Laundry Tales 13: New Crinolines

Laundry Tale 13 New Crinolines

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Copyright jeanne_d_artois (aka oggbashan) September 2020

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

This story is one of a series of tales told by Martha the ghost. Each one is complete in itself and they can be read in any order.

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The laundry of my ancestors' house is now my workshop. I'm a potter and good enough at my trade to make a reasonable living from it.

The main attraction of the laundry room was Martha, the resident ghost. I was aware of her from an early age. I would sit on the scrubbed table and ask Martha to tell me a story. She always did. When I became an adult, she told me about incidents from previous ages at the Hall. Each time I become the heroine of the story and experience the events exactly as she had. This is one of those stories.

***

This story is one of a series of tales told by Martha the ghost. Each one is complete in itself and they can be read in any order.

The other stories are:

01 Twins' Charade

02 Riding for a Fall

03 Valentine Cake

04 Blind Man's Buff

05 Haunted Shawl

06 Nude Maiden

07 Bustling

08 Droit De Seigneur

09 Nude Fiancé

10 Lady of Misrule

11 The Maze

12 Mob Cap

+++

I was up I my attic again sorting through one of the many trunks of old clothes from previous generations. I found, folded into a triangle, a heavy corded petticoat. I took it downstairs to hang up and let the creases fall out. I had just sat down with a cup of tea when I heard Martha's voice in my head.

"That was Amelie's," Martha said, "Along with several other heavyweight petticoats. They're probably in another trunk. She put them aside when she bought a crinoline. But before then she used her petticoats to catch her husband."

"To catch her husband? How?"

"Just listen and you'll find out."

As usual when Martha started to tell me a story I felt myself becoming the person who was the heroine of the tale. I felt myself become Amelie. Unlike my 20th Century self I was a tall, fairly large young woman, dressed in the fashion of the late 1840s with a large skirt held out by multiple stiffened petticoats that were heavy.

I was standing beside my sisters Ruth and Joyce and facing our cousin Edward. Although we call him cousin, the relationship is more distant than that but we have known him since childhood since his family's estate adjoins ours. In our teens, we had had the same tutor. It wasn't that we needed to save money, it is just that our parents felt that one tutor for the four of us might make us apply ourselves to our studies more. It had. If women had been accepted, we three sisters could have followed Edward to university.

"Please, Edward," I was saying, "We need the family coach. The landau won't do."

"But the coach is so large and clumsy, Amelie," Edward replied, "It will take longer to get to the town and back."

"But our shopping won't fit in the landau and it might rain. We don't want our purchases to get wet."

"The landau has a hood that could be raised," Edward objected.

"But not enough space, particularly when the hood is up. Please Edward?"

"Very well, Amelie, if you must. But you'll owe me..."

He got the first repayment immediately. I hugged and kissed him. He was slightly started and even more so when Ruth and Joyce followed me.

I knew we were asking a lot of Edward. Our family coach is large and heavy. It is very comfortable on a long journey and could hold eight people inside. But it needed four horses to pull it, unlike the landau that would hold four and have two horses.

Our coachman had recently been kicked by a horse and was hobbling around with a stick. The young ostler had never driven four horses. But Edward frequently drove four. He was very proud of his high-perch phaeton with four matching greys. By comparison, the family coach might be a farm cart.

After lunch, the coachman and ostler had harnessed the coach and it was outside our portico. Edward got up on the box as we sisters clambered inside, awkwardly because of our large skirts held out by so many petticoats. We spread ourselves inside as Edward set off. The journey was slow but we felt comfortable and cosseted. Although the outside temperature was low, with the windows shut and rugs over our knees we were warm. After about an hour we drew up outside the town's large drapery store. Edward walked the horses as we made our purchases, two brand new steel framed crinolines each. We had been told about them by one of our friends in London who was very enthusiastic about the lightness compared with all the petticoats previously needed.

We were right. We could not have fitted them in the landau with the three of us. Soon Edward was driving us back home. I felt slightly guilty as the rain started to fall. Edward was outside on the box. Yes, he had his many-caped coat on with a broad hat, and he would still have been in the rain if we had come by landau, but with the coach, he would have to endure the rain for far longer.

When we arrived back at the family home, sheltered by the portico, we three got out and our personal maids brought the crinolines inside. Edward climbed down from the box.

"Amelie, where did your family get those horses? They are slugs."

"They may be," I retorted, "but they are strong, placid, and can go for twenty or twenty-five miles a day for a week. They are ideal for taking my grandparents to London."

Edward snorted.

"Grandparents! Yes, the coach is about as old and old-fashioned as them. Driving it was so slow..."

"I know you like driving fast, Edward, and racing, but we needed the coach, and you. Thank you."

"And for those new-fangled contraptions? What use are they?"

"I'll show you tonight, after dinner," I said.

"I can't see what's different," Edward said.

"You will. Edward, you will."

Edward went off to shed his wet coat.

