Schooled for Service Page 3

  Looking around, she saw that the house stood behind a sparse wood at the bottom of a valley. Hills rose to either side in two long ridges, less high and steep than those of her native Scotland, but crowned with shelves of grey rock and with scattered scree on the slopes. The sun was already low over the southern hill, adding notes of gold to the otherwise drab winter landscape and picking out tumbles of water high on the opposite slope. The distant tinkling of a river and the cries of a group of rooks in the trees provided the only sound, but high overhead an airship was visible, the long silver shape bringing her a sudden pang of regret for the luxuries she had left behind.

  She was still following the stately progress of the airship across the sky when a second van turned in at the tall wrought iron gate some yards down the track. It stopped beside the one she had come in and the doors came open. A black clad woman emerged, holding a cord which proved to be lashed around the wrists of a girl. Like the colliery girls, she was in rags, if less dirty and less revealing, and like them she faced the world with an angry, sullen scowl worn on a pale, freckled face framed by a disorderly mop of copper coloured hair. A second girl followed, in a plain blue dress with her blonde hair pinned up in an approximation of style, her hands free and her expression one of doubt as she climbed cautiously to the ground.

  ‘In line!’ One of the chaperones barked, grabbing at one of the colliery girls’ arms even as she spoke.

  Thrift moved quickly, the pot still in her hand, to stand beside Elizabeth as the girls were marshalled into a line with the two newcomers at the end. A woman was walking towards them from the house, tall, grey-haired beneath a prim bonnet, stately, in black, but bustled and corseted, evidently a Lady. Thrift permitted herself a sigh of relief, sure that she was at last be able to speak and so ask why she had been so poorly treated, what had become of her belongings, and above all, whether she had not been brought to the wrong place entirely. As the tall woman approached, the other chaperones gave respectful curtsies. One van moved off, then the other, down the track towards the rear of the house as the tall woman stopped in front of the line of girls, her expression harsh, her gaze directed through small glasses pinched to the bridge of her long, sharp nose. Thrift hesitated, then raised a cautious hand. The woman turned to her.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Ma’am,’ she began, ‘but I am Miss Thrift Moncrieff, daughter of...’

  ‘I am aware of who you are,’ the woman replied, ‘now be silent.’

  Thrift bobbed a curtsey in response and once more stood still. The woman ignored her, gave another glance along the line of waiting girls and drew a compact board and stylus from a pocket of her dress. Briefly she consulted it, then spoke.

  ‘Seven. Very good. Thrift Moncrieff, yes...’

  ‘At your service Ma’am,’ Thrift responded, and would have gone on had not the woman immediately turned her attention to Elizabeth.

  ‘A nod will suffice,’ the woman stated. ‘Elizabeth Chesham?’

  Elizabeth bobbed and nodded.

  ‘Sally-Anne Porter?’

  The large girl, who Thrift saw stood more than a head taller than Elizabeth, gave a sullen nod.

  ‘Joanna Thorpe?’

  The first of the colliery girls hesitated, then responded with a barely perceptible movement of her head.

  ‘Jane Thorpe?’

  The further colliery girl gave the same minimal response.

  ‘Kirsty MacAuslan?’

  The red haired girl nodded.

  ‘Lucy Prior?’

  The girl in the blue dress gave a respectful curtsey as she also nodded. Again the tall woman paused to scan the line of girls, then spoke once more.

  ‘I am Miss Scarsdale, your guardian and the supervisor of this establishment. Here, you will at all times maintain manners of modesty and decorum suitable to young women of the British Empire, despite your sorry condition. You will be respectful and obedient to myself and to my staff. You will do as you are told promptly and without question. You will speak only when you are spoken to. You are expected to show due contrition for your past behaviour and your disgrace, for which may God forgive you.’

  Thrift, made bold by the woman’s ladylike manner and educated accent, raised a cautious hand. Piercing, ice-blue eyes were turned on her, horribly magnified by the tiny glasses. One grey eye-brow lifted a fraction of an inch. Thrift curtsied before she spoke.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Scarsdale, but I feel that there are one or two matters of urgency that should be brought to your attention, oversights, I am sure, and yet of consequence. For one, my luggage appears to have gone astray...’

