I cannot but marvel at the strange reversal in our situations, but, as my beloved fiancé is fond of saying, 'The Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform'.
I leave you with God, cousin, and may He have mercy upon your soul.
Antoinette
Measure for Measure
Susan Henderson:
I'll never forget it, even if I did forgive her.
It happened the first Saturday in Lent. I'd just turned eighteen, and was in my second term in the Upper Sixth at St Hilda's.
I was about to set off for the village after lunch - as we were permitted to do on Saturdays - when Miss McKenzie called me over and held out a florin, asking me to buy her two bars of Cadbury's (the best chocolate you could get, in those days before foreign imports). She said she was coming down with a cold and needed cheering up.
"Yes, Miss, I'd be happy to," I said, taking the coin and curtsying.
"You can keep the change, Susan," she said, "but mind you don't spend it on sweets. You know how seriously the Reverend takes the rule of abstinence for you girls during Lent. But you can save it up for Easter, can't you?"
"Yes, Miss, of course. Thank you, Miss." She knew my parents were pretty hard up and couldn't spare much for pocket money, so I appreciated the gesture and looked forward to the shilling I'd have left over after buying the bars of chocolate.
The Reverend Brighouse was our Headmaster: to us he was a bit remote, a solemn Presbyterian who ran a tight ship, though he left the responsibility for administering corporal punishment to his female Deputies.
"Just pop up to my room and drop them off when you get back," said Miss McKenzie as I turned to leave. "Thank you, Susan."
"Thank you, Miss."
Everyone liked Miss McKenzie: she was the only mistress who'd sometimes call you by your first name - though not in lessons, of course - and she was slow to scold, or report you.
I don't remember what I did in the village - later events must have obscured my memory - but of course I know I bought the chocolate, because that's what got me into such trouble with Miss Barrett.
I was wearing my uniform, as we were obliged to even at weekends, and I remember the chocolate was in the right pocket of my blazer. As I walked back up the drive and passed the Art block on my right, I heard someone calling my name. I looked over and saw Miss Barrett holding one of the windows open, and leaning out. She'd been newly appointed as a Deputy Head that January, after Miss Pugh had retired. Unlike Miss McKenzie, she was a stickler for the rules, only ever used surnames, and made us all feel rather wary of her.
"Henderson! Come here at once, girl!"
"Miss?" I asked, bewildered by the seriousness of her tone.
"What's that in your pocket?" she demanded.
Understanding the cause of her disapproval now, I replied quickly,
"Oh! It's chocolate, Miss, for..."
She cut me off before I could explain.
"Chocolate!" she cried. "Come in here immediately." She disappeared, closing the window behind her.
My heart was pounding, but I was sure that the misunderstanding would soon be resolved, so I entered the Art block confidently, turning right into the main studio. Miss Barrett was upon me immediately, absolutely furious, demanding to know what made me think I was 'so special'. She berated me for my greed and ungodliness, and reminded me of the Headmaster's strict rule about maintaining our abstinence during Lent.
"But Miss ..." I tried. Before I could say another word, she grabbed the chocolate, took me firmly by the ear and dragged me over to one of the large tables.
"Miss, please!" I begged. "Miss McKenzie asked me to buy it for her!"
She let go of my ear and stared at me, her expression even darker.
"I beg your pardon, Henderson? Do you dare to add mendacity to what is already a despicable sin?"
"But it's true, Miss, honestly it is..."
"Nonsense, girl! You're simply trying to lie your way out of trouble! How dare you! Miss McKenzie isn't even here today - she's away with the hockey team for a match against Wantage High."
"No, Miss, she can't be, she-"
"Silence!" she shouted. Without further ado, she grabbed one of those three-foot wooden rulers they use for designing, and forced me over the table. Then, lifting my skirt out of the way, she stepped back and whacked me.
God, it hurt! That ruler left a vicious sting. I tried to get up and protest, but she pushed me back down, saying if I attempted to evade my punishment I'd get a caning from Mrs Baines (she was the other Deputy Head, greatly feared for her strong right arm).
