the gown on again and Vera took me back to her room. Ingrid and Holly were studying a 3D image of me, naked.

“Now we superimpose an image of a woman of his height with approximately 38DD-33-40 statistics. The computer then calculates the differences between the two figures and fabricates the prostheses he needs.”

“Wow!” Holly said. “This technology is amazing! What about his face?”

Ingrid pressed some more buttons. My face appeared on the screen – in high-definition, showing every little birthmark and blemish. Then it started revolving in 3D.

“Let’s put a wig on her first,” Ingrid said. She brought up a menu and clicked on one of the options that came up. A number of hairstyles appeared. She clicked on ‘medium-length with curls’ and chose a mousy brown colour. That hairstyle appeared on my head; that is, on the head of my image on the screen.

“This is close to the style of her wig in the pictures, isn’t it?”

“Identical, I’d say,” said Holly.

“Now with those new measurements, she should be plumper in the face. Sheila gave you a latex double chin, didn’t she?” I nodded. “This will do much the same.”

She punched some buttons and my face broadened significantly. My cheeks grew rounder and a double chin appeared.

“We have a standard package for feminising a male face.” She clicked on another menu. “The scale goes from zero to ten, but we can’t use the higher numbers, because Mr Vaughan already knows what you look like. ‘Ten’ would make you unrecognisable, for example.”

She selected ‘three’. The picture changed. It’s hard to describe exactly what happened, but the face – I could hardly call it my face anymore – had softened somehow. It was still me, but definitely a female version now.

“Finally, you’re supposed to be about twenty years older, aren’t you?”

More clicks and thin lines started appearing all over the image. The fat chin and cheeks sagged. Deep bags gathered under the eyes. The woman looked at least fifty now.

“I think that might be a little too much,” said Holly.

Ingrid studied the pictures on her phone. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll dial it down a little.” The woman in the mirror slowly grew younger.

“That’s perfect,” said Holly. “She’s definitely middle-aged but still quite attractive. You can really make him look - just like that?”

“Oh yes,” said Ingrid. “I’ll send the instructions to the 3D printer. It will take about twenty minutes to print the prostheses. Vera will shave you and give you your waxing while we wait.”

She stood up. “Perhaps you’d like to come to my office, madam?” The two of them made their way to the door. “By the way, did you bring some clothes for Michelle?”

As Holly had said, their technology was amazing. I was beginning to get seriously worried...

* * *

I didn’t mind the extra-close shave with a cutthroat razor, being used to it by now, but I tried to argue with Vera about the need for ‘waxing’. She was sympathetic but firm.

“You can’t be seen with hairy arms and legs when your maid is dressing you in front of the paying customers,” she pointed out.

She handed me a glass, half full of strong-smelling brown liquid.

“Anaesthetic,” she said with a smile. “You’ll probably need it. Drink up.”

I gulped it down. It was very good whisky. It gave me a lovely warm feeling inside and made my eyes water.

“Also, we have to clean up your chest and back and backside,” Vera continued, “because we’ll be sticking prostheses all over to give you your lovely middle-aged-lady figure…”

“Wait – sticking?”

“Oh yes, the prostheses are stuck on using medical adhesive,” she said. “You can’t risk them sliding off, can you?”

“But what about…” I paused, glancing downwards, searching for the right words.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. The abdominal prosthesis has a special gadget that enables you to… fulfil your obligations… down there. Now come on – up on the table.”

The anaesthetic helped – a bit. It was still the most pain I had ever experienced. When she finished she dabbed away a few drops of blood, then rubbed a soothing cream all over me. That part I liked.

* * *

When Ingrid returned, she was pushing something like a dinner trolley on which were a number of hideous-looking, flesh-coloured objects. Holly followed behind her, looking annoyingly cheerful. When she saw my hairless, denuded body, pink and glistening, she gasped and grinned. She was about to laugh and say something along the lines of ‘Now you know what it’s like for us women,’ until she saw the look on my face and thought better of it. Tact was never her strong suit, but she did love me (or said she did).

“I’ll go and get her clothes from the car, shall I?” she said.

“Good idea,” said Ingrid. “Also, we have a couple of other things to discuss.”

When they had gone Vera reached for the largest item on the trolley. This looked, as I suppose I should have expected, exactly like the lower half of an overweight woman, including a realistic genital area complete with pubic hair. The only difference was that it was empty inside. My lower half would be filling it.

She grunted with the effort of lifting it off the trolley, so I could safely assume it was heavy. I had wondered at the time what Sheila’s friend used that ‘supple plastic’ for. Now I was about to find out.

“This is your ‘abdominal prosthesis’,” Vera said redundantly. “I have to spread adhesive over your lower portions – from your waist down to your knees, basically.”

She reached for a large pot of something.

“What about my…?” I began, still bereft of words to describe my private parts without sounding indelicate.

“Your genitals?” she said. “There’s a special apparatus built in here. Look inside. Do you see that little tube? Your penis goes in it. The other end connects to the vagina, so that you can urinate comfortably – sitting down, of course. The rear orifice will align perfectly with your anus.”

She put the thing down again and reached for the pot of adhesive. Not wanting to be stuck to the table, I had to stand up for her to slather it all over my nether portions. It was cold and smelt like superglue.

“We have to work quickly now before it sets,” she said.

She held up the prosthesis for me to step in. With lots of wriggling from me and brute force from her – she was stronger than she looked – we managed to pull the thing up to my waist. It reminded me of Sheila’s body shaper, except that it was now firmly attached, and it was heavy.

“I have to smooth it down,” she said, “to make sure it’s in the right position and remove any air bubbles before the adhesive sets. Lie down again, please.”

She proceeded to massage me all over. This was mostly quite pleasant except when she was rubbing those areas where my newly-acquired fat was thickest; my thighs and buttocks, mainly. I couldn’t feel anything there obviously, but she had to press extra hard to get through the fake fat and ensure close, crease-free contact between the prosthetic’s inner lining and my own skin. The wobbling and jiggling that caused was disconcerting, to say the least.

“Now let’s deal with your wedding tackle,” she said with a smile.

She went over to a small refrigerator under the workbench and filled a tray with ice cubes.

“I have to push your testicles back up inside you first. It’ll be more comfortable if I ice your genital area.”

The ice on my most sensitive parts reminded me of running into the North Sea on Margate Beach. The shock caused everything to shrink quickly. Before I had even finished squealing Vera had seized the opportunity to push my testicles up and manoeuvre my penis into the little tube. She was now tugging at something high up between my legs.

“This is an almost invisible zip fastener. It will hold all your male bits up out of sight. Don’t worry – you can get them back down again when you need them. You do everything I just did in reverse. Most of our clients find it easier to get their partners to help, by the way.”

I could imagine Holly’s reaction to that request. Vera finished zipping me up and stood back.

“So how does that feel?”

“Uncomfortable.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Hang on, there must be a fault with your printer,” I said. “The skin on this thing is all mottled and wrinkled.”

She laughed. “No, dear, that’s just your cellulite. Perfectly normal for a forty-year-old woman who’s a little overweight. We’ll do your upper half next.”

I had to lie back down on the examination table while she glued my prosthetic breasts on. I saw why it had been important to wax my chest.

“What happens when my chest hair grows back?” I asked.

“That’s one reason why you’ll need to come here every couple of weeks,” Vera said. “But the cream I rubbed on after your waxing will inhibit the growth to some extent.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was in that cream.

“I’m going to cover up the edges of all your prosthetics with makeup now,” she said. “That way you can wear a low-cut dress in the evening and your bosom will look entirely natural.”

So I would have the pleasure of male visitors gawping at my cleavage. Another wonderful experience to look forward to.

“Stupid question, I know,” I said, “but how do I get this lot off?”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” she smiled reassuringly. “The adhesive breaks down eventually. The prosthesis will come off by itself when you lose the top layer of your skin. That takes about two weeks…”

“Two weeks?”

“Yes, that’s the other reason why you’ll have to come back here – to get your prosthetics removed, cleaned and replaced. You’ll probably have to come in a couple of times during your six-week stint as Mrs Bennet.”

She must have realised that this wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“Of course, we have a solvent for the adhesive if you need to remove it earlier, but it’s a very laborious process. It’s much better to leave it alone for at least a fortnight. Call for an appointment when you first feel it slipping. Now, you’d better get up and move around a bit. We need to make sure everything’s correctly positioned and holding firm.”

I stood up again and staggered around the room. I felt like I was falling backwards and my knees wobbled alarmingly.

“Careful!” she warned. “You need to get used to the extra weight. Stick your chest out more; that will act as a counterbalance to your big bottom.”

This was so much worse than the ‘body’ Sheila put me in. I was even heavier now and all the extra flesh was firmly attached. At least when I stepped out of Mrs Bennet’s body shaper I was back to myself: slim, fit, young and male. None of those adjectives applied to me now. I sighed. This could be really depressing…

I gradually got the hang of walking around without falling over, but it would take me a while to get used to parts of me wobbling and swinging from side to side whenever I moved.

“These breasts are pulling on the skin of my chest,” I said.

“Yes, you need a bra to transfer some of the weight to your shoulders.” She went over to a drawer and started rummaging. “Here you are – 38DD, and these matching panties should fit too.”

I stepped into the knickers first, then Vera helped me with the bra. That was much more comfortable. My shoulders were now taking the strain of my enormous boobs – as the body shaper had done.

I put the pink dressing gown and the slippers back on.

“You now have a male head on Michelle’s female body,” Vera said. “So we need to do your face. Come and sit down over here.”

She led me over to the dressing table, pulling the now much lighter trolley with her so she could reach the remaining prosthetic pieces more easily. We sat down facing each other. My back was to the mirror.

“These work in the same way as the system that made your body prostheses, only on a smaller scale and in more detail. The software prints flesh-like pieces based on the differences between your actual face and the desired look – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. It also provides this template to help me fix each piece in the right place.”

She showed me a thin piece of plastic with lots of wavy lines on.

“Close your eyes now, dear,” she said. “Try to breathe through your nose.”

She pressed the wafer-thin template over my face, aligning its breathing holes over my nostrils.

“The mask matches the contours of your face precisely, so I don’t need to hold it,” she said. “It stays in place by itself. Now I just have to go over the lines with this stylus. It works like carbon paper, so I get thin blue lines on your face to show me where each of the prosthetic pieces goes.”

When she had finished tracing the guidelines from the template, she gently peeled it away. She picked up the first of the small fleshy pieces and painted its back with her glue.

“So is that like the latex that Esther used, to give me wrinkles?”

“No, that would be no good. Latex doesn’t last very long and it loosens with soap and water. This is more like a mask. It goes over your skin. It lasts as long as all your other prostheses and it won’t come off in the shower. You’ll be a middle-aged lady version of yourself for two weeks at a time.”

“Can I take a bottle of the solvent with me?” I asked. “For emergencies?”

“We’ll see. Shush now. I’ve still got half a dozen pieces to do, and you have blue lines all over your face.”

It took her another half an hour to finish. She stuck bags under my eyes, dimples (OK, wrinkles) on my cheeks, laughter lines around my mouth, and finally a wobbly double chin around my neck.

“Finished!” Vera declared triumphantly.

“Can I see?”

“Not just yet,” she said. “I need to wipe away the remaining blue ink. Also, your skin isn’t exactly the same colour as the prosthetics, so I need to paint your face to even it up.”

She set to with a damp tissue and a paint pot.

“We might as well put your wig on too,” she said. “Then you can see the complete picture.”

She stretched another nylon wig cap over my own hair. The wig came next. It looked very like the one I had worn before as Mrs Bennet. I suppose it was important that it could be easily styled into the sort of hairdo a middle-aged woman wore in Regency times.

Eventually she spun me round to face the mirror. The shock was even greater than when I saw myself as Mrs Bennet for the first time at our Dress Rehearsal. It was still me, but it was an older, female me. My few masculine features had been softened or concealed. The double chin completely hid my Adam’s Apple.

It was quite disturbing. There were now no giveaway signs that there was a man underneath. I was very much afraid I would have to go through with this...

Vera was on the phone.

“Yes, she’s ready,” she was saying. “She needs some clothes now.”

Holly and Ingrid turned up five minutes later, Holly carrying a suitcase. They were chatting like old friends. From what I could gather, Ingrid used to be in the business, working backstage at a small theatre nearby. She was encouraging with regard to Holly’s career as an actress but warned her that very few make the big time. I knew Holly had been told the same many times, but nothing could shake her confidence.

When I saw her, I wrapped the pink dressing gown around me more tightly to hide my distended figure, and especially the embarrassing bra and panties, but there was no concealing my face or figure. Holly stared appraisingly for a moment.

“Well,” she said, a stupid grin spreading across her flawless features, “I take it you have no further objections to my plans for our summer?”

“If you say, ‘I told you so’, I’ll still quit; promise or no promise,” I said defiantly.

“I would never,” she said, pretending to be offended. “Neither of us really knew what Ingrid’s team were capable of, did we?”

She put the suitcase down on the workbench and opened it. It was full of her mother’s cast-offs again. Seeing I already had bra and knickers on, she handed me a pair of plain tights. I sighed and took them. I sat down to put them on, turning the chair away from the others.

“It’s an amazing achievement, ladies,” Holly said. “She’s absolutely perfect. I’ll help her get dressed and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Do you have makeup for her?” asked Vera. “Autumn colours, I think, don’t you?”

“We can do that for you before you go,” said Ingrid. “No extra charge.”

Holly agreed on my behalf.

“Do you want ‘permanent’ makeup?” asked Vera.

“No, we do not!” I said. I tried to stand up but I had got my tights twisted round my ankles.

Holly chuckled. “No, probably not. She’ll need to be made up Regency-style every morning, but she’ll want something more modern for her days off.”

Now I had to worry about makeup regimes! Could this get any worse? And what was with all these feminine pronouns?

Next: Becoming Auntie Michelle

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

From playing a part in a play, Mike has become a full-time forty-year-old woman and has to play the part in real life.

Chapter Nine – Becoming Auntie Michelle

“Couldn’t you find me any trousers?” I grumbled as Holly drove us away from Transformations.

“Sorry,” she said, “Mum doesn’t own many pairs and I know she’d miss any I borrowed.”

The frightful red floral dress had made another appearance, but fortunately there were alternatives. I chose a short-sleeved black top (although it was a little too low-cut for my liking) and a matching calf-length skirt with a red rose pattern. I thought it looked quite smart, but Holly told me it was out of fashion. I wondered how women made such judgements.

Because of what I had overheard outside my dressing room after the matinee performance of our show, I knew that Holly’s parents disapproved of her dressing me up. So she had waited till they were out before raiding her mother’s wardrobe. She was careful only to take older things that had made their way into the dark corners at the far ends of the rail. She hoped that Susan would have forgotten about everything she had taken.

The big problem was shoes. I didn’t have large feet but they were much bigger than either Holly’s or Susan’s. Ingrid came to the rescue again. It was a common problem for her clients, she had said, so she kept a good supply. I was now the proud possessor of half a dozen pairs of ladies’ shoes in my size. The ones I was wearing now were black two-inch kitten heels (apparently). Holly wanted me to get used to them and threatened to introduce me to four-inchers in due course.

I pulled down the passenger seat sunblind and opened the little mirror on the back to examine my face again. Vera knew her business. My makeup was excellent: a little eyeshadow, a touch of mascara, a dab of rouge to highlight my cheekbones, and lipstick that was bright but not glaring. I still looked like a middle-aged woman, but quite possibly late thirties, at least in in a good light.

“I did think of nicking some of Mum’s cosmetics for you, but she’s quite careful with her makeup, so I’m glad Vera was able to supply you. We should have asked them for some cheap jewellery too.”

“I’m sure Sheila and Esther will provide all I need,” I said, “and I’m not getting my ears pierced, thank you.”

“I never suggested…”

“No, but you were going to, weren’t you?”

She didn’t deny it.

* * *

We weren’t due at Hadleigh House until Friday afternoon, so I had to spend Wednesday evening and all day Thursday as Michelle. We had originally intended to go back to Holly’s flat near the University, but we now had my parents’ house all to ourselves. It was bigger and much more comfortable, but it was Keith’s extensive wine cellar that swung it. If I had to be a middle-aged woman, at least I could be a drunk middle-aged woman. That accounted for Wednesday night.

I wasn’t at all keen on my girlfriend seeing me in bra and knickers with all my new surplus flesh spilling out, so at bedtime I suggested she might prefer to sleep in the guest room. She was having none of it.

“We said in our application form that we wanted to share a bedroom at Hadleigh House, but we don’t know what the sleeping arrangements will be. This may be our last chance for a while. Come on, Michelle, get naked!”

But she wasn’t prepared for the sight of me stripped off.

“My God, that’s so sexy!” she squealed.

“Oh come on! You can’t possibly be finding this attractive!” I said, indicating my lumpy, frumpy figure.

“Oh yes I do!” she said. “Don’t ask me to explain it, just be grateful!”

She flung herself at me, silencing my objections with kisses. I felt my bra being undone behind me. While I was struggling to keep it in position, Holly was pulling my tights down. I soon felt my panties joining them around my ankles. Then she stopped suddenly, gaping at the realistic female groin area.

“Wh – what’s – where’s your…?” she stammered.

“I thought that might slow you down a little,” I said. “But I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I thought this was what you wanted?”

“What! Of course not! I never meant for you to be…”

“Castrated? Well, what did you think Transformations would do?”

“I – I – I…!”

She looked horrified. I realised I might have gone too far.

“Relax. It might not be quite as bad as you think.”

I explained about the little zipper.

“You bastard! I thought I’d made you…”

“Well, you’ve certainly made me feel emasculated lately, so maybe I deserved a moment of payback.” I lay back on the bed and spread my legs. “Now, my liberation is more easily accomplished from your vantage point…”

“I’ve gone right off it now,” she grumbled. “As far as I’m concerned, you can stay locked up in your chastity knickers!”

“OK, suit yourself. I’m probably too tired and drunk anyway.”

I pulled back the covers and got into bed properly.

“Oh no, you don’t!” she yelled, turning on a sixpence. “I demand satisfaction!”

With a dexterity borne of frenzy and determination, Holly soon mastered both the tiny zip and the release of my manly equipment. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable, but not actually painful.

My new bulk made it easier for us both if Holly went on top. That wasn’t unfamiliar, although she claimed that the sensation of my pseudo-breasts rubbing against her real ones was new.

“I love your boobies, Michelle!” she said, with a grin.

“Is that supposed to enhance my ardour, or kill it stone dead?”

She stopped doing… what she was doing… and gave me a puzzled look.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Complimenting a man on his huge breasts, which he never wanted in the first place, is hardly the way to make him more aroused, is it?”

“I suppose not, sorry. I guess I’ve been taking this game a little too far, haven’t I?”

“You think?”

“Look, if you really can’t cope with being Mrs Bennet for the next six weeks, I’ll understand,” she said. “I don’t want you to end up hating me…”

She actually seemed upset. I didn’t think she was acting this time. I sighed.

“Well… since we’ve come this far, and I need the money…” I began.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

She started smothering me in kisses. I pushed her away to free my mouth for a moment.

“But if you could dial down the teasing, that would be great,” I said. “Remember I only have a fragile male ego…”

“As if!” she laughed. “You’re the toughest guy I know…”

She happily resumed… what she had been doing.

That was enough air-clearing, at least for the moment. I concentrated on the job in hand, and she duly received the satisfaction she had been craving… twice. (I was pretty satisfied too.)

* * *

We slept in till nearly half-past ten on Thursday morning. None of my own clothes came close to fitting me now, not even my dressing gown, but Holly produced an old, rather drab, cotton nightie of her mother’s and a pair of nearly matching panties. So I grudgingly put them on before pottering downstairs to make coffee and begin breakfast.

My parents had left bread, milk and eggs, and there were some bacon and sausages that were only just past their ‘Use By’ dates.
Tantalising odours and sizzling sounds roused my beloved from her slumbers and she soon joined me.

“You look weird without your wig,” she said when she saw me. “Michelle’s wrinkled face and voluptuous body, but with Mike’s hair.”

“I’m not going to wear that thing anytime I don’t have to. It’s hot and uncomfortable.”

“You’ll have to wear it almost all the time at Hadleigh House. You’ll only be able to take it off in the privacy of our bedroom – assuming we have any privacy at all, that is.”

That was a depressing thought. Holly sat down at the breakfast table and I started dishing up.

“That was great last night,” she said, through a mouthful of bangers and scrambled eggs. I sensed she was looking for confirmation. I nodded. “It’s good to know that Mike is still fully functional,” she added, “even if he’s buried somewhere inside Michelle.”

“I’m relieved myself,” I agreed. “You were a little tiger in bed. I hope it was just the novelty. I would hate to think you prefer Michelle to Mike.”

“I can’t see it makes any difference,” she said airily. “They’re both you. Anyway with your zip open and your… landing gear down, you’re sort of half and half, aren’t you?”

It certainly made a difference to me, as I thought I’d made clear the night before, but I didn’t want to begin the day with an argument. I started loading the dishwasher with the breakfast things.

“Listen, I know you’re not really comfortable doing all this,” she said, getting serious for once, “but you’re only going to be Michelle for six weeks. Then you’ll be back to being Mike and you need never wear women’s clothes again.” She paused. “Unless you want to, of course,” she added with a grin.

“And your point is?”

“You might as well try and enjoy it. It will be a whole new experience; one you’ll never have again. They say everyone has both a masculine and feminine side, so let Michelle take over for a while. See where it takes you. It might be fun.”

“But what if she doesn’t want to let go afterwards?”

She snorted scornfully. Either she didn’t feel that remark was worthy of an answer, or she couldn’t think of one.

* * *

With our breakfast over and tidied away I went up to have a close shave and a shower. Maybe my various prostheses would fall off after vigorous rubbing with shower gel and water? I didn’t hold out much hope.

I stood, naked, at the bathroom mirror, except Mike wasn’t naked. All his private parts were well covered by Transformations’ best plastic. But Michelle was naked all right. When I saw her bountiful breasts and big round shiny bottom again, I could feel my manhood rising, desperate to assert itself.

This was ridiculous. I turned the shower to ‘cold’ and jumped in.

