‘We must use this to our advantage,’ Elizabeth cut in. ‘If you are lose in the house at night we could get maps from the schoolroom, food also, and spice to scent your clothes, Lucy.’
‘Must I really be pursued by the dogs?’ Lucy asked.
‘Mr Ormondroyd keeps them on their leads,’ Thrift answered her. ‘At least, he did when they were after me.’
‘And if he lets them slip!?’ Lucy demanded.
‘No doubt they are well trained.’
‘No doubt,’ Lucy answered and made a face. ‘But we must get back, or be strapped.’
‘We’ll be a moment,’ Elizabeth said quickly. ‘Thrift, could you get what we need?’
‘No!’ Thrift answered. ‘She came to collect me, and she brought me back. I was never alone.’
‘We may be certain that Mrs Budge’s behaviour is not authorised. What if you were to threaten her with exposure to Miss Scarsdale. She herself might be persuaded to get the maps?’
‘I would never dare! Think how I would be punished!’
‘Sadly this is true. She had been drinking, had she not?’
‘Yes. You saw the bottle, in my... my fundament if you please! Why, is this of consequence?’
‘Yes. If she is drunk enough she may fall asleep. You must encourage her, ask for drink yourself but do not swallow. Behave in any way that will gain her confidence.’
Thrift nodded bleakly.
Mrs Budge did not come for her that night, nor the next, both of which Thrift spent in nervous apprehension, sleeping only when exhaustion caught up with her. On the third night Mrs Budge did come, and Thrift went meekly, led from the dormitory and into the opposite wing of the house as before. She was soundly spanked and fondled, but not brought off before she was put on her knees and made to lick. Once Mrs Budge had come, it took all of Thrift’s nerve to ask if she might have a glass of stout, then hint that it might be an idea to take her to bed.
In response, Mrs Budge took Thrift downstairs and into a locked cellar where the stout was kept. They fetched three bottles, and drank them, Thrift struggling not to swallow but still dizzy with drink before the last had been drained dry. She was then taken to bed, spanked, made to lick with her body mounted head to toe so that her bottom and quim could be fondled and smacked while she did it, spanked again, frigged off with her hot bottom stuck high and a stout bottle in her anus as before, and finally taken back to the dormitory. Mrs Budge seemed no more drunk than usual, and Thrift was once more left face down with the neck of a bottle up her bottom until the urge came to relieve herself.
Elizabeth insisted that Thrift continued to try, but it was the same the next two times, with Thrift thoroughly used before being taken back to the dormitory, drunk, and Mrs Budge apparently none the worse for wear. She was spanked and molested repeatedly, made to dance and adopt lewd poses, to masturbate herself both kneeling with her knees spread and on all fours. Fingers and bottles were stuck up her bottom, her quim rubbed, fingered and used with the bottle, candles, and the handle of a strap. She was made to come again and again, in a dozen lewd and humiliating way. Before long she was permanently exhausted and beginning to get strapped more and more often during the day due to her lack of sleep. On the fourth occasion she was sent down to fetch the stout on her own.
With her heart in her mouth she ran light-footed down the stairs and along the corridor to the schoolroom. A moment of desperate, terrified work with the light on and she had the Ordnance Survey map for the area, and two more from beside it, all of which she quickly pushed into her own desk. A dash to the cellar, three bottles snatched from the crate and by the time she returned to Mrs Budge’s room she was given no more than a curt word and a slap on the back of her legs for being slow. A minute later she was on her knees, her face smothered in warm, musky cunt flesh as Mrs Budge started on one of the bottles, and even having to lick did not dilute her sense of triumph.
The next day she managed to smuggle the three maps into the dormitory and as soon as the door was bolted the local one was spread out on the spare bed. It showed a great expanse of hill and dale, empty, rocky land with few roads and fewer railways. Weathercote House was marked, near the centre, and King Alfred’s Seat, and the railway viaduct, details which Thrift took in as the others waited for Elizabeth to speak.