She gave me seven more - really hard whacks. She carried on scolding me as she thrashed the ruler into my poor bottom. The pain grew and spread until I was in absolute agony. I was yelping and squirming, trying to avoid the blows. I wanted to put my hands back to protect myself, but I didn't dare - she was in such a fury I'm sure she would have whacked my knuckles instead.
When she threw down the ruler and told me to get up, my bottom was so sore and throbbing I could hardly think. I was crying with pain and shame.
"The Reverend will be gravely disappointed to hear about this," she said coldly. "Now get out of my sight!"
Utterly mortified, I walked slowly to the door, wincing with every step as my buttocks burned and ached. I turned, thinking maybe I should try again to explain the mistake, but the look on her face put paid to that idea; anyway, I realised she would probably find out soon enough.
Which, of course, she did, and the next day she apologised profusely. She even offered to write to my parents to explain, but I said there was no need - it would only have meant more embarrassment, and not just for me: she seemed uncomfortable enough herself.
I forgave her, but as I said, I'll never forget that day - it was the worst whacking I ever got, and yet I was completely innocent. Life can be cruel sometimes.
---oOo---
Deborah Barrett:
Saturday, February 26th 1953 - I remember the date clearly because it was without doubt one of the lowest points of my career, or indeed, of my entire life, and yet ... it also marked a very significant turning point.
Despite having suffered since childhood from shyness and a lack of self-confidence, I was fortunate to have been blessed with a counterbalancing dose of intelligence and determination. Looking back, I can see that it was these latter qualities that enabled me to cope (at least partially) with that debilitating self-consciousness; and also, of course, to carve out a successful career as a teacher.
At the age of thirty-three, after eight years at St Hilda's, I had been asked by the Reverend Brighouse to succeed Eileen Pugh as his second Deputy Head. It was a challenge I accepted, though not without those same misgivings as to my suitability that had plagued me all my life.
The role involved many duties, the most challenging of which, for me, was dealing with disciplinary issues. Having on a few occasions received corporal punishment myself as a girl, I knew how humiliating and painful it could be, so I was reluctant at first to have to resort to it. Instead, for the first month or so in my new post, I avoided its use, choosing instead to set lines or impose a detention.
It wasn't long, of course, before Mrs Baines, my fellow Deputy and a seasoned campaigner, took me aside and questioned me about my apparent preference for 'sparing the rod'. After her reassurances as to the efficacy and harmlessness of a good whacking, and armed with her practical advice, I agreed thenceforth to align myself with her own no-nonsense approach. But in the days that followed, even though a number of girls were reported to me for offences that merited physical punishment, I was still unable to go through with it, and I became increasingly frustrated and angry within myself.
And then I saw Henderson - with the chocolate. It seemed, in the circumstances, such a gross flouting of the rules.
The previous Sunday, with Lent upon us, the Reverend had delivered a most moving sermon outlining the many blessings we enjoy in this country compared to our brothers and sister
s in less fortunate climes who are scarcely able to feed themselves. He had particularly emphasised the importance he attached to the girls of St Hilda's abstaining from sweets for the forty days up to Easter - surely a very small sacrifice to ask of them?
Henderson was clearly returning from the village that Saturday afternoon, and the way she strolled so blithely up the drive, with her illicit purchase announcing itself brazenly from her blazer pocket, made me quite furious. Emboldened by my indignation, I decided that this was the moment when I would, once and for all, put aside my squeamishness about taking sterner measures.
I flew into action, made even angrier by what I took to be Henderson's lie about buying the chocolate for Miss McKenzie. In retrospect, I can see that I was driven less in those moments by a sense of duty than by a desire to prove myself capable of administering a whacking.
And indeed how capably, yet disastrously, did I prove myself!
Taking up a large ruler, I forced the girl over a table, lifted her skirt away and gave her a thorough beating on the seat of her knickers. I must confess that I was surprised, now that I'd finally overcome my fear, by the almost lewd satisfaction I obtained from watching her buttocks dent under the impact of the ruler, and from her anguished cries as she struggled to endure the full-blooded thwacks I dealt her. I still wonder if perhaps, in a perverse way, I was actually punishing myself in the person of this poor girl.
