Chapter 18: 18 – Diana

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The tea gown was definitely beautiful, and in a way it was easier to appreciate how it would look on her while it was on someone else who currently had her exact measurements. Even if it was someone who looked like a walking porcelain doll.

Just to make sure, Cosmo modelled two other dresses for her, inspecting his own reflection in the mirrors on the inner faces of the dressing room doors, before concluding that the salmon tea gown was the best choice—though he did get Diana’s agreement first. He retreated into the dressing room, and returned in the original burgundy outfit and back in what was presumably his own build.

“Just step in here, and you can change,” he said. “The dress is hanging up. There are hangers opposite and a basket on the floor you can put your current things in, they’ll be safe here waiting for you. If you want historical combinations for underneath, they’re hanging with the dress, absolutely clean, but if you’re more comfortable with your own, that’s understandable. There’s stockings there and appropriate shoes, too. My selection on those is a bit limited, I’m afraid, I can’t make those. Then we’ll look at your hair and find a few accessories.”

Rather bemused, Diana obeyed.

With misgivings, she left her sturdy hobo bag in the basket. She hung her vest and long-sleeved T-shirt on two hangers, and captured the waistband of her long denim skirt between the halves of a clamp-style hanger, which she thought was anachronistic but couldn’t be entirely sure. She sat on the padded bench to unlace her sturdy low boots and remove them and her socks—there was a small poof of grey-green dust inside the left, but otherwise no sign of the leaves Thalia had wrapped around her ankle, and no trace of pain or swelling. She tucked her socks into her boots and set them next to the basket. In only her panties and bra, she looked at the clothes waiting for her.

Victorian “combinations” meant a sort of camisole on top and a pair of short drawers all in one, in this case crisp white linen, the camisole with narrow straps over the shoulders and small hook-and-eye fasteners down the front, the drawers rather like boxers but gathered at the bottom. Years of her mother reminding her to leave her panties on at all times when trying on clothes collided with the fact that doing so would be incompatible: the drawers had a slit along the midline to allow bathroom use without the need to undress, a simple necessity of the fashions.

She hesitated, then decided to go for authenticity: she peeled off her panties, but left her bra. The era of tea gowns was also around the time that the first bras had been patented, as the concept of rational dress competed with conventional aesthetics, so it wasn’t entirely anachronistic, even if the construction of it certainly was. At least as important, she knew she’d be uncomfortable if she had no support at all, far more than she would have been before her pregnancy and the changes it had made in her body, and that underwear plus the tea gown would provide roughly that much.

The stockings were ivory knitted silk, with a band of matching lace at the top; with them were a pair of garters, salmon satin with ivory lace. Silk had no elasticity and wouldn’t stay up, she knew, so the trick was to slip a stocking up her lower leg and slide a garter up over it, then use the small silver buckle to tighten the elastic inside so it hugged her leg just below her knee at the narrowest point, and the lace around the top of the stocking kept it from slithering easily out of confinement. She looked at her legs thus clad in the mirror, from every angle she could. It was surprising how different even something so small felt.

The shoes were white leather with low spindle heels and a T-shaped upper like a modern dance shoe. She stepped into them and did up the buckles. They fit perfectly. More of Cosmo’s magic, presumably.

The dress itself was satin, soft and supple, and she could simply pull it over her head and tug it carefully down her body; it was, after all, meant to be something that a woman could wear without needing the assistance of her maid. There were a few hook-and-eye pairs at the front of the neck to fasten it modestly high, and a short swath of ivory satin to draw across that and hook at the side, but that was all. The two halves of a sash of ivory satin were attached at the back; she drew them around and tied them neatly so the ends hung down at her left side, where they clearly wanted to be. That was the only thing giving the dress any shape.

To go over that, there was an overdress, open up the front, of equally amazing ivory satin, lush with matching lace. It hung in simple folds to either side, not confined or drawn in at all. She swished it around to make sure it was hanging properly. She’d seen, when it was on Cosmo, that in common with much fashion for a couple of centuries despite the inelegant name of “sack-back”, a considerable fold of fabric had been gathered at the back of the neck to hang all the way to the gracefully curved bottom hem that barely brushed the floor, giving it more body and sweep.

She checked her reflection in the mirrors on the insides of the doors, and swivelled and spun in delight, loving the way it looked and the way it moved.

It didn’t feel like a Hallowe’en costume, maybe fun but an artificial construct for the night. Instead, it felt strangely natural. She didn’t think she’d ever worn anything that looked so glamourous and fit so perfectly.

She’d love to dress like this every day, impractical though it would be in the modern world—and despite the fact that at the time, it was highly unlikely she’d have been able to afford even one such dress. She was smart and worked hard, and her father would have equated to a middle-class clerk; racism existed in Canada too, even if slavery didn’t, but it was less consistent and less systemic, so with that background, some hope existed of a decent life. She might have found herself married to a similarly middle-class man, with perhaps a maid or two of her own and a reasonable budget for respectable clothing displaying her husband’s success. Or she might have found a job as a maid, maybe even an upstairs or personal maid, for a lady who could afford plenty of dresses like this.

For the moment, she could pretend, and enjoy the fantasy.

She adjusted the overdress, and then opened the doors.

Cosmo applauded. “Oh, that’s beautiful on you! Absolutely perfect!” He tilted his head to the side, regarding her measuringly. “Your hair is already pulled up quite nicely, very sensible and classic. Properly speaking, that should be worn with at least a lace cap, but I don’t think anyone will consider you indecent. Just, perhaps, a pair of earrings and a necklace, and you’ll be all set.”

Diana spun, and laughed. “This is really beautiful. You don’t mind if I borrow it?”

“I’d love it. I design whatever strikes me, but they need to be worn.” He beckoned her over to a jewellery box that stood on its own four legs.

