As I struggled to hold my tongue still, she said, “What took you so long, my little twit? The midday meal has past.”
Frozen in place I replied, “Ma’am, I sought to please you and I spent extra time to ensure that my first task was completed to its fullest extent.”
“Humph.” She spun me around to face her and then locked her vice-like fingers onto my ear and pulled me onto my tiptoes. Even from this vantage point I had to strain my neck to look up into her eyes. “In the future you will please me by being both quick and thorough. This time I shall let it go, but don’t make the mistake of thinking this goodwill will happen again.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Go get your meal and then attend to her ladyship’s rooms. I understand that Sir Anthony wants a word with you.”
“Yes ma’am.”
This notion of spying upon Lady Barnet from within her household was clearly a mistake. I’ll not have a minute to do more than serve Mrs. Davenport’s wishes. However, I returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Johnson had kindly saved me a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, which I devoured with a new found hunger. After washing my dishes, I refilled my bucket with fresh, hot, soapy water and fetched two clean dusting cloths. Carefully, I carried these up the stairs ensuring that not a drop might be spilled. At the top floor landing I surveyed the rooms. There was her ladyship’s suite of rooms that included a sitting room with her dressing table and closet, and a separate bedroom. Also on the top floor were two other bedrooms. I found one of these bedrooms occupied by the man a couple of years younger than I, whom I had come to know from my clandestine observations as Sir Anthony.
I knocked softly on the doorframe and, when he looked up, I said, “Sir, I beg your pardon for my intrusion, but I am Marge the new maid. I was instructed that you wished a word with me.” Wearing a morning jacket, he had been sitting in a chair with his back to the window reading the Times. Not speaking a word, he carefully refolded the paper and placed it on the small table. When this task was finally completed, he again turned to me and said, “So… you are the one who awoke the neighborhood so early this morning.” I opened my mouth to confirm that it had been I, but he did not wait for my response before he continued. “I spent the better part of the night ensuring that her ladyship would awaken with a smile on her lips and then you…” Leaving the thought unfinished, as we both certainly knew what his final words would have been. Nonetheless, his statement was confusing. While I had surmised that he shared a seemingly matrimonial relationship with the older widow, Lady Barnet, I could not imagine what task he had undertaken during the night that would result in a pleased demeanor upon her ladyship in the morn.
However, he now seemed to be waiting for my response so I forced my thoughts to return to the conversation. Unfortunately, I could think of nothing to say. I finally mustered a reply, “I’m deeply regretful, sir. It won’t happen again.”
He chuckled, “Oh, I expect it will.” Then with a serious voice he elaborated, “Mrs. Davenport is very old-school when it comes to ensuring the efficiency of the household. With these modern times upon us, the art of skillfully accepting one’s punishment is no longer included in the common education curriculums. Therefore, poor Mrs. Davenport is left to work with such inferior twits as you. For the benefit of the house and, for that matter, the entire neighborhood, I will take upon myself the task of completing your missing instructions. Following a few lessons from my hand, you will not only be able to concentrate fully upon your tasks, but you will also learn to quietly accept Mrs. Davenport’s corrections, thusly we will all be much happier and better rested.”
He smiled. I frowned.
He continued by directing me to place my cleaning equipment off to the side and then to stand before him. He spent a few minutes instructing me on the proper standing posture expected of a person of my low class when in the presence of one’s better. The position required me to place my feet close together with my legs and back straight. My hands were either to be by my sides if I were carrying my cleaning bucket or folded behind my back when my hands were empty. Furthermore, my chest was to be pressed forward, but my chin was to be slightly tilted downward so that I gazed upon his shoes. Now I understand why the other maid left this employment. He then spent several minutes teaching me to curtsy, which was actually a skill I acquired in the finishing school Father selected for me. However, Sir Anthony insisted on a significantly slower, deeper and more subservient posture; fortunately my slender body easily slid into a pose that pleased him.