All this of course simply added to the feelings of shame and guilt which I attempted so childishly to deny that evening before the Reverend Brighouse.
When, at tea time that afternoon, I came upon a subdued and sniffling Mildred McKenzie in the staffroom, my jaw dropped in horror.
"M-Mildred!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were away ... with the first eleven ... in Wantage?"
Eyeing me coldly, she explained that she hadn't been feeling well and that Barbara Clayton had gone in her place, adding that I had made a grave mistake - Henderson, she said, had been to see her, in tears. She confirmed the girl's story, and asked me for her chocolate. I had to admit, with great embarrassment, that I had thrown it away, though I offered immediately to replace it. Shaking her head, she turned her back on me and busied herself with the tea urn.
My mortification was immediate and intense, my hurt pride stabbing me through the chest. But, pretending indifference to Mildred's disapproval, I too turned my back, and went straight to my room. Once there, my shame only grew as I replayed every awful moment of Henderson's beating, whilst my pride tried every way imaginable to justify and excuse what I'd done. Despite a sinking hollowness in my chest, and a desire to cry that remained stubbornly and painfully unfulfilled, I resolved to brazen it out and hope that the episode would not reach the Reverend's ears. The girls tended to be wary of him, and I saw no reason to think Henderson would be an exception; and Mildred would, I guessed, probably let it go.
I was quite mistaken, of course. Mildred did report the incident, and it was with great trepidation that I found myself summoned to a meeting in the Reverend's quarters at ten that evening.
As I said earlier, it was an encounter that would change my life.
---oOo---
Reverend Brighouse:
The only photograph I had of my dear Elsa was a black-and-white close-up of her smiling face, with that inimitable twinkle in her eyes. Fearful of it fading, I kept it in sheets of tissue paper, locked in a drawer of my desk, whence I would retrieve it on occasion, sighing as I gazed and reminisced.
The memory of Elsa's goodness guided me in those years, and without it I believe I would long since have sunk into a state of degradation and despair. The wisdom and kindness of her character lived on, miraculously, in my heart. And it was this sense of her, I feel sure, that enabled me to rise to the challenge of meeting Deborah Barrett's urgent need that night. What transpired, for both Deborah and me, was, quite simply, a gift from God.
Even as a boy, I had been fascinated by corporal punishment. I discovered Swinburne's racier verses as a teenager, and went on to devour the relevant parts of Krafft-Ebing's work. Even after I was ordained, I sought out obscure Victorian erotica on the subject of flagellation, all the while hiding my secret shame with the kind of zeal I should have been devoting to saving souls.
When Elsa discovered my secret, she gave me the greatest surprise and joy by immediately laughing and forgiving me; indeed, she went further - she embraced my naughty passion with an equal fervour of her own. After her passing, and my long and terrible mourning, I found a refuge at St Hilda's - at first as a teacher, and latterly as Headmaster - and I dedicated myself to imparting some of Elsa's goodness to the girls in my care.
Was I not constantly tempted, you ask? Did not the pupils' youthful beauty and mischievously twinkling eyes elicit in me an overwhelming desire to succumb to my sadistic, carnal urges, and satisfy these upon my charges, as many a supposed man of the cloth had done before me?
Of course I was tempted! But Elsa's heart beat with mine, and my first step upon accepting the post of Headmaster was to assign to my female Deputies the duty of punishing the girls. As for my passion, I contented myself with my secret library of licentious literature, my memories of my dear one and, I admit, the occasional glimpse of a recently punished girl emerging from Mrs Baines' room, pained, pale and ruefully rubbing the recently afflicted area.
And so to the events of that Saturday: after Mildred Mckenzie described Henderson's account of what had happened, I had a premonition of quite extraordinary clarity about Deborah Barrett. Perhaps it was Elsa's spirit again, or perhaps simply an intuition borne of long experience, but - whilst hardly daring to hope that it might be true - I took the precaution of going to the Art block and procuring one of the selfsame rulers that Deborah had (I'd been informed) used on the Henderson girl. Of course, my reason warned me that I was being foolish in the extreme, and that I would, on the morrow, have to return the implement unused, embarrassed by my own presumption; but the feeling that I was, after so many years, about to be called upon once more to administer a salutary punishment to a woman's bottom - this feeling continued so strongly within me that it set my heart racing with anticipated joy.