On the small table beside it, he laid out a necklace and a pair of complementary earrings, then another trio, and a third.

“Those are all reasonably appropriate,” Cosmo said. “Things like jewellery I collect here and there, since that’s another thing I can’t make.”

Diana gazed at the bright shiny collection. “I think maybe... this one? It’s simple and really pretty, and it won’t totally overwhelm the dress.”

“Good choice. Help yourself.” Cosmo gathered up the other combinations to return them to the jewellery box.

The necklace was a string of gently graduated pearls, smaller at the back and growing larger towards the front, with a single gold pendant of what she thought might be tiny diamonds around a larger stone the colour of water, a mellow green-blue, possibly aquamarine. Against the salmon, it showed without drawing too much attention from the dress. The earrings were clustered drops of pearls.

“Go look,” Cosmo urged. “I think you made a good choice, but go appreciate the whole look with that finishing touch.”

Diana returned to the mirrors, and smiled, touching the necklace with a finger. “It’s all amazing.”

Flower petals, red and pink and yellow, appeared from nowhere and floated to the ground in front of her.

Diana froze. “Where did those come from?”

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Five more petals, of varied colours, drifted to the floor.

“Oh, very interesting,” Cosmo said. “The old fairy tale gambit. The maiden who has roses, jewels, or gold coins drop from her lips whenever she speaks, in variation.”

“What’s causing it?” It only started when she put on the jewellery. She scrambled for the clasp of the necklace.

It absolutely would not come undone.

In frustration, she even pulled on it, figuring that at worst the string would break but the pearls would still be intact, but that failed too.

“Please stop panicking,” Cosmo said. “Before you ask, no, I was not expecting exactly this, although I should point out that I would not have stopped you even if I had, because you are in this house on Hallowe’en and there are going to be challenges. It is not harming you in any way. I doubt it’s even uncomfortable.”

She tried covering her mouth with her hand, hoping to forestall any new additions. “Physically, anyway! I’m going to make a mess everywhere, and that’s going to make me not want to talk!” She watched more petals appear, dropping from under her hand, so she gave up on that attempt. One per word, one per syllable, something like that, but she didn’t care about the details right now, she just wanted it to stop.

“I doubt they will last long. Objects created like that rarely do. I don’t know how familiar you are with fairy tales, but I need to point out that the flowers or jewels or coins were a reward to the good sister for being kind. Generally she has a less-kind, selfish sister or step-sister who finds herself with vipers, toads, or similar unpleasant things falling from her mouth when she speaks.”

“I... well... that would be worse,” she admitted. “But this doesn’t feel like a reward!” More petals, white and violet, blue and orange.

“In this context, it isn’t, really. I’m certain Sally or Thalia offered you the chance to spend the night quietly without encountering anything unsettling. I can repeat the offer—I can’t remove the necklace, but you can stay here and play with the wardrobe and not stumble into anything else if you prefer. This is mild compared to some of what happens around here.”

There was that choice again. Hide, or take the opportunity to explore this house in the condition it deserved, not the neglected shell she’d expected?

Cosmo, watching her, said gently, “I doubt that you have a history of collapsing into tears or a faint every time something confronts you with difficulty. You do not strike me as the kind of person who is habitually helpless and waits to be rescued. You came into an abandoned house by yourself, obviously deliberately and prepared considering the bag you brought, for whatever purpose it was that matters to you.”

“History. Old houses especially. I love them. I know a lot of it is romanticized and I don’t really want those days back. I’m black and I have a daughter without having married my boyfriend and my family isn’t rich, so believe me, I really am glad to live just into a whole new millennium. But a lot of it should be remembered and appreciated. Well, it should all be remembered, even the bad parts, but the good and beautiful and elegant aspects should be appreciated.” That created a whole swarm of petals of all colours.

“Oh, I agree. There were certainly negatives, and forgetting invites repeating them, but there was beauty as well.”

“I expected an empty house without much except dust in it. I really want to see how it’s supposed to look.”

“Then go look. There may be some small anachronisms here and there, but you should get the overall sense of it. But be prepared for some distractions. Which will do you no harm and which will end at sunrise. Is it worth it?”

Diana took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Do your best to remember that, then. Your clothes and bag are safe here. I have no interest in prying into your belongings, let alone stealing anything, and no one else has access.”

“My camera really won’t work?”

“It really will not. You’ll have only blurs, at best. You’ll have to enjoy it without recording it.”

“I’ll have to try to remember as much as I can, then.” She refused to accept that anyone could steal memories right out of her head. “And try not to be all dramatic over everything that happens. Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.” He opened the door to the corridor and swept her a bow. “Come back any time you wish. All doors are open all night. With the exception of one small section just up the hall at the corner, but if you go past the stairs to the end and turn right, which is the only way you can go, you’ll find the grand central staircase and the balcony overlooking the great hall. Appropriate places to explore dressed like a lady of the era.”

“Sounds like a good direction to go in, thanks.”

She followed instructions, more curious about that than what were almost certainly other bedrooms.

The whole floor opened up into a broad space with a great square opening looking down onto the lower floor, opposite the elegant staircase.

The paintings on the walls around the balcony caught her eye, and she strolled over to take a closer look, enjoying the flow and sweep of her gorgeous gown. She hadn’t studied art history enough to identify whether the style was period, but they did look striking. One showed a small group of individuals facing off against a great gold-and-green dragon; another showed a white-clad maiden and a unicorn. Others were more prosaic; a number of people were apparently enjoying a picnic with scenery suggesting they were high on a mountain, in one.

They seemed to be all the same artist. Was the owner a fan, or was the artist local?Fascinated, she followed the balcony, pausing briefly to appreciate each one before her attention was caught by the next.

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