“We will continue today’s instructions with the strap and perhaps the cane if remedial lessons are required.” He produced from a closet what appeared to be a short but broad and very thick leather strip. Like Mrs. Davenport’s paddle, it had one end tapering into a handle. Holding this handle he demonstrated the instrument with a slap upon the mattress, the report of which surely made me jump. The cane turned out to be a three foot long slender birch rod in which one end had been bent into a curve. He held this instrument about a foot down its length with the curve lodged inside his wrist. With a whoosh, this too impacted the mattress with a report reminiscent of a pistol shot and even left a crease in the bed sheet. Leaving the cane upon the bed he retrieved the strap and said, “Assume the position.”
Now I fully understood the meaning of that statement and I almost eagerly complied by lying across the arm of the chair in which I had discovered him sitting. I complied ‘almost eagerly’ because I welcomed the opportunity to get off my feet before I fainted. It had been one thing for Mrs. Davenport to lift the hem of my frock but it was entirely something else to idly allow this man to do the same. As I sensed his hand exposing my drawers I quickly thrust my hands backward to stop him.
“Sir!” Again I was on the cusp of presenting my true nature as a London Detective, but I commanded my tongue into stillness for the purpose of completing my assignment.
“My but you are a shy little tart. You will use your hands to hold the opposite chair arm and nothing more. You will not be warned again.” He waited until I withdrew my hands and gripped the chair arm as instructed before continuing to lift the hem until my skirt was all but inverted with its hem resting upon my shoulders. To ensure that it remained in place, he fixed some pins to attach the hem material to the shoulders of my frock. Then the greatest humiliation of the day occurred as he pulled the ribbon holding my drawers close. As the bowknot unfurled, the material fell open and my nude bottom was exposed once again – exposed under the view of this man. As the cool air spawned goose bumps on my derrière, I struggled to breathe. I clamped my thighs together to keep my other secrets hidden.
I must retain my composure and carry on with Captain Stuart’s assignment no matter what!
“Today’s lesson will be a simple example. I will administer five swats with the strap and you will remain motionless and quiet. If you fail at this examination we will repeat it. If you fail the second attempt we will use the cane for the necessary remedial instructions.”
I had thought that my morning’s introduction to the paddle was the worst imaginable pain, but Sir Anthony proved that assumption far wrong when the strap’s first impression upon my still bruised fanny impacted.
WHACK!
I managed to hold still and quiet for the first three swats, but my voice betrayed me, and my feet folded up in their meager attempt to protect my bottom when the fourth swat landed. Sir Anthony ignored this response and quickly landed the fifth stinging swat before saying, “That was one failure. Now we will try it again. Keep your butt held high and your legs firmly straight. Remember what will happen if you fail a second time.” He again creased the mattress with the cane. Staring at the cane on the bed with the two creases in the sheet I locked my knees and my jaw and with a startling suddenness...
WHACK!
Without pausing for as much as a breath he began the second set of five immediately. While tears streamed down my face, I gritted my teeth and held my mouth firmly shut while my knees remained
locked tight to hold my feet down.
WHACK… WHACK… WHACK… WHACK!
In this way I completed the examination and was spared the cane. While still in the position lying across the chair, he left me in peace to compose myself while he returned the strap and the cane to the closet. Leaving my drawers open and frock’s hem pinned high he instructed me to stand. After ensuring my proper posture and a brief inspection of his handiwork upon my bruised bottom he returned to sit in the chair and resume his reading of the newspaper.
“Now you may complete your cleaning tasks,” he said.
Kneeling on the floor with the bucket and brush I scrubbed the floor while he watched my red bottom though he feinted reading the paper. There was no hiding my soft pink folds. After fifteen minutes of this humiliation he unpinned my frock releasing its hem to fall back into place and he allowed me to retie the ribbon closing my drawers.
“Finish cleaning and report back to Mrs. Davenport. We will consider another lesson tomorrow.”
