by Susan Thomas
After Christmas I was encouraged to go back as often as possible even when Crispin wasn't there. Patricia should have been at boarding school but she had begged to be allowed to come home and finish her education at a local girls' school. She was quite an unhappy girl, reluctant to do any of the 'right' things mapped out for her. What she wanted to do was go to art school - which in her family was something nobody considered or thought much of. I promised her I would see what I could do. In the meanwhile she liked to spend some time in my company at weekends particularly if Crispin wasn't around.
One bright fine Saturday when Crispin was in his constituency she suggested we go riding which was fine by me as I am a competent rider and love horses. I was never allowed to have my own as the family money really didn't stretch that far, and it was also not taken seriously in our family. When we got to the stables there was nobody there. The chap who ran the stables was named Wallis. What his Christian name is I have never discovered as everyone refers to him as Wallis. Now the General had two large spirited horses which he only allowed the men to ride as they were considered too much for a lady. Patricia didn't agree of course. Now this was most certainly a case where an older, cooler head should have dissuaded her. Unfortunately this older and cooler head agreed with her as I also thought the horses well within our capabilities.
It is perfectly true that they were highly spirited animals and it was tough work, but fun. All went well until we were nearly back, and just for a second Patricia lost control and came off her horse, but not badly. The horse appeared to laugh at her before she remounted. The unfortunate thing was that this was in full view of the stables where Patricia's parents and Wallis plus a deeply interested groom were watching. When we dismounted the groom and Wallis took the horses while the General was coldly angry and he quizzed us.
When he had established that nobody had given permission he barked, "See to the horses and then wait here."
The groom and Wallis said nothing as we all saw to the horses and then the groom was dismissed. To my nervous eye he looked as if he would like to stay. Wallis escorted us back to Patricia's parents who both looked very displeased.
"I am going to flog you both," the General announced. "Wallis, while I prepare the girls would you go and get two dozen of those birch shoots from the tub."
At the end of the stable block there was an empty room with just a few dusty bits and pieces. I have no idea what it was for originally but now it was disused. We were marched briskly to it by two angry parents (I was treated exactly the same as Patricia).
"Take off everything except your brassieres," the General ordered.
I found myself going very red indeed. I knew Wallis was coming back and we would be virtually naked in front of three people, two of them men. I had never wanted to protest a punishment before, in fact had been a willing accomplice, but I had heard such terrifying stories about birching - and all we had done was ride some horses without any serious mishap. Patricia obeyed at once though and began hanging her clothes on some old nails banged into a wooden wall so I followed on but felt very sick, nervous and embarrassed. When we were both down to our bras the General, who had watched every move, told us to go and stand against the wall and be still. Again we both obeyed and I felt sick with fear at what was going to happen.
I heard Wallis come back in and the General thanking him for his good work and then say, "I think we'll have you stand here, Wallis." If Wallis replied I didn't hear it, but he was man of few words.
"Come here you two."
I was going to put my hands over my private bits but Patricia didn't. She stood as straight as a guardsman with her hands by her side, so I tried to do the same with my face burning with the shame of it.
"You're youngest Patricia, you will go first. Go to Wallis."
I was bewildered and watched as near to open mouthed as I could be. Patricia walked over to Wallis who immediately turned his back to her. She reached over his shoulders, right arm over his right shoulder and the left over his left. He seized her wrists in a very firm grip and in one powerful movement bent forward lifting her clean off the ground so she lay across his back. I found out later this is called ‘horsing’ and was once a common way of birching someone. It certainly left her bottom ideally placed to be beaten by her father who now had a birch rod in his hand. At the time