Fanny and Stella (12 page)

Every newspaper in the country had carried the story, and it would soon be making headlines in Europe and in the United States. An enterprising publisher had already rushed out a penny pamphlet –
The Lives of Boulton and Park: Extraordinary Revelations
– which told the story so far, rehashing the testimony of Hugh Mundell and expressing many pious disapprovals of Fanny and Stella.

Of all the crimes Fanny and Stella were purported to have committed, by far the most heinous was Fanny’s ‘violation’ of the Ladies’ Retiring Room at the Strand Theatre on the night they were arrested. ‘Nothing’, the anonymous author of the penny pamphlet declared, more plainly showed ‘the base and prurient natures which these misguided youths possess’ than the ‘unblushing impudence’ of Fanny’s application to the female attendant to pin up the gathers of her skirt which had become unfastened.

It was standing room only inside Bow Street and the courtroom was stiflingly hot. Some spectators had queued for five hours to see Fanny and Stella and to hear ‘the filthy details’ of the case. There was an unexpected air of jocularity and expectation, quite at odds with the severely moralising tone of the newspapers. One ‘noble lord’ spent the greater part of his day in Bow Street surveying Fanny and Stella through an opera glass. Many of those present were, as the newspapers reported, gentlemen belonging to the theatrical profession, and one of them, the manager of a popular theatre in the Strand, was heard to remark that if this sort of attraction was likely to last, it would be desirable to add another row of stalls to the court and ‘allow seats to be booked a fortnight in advance’.

It was clear, too, that some friends of Fanny and Stella had queued for hours to get into court. ‘Theatrical’ covered a multitude of sins, and in addition to such leading comic actors as Edward Askew Sothern and J. L. Toole, who had come to witness and wonder at the sport in Bow Street, there was an odd group of spectators who came to the court day in and day out. They were allsorts: young and old, tall and short, fat and thin – and all conditions in between. Some were well dressed, some sloppily dressed, and some were quite clearly mutton dressed up as lamb, wearing clothes that were too young, too fashionable or too tight. Some were decidedly effeminate with perfectly arched eyebrows that made them look permanently surprised, and some were sporting subtly dyed or not-so-subtly dyed curling locks. Many seemed to know one another and despite their very obvious differences there seemed to be a common weal between them. They were the very disparate parts of a curious whole, and there was a distinctly tribal quality about them.

As the case went on, this clique or claque of men formed a strange chorus, greeting much of the evidence – especially the evidence that favoured Fanny and Stella – with ‘a most indecent manifestation of applause expressed by stamping and cheering’ – much to the dismay of the magistrate, Mr Flowers, who entreated, most ineffectually, that ‘such ebullitions of feeling should be restrained’. In the days that followed, as the witnesses for the prosecution took their turn in the box, many of them denounced these ardent supporters as sodomites, Mary-Anns and fellow he-she ladies.

Commencing proceedings, Mr Poland, the prosecuting attorney, stood up and brandished theatrically the detailed inventory of items seized at Wakefield Street by Detective Officer Chamberlain. Clearing his throat he proceeded to read it aloud to the accompaniment of much raucous laughter. Fanny and Stella could hardly repress their smiles. ‘The list of articles included the following,’ Mr Poland said, drawing a deep breath before plunging in: 

Dresses:

Mauve satin, trimmed with black lace

White corded rep silk, trimmed with white lace

Pink satin, and tulle

White glacé, trimmed with blue satin and lace

White Japanese silk, pink stripe, trimmed with white lace and swansdown

Green cord silk

Violet glacé silk and white lace

Black satin, trimmed with mauve satin

Blue and white satin, piped with white satin

Mauve rep silk and green satin

Blue satin tunic

Pink tartalan

Muslin

Camlet costume

Cambric evening

Grey moiré antique

&c. 

