RetroXotique

On the Second and third day after that Elaine appeared with the corset laced in to the same degree.  On the fourth, when they were to go to a tea together, Elaine's mother was dismayed to find Elaine ready to set out with the contour of her figure more emphasised by a tight wide belt in black lacquered leather.

                     " Really?" said Mrs. Warren, raising her eyebrows. For answer Elaine only took her mother's arm and smiled at her sweetly.

                     Elaine had chosen to brave the world, to be her real self.  She was not sure that she would accomplish anything socially by it, because she was not pretty and was awkward in conversation.  She felt she was dull and knew that other people considered her so.  She wondered whether the fine braced-up feeling she had in her corset would brace up her conversation.

                                       When she arrived at the tea she was ignored as usual, except by the hostess, an old friend of her mother's. A little later she caught a girl of her own age, Phyllis Throckmorton, looking at her new figure intently. When Phyllis saw Elaine observe her, she turned away with a slight smile.  Elaine knew what the smile meant, the amused little leer of a supercilious girl who had all the luck in the world.  Phyllis was a definite beauty. with a reputation for smart clothes.  Elaine saw her whisper something to a young man and the young man steal a glance at the new belt.  A slight smile showed on his lips, too.  Later other people observed her.  All did not smile, some gazed in a polite horror as if they thought she might be crazy.  The braced-up sensation left her.  She wanted to leave as soon as she could.  Her

mother was not ready to go, so she forced herself to utter commonplace things to people near her, but they were more interested in talking with livelier people  She became very depressed  She sat almost alone, pressing her handkerchief into a ball in the hollow of her hand nervously.

          A woman who had just arrived, entered the door on the other side of the room.  Elaine was riveted suddenly in her chair by the woman's appearance.

                             Lady Ellings walked  majestically into the room

      "Who is she?" asked somebody near Elaine. The answer in a hushed woman's voice was, " Why you don’t know?  it's Lady Hortense Ellings.  Have you never heard of her radical figure? Or is her figure Tory?" . The Speaker laughed in the same hushed voice.      

          Elaine continued to gaze spellbound.  She saw a woman between fifty and sixty with a head of beautiful silver hair, and a handsome rather than beautiful face, shaking hands vivaciously with several people near the door. She was the sort of woman who had "personality."  But this was not what arrested Elaine.  It was Lady Elling's frankly corsetted figure.  Elaine thought her waist must surely be no larger than the eighteen inches orthodox in 1900.  Her bust was matronly, and a good contrast for the little waist  Her hips must be forty inches, the size of Elaine's own but Lady Ellings's were so smoothly groomed they looked immaculate.

          As half the room was watching Lady Ellings, Elaine could stare at her without being noticed.  Every movement that Lady  Ellings made was a revelation. When Elaine' first surprise was over she experienced an intense desire too know this woman.  She made a movement or two in Lady Elling's direction then suddenly remembered with dismay the smiles at her expense a short time before.  She returned to her chair and sat merely gazing.  What or' earth would slue say it she did meet Lady Elling's She never knew what to say and Lady Ellings looked like a veritable chatterbox. Five minute's later she made another attempt to approach Lady Ellings. but again caught Phyllis looking at her, this time with evident comparison of two amusing freaks in mind.  Elaine flushed and allowed herself to he concealed in the throng.  It must have been half an hour before her mother decided to leave with her daughter  in all that time Elaine suffered a blue agony.  As they left she looked for a last sight of Lady Ellings.  Her mother received her interest and drew her firmly to the door.

                     Once outside, Mrs. Warren looked at Elaine with a serious mien and said, " I don't know what possesses you  to take an interest in Lady Ellings absurd style."

                     Although Elaine was feeling very discouraged she said. " I thought she was much admired."

                     " People always give a lot of attention to extremists at parties.  People like to he amused."

                     " I suppose she does took extreme, but also very"' nice."

                     " She is nice enough in a way, but too sensational in dress.  Her waist is ridiculous."

                     " It looked pretty," murmured Elaine.

                     " But how unnatural ! “

                     " It seems to me the corset with curved lines is more like the natural figure than the hipless corset."

                     " You can't really believe that when you see the waist drawn in to an exaggerated degree.  Such tight lacing can ruin a woman's health, too."

                     " I've read that you can lace 'scientifically to cultivate a little waist." said Elaine.

                     " Absurd !" answered her mother. " i hope you will banish the idea.  And I hope you won't go out again laced as you were today.  You did not look as absurdly squeezed as Lady Ellings, but you attracted too much attention  A woman might as well be dead as wit of style."

                     " I've been out of style and dead for years," Elaine moaned.

                     Her mother, who really felt greatly distressed at Elaine's ill luck in life, put a gentle hand on her arm. " My dear, you are never dead to me.  You will have my love as long as I live.  I spoke as I did because I want you to avoid unhappiness."

                     In consequence during the next fortnight Elaine reverted to her previous way of life.  She attempted to conform to the style all women had adopted.  Her old depression returned.  It was useless to try to achieve beauty by a style that made no woman beautiful.  And she missed the pleasing tight sensation of her strong corset.  Life eventually became unutterably dull and more more desolate.

                     " Why, why," she cried, in her solitude, " have I got to stand this dreariness?"  So one day she flew to her strong corset.

          What a heaven sent relief it felt as soon as she had laced it tight !  It clasped her firmly and gave her a feeling of escape from flabby weakness. The compression around her waist was so bracing that she could only call it marvellous.  She strutted up and down the room on her highest heels, three inches holding first her waist between her hands and then her hips.  Through  her hands as well as her body she felt the comfortable swaying of her hip’s and bust, made evident by the boned enclosure of the corset. The tight sensation so pleased her that she pressed in her waist with her fingers to feel a greater pleasure.  Standing before her long mirror she saw her corset go in at her sides and her hips come into more prominent curves.  Certainly  if she hat a corset with a smaller waist she could do better than twenty-four inches.

She would get such a corset and it must be a real wasp-waisted corset, cut with real feminine curves and a high bust. Where find a real corset in the present desert of perpendicular attire?.  Her mind flew to Lady Hortense Ellings.  But how on earth could she see Lady Ellings when her mother did not approve of tight-lacing? There was no likelihood of running into Lady Ellings, because she lived in London, Elaine thought.  Her appearance at the tea had been the one and only time she had seen her.  Elaine felt an impa­tient desire to see her immediately. Nevertheless, she had no intention to offend her mother by seeking Lady Ellings out. Elaine was a dutiful girl.

As the days went on Elaine found her desire for a genuine corset increase.  Her training in her twenty-four-inch corset had reduced her waist to that extent that she found it no effort to go all day laced to the limit permitted by this garment.  Although she still enjoyed its support she missed the stimulation it had given when lacing it was a little difficult.