* * *

“What shall we do today?” Holly asked, when I got back into the bedroom, wrapped in towels.

“There’s not much we can do with me like this, is there?”

“Well, you don’t have much to wear, and what you do have is old hat. So why don’t we go shopping?”

“Absolutely not! No chance! I’m still a man under this lot. I’m not wandering around women’s clothes shops, stripping down to my underwear, trying things on… Not for all the tea in China.”

She sighed. “All right, but we do have to go out. You need to get used to being Michelle in public. Also we should practise putting Mike away again. Lie down and let me zip you up.”

Although I was used to ‘intimate handling’ by my girlfriend (obvs), this particular process was different. We both learned something from the experience. I learned that Holly was probably wise not to consider a career in nursing, and she learned just how loudly a man can scream if you are too rough with his bollocks. It was at that point I remembered that Vera had applied ice to the relevant area before attempting the delicate manipulation. I wouldn’t forget next time.

I still couldn’t fasten my bra behind my back without Holly’s help. While I was trying to put on my underwear, and she was watching spellbound, her mobile chimed. She accepted the call, leaving me to struggle with my bra. She didn’t put the thing on ‘Speaker’, so I heard only her half of the conversation.

“Oh, hi, how are you?” … “Yes, we’re good.” … “Yes, it all went very well. You should see her. It’s amazing!” … “That’s a great idea! Will the others be there?” … “The Dog and Duck in Hadleigh. We’ll find it. I guess it’ll be our local for the next six weeks, won’t it?” … “Twelve-thirty? That will be fine. See you there.”

She put the phone down and turned back to me. She tutted and fastened my bra for me.

“You’re going to have to learn how to do this yourself, you know,” she said.

“Not a skill I ever expected to need. I thought knowing how to take a bra off was all I would want. Who was that on the phone?”

“Amy. She and some of the others who live up North came down a day early. We’re going to meet for lunch at a pub near Hadleigh House.”

“Do we have to?” I was still hoping to be seen as little as possible in my current guise.

“Yes, Mike. I think they’re entitled, don’t you? Their summer jobs depend on Michelle being totally convincing. Think of it as an audition…”

* * *

Holly had returned the hire car so we had to rely on public transport now. My foot-dragging made us late. When we arrived at the pub our fellow actors were already there. Douglas and Derek were at the bar organising a round of drinks. Holly led the way confidently over to a table for eight where Amy, Sam and Diane were sitting. I followed diffidently, expecting gasps and whoops when they saw me. I wasn’t disappointed.

“This is Michelle, everyone,” said Holly with a grin.

I was wearing a floral-patterned blue dress that could have been the sister of the ugly red one of the previous week, except that a relative lack of frills and flounces made it a little less of a fashion disaster. It was just as low-cut though, exposing my horribly realistic cleavage.

“My eyes are up here, ladies,” I said in my ‘middle-aged woman’ voice. I pulled my cardigan more tightly around my bosom.

The girls were all gawping at my chest, so no doubt I could expect more of the same when the men returned with the drinks.

“That’s amazing!” said Amy.

“I think we’re in business,” said Sam. “‘Mature Student, Mrs Michelle Bradshaw,’ is completely convincing!”

“I love your hair,” said Diane.

Holly had put my wig in an ‘updo’, which did look quite smart, I suppose, but was that really all Diane thought worthy of comment?

“I wasn’t sure about it,” Holly said, “because you could see she doesn’t have pierced ears, so I gave her those old clip-ons.”

“And they’re already beginning to hurt,” I said. “I’m certainly not going to wear earrings all day as Mrs Bennet.”

I hung my – that is, Susan’s – old handbag over the back of a vacant chair, and sat down, remembering to smooth my dress under me. All the girls (except Holly) were staring now, presumably at my feminine mannerisms, which were becoming automatic.

Derek appeared with a tray of drinks. He handed out glasses to Amy, Sam and Diane. When he saw me he stared, as though at a stranger. Then he noticed Holly was sitting next to me and light dawned.

“Wow, you’re fantastic!” he said. “I wondered who the strange lady with Holly was! At first I thought you must be her mother! No one would ever suspect you’re not a woman, Mike…!”

“Inside voice, Derek,” said Sam. “We don’t want the whole pub to know.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said. “What can I get you, ladies? We’ve opened a tab.”

“Gin and tonic for me, please, Derek,” said Holly, “and a glass of white wine for my Auntie Michelle.”

“I’d rather have a pint of lager,” I said, a little cross that she was ordering for me.

“Forget it,” she said. “Middle-aged ladies don’t drink pints.”

“That’s a bit sexist, isn’t it?” I said, but Derek was already on his way back to the bar.

“‘Auntie Michelle’?” Amy queried.

“Well, my parents might come to The Pride and Prejudice Experience, so I can’t pretend she’s my mother, but she has to be a close relation so that we can share a bedroom without anyone thinking it odd.”

That was good thinking, I suppose. I hadn’t thought about sleeping arrangements for the next six weeks. So I would have to get used to my girlfriend calling me ‘Mama’ during the day and ‘Auntie’ at night.

“Won’t you have to room with Hilary?” said Diane. “Jane and Elizabeth Bennet share a bedroom, don’t they?”

“I certainly hope not!” I protested. “I’m certainly not sharing with some old actor Dennis has found to play my husband!”

A general discussion ensued of what the next six weeks would be like. We had filled in application forms asked for our accommodation preferences, but we hadn’t thought that allocations might be made in accordance with our Pride and Prejudice roles. We would have to wait and see.

Douglas came back to the table with pints for himself and Derek, and an armful of crisps and nuts. He also did a double-take on seeing me, but his reaction was less friendly.

“I’m not happy about this,” he said. “I accept that it’s a brilliant disguise, but I still doubt Mike is a good enough actor to convince hundreds of strangers that he’s a woman.”

“I’m afraid Douglas may be right,” I said, pleased at receiving support from an unexpected quarter, even if it was disparaging my acting skills. “If I’m rumbled, you could all lose your summer jobs.”

We were quickly shouted down. I wondered why all the girls I knew were so keen on me joining their numbers for a month and a half.

Holly concluded the case for the defence. “You can tell she’ll get away with it. Nobody’s given her a second look since we came in.”

“Well, not since you covered up your boobs with your cardy,” said Amy with a wink at me.

“Actually, the only thing I can see that’s odd here, is why an older lady like you is out drinking with young people like us,” said Sam. “It’s like you’re our chaperone, or something.”

“We should all keep an eye out,” said Holly. “If no one gives Auntie Michelle a sideways look while we’re here, we’ll assume she’ll pass, OK?”

“There’s an old guy over by the bar looking sideways at her now,” said Diane, “but I think it’s lust, not doubt over her gender.”

* * *

The following day we all assembled in Hadleigh House at two o’clock for our introductory briefing. Hilary and Rob Parker, who was playing Mr Bingley, had arrived now and were quickly intercepted by Holly to update them on the strange mature student, her Auntie Michelle. They looked predictably gobsmacked when they saw me, but quickly agreed to keep my secret, which wasn’t to be shared with any of the new cast members, and especially not with Mr Vaughan.

Sheila and Esther were there for the briefing too and came up to congratulate me on the effectiveness of my disguise. We ducked into a quiet corner so as not to be overheard.

“It’s your friend Ingrid’s doing,” I said to Sheila. “So this is all your fault, indirectly.” I indicated all the key elements of my Michelle persona – my bosom, buttocks and ridiculous blue dress.

“You don’t seem very pleased,” said Esther. She and Sheila looked worried.

“Well spotted,” I hissed. “This is hardly what I had planned for a summer job. I think I’d have preferred shelf-stacking or brick-laying.”

“You probably wouldn’t,” said Sheila. “At least this is indoors, dry, and with no heavy lifting. Look on the bright side.”

“I’m trying to, but I’m worried about long-term psychological damage. Not to mention what it will do to my relationship with Holly.”

“I thought she liked you as Mrs Bennet?” said Esther.

“But that can’t last, can it? It’s hardly normal to get off on seeing your man dressed as a woman.”

“Hah!” said Sheila. “If you’d seen some of the things I’ve seen…”

At that point a sprightly elderly gentleman came up to me. Sheila introduced us.

“Michelle, this is Tom Hawthorne. He’s the only professional actor here, I think.”

“Retired actor,” he stressed. “You must be playing my wife, madam. You look much too young for me!”

“Why thank you, kind sir!” I improvised. “We women have to do what we can to preserve our youth, while you gentlemen just grow more distinguished with age.”

I was pleased with that response. I’d heard my mother say something similar when some old fart was patronising her. And Tom was pretty ‘distinguished’. He could easily have played my father, rather than my husband. He smiled benignly.

The other new face was Linda Bickford who would be playing Mary. She was a music student, so presumably Vaughan intended her to play the piano for the Bennets and their visitors. I wondered if she was good enough – or bad enough – to make mistakes, as Mary did.

So there was about a dozen of us, plus Sheila and Esther, crammed into the large drawing room. At just on two o’clock three new people came in: a small middle-aged man with grey hair, beard and glasses; and two women, one young, tall, beautiful and fashionably dressed, the other also tall but a little older, dowdy and dumpy.

The man spoke. “Good afternoon, everyone. Please take a seat wherever you can. I’m Dennis Vaughan. I’m delighted you could all join us to bring The Pride and Prejudice Experience to life. I’m sure we’re all going to have a great summer. Before we begin our detailed briefing, I’d like to introduce our hostess, Lady Marsham, Countess of Hadleigh.”

“Thank you, Dennis,” the young woman said. “I’m your hostess because this building, which I understand is going to be the Bennet family’s house, Longbourn, is the old dower house of the Hadleigh Estate. It’s actually a century older than our main residence, the Hall. It’s where the Dowager Countess would have lived in the olden days. She would be the widow of the previous Earl and would usually move here from the larger family house on the death of her husband. But that hasn’t happened for nearly a century. Hadleigh Hall is easily big enough to accommodate two families without them getting in each other’s way. Anyway, my mother-in-law, the present Dowager Countess, has remarried and lives in America now.

“Sadly, previous Earls allowed this building to degrade rather badly. When my husband succeeded to the title he was very keen to make the most of all the Estate’s assets and decided to renovate this lovely old house. As you’ll see, we’ve focused on the front-facing rooms, where the Dowager and her guests would live. We’ve had to delay work on the rooms at the back for financial reasons, which we hope The Pride and Prejudice Experience will help to solve. Those rooms were mainly servants’ quarters. They’re safe enough – we’ve made sure the superstructure is sound – but they need a lot of work to be really comfortable. I’m afraid it may feel a little like camping to those of you who plan to sleep here.

“But what it means is that in your roles as the Bennet family and their friends you’ll be able to entertain paying visitors in well-restored, realistic Regency surroundings – including the family bedrooms.” She smiled. “I understand Dennis intends to allow visitors to observe you getting up and dressed in the mornings and changing for dinner in the evenings?”

She turned to Dennis. He was nodding enthusiastically.

“Rather you than me,” she said with a grin.

Everyone laughed. I had to admit I wouldn’t have minded watching this beautiful Countess getting washed and dressed in the morning. I immediately dismissed this naughty thought as completely inappropriate for Michelle Bradshaw, let alone Mrs Bennet.

“Just one last thing from me, then I’ll leave you with Dennis,” Lady Marsham said.

She stood aside and ushered her companion forward. That lady wore a tweedy grey skirt suit and frilly pink blouse under a round, bespectacled face with a bun of mousy hair. She was almost a caricature of a spinster postmistress or librarian.

“This is my husband’s secretary, Mary Manners,” said the Countess. “She will be your point of contact with the Hadleigh Estate if anything goes wrong and Dennis isn’t available. Feel free to call her anytime – her number’s in your briefing pack, I believe. I’ve never known a domestic problem Mary couldn’t solve.”

Miss Manners smiled bashfully but didn’t speak.

“I hope you all have a wonderful summer,” concluded the Countess. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in costume next week.”

She waved and left, closely followed by Mary Manners.

“Right, everyone,” Dennis began. “Let’s all introduce ourselves, shall we? I have briefing notes here for each of you. Please pass these packs around.”

He had opened his briefcase and begun tossing thick A4 brown envelopes onto the dining table – Mrs Bennet’s – my beautiful mahogany dining table. After a few moments’ general chaos we each had the right pack. I found myself holding the one marked Mrs Bennet.

“There are three documents in each envelope,” Dennis continued. “The first one, the Guide to Hadleigh House, is the same for everyone. There’s an outline of the local geography, a plan of the house and gardens, catering arrangements, transport links, emergency procedures, contact numbers, and so on. There is Wi-Fi, by the way – the code’s in the pack – but we have to be very firm about use of mobile phones during the day. They are for emergencies only. They must be off whenever there may be visitors on site – please tell your friends and family that you won’t be able to use your phone during the business day. If there is a really good reason why someone has to be able to reach you, please give them Mary Manners’ number. In an emergency, she will rush a message over to you.

“The Pride and Prejudice Experience will close every day at six o’clock, though it may be quite a while after that before all visitors have left the Estate, so please don’t be wandering around in modern dress before seven.

“As regards catering: the kitchen here is fully functional but off-limits to visitors. You can go in whenever you want, but you won’t get much there during the day. In any case, your breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea will be prepared by our staff, who will deliver it to the dining room at the appropriate times. You should assume that there will be up to six guests at the table for each meal. They will book their places when they enter the site. Depending on how many visitors we get, most guests will only be able to attend one meal.

“The catering staff will also prepare dinner in the evening for the cast. It will be served in the old servants’ hall behind the kitchen at seven-thirty. You are quite free to make your own arrangements for after the visitors have gone, but please let the caterers know before lunch if you won’t be in for dinner. Space has been made for a temporary common room for you with a pool table, daily newspapers and magazines, and an honour bar. There’s also a TV, but I’m sure you appreciate that it mustn’t be switched on before seven o’clock. The sound would be sure to carry through to the public areas.

“Regarding sleeping quarters: we’ve paired you up according to your preferences as far as possible. Most of you will be in the old servants’ bedrooms as Her Ladyship said. It’s not quite as bad as she implied, but you will be on camp beds. The Bennet family members will be dressing in the bedrooms at the front of the house in the morning, to show our visitors what people wore – and what they wore underneath what they wore – in 1813. All the toilets and bathrooms work, but there aren’t as many as we’d like and the ones at the back of the house are a bit bare; the ones at the front will be just for guests.

“They wouldn’t have had modern WCs in the house in 1813 though, would they?” I said.

Dennis smiled. “That’s quite right, Michelle. A form of flushing toilet was invented in the sixteenth century, but Thomas Crapper only introduced the WC as we know it in the 1880s. The Earl obviously had to put modern bathrooms in Hadleigh House, but as you’ve probably seen, he’s used replicas of the most antique bathroom porcelain he could find. I doubt most guests will know any better. If some smartypants asks a question about it, you’ll have to improvise.

“There is also a Portakabin at the back of the building, screened off from visitors. It has accommodation for singles and two fully equipped bathrooms. They were used by the contractors in the first building phase, so they’re quite decent. Some of you will be sleeping there.

“Now, the second document in your packs is specific to each individual. We’ve worked hard on these. It contains everything stated in the novel about your character, plus what he or she would know about your various neighbours and the local area, as described in the book. For example, Jane Austen afficionados among the visitors might try and catch you out by asking about the Lucases or the Philips family.

“The third document contains a great deal of historical information you might be expected to know, including the current political situation, the economy, foreign affairs, and so on. Bear in mind that this is 1813. The Napoleonic Wars are still going on. The local militias, so exciting to the younger Bennet girls, were going strong, as a coastal defence force, for guarding dockyards and prisoners of war, and various other duties, including riot control during the Luddite unrest of 1811-13. The militias were also a feeder system for the Army. No doubt Lydia and Kitty thought it was terribly romantic that the handsome young men they were dancing with tonight at the Meryton Ball might be sent to fight the French tomorrow.

“Otherwise, I doubt that Mrs Bennet, Lydia and Kitty would be interested in current affairs, but they would know about domestic matters – cookery, embroidery, dressmaking, types of cloth, and what luxuries were available in the local shops. Mr Bennet, Jane and Elizabeth would all be widely read and more knowledgeable about the outside world.

“Now, you lady members of the Bennet household: in the morning you will get dressed in your private rooms at the back of the house only as far as your underwear. Then you’ll go into your character’s main bedroom at the front and wait for the paying visitors to be shown in. Then you will finish dressing. Mrs Bennet will be dressed by her maid, Hill. Elizabeth and Jane will help each other, as will Lydia and Kitty. Later, at five o’clock, you will return to your bedrooms and visitors will be invited in to watch you changing for dinner. Mary and Mr Bennet will not dress in front of visitors.

“We did think of restricting access to the women’s bedrooms to female visitors only, but that didn’t seem necessary. A Regency woman’s shift covers the body pretty well. I’m sure all you ladies have worn considerably more revealing outfits at the beach.”

Well, I’m sure the other girls all had. I wasn’t looking forward to having my over-generous curves exposed for everyone – including men – to see. My bosom was bound to attract unwelcome attention. As a woman, albeit a purely honorary one, I couldn’t help but think that Dennis’s plan was a bit sexist.

“I’ll be having a separate session with Sheila and Esther later,” Dennis continued, “but for the benefit of the rest of you, here are the highlights regarding costume and makeup. Sheila’s company has provided us with a huge array of Regency clothes. You will all have three full outfits of day wear. All the ladies will also have aprons. The Bennet family were not rich enough to have several servants, so Mrs Bennet and all the girls will wear aprons some of the time during the day to indicate that they have been working in the garden, preparing flower arrangements, helping out in the kitchen - washing fruit, peeling potatoes, etc. Hill, the maid, will wear an apron all the time, of course.”

Amy grimaced at that, as did I, for a quite different reason. There was something ultra-feminine about wearing an apron, though – rationally – once I was in corset, petticoat, dress and lace cap, it could hardly make my appearance any more feminine.

“You will only have one evening dress,” Dennis continued, “as it will only be worn for a few minutes each day. Your day dresses will be laundered after each day’s wear. Sheila’s team will collect them from the bedrooms after all the visitors have gone. Every night, drop the rest of your clothes for that day in the laundry basket in your bedroom. Our staff will collect them in the morning and arrange for them to be cleaned. Underwear – that is, ladies’ shifts and men’s drawers – will be returned to your actual bedrooms. The rest of your costume will be placed in the wardrobes in the rooms where you will be dressing for your guests. You should always have one complete outfit to wear; one will be with the cleaning team; and one will be ready for the next day. I’m sorry, but the cleaning service does not extend to your own clothes. There is a launderette in the village.

“Our visitors will enter the grounds of the Estate via the main entrance. They will change into appropriate costumes in the Great Hall of the big house. Most guests probably won’t want Regency undergarments, just outer clothes, but I imagine some adventurous ladies will be keen to try on a corset. We’re trying to put together a team of local volunteers to support Sheila and Esther, but we’ve not made much progress yet. I’ll have to ask you cast members to help out; I’ll draw up a rota. But I suspect all you ladies will be working very hard in the early days. I promise to reflect that in your bonuses!

“When they are ready, guests will be transported over here by horse-drawn carriage, which ensures that you won’t be overwhelmed by too many people arriving at once. It’s a ten-minute walk, if they prefer. We also have contingency plans for inclement weather. The Countess has agreed that half of the guests can remain at the Hall when it’s too wet to go outdoors, and some of you – probably Elizabeth, Jane, Bingley and Darcy – will be ferried over to entertain them there. Then half-way through the day the groups will swap over. Of course, if it stops raining, we can make use of the carriage and offer walks in the park.

“I suggest I give you all a tour of the house and grounds now, then you can find your rooms, unpack, and rest up for a bit. Read your packs, then we can reconvene for afternoon tea here and I’ll try and answer any remaining questions you may have.

“I’d like to finish by stressing that it is important that the visitors’ experience is as authentic as possible. Please try to stay in character. Don’t break the fourth wall. Some smart-Alec may try to trap you with an anachronistic question like, ‘Doesn’t the noise from the M25 bother you?’ or ‘What do you think of those aeroplanes going overhead?’ Just look blank and say you don’t know what they’re talking about. Be your character at all times.”

But which character? I would have to be Michelle twenty-four-seven, pretending to be Mrs Bennet from eight till six. When this was all over would I still remember how to be Mike?

* * *

I got to share a bedroom with Holly, which was just as well as she would have killed someone (quite possibly me) if I had been put in with one of the other girls from our course, and I couldn’t have kept my secret for long from a roommate who wasn’t in on it. Sam shared with Amy; Hilary with Linda; and Derek with Rob. Tom Hawthorne insisted on his privacy, which was granted as he was the senior member of the cast, and no one volunteered to share with Douglas, so the two of them took singles in the Portakabin.

None of the servants’ quarters in Hadleigh House had en suite bathrooms of course, so I had to be careful to be well-covered when I went from our room to the toilet or the shower. If I met anyone in the corridor on the way, I needed either to be fully dressed, or I had to have two towels around me: one to cover my prosthetic breasts and false abdomen, and the other wrapped round my head in the feminine style, to conceal Mike’s straggly hair.

And I had six weeks of this nonsense…

Next: Mistress of Longbourn

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Mike settles in as Mrs Bennet, the Mistress of Longbourn, and learns to live the life of a 19th Century married lady.

Chapter Ten – Mistress of Longbourn

At eight-thirty on Monday morning, The Pride and Prejudice Experience would open to invited guests – sponsors and their families, friends of the Earl and Countess of Hadleigh, local dignitaries, and the Press. So we spent the weekend in intensive preparation and rehearsals – in full costume, of course. So I now had to get used to wearing my Mrs Bennet costume, complete with corset and petticoat, for ten hours a day. And this wasn’t like wearing a padded body shaper. My new curves were firmly attached, and my corset was no longer for decoration. It was essential support.

As MacNair had promised, Dennis brought in experts to teach us what we needed to know. We had to learn every detail of the lives of the Regency gentry. We listened to the music of the period; we practised dances (Tom, as my husband, was surprisingly good at what he called ‘Period Movement’ and carried me through, despite my now considerable weight); we learnt the names of household items, furniture, articles of clothing, and foodstuffs; and we ladies tried a little embroidery (just enough to look like we knew what we were doing). My unladylike fingers were soon punctured in several places from my poorly controlled needle. I would have to keep my lacy gloves on at all times.

