The ObserverCharlotte Brontë This article is more than 17 years oldPull yourself together
This article is more than 17 years oldVictoria CorenRuth Wilson, star of the BBC's latest gripping adaptation, Jane Eyre, was apparently 'tortured' by spending 13 weeks in a corset. An insider on the series has told the press that 'poor Ruth was in constant pain ... She had red marks and painful-looking indents on her tummy.'
What wusses we 21st century ladies are. Red marks on her tummy! In 1846, when Charlotte Bronte was writing the novel, women wore real, whalebone corsets, every day of their lives, which made their breathing shallow, weakened their back muscles and gave them curvature of the spine. Tight sleeves reduced the risk of any unladylike or combative arm movements, with the added benefit of reducing blood supply to create a lovely pale look. The light fabric and expansive shape of crinolines, swishing through a world of hearth fires and oil lamps, saw thousands of housewives horribly burnt, occasionally to death. These days, it's called 'a brave choice' if a woman wears yellow.
I'm not sure the women of the 19th century gave much thought to fashion. Jane Eyre certainly doesn't. She simply wants to be 'a respectably dressed person'. After a particularly rough time, she worries that 'my clothes hung loose on me, for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl', and the job's done. When Mr Rochester tries to buy her fancier clothes, she complains that she doesn't want to be 'an ape in a harlequin's jacket'. And we have to assume that she says this without ever even seeing a Girls Aloud video.
But Jane Eyre is not a 21st-century person. Despite the fact that a Victorian woman might be killed at any moment by her own clothes, Jane doesn't seem to give them much thought at all.
She doesn't have the same obsessive insecurity and self-consciousness as a modern romantic heroine. If she did, her story might have turned out a little differently...
Reader, I winked at him. As the Master of Thornfield dismounted his black horse, Mesrour, I could not help myself. This Mr Rochester was hot stuff. But how did I look to him? I sought a back-stairs chamber, with a glass, and (within this asylum) twisted my frame in its black stuff Lowood frock to see if my arse looked big. I think it did. Oh dear.
When it came to the night's repast, I employed great care. We servants were brought the remains of a sumptuous roast gosling, three barded partridges and a feast of mutton. Mrs Fairfax and the rest gorged themselves upon this cargo of victualage. I just had a Marlboro Light and a Perrier.
By Christmas, which dawned merry and bright, my corset hung loose from my ill-fed bones. Good. I had learnt to love Mr Rochester for his fine dark eyes and the sable waves of hair which folded over his brow, itself revealing a solid mass of intellectual organs and yet no suave sign of benevolence. Never mind; reader, I shagged him.
'You are a little nonnette, Jane!' he cried. 'I summon you to marry me. You beautiful, unearthly thing - I love you as my own flesh. I entreat you to become my wife.'
But what does he mean? How does he feel about me? I couldn't read between the lines. Immediately I ran to my chamber and consumed an entire pound cake and several hot milk possets. Then I felt like a fat cow, knew nobody else would have me and agreed to marry Mr Rochester.
Later that year, at harvest-time, there was a terrible conflagration and Thornfield House was burnt to the ground in dead of night. All was fallen rafters, black devastation and broken lattices. Mr Rochester himself was severely injured in the blaze. I, by the grace of God, had not been in the house at the time, as I was in the City of London being fitted for wedding raiment.
'But do you suppose,' I inquired of Mr Rochester on the morning of the wedding, 'that this vapoury veil makes my face look fat?'
'I do not think that it does,' he replied.
'That's because you've gone completely blind!' I exclaimed. 'I look like a house and you cannot admit it.'
Reader, I dumped him.
If I've just won £500,000, there's something I want to get off my chest
Last Sunday, I bumped into Natalie Pinkham, the lovely presenter of the televised European Poker Tour, who got tangled up in a nasty business earlier this year when private photographs of Prince Harry at her birthday party were stolen and published.
It was a strange day for me, last Sunday. I think I won the European Poker Championship and £500,000. It seems a little too amazing, to realise that kind of lifelong personal dream, but I've read the newspaper reports 87 times and I'm almost starting to believe it.
Then again, you can never be sure with newspapers. Before the final, when I was nervously washing my hands while Natalie Pinkham adjusted her microphone at the next sink, she reminded me that (around the time of her mini-scandal) various members of the press implied that she might have had a breast enlargement, including me. I'm not sure I ever meant to suggest that, but having examined them at closer range, I feel obliged to confirm that she certainly hasn't. They're just naturally delightful and she's not the kind of girl to do anything so silly. I, however, have had an excellent idea for what I might do with the money ...
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