Cinderella goes to the ball – and doesn’t fall over, for once

So! The reeling ball in the stately home! And the question on everyone’s lips: did the vintage eBay bargain skirt fit in the end?                              

Well, I’m happy to say that yes, it did. Even if Anna the fearsome seamstress took me at my holding-my-breath-in word, and sewed the new buttons at the hopeful spot I insisted my new waist would be - which meant that I had to wear industrial-strength Spanx up to my chin, and pick daintily at dinner beforehand. Between the skirt and the Vivienne Westwood corset top piling up my frontage like a Whole Foods display, I had a sudden but vivid insight into why Victorian ladies moved around with such care. Corsets make you feel like a bottle of champagne with the cork loosened. The constant pressure is terrifying. One false move and scandal could break loose over the napkins.



My own greed aside, I was more concerned about was that the buttons would pop under the strains of being spun round like a human dodgem all night. Scottish reeling is a vigorous country dance designed to warm up the blood in bone-chillingly cold stone castles. It might also have been developed as a form of Borders warfare – once you’ve seen a room of women being wound up and launched at high speed towards their next partner in the reel, you do wonder why they bothered with cannons. It’s properly thrilling though, being twirled around like a doll by a skilled reeler. My family is from just over the other side of the border in Cumberland and I can’t help wondering if any of my equally easily-led ancestresses were swept into an unsuitable marriage purely on the strength of some Scotsman’s wrists and a nice set of knees. (My dad says, “probably”. Hmm.)



Each reel has its own steps – a combination of ‘setting’, in which dancers hop from foot to foot while eyeing each other flirtatiously, spinning, and sweeping circles, which move one pair up and down the line of couples. The music is a rattling delight, performed by fiddles, drums, accordions, and guitars, with a background of ‘raaaaaaw-aaarrrrp!’s from the men on the floor. There are two main branches: Scottish Country Dancing, the elegant, formal performance version, where steps are precise and lines are as neat as the plaited hair of the ladies, and reeling, the social version, enjoyed at hunt balls and weddings. Here, hands reach out and grab you if you’re stumbling off course, and no one minds if you accidentally elbow your partner in the face when trying to turn (not that I have. Cough). It’s enormous fun. No, it’s more than that; it makes you happy to be alive, when the whole room is turning like a kaleidoscope of tartan and bare shoulders, and the music is lifting everyone faster and faster around the floor.



For the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a subscription Hunt Ball up in the Borders - a rather special one, since it’s still held in a private house with a ballroom large enough to hold the three hundred reelers. In the morning, we watched the local Hunt ride out into the rolling Berwickshire farmland, the hounds’ breath steaming in the chilly air and the riders’ red jackets bright spots amongst the chestnut horses. Some sturdy types manage a whole day’s cross country riding, then a quick shower, and into their white tie and tails for the ball, but my friends and I didn’t. We spent the afternoon getting some practice in. No one shouts out instructions at these dances - just apologies, in my case – so it’s only polite to the other dancers to be up to speed.



In true Jane Austen tradition, most of the guests dine in house parties beforehand, before heading out at 10pm, ready to dance until dawn. They arrive in local taxis, not in carriages, and gloves are optional, but otherwise, Lizzy Bennet would give it an appreciative nod. The reels, for me, were only half the fun; the other half was the opportunity to imagine at every single turn that I really had stepped back through the mirror, what with my great-aunt’s mink, a sense of being firmly constricted around the rib-cage, and the dance card tucked under the linen napkin at dinner. Oh, the dance card. If you don’t have a partner, you can’t join in, so it’s essential to book early to avoid disappointment – which is where even a historically-sympathetic girl has to be a wee bit twenty-first century.



In an ideal (imaginary) world, one would poise one’s tiny pencil, and wait for the gentlemen to flock to one’s side, begging for a Duke of Perth, or a Hamilton House. In reality, the men are too busy tucking into the coffee and mints to notice the decorous female panic rising around them, as the good dancers are bagged by those lucky enough to be seated next to them, and everyone else scans the room for eligibles. At the weekend, as soon as the first person’s chair was shoved back to make discreet enquiries, the more pro-active ladies rose as one and began to shimmy around the tables, raising fingers like bond traders to enquire whether Jamie had reel no 3 free, and could he swap for reel no 8? You have to be ruthless. I was very ruthless. I had the advantage of my tight skirt to focus my mind, and my card full before the coffee had even cooled, including the prize catch: my terribly handsome host for the final reel. (Ruthless, I tell you.)



The first dance, as everyone pours into the ballroom, is always The Dashing White Sergeant; a reel where groups of three people dance in two interlocking circles, one passing through the other to meet the next three, until everyone’s checked out who’s there, who’s overdone it on the port at dinner, and who’s wearing last year’s dress. It was clearly invented so clans could assess the available marriage prospects in ye olde days, and so Edwardian house parties could line up their next affair in ye not so olde days. Nowadays it’s a chance for risk-takers to do some last-minute horse trading on their dance-cards. I survived that, and no one trod on my skirt, and neither did my buttons pop off.



I managed the flirty Hamilton House dance without flirting with the wrong person, and I didn’t ricochet off anyone important in the Reel of the 51st Division. I didn’t ask anyone any stupid questions about their tartan sash, or wonder aloud what some silver fox was wearing under his kilt. I didn’t even fall backwards onto the fiddler, as I did two years running, during the dizzying Duke of Perth, so either my balance or my drinking capacity is slowly improving. Too quickly, it was breakfast time – at 2.30am, the kitchens were opened downstairs and a full English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes and mushrooms was served up, with floury baps, pots of strong tea and brown sauce on each table.



By now, I’d totally forgotten about Seamstress Anna and her stern glares at my waistband. I was ravenous, and I’d conclusively tested the solid workmanship of Vivienne Westwood: I worked out that even if I undid the top button of my skirt, the corset was holding everything up so well I could undo the zip and perform a yoga shoulder-stand and nothing would move. There’s a reason Nigella Lawson places such faith in her. I had three cups of tea and an egg sandwich with plenty of tomato sauce and wrote it all off to the three hours of aerobic exercise I’d just done – skipping, turning, and gasping for breath, all in high heels.



And then it was back to the fray for another Eightsome Reel, and the final Reel of the 51st, and then, too soon, Auld Lang Syne at 4am. Confession: I don’t know the words. I am very English. But I made some suitably Scottish noises, and accepted the bonhomie-infused kisses from all sides. With the ball committee discreetly moving people on, and taxis arriving outside, my friends and I drifted down the sweeping staircase with the other reluctant stragglers, past the tall banks of lilies and sofas piled with yawning couples, drooping girls with tailcoats over their bare shoulders, and men with their arms slung round their mates. My host – who’d danced a courageous final reel, and spun me into every new partner with great care and a hand firmly placed in the small of my back for steering purposes – piled five of us into his Land Rover in a mass of net skirts and cashmere shawls, and we drove home across the fields, watching the stars glittering in the navy blue sky, as our ears rang with fiddles and clapping. 



It would have been nice to have been driven home in a landau, but it wouldn’t have made the evening a shred more romantic than it already was. I’m already on the eBay hunt for next year’s dress.