First of all I want to thank all those readers who wrote to me and sympathised with me in my enforced lay-up when it was feared that I might have to lose my leg. That did not happen, fortunately, and now I am about again.
I do not think that any of you can realise what pleasure it is to me to write about fashions and fads that interest the maimed. "London Life" was the first paper to cater for lamed and monopedic girls with a special fashion article; and it seems strange, to say the least of it, that no editor ever thought of it before, since one-eighth of the total population of Great Britain is lame!
Does that come as a shock to you? It does to many. People get so used to seeing lame people about, that very little is thought of it; but to me, brought up among the maimed, one-eighth of the population seems to be a low estimate.
The crying need for special talks and articles on fashions for lame and one-legged girls has long been felt, and I cannot help but feel that I am doing my bit as a pioneer by writing these occasional articles.
I want now to reproduce a letter I received from a girl who is one-legged and who recently married. She has put into her own words all that a girl feels on this auspicious occasion, and the details she has given about the manipulation of her crutch when going up the aisle are of great importance to all of us who have been robbed by birth or mischance of two good legs.
Dear Joan, - The day has been fixed, and I am so excited that this morning I jumped out of bed and found myself hopping about the room without the aid of my crutches, which is a triumph of mind over matter, if you like!
When the doctor told me after my operation I ought to get used to hopping, I thought I would never manage it, and for the first six months at least was utterly reliant on my crutch.
Yesterday I found that hopping is as safe a method of progression as that crawling we used to do at the clinic. I didn't lose my balance once. Is that a record?
You have asked me to tell you what I am wearing on the great day when I become Mrs. Edwin T - Well, Joan, I am not having a registry office wedding after all, for neither side will agree to it. The ceremony is to take place in church, and I am to wear the conventional wreath and veil after all, with a wedding gown full so that movement will not unobligingly reveal my one-leggedness in outline. That would be dreadful!
You ought to see my pretties - those designed to be revealed to Edwin when he is my lawful bridegroom! I have everything a girl could wish for. As you know I am rather proud of my neat waist, and intend to display its slender proportions to the full, so that when you make a sketch of my wedding adjuncts you might see 37 3 ethat the waist is sharply defined. Thanks to mother's insistence, I am a very neat 25 inches, and no kidding.
The girls from the crippled school sent me a lovely pair of long black kid gloves and the most fascinating little anklets, but the dear things forgot that I need only one anklet, and not two - so I have a spare. Those are the anklets, those round things with spikes sticking out all round that you see on the bottom of the snapshot. The spikes look cruel implements of torture, don't they? I should think that they could deter Edwin from playfully grabbing at my one remaining ankle (if anything would), but as the barbaric-looking spikes are simply harmless things of gilt, no doubt he will continue in his evil ways especially as he knows it teases me so much!
All the other little things you see in the sketch are the various presents that have been sent to me from the girls. I love each and everyone of them (both presents and girls), and I know that I shall miss you all dreadfully. But as soon as the honeymoon is over I shall hold a big housewarming and invite everyone of you, and there will be special stands and racks for crutches, so that I shan't have to give you those odd looks that we got from hostesses when we used to lean our crutches against wallpaper and objects d'art, and thereby endanger their household goods. Oh, how we did wish that hostesses would bear our plight in mind when asking us out. The agony I have endured when asked to just "pour myself out a cup of tea" and I have had to hop to the tea trolley and thereby bringing all the men in the room to their feet for help! This, plus the apologies from the blushing and forgetful hostesses, were one of the banes of my life; but I promise you all that I shall not ask you to make similar exhibitions of yourselves.
Well, Joan, I intended to write a longer letter, but time is fleeting; so in case I don't get a chat at the reception, I will write to you from "somewhere in England" where our honeymoon is being spent, and tell you about everything - well, almost everything, anyway.
Yours with love
Violetta
Dear Joan, - I have been "Mrs." for six days now, and I have got to that stage when the honeymoon is beginning to become a bit boring. I know that Edwin fells bored, too, but he doesn't dare to mention it to me, or I to him, for fear of offending.