The men didn’t have to know the details of our feminine clothes and undergarments – their equivalents were much simpler – but they did have to learn about the responsibilities of being a rich landowner – business, revenues, investments, official documents, taxes, rents, and all about the local service providers such as thatchers, blacksmiths and feed merchants. We ladies had to know about local grocers, butchers, drapers, milliners, and dressmakers.

The men also had to learn how to shoot. A clay pigeon thrower was hired for the duration, together with a couple of professionals who would make sure that neither our boys nor any visitors would blow each other’s heads off. We ladies put on our outdoor coats and bonnets and wandered down to watch their efforts. Inside me, Mike wanted to try his hand too, but as Michelle (and Mrs Bennet) I thought the shooting was noisy and frightening. I stuck my fingers in my ears and cringed, like the other women.

Tom showed himself to be the best shot of all the gentlemen. (I was beginning to think that 1813 was his forte.) The guns were fully functional modern replicas of 19th Century weapons. They and our minders were much in demand for television and movies.

It turned out that Derek and Rob, playing Darcy and Bingley, both had riding lessons as kids. Dennis arranged a short refresher course so that they were just about able to ride over to Longbourn on horseback from the Hadleigh Home Farm, where their mounts were stabled. They could both manage to trot their horses. Rob was sure he could canter, but quickly learned that was over-ambitious. Hilary told him not to be so stupid. I think she fancies him.

It was an exhausting weekend. Nobody was interested in going out in the evenings, so we all had dinner together. Cheap but very palatable beer and wine flowed freely. It was like a big house party and excellent for bonding as a team.

All the young people were very respectful to Tom and me, as members of the older generation – much older in Tom’s case. All the youngsters were on first name terms, but the catering staff called me ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ and Tom, Mr Hawthorne. When it came to serving the vegetables and pouring the tea, I was expected to be ‘mother’.

I’m not sure I can take six weeks of this.

* * *

With everything we had learned over the weekend rattling around in our heads we were finally ready to greet our visitors.

The Countess was our first guest and officially opened the Experience. She was resplendent in a fine Regency gown, as befitted her station. We were a little surprised that her husband, the Earl, didn’t accompany her. Perhaps he wasn’t an Austen fan. Instead she was escorted by Dennis, looking very smart in Regency breeches, tailcoat, waistcoat and cravat. Mary Manners tagged along behind them, dressed as a lady’s maid, in a slightly upmarket version of Amy’s outfit.

I had been dreading the morning dressing session. On the first day Esther was on hand to walk Amy and me through the procedure. I would show up in Mr and Mrs Bennet’s bedroom at the front of the house in just my shift. I would put on a fancy ladies’ dressing gown of the period. Regency women didn’t wear much makeup around the house; Esther showed us what was appropriate. Amy was fully dressed as Hill, the maid, of course.

Some women – Mrs Bennet included, apparently – wore paper and cloth curlers in their hair at night. So Esther showed Amy how to put them in my wig, and how to remove them and dress my hair afterwards. So in curlers, shift and dressing gown, I would wait in the beautiful master bedroom for my maid to show our visitors in.

Lady Susan sat through my first dressing session. She asked several intelligent questions. She giggled a little as Amy removed my robe and fastened my corset, while I puffed and panted. Her Ladyship wanted to know how a Regency lady’s underwear compared with a modern bra and panties for comfort. I was about to answer (although of course I didn’t have as much experience of 21st Century lingerie as I now did of the 19th Century equivalent).

Just in time I saw the trap. “I’m sorry, My Lady, I don’t understand the question,” I said timidly. “All my underwear is nearly new. I obtained what I’m wearing in Meryton last Candlemas.”

She laughed. I wondered if Dennis had put her up to it, or if she just hadn’t understood that we weren’t supposed to know about anything after 1813.

When Amy had helped me on with my petticoat and dress, stockings and shoes, cap and gloves, I led my guests downstairs to the dining room.

Lady Marsham sat down to breakfast with the whole family. We were waited on by Amy and (to my surprise) Mary Manners, who seemed very happy to play the maid. The two servants collected the food from the kitchen for us, although in future, we would be served by Amy and members of the catering staff in Regency servants’ dress.

After breakfast Linda (as Mary) played some dance music and the Countess joined in with enthusiasm, following our teacher’s instructions competently. Later Sam and Douglas, as Lydia and Wickham, would be doing the teaching.

Other groups of visitors followed and we were all kept busy showing the 21st Century guests our 19th Century lives and answering their questions.

Things went wrong that first day of course. Some of the cast slipped up and showed a knowledge of modern life that they weren’t supposed to have. But Dennis had been watching and listening carefully, and when the visitors had all gone he called us together and gave us his notes.

He said we should consider today a Dress Rehearsal. Proper paying customers would be arriving tomorrow. He was gracious and good-humoured and assured us we were doing very well. He finished by reminding us that from next week, the Experience would be closed on Mondays. That would be our day off, when we could do our laundry in the village, go into town, or do whatever we wanted.

When he had finished we were dismissed for the day. We were able to get out of our constricting costumes and put on something more comfortable for dinner. I decided Mrs Bennet’s minimal makeup regime would be quite sufficient for Michelle Bradshaw’s quiet dinner with friends. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, after all. Nevertheless, Tom tried to be gallant, opening the staff room door for me and holding my chair. I had made sure to wear my engagement and wedding rings to remind him I was a married woman, so I assumed he was just being polite.

* * *

That evening as Holly and I were changing in our shared bedroom, she said, “You obviously don’t have enough casual clothes,” she said. “We’ll have to go into town next Monday and get you some new things.”

Unfortunately, she was right. Perhaps we should have anticipated that we would need modern clothes every day, but we hadn’t.

“Some trousers, I hope?” I still wasn’t keen on the idea of trying things on in a womenswear shop.

“I suppose so,” she agreed. “But I’m afraid that big round bottom of yours will attract a lot of attention in pants.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Dresses and skirts weren’t so bad, I supposed.

“By the way,” she said, changing the subject, “according to Dennis’ rota you and I are supposed to be helping Sheila and Esther dress the female guests up at the Hall from ten till twelve tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t do that!”

Actually, I could and would very much enjoy it. But probably too much; there was a serious risk of an unseemly arousal which could give me away.

“Oh, I thought you’d be keen to help bare-breasted women into their corsets?” she said. She knew me too well. “Don’t worry, I don’t trust you enough to let you do that. I’ve discussed it with the others. They agree that my Auntie Michelle shouldn’t be allowed near naked female strangers. Each of us will take an extra turn, so you’re off the hook.”

“Thanks,” I said. “The only naked woman I want to see is you. You realise you’ve spoilt me for appreciation of the female nude? No one else could ever match up.”

She snorted, but I could see she was pleased with this shameless flattery.

“I don’t mind – it means I get out of more of the morning dressing sessions. Of course, it means you’ll be getting dressed for visitors every day,” she said. “No dodging that pleasure for you. You’ll need Amy every morning too. Perhaps Dennis could ask Mary Manners to help with dressing the guests. She seems to like being a lady’s maid.”

* * *

So if Monday was our Dress Rehearsal, Tuesday was First Night, or rather Opening Day. Once they’d paid their hefty entrance fee, guests were welcome to stay as long as they liked until we closed at six. They had to book in on arrival for sessions with us characters – watching us dress; sharing our mealtimes; dancing lessons with Lydia and Wycombe; tours of the house with Kitty; discussions of the life of the landed gentry with Mr Bennet in his study; carriage rides and walks in the park with Elizabeth, Jane, Bingley and Darcy.

On the first day nearly every session was full. Plenty of visitors came to several sessions. Most guests behaved sensibly and didn’t try to spoil the illusion. We gradually got used to their questions and made fewer mistakes. Nevertheless it was hectic and by six o’clock we were all exhausted.

As on the previous day no one had the energy to go out and we all sat down to dinner together again. Dennis was very pleased with how it went.

“We were sold out today,” he said. “If those numbers hold up throughout the summer, we’ll cover our costs easily,” he said, “and could be in profit by mid-July.”

“Is that likely?” asked Tom Hawthorne, veteran of ‘papering the house’ on Opening Nights.

“Probably not,” Dennis admitted, “but it was a very promising start. We might average 70-80% capacity, which would be more than good enough.”

“I’m not sure I could manage if every day was like today,” I said. “I’m pooped.”

Several of the others nodded.

“Hear, hear,” said Amy. “My back is sore from all the curtseying.”

“But you’ll be building up your muscles from fastening Auntie Michelle’s corset,” said Holly.

They all laughed as I blushed, though not everyone at the table was privy to the real joke.

“I recognised quite a few faces,” Dennis continued, “so most of today’s visitors were probably locals. As far as I could tell they were all enjoying themselves, so hopefully they’ll tell their friends. I’m expecting some decent reviews in the local press too, maybe even the nationals.”

“Presumably things will change when the schools break up for the summer holidays,” I said. That’s the week after next, isn’t it?”

“That’s a very good point, Michelle,” Dennis said. “This isn’t really an Experience for children, but there are bound to be visitors with kids hoping for a family day out. We’ll have to dream up some ways of keeping them amused.”

* * *

The rest of that week was only a little less busy than Opening Day, but things got easier for us. We were gradually settling into our performances. It was surprising how often guests were tongue-tied at the beginning of a session, so we each developed an opening speech to welcome them in character and get the conversations going. We became familiar with the questions they asked and soon had stock answers to them.

Gradually Mrs Bennet took over Michelle’s life, Michelle having already taken over mine. I was now beginning to think like a social-climbing 19th Century matriarch, country hostess, and mother-of-five. I primped and posed when passing a mirror, adjusting my bosom, straightening my petticoat, and making sure my hair and makeup were just so.

I feigned affection with my stage husband, (short of actually kissing, which no Regency lady would have done in public; at our age maybe not even when alone with him in their boudoir). I got in the habit of telling my silly daughters off for squabbling and unladylike behaviour. I dropped much of that in the evenings of course, but I had to maintain every other aspect of my femininity as Tom and Linda weren’t in on the secret, and nor was Dennis, who had a habit of popping up unexpectedly at any time.

Every now and then I noticed Holly staring at me with a look of surprise on her face. Well, if Mike had disappeared – hopefully, temporarily – she only had herself to blame. What did she expect? I was just trying to bury myself in the role, like any good actor. Anyway, some parts of Mike usually put in an appearance at night after we had pushed our two camp beds together.

The time of the day I hated most was the morning when visitors came in to watch the household getting dressed. As Sheila had told me, few Regency women wore drawers, but we women all insisted on modern panties for comfort and decency’s sake. These were concealed from visitors’ eyes by our shifts.

Going without a bra was uncomfortable for some of us larger ladies. We had to get used to our corsets for support, as Sheila had said when she had fitted me out with my first costume. Our audiences enjoyed seeing us being squashed into these (especially me). It was embarrassing enough appearing in just a shift, all too obviously distorted by my huge boobs and buttocks, but Amy’s Herculean efforts to cram all my artificial flesh into my corset never failed to generate laughter, which was even more embarrassing.

At dinner Amy joked that she had never been so intimate with anyone, not even her own mother. Holly didn’t seem to think that was very funny.

Surprisingly few men showed up for these sessions, for which all of us ladies were profoundly grateful, and those who did were firmly constrained by their own womenfolk from getting too close to us.

Our guests often asked detailed (and quite embarrassing) questions. We had to state quite firmly that no lady would dream of discussing their ‘private parts’ in public. Fortunately my prostheses were quite convincing enough if they were exposed accidentally while I dressed – especially my impressive cleavage.

So there was no chance that any part of my male anatomy would be revealed in my morning toilette or in the evening dressing session, when I changed out of a decent day dress into a low-cut evening gown. This required a different corset, designed to elevate the bosom like a modern push-up bra. That was even worse. It felt like my boobs were going to pop out at any moment.

My dress was a gorgeous pale-yellow confection in imitation silk, and I couldn’t help feeling like a princess when I wore it – until I saw my daughters, who wore similar gowns but were much prettier and, of course, slimmer. The dress had short puff sleeves, which would have exposed my bony masculine arms, but Sheila was able to find a pair of evening gloves that fitted me and covered my arms up to above the elbow.

I also had to wear a ridiculous feathery cap which sat on top of my curly wig like a duckling bobbing up and down on a pond.

Thus attired, I took my husband’s arm and allowed him to lead me down the main staircase and into the dining room where we would entertain our last batch of visitors of the day to a pre-prandial sherry (although they wouldn’t be staying for dinner).

As Dennis had hoped, when the local papers came out that weekend, their reviews of The Pride and Prejudice Experience were excellent. Some of the nationals also picked up the story and advance bookings doubled overnight. Dennis was delighted, and at close of play on the Sunday of the second week, he and the Countess, accompanied as ever by her faithful companion, Mary Manners, treated us all to champagne with dinner.

* * *

On our first day off Holly insisted on dragging me all the way into town to get some clothes, Hadleigh village not boasting a decent ladies’ boutique. She suggested I wear tights and the highest heels I had, to try and get used to them. I didn’t see why I needed to do that, but it was just easier not to argue. Amy and Sam tagged along. With four of us we could afford a taxi, although Holly could have paid for one alone (or maybe bought one, if it came to that).

“Marks and Sparks first,” she said. “Auntie needs lots more underwear. They sell nice slacks too.”

“I may have changed my mind about trousers…” I began.

“So have I,” she said. “You’re definitely getting a pair. That bum needs showing off.”

Amy, Sam and the taxi driver all giggled.

* * *

I didn’t actually have to try any underwear on at M & S, but Holly still made it as embarrassing as possible by pointedly asking what style of panties (boyshort, brief, thong…) and bras (push-up, balconette, shelf, demi, racerback…) I preferred. Amy and Sam struggled to keep their faces straight. Holly knew perfectly well these questions would floor me, and I could hardly ask for explanations with other lingerie shoppers all around us. I said I didn’t care; Granny knickers and any bra in my size that wasn’t padded (my breasts were quite big enough), would be fine.

The girls selected several cheap, age-appropriate tops for me and a couple of frilly nighties. I had to try on some dresses and skirts too. At this point, having had their fill of embarrassing me, Amy and Sam wandered off to do some shopping of their own. We arranged to meet later at the nearest coffee shop for elevenses.

Holly accompanied me into the fitting room. She helped me out of my dress and explained how to put a skirt on. I hadn’t realised it would be a challenge. She offered me what she called a pencil skirt in blue denim.

“You can step into it,” she said. “Or you can put it on over your head. Actually, I think you’ll have to step into most skirts. If it doesn’t have an elasticated waist; you’d never get it over your boobs.”

“Thanks for your tact,” I said. “It’s a good thing I’m not sensitive about my body image.” She chuckled. “So how do I know where the zip goes? Presumably not the front, so side or back?”

“I’ve never really thought about that,” she said. “It’s usually obvious. Assume the label is supposed to be at the back; that should tell you where the zip goes.”

The skirt was size 16 but it was still a bit of a struggle to get it over my hips. When I had finally wrenched it up to my waist, it was a fairly good fit.

“OK, that’s fine,” I said. “Let’s pay for everything and go.”

Hah, fat chance! I had to try on half a dozen more dresses and skirts in various styles and colours before Holly announced herself satisfied. Then we moved on to the slacks.

“You need one pair of jeans, and one smart pair for best,” she said.

“But we can hardly carry all the bags we have now,” I whined, “and we don’t have a car we can drop stuff off in.”

“Two more bags won’t make much difference. Amy and Sam can help.”

Trousers proved to be difficult. Unsurprisingly, my combination of waist, hips and leg length was unusual for a woman. We eventually found what we – that is, she – had been looking for. I posed in front of the dressing room mirror in a pair of jeans and a red top.

“Don’t you think your Aunt Michelle is a little old for these?” I said.

“Probably,” she agreed, “but I don’t care. You look scrumptious! You can wear those home. The girls will be most impressed.”

So, fully laden with bags of my new clothes, we made our way to the coffee shop, my denim-clad legs making whiff-whiff noises all the way, as my inner thighs rubbed together.

When the taxi dropped us back at Hadleigh House in time for a late lunch we saw from Dennis’s ‘cast notice board’ in the staff common room that the Experience was booked solid for the next six days, and well into next week. We were a hit!

The only other chores we had to do that day was laundry. So we spent most of the afternoon relaxing. Our second week as the Bennet family would start tomorrow, bright and early.

* * *

Life in the 19th Century went on for the Bennet family and our guests. Dennis’ experts stayed with us to oversee our efforts at dancing, needlework and shooting. They dressed in Regency clothes too and took on the identities of minor characters from the novel.

The arrangements for laundry and cleaning worked efficiently, which was just as well because it was midsummer and hot. Our costumes were modern replicas, rather than authentic 19th Century clothes, and made of light artificial materials, but they still covered us completely with several layers. The gentlemen perspired heavily and we ladies glowed – a lot. I don’t know how the laundrymaids knew which rooms to return the cleaned clothes to, but they never seemed to have any problems. Of course, my dresses and petticoats were several sizes bigger than any of my daughters’. When we came back to our bedroom after a long day there were always two clean shifts on the camp beds, but mine was nearly twice the size of Holly’s.

“Here, I think this one’s yours, Porky,” she would say with a grin.

As predicted, the beginning of the school summer holidays in mid-July brought us new challenges with families bringing in children of all ages. The older kids weren’t too much of a problem. The boys (and a few girls) were keen to try clay pigeon shooting with our experts, who were now masquerading as Colonel Forster and Wickham’s friend, Denny. The girls (and no boys at all) happily tried their hands at embroidery. Unfortunately, we only had access to one expert at needlework, so the rest of us ladies had to take turns at helping out. In my case, it was a case of ‘Do as I say; don’t do as I do’. Everyone was surprised that a woman of my age was so incompetent at this essential skill (at least for a 19th Century gentlewoman).

The Countess arranged for the local Archery Club to set up a stand near to the guns, which kept several kids busy for hours.

Also, the Hadleigh Home Farm Stables offered riding lessons and were delighted with the extra custom – nothing to do with The Pride and Prejudice Experience, but a good (though not cheap) two hours’ worth of childcare.

We were lucky with the weather. July and the beginning of August were hot and sunny. We didn’t need to fall back on our training in children’s games of the early 19th Century and other emergency indoor activities.

The Experience was still at the centre of all this, but it was rapidly turning into a Hadleigh Summer Festival.

* * *

On every other Monday I had to make a clandestine trip to Transformations to have my prosthetics removed and cleaned, and my skin checked for rashes and signs of hair growth, especially under my double chin. I had to undergo more close shaves and waxing but whatever that soothing cream of Vera’s was, it seemed to make the hair removal process much easier. The visits got progressively shorter and less uncomfortable, and afterwards I joined Holly and the others in town for a girly day of laundry, shopping, movie going, and 21st Century eating. I don’t know what Derek, Douglas and Tom did on their days off, but I was hardly in a position to join them in their boys’ activities.

One Friday afternoon, when Diane, as Kitty, and I were entertaining our visitors for afternoon tea, Holly came in suddenly. This was unexpected, as she and Hilary, as Jane, were supposed to be walking round the gardens with other guests.

“Excuse me, Mama,” she said. “A matter has arisen which demands your attention.”

Hill, who was pouring cups of tea, looked up in alarm.

“What is it, dear?” I said, remaining in character.

This was effortless now. In fact, being Mrs Bennet came naturally now. Remembering how to be Michelle was more difficult, let alone Mike.

“I think it would be best if you came with me into the kitchen.”

“Oh, what has that cook done now?” I said, crossly. I stood up. “Elbows off the table, Kitty! Remember your manners.”

“Sorry, Mama,” said Diane.

“Please excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “I shall return momentarily.”

Concerned at leaving Amy and Diane on their own to cope with six guests, I hurried after my daughter/niece/girlfriend. In the kitchen out of sight of any visitors, Holly turned round and waved a piece of paper at me. She was clearly agitated.

“I’m going to have to go,” she said. “Mary Manners came over with a message. My father has had a heart attack. My mother will need me.”

“Oh God!” I said. “That’s awful! How bad is it?”

“Well, apparently it was touch and go for a while, but he’s out of danger now. It was my mother on the telephone. She sounded very upset, but Mary eventually got her to say that he was in hospital and being well looked after. Mum wants me to go to her.”

“Of course, you must! How will you get there?”

“Mary said that there will be a car up at the Hall for me. She and the Countess are amazing! Also Mary contacted Dennis. He’s busy working out what to do with no Lizzy for a few days. He said he won’t expect me back till after our next day off, and if I need more time, I’m just to let him know.”

“If there’s anything I can do…”

“No, no, I don’t think so, babe. You’d better get back to your guests. The Experience can do without Lizzy for a few days, but they can’t manage without Mrs Bennet.”

“OK. Give your parents my love. Let me know how they are tonight.”

* * *

Holly called on my mobile that evening. Her Dad was going to be OK, but her mother was still in shock, so Holly was going to stay with her over the weekend. She would try and get back on Monday night to resume her duties on Tuesday. So I would have three full days without her. Weekends were always busy, but I would have to find something to do in the evenings and during the day on Monday.

Unfortunately my options were limited. Mike might have gone for a run or arranged a game of squash, but now that I was for all intents and purposes Michelle, an overweight forty-year-old woman… Any form of running was out; my new breasts would be swinging hard enough to knock me over and rip the skin off my chest. I didn’t have a sports bra, and in any case I doubt they make them big enough. I suppose I could read a romance novel or practise my embroidery. Neither appealed.

At least Friday night wasn’t a problem after I finished talking to Holly. At seven-thirty I went into dinner, as most of the cast did most days. The catering was excellent, the company was convivial, and going out to one of Hadleigh’s two pubs or its one Chinese restaurant was too much bother.

Everyone wanted to know about Holly’s father – my brother-in-law to those who didn’t know the real me. I told them what I could and they asked me to give her their best wishes when next we spoke.

Knowing I wouldn’t be called upon to ‘perform’ for Holly later, I drank more than usual.