  ‘Personal possessions are one of many rights you have forfeited in your disgrace,’ Miss Scarsdale interrupted.

  ‘But, Miss...’

  Thrift went silent under the woman’s glare. Miss Scarsdale nodded and spoke again.

  ‘An object lesson is clearly in order.’

  Her eyes lingered on Thrift for a moment longer, then once again swept down the line of girls, and back, barely glancing at Lucy or Kirsty, hesitating on the other girls in their filthy rags but moving on, past Sally-Anne and Elizabeth, to Thrift again. She nodded.

  Thrift returned a curtsey, puzzled for an instant, then terrified as the bulky chaperone beside her took her firmly by one arm. Another caught her by the elbow and the collar of her dress, and before she could protest she had been dragged out of line. The potty fell from her fingers, to shatter on a stone as she stumbled on a ridge of mud, and she was being dragged up, her wrists held, to be lifted bodily onto the back of the biggest of the chaperones. It was a position that could only mean one thing, that she was to be beaten, and she was squealing and babbling pleas immediately.

  ‘Miss Scarsdale, no, please! What of propriety!? What of my position!? Please, no! Not this! Not in front of them! Please, Miss Scarsdale, no! I am a Lady, Miss Scarsdale! A Lady!’

  Her final word broke off in a pitiful wail as the full mass of her skirts and petticoats were hauled high as one, inverting her bustle and exposing the rear of her corset and her frantically kicking lower legs. Miss Scarsdale said nothing, looking on with an expression of frozen detachment, as, writhing in shame and consternation, Thrift felt her corset panel unfastened and fixed up, to leave her bottom bulging out through the hole, the material of her drawers taut over her full cheeks.

  At the thought of how her rear view would look she let out another wail of self-pity. There was fear too, as she could see one of chaperones pulling suckers from the base of a nearby tree, long, whippy shoots she knew full well would be agony even through the cotton of her drawers. A ghastly sense of consternation at the unfairness of what was to be done filled her, and then she was babbling again.

  ‘No, no, no... this can not be! I can not be beaten, not like this! There is a mistake! A mistake! I am not meant to be here at all! I was to enter the Imperial Diplomatic Service, on recommendation from my father, Sir Kin... No!’

  Her final word was a scream. Fingers had closed on one of the buttons that held the rear panel of her drawers shut, and even as she let out a second agonised complaint it came open, exposing an area of plump, pink flesh high on one cheek of her bottom. She was being bared, something scarcely endurable at any time, but utterly unthinkable in front of the lower orders, and as the second button came loose she had found her voice once more, to pour out the full depth of her outrage and misery in a barely coherent stream of words.

  ‘No! I beg you! I beg you! It can not be done! It can not! Not! Not! Not! No! I beg! Have mercy! Miss Scarsdale, please, as one Lady to another, I implore you... I implore you... not bare! Not bare! Not bare!’

  Her words rose to a screech, but no notice whatever had been taken of her protests. The third button had been undone, to leave a long slice of flesh showing, a fourth to release one corner of the panel, which fell away to expose a good half o
f one chubby, girlish bottom cheek, a fifth and the top half had come down to reveal her slit, at which she’d become incapable of clear speech. She was still screaming at the top of her voice as the seventh button was popped open, the eighth went, the ninth...

  She was screaming incontinently as the full, rounded globe of her posterior came on show, bulging out through the hole in her corset in a froth of disordered lace, stark naked, a puff of hair showing where her thighs met her bottom cheeks, on the twin, pouted lips of her quim. Behind her she caught a girlish chuckle and she fell silent, too broken to even scream, but sobbing bitterly over the shoulder of the woman who held her, and who had barely moved despite Thrift’s desperate struggles.

  Limp and defeated, she waited for the pain of the cuts, certain that nothing could be worse than having her bottom exposed in front of common people. The woman with the tree suckers was behind her, holding five of the horrible things bunched in one big, red fist. She lifted, struck, and the rod slashed down onto Thrift’s unprotected bottom with a heavy smack, to evoke a scream that sent the rooks clattering into the air.

