In this year of Our Lord 1885, I, a gentleman of four-and-sixty summers and considerable corpulence, find myself irrevocably committed to the most elaborate and humiliating semblance of a widow in deepest mourning, nay, a sissy crossdresser, every contour of my person exaggerated into an absurd excess of feminine propriety at the unyielding command of Madame. My unwieldy frame is confined within a voluminous gown of black bombazine, its lustrous silk bodice drawn so severely that my affixed bosom rises and falls in mock matronly dignity. Upon my head sits an immense crape bonnet, enveloped in multitudinous folds of black crepe veiling that descend softly over my countenance and shoulders like the very pall of perpetual bereavement, its diaphanous gauze quivering with each breath and rendering me a figure of spectral, enforced delicacy.
Beneath this sombre raiment, a prodigious crinoline encircles my ample waist, distending the skirt to such extravagant breadth that every halting step discloses the lace-fringed hems of my cambric under-drawers and the delicately trimmed tops of my black lisle stockings, secured by embroidered satin garters. At times madame requires silk hose of the sheerest texture, yet the mortification endures undiminished. My feet, protesting and swollen, are imprisoned within patent leather ankle boots of four inches’ Louis heel, their pointed toes permitting a glimpse of my varnished nails in pitiable vulnerability. Should indolence be suspected, Madame fastens the straps with black satin ribbons, forestalling any attempt at relief. My hands, bearing permanent false nails of gleaming pearl, are gloved in lace mittens, adorned with rings upon every finger, while a jet choker of frilled design encircles my thick neck as a badge of submission. The whole attire is so profoundly girlish, so burdened with widow’s frippery, that it would provoke scandal even among the most devout matrons of Her Majesty’s court.
I descend from our Brougham in the crowded precincts of Covent Garden, With utmost caution I arrange my skirts, the heels resounding sharply upon the cobblestones, and proceed with mincing steps, hips swaying perforce beneath the crinoline’s dominion and the boots’ perilous elevation. Soft laughter ripples along the stallholders. Smiles of polite astonishment. Complimentary remarks follow. “La, madam, what a most becoming habit of mourning!” one declares. “The veil is exceedingly elegant, and those boots quite the mode!” They suppose it a seasonal fancy. I colour deeply beneath the crepe, threading my way through the ordeal with measured tread, aware that I shall return in seven days, and seven again thereafter, clad precisely thus, bereft of any festal pretext merely a creature wholly subject to his lady’s will.
I procure the articles enumerated upon Madame's list, tea of finest quality, spices, and provisions discharge the account, and retire with mincing gait to the carriage, crinoline whispering, veil fluttering like a mourner’s sigh. Madame directs that I convey her thither beforehand, yet she commands me first to enter and obtain her broadsheet and sweetmeats. As I totter across the thoroughfare, heels clacking, a lady seated in an adjacent Hansom calls out: “Those boots are positively ravishing, madam!” I turn, the veil shifting with ethereal grace, and reply in a low, submissive tone, “I am most obliged to you, Madame is pleased to attire me in this manner at all times.” She laughs with genuine delight. “Would that I might prevail upon my own husband to exhibit such commendable obedience!” Having restored Madame to her residence, I repair to the wine merchant’s. The moment I enter, eyes fix upon me chuckles, prolonged gazes. The proprietress cannot forbear a smile at my boots, her glance ascending to my carefully plucked brows, arched with precision. “Heavens preserve us,” she exclaims, “this is no mere passing fancy of costume. You have worn it for a considerable period, have you not?” I venture a faint, veiled smile. “Indeed, madam… it is the garb prescribed for me upon every occasion of shopping. I endeavour, by degrees, to grow reconciled to it.” A youthful clerk conveys the case of port to the carriage. He chuckles softly. “You bear it with uncommon grace, sir.” Madame assures me that habituation shall ensue. “In due course, the sense of mortification will diminish,” she declares with quiet conviction. “You will become thoroughly accustomed to your station as my devoted maidservant.” She contemplates the future with satisfaction: I, attending to the household in full uniform, discharging her every errand, awaiting her return in patient seclusion. Upon her entrance, I must execute a profound curtsey and relieve her of mantle and parasol. At every ingress or egress from a chamber curtsey. All domestic duties devolve upon me, performed amid the perpetual rustle of bombazine and crinoline.