‘Each of us must take a different route,’ she finally stated, ‘and Joanna and Jane together if they must, but first we climb the wall and go down to the stream in a group, being sure to leave a clear trail. We then spread out in a star pattern so that the spaces between us widen as quickly as possible, again increasing the individual odds of escape. Lucy, you are to double back and take a path directly up Whernside, as if making for home. The bracken and rocks will hinder the hounds, with luck, and hopefully they will think we’re all still together, so the further you get the better for us all.’
‘Be brave,’ Kirsty urged as Lucy nodded weakly.
‘Kirsty,’ Elizabeth went on, ‘they’d expect you to try for the railway, Carlisle and then Glasgow, but you’re to make almost due west, to Kendal, which is a tourist centre where nobody will spare a Scottish girl of your class a second glance.’
‘Three or four cocks, and I’m for Glasgow!’ Kirsty answered with relish.
‘Cocks?’ Thrift queried, and then her mouth had come open in shock as she realised the implication of Kirsty’s words. ‘You... you don’t mean to sell your favours!?’
‘What do you think I’m in here for, you daft Pollicle bitch!’ Kirsty answered. ‘And if you’ve any sense you, you’ll do the same. How else to get money?’
Thrift was left speechless, but Elizabeth went on boldly.
‘We must all be prepared to sacrifice our dignity, if we must. Not now, Kirsty, please?’
Kirsty had been coming around the end of the bed, but stopped.
‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘but see this, Miss Thrift high-and-bloody-mighty Moncrieff, when you’re sitting in your drawing room sipping at tea in your fancy china, mind you’ve had your tongue up a Glasgow tart’s arsehole.’
Thrift made a face, but went back to studying the map as Elizabeth continued.
‘Sally-Anne, then, will head straight up the valley and across the coll, so down the River Lune to Lancaster and on to Blackpool, where she says she can hope for employment?’
‘No questions asked, in the season,’ Sally-Anne answered, ‘not for a girl to pull pints.’
‘Then Jane and Joanna, if you really won’t go apart?’ Elizabeth asked, and both twins shook their heads as one. ‘You’re to take a train, but south, from the northern end of the viaduct. My guess is they’ll be waiting for you at Settle, and Skipton too, but they can’t wait everywhere, not with all seven of us lose. Wait for an express, which will have at least eight coaches including those for the quality and professionals. That will take you to Leeds, where you must jump the train and run back down the tracks in case the station staff have been alerted.’
Both nodded. They were holding hands across their laps, and for the first time since Thrift had seen them in the pillory they seemed to have a touch of vulnerability. Elizabeth nodded and went on, prodding her finger at the map.
‘Thrift, you must make due south across the flank of Ingleborough, towards High Bentham, and you will take the map. Note, here and here, estates are marked, presumably the seats of quality families, to whom you may explain your predicament.’
‘And yourself?’ Thrift queried.
‘Leave me to my own devices,’ Elizabeth answered, ‘and one day, maybe, we shall be able to meet again and joke about tonight. As soon as it’s dark, let us dress, and get some blankets tied.’
‘We’re going now?’ Kirsty demanded.
‘Why not?’ Elizabeth answered. ‘The evening is dry, the moon bright, and Mrs Budge is less likely to come after so thoroughly enjoying Thr
ift last night. What better opportunity will there be?’
‘You’re right, Duck,’ Joanna agreed.
‘Just as soon as it’s properly dark, and the lights are off,’ Jane remarked, moving back to peer from the window.’
‘Midnight,’ Kirsty said firmly, ‘to be sure all the hags are well asleep.’
‘The house is always quiet by the time Mrs Budge comes for me,’ Thrift stated. ‘Eleven would be possible.’
‘Probably she waits until the last of the day staff are down before she comes to collect you,’ Elizabeth pointed out. ‘Let us wait until midnight.’
‘See, good sense,’ Kirsty stated, ‘and time for you two to take a little lick before we leave, that’s you, Pollicle, and Lucy. I’ll give Lizzie a rest, seeing as how she’s done so much.’
‘But...,’ Thrift began, meaning to protest that she had been the one to feign affection for the awful Mrs Budge, only Kirsty was already coming towards her.
‘Help to pass the time, keep us from fretting,’ Kirsty joked as she took Thrift firmly by the hair, ‘come on, you, you can do my Brown Billy first.’