+++

We three sisters went upstairs to change into a new crinoline each. They change was astounding. We wore a single petticoat over the frame and then our skirts. We had so much freedom of movement compared with the multiple petticoats that had impeded our legs before. We plotted together to show Edward this evening just how restrictive our petticoats had been. We got our maids to take all our discarded petticoats and the ones we would wear when the ones we had been wearing today would be in the wash, into the second guest bedroom. They put them o the four-poster bed and drew the curtains to hide them. I went to our family's seamstress bearing an antique slip and asked her to make some quick modifications. When she finished, she added it to the top of the heap.

The three of us went out into the gardens and enjoyed running around, perhaps showing more ankle than we should, but just enjoying being able to actually run. That had been impossible before. Our crinolines bounced and swung around us like balloons. There wasn't much of a wind but it was enough to show us we would have to be careful in a strong wind. If the wind got under the crinoline we would show far more than a fashionable young lady should.

+++

After dinner, I persuaded Edward to join us in the second guest bedroom for an explanation of the advantages of a crinoline frame. He was intrigued but reluctant until we made it clear it would be with all three of us, not just me. I think he was already beginning to see that we could move much more freely than we had but he still wasn't convinced that a crinoline frame was worth his effort in driving us into town.

In the bedroom, I told him, despite his objections, that the only way he could appreciate the differences would be if he wore the layers of petticoats and then the crinoline afterwards. He relented when all three of us kissed him.

I had prepared, with the seamstress' help, a trap for Edward.

"Edward," I said, "Normally our innermost petticoat is a slim sheath to make sure we don't reveal our ankles when we don't want to. Unfortunately, all three of us have petticoats that are too slim for you so this will do instead."

I held up the full-length vintage petticoat. It had been worn by our mother in the Georgian era when she was in her twenties. It had three flounces at the lower hem. I helped Edward to wriggle into it and dropped to my knees to pull it down. But under the uppermost frill, I had got the seamstress to sew a tunnel and thread a drawcord through it. While pretending to arrange the lower hem I tightened that drawcord to restrict the bottom of the slip. It wasn't tight enough so Edward could feel it but would be in the way if he tried to walk.

"And now the petticoats,"

Ruth, Joyce, and I gradually tied each petticoat around Edward's waist. We were mean. We used many more than any of us would wear even under our widest skirt. As we added more and more they became a very stiff dome that was constricting around Edward's Legs. It might be that my drawcord would have been unnecessary once he had about twenty waist petticoats tied and forced against his legs.

Finally, I stood up.

"Now I need to show you the effect on a wide skirt, Edward. This is one of my old dresses that doesn't matter. Unfortunately, it has very narrow sleeves, too narrow for your arms, so..."

I threw the dress over his head. Ruth and Joyce spread the skirt over the massive dome of petticoats. I pulled the bodice up and stuffed Edward's arms inside it, pushing his hands under the skirt's waistband and into the masses of petticoats.

He started to object but my lips silenced him as Ruth and Joyce started lacing the bodice at the back. When I finished my kiss Edward's arms were firmly fixed inside the high necked bodice. I swung him around to face me. Behind his back, I gave a thumb's up to Ruth and Joyce who quietly left the room. I moved about a couple of feet in front of Edward, arranging the bodice of my low-cut evening dress.

"Try to walk, Edward," I asked.

As I had hoped and expected, his first step was impeded by the drawcord and the mass of petticoats. He started falling forward. I caught him but his face was buried deep between my breasts.

"That part of me is soft enough, Edward," I said, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him deeper."

His only response was a grunt. He couldn't speak, his mouth and nose buried between my breasts.

"Like them?"

I squeezed my arms even tighter, pushing his head lower and my bodice slipped so all my breasts were exposed. I waggled his head.

"They want you, Edward, and I don't think they're going to let you go until we're engaged."

I relaxed my grip and let him breathe.

"Engaged?" He asked.

"Yes, Edward. I want you. My breasts want you, and unfortunately, you are in no position to escape from my embrace and my tits..."

I squeezed again and his head sank back into my cleavage.

A couple of minutes later I relented and let his head just rest on my breasts.

"You really want me, Amelie?" He asked.

"Yes, Edward, and I think I've already got you," I replied.

"Ok, Amelie, I surrender. Will you be my wife, please?"

"Yes, Edward, Yes!"

I hugged him so hard against my cleavage that he was red-faced when I let go.

It took me over a quarter of an hour before I could release him from my dress and the masses of petticoats but then I was very happy to be sitting on his lap as we kissed. Half an hour later he was wearing one of my crinolines and agreed that it was far more practical.

But even after we had married I kept my old petticoats and sometimes bundled Edward up in them before smothering his face in my cleavage.

+++

Martha stopped talking. I came to as myself with a start. I seemed to be still feeling Edward's face between my breasts. But somehow I was wearing many of Amelie's old petticoats around my lower half. As I stood up and tried to walk, the weight of those petticoats made me feel as if I was trying to walk through waist-deep water...