Here Mr Poland paused for breath. The list was exhaustive and exhausting. ‘Also,’ he continued:

a number of skirts and petticoats, in tulle, tartalan, white frilled cambric, white book muslin; frilled, check, plain and coloured petticoats, crinolines, &c; cloaks, jackets and bodices, opera cloaks, shawls, ermine jackets and muff; crimson velvet and tunic; about a dozen pairs of ladies’ kid boots, shoes, &c; seven chignons (of various kinds and colours), two long curls, ten plaits, and one grey beard. 

‘The grey beard can hardly be called part of a woman’s costume,’ a bemused Mr Flowers interjected.

‘It may be part of a disguise,’ Mr Poland snapped, clearly irritated by the interruption. ‘Curling irons, sunshades, six pairs of stays,’ he went on, ‘one face press-over, two tulle falls, chemisettes, garters, drawers, four boxes of violet powder, one of bloom of roses, silk stockings, eight pairs of gloves, one bottle of chloroform, artificial flowers and a great quantity of wadding – used apparently for padding.’

D 
rag was not for the faint-hearted. It required discipline, stamina and a great deal of ingenuity. Money helped, as did plenty of space to store it all – which is where Martha Stacey’s ground-floor dragging-up rooms came in so useful. The sheer volume and complexity of the wardrobe of even the moderately well dressed young lady-about-town required a great deal of time and attention.

Fanny and Stella’s extensive drag wardrobe mirrored the garish artificiality that was the fashionable order of the day. Women of fashion laboured long and hard to present to the world a brilliantly enamelled exterior of wasp-waists, heaving bosoms and large bustling behinds. Nature was not enough. It could be improved upon, altered, faked and falsified. Wasp-waists required the tightest of tight-lacing, causing ladies young and old to faint frequently and doctors repeatedly to warn that prolonged tight-lacing could lead to permanent internal damage; bosoms were pushed and prodded and padded until they heaved; and the largest or smallest of behinds could be made to bustle by the use of a steel frame and half a dozen layers of flounced horsehair. An arsenal of false hair, false teeth, false bottoms, false breasts – and on at least one occasion, a false leg – was strategically deployed, along with a formidable battery of dyes and paints and an artillery of chemical processes to create the perfect woman. Beauty was made, not born. It was a commodity, manufactured, measured, sold and, above all, bought.

Acquiring the frocks, the petticoats, the stays, the undergarments, the shoes and all the other female accoutrements was no mean feat. It was hard, but not impossible, for men to buy dresses without arousing suspicion and hostility. Fanny and Stella had made daring trips in drag to the new emporia of Regent Street and Oxford Street where they had bought gloves and other accessories. Such was their airy disregard of convention, and so convincing their disguise, that Fanny and Stella could easily sweep into almost any gown shop in London and try on as many frocks and petticoats and cloaks and coats as they liked. Shopkeepers would naturally assume that they were a pair of soiled doves – extremely soiled doves – but then, many of their best customers were ladies of that sort, and morals rarely, if ever, got in the way of business.

Even if the doors of some of the most refined shops were firmly closed to Fanny and Stella, there were always alternatives. Like the irrepressibly cheerful young hero of the burlesque farce
A Sneaking Regard
, who breezily declares that he’s off to ‘a Theatrical Wardrobe Shop in Cross Street, to borrow the toggery, and equip myself well out in tip-top feminine style’, Fanny and Stella would visit theatrical costumiers for wigs, for make-up, and, importantly, for boots and shoes which were hard to find in their sizes.

And if the need arose, there were any number of skilled needle-women in London – milliners, dressmakers, stay-makers, bonnet-makers and assorted lowly stitchers – who could barely support themselves and who had, more often than not, to turn to prostitution when times were hard. Many would happily turn a blind eye to measuring up and making up frocks and garments of a more intimate nature for young men for their ‘private theatricals’.