I wonder what makes brides and grooms so tongue-tied. And who invented these silly long honeymoons when a couple is supposed to stare into each other's eyes all the time, to the exclusion of all other interests? Love isn't a thing that flows on and on like a river. It kind of comes and goes in spasms, and in between transports even a newly married couple get very bored with doing nothing. Yet if one dares to say this, people look at one as though something improper has been voiced! No, Joan, honeymooners just can't be human. They are expected to make a public exhibition of their affections to make a kind of Roman holiday!
The wedding day went of without a hitch. I wore a long robe of white satin, complete with dragging train, and used the slenderest ebony crutch, as I did not dare to risk the one without the crossbar on this important occasion. I looked rather odd, I must say, when clad in cami-knickers, with one leg flapping empty, mother came in to say some words of good advice to the bride, sprinkled with all kind of gypsies' warnings of what not to do with a new bridegroom. It appeared that the important thing was not to laugh at Edwin (though when I first saw him in a shirt, socks and suspenders, I thought it the most ludicrous sight, and couldn't help a giggle, which I had to repress).
Anyway half way through this lecture, mother caught sight of the empty leg of my panties, and started to cry and bemoan the accident that had robbed me of my hitherto perfect pair of "Dietrich's." That was what I feared. I knew that mother was dying to cry over one ewe lamb that was leaving the home, but I didn't want to make my lameness the starting off point.
However, I managed to stem her tears by pointing out that if I hadn't be one-legged, I should never have met Edwin at the crippled girls' party where he came to work the lights. I also told her that Edwin had told me that he actually preferred me being maimed, but she said, "He is a dear boy," and went off into another series of snuffs that lasted until dad came in to say that the cars were ready.
As I have lost my left leg, I had to take dad's other arm going up the aisle, so that my crutch would not get mixed up with his legs and bring me down into an ignominious fall. As I entered the church I could see the congregation staring and I heard them whisper, "Poor thing!" But I was so relieved at seeing Edwin waiting at the altar that I did not care. (What with young men disappearing before their wedding day, and being found "suffering from loss of memory," a girl can't be too careful.) But there he was, with memory and ring intact; and though at one time during the ceremony I had to leave go of my crutch and just lean on it and trust to luck that it didn't slip, all went well.
They told me that I made a lovely bride, and carefully refrained from saying anything about my one-leggedness, so the day was quite cheerful on the whole. Yet I must confess that in the train I burst into tears. Edwin asked me why, and I said that I hoped that I hadn't made a mistake in getting married. But he looked so hurt at this that I forgot my miseries in comforting him.
I wonder why novelists never tell the truth about a bride's real feelings. I mean when the deed has been done and she is
"Mrs." and the ring is on her finger, and suddenly she looks at her husband, realising that, for good or ill, her life is linked to his for ever, and all at once she sees him with new eyes and he seems to be a perfectly strange man.
That is what I felt, and this is why I wept; but I suppose that all brides do it and it passes, just like "wedding day nerves." Like all brides, during one stage of my dressing I decided that I could not go through with it; but dad came in and pointed out all Edwin's virtues and said that "I mustn't let him down." Funny how men stick together, isn't it? Kind of "better a ruined life than a ruined wedding day." But then I suppose that if fathers didn't talk like that, no girl would ever get to the altar at all. It's a wonder we brides don't disappear and suffer from faked "loss of memory" on the wedding day!
But that, like billiards, seems to be a masculine pastime. The most embarrassing time of the whole honeymoon was, I think, when first I had to ask Edwin to help me to disrobe. I seemed not only one-legged, but felt as though I was odd all over, and that I must be a hideous sight; but that soon passed off, thanks to him, and then I wondered whether I would ever be embarrassed again. One soon gets that "married feeling," doesn't one?
Ah, well, I suppose that I must stop writing and seek out my husband (that's a funny word - it starts with - a hiss and ends with a bump) and continue our Roman holiday. Actually we are both dying to get back to town.
I shall be seeing you soon.
Yours with love,
Violetta.