She was already turning as she spoke, with Thrift’s hair held tightly in her fist, and had quickly pulled the rear of her drawers apart. Thrift struggled for a moment as she found herself faced with the neat, freckled buttocks, slightly parted to show the tight pink hole she was expected to put her tongue up, and then she was doing it, her face in Kirsty’s bottom, licking. Kirsty sighed as Thrift’s tongue burrowed up her bottom hole, and stuck herself out a little more.
As she lapped at the dirty little star of flesh under her mouth, Thrift could see around the curve of Kirsty’s hip, to where Lucy had been put on her knees between Jane’s thighs as Joanna watched her sister licked in open delight. Sally-Anne stood to one side, arms folded under her massive breasts, waiting patiently, until, to Thrift’s surprise, a shyly smiling Elizabeth got down in front of the big girl and buried her face.
With Thrift’s mouth full of the taste of Kirsty’s bottom hole and her quim already urgent and wet, she was mounted, pushed back on her bed to have her face sat on. She continued to lick, with Kirsty now moving her bottom to get attention to her quim as well as her anus. Soon Thrift had abandoned herself and let her thighs come open, to rub her quim in the sure knowledge that all six of the other girls could see, and would know what she was doing, masturbating over the pleasure of licking Kirsty’s bottom, a common girl, and also a tart.
The thought held in Thrift’s head as she teased herself towards orgasm and licked as well as she could. As Kirsty had said, she would never forget, no matter what she did, even if she were to marry a noble, even royalty, that she had once licked a common girl’s bottom hole, and willingly, masturbating as she did it, in a welter of dirty, wanton submission, her tongue stuck up a Glasgow tart’s arsehole...
They came together, in bliss for one long moment, Thrift’s fingers pinching at her bump as she tongued Kirsty’s, and the fluid from her pussy spraying out through her fingers, to draw a laugh from one of the twins. Kirsty stayed on her seat for a while even when it was done, deliberately rubbing her bottom into Thrift’s face, and when she did dismount Sally-Anne was already done, and Lucy busy with Joanna. They too had finished in moments, and the girls went to their separate beds, save for Thrift, who crawled in with Elizabeth.
An hour passed, and a second, the chimes of the house clocks clear in the silent night, Thrift cuddled close to Elizabeth, dreading the footfall of Mrs Budge. It never came, and with half an hour to midnight they climbed from their beds once more, to dress with trembling urgency. Thrift chose the dress in which she had come up from London, and the underwear that went with it, abandoning only the corset on grounds of practicality. The others were ready before her, and tying their blankets into a sturdy double rope. As soon as the rope was ready Kirsty went to the window, opening it carefully to peer out over the moonlit moors, then signalling the others forward.
Sally-Anne went first, her long legs allowing her to straddle the cucumber frame. Lucy followed, with a last threat from Kirsty and a strip torn from her drawers stuffed into her mouth to make absolutely sure she didn’t scream. Joanna went next, and Jane, Thrift, Elizabeth and Kirsty. Together in the kitchen garden they stole down to where the wall ran along the bank of the stream, and over, Sally-Anne boosting them high one by one and hauling herself up last.
They crossed the stream on rocks, and said their farewells with hugs and kisses, even Kirsty and the twins wishing Thrift luck, then scattered, each to her allotted route, with Thrift following the road some little way, running silently on the verge, then cutting south, to cross the stream once more and begin a slow and cautious climb up the flank of Ingleborough.
She went with her heart in her mouth, starting at every noise and again and again looking back towards Weathercote House, expecting to find the windows ablaze with the light that would signal the discovery of their flight. It never came, and when at last the bulk of the hill had hidden the house from sight she began to let herself dare to hope.
Just minutes later she came within an instant of stumbling into a great black sink hole that seemed to appear from nowhere, and she moved on more cautiously still, keeping to flat limestone pavement when she could, and stopping every few yards to peer ahead over the moonlit valley. It was too dark to read the map, but she could make out woods, perhaps coverts on some great estate, towards which she moved.