After that, he left me alone. With an astonishingly sore bottom and a status of total humiliation, I devoted my entire being toward the completion of my cleaning task in the remainder of the rooms. While in Lady Barnet’s rooms I completely forgot that the original purpose for my entrance into this employment was to search for evidence of her criminal endeavor.
Mrs. Johnson gave me a pillow to sit upon during the evening meal of boiled beef, cabbage and cornbread.
After dinner Lucy and I retired to our room. She took delight in examining my, by now, purple bruises as I put on my nightdress without my drawers. Then, wearing her nightdress and lying on her back, she began reading a worn and ragged penny dreadful: Varney the Vampyre’s Feast of Blood, by J. M. Rymer. I was lying on my stomach and prayed for sleep.
“Would you like one?” she asked saying the first kind words to me since my arrival.
“Thank you,” I responded and she passed me a copy of Spring-Heeled Jack.
As I began to read it she asked, “Can you read?”
“Yes.”
“I can only read a little. Mostly, I just look at the pictures.”
From the dog-eared nature of the pamphlets I gathered that she had spent many hours looking at the pictures. “Would you like me to read out loud?”
“Please.”
“Out of the enormous army of highwaymen, footpads, and housebreakers, who have made themselves famous or infamous in the annals of English crime—”
“No… please, this one,” and she handed me Varney the Vampyre.
So I began again, “The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight – the air is thick and heavy – a strange, death-like stillness pervades all nature.”
Mrs. Davenport opened our door without knocking. She was holding her paddle.
“You,” she pointed at me, “come here. This is not the workhouse, but you’ll not escape what’s coming to you.” Without the pain of rolling to sit upon my backside, I got up from the bed and walked over to her as she stood between the still open door and the foot railing of my bed. “Over,” she said as she smacked her left palm with the paddle and then used it to point at the foot railing.
I swallowed hard and lay across it with my bare feet flat on floor and my forearms on the mattress. I turned to look at Lucy with her saucer-sized eyes now sitting on her bed with rapt attention. Mrs. Davenport lifted the hem of my nightdress and I dearly wished that she would close the door, but I dared not ask.
“Goodness… Sir Anthony did have a time with you.”
It was a statement of which I was well aware. I said nothing.
“Very well. We’ll let that be that,” she said with a hint of tenderness and turned to leave. “One story and then get to sleep,” she said as a mother would say to a child, and then she closed the door.
Lucy said nothing as I resumed my posture on the bed and continued reading from where I had left off, “Like the ominous calm which precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak…”
~ 3 ~
The Observation
Expecting that I would be under close scrutiny, I set aside a period of three days during which I made every effort to complete my assignments thoroughly and quickly without any attempt to examine the affairs of Countess Barnet. During this period I exercised great caution to always present a humbled persona and, as a successful result, I had no additional punishment from Mrs. Davenport during this period and only one additional lesson from Sir Anthony. On my second afternoon when I ascended the stairs to clean the upper rooms he called from his bedroom’s doorway, “Marge… I believe it is Marge?”
“Yes, Sir Anthony.”
“I require a word with you,” and he gestured for me to enter his room. Without being instructed, I placed my cleaning supplies by the fireplace and stood before him in the manner he had previously instructed – arms folded behind my back and staring at his shoes with my chest pushed forward. “My, but you learn so quickly. I suspect that Mrs. Davenport is misled in her statements that you are slow witted.” Not knowing how to respond I merely fidgeted in my position and said nothing. “Perhaps no one has taken the time to find the correct way to stimulate your memory… eh?”
Now this was a question, but no response was quick to materialize in my mind. He waited and finally I said, “Sir, I am always grateful for your instructions.” While this response might have stroked his ego, the statement surely risked his lashing my bottom.
He chuckled. I frowned.
He retrieved a riding crop from his closet. Standing behind me he lifted the hem of my frock and pinned it to my shoulders as he had done the previous afternoon. Then he loosened the ribbon of my drawers, but not so much as to make them fall away, but only to open the fabric sufficiently to expose my soft skin for his examination. While humiliating, I was now somewhat accustomed to displaying myself and did not react.