I decided on an early night. I went up to our bedroom. I stripped off and threw my bra in the suitcase we had set aside for our own laundry. I immediately felt the weight of my breasts swinging free. I put on one of my new nighties for the support provided by its built-in cups.

I stared at myself in the room’s one mirror. The nightie was short with a slit up the side. Holly had insisted on that, ‘to facilitate access’. My ample buttocks poked out enticingly. The result was… quite sexy, actually.

Perhaps it was time I stopped complaining about this body. I turned sideways, the better to evaluate my bounteous bosom. At first, I had resented all the additional flesh on my chest, hips and buttocks, and it certainly curtailed my movements dramatically, but now that I was getting used to it, I had to accept that Ingrid’s software had done a great job. Michelle was very well-endowed; she was a total MILF! If I were still a man, I would definitely find this body attractive despite its advanced age.

I removed my wig and wig cap and combed my own hair straight. It was getting quite long now. It needed a wash. If I had it styled like a woman’s, I might even be able to dispense with the hot and itchy wig…

I went along to one of the communal bathrooms. It was still quite early and it was unoccupied. I went in to remove my makeup, wash, and clean my teeth.

I went back to the bedroom. I checked my little ladies’ watch, which of course I could only wear in the evenings. It was a gift from Holly that strained my eyes whenever I needed to read it. It was just starting to get dark. I put on the bedside light. Maybe I’d read in bed, though that always made me doze off. I was looking forward to catching up on my sleep. I didn’t usually get much with Holly ravishing me half the night.

I pulled back the duvet and was about to get into bed when there was a knock on the door. I looked around for my dressing gown, then I thought, what would be the point? Mike was fully dressed. I was wearing an elaborate costume which concealed my modesty more effectively than a boiler suit.

“Come in,” I said.

It was Sam. It was only just after nine-thirty, but she was in her nightwear too.

Next: The Body in the Library

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Eleven – The Body in the Library

Just as Mike was getting used to playing a Regency matron during the day, and a middle-aged actress at night, disaster strikes.

I liked Sam, I always had, but I couldn’t see how her being in my bedroom with both of us in sexy nighties could possibly be a good idea.

“What can I do for you, Sam?” I asked, warily.

I spoke in my ‘Mike’ voice as there was no one nearby who didn’t know my secret.

“I just came to see if you were all right,” she said, pushing past me.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Well, this must be the first night you’re spent without Holly for ages…”

“We’re not joined at the hip, you know,” I said.

“You could have fooled me,” she laughed. “I wanted to see if you could make your own decisions without her.”

Rude! She seemed to think I was hen-pecked or something.

“Of course, I can,” I protested. “It’s just that most of the time we want the same thing.”

“Rubbish! Amy and I were with you all morning on that day when she bought you your new clothes. It was obvious you didn’t want to be there, trying on dresses. She bullies you! She thinks dressing you as a woman is funny. She’s laughing at you.”

“No, she isn’t! I just…”

“So I thought, if you need someone to tell you what to do, I could substitute while she’s away.”

She started untying the little ribbon that held the top of her nightie closed. Her breasts were suddenly on full view. I noted they were a different shape from Holly’s but just as attractive.

“That’s really not a good idea…”

“Also, I’m fascinated by all that padding you’re wearing.”

“What?” The sudden change of subject was disconcerting.

“How does it work?”

She reached for the hem of my nightie and pulled it up. I tried to pull it down again but she was stronger than she looked. I couldn’t have stopped her without risking tearing the flimsy material. The next thing I knew, she’d whipped it off over my head and I was standing there in just my panties and slippers.

“What’s the matter?” she said. “There’s no need to be shy. Your real private parts are still totally hidden, aren’t they? I’m just curious to see how your transformation works.”

She started prodding me in my fake bosom. I didn’t resist. I couldn’t feel anything of course, and anyway I couldn’t stop her without using my masculine strength, and I didn’t want to hurt her. I’d heard it was possible for a woman to rape a man, but I had never imagined anything like this. She had moved on to my hips and buttocks now, stroking and poking.

“This pseudo-flesh is fantastic,” she said. “It’s just like the real thing! But these are just in the way now.”

She grabbed my Granny panties by the waistband and pulled them down. As the knickers hit the floor around my ankles, she gasped.

“Wow! That’s really amazing!” She knelt down to get a closer look at my, that is, Michelle’s groin. “Oh, I see! There’s a little zip down there. It’s almost invisible. You wouldn’t see it if you weren’t looking for it. Presumably your thingies are tucked up there? I thought it must be something like that, with the noises I’ve heard coming from this room at night. Holly’s a bit of a moaner, isn’t she?”

She reached up…

“OK, that’s enough,” I said, and stepped back. I reached for my knickers and pulled them up. Then I grabbed the nightie and put it back on.

“Spoilsport!” she said. “I was only trying to see if Mike was still there and… capable. What’s the matter? Don’t you think I’m attractive?”

Honesty was the best policy. Well, sometimes.

“That’s the problem,” I said. “You’re very attractive, but you know Holly and I are committed.”

“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”

“Sorry,” I said, and I really was a little bit sorry. Sam was very attractive, but in a completely different way from Holly. “I’d know and I couldn’t live with it. I can’t do this. You need to go.”

She stood up. She pulled her nightie closed and fastened the bow to conceal her bosom again.

“Pity,” she said, “but I suppose I can respect your loyalty. I’d certainly want that if you and I were a couple. Such a shame I didn’t meet you before Holly did. Still, you should know that if anything happens to her, I’m available.”

She made her way to the door.

“Wait! What do you mean ‘if anything happens to Holly’?”

But she didn’t answer. The door closed behind her.

* * *

Holly returned early on Monday evening as promised. Her father was on the mend and her mother was over the shock. So we prepared for another week of life as the Bennets. It was early August and we were now two-thirds of the way through our summer in the 19th Century. My bank balance was looking much healthier.

We were nearly sold out for the rest of our time here. Dennis had broached the possibility of extending the run for another fortnight. Holly was against it, as she wanted a proper summer holiday somewhere foreign. I was in two minds. I was used to being Mrs Bennet now and I was afraid I would actually miss being her.

Dennis had trained up an assistant to manage the Experience while he took a week’s holiday. He asked us all to be ready to make a decision regarding an extension by the time he came back. If enough of us were happy to continue, he would talk to the Countess.

* * *

On the Wednesday afternoon of that week I was in the parlour entertaining my visitors to afternoon tea. The clock on the mantelpiece struck four. The day was nearly over. Thank heavens, I could soon get out of this damned corset. Amy brought in another plate of cakes.

I was explaining the iniquity of the entail system to our guests, and how with five unmarried daughters I would be thrown out into the street when Mr Bennet died and his loathsome cousin, Mr Collins, inherited. At least two of our visitors didn’t understand how that could happen but I couldn’t explain any more clearly without breaking character. According to Miss Austen my father had been an attorney but as Mrs Bennet I had little knowledge of the law.

Holly and Hilary went past the south window with their little group. They would have been walking the grounds, pointing out features of interest, and talking about how young ladies like themselves passed their time while waiting to be married, out here in rural Hertfordshire in the early nineteenth century. Derek and Rob were due to arrive on horseback for their fourth and last visit of the session. They would talk about how rich young men found themselves wives these days.

I could hear Linda playing the piano in the music room for Sam and Douglas to show their little group some of the dances of the day. Tom was in the study of course, showing Mr Bennet’s books to the visitors, and attempting to explain to any of them who might be interested (not many) the business of running an estate like Longbourn.

So it was probably at about five past four that Diane burst in.

“Mama!” she cried. “There’s a body in the library!”

I blinked. This was a new scenario. Had the others made this up just to see if I had the improv skills to respond in character?

“Foolish girl!” I admonished her. “You know better than to interrupt when I am entertaining guests…”

“I’m serious, Mike,” she interrupted. “There’s been an, uh, accident… You need to come.”

The moment she broke character and abandoned Regency period speech, I knew something had happened. Our instructions were clear. If anything went wrong, if the twenty-first century intruded on our little world, we should still try and maintain the illusion until it was no longer possible. In particular, it was sometimes a challenge to ignore low-flying aircraft circling on their approach to Heathrow…

It was especially egregious to use our real names. I hoped none of our guests had noticed she had called me ‘Mike’, or if they had, that they thought it might be short for ‘Michelle’. We really didn’t want paying visitors to know that the role of Mrs Bennet was being played by a man.

I tutted – in character, of course. “Excuse us for a moment, everyone,” I said. “I shall return momentarily. Hill, pour our guests some more tea.”

Amy was clearly rattled by Diane’s intrusion, but she moved to comply. Gathering my voluminous skirts, I rose and moved quickly but in the most feminine manner I could manage, to intercept the frantic Diane and escort her from the room.

“Really, girl,” I scolded her, “I don’t know how my nerves will cope with all your foolishness.”

Once the parlour door was safely closed behind us I followed my pretend daughter through the hall to the library.

“One of the visitors was asking about the local militia,” Diane explained, “and I remembered seeing a book on military encampments…”

She trailed off. We stared at the body on the floor. It wasn’t one of our little troop. It was a guest, female, and wearing a pretty green morning gown of the period. She was lying on her back, her lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. I approached her more closely to see if there was anything that could be done, but the dagger protruding from her chest made that unlikely. I put the back of my hand close to her lips for a few seconds. She certainly wasn’t breathing.

I resisted the temptation to touch the corpse. I pushed Diane back and closed the library door. I reached into my reticule and took out my mobile phone. Surely, this constituted an emergency. I switched it on and started thinking about how I would explain to the police that my estranged stepsister, whom I hadn’t seen for nearly two years, had been murdered while I was serving tea next door. And in drag. The things one has to do to get an Equity Card! Beats busking, I suppose.

My first call was to Mary Manners. She was her usual calm, capable self. She told us to close off the library and make sure no one – cast or visitors – went anywhere near the deceased. She would call the police and inform the Countess. She thought they would need to close the main gates and prevent anyone from entering or leaving. The police would want to talk to everyone who had been within the grounds of the Hadleigh Estate today. She suggested that we try and carry on as normal until the police arrived.

At that moment Sam and Douglas burst in. Diane must have told them something. I moved to stop them approaching. Douglas tried to push past me. I grabbed his arm and restrained him as forcibly as my ridiculous figure, corset, petticoat and skirts permitted. Behind me, I heard Sam gasp when she saw the body.

“It’s a crime scene, Douglas!” I said. “Stay away from her!”

“My God, it’s Hannah!” he said, peering over my shoulder.

“You know her?”

“I lived with her last summer in London.” He saw the look on my face. “That is, I lived in her flat. We weren’t lovers; well, not very often.”

“You’d better stick around,” said Diane. “The police will definitely want to talk to you.”

“Bugger that,” he said. “I’m off!”

He easily broke my hold on his arm and ran off in the direction of the back stairs.

“Miss Manners said we should go back to what we were doing until the police arrive,” I said to Sam and Diane.

“Seriously?” said Diane. “With a corpse in the room next door?”

“Yes, we don’t want a mad panic with the paying customers all trying to leave at once. The police will want statements, names and addresses – you know the drill. You’ve seen police TV shows.”

“I’m not sure I can… carry on,” said Diane, with a little whimper.

“Why don’t you come with me and help with the dancing,” suggested Sam to her, “now that my Mr Wickham has absconded? And you’ll want to get back to your tea party, won’t you, Mama?”

I should have guessed that of all our little community, Sam would be the most likely to retain her composure when confronted with a dead body.

There was a key in the lock of the library door. As far as I knew it had never been used. I took it and shooed Sam and Diane out of the room. I locked the library door from the outside and dropped the key in my reticule.

* * *

With the knowledge of the grisly scene in the library, drinking tea, eating scones, and chatting with our visitors was utterly surreal, especially in the guise of Mrs Bennet. We knew nothing of it at the time but during the next hour the police were busy. The call had come from the Countess of Hadleigh herself so the cops turned out in force, which was just as well as it took a sizeable team to close off the Estate, round up all the visitors who were anywhere other than in Hadleigh House itself, and collect all the required information from them.

We saw nothing of this from the dining room and it was nearly quarter past five before we were interrupted by a tall thin man in a brown mac and a nondescript woman in an anorak and jeans.

“I’m very sorry to interrupt your afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the man said. “I’m Inspector Giddings and this is Sergeant Sharpe. We’re police officers.” There was a stunned silence. “I’m afraid there has been an incident and I will have to ask all the visitors to leave now. Also, we will need your contact details as you go. Sergeant Sharpe will take you next door for that purpose. Transport will be provided to take you back to the Hall for you to change and retrieve your belongings.”

When the sergeant had led the guests out, that left Diane, Sam, Amy and myself.

“I understand that all of you are aware of what has happened?” We all nodded. “Would you be Mrs Bradshaw, madam?” Giddings said to me. I nodded. “And you found the body?”

“Er, no, Inspector,” I said. “Diane, here, found the body. She fetched me and I called Miss Manners.”

“In that case, would the two of you please show me to the deceased? And would you other ladies wait for us here, please?”

I led the way to the library and took the key out of my reticule.

“You locked the door?” Giddings asked.

“Yes, Inspector.”

I put the key in the lock and opened the door, but the inspector made no move to enter yet.

“Has anyone else been in here?”

“Just Sam and Douglas,” I said. “They came in when they heard something was going on.”

“I told them, I’m afraid,” Diane said. “They were just coming along the passage from the room where we do the dancing. They realised something was up when they saw my face.”

“And where are they now?” the inspector asked.

“Sam is one of the ladies we left in the drawing room,” I said.

“And Douglas?”

Diane and I looked at each other, but there was no point in withholding information that the police were bound to find out eventually.

“He knew who she was,” said Diane, pointing at my stepsister’s body, “and he scarpered.”

The inspector took out his police radio and pressed a button. It crackled.

“All units,” he said. “We may have a runner. Name’s Douglas…” He raised an eyebrow in our direction.

“Miller,” I said.

“…Miller. He may still be dressed in old-fashioned clothes. Description to follow…”

He raised his eyebrow again. Neither of us was particularly good at describing people and Douglas wasn’t especially striking in any way. We did our best. The inspector sighed and relayed our pathetic efforts to his unseen minions.

“Early twenties, about five foot eleven, brown hair, last seen wearing Regency dress, but may have changed to T-shirt and jeans.”

He switched off the radio and turned back to us.

“He won’t be able to leave the grounds. Now let’s have a look at the deceased. Stay outside the room, please.”

He took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. While he was doing that, he squatted in the doorway and examined the hardwood floor carefully.

“I don’t think this room has been swept recently,” he said, over his shoulder. “There may still be useful footprints. I will have to ask all four of you who came in here to let us have your shoes, so that we can eliminate yours.”

He sat down on the floor where he was and pulled a pair of paper shoe covers from another pocket. He put those on over his brown brogues before advancing carefully into the room. He bent over Hannah’s body, being careful not to touch anything. Eventually he reached inside her little reticule, which was lying beside her, its cord still wrapped around her shoulder.

He turned to us. “Can you tell me what this is?” he asked.

He was waving a small black key with a number marked on it. It was familiar.

“It’s a locker key,” I said. “Guests change into 19th Century clothes up at the Hall. They leave their street clothes and valuables in lockers up there.”

“Excellent,” he said with a smile of triumph. “We should be able to identify her from her belongings. Let’s go back to the drawing room.”

When we got there Sergeant Sharpe was ushering in the rest of our team. I noticed that Mary Manners was sitting at the back. She was once again dressed as a 19th Century lady’s maid, which was hardly necessary now. I supposed Holly was right; she must like dressing as a maid. Weird!

Holly pushed her way through to sit beside me. When everyone was settled, the inspector cleared his throat and introduced himself again.

“Some of you are already aware of what has happened here today,” he began. “For those who aren’t, a dead body was found in the library here at Hadleigh House, and we have good reason to believe foul play was involved. For that reason, the room will remain locked until our forensic team has examined the scene in detail. I need hardly say that The Pride and Prejudice Experience will remain closed until further notice. Also, and I apologise for this, but I must insist that all of you remain here in the House until I say you can go. That will only happen when we have had the chance to interview you all.”

What he wasn’t saying, but what should have been obvious to everyone, was that we were all murder suspects.

“Where’s Douglas?” said Holly suddenly.

“Ah, yes,” said Giddings. “Mr Miller seems to have left the building. My team are looking for him as we speak.”

“He knew the woman!” blurted Diane. “He called her ‘Hannah’.”

I felt Holly’s hand grip mine tightly.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Simms,” interrupted the inspector testily.

He clearly wanted to control the flow of information. I wondered if he had noticed Holly’s reaction to hearing Hannah’s name. Surely she wouldn’t think I had killed her?

“Now to help my sergeant get all your names right, would you please introduce yourselves round the table and tell us what you were doing this afternoon, say between two and four? We will need to interview each of you separately later and we’ll collect further details then.”

That would be standard procedure. They had to prevent guilty parties from colluding over alibis – assuming it wasn’t already too late for that. Desperate to defer betraying my true sex for as long as possible, I volunteered to organise some refreshments for the officers while the others introduced themselves.

When it was her turn Holly explained that she had been mostly escorting visitors around the grounds with Hilary, who played her elder sister, Jane.

“And Mrs Bradshaw?” asked the inspector finally, indicating me. “I assume you’re not a student, madam?”

I drew a deep breath, preparing to come clean, but Holly was there before me.

“She’s my aunt in real life,” she said. “We’re from an acting family.” She smiled. “She’s a mature student and a housewife. Oh, and you were here in the dining room all afternoon, weren’t you, Auntie?”

That much was certainly true. I nodded dumbly. I was shell-shocked. My idiot girlfriend had just lied to the police during a murder investigation! I looked around the room. All the people who knew my real identity were looking a little surprised but no one said anything. We had so much got into the habit of concealing my true sex, it must have been a reflex response.

I couldn’t think what to do. If I had been capable of a little rational thought, I would have laughed and corrected her. But all I could think of was that as far as Holly and I knew, I was the person at Hadleigh House with by far the strongest connection to the victim, so I was bound to be a suspect. So I said nothing.

That was stupid. Now when I had to own up, as eventually I certainly would, I could be charged with wasting police time. Perhaps they would be lenient. After all, I knew I was innocent. If I revealed who I really was I would become a major part of the investigation – a ‘person of interest’ – and that really would be wasting police time.

On the other hand, if I kept up the impersonation, I might be able to work out who killed Hannah. I couldn’t do that from a police cell.

I returned to the table with cups of tea for the inspector and sergeant.

“Thank you for that,” the inspector concluded. “Now I need you all to remain in this room while my officers search the building. We’ll let you know when you can return to your rooms.”

Wonderful! Now I was going to be stuck in this damn corset for another hour or more. If you had told me a month ago that I would ever be desperate to put on my Perfect Silhouette Everyday Eighteen-hour Underwire Bra, I wouldn’t have believed you.

I tried to think whether the police would find anything revealing, embarrassing or incriminating amongst my belongings upstairs. I didn’t think I had brought any men’s clothing with me. What would be the point? I couldn’t wear anything of Mike’s until Transformations removed my prosthetics, so all his clothes were back at home. They’d find condoms of course, but that only said that Mrs Michelle Bradshaw had an active sex life with somebody, presumably a man. Holly and I always pushed the two camp beds apart in the morning, precisely in case someone went snooping in our bedroom when we were out.

What would the police be looking for?

Next: Mrs Bennet Investigates

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Twelve – Mrs Bennet Investigates

Mrs Bennet helps the police with their enquiries.

When the police indicated they were ready to begin our interviews I requested that I go first. Giddings was happy with that as I had been early on the scene of the crime. He wanted my impressions while they were still fresh in my mind. (He didn’t say so, but he was probably concerned that, as an older person my short-term memory was most likely to fail.)

“Before we start, Mrs Bradshaw, I believe you have your mobile phone in your bag?” He knew I had, as I had called Mary Manners. “I need that, please, and your PIN code, if you’ve set one.”

That settled things. There was no hiding now. It had been stupid to try; the police weren’t fools.

“Certainly, Inspector, but there are some things you need to know first.” He looked up expectantly. Sergeant Sharpe stopped scribbling in her notebook.

“I’m not Michelle Bradshaw,” I said. “I’m Mike Bradshaw,” I continued in my normal, male voice. “I’m not a lady mature student. I’m a twenty-year-old man.”

I was expecting the two coppers to be astonished, and I wasn’t disappointed, but their reaction was still completely unexpected. The inspector looked at the sergeant, and said, “My God, another one!” She nodded. He returned to me. “Very well, Mister Bradshaw. Tell us everything.”

So I did. I told him my whole story.

When I eventually paused for breath, Giddings said to the sergeant, “You’d better get Holly Woodbridge in here now. The two of them seem to be in this together.”

When Holly came in, looking worried for obvious reasons, I pre-empted her from saying anything incriminating.

“I’ve told them everything, love, as we agreed.” Sensibly (for once), she shut up. I turned back to Giddings. “Some of the people in the other room don’t know my secret, and as I’m sure you’ve realised, one of them may be the murderer. So Holly and I decided we should hold everything back until we could brief you alone.”

“Well, I suppose that’s reasonable…” he began, doubtfully.

“But there is one more big secret you need to know,” I interrupted. I took a deep breath. “I know exactly who the deceased is, and I can tell you a lot about her. She’s Hannah Matthews and she is – was – my stepsister.”

There was a long silence. Sharpe resumed scribbling. Giddings was looking at me, as if he was expecting me to continue with a confession to murder.

“We’ve never got on, although the animosity was all on her side. When my mother married her father, she seemed to think that we were intruders in her family. She’s a couple of years older than me and she left home the moment we moved in. Before today I hadn’t seen her for more than two years. I have absolutely no idea what she was doing here.”

I paused again. Giddings was still saying nothing.

“And for the avoidance of doubt,” I continued, “I didn’t kill her.”

“Of course, you didn’t!” said Holly vehemently.

Giddings was still looking sceptical. I could see that from his point of view I could have a strong motive. I went on.

“Keith Matthews is quite wealthy, and he very kindly pays my university tuition fees to save me taking out a student loan, but he has never legally adopted me, and as far as I know I’m not in his will. Hannah was his sole heir.”