I had long observed a kind of heaviness in Deborah's spirit - I saw how she struggled in vain to be at peace with, or even to like herself. She kept people at a distance with a haughtiness which disguised not only her inner self-deprecation, but also her natural yearning for closeness and love. And yet she was such a capable and intelligent woman! Whence came this crippling self-denigration, I wondered? It was the compassion I felt for her (as well as her undoubted abilities) that had led me to appoint her as Deputy alongside the formidable Mrs Baines. I had hoped the extra responsibility would go some way to lifting her out of her spiritual despond.
"Miss Barrett," I said, upon opening my door to her timid knocking at about ten that evening. Standing aside, I ushered her in.
"Reverend," she replied, with a kind of strained composure. I noticed a slight trembling of the lower lip that she then tried to hide by biting it. "You wished to see me?"
"Yes." I indicated the sofa and she sat rather nervously on its edge, smoothing out a wrinkle in the skirt of her grey suit with an unsteady hand. I stood with my back to the hearth, where the faint remnants of a coal fire glowed faintly, and contemplated the picture of young womanhood before me.
She was of a slight build, perhaps five foot four, yet she boasted a fine bosom and a pleasingly full, round posterior. I confess that my gaze had, on many an occasion, dwelt in lascivious (though carefully concealed) wonder on her figure. In the sombre but well-tailored suits she favoured, her breasts and backside gave the impression of being both primly self-contained, yet at the same time straining for release - a paradox of contending desires (it struck me at that moment) that mirrored the nature of her character.
"It has come to my attention, Miss Barrett," I began, "that there was an unfortunate incident this afternoon."
She blushed. The skirt-smoothing increased in temp
o, despite the wrinkle having long been despatched. "I ... yes, well ... yes, I suppose it was slightly unfortunate, Reverend," she said, her tone immediately defensive. "But really! The girl was coming back from the village with chocolate and ... and I honestly don't see how I was supposed to have known that ..."
"That she had quite legitimately been asked to purchase it on behalf of Miss Mckenzie?" I interrupted. Her blush deepened, and she waved a hand dismissively.
"Yes, well, that was her story, but how was I to ..."
I found myself quite exasperated. "Miss Barrett, did the girl not try to explain why she had the chocolate?"
"Well, yes, but ... but ..." She looked down, clearly very embarrassed.
"Yet you ignored her explanation - you disregarded the word of a trusted sixth-former, a young woman soon to make her way in the world, and you beat her quite unjustly..." I let the truth of her actions hang in the air for a few moments. She continued to stare at her lap, her fingers interlacing, twisting awkwardly. "Well?" I demanded. "Do you have nothing to say, Miss Barrett?" Her posture revealed the pent-up tension that I sensed was about to burst. I was not mistaken, for quite suddenly she jumped up and almost shouted,
"Oh, for heaven's sake! I can't be expected to believe the word of every silly girl who comes up with some specious excuse! It's ... it's quite impossible! They're forever telling lies and ... and ... how is one supposed to know?" Her face was bright red, and her angry eyes stared at me defiantly. "Anyway, you're the one who appointed me to this impossible job when I wasn't ready! It's not my fault if-"
I cut her off abruptly, my voice raised in annoyance. "Miss Barrett! That is quite enough! You are behaving like a foolish child!"
This seemed to stop her in her tracks momentarily, but then she carried on: "How dare you! You ... you ... Oh! This is unendurable. I ... I ..."
I observed her flushed face, the petulant pride fighting with the remorse I knew she must feel. "Miss Barrett," I said calmly but firmly, "you've behaved rashly and foolishly, and have perpetrated a serious injustice on a young woman with whose care you were entrusted." I took a deep breath. This was it. "I cannot help but think that what you need, young lady, is a taste of your own medicine. And that is exactly what I propose to give you."
Spanking Cheat: ... and other short stories Page 6