“Today’s lesson will be on concentration. You will learn to keep your mind focused upon your task without regard to distractions from your surroundings. You will learn to focus on your hands and not on the conversations of your betters that might also be in the room. The quicker you complete your task of cleaning my room, the quicker this lesson will be over. Begin cleaning now.”
Picking up a clean dusting cloth, I began to dust the figurines on the mantel. Several times a minute he would give me a sharp SNAP on my bottom with the riding crop. This produced a sharp pain, but not nearly as severe as the strap. “You have chosen poorly for your first efforts.” SNAP, “Should you drop one of those delicate figurines it will surely shatter and then my cane will come into use,” he cautioned.
SNAP! “Eyes on you work.”
I continued the dusting, but concentrated hard and always maintained a firm grip lest one of his whacks with the riding crop caused me to startle and drop one of her ladyship’s possessions.
SNAP! “Focus your attention. Do not attempt to anticipate my swats.”
At the end of the hour, I finished my cleaning by scrubbing the floor on hands and knees.
SNAP! “Pay close attention to where the splashes might land.”
I had started at the far corner and progressed toward the door so that I would not have to tread over the wet floor. He walked behind me and continued to SNAP my arse at random intervals, but I had successfully managed to put this humiliation and pain out of my mind and concentrated only upon expeditious completion of my task.
SNAP!
“You have learned well, Marge. I see no need for an application of the strap.” He unpinned the hem of my frock from its attachment to my shoulders. “Fix yourself and continue cleaning her ladyship’s room.”
“Thank you, sir.”
With that, he descended the stairs, leaving me alone.
I appeared to be accepted into the household routine. Each night I could not fail to notice that her ladyship and Sir Anthony retired to the upper floor together and each morn she reappeared bright, refreshed and smiling while he stumbled in a state
of exhaustion or more likely remained in bed until the very late morn. The nocturnal activity he performed to create this smile upon her lips remained a puzzlement. In addition to my investigation into Countess Barnet’s finances, I set myself upon the supplementary task of solving this riddle as well.
After the three day hiatus from my spying task, I began to take every opportunity to observe her ladyship’s demeanor with respect to things she appeared to keep hidden. It was my expectation that I should be able to find where she recorded her income and expenses, for surely she must have some manner of tracking these funds. From these records I anticipated that I could discern their source. Whenever I was certain that I was alone and unobserved, I would leaf through the papers and notebooks in her desk and dressing table drawers. This endeavor was simplified when the countess found favor with me and implored me to begin addressing her as Lady Ann. This favoritism was not due to my exemplary cleaning skills, but upon her awareness of my skill with the application of her facial cosmetics and arrangement of her hair. These were the skills that I had acquired from my attendance of the schools selected by my father for the education befitting the daughter of the Minister of Metropolitan Police.
Notwithstanding the advantage of this small escalation in my household class status – as I was no longer its lowest member; this honor having been returned to Lucy – rather the principle advantage of Lady Ann’s favor was to afford me opportunities to enter the upper floor without an express purpose. Through these endeavors I had located where she kept her receipts within her writing desk. While these did detail her major purchases of jewelry and household inventory totaling a significant sum, there were no records relating to her income. I had observed that Lady Ann never allowed either Lucy or me to enter her closet unescorted. Therefore, this secretive place intrigued me and upon searching her ladyship’s closet, I found a small strong box. Using a hairpin, I released its lock to reveal a tidy sum in coinage and Bank of England notes. However, this sum was nowhere near that represented by her ladyship’s expenditures and no bank deposit books were found. I returned everything the way I had found it and began to examine other items on the closet floor, whereupon I identified a loose board in the flooring. Prying up this board revealed a second strong box, and due to its enhanced secure location it was not locked. Inside was a substantial collection of valuable jewelry, but no additional cash or bank papers. This too was returned to its hiding place.
Miss Rowan Learns Her Lesson (Lady Detective Book 1) Page 3
