FURTHERMORE

Some embarrassing consequences of living in the past

PETRONELLA WYATT

film The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) where Henry, played by the late Charles Laughton, is presiding over a state banquet.

The proceedings go something like this: Henry: [Tears at capon with both hands] There's no delicacy nowadays, no considera- tion for others. [Belches] Refinement's a thing of the past. [Throws large bone at the Lord Chancellor. Spits on the floor] Manners are dead( There is a cautionary tale here — apart from the inadvisability of sitting too close to monarchs at dinner. Those who think that the past was so much better, who han- ker for its pomp, its grandeur and its romance, must bear in mind something else — its appalling squalor.

Anyone transported back from our own time to a street in 18th-century St James's would probably faint at the stench emanat- ing from its lavishly dressed inhabitants. Even the rich rarely bathed — especially the rich.

A more ideal synthesis, of course, would be that of past opulence with contemporary hygiene. Last week, I had the chance to try this out when I received an invitation to a Venetian masquerade at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire.

West Wycombe is the residence of Sir Francis Dashwood, a descendant of the Dashwood who combined being Chancellor of the Exchequer to Lord Bute with found- ing the Hellfire Club. He had the grounds Of West Wycombe Park laid out in the shape of a woman's body, adorned with temples in appropriate places, one symbol- ising the abdomen and so on — the prudish Victorians dismantled them. The present baronet has spent many years putting everything back the way it was. The Venetian masquerade was to be open to the public, in the tradition of Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens. People were invited to picnic in the grounds for the evening, which would end with a son et lumiere and fireworks. The Dashwoods' own guests would eat in the house.

I hired an 18th-century costume from Angels and Bermans in London. It was heavy silk, white and silver with a gold underskirt. It had four thick petticoats and a pannier. A pannier is a whalebone con- struction which hangs from the waist like a frame to maintain the width of the skirt.

Never having dressed so elaborately, I began to make ready at two o'clock in the afternoon. First I put on the pannier. This had an unpleasant effect — I fell over. It was like having a sailing ship moored to one's midriff. When a breeze blew in from the window, I tottered to the right. When a draught came through the door, I swayed to the left.

The petticoats gave me ballast. The bal- last, however, was too much. I could not move at all. The underskirt was as heavy as a mattress and half as thick. It was all I could do to lift it over my head before col- lapsing in a heap. I telephoned my mother for help. Meanwhile, I kicked helplessly on the floor like a beetle with a very swollen shell.

Eventually, my mother arrived. 'Vat are you doink on ze floor?' she said, in her all too imitable Hungarian. The question seemed both tasteless and redundant. With her assistance, I managed to pull myself to my feet. The dress itself, yards of swathes, braiding and bodice, still wasn't in place. My mother raised it up and jerked it down over my breast. Then she began to lace up the back.

This took half an hour. After ten minutes I started, as they used to say, to 'come over all queer'. For some reason, my internal mechanism appeared to have seized up; no air was reaching my lungs. The bodice was so constricting that Lwas unable to move my chest up and down except in shallow lit- tle gasps like a dying fish, I felt I was about to faint. No wonder the women of the past used to carry smelling salts.

Walking was a further hazard. One either tripped over the long underskirt, or had the pannier stuck in the doorway. When it wasn't lodged in doorways, it knocked over every small object in the room. Getting into the car was well-nigh impossible. My moth- er took one arm, someone else the other. They both pulled. I finished up in a heap with my bottom in the air, unable to rectify my undignified position.

When I finally arrived, the right way up, at West Wycombe Park it had started to rain. This, however, had not deterred 700 members of the public, who arrived clutch- ing folding chairs and picnic baskets. They were a comical sight, with their M & S umbrellas held aloft above powdered wigs and bursting stays. One man's wife — I pre- sumed it was his wife — fell over head first into the mud. 'Get up, you old git,' the man said. Just as Lord Chesterfield would have put it.

After dinner we sat on the terrace to watch the firework display. The moon had risen, bestowing upon the women a lovely pearly pallor. In front of us was a lake, still and lucent as Murano glais. A gondola drifted out onto the water to the strains of a barcarolle. But all I could think about was my dress. It had already destroyed two glasses. Now it took up three chairs.

Suddenly, an actor began to recite Goethe's account,of the Venetian carnival. His voice echoed in the misty night like gentle water in a cave. Ssh. Ssh. It was with mounting horror that I realised I needed to go to the loo. How was it to be done? It seemed an impossibility, particularly in the middle of a recital. But as John Major once said — sort of — if you got to Goethe, you've got to Goethe.

The lavatory was up a long staircase. I could hardly get in through the door. The space between the wooden seat and the two walls on each side was alarmingly narrow. The pannier, once lifted, became wedged between the walls. My dress was thus sus- pended in mid-air above my waist. Only someone who has found themselves trapped three feet above a lavatory could appreciate the full extent of my confusion.

As I began to extricate myself — a pro- cess which took ten minutes — it suddenly occurred to me why aristocratic women rarely used to work. It wasn't because they were prevented from doing so by a male- dominated society, it wasn't because they were lacking in education. It was because they were unable to move.

As for the squalid side of upper-class 18th-century life, I had experienced it at first hand. One never thought to say this, but thank God for the micro-skirt. It was 15 minutes before I returned downstairs. I told my story to a sympathetic-looking woman. 'In those days they had things that fitted under the dresses,' she said. 'But how haveyou managed?' I asked. 'Oh,' came the cheery reply, 'I've got constipation.'

What conclusion should one draw from this journey into history? As someone with a lifelong faith in scholarship, it made me realise that there are limits as to how much you can learn about another century by reading about it. Until someone invents a time machine, the best way to experience the past is to wear it. Macaulay would have been even better on William of Orange had he tried getting in and out of that monarch's breeches.