  Thrift lost control, immediately and completely, screaming and writhing on her captors back as she was thrashed, with no thought whatever for her dignity, save the realisation that whatever her mental torment, it was as nothing beside the hot agony of the rod. With the second stroke she was bucking her bottom frantically, in a futile and absurd effort to escape the cuts, unable to stop herself for all that she knew she was flaunting the rear pouch of her quim and her bottom hole too.

  On the third stroke she burst into tears, and was howling by the fourth, and thrashing harder than ever, for all that she was dimly aware of what a truly ludicrous sight she was making, and how all six of the other girls would be trying to suppress their sniggers as the comic display, just as she herself did when other girls were whipped. By the time it stopped she had lost count of the strokes, only she was not let down, but held in place, her rear view flaunted for all to see, plump pink bottom now ridged and welted, puckered anus winking in pained reaction, quim shamefully wet and puffy. Miss Scarsdale’s voice cut through the sound of Thrift’s own sobbing.

  ‘Let that be a lesson to you all. I am to be obeyed, without question, as are my assistants. Furthermore, here, social distinctions are of no consequence. You are equal in your shame before God and the Empire, and will be treated as such. You may put her down, Miss Laird, and place the cost of one wagon pot, china, against her account.’

  Thrift was lowered from the woman’s back, to stand shaking on the rough ground, her vision blurred with tears. Hastily she rearranged herself, buttoning her drawers, fastening her corset panel, and turning her bustle down, still acutely aware of her dishevelment until the last lacy petticoat edge was hidden. Even then the memory of what she’d shown off was burning in her head, just as the pain of her whipping was burning her bottom cheeks.

  By the time she had finished the other girls were already being marched towards the house, and Thrift joined the end of the line, still snivelling and trying to rub at her hot bottom through her clothes. As she reached the door she glanced up to read the inscription above it - “Weathercote House of Shame”.

  Chapter Two

  Ribblesdale, Yorkshire, February 2005

  Thrift sat down on her bed, quickly changed her mind and lay instead, face down, the pain of her whipped bottom overcoming her sense of propriety. The bed was hard, a thin mattress on a frame of wrought iron and criss-crossed wire. Her name was written in black ink on a sticker affixed to the top bar of the head. It was in keeping with the rest of the dormitory, a long, attic room that occupied the upper part of one whole wing of the building she had been taken too that afternoon. The floor and the beamed roof were bare wood. Windows in the roof and at the end looked out onto the bleak Yorkshire hills, and while each of the eight beds had a chest of drawers beside it and a pot beneath, there were neither pictures nor flowers. A basin with a single enamel water jug stood beside the door, which had heavy, black iron bolts, on the outside.

  Directly after her whipping she had been snivelling too badly to pay much attention, only vaguely taking in the bare stone walls and polished floorboards of the passages and rooms they had passed through. Initially they had been taken to what seemed to be a schoolroom, high-ceilinged, with tall, diamond paned windows looking out onto a neat garden and a double row of desks set out in front of a board. They had sat in silence, the chaperone looking over them with a stern eye. Even the colliery girls seemed intimidated.

  After maybe an hour another woman had come to collect them and they had been marched in line to another room, much like the first, only with two long tables flanked by benches. The chaperones, ten in all, had sat at one table, Miss Scarsdale at the head of the other, which had been laid out for the girls. A tasteless porridge of meat boiled with oats had been served, each girl sitting in a place apparently allotted by alphabet, which placed Thrift at the end corner, beside the sullen Kirsty MacAuslan and opposite the placid Sally-Anne Porter.

  The dormitory, to which they had been sent directly after their meal, was laid out on the same lines, with Thrift at the end of a row, one row of four, with an empty bed beside her and Sally-Anne opposite. The end window, much larger than those in the roof, provided light and a pretty view out over a walled kitchen garden and the valley, which she briefly tried to tell herself was a privilege due to her status before accepting the absurdity of the idea. The colliery girls had been untied and their gags removed to allow them to eat, Sally-Anne and Kirsty had also been released. None had spoken, but after a few minutes of silence in the dormitory Kirsty padded cautiously to the door. It proved to be unlocked, and she peered outside.