Giddings thought for a moment, then asked, “I will need to get in touch with Mr Matthews. Can you let me have his contact details?”

“Yes, of course.”

I opened my phone and navigated to ‘Contacts’ for him. I handed it to him, not expecting to get it back today.

“The PIN number is 719645,” I said. “Oh, I’ve just thought… Keith and my mother were going on a Caribbean cruise, but they left just before we came here – more than four weeks ago. I would have expected to hear from them by now. Our mobile phones have to be off during the working day, but Mum could have left a message, or called in the evening. I hope nothing’s happened to them. If the motive for killing Hannah was money, that might have implications for Keith.”

Giddings was preparing to ask more questions, but Holly had something to say. Her eyes were shining. She’d obviously had another bright idea. That usually meant trouble for me, but maybe not this time…

“You do realise, Inspector, that Mike may be the only member of the Experience cast who couldn’t have killed Hannah. He, as Mrs Bennet, was stuck in the Longbourn dining room all afternoon. Obviously, I don’t know exactly when Hannah was killed, but…”

“Witnesses?” Giddings interrupted.

“Amy was running back and forward with food and drinks all the time as the maid,” Holly said. “She would remember if Mrs Bennet had gone out for more than a couple of minutes. But most of the cast will have called in at some point. You’ll need to ask them of course, but I’m willing to bet they’ll all say that Mama, I mean Mike was always there in her seat, I mean his seat at the head of the table.”

“There were guests too,” I added.

“But surely none of the visitors could vouch for you being there all the time?” asked the sergeant. “Isn’t there a regular turnover?”

“Usually, yes,” I agreed. “Today the lunch session lot left at about two o’clock, then the afternoon people wandered in. I remember there was an elderly couple who showed up just after two and were still there at tea when the body was discovered. We had a long chat about life in 1813. I remember they said they needed a ‘nice sit-down’. Their feet were hurting after walking round the Estate all morning.”

“Toilet break?” It seemed Giddings’ questions were all short and to the point.

“Not today, actually. My outfit is pretty tight as you can see, so I don’t eat or drink much during the day. I could do with a wee right now in fact, and I’m desperate to get out of this corset.”

I tried a smile. It wasn’t returned. Bad sign.

“Well, you’ve certainly given us a lot to think about, Mr Bradshaw. I think we’ll stop there for the moment. Please don’t leave the vicinity of this building. I will want to talk to you again when we’ve interviewed all the others. In the meantime, I suggest you keep up the deception. The revelation of your true identity can only confuse the issue. It might be best if you don’t reveal your relationship with the deceased for the same reason.”

I was dismissed, so I got up to go. Holly tried to follow.

“We might as well take you next, Miss Woodbridge,” Giddings said.

Holly sat down again. Giddings turned to the sergeant.

“Can you ask one of the DCs to go through the guests’ statements and try and locate the elderly couple Mr Bradshaw mentioned?” he said as I left.

* * *

Dinner that evening was more than an hour late. Nobody cared; we were probably all in shock. Our working holiday in the 19th Century had come to an abrupt end. I wondered whether The Pride and Prejudice Experience was insured against closure on account of murder?

After the forensic team had finished upstairs, we had spent the early evening confined to our rooms while they worked in the library and throughout the ground floor. We changed into our ‘civvies’ and had to hand over the shoes we had been wearing during the day for comparison with footprints found in the hall and library. We were only allowed back in the kitchen and the staff common room when Forensics had finished.

A couple of uniformed policemen had brought a sheepish-looking Douglas back at about half-past six. His interview with Giddings and Sharpe lasted quite a lot longer than any of the others apart from mine. When he arrived for dinner nobody dared ask what had happened to him. I wanted to know more about his relationship with Hannah, but I wasn’t Mike, I was Michelle, and I had agreed with the inspector to stay that way for the moment. In any case, as far as I knew, Holly was the only person in the cast who knew that the deceased was my sister.

Conversation was awkward; everyone had now had their first interview, but the two detectives were still somewhere on the premises. We’d finished our meal and were lingering over coffee – nobody seemed keen to leave the table after such a day. Naturally it was Holly who eventually broke the silence.

“So it seems Michelle is the only one of us who’s in the clear,” she said.

“How do you make that out?” asked Douglas, the hostility plain in his voice.

“She was in the dining room in front of witnesses all afternoon.”

“What witnesses?” he insisted.

“We all saw her there at some point, but even if none of us could swear that she never left her seat, there are guests who can,” Holly said calmly. “One old couple were with her from some time after two right up until Diane found the body. That must cover the time of the murder, mustn’t it?”

Douglas fell silent.

“I’m sure most of us have alibis too,” said Amy.

“Well, you certainly don’t,” said Sam. “As the maid you’re in and out between the kitchen and the dining room all the time. You could easily have met this Hannah person in the library, stabbed her, and got back on duty without being missed.”

She spoke without any malice, but Amy looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“I don’t mean that I think you did,” said Sam, kindly. “I’m just pointing out that it would only take a minute or two to do the deed, and most of us had the opportunity.”

“I didn’t even know her,” Amy protested.

“It seems like Douglas is the only one who did,” said Sam.

“You don’t know that!” he said angrily. “The real murderer is hardly likely to tell anyone, is he?”

“Or she,” said Tom from his favourite armchair. His eyes were closed. I thought he’d gone to sleep, as he usually did after dinner.

“Sam’s right though,” said Holly. “I’m sure all of us except Michelle were alone at some time during the afternoon. Hilary went to the loo at one point, leaving me with our visitors…”

“And so did you, Holl,” said Hilary with a smile.

“Yes, I did, at about three o’clock, I think.”

“The same applies to me and Rob,” confirmed Derek.

“Well, the toilets at the stables are pretty disgusting,” added Rob, “so we try and hold it till we can go on one of our visits to the House.”

“And we all have to go in the front door and use the bathrooms at the back,” said Holly.

“…which takes you right past the library,” I said.

“I can’t vouch for Douglas all afternoon either,” said Sam, “and he can’t vouch for me. Linda took a couple of breaks too. By the way, Diane, did you tell the police that you dressed that Hannah woman this morning?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did. You and I were next to each other doing costumes in the Great Hall. I was going to give my guest that beautiful green dress, till I realised she was too fat for it. You took it off me when Hannah said she liked it.”

“Well, I dressed half a dozen women this morning. I didn’t notice her particularly.”

“You must have noticed the dress, though. What did the two of you talk about? She seemed quite agitated.”

“I don’t remember – any more than I remember her,” Diane said. “Probably something about corsets or petticoats.”

Sam and Diane had never got on that well. Diane was red with anger now. Sam hardly noticed. Sensitivity wasn’t her strong suit.

“This is a nightmare for the police, isn’t it?” I interrupted their argument. “Nearly anyone in the cast could have done it and most of us have pretty shaky alibis. I guess they’ll have to concentrate on finding a link between the deceased and one of the suspects.”

“Why couldn’t it have been a random killing?” asked Douglas, who we all now knew did have a link to Hannah. “Some psychopath with a knife comes across a pretty stranger browsing in the library and kills her on a whim.”

“Pretty unlikely, I’d have thought,” Linda said, making her first contribution.

“And the police wouldn’t get anywhere working on that assumption,” added Holly.

“Why shouldn’t it have been one of the visitors?” Linda asked.

“Not impossible but even less likely,” suggested Tom. “None of them would know the layout of the House and they’d be going somewhere that was out of bounds to them. They’d be risking being challenged by a member of staff.”

“Also, if an outsider wanted to kill this woman, surely they could find a more convenient and less risky place to do it,” I said.

“Right – somewhere quiet, near where she lived,” said Holly. “This place was teeming with people this afternoon. The killer took an insane risk, whoever it was.”

“Which suggests that either he – or she – had no choice,” I said. “The deed had to be done here, unless it was a crime of passion, a spur of the moment thing, unplanned.”

Nobody had anything to add.

At that moment Inspector Giddings and Sergeant Sharpe appeared. They had been sitting quietly in the bar area round the corner, out of sight of the dining table.

“We’ll say goodnight now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Giddings, making his way out of the back door. “We’ll see you all again tomorrow morning, no doubt. Don’t think of leaving, will you? There will be uniformed police at all exits from the Estate.”

Sergeant Sharpe followed him with a smug smile on her face.

“They heard everything we said!” wailed Diane when they were out of earshot.

“Well, I hope they thought our analysis was useful,” said Holly.

We all got up to go. There was a general move toward the bar. I was just about to follow Holly when Tom came up to me.

“Could I have a quiet word with you, dear?” he said.

“Certainly, Tom,” I said. “I’ll be right with you, Holly,” I called. “Get me a drink, would you?”

I knew it wouldn’t be a pint of lager. I was getting used to white wine.

“Let’s go in Mr Bennet’s study, shall we?” Tom said. “I’d rather we weren’t overheard.”

It fleetingly occurred to me that none of us should be going off anywhere alone with another suspect, but I didn’t think I had anything to fear from Tom. He didn’t know that his plump stage wife was twenty years younger than her apparent age and with a young man’s strength.

“What’s on your mind, Tom?” I asked when we were seated in the study with the door closed.

“Seeing Douglas again reminded me,” he said. “I overheard him arguing with someone early this morning. You know my room is next to his in the Portakabin. I was getting dressed and drinking my morning coffee. The window was open and I heard their voices. They didn’t see me.”

“Really? Did you hear any of the conversation?”

“Not much, unfortunately. They were trying to keep their voices down. The only words I could make out were Douglas saying, ‘I haven’t told anybody, I swear. You don’t have to keep threatening me.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect he sounded angry and scared.”

“Who was the other person?”

“I don’t know – she was just round the end of the building. But it was definitely a woman’s voice. I’m afraid my hearing isn’t good enough anymore to distinguish women’s high-pitched voices. I did catch a glimpse of a green dress, if that helps.”

“I think most of the girls have green dresses. We all have three outfits, of course. But why are you telling me this?”

“Well, you’re the only other grown-up here, aren’t you? The others are all kids. I can trust your judgement. I know I didn’t kill this poor girl and I think Holly was right. You’re the only other person we can be sure is innocent. Now do you think I should tell the police what I heard?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Douglas is in the frame at the moment. The little altercation you heard is sure to have a bearing on that. Don’t forget: Hannah Whatshername was wearing a green dress when we found her.”

* * *

A little after half-past eight the following morning, I was summoned to Mr Bennet’s study, which the police had designated their command centre. I sat down, expecting a grilling from the two detectives.

Since I was still required to pose as a middle-aged woman, albeit now a 20th Century one, I was wearing one of my modern dresses, a beige thing with blue polka dots. Holly insisted I also wore tights and heels, as a respectable woman my age would do. She had helped with my makeup and hair – that is, wig – which she had put in a convenient updo, like on the day we all met at the Dog and Duck. The inspector was impassive, but I was pleased to see the sergeant looking at me in amazement, apparently still baffled at the effectiveness of my disguise.

She offered me coffee and I accepted. Giddings opened the conversation.

“I’m pleased to say…” He didn’t look especially pleased. “…that we found the elderly couple you mentioned,” he said. “Tell her, I mean him, Sergeant.”

“They are a Mr and Mrs Cooper,” Sharpe began. “The old gentleman is a retired headmaster and his wife was a concert pianist. They are in their early eighties but both are completely competent – no sign of dementia or shaky memory. They’re Jane Austen buffs and they thoroughly enjoyed their time with ‘Mrs Bennet’ in the Longbourn drawing room. They thought your performance was excellent, by the way. ‘Spot-on,’ Mr Cooper said.”

I sensed that Giddings was getting impatient with the level of detail Sharpe was providing. She looked up from her notes.

“More importantly from our point of view, they’re both adamant that, although lots of other people – cast and guests – came and went, none of the three of you left the room between two o’clock and just after four when ‘Kitty’ came in. They noticed she was in a panic, and even remembered she called you ‘Mike’. They’ve been wondering about that ever since.”

Giddings interrupted. “Our pathologist is convinced that Miss Matthews was stabbed no earlier than two-thirty, so that would appear to put you in the clear.”

I must have let the relief show on my face.

“Of course, you might have had an accomplice,” he said. “You may not be in his will now, but who else is Keith Matthews going to leave his money to, now his daughter’s dead? So you remain a person of interest, and I’m afraid you will have to stay here for the moment.”

He reached toward a small pile of papers in front of him on Mr Bennet’s desk. They looked like letters and their envelopes. He picked up the top one.

“Then there’s this,” he said, “which I think changes things dramatically. It arrived this morning.”

He tossed a letter to me. The envelope was addressed to Mr M J Bradshaw, Hadleigh House, and it was in Keith’s handwriting. Our mail came in through Mary Manners at the Hall. I hoped she’d think ‘Mr’ was an error on the part of the sender.

“Are you allowed to open people’s private mail?” I said, not attempting to conceal my anger.

“In a murder enquiry my warrant extends to ‘all communications to or from legitimate suspects’,” he said calmly. “That’s why I was allowed to commandeer all your mobile phones, and I can check your bank accounts too. It wouldn’t be difficult to persuade my superiors – or a judge – that all the cast of The Pride and Prejudice Experience are ‘legitimate suspects’. Read the letter, Mr Bradshaw.”

“Dear Mike,” I read, “this is a very difficult letter to write, because I’ve come to care for you as a son, and I know it will be upsetting.

“I have a brain tumour and will need to undergo chemotherapy. I need to prepare for the worst, so I’ve set up identical trust funds for you and Hannah. The trustees will pay each of you a monthly stipend, which I’m sure you will find generous but which she will regard as stingy. You will each get full access to the funds on your thirtieth birthday. Hannah will probably blow all of hers in six months, but that’s not your problem. The rest of my estate will go to your mother, and then on to the two of you and – I hope – your families when she dies.

“I’m writing this now because, when we saw you at home the night before we left for our cruise, I realised it was wrong to keep you and Hannah in the dark any longer.

“I hope to see you when you’ve finished your summer job and before you go back to Uni, but I’m expecting to spend a good deal of time in hospital, probably the Royal Marsden. In any case, I know you’ll look after your mother if the worst happens. She will need you badly,

“Much love, Keith.”

I felt tears welling up. Sergeant Sharpe was watching me sympathetically. Inspector Giddings was inscrutable as always, but he seemed to be in no rush to advance the interview, so maybe he was human after all.

“My deepest sympathies, Mr Bradshaw,” Giddings said. “We will try and reach your parents and explain the situation here.” He turned to Sharpe. “Please keep trying to contact Mr and Mrs Matthews, Sergeant. You might try the Royal Marsden. You should speak to Mrs Matthews, if possible. Let her make the decision as to whether to tell her husband. The news of his daughter’s death might be too much for him in his current condition.”

He turned back to me, but I spoke first.

“I see how this changes things,” I said. “I’m back to being Prime Suspect, aren’t I? But I swear I didn’t know…”

“You’re right that it does change our thoughts about the case, but not in the way you think. I’m inclined to believe that you didn’t know you were about to receive a ‘generous stipend’. In fact, we’ve checked your bank account and it’s already started. A payment of £3,000 appeared a week ago. I suspect you wouldn’t be here, pretending to be ‘Mrs Bennet’ for a relative pittance if you knew you didn’t need to be – your obvious devotion to Miss Woodbridge notwithstanding.”

Sometimes he talked like someone from the 19th Century himself.

“All that, combined with the fairly solid alibi the Coopers have given you, means that we’re still inclined to push you to the back of the queue of suspects.”

That was good to hear, but he wasn’t finished.

“But it changes things in other ways,” he said. “We have to assume that Miss Matthews received a very similar letter, and that might explain what she was doing down here. She might have come down to see you, if she had found out you were in the cast. From your description of her, she may have been angry that half of what she considered her inheritance was going to you.”

“And she might not have been able to find you,” put in Sergeant Sharpe. “She would hardly have expected her hated stepbrother to be masquerading as Mrs Bennet!”

“So if Keith Matthews is as wealthy as you’ve said, then money might be a possible motive after all,” said Giddings. “And if someone stands to gain from killing Hannah…”

“They might need me out of the way too,” I said.

“Precisely. So that’s another reason why you should stay in your Michelle disguise, at least until we can identify who might benefit from your death. It might protect you if the killer is someone who doesn’t know Michelle is Mike.”

“All the guys from the Uni Drama Course know – that’s Amy, Sam, Diane, Hilary, Douglas, Derek and Rob. Oh and Holly too, of course. But she definitely isn’t trying to kill me.”

“But she might have killed Hannah,” said Giddings. “Though probably not for money. I understand her parents are well off too?”

I nodded. “Actually, the only people in the cast who don’t know my real self are Tom and Linda. If you want to look at everyone associated with The Pride and Prejudice Experience, Sheila and Esther know, but Mr Vaughan, Miss Manners and the Countess don’t.”

“We’ll check their alibis but we understand that Mr Vaughan was away and Her Ladyship and Miss Manners were greeting guests as they arrived at the Hall. I think Mrs Brown and Mrs Routledge were there too and very busy providing visitors with their costumes.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, sir,” said Sergeant Sharpe. “Those two ladies are in the same position as the cast. They were definitely up at the Hall most of the time, but there are usually a few cast members and one or two local volunteers to help with costumes, so either of them could have slipped out for a while during the crucial period. It’s about a ten-minute walk from the Hall to Hadleigh House, so they would need to be away for about half an hour in all. Unlikely, I suppose, and I can’t imagine a possible motive, but feasible.

“We’ve ruled out the catering staff here too,” she continued. “There’s only three of them, a chef and two assistants, and they were all busy in the kitchen throughout the critical period. I suppose they might be covering for each other, and we’ll check their backgrounds to see if any of them knew the deceased, but I think it’s unlikely.”

Giddings sighed. “It keeps coming down to motive. We need to redouble our efforts at tracing connections between the victim and our suspects. By the way, do you know where the murder weapon came from?” he asked me. “Forensics reckon it’s an ornamental letter opener – surprisingly sharp.”

“I think there was something like that on Mr Bennet’s desk,” I said. “You should ask Tom Hawthorne. He’s been sitting there every day for a month. He must have noticed it.”

“There’s nothing like that on the desk now,” said the inspector. “I suppose just about anyone in the cast could have taken it at any time. There were no fingerprints or useful DNA on it. There were some fibres of a modern material like nylon, from the gloves the killer was wearing presumably, but I’m not hopeful we’ll be able to get a match from them.”

“Yes, Sheila said that all of the cast’s gloves are made of modern materials, and unfortunately for your investigation, all of the cast wear gloves almost all the time – as people actually did in the Regency era.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he called.

Tom himself appeared right on cue, like all the very best actors. He seemed a little surprised to see me.

“Oh, I can come back later, if you like,” he said, “though Michelle knows what I’m about to tell you.”

“Well, you might as well go ahead then,” Giddings said, inviting the old actor to sit down.

Tom went on to tell the two detectives what he’d told me last night. I was pleased to see they asked exactly the questions I had. Giddings made no comment. Then he asked about the letter opener. Tom was able to confirm he had seen it on the desk but hadn’t noticed it going missing. The inspector thanked Tom for his help in a manner that made it clear he was dismissed.

“That was interesting,” said Giddings. “We need to know who Miller was talking to. You’d better go and fetch him, Sergeant.

But she couldn’t find him. Because at that moment his lifeless body was lying in the cobbled courtyard at the back of Hadleigh Hall.

Next: Mrs Bennet the Snitch

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Thirteen – Mrs Bennet the Snitch

Even though the show has been closed, Auntie Michelle has to stay on and help the police find the killer.

A uniformed constable had been looking for Giddings for the last hour, but he was new to the team, and had no idea that the inspector and the sergeant had set up their headquarters in Mr Bennet’s study – a communications cock-up for which Sergeant Sharpe was being blamed, especially as she had accidentally left her phone on ‘Silent’. (It had been buzzing away on ‘Vibrate’ in her handbag and none of us had noticed.)

When he was eventually informed of a second fatality on his watch, Giddings gloomily gathered everyone together in the staff room and gave us the news about Douglas. Someone said that it was sad, but presumably he had killed himself from remorse after killing Hannah Matthews, and was it all over now? Could we go home?

The inspector was quick to damp down any such suggestions. The police, he said, were not yet satisfied and the investigation was ‘ongoing’. He was in an odd mood, which I suppose was understandable. This might well be the biggest case of his career, but he would be under a lot of pressure from his superiors, who might blame him for not solving Hannah’s murder in time to prevent a second death. And he still had a lot of suspects…

Since there had been two suspicious deaths at Hadleigh House within forty-eight hours, we were now effectively in quarantine. The Earl and Countess were banned from their own property and the ever-helpful Mary Manners would also not be allowed to set foot here. Dennis was on his way back early from his holiday but he wouldn’t be allowed in either. He arranged to stay at the Hall. Worse for us was that the catering staff were sent home, so we would have to fend for ourselves from now on. There were plenty of provisions in the kitchen, or we could order takeaway, in which case a police officer would have to collect our food from the main gate.

As the meeting broke up, and people went off to do whatever they were able to do in this strange form of lockdown, Giddings invited me along to the ‘command centre’. Holly moved to follow but was firmly prevented by Sergeant Sharpe. I assumed I was going to be interviewed yet again, but that wasn’t it. It seemed I was part of the investigation team now. I wondered what the rest of The Pride and Prejudice Experience cast thought about my privileged position, especially Holly.

There were just the three of us in Mr Bennet’s study, sitting at his small table with coffee and biscuits. Holly had persuaded me to wear my new jeans with a fairly hideous floral top. I agreed because I thought I would be glad to get back in trousers after wearing nothing but dresses for five weeks, but the jeans were tight and nothing like as comfortable as a skirt.

What was worse was that Sergeant Sharpe kept staring at my bottom with her mouth open. The inspector didn’t appear to notice anything remarkable. Perhaps he was now starting to see me as the plump, middle-aged woman I appeared to be (as indeed was I). In any case, I wouldn’t have expected a comment on my appearance from him, complimentary or otherwise.

“It appears Miller fell – or was pushed – from the roof of Hadleigh Hall,” Giddings said through a mouthful of oatmeal biscuit.

