The Diary of Cozette

To my family and friends, especially my husband,
who loves to cook—my deepest thanks always for
your support and encouragement.

I must confess, for though I am female, and of lowly rank for a woman of my time, I am wealthy by comparison to many who suffer the drought of a dry marriage bed. But the journey was not an easy one; indeed, the road to my freedom is riddled with potholes and steep embankments, at times seeming to careen from my control altogether. Yet even the dangers excited my blood. I always suspected I was an unlikely breed for a woman cast headlong into a deceptive era, where on the outside there was a polished veneer of social propriety and beneath the wood crawled every vile and wretched atrocity. I marvel now how it is that I survived. Nevertheless, I have always been untamed, and perhaps that is what, in the end, saved me.

I came to the good Robert and Virginia Archibald quite young by today’s standards. For more than a decade in their service, I garnered much more than a plate of food and a bed in which to lay my head. This is my life, my tales of growing up, a journal penning my becoming a woman in every sense of the word.

Not all are stellar in memory as they once were, but others stir a remembrance that is yet able to warm as well as a good brandy.

Not only was it improper, by standards set by the men of my time, for a woman to partake in pleasure of a social nature, it was forbidden as a house servant to speak of such trysts. Oh, accepted so it is that, in private, we women are expected to enjoy those moments of passion created for purposes of marriage, but before then, what? God help me, why is it that men are the only passionate beings on earth? Or is it what society at the time wanted us to believe?

Most would consider me of spinster age at the time of these writings. At seventeen, I was unmarried and betrothed to no man. It speaks well, I suppose, of my headstrong behavior, that by choice I remain alone. However, it is not for lack of suitors, or one or two that graciously offered to make me a respectable wife.

I venture to say that my heart was tainted, willing to partake of the sinful fruit of impropriety, but unsatisfied with the taste of most men I’d met. Though I captured glimpses of my imaginary lover in the eyes of many, it would take years and an unusual twist of the fates to find a lover who would challenge and accept me for the passionate woman that I am.

I admit I am a slave to my own passion, a bit rebellious, and so reminded by a distraught aunt and a most horridly strict keeper of the orphanage where I spent a short time.

I am keenly aware of the power of my sexuality and unafraid to confess that, more times than not, my preference is for the strength of a man’s hands upon me, giving me pleasure, instead of pleasure derived of my own hand. Either achieves the desired purpose, but I so love the scent of a man’s skin.

Passion, in my day, was reserved for a man’s pleasure whether married or not. It is accepted as part of a man’s virile needs, in some cases even perpetuated by his health.

By contrast, a woman’s passion in view of current social standards is not only considered odd, but simply does not exist except for what it will gain for her husband and most importantly for his inheritance.

Proper women, well taught in the attributes that make for the perfect prize, often scorn those of us who are rebellious to society’s shackles. The cream of our society is the woman well versed in reading, able to play piano, proficient in needlework, able to sing, knowledgeable in politics, thoughtful only to a point and only in the company of other women, but by no means should it appear we know more than the man in our company. In addition, she is at her best if involved in works of charity and events of social relevance.

Ah, the perfect prize, who would sit and twiddle her thumbs while her husband takes trips of three to four days, journeys on pretense of business. I have known the women they rush to visit in secret.

I fear there was a time when I held none of these comely attributes, and likely was viewed as less than cow dung in the eyes of most. As for my surviving, I owe this to my mistress and her bountiful kindness. Whatever her intent, or however successful were the results of her plan for me, she fashioned me from the ashes of my existence to a woman of substance, if only in my eyes. That is ample recognition for me.

In all that, social propriety demanded I was most fortunate to have the sort of relationship with my mistress that I did. Loyal and hardworking, I dutifully served the Archibalds for years. I kept my affairs discreet, smiled dutifully as I saw to their needs. As a result, through my mistress’s personal trials, I became closer to her than perhaps most handmaids would to their employers.

Each encounter has served as a stepping-stone to my growth, sexual and otherwise. Every man I have had the good fortune to meet has left me wiser than before, being able to see deeper into the human heart and mind, mine being the first. It is not a bad life for a young woman left alone to find her way.

Permit me to begin by way of introduction. My name is Anne Cozette Bennett and I was born the youngest of seven into a simple family near Manchester. My father died in a mining accident. My siblings died thereafter, as did my mother, of cholera. I often wonder, even now, why I alone was spared.

These then are my confessions, looking back on a life full and ripe with all my passions, trysts and turbulent trials. It was a contradiction of propriety, with grace and gentility on the surface, and an underbelly of vermin that scurried below. Nevertheless, I grew amidst these changes, polishing the veneer, and enjoying the forbidden fruits that made my life…well,
interesting,
as you shall see.

I have for a very long time considered that when my time comes (and it does for all regardless of wealth) that should someone find a fascination with the stories of a young, unpretentious handmaid named Cozette, that they should read them by my own hand. I think this is what my mother would have wanted, and I would give anything if she could read it now. I did what I had to do in most cases, for to deny any of the tales, to alter them in any form more pleasing perhaps to the sensitive eye, would be to rob me of all that I am.

My dearest of lovers, as we lay in his bed talking of the past, said to me, “To move forward, my love, you cannot forget your past, but embrace it, all of it. It made you the passionate woman you are today.” He, of course, was right in addition to being a most adoring and talented of men, both in skill and in bed.

I pray then if your libido, dry from the tensions of this world, thirsts for passion, let your palate be satisfied as you join me in the fire of my youth.

~Lady C.