  ‘Nobody,’ she said, her thick Scots accent thicker even than those of the servants Thrift remembered from her childhood.

  Elizabeth immediately put her finger to her lips, drawing a puzzled look from Kirsty, but not Thrift, whose bitter and embarrassing memories of being overseen around the Diplomatic School came back sharply. Sure enough, footsteps sounded on the stair within moments, and even as each girl hastily retreated to her bed two of the chaperones stamped in. Kirsty was grabbed, flipped over onto her stomach, her tawdry brown dress turned up, her thin cotton splitters pulled wide and her little freckled bottom given a dozen heavy cuts with a wide, handled strap of thick, black leather. She took it without a sound, and as the chaperones left she gave their retreating backs a sign which sent the blood to Thrift’s cheeks.

  The incident left Thrift feeling weak and scared, also Elizabeth, who was white faced and shaking, as if she herself had been expecting a thrashing. Yet no sooner had the noise of the chaperones receded than she was signalling Sally-Anne towards her. The big girl came, looking puzzled, and in response to Elizabeth’s hand signals lifted the smaller girl onto her shoulders. With Sally-Anne standing, Elizabeth could reach the beams, and pointed to the one at the end of dormitory, above the door. Sally-Anne walked the few paces and stopped. Elizabeth leant forward to examine something, pulled a pin from her hair, made a few deft movements, and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘It’s only a sonic, an old Aldridge and Hobbs. I’ve opened the circuit, but we had better not leave it too long.’

  Thrift shut her eyes, expecting the sound of feet at any second and sure they would all be beaten this time, but nothing happened. Finally Kirsty spoke.

  ‘You’re a canny one, you. How did you know it was there?’

  ‘Because it’s on the same circuit as the light,’ Elizabeth answered, speaking more boldly than before and evidently proud of herself. ‘Note where the wire comes up from the door frame.’

  Still the chaperones failed to respond, and Thrift risked speaking

  ‘What... what if it had been a camera? What if there are others?’

  ‘If it was an optic they’d have beaten me too, would they not?’ Elizabeth answered. ‘For trying to give the
game away, and if there were others I’d be over my bed at this moment.’

  ‘See them, they’d beat you for breathing out of turn,’ Kirsty answered with feeling. ‘Bitch hags, the lot of them!’

  The other girls responded with nods of agreement, except for Lucy Prior, who after a moment spoke up in a soft, richly accented voice.

  ‘It would only be just if we were all to be beaten. You should reconnect the microphone, Elizabeth. We should all accept our due.’

  ‘Our due!’ Kirsty snapped back, amid a chorus of gasps. ‘Get her! Why are you here then? What did you do, a mouse like you, beyond bat your eyelids at some brave boy and let it all go a bit far? And to be sent here, in the middle of bloody nowhere, a workhouse would be bad enough, but...’

  Her voice was lost in a babble of agreement, from the colliery girls, from Sally-Anne, even Elizabeth. Lucy met the tirade with downcast eyes, but Thrift with mounting horror as she realised that there really had been some dreadful mistake, and that rather she really was in a house for disgraced women, a truth she had been struggling to deny since their arrival. Her companions immediately became more alarming still, girls who had really done, for pleasure, what Dr Molloy had done to her through necessity. Even the tiny Elizabeth and the mild mannered Lucy suddenly seemed shocking, and more memories came flooding back, of the way she had been treated at the Diplomatic School, and caught on film. As the babble of voices finally died she found herself blustering.

  ‘There has been a mistake... in the paperwork perhaps! There really has! I should not be here at all! Certainly I should not be whipped, and most of all, not in front of... of you...’

  ‘Your name’s on the bed,’ Kirsty stated, ‘same as ours. What, too good for us, are you, ‘cause you’re a Pollicle, eh?’