“So you think he was murdered too?” I asked.

“Bit of a coincidence otherwise, isn’t it?” he said. “He didn’t seem the suicidal type, but I only spent an hour or so with him. You knew him better. Did he seem to you like the type to kill himself?”

“No,” I agreed. “But he’s been behaving oddly for the last couple of days. We’ve all noticed. He seemed frightened of something. How did he get up there anyway? How did he get into the Hall at all?”

“The Countess gave Mr Vaughan a key to the back door by the kitchens,” said Sharpe, “so that he and cast members could get in and out easily. It’s missing. Mary Manners said they haven’t been setting the alarms lately because of all the visitors and Experience team members coming and going at odd hours. The wardrobe team were often there in the late evening mending and washing costumes. Manners said they knew it was a little risky but it was a nuisance with the alarms going off all the time. So they locked up all the really valuable books, jewellery and artefacts, and came to rely on security devices at the entries to the Estate.”

“There’s a sort of viewing platform that runs all the way along the roof at the back of the Hall,” said Giddings. “The Countess told us that the whole house was rebuilt after a fire in 1886, and the Earl at that time fancied himself as an amateur astronomer. He had telescopes and such like up there. You can get out onto the platform through a door at the end of the passage on the third floor of the West wing.”

“But how on earth would Douglas, or whoever pushed him, have known about all that?” I asked.

“Apparently they run guided tours of the Hall and the grounds on a weekly basis,” said the sergeant. “The view over the fields from up on the platform is quite impressive, I’m told. Mind you, they haven’t done a tour since The Pride and Prejudice Experience opened, so either Douglas or his killer must have been here before then. We’re checking the Visitors’ Book – which is why we’ve asked for samples of everyone’s handwriting – but I don’t hold out much hope. If you’re planning to push someone off a roof, you’re unlikely to have signed your real name.”

“This is getting out of hand,” the inspector continued. “We need more information and quickly. I’m sure we would find out everything we need by our usual methods eventually, but I’m afraid it will take too long. I won’t have any more deaths on my conscience if there’s a way to avoid it.”

He dunked his biscuit in his coffee. Half of it fell off and sank into the murky depths. He didn’t seem to notice. He looked at me piercingly.

“Which is why you’re here, Mr Bradshaw,” he said. “It’s unorthodox – to say the least – to consult one of the suspects in a murder enquiry, especially one we already know to be practising deception on a grand scale…”

“I’ve explained about that,” I said, a little hurt, “and I hardly think ‘grand’ is fair…”

“You know everyone here,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “so you almost certainly know something which will be helpful, even if you don’t know you know it. Please tell us everything you can think of, even things you suspect but don’t know for certain, whether it seems relevant to you or not.

“Now, Miss Manners discovered the body when she went out to the stable yard to collect the milk. That was at about half past seven. The Hadleigh village milkman doesn’t usually deliver anymore but with The Pride and Prejudice Experience going on, the Hall gets a whole crate and Hadleigh House gets two, so it’s worth his while. He reckons he was at the stables at about six o’clock. It was light enough by then for him to be sure there was no dead body there. So Miller must have fallen between six and seven-thirty. The pathologist says that fits with his initial estimate of the time of death, and his injuries are consistent with a fall from a height of three storeys. What can you tell me about your friends’ movements between those times?”

“Not much,” I said. “Holly and I were in bed till half-past seven, so anyone we saw after that had plenty of time to have done the deed before we surfaced. I did hear doors banging and toilets flushing before we got up, maybe as early as six o’clock, but I didn’t see anybody or hear any voices. We got down to breakfast at about eight.”

I strained to remember the scene.

“Tom had finished and was in one of the armchairs, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Derek and Rob were definitely at the table and nearly finished eating. Diane and Hilary were at the buffet. Linda, Sam and Amy came in after us.”

“That may be helpful,” Giddings said. “We’ll have to ask each of them who they saw and when. See if that tallies with what you remember. It’s a pity none of you actors get up early.”

“Except Douglas and the murderer,” I said. “Oh, and Amy and Sam often go for a run round the Estate before breakfast – usually together.”

“Indeed?” He looked down at his notes. “Let’s begin at the beginning. Tell us everything you know about Amy Longhurst.”

“Er, right, Amy. She’s nice; I can’t believe…” Giddings looked annoyed. “I mean, er, she and Holly are our two best actresses. Holly’s the leading lady type, while Amy is a character actress.” He didn’t seem to like that any better. “I guess I’d better concentrate on her background and personality, hadn’t I?”

“Yes, please.”

“She’s independent and strong-minded,” I said. “She doesn’t let anyone push her around. Her father’s an Army officer and he moved around a lot in his early career, so Amy was packed off to boarding school, which may be what has made her self-sufficient.”

The inspector made a note and muttered something to his sergeant, but I didn’t catch it. Sharpe stood up and went over to the window to make a telephone call out of my earshot.

“I can’t imagine it being relevant, but I think Amy may be gay. She’s not ‘out’ as such, which may make her a little vulnerable. We’ve never talked about it, but there have been signs. I don’t remember her having a boyfriend in the two years I’ve known her. I think she went to the summer ball with her cousin. Hannah isn’t – wasn’t – gay, by the way.

“Regarding Amy’s character: she does have a bit of temper. She practically bit Holly’s head off at a rehearsal when she challenged something I said about her performance. I was speaking out of turn, but Amy supported me forcefully.”

The sergeant had ended her call and returned to the table. I suddenly realised that telling a copper that my friend was quick to anger might not have been in her best interests.

“I can’t see Amy as a murderer though,” I added hurriedly. “As I said, she’s nice.”

“If you say so,” said Giddings cynically, “but I will share something with you, which you must keep to yourself. When our team searched the bedrooms yesterday, we found a maid’s apron with significant splashes of blood on it. We’re testing it, but I suspect it will turn out to be your sister’s.”

That was a shock. “Where was it?”

“In the laundry basket in Amy’s room,” said Sharpe. “You were all still in costume when the search was conducted, so she was wearing one of her three aprons. There was one more in her wardrobe, but the third was missing. The bloody one in the laundry basket was exactly the same as the others.”

“It’s not conclusive, of course,” said Giddings. “Amy shares a room with Samantha Spears, and anyone could have borrowed one of Amy’s spare aprons and later disposed of it in her basket to frame her, but still...”

I couldn’t believe it of Amy, but still…

Sharpe’s phone rang. She stepped away from the table again to answer it.

“Was there anything between her and Douglas Miller?” asked Giddings.

“Not that I know of. Do you think she was the one Tom overheard talking to him yesterday morning?”

I should have known by now that a police detective asks questions; he doesn’t answer them.

“And you don’t think she knew Hannah at all?” he continued.

I was about to answer in the negative but Sharpe interrupted. “That was one of the DCs calling back, sir,” she said. “Miss Longhurst was at St Anne’s. It’s an all-girls boarding school in the Peak District.”

“Oh!” I said. The two detectives looked at me expectantly. “I’m not sure – you’ll need to check – but I think that’s where Hannah went too…”

“Which means they may well have known each other,” said Giddings. “Miss Longhurst never mentioned that.”

“Amy would have been at least one, maybe two years below Hannah,” I said.

“Nevertheless, I think we have good reason to interview her again,” said Giddings. “Now what can you tell us about Samantha Spears?”

I tried to gather my thoughts. “Right, well, as you’ve seen for yourselves, Sam is very attractive, and she has never wanted for male company… as it were. To continue my actress metaphor: Sam would be the siren, the femme fatale.” I chuckled. “She has even come on to me a couple of times when Holly wasn’t around.

“I’m not sure about her family background,” I continued. “I think she may have been brought up by a single mother. She never talks about her father, but she did once say something about being abused as a child. In any case I don’t think she’s very well off. She’s the only one of us apart from Douglas who took a Gap Year between school and university, but unlike him, she didn’t go travelling. She had to work to raise enough money for Uni – various minimum wage jobs in London, I believe.”

Giddings turned to the sergeant. “Can you get the team to try and trace what jobs Samantha Spears worked two years ago, and where she lived?”

Sharpe stepped away again to make another call.

“Anything between Miss Spears and Hannah?” asked Giddings.

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “Most of my close friends at Uni knew I had a stepsister, but I didn’t talk about her much. Sam certainly never mentioned her name to me, but then she’d have no reason to.”

“Did Samantha know Miller outside of the university Drama class?”

“Again, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure they never had a relationship, in fact I don’t think she liked him much, but then none of us liked Douglas. He’s… sorry, he was a prat. Pardon me for speaking ill of the dead.”

To my surprise Giddings smiled grimly. “In my experience most people who get murdered tend to be unpleasant in some way. Now what about Diane Simms? We’re going to have to talk to her about her conversation with Hannah in the dressing room – the conversation she denied having.”

“Right, well, Diane is the quiet one. Her father’s a fairly junior civil servant and her mother’s a nursery school teacher. Respectable middle-class upbringing in the Midlands. She’s always friendly; not a bad word for anyone. But I think she lacks confidence, and she’s easily led, and every now and then a little spitefulness comes out, like she’s trying to be one of the ‘mean girls’.”

I was remembering when she joined in with Sam and Holly to laugh at me being cast as Mrs Bennet. Was it really fair to call her ‘spiteful’ just for that? And to the police in a murder investigation?

“Anyway, I’d say she was a follower not a leader. For what it’s worth, Holly doesn’t rate her as an actress at all. She doesn’t think Diane will continue with Drama in her third year.”

We spent another half an hour with me telling the two detectives everything I knew about my classmates, which wasn’t much. I hardly knew Derek or Rob, except that Derek was very clever – straight Firsts, probably going to be a professor one day – and Rob was always smiling. Everybody liked Rob. I knew a little more about Hilary but nothing useful. I mentioned that she was a decent actress but struggled in class. Being brutally honest, I said to the inspector, I didn’t feel she was clever enough to plan a murder, let alone get away with two.

“Nobody’s got away with anything yet,” muttered Giddings.

“Right, sorry,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I can’t see any of those three as murderers, and I don’t know of any links between them and Hannah. I don’t think any of them hanged out with Douglas outside class either.”

Giddings looked at his watch.

“Which just leaves Holly Woodbridge.”

“I thought we’d agreed Holly wasn’t a suspect?”

“You said that,” the inspector said. “I didn’t. I think we can assume she knows everything you know – which means she knew Hannah.”

“But they never met!”

“Very well, she knew of her. If you inherit Hannah’s share of your stepfather’s estate, and she marries you…”

“We’ve never discussed marriage!” Which was almost true. We’d both been drunk at the time and the subject hadn’t come up since. (Well, Holly wouldn’t be thinking about marrying her ‘Auntie Michelle’, would she?) Anyway she might have been too drunk to remember now.

“Still a possible motive,” Giddings argued.

“But her family’s wealthy too,” I said.

“Actually, I’d describe the Woodbridges as comfortable. Keith Matthews is wealthy.”

“Have you looked into all our finances?” I bristled.

“Of course, and your parents too.”

At that moment Sharpe’s phone rang. She answered it and walked away again.

“Well, she certainly couldn’t have pushed Douglas off the roof,” I said. “I can swear she was in bed with me from 6.30 to 7.30.”

“What time did you wake up? She could have gone out while you were still asleep.”

“No, actually,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “We’d had an early night and we were awake at half six and… busy… until we got up.”

The inspector nodded remotely. He might have been smiling on the inside I suppose.

“Of course, we can’t assume that both murders were committed by the same person – or even that Miller’s death was murder. You can’t give Miss Woodbridge an alibi for Hannah, can you?”

“No, but I can’t believe…”

“Neither can I, actually,” he interrupted, “but I have to keep an open mind. Another possibility is that Miller killed Hannah, and then someone else killed him, maybe in revenge.”

“Me, you mean? I wouldn’t kill someone for offing Hannah!” One Giddings eyebrow lifted. “Well, I hardly knew her.”

“But your only alibi for Miller’s murder is Miss Woodbridge, correct? And you’re hers?”

I couldn’t deny it, so I said nothing.

“We have to keep looking for connections to find a motive,” said Giddings. “Then we may have our murderer – or murderers.”

Sharpe turned back to the table.

“This may help with motive, sir,” she said, hanging up the phone. “It seems Hannah Matthews was known to the police in London. She was arrested last autumn for running a disorderly house.”

“My sister ran a brothel? She was a… a madam?”

“On a small scale, I believe,” Sharpe said. “But not only that; other names we know came up at the same time.”

She paused and looked at her boss. He got the message immediately.

“Yes, quite right, Sergeant.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Mr Bradshaw. I can’t let you be privy to this new information.”

“But…”

“I promise I will tell you everything I can – especially about your sister’s apparently murky past – as soon as possible.”

He indicated that my role as a consulting detective was over, and I was to return to being just Mrs Michelle Bradshaw, forty-year-old amateur actress. I got up and left them to it.

* * *

I made my way to the staff room. The French windows at the back were open and most of the cast were out on the veranda soaking up the August sun.

Rob saw me first. “Ah, we were wondering where you’d got to, Michelle,” he called cheerily. It takes more than two deaths in forty-eight hours to dent Rob’s joie de vivre. “Go and get your bikini on and come and get a tan.”

“I haven’t brought a swimsuit with me,” I said.

“Well, just strip down to your bra and panties then,” said Sam. “I’m sure the boys won’t mind.”

She knew full well that my prosthetic breasts, bum and thighs couldn’t tan. I ignored her. Holly had risen from her deckchair and was heading in my direction.

“Upstairs, now,” she snapped. “Tell me everything.”

She dragged me up to our bedroom (with my cooperation – she could never have hauled my big, jiggly body anywhere if I resisted) and closed the door firmly. We sat down on my camp bed. I told her everything the cops had told me – well, they didn’t tell me not to, did they? – except the bit about the blood on Amy’s apron. I was supposed to keep that to myself, so I did.

“Hellfire!” she muttered when I reached the end of the story. “We obviously can’t trust anyone. So who’s your money on?”

“Well, until this morning I would have said Douglas, but now…”

“Do you buy the idea of two killers?”

“That seems very unlikely,” I said. “I think the key to this is what was going on at Hannah’s flat last summer. She seems to have been running some sort of amateur sex ring…”

“Very enterprising of her,” Holly said sarcastically.

“Pretty stupid, actually. She obviously had no idea what she was getting into. It would have attracted a lot of attention – strange men coming and going at all hours…”

“Was Douglas one of them, do you think?”

“He admitted to living there for a while.”

“Perhaps he was her pimp,” she said.

“Funny,” I said. “Pimps have to be able to handle themselves to deal with badly-behaved punters. Douglas was an arrogant prick, but a strong wind would have blown him over. I think Hannah was probably lucky the police caught her. Rival sex worker gangs would have terminated her business more ruthlessly. Mind you, the sergeant said her operation – if that’s not too grandiose a term – was strictly small scale.”

“She also said ‘other people we know’ were involved, did she? So who else was screwing or being screwed for cash at Hannah’s Little Whorehouse?”

Holly could be quite vulgar at times, or maybe becoming a forty-year-old matron had made me prudish.

“They wouldn’t tell me. The only other person we know with a link to my sister is Amy,” I said, doubtfully. “They were at school together, albeit a couple of years apart.”

“I can’t see Amy being a murderer though, can you? She’s too…” She struggled for the right word.

“Nice?”

“Yes, nice. Also, they weren’t contemporaries. I mean, I never had anything to do with girls two years above or below me at school. So they were hardly likely to be close, were they?”

I agreed. This wasn’t getting us anywhere.

“Well, for now, you are the only person I can trust,” I said, “and, I hope, vice versa?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Also, it’s worrying that almost everyone in the house knows your little secret – probably including the murderer.”

“True, but we were up front with the cops, after your initial misstep, so I can’t see how anyone can use it against me, can you?”

“No, but I still think we have to get away from here.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Hang on, if we try and leave, Giddings will think we’re guilty.”

“It’s a matter of self-preservation!” she protested. “Hannah was your sister and suddenly you discover you’re rich! You’re at the centre of this somehow, and that makes me a target too! The cops clearly can’t protect us when they don’t know who they’re protecting us from!”

“Actually, the inspector said he was going to have two officers patrolling the house all night.”

“Not good enough! They can’t watch all of us, all the time. The killer has already taken big risks of being caught in the act. It won’t help either of us if they get caught the third time but we’re dead!”

I began to realise that Holly was genuinely frightened; so perhaps I ought to be too.

We made our plans.

* * *

We stuck together closely for the rest of the afternoon. Dinner was a muted affair. Holly insisted that everything we ate came from either the freezer or out a tin, and we didn’t share anything with anyone. She also made me open a bottle of wine and inspect the cork and its wrapping for any sign of tampering. Not that I knew what to look for. Once it was open and being shared around, I wasn’t allowed a second glass from that bottle. We got a lot of funny looks that evening.

We retired early. When we were sure we weren’t going to be disturbed we packed a few things in my old rucksack. While Holly was in the bathroom I wrote a little note for Giddings and asked the copper patrolling the landing to pass it to him in the morning. We got into bed but didn’t undress. Holly wanted to get some sleep until it was time to go. I promised to wake her when the time was right. I put my bedside light on to do some reading.

* * *

I awoke suddenly, cursing because I hadn’t intended to go to sleep at all. I checked my watch. It was around two o’clock. I decided to let Holly sleep a little longer. Neither of us believed that Giddings’ plods would actually stay awake all night, so the plan was that I would go downstairs as quietly as I could, and see if the coast was clear. If I could see a way to leave the house without being stopped, I would come back and fetch Holly. We weren’t sure how exactly we would get out of the Hadleigh Estate, but we decided we had to try. If the main gate was impassable, surely there would be a gap in the fence somewhere or a low wall we could climb over.

I put the bedside light out and made my way downstairs as quietly as I could, which wasn’t easy considering how heavy and ungainly I was now. I tried to remember which stairs and floorboards creaked. There was no sign of life. I groped my way by moonlight through the kitchen to the staff room, wishing I still had my phone to light the way.

If I was challenged by a copper I could always say I was hungry for a midnight snack, although they might be suspicious that I hadn’t put any lights on and I was fully dressed. I quickly decided our best chance would be to go out through the French windows at the back of the house. The police might not even know there was a possible exit route there.

Everything went according to plan. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t hear a sound. If there really were two coppers still in the building, I saw no sign of them. Perhaps the inspector had told them they could knock off at midnight. Perhaps he thought just warning us that they would be there would be enough to dissuade anyone from trying to leave.

I hurried back up to give Holly the good news. I didn’t bother creeping silently now that I knew there were no guards to hear me. A couple of the stairs creaked loudly. At the top a particularly noisy floorboard registered its disapproval of my excessive weight.

On the landing I thought I heard a door further down the corridor close and what sounded like running footsteps, but I got back to our bedroom without incident. Time to wake Holly up and leave, if we were going.

She was still asleep. I gave her a gentle shake. Nothing. Then a not so gentle shake. I felt a sticky, gooey liquid on her cheek. I put the bedside light on again. There was a large red stain all over the pillow.

Next: Mrs Bennet Confronts the Killer

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Fourteen – Mrs Bennet Confronts the Killer

The police seem no closer to finding the killer. What will happen to Holly and her Auntie Michelle?

When I found Holly unconscious and covered in blood, I panicked.

I put on the bedroom light and started yelling for help. Derek and Rob burst into the bedroom in a few seconds, closely followed by Amy, Sam and Diane. What was more of a surprise was that two burly policemen were only moments behind them. Where the hell had they been? How come I didn’t see them on my reconnaissance downstairs? And why hadn’t they confronted me?

One of the policemen quickly called for an ambulance. The other calmly but firmly ushered us all out of the room. I was last to leave, reluctant to leave Holly. As the door was closing behind me, I could see the first man checking her breathing.

There was a lot of coming and going of police cars and emergency vehicles that night. Less than an hour later a small group of us watched from a front window on the second floor as Holly – or her body – was carried out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. They hadn’t covered her face, which I took as a good sign. I wanted to go to the hospital with her, but the police had their orders from Giddings. I wasn’t allowed to leave, even when my niece/girlfriend might be dying.

Tom put his arm around me – which I didn’t resist – and assured me that as one of the paramedics was carrying a drip or some other medical apparatus alongside the stretcher, the patient must still be alive.

No need for acting; my tears were real. The others had lots of questions – like where had I been when Holly was attacked? But I didn’t feel up to answering and they didn’t press me.

We all went back to bed. I hoped the flimsy lock on our bedroom door was stronger than it looked. Sleep wouldn’t come.

* * *

The following morning the inspector called me into another of our little private meetings in his command centre.

“First the good news,” Giddings began. “Sergeant?”

“I spoke to Miss Woodbridge’s doctor earlier,” said Sharpe. “It seems the assailant only managed one glancing blow before they heard you returning and had to escape. She came round in the ambulance and they dosed her up with painkillers. X-rays showed no skull fracture. She has had a nasty shock and a bad bang on the head, but they expect her to make a full recovery. They’re keeping her in for at least another twenty-four hours in case of concussion.”

Relief flooded through me like a cool mountain stream.

“She was very lucky,” said Giddings. “The assailant was operating in near darkness. Maybe Miss Woodbridge moved slightly so it was just a glancing blow. The hammer tore the skin – hence all the blood – and she’ll have a hell of a bruise, but there’s no serious damage.”

“Will I be allowed to visit her?”

“In due course,” he said. “But you mustn’t worry. She’s in good hands. We think the noise you made going back upstairs disturbed Miss Woodbridge’s assailant so they weren’t able to finish the job. It’s not difficult to knock someone unconscious with a single whack from a hammer, but unless you are very precise or very strong, it usually takes several blows to kill them.”

The hammer, with Holly’s blood and hair still clinging to it, lay on Mr Bennet’s little table in front of us, waiting for Forensics. One of the inspector’s men had found it in a flower bed. The current theory was that the perp had thrown it out of an open window on the second floor. Unfortunately, the most likely window was on the landing; it wasn’t the bedroom window of any of the suspects.

“Of course, we can’t be sure Miss Woodbridge was the intended target. If the assailant didn’t see you going down the stairs, they might have thought it was you they were attacking. We’ve been keeping a close eye on all of you in case the murderer wasn’t finished yet…” he began.