Then there were the countless fripperers’ shops, selling second-, third- and even fourth-hand finery, where a young man might purchase a dress for his wife or for his sweetheart – or for himself. And like thousands of women, Fanny and Stella may have taken advantage of the offer of sending ‘42 stamps’ to Isabella and Samuel Beeton’s
The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine
, receiving in return a paper dress pattern of the latest French fashions. With a sewing machine and a little common sense, they could run up their own exquisite creations.

Since the 1850s there had been an explosion in the number of newspapers and magazines – and a corresponding explosion in advertising and mail order. By 1870, ladies and gentlemen could buy almost anything by mail order, particularly products the mere mention of which might bring an unbecoming blush to their cheeks. Publications groaned with advertisements for quack cures – pills, balms, cordials, panaceas, elixirs, specifics and tonics – for every ailment, real or imagined. Pages were crammed with advertisements for every kind of corset, stay, busk or truss; for undergarments of all conceivable varieties; for hair removers and hair improvers; for breast enlargers and breast reducers; and for a bewildering variety of cosmetics, creams and lotions to allow gentlemen and ladies – and would-be ladies – to transform themselves from ugly ducklings into fully fledged swans. Mail order was a godsend for Fanny and Stella, and no doubt a steady stream of packages addressed to Mrs Fanny Graham or Miss Stella Boulton would arrive at Wakefield Street or wherever else they happened to pitch their camp.

Hair was another vexed question. Hairstyles were heroic: towering, complex architectural follies involving one, two and sometimes as many as three chignons, hairpieces attached to a substructure called a frisette. Chignons and frisettes – these ‘monstrous erections of dyed and false hair’ – were heavy, often weighing two or three pounds. They were said to ‘impose such a weight on the heads of these martyrs that they deserve pity rather than reproof’, and the notorious procuress Madame Rachel wore such ‘a whopper’ of a chignon, ‘’twas said she was quite bandy-legged through the weight of her head’.

In the hysteria generated by Fanny and Stella’s arrest, the
Graphic
claimed that there were ‘hair-dressing establishments at the West End where a young gentleman, although previously bearded like the pard, may emerge within an hour’s time so disguised by chignon, rouge and pearl-powder that his own mother would fail to recognise him’.

When she could afford to, in the days of plenty in 1868, Stella used to insist on twice-daily visits from a hairdresser in Brydges Street, Covent Garden. ‘The hairdresser used to come in of a morning to clean Boulton’s hair,’ Maria Duffin, a maid, recounted, ‘and if he was going to an evening party or to the theatre, the hairdresser used to come and arrange the chignon and the hair.’

But most of the time Fanny and Stella had to rely on their own resources. On the night of their arrest, Fanny and Stella had dressed each other’s hair expertly. Stella wore hers
à la grecque
, with at least one – and probably two – chignons of elaborately curled and braided hair, while Fanny’s was a profusion of tiny flaxen curls dressed with a diamanté star. Fanny, with her ‘sterner features’, also wore a Eugénie bandelette, a popular style of chignon, a fringe of curls worn across the forehead in the manner of the Empress Eugénie. It was said to soften the face.

Judging from the ‘great quantity of wadding’ found at Wakefield Street it was clear that Fanny and Stella used to pad their busts. They might as easily have resorted to ‘The Registered Bust Improver’, patented in 1849, which claimed to do away with the ‘evident defects of pads made of Cotton and Wool’. Improvers were made from an ‘air-proof’ inflatable material, sold in boxes of half a dozen and available by post from Mr White of Gresham Street.

Fanny and Stella may have also followed the practice of French male prostitutes in drag, who wore false bosoms made from boiled sheep’s lights – or lungs – cut to shape and then inflated. ‘One of the prostitutes complained to me the other day,’ the Parisian doctor François-Auguste Veyne reported, ‘that a cat had eaten one of his breasts which he had left to cool down in his attic.’ Stella had visited Paris in 1868 to perform in drag and would have met some of the city’s formidable brigade of men who dressed as women and carried back to London the latest tips and fashions.