The Gilded Cage - Taking my Place

The Decree

"We shall look like twins!" I exclaimed, hugging Nicola after Mama and I finished getting her into her very first gown of her own, as her maidenhood officially began. It was a dazzling sky blue and white design, with huge skirts and a very narrow waist, which Nicola had some trouble making but loved the look of. And she was so happy that Grandmama had bought me the same gown, so that we could still look like the sisters we always were in our hearts.

"Only until you walk up the aisle...but it is wonderful...thank you, Mama?" Nicola said as she embraced Helen Montague, and I had a sudden flashback to that afternoon in Kensington when I delivered Nicola home from Charlesfield, in disgrace. Her conversation with her mother that day did not end in hugs. But she had come so far and we were all so proud of the maiden she had become.

"Hmm, best thank your Grandmama...I was working to a budget for your new wardrobe, as your father did not want to go too mad...but your Grandmama was having none of it! She spent an absolute fortune on your wardrobe!" Mama laughed, stepping back to admire the pair of us together. It was one of those brilliant family moments that I had changed my life for. Nicola and I, laughing together with our Mama, sisters joined forever and happy in our gilded cage. I did not have to ask if Nicola was as happy as me. I could see it in her eyes. Any thoughts that she had once harboured of living in the heathen world, and hiding her faith, or leaving it behind entirely, were long gone, or so it seemed to me. If I had largely achieved all my goals, set out in my own mind when I joined the church and the Montague family, she had just blossomed before my eyes, saved completely in God's love. And as our joyous day progressed, I reminded myself that she had been forced back inside her cage. Forced just as much as Bella, or Sheila had been, initially by me, and it had all been for her own good, because I could see the happy and really beautiful maiden the doctrine had helped the family create. Whilst I found Edwina Deacon's brutal methods and fanaticisms repugnant, I could not deny that she was following the same blueprint as Catriona Montague imposed. She was just doing it without love.

"You are thinking again, Hermione!" Grandmama said, accusingly, taking my arm, as we all walked down towards Deepdene to collect the children. Nicola had finished her exams, and had left the day before, and we were presenting her to the world as a maiden for the very first time. My sister was walking with her mother, properly under discipline, with Miss Knight just a step away. Auntie Susannah and Auntie Louise were just behind them, and I gazed at the five of them, all sumptuously dressed in the Meadvale style, loving being with them, trying to take a picture with my eyes and store it in my happiest memories.

"But not about bad things, Grandmama?" I assured her, and she sort of snorted, as if she did not really believe me. "I am not worrying...honestly, Ma'am? I was merely thinking that love makes obedience and commitment possible...as we discussed the other day...Nicola is such a triumph for you and Mama? She is going to be a wonderful maiden, Grandmama? And seeing us all together like this...it is exactly what I came here for, Ma'am?"

"It is a triumph for the whole family...we all play our part in raising the children...that is the blessing of us all living together under the same roof...however, she is rather scrumptious, isn't she?" Grandmama grinned, squeezing my arm, happy to share the credit, as long as everyone knew it was mostly hers. She really was incorrigible.

"She loves you and Miss Knight..."

"Of course...she is a very intelligent girl!" Grandmama replied, making me giggle, before stopping me in our tracks. "What is that sign on the gate, Hermione? That's new, isn't it? Can you see?"

We were at the entrance to the school, and the gates were open, as it was home time, and the notice, a laminated sheet of white paper, was tied onto it, nearest to me. I stepped closer, as the font was quite small, probably much too small for Catriona's eyes, and started to read the short paragraph of typed text. "Grandmama...it is an official edict I think...a decree...from the Elder Council I think, but supported by the board of governors, and signed by Pastor Reynolds and Mr Ellesmere...it says that all maidens...and all but one daughter of Eve in any party, if not accompanied by a publicly recognised chaperone, or a nanny...must be under discipline on school or church property?"