“Which he obviously wasn’t!” I said, gearing up to get angry over how he and his plods nearly let Holly get killed.

“But that level of surveillance is expensive and I wouldn’t be allowed two officers for more than a few days,” he continued patiently, despite my outburst. “At the same time, we wanted to give the killer a little latitude, hoping they would give themselves away. So we installed night-vision cameras.”

“Cameras?”

“Yes, along the landing, on the stairs, in the hall, the drawing room, the kitchen and the staff room. We did the installation upstairs while you were all out on the veranda yesterday afternoon. We finished off downstairs when you’d all gone to bed. They’re motion-activated and the images are fed via wi-fi to screens in the late Mr Miller’s room in the Portakabin. Two officers were monitoring them throughout the night.”

Which explained how the nightwatchmen got to our bedroom so quickly.

Sergeant Sharpe smiled. “We have some very clear pictures of a portly lady in jeans and a flowery top stealthily making her way downstairs at two o’clock in the morning,” she said. “You weren’t planning to leave by any chance, were you?”

Giddings didn’t bother giving me a chance to deny it.

“Unfortunately, whoever took advantage of your absence to creep into your bedroom and try to kill Miss Woodbridge went to great lengths to avoid appearing on the cameras,” he said gloomily. “Somehow they spotted them and worked out how to move along the landing without ever being in view.” He sighed. “We keep underestimating this person. We may have to get creative. Now here’s what I want to do…”

* * *

He arrested Amy Longhurst later that morning. She was distraught and protested her innocence in floods of tears, but it didn’t stop the sergeant handcuffing her and frog-marching her to a waiting police car. It roared off in the direction of the main gate, closely followed by Giddings in his Vauxhall Astra.

The rest of us gathered in the staff room for lunch. Two deaths (including Hannah’s), a hospitalisation, and an arrest had left our numbers depleted in a way that was becoming impossible to ignore.

“And then there were eight,” said Rob. “Maybe Giddings will let us go home now that he’s caught the killer.”

“But Amy!” said Diane, miserably. “I can hardly believe it. Why does he think it was her?”

“They found one of her aprons covered in Hannah’s blood,” I said. “And they knew each other at school, apparently. That’s the only link he’s been able to find between Hannah and anyone here, apart from Douglas.”

“But why?” Diane persisted. “Why did she do it?”

“Presumably he hopes to sweat the motive out of her down at the station,” Sam suggested.

“And is she supposed to have killed Douglas as well?”

“Giddings’ theory is that he found out what she did and tried to blackmail her,” I said, “so she arranged to meet him up on the roof of the Hall for a private conversation, and pushed him off. But don’t ask me why she tried to kill Holly.”

“Perhaps Holly worked it out too,” said Derek. “How is she, do you know?”

“Touch and go, the sergeant said.”

I let my voice drop to a despairing whisper and tried to fake a tear this time, but that dramatic skill was beyond me. I clearly had a way to go in my development as an actress. Maybe I’d do better as an actor. The inspector had told me to say she was hovering on the brink of death, and to look as miserable as possible.

“Oh, Mi… Michelle, that’s awful,” said Sam, taking my hand. “We’re all here for you.”

I smiled and thanked her. Tom and Linda must have thought it was touching how much Auntie cared for her niece. Everyone else knew Mike was afraid he might be losing the love of his life.

Clearly, one of the company would be delighted if that happened.

* * *

With the presumed killer under lock and key our group relaxed a little. Our minds were now on whether Holly would recover and when Giddings would let us leave. Everyone knew I was desperate to get to the hospital. Surely there could be no reason to hold us here now?

Tom was deputised to approach the officers in the Portakabin to ask, but he returned with no news. They were firm that we were to remain in the house and its surrounding gardens until they heard from the inspector. The older officer, a uniformed sergeant, told us to expect at least one more night at Hadleigh House.

“It can’t be much longer,” said Rob, his glass half-full as always. “We’re running out of food and the milk’s on the turn.

“We’re certainly in danger of starvation the way you’re wolfing down that pie,” said Derek. “It’s supposed to be for four, you know.”

“You didn’t even defrost it properly,” said Diane. “You’ll get food poisoning or something.”

It was hard to maintain a morose demeanour with their cheerful banter. When nine o’clock rolled around, I’d had enough.

“I think I’m going to get an early night, guys,” I said. “Maybe the police will let us go tomorrow. I’ll want to get off to the hospital as early as I can.”

The others said goodnight and I made my way upstairs. How much I ate had next to no impact on my girth, thanks to my bulging abdominal prostheses, but my jeans had never felt so tight. I was more conscious than ever of my big fat rear swinging from side to side as I climbed the stairs.

Assuming we would be released tomorrow, I would go to the hospital, and from there straight to Transformations to be turned back into Mike. I didn’t really mind being a portly woman anymore, but I wanted to be a thin, weedy man again. There were lots of things Mike could do that Michelle couldn’t – squash, running, gym, drinking pints. But I missed more mundane things like driving (Michelle had no licence); socks (Holly had only bought me tights and knee-highs); and standing up at a urinal. And I wouldn’t miss sitting down on a cold toilet seat to find that the gentleman who had preceded me hadn’t bothered to raise it. (Yuck.)

After a quick visit to the bathroom to clean my teeth and wash, I went back into our bedroom. I closed the curtains and removed my wig. I looked forward to this moment every day when I could drop the middle-aged lady act and be something like myself again (although I was beginning to wonder who that might be).

Anyway, although the liberation was much less satisfying without Holly, I gratefully stripped off all my tight clothes. The relief of getting out of my jeans was partly offset by the discomfort of the great round globes on my chest descending. It was always good to get them out of their buttressing bra, but now they pulled down painfully on my skin. I reached for my least glamorous nightie to provide them with some support, though thanks to Holly, everything I had was pretty sexy.

Our two camp beds were still separate. There was no point in pulling them together now. Perhaps I would do some reading before lights out. That always made me sleepy. I had a Salman Rushdie novel in my bag. It was holiday reading, prescribed by our English Lit professor. If that didn’t put me to sleep, nothing would.

There being no furniture in our ‘Spartan’ room, all my belongings were on the floor. So I had to bend over to retrieve the book from my rucksack, exposing my enormous pantied behind to anyone in the doorway.

“Boy, that’s a sight to remember!” said a voice behind me. “Wish I’d brought a camera with me.”

It was Sam with a silly grin on her face.

“Oh, hi Sam,” I said, in Mike’s voice. I tried to hide my embarrassment at her seeing, and clearly relishing, the sight of my curvy backside in frilly black nylon knickers. “You might as well take a good look,” I said, “because this will be your last opportunity. As of tomorrow, ‘Michelle’ will be gone forever. She will just be some lumps of flesh-coloured plastic in a recycling bin.”

I sat down on my camp bed, trying to pull the shortie nightie down to cover my exposed panties.

“That’s a pity,” she said, sitting down on the other bed, facing me. Our knees were practically touching. “I was just getting used to her. I never understood how Holly – God rest her soul – could prefer her to Mike, but there’s definitely something…”

“Hey, Holly’s not dead yet!” I protested. “And she didn’t – doesn’t – prefer Michelle to Mike!”

“That’s not what she told me. But I warned her not to admit it to you; that you wouldn’t like it.”

“Well, you were dead right!” I winced at the unfortunate choice of words. “She’ll just have to get used to boring old Mike again.”

I couldn’t believe Holly had said that to Sam!

“I don’t think you’re boring, Mike,” she said. “Perhaps you and Holly aren’t meant for each other after all. You remember her trying to snog Derek in front of everybody?”

“That was… just acting.”

“Was it?” she said sceptically. “Anyway, my point is, I would be much better for you. I would never have made you dress up as her ‘Auntie Michelle’ and spend the summer in bras and knickers and corsets and petticoats.”

She got up off the other camp bed and joined me on mine.

“So why don’t you let me prove it?” she said.

She ran her fingers around my neck and pushed the spaghetti strap of my nightie off my shoulder. My right boob was almost completely exposed, its nipple poking cheekily out of the nightie’s cup. She moved even closer and started nuzzling my neck.

“Sam,” I said, “you’re amazing and gorgeous, but this isn’t a good idea.”

“I knew you found me attractive,” she said. “It’s been obvious since we first met! So why don’t we just carry on where we left off the last time Holly was away?” she said. “You were just about to show me how that little zip thingy between your legs works. Isn’t it uncomfortable? Let me help you out of it.”

She was gently pushing me backwards onto the bed with one hand while the other was working its way up toward my faux vagina. When she tried this before I had dismissed her actions as merely flirtatious. This time she had a determined look in her eye, and she was strong. Any more of this and I would be properly aroused – but sex with Sam was not in the plan.

I rolled over sideways to get away from her and jumped to my feet, pulling the shoulder strap of my nightie back up.

“No, Sam!” I said firmly. “I’m not going to have sex with you!”

Her seductive smile vanished instantly, to be replaced by blazing anger.

“Why not?”

“You know why not! I’m in love with Holly.”

“That doesn’t matter. Anyway, she’s as good as dead!”

How could she be so callous?

“I really hope that’s not true, but anyway I’m not in love with you.”

“You could be. You would be, if you knew everything I’ve done for you!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re my future and I’m yours, and we’ll have everything we want! We’ll be rich now Hannah’s gone and her father’s dying. You’re the only heir, aren’t you? I’ve been poor all my life and I’m fed up with it!”

The light in her eyes was quite different now. It was cold, calculating. This was a Sam I had never seen before.

“You might as well know it all now, if we’re going to be together,” she said fiercely. “You won’t be able to tell anyone anyway, because you’re implicated, aren’t you?”

Whoa! How was I implicated? I hadn’t hurt anyone! Was she suggesting all the deaths are somehow my fault because she did them for me?

“You and I met in our first year,” she said, “but you were already besotted with Holly and never looked at me properly. It was so frustrating!”

“What are you saying? Surely you didn’t…?”

She looked at me pityingly, but not unkindly.

“Am I really going to have to spell it all out for you? I thought you were smarter than that. All right then – Hannah first. I’m not sure when you mentioned you had a stepsister, but when we were introduced at a party in London last summer, I recognised her name.”

“So you did know her?” I said.

“I just said that, didn’t I? Keep up,” she sneered. “I was there with Douglas. I told her the three of us were all in the same class at Uni. We were both surprised by her reaction.”

“Pretty hostile, I imagine?”

I sat down on the bed again – just out of her reach. I needed to keep her talking – to get her mind off sex, and to get her to reveal more of her secrets.

“To say the least! But her description of you didn’t match our experience. To start with, you had no money. So it was hard to see how you were diminishing Hannah’s inheritance by stealing her Daddy’s fortune.” She laughed. “After all, we knew you sponged off Holly for everything.”

“That’s not fair! I paid my way; at least… I always did in the end.”

But only after my various holiday jobs had replenished my coffers. OK, I could see how it might seem I was living off Holly to an outside observer.

“Anyway, as you probably know, Hannah had her own three-bedroom flat – paid for by Daddy, of course – but she had fallen out with her flatmates, so she invited me and Douglas to move in for the summer holidays. She needed money. She was sure she was God’s gift to the fashion industry, but she had totally failed to get a job there. Also her father had halved her allowance for over-spending. She knew Douglas and I would be going back to Uni for our second year in October but she hoped to be back on her feet by then, or that she could find new tenants.

“Then one day a sleazy businessman friend of her father’s dropped in. She had smarmed and charmed him when he had been to their place for dinner, and it seemed he had made certain assumptions… Anyway, he made her an offer she couldn’t refuse – well, one that she was only too happy to accept, actually. He stayed the night in her room and the next day she had a brand new Louis Vuitton handbag.

“And he had friends. During that summer she became intimately acquainted with a circle of rich older men. They’d arrange meetings in London and stay with us, rather than go to a hotel. They paid in cash; they took her out for meals; and also bought her ‘little presents’, like jewellery. Her new business boomed and she soon had more clients than she could handle. I could see she was having a great time and I was easily persuaded to join in the fun. I’ve never had so much money in my life! Poor Douglas got fed up with seeing an endless stream of men padding to the bathroom from my room or Hannah’s, and he moved out.”

She paused to gauge my reaction, but after the big reveal that Sam knew Hannah well – really well – I wasn’t that surprised to find that she had joined my sister in the world’s oldest profession. I knew she had a healthy libido and that she had grown up poor. It must have been hard to resist. She didn’t seem the least bit ashamed; if anything, she was proud of herself.

“Hannah was always talking about you, you know,” Sam continued. “I couldn’t believe how much she hated you. I got to know her pretty well that summer when I was whoring with her. I was actually better at it than her, and most of our clients asked for me first, but Hannah kept three quarters of the money, because it was her flat and her contacts. She was selfish and lazy, and she thought the world owed her a living. When I left in late September I took half of the cash she’d hidden under the floorboards, which I reckoned I was due. She kept sending me threatening texts and e-mails for weeks after I left. In the end I turned her in to the police anonymously, to get her off my back.”

The next question would be crucial, but she seemed to be on a roll.

“So did you see her this week when she came here?” I said.

“Of course I did,” she said scornfully. “I’d have thought you’d have worked that out by now. Diane and I were helping out in the Hall when she showed up for her costume. Obviously I recognised her immediately, but I didn’t know whether she had come to Hadleigh to see me or you. I passed her on to Diane for dressing but I arranged to meet her in the Library at half-past three to talk. I was afraid she would make trouble, so when no one was looking I borrowed the letter opener from Mr Bennet’s desk – just in case.”

This was exciting but also worrying. I always enjoyed Sam’s company; I had always thought her one of the most interesting people I had ever met; but for the first time in the two years since I had known her, I began to think that she might actually be deranged. Her childhood must have been even worse than I thought. And what would she do after telling me all this?

“She had kept in touch with Douglas after he moved out and he told her what we were all doing this summer, so she came down to see both of us. She wanted to talk to you about her father’s new will – she’d had his letter but at that point you hadn’t got yours. She looked around the House and grounds but couldn’t find you. She didn’t know you were playing Mrs Bennet, of course, so she had only been checking out the men.

“She wanted to see me to get her money back – it was well over two thousand pounds. She was skint again, and someone nasty in London was threatening her. She told me about her father’s letter but she couldn’t afford to wait for the first payment from her new trust fund. I refused and she threatened to make my little stint as a high-class hooker public. I laughed at that. Somehow she’d managed to hide her conviction from her parents. I told her that if she exposed me, I’d make sure they found out about her. Then she flew into a rage and attacked me. She was bigger and stronger than me, so it was a good thing I was prepared. The next thing I knew, she was lying on the floor with Mr Bennet’s letter opener sticking out of her chest. I didn’t actually mean to kill her, but I suppose it was inevitable.”

“And Amy’s apron?”

“What?”

“How did Amy’s apron get covered in blood and end up in the laundry basket in the room you shared?”

“Oh, that.” She looked shifty. “Well, OK, I admit I did half expect things would get nasty with Hannah. We’d had a bad fight once before when she refused to pay me my share of the money. It got physical. I didn’t want my Lydia dress to get dirty or torn, so I grabbed one of Amy’s spare aprons from our room and put it on before I went to the library. It seemed more sensible than wearing my own costume’s apron.”

That was premeditation, of course. With that and taking the letter opener, there would be no pleading self-defence for this.

“And what about Douglas?”

“Well, when we were getting ready for our first dancing session of the day, he saw Hannah through the music room window. Rob and Derek were just arriving on horseback, and she was waiting for them, presumably thinking you’d be one of them. I grabbed Douglas and we went out of the back of the house by the Portakabin for a private chat. I wanted to make sure he would keep quiet about how I’d spent the previous summer with Hannah. I warned him what would happen if he blabbed. His parents and the police would find out he’d been living in a flat with two prostitutes. No one would believe he wasn’t involved.

“Later, it wasn’t difficult for him to guess what had happened to Hannah, and he confronted me about it. He started making demands – money, sex, and more. I couldn’t let him have that kind of hold on me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take him on physically. I thought about poisoning him or arranging an accident with a gun, but I couldn’t see how to do either without being seen in the kitchen or at the shooting range – places where Lydia had no business being. So I said we needed to talk somewhere secluded, and why didn’t we go up on the roof of the Hall? It was quite a romantic spot in the early dawn, I said. Apparently, the present Earl had proposed to the Countess up there, I said.”

“And he fell for it?” I said, aware of the awful pun.

“Literally,” she grinned, apparently pleased that I was getting into the spirit of her tale of derring-do. “But Douglas was always that fatal combination of arrogance and stupidity. I’m just amazed no one had pushed him off a roof before.”

“And what about Holly?”

“What about her?” she snapped. “Her death is your fault, Mike. You weren’t getting the hint. You and I are supposed to be together. If you had just dumped her, she might be miserable for a while but she’d still be alive!”

“Where did you get the hammer?”

“Why on earth does that matter?” She looked puzzled. She had been expecting me to declare my undying love for her. I said nothing. She tutted. “You know the renovations of Hadleigh House aren’t finished? The workmen left quite a few tools lying around at the back of the house. The hammer was in a toolbox in a cupboard under the sink in the bathroom.”

Surely that would be enough for Giddings? I was running out of things to say, and I have to admit I was getting a little afraid of Sam. There was that look in her eyes…

“So, we’re agreed then?” she said. “You and Holly are finished; I comfort you and help you get over her; and then we’re an item. We should plan a wedding for immediately after we graduate, OK? I look great in a long, white dress – unless you want to be the bride, Michelle?”

I couldn’t think of anything I could say now that wouldn’t enrage her. She was less than two feet away from me and getting closer.

Fortunately, someone else was happy to speak for me.

“Samantha Spears, I am arresting you for the murders of Hannah Matthews and Douglas Miller, and the attempted murder of Holly Woodbridge,” said Giddings from the doorway. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Do you understand?”

Sam looked at Giddings and Sharpe and then at me. Complete madness took over and she flung herself at me, slapping and biting and scratching.

Next: What Mrs Bennet Did Next

Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Fifteen – What Mrs Bennet Did Next

What does the future hold for Mike, Michelle and Holly?

Between them the two detectives managed to pull Sam off me and handcuff her, before she could do much damage.

“Sergeant, would you please take Miss Spears to the station and charge her?” said Giddings. “Take the uniforms with you. I don’t think they’ll be needed here any longer. I’m going to stay and debrief Mr Bradshaw.”

Sam had begun to calm down. She reacted when the inspector called me by my real name.

“So they know who you are! You’ve been on their side all along?” she snapped at me.

“There aren’t really any sides, Sam,” I said in my normal voice. “There’s just the multiple murderer and… everyone else.”

“I’ll get you for this somehow, one day,” she hissed.

One of the uniformed policemen who had been guarding us knocked and entered at that point, and he and the sergeant led Sam away. She didn’t struggle at all.

“I really didn’t think it was going to work,” I said to Giddings. “When she first came in she was looking all around her. She seemed very suspicious.”

“Well, she knew about the cameras,” he said. “Maybe she thought your room would be bugged.”

I laughed. “And it wasn’t the room that was bugged – it was me.”

I took the tiny transmitter out of my ear. I was glad that this brilliant piece of surveillance technology had superseded wearing a wire, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take my bra off. The detectives had heard and recorded everything since Sam entered the room.

“We couldn’t have bugged every room,” Giddings said, “and Miss Spears had no real reason to suspect yours would be, did she? But I agree with you. It began to look like she was too wary to give herself away. I think it was when you kept on insisting that you loved Miss Woodbridge and not her, that she lost control.”

He sat down on the camp bed so recently occupied by the said multiple murderer. Remembering I was wearing only a shortie nightie and frilly knickers, I reached for my dressing gown. It was cold, OK? Nothing to do with feminine modesty, or being alone in my boudoir (such as it was) with a man.

“I have to thank you for your help, Mr Bradshaw,” Giddings said.

“I think you can call me ‘Mike’, Inspector, after all we’ve been through together,” I said. “Mind you, I’d prefer ‘Michelle’ or ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ when there’s anyone else around. There could still be awkward consequences for The Pride and Prejudice Experience if anyone outside our inner circle finds out Mrs Bennet has been played by a man.”

A horrible thought struck me. “Sam will tell everyone, won’t she? Out of spite.”

“Probably, but maybe not,” he said. “She may prefer to keep your secret until she can use it to her own advantage.”

“Keep it as a threat hanging over me, you mean? Blackmail?”

He nodded. “You have to understand that Miss Spears ticks all the boxes for psychopathy.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Lying, manipulation, lack of morality, lack of empathy, narcissism, psychological bullying, lack of contrition, and self-serving victimhood.”

He smiled when he saw my reaction. I hadn’t realised this policeman was such an intellectual, and it must have shown on my face.

“I did an external degree in Criminology,” he explained. “Despite what you might think from crime thrillers, killings like these are almost always done by someone unbalanced. Of our suspects, only Miss Spears had the kind of upbringing that could turn a person with the right psychological makeup into a full-blown psychopath. Your sister’s attempt to cheat her out of her earnings might well have been the trigger. Miss Spears would have felt she had the right to kill her. Mr Miller and Miss Woodbridge were collateral damage, but by then she would be seeing them as in her way and feel fully justified in disposing of them.”

I shuddered. “So when did you start to suspect her?”

“The key was when we learned the other names associated with the little sex parties at Miss Mathews’ flat.”

“Douglas and Sam?”

“That’s right. Mr Miller was living there, although he had no involvement himself – in fact he moved out as soon as he saw what your sister was doing – but he knew all about it, and he knew that Miss Spears was joining in. He also must have known about their disagreement over money, so when Miss Matthews was killed, he could easily deduce who had done it. So he had to die as well.”

“But you were bound to find out that Sam was Hannah’s other flatmate.”

“Yes, but there was no proof that she was involved in the sex parties. She was never charged with anything. She had been careful. There was no evidence against her, and anyway taking money for sex isn’t a crime.”

“So if none of their clients would be willing to talk, she would be in the clear?” I said.

“Indeed. We’ve asked our colleagues in the Met to check, but they never managed to identify any of Hannah’s customers, apart from the family friend who started the whole thing, and Miss Spears never had anything to do with him. It’s probably too late now. So everything else was just Samantha’s word against Hannah’s. And with Mr Miller and your sister both dead, she must have thought she was in the clear.