If the moors had been hard going, the valley was worse. The trees threw long and confusing shadows, every hedge seemed to be composed entirely of thorn trees and brambles and to hide a ditch, every gate and every lane seemed to lead in a direction she did not want to go. She was soon exhausted and confused, only the fear of pursuit keeping her going, stolidly on, until the moon set and she had quickly lost all sense of direction in utter blackness. Too tired to move, or to even care if she was caught, she sat down with her back to a tree. For a while she remained still, listening fearfully to the night noises, but in minutes she was asleep.
Chapter Six
Claughton Fell, Lancashire, May 2005
Thrift woke to the cold, with the first light of dawn breaking in the east above what was presumably the Lune Valley. Her teeth were chattering and she was shivering badly, so she jumped to her feet and quickly completed the morning exercise regime she had grown so used to at Weathercote House before taking a look around as the light grew slowly stronger. She was in a wood, and had been resting against the bole of an oak of impressive maturity, with other trees all around her and the field across which she had stumbled before finally giving in to her exhaustion behind.
Her dress was somewhat the worse for wear, her hair a bedraggled mess, her face scratched and every muscle in body aching, yet none of it mattered. She was free, and needed only to speak to somebody of suitable station to have that freedom confirmed. Then, at last, there would be no more endless bare bottom strappings, no more being made to jump up and down in her underwear or less, no more lewd spankings and fondling from Mrs Budge, no more being made to lick Kirsty’s bottom hole...
At the last she felt a faint pang of regret, but bit it down, and was smiling at her own wanton behaviour as she set off through the wood. It was parkland, plainly, great trees of both British and foreign origin planted in an artfully random pattern, with clumps of rhododendron and exotic fern between. Her own uncle owned land not dissimilar, raising her hopes that she was on the estate of some senior member of the aristocracy, perhaps even the Duke of Lancaster himself, as to judge by the lie of the hills and her map, she had crossed the county border.
She found a path, and followed it, quickly reaching the edge of the wood, where the land sloped down across rough pasture to a fine ornamental lake, with lawns beyond, and a fine three storey house of late Regency design standing among beds of gorgeous red roses, confirming that she was in Lancashire. Pausing only to pull her
fingers through her hair to get rid of the worst of the twigs and to brush her dress down, she stepped boldly forward, considering her opening address to whoever she happened to meet first, depending on their station in life.
Only as she drew closer did she realise that a good many of the shutters were closed, and that while there was an elderly gardener pottering among the rose beds, there seemed to be very few people about. She walked on anyway, ignoring the gardener’s curious glance, to the front of the house, where a circular carriage-sweep stood at the end of a magnificent avenue of ancient limes, with the gates of the estate visible perhaps a quarter mile distant.
The front door was shut, which seemed odd, unless the family were not at home, which gave her a fresh pang of concern. She hesitated, wondering if it would not be best to move on somewhere else, when a woman appeared around the side of the house, short, buxom, with blonde hair pinned up beneath a mop cap and no corset, plainly a housemaid or perhaps a cook. Thrift gave a polite inclination of her head, and walked forward, about to speak when she came into view of the stable area, and the back of a van, a black Alvis van. She froze, unable to run as the stocky woman’s searching eyes narrowed in surprise.
‘You’ll be the young lady for Miss Virtue? Miss Eccles, isn’t it?’
Thrift bobbed her head again, completely unable to speak.
‘I’m Mrs Slyne, Housekeeper hereabouts,’ the woman went on. ‘My, but you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. Are you quite alright?’
‘I... I had a fall,’ Thrift managed, desperately playing for time and ready to run the instant a chaperone appeared.
‘Rode over, did we?’ The woman asked. ‘Well, it’s no business of mine, to be certain, but you’d better get brushed up and have a bath, or goodness knows what her Ladyship’ll have to say. Best you come with me.’
She made for the house, and Thrift followed, aware only that she was being taken to see a titled lady, and if she could only avoid whichever chaperones were there she would be safe. Not even Miss Scarsdale would dare to try and override somebody of such high rank, and at last Thrift would be able to speak to some appropriate official, perhaps even her father.
Schooled for Service Page 13