“There were a couple of other things,” Giddings added. “As you know, we guessed that the killer must have come down for a tour of the Estate sometime, which is how they knew the layout of the Hall and the way up to the roof platform. We found Miss Woodbridge’s name in the Visitors’ Book on a day we knew she couldn’t have been here, and the entry was in Miss Spears’ handwriting, though the sample wouldn’t have been enough to convince the Crown Prosecution Service.

“Also, when we interviewed Amy Longhurst, she confirmed that she and Miss Spears went for a run around the Estate most mornings, but not on the day Mr Miller was killed. Samantha claimed to have a hangover, so Amy went by herself. Obviously Samantha got up as soon as Amy left and went to meet Mr Miller on the roof of the Hall.

“The trouble was she had been very clever – and lucky. We found her footprints on the library floor, but unfortunately we also found those of practically everyone else in the house. She must have seen our men installing the cameras and worked out exactly how to avoid them when she went to try and kill Miss Woodbridge. So we still had no evidence against her. But I had a hunch that the killer’s motivation – irrational as it was – had something to do with you. So thank you for your cooperation in helping us trap her. You realise you will probably have to testify about your part in this?”

“What? Why?”

This wasn’t something I wanted to hear. Would I have to enter the witness box as Mike or Michelle?

“Because without your testimony the Defence will challenge the authenticity of the recording. Without her confession we don’t have enough. Anyway, thanks again. You’ve been very courageous.”

“There was no reason for me to be afraid really, was there?” I said modestly. “I’m bigger and stronger than her.”

“Douglas Miller was much bigger and stronger,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t have gone up on a roof with her. Forewarned is forearmed. Also, my various prosthetic enhancements would make it difficult for her to penetrate my real flesh with any pointed instrument.”

“Yes, I’d dearly like to know how you came by them. You’re not the first such undetectable female impersonator I’ve come across lately. I’m just afraid someone may be using the system for criminal purposes.”

“Oh, I’m sure they aren’t,” I said, although Ingrid herself admitted that she couldn’t be certain. “Anyway, I’ve promised not to say.”

I needed to change the subject. “How is Amy, by the way?” I asked.

“She’s fine,” he said. “She’ll be back at home with her parents by now, I should think. I doubt she’ll ever forgive us for what we put her through, but I think she understands why we did it. We arrested her to make Miss Spears think she was in the clear. Besides, it was safer for her – she was another potential victim after all. Of course, we couldn’t let her into the plot till she was off the premises. Her reaction had to be absolutely genuine.”

“Even so, I’m surprised Sam bought it,” I said.

“Part of her psychopathy,” he said. “She made a few desultory attempts to frame Amy – not really convincing – but her narcissism was enough to make her think she’d fooled us. Amy being arrested for her crimes fitted perfectly with her self-centred world view.”

He stood up and looked at his watch.

“It’s late and you need your beauty sleep.” He chuckled at his own jocular remark. “I’ll be back in the morning to put everyone else in the picture. Then you can all go home.”

* * *

The next day the two detectives gathered everyone together and returned our mobile phones. Then they recounted the incidents of the night, omitting quite a lot of details. In particular, they minimised my role in proceedings and kept the specifics of the cameras and recording device to themselves. No one seemed to notice any gaps in the story. Everyone was astonished and upset about having harboured Sam the psychopath in their midst for so long.

My first task the next day was to call my mother and apologise for not having been in touch. She said that would have been difficult anyway as they had gone straight to the Royal Marsden on returning from their cruise. She had received the message from Inspector Giddings there. She was horrified at what had happened to Hannah and took the difficult decision to keep it from Keith for the moment, being afraid that the awful news would affect his chances of recovery. He was suffering from the side effects of the chemo, but there were some promising signs of remission. Mum had been very worried about Holly and me too, so she was delighted to hear that it was all over.

It was now time to check out of Hadleigh House at last. There were some tearful goodbyes. Most of us would be together again in just over a month for the next term at Uni, but it was a final farewell for Tom and Linda. Tom insisted on hugging everyone and tried to kiss me on the lips, but I turned my head at the last moment and he just brushed my cheek. He didn’t seem offended.

“Goodbye, wife,” he said, with a twinkle. “It’s been a pleasure and a privilege being married to you.”

Silly old fool! Still, I would miss him.

I was off to visit Holly in hospital next. I would have to identify myself as her aunt. Since this would be my last performance as Auntie Michelle, I put on my best dress, a new pair of tights and my two-inch heels. I took my time over my makeup. I was getting quite competent now. I put my wig up in a tidy, matronly bun.

I reasoned that if I had to be a middle-aged woman, then why wouldn’t I want to be the best-looking middle-aged woman possible? Anyway, I couldn’t imagine being out in public now without my makeup, or with my hair not neat and tidy. Checking my efforts in the bathroom mirror, I saw I looked just like my nursery school teacher, Miss Platt. (She was lovely.)

With my earnings from The Pride and Prejudice Experience and Keith’s monthly stipend, I didn’t have to worry about money anymore, so I treated myself to a taxi. I didn’t have much choice anyway, as I had to take all of Holly’s clothes with me as well as my own (that is, Michelle’s). Two packed suitcases plus my rucksack would have been a pain to carry on the bus.

When I got to Holly’s private room, she was sitting up in bed reading, clearly bored out of her skull, which was sore and bandaged like the Invisible Man, but thankfully not fractured.

“Hey, babe!” she said happily when she saw me. “What did I miss?”

I told her the whole story. She listened goggle-eyed and shell-shocked. I think it was the longest I had ever been able to speak to Holly without being interrupted.

She made one or two remarks about my heroism in acting as bait for a killer. “But I never said I preferred Michelle to Mike!” was her only other comment.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” I lied. “Sam had a very flexible relationship with the truth.”

“I still can’t believe it was her,” she said. “We were all friends!”

“And of course it’s impossible to accept that she would try to kill you for me,” I said, wryly.

“No, I can believe that – just about,” she smiled. “Stop fishing for compliments!”

“Would it hurt if I kissed you?”

“Only one way to find out.”

I moved to suit the action to the words.

“Owww!” she squealed. “You’d better dial it back. It does hurt, and anyway my Auntie shouldn’t be kissing me like that. Someone might come in.”

“Your Auntie won’t be around much longer. I’m off to Transformations from here.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. “I shall miss her.”

I was afraid I might too, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“How’s your Dad, by the way?” I said, to change the subject.

“He’s much better. I spoke to Mum on the phone. They’re back home now. He can’t do anything for himself yet and he’s driving her mad. They wanted to come and see me when I told them I’d had an accident, but I told them I was fine. It was just a little bang on the head and I’d be up and about soon.”

I couldn’t think of a savage, if glancing, blow from a hammer as ‘just a little bang on the head’ but I was grateful that she could. Her doctor wasn’t quite ready to release her yet, so I promised to return the next day to take her home.

My next stop was Transformations where Vera removed my prostheses and I could see Mike in the mirror again for the first time in over a month. It was weird. I found myself panicking on behalf of both Mrs Bennet and Auntie Michelle. What would my daughters do without me? My husband would miss me – and I him! Where were my boobs and my big round bum? I seemed to be experiencing some sort of Identity Drift. Was that a recognised psychological condition?

Vera said she would keep my Michelle prostheses for a while – just in case. I told her not to bother. I would never need them again.

Not having any male clothes with me, I had to dress in a pair of Michelle’s slacks and my plainest blouse, both of which were ridiculously baggy on me. I also had to put my tights back on with my flattest shoes. I felt a strange sense of regret as I put my bra, knickers and floral dress away in the suitcase. I was surprised to see that I had unconsciously packed my embroidery too. My efforts were pretty ropey but I’d felt I was making progress. I had started to enjoy it; it was calming, even Zen. Maybe I should try and keep it up? Would that satisfy the Michelle and Mrs Bennet personalities that were clearly still inside me?

I set off for home, where I could dress in my usual clothes. I realised that it wasn’t as appealing a prospect as I had expected it to be. I had hoped being Michelle wouldn’t have any lasting effect, but I was beginning to see that wasn’t realistic…

* * *

I collected Holly from the hospital the next day in my mother’s little Yaris. When we got to her parents’ place she was pleased that her father was looking much better than when she had seen him last. We had to tell Richard and Susan all about our dramatic summer. They’d had no idea how much danger their daughter had been in and lavished me with praise for looking after her. I was sure she would laugh and say I hadn’t done anything really, but she just smiled and winked at me. I didn’t mention the part I had played in The Pride and Prejudice Experience, and surprisingly nor did Holly. Her parents might have guessed I was Mrs Bennet (and Michelle in the evenings) but they didn’t ask, presumably to spare my blushes.

* * *

Life slowly started to get back to normal. Keith’s cancer was responding to treatment, though it would still be weeks before they could be sure he was out of the woods. My mother looked pale and thin, but she was staying hopeful. When we finally told him what had happened to Hannah he was very angry that we had kept it from him till now, but he eventually calmed down, and agreed that the news of his daughter’s death might have been too much for him in his fragile condition early on in the chemotherapy.

He was especially sad that she had died while they were estranged. He’d hoped they would be reconciled eventually but obviously that could never happen now. He blamed himself for not being there in her formative years. She’d lacked for nothing material, he said, but missed a father’s love and support. We assured him that he shouldn’t blame himself.

Privately Mum and I were confident that nothing he could have done would have made any difference. Hannah was a vicious, selfish bitch who took advantage of everyone around her. Still, she didn’t deserve to die for that.

* * *

A few days after our return home I was summoned back to Holly’s place so that we could make our plans for a short foreign break. I fancied Rome and Florence; Holly wanted a sun, sea and sand holiday, perhaps on a Greek island. So with about three weeks left of the summer vacation we were browsing websites for Greece, when an e-mail arrived from Dennis Vaughan. It came in on the account I had set up for Michelle Bradshaw, which I hadn’t got round to deleting yet. Holly received it on her laptop at the same time and whooped with excitement.

“You will do it, won’t you, Mike?”

I was still reading it. Then I saw why she was so excited.

“I don’t know, Holly. I thought that was all over with.”

To compensate for the project having to close early, Dennis wanted to make a TV film to be called The Pride and Prejudice Experience. It would be a semi-documentary with a mix of our scenes from the end of term show and interviews with all of the cast members, both as themselves and in character. The extra dialogue would be improvised and based on what we had said to our visitors. He had already got a producer interested. Apparently, she had visited us the previous month and had been impressed. She loved the idea that every aspiring actor was still an amateur.

The Earl and Countess were enthusiastic and happily gave their consent for all the filming to be done at Hadleigh House. The costumes and props were still there. From the proceeds of the sale of the film to the TV production company, we would receive the same weekly pay as before, and the Hadleigh Estate would be able to complete the renovations.

“Come on, Mike!” Holly persisted. “This is an opportunity to be on telly! Think how good that will be for your career!”

“I can see it would be good for your career, and for Michelle’s, but it can’t help Mike’s, can it?”

“That’s just nit-picking,” she scoffed. “Look, if enough of the cast want to do it, you have to join in, OK?”

She immediately put a message on the cast WhatsApp group. They’d all had the same e-mail and within minutes everyone had replied in the affirmative, even Amy, who I would have expected to want nothing more to do with The Pride and Prejudice Experience, or indeed with any of us. Perhaps she wanted to relive her triumph as Lady Catherine. In any case, there was no escape.

“Leave it all to me,” Holly said gleefully. “I’ll call Dennis and then Ingrid.”

* * *

So it was that I had to return to Transformations to be turned back into Michelle (Vera managed to avoid saying ‘I told you so’ when she retrieved my prostheses from their Archive), and then on to Hadleigh House to take my place once again as the matriarch of the Bennet family.

The filming was mostly straightforward. Everyone remembered their lines from the end of term show, and we had all spent more than a month improvising greater depth for our characters. Tom, the veteran professional, was soon word perfect as Mr Bennet. Through the Countess’s contacts at the Lavenden Amateur Dramatic Society, Dennis found an eager young man called Dave to play Wickham and a very pretty girl called Jill to take over as Lydia.

Most of the Longbourn scenes were easily reset in Hadleigh House, and the Countess made the Hall available for those based at Netherfield, and for other locations such as the whist party. There were plenty of places around the Estate where the outside scenes could take place.

The film would open with all of us actors in modern dress arriving at Hadleigh House in a coach. There would be interviews in which Dennis explained the idea behind The Pride and Prejudice Experience and we actors would say how excited we were, and what we expected from the summer.

The next scene showed Amy in one of the back bedrooms – i.e., the servants’ quarters – dressing herself. A lady’s maid doesn’t have a lady’s maid, of course, so this scene explained something I had been wondering. How does a maid do up her own corset?

Sheila had always done it for Amy before. She explained that you can lace yourself into it but it’s fiddly and will take ages if you don’t know what you’re doing. She provided a corset that was fastened using buttons. You tied the laces before you put it on, and not too tightly as maids have to be able to bend down.

Amy dressing herself was just a prelude to the main event – Hill helping her mistress get ready for the day. Vivienne, the producer (“Call me ‘Viv’,”) had attended one of my sessions and thought it was hilarious. So she was determined it would be in the film.

As usual, I was thoroughly embarrassed having people watching while my boobs and tummy were squashed into my corset; the more so, because the rest of the cast were giggling (quietly) from behind the camera. None of them had seen this spectacle before as most of them had been involved in dressing sessions of their own, or had been up at the Hall dressing visitors.

Viv included a very brief snatch of Holly and Hilary helping each other dress, while they talked about men and marriage. Otherwise it was much the same as Amy dressing me, but nothing like as funny.

From there we progressed through the script of the end of term show, interspersed with interviews of cast members talking about their 19th Century lives and filling in the gaps in the story. Holly repeated her triumph as Lizzy and effortlessly dominated every scene she was in. Amy had a whale of a time being Lady Catherine again – in a gorgeous dress, heavy age makeup, and a resplendent wig.

In my pieces I tried to get across those of Mrs Bennet’s preoccupations I had described in the Literary Adaptation class which had got me into this stupid situation in the first place. I had to do the ‘dressing for dinner’ scene, of course, with the camera shamelessly focusing on my bosom in the push-up corset and low-cut dress.

The crew included two film units so that when any of us weren’t involved in a scene from the show, we could be doing our character interviews. It was a hectic time, and it did feel that things were a little rushed, but the efficient use of resources meant that the filming was finished well before our new term was due to start, as promised.

We actors didn’t expect to be involved in any of the phases of post-production – video editing, colour grading, sound editing, addition of music, visual effects, etc – so we prepared to leave Hadleigh House for the last time (again). Sheila and Esther started packing up all the fabulous Regency clothes that we had been wearing for so long, and I set up my appointment at Transformations to change back to Mike.

But it seemed that Viv was keen to support the next generation of movie technicians as well as actors, and had recruited a student director and a student film crew. (Also they were cheap). Unfortunately, they were as amateur as us actors. For some scenes the lighting wasn’t right; for others the sound levels were inconsistent; sometimes the traffic on the M25 or a passing aeroplane had come through clearly to the 19th Century. Also, some of the interviews hadn’t worked and would need to be redone. We had to re-record certain lines of dialogue and we had to get back into costume to film additional material for some of the improvised sections.

They also decided that as long as we were all there, they might as well film a few additional scenes. Holly told Viv that I had worked on the script for the original show, and I was pleased when she recruited me to help with the new material. I thought this would be good for my future career as a writer for TV and the movies, until I realised that the experience would go on Michelle’s CV, not Mike’s.

In the end we were asked to stay on for another week – or two. I cancelled my appointment at Transformations. It was a nuisance – there went our summer holiday – but I realised I didn’t mind too much. I was quite used to being Michelle and Mrs Bennet by now. Holly even seemed pleased that her time with her Auntie had been extended.

Finally the film was ‘in the can’ and everyone was satisfied – with a week to go before the start of term.

Then the TV company saw the film. They loved it, which was good, and they intended to spend a lot of time and money promoting it, which turned out to be bad, at least for me. They wanted publicity photos of us all both in costume and in modern dress, and they planned to record more interviews for promo ads. We were warned that all this would take weeks, if not months. We would be able to go back to Uni, but would need to be ‘on call’ at short notice. We didn’t dare reveal Michelle’s true identity for fear of wrecking the whole project, so I had to stay in my middle-aged amateur actress disguise. Not that any of us were amateurs anymore. With the company’s sponsorship, our applications to Equity came through quickly. We were now professionals and could be paid properly.

Everyone who knew my true identity was sworn to secrecy. I asked Viv to use a pseudonym for my credit in the cast list. She didn’t ask why, which was just as well as I could hardly explain that it was to avoid any connection with Mike Bradshaw. We settled on ‘Michelle Miller’. It was the least I could do, given that poor Douglas’s death was a roundabout consequence of Sam’s obsession with me.

In my promo interview I tried to say as little as possible about myself. I was a mature student at the same university as the others; I had been involved with amateur dramatics for a while; and I agreed to play Mrs Bennet as a favour to my niece, Holly Woodbridge. Most of which was true, if intentionally misleading.

Dr MacNair was happy to welcome lady mature student, Michelle Miller, into his class, and cleared it with my tutor and Professor Rooney for Michelle to substitute for Mike Bradshaw in all his other courses. (I began to wonder whose name would be on my diploma at the end of the academic year.)

My classmates thought this was a hoot – those who didn’t suspect me of being a closet transsexual – and teased me mercilessly as long as there was no one around who wasn’t in on the joke. Holly didn’t torment me to the same extent, but she treated me as her aunt everywhere and all the time, except in the bedroom.

As it now looked like Michelle would be around for some time, I had my long hair done in an appropriate middle-aged lady style and at last dispensed with my wig. I don’t have to put curlers in (thank heavens), but I do need a long session at the hairdressers every couple of weeks, like any other woman of my age. I’ve learned a lot of feminine secrets while I’m there. I’ll miss the gossip and the beauty tips when I eventually go back to being Mike.

Mike does put in an appearance every two or three weeks when I return to Transformations to get a waxing and have my prostheses cleaned. My body hair doesn’t seem to be growing as much as it used to, and I’m a little concerned that the lotion Vera rubs on me afterwards might have something to do with that, but as long as it isn’t affecting my prowess in bed I won’t worry too much. I always try to fit in a proper Date Night with Holly as my real self before letting them put all my jiggly flesh and feminised face back on, but often there isn’t time. Michelle leads a busy life.

Holly has dragged me off to an expensive womenswear boutique to get some more fashionable clothes, including an evening gown for the film’s premiere, even though that probably won’t happen till after Christmas. That will be another embarrassing night with my plentiful boobs on prominent display for the press. Oh well, if you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em.

* * *

Vivienne is talking about offering Holly and me parts in an upcoming cop show as mother and daughter, hoping to trade on the popularity of The Pride and Prejudice Experience. Holly would be a Police Detective Inspector and I would be her interfering Mum, a retired cop who’s always telling her what to do. It could even be a series. Viv’s made it clear that it would be a package – both of us or neither. Holly is desperate to do it, of course. She reckons it would make her career and that Michelle could retire after that.

Also, having seen me squeezing my assets into a 19th Century corset, Viv is talking to one of her contacts in the fashion industry about offering me work as a mature, ‘plus size’ model, especially of exotic lingerie. I was about to laugh in her face until she told me how much I could expect to be paid. We may not be short of money anymore, but this could set us up for life. I also need to pay Holly – or more accurately her Dad – back for the cost of Transformations, which was far more than I’d realised.

Holly is very keen on the idea of my modelling career (as are Ingrid and Vera). I’m just worried that the longer I stay as Michelle, the more difficult it will be to give her up. On the plus side, Holly shows me more respect when I’m her Auntie Michelle. She even listens to what I say (sometimes). My embroidery is coming on well too. I might even take up knitting.

I don’t always do absolutely everything Holly tells me to do, just most of the time.

THE END

Author’s Note – Red Herrings, Easter Eggs and Chekhov’s Gun

Boy, writing a ‘whodunnit’ is hard! Besides coming up with the plot and the characters, you also have to provide background and alternative motives for all your suspects, and then you have to introduce enough Red Herrings that the reader won’t guess the villain too quickly. If I’d expanded the suspect list properly (to include Tom, Derek, Rob, Hilary and Linda, say), I reckon the novel could have been at least 50% longer – but that might have tried the patience of you Big Closet readers a little too much. I’ve probably overdone it as it is.

The whole story was finished (apart from a few tweaks in Chapter 15) before I started posting, but the comments you have so kindly left in reviews have been really interesting, so let me briefly comment on the comments.

First, Easter Eggs: as some of my readers will know, I tend to re-use my characters frequently. For example, the Countess, Mary Manners, Giddings and Sharpe all appeared in The Earl Maid. So when Giddings said “My God, another one!” in Chapter 12, it wasn’t a clever clue to the murderer’s identity in this story, it was an ‘Easter Egg’, referring back to The Earl Maid. Mary Manners, and her love of dressing as a maid, was also intended as a big Easter Egg. In fact, she turned out to be a completely unintentional Red Herring, because some reviewers thought she was a suspect! (The Earl Maid itself made use of characters from After the Pantomime and Acting as a Cleaning Lady, by the way.)

‘Chekhov’s Gun’ is a device to foreshadow an important plot element. “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep,” said Anton Chekhov in a letter to a friend. I guess introducing the shooting and archery ranges was a Chekhov’s Gun, because the murderer might have been about to arrange a killing there. I try to make my unbelievable stories as believable as possible, so I put in a lot of detail. The downside of that is accidentally introducing lots of Chekhov’s Guns!

Chekhov’s principle might be good for a stage play but not for a whodunnit, I think. The author should be piling on the Red Herrings to keep the reader guessing. One or more of them might turn out to be a Chekhov’s Gun, but that’s the fun of it. My Red Herrings included Amy and Hannah being schoolmates; Diane dressing Hannah at the Hall; and the fat lady who didn’t fit in the green dress. There are probably loads more.

Enough. You have lots of other Big Closet stories to read. Goodnight and may your God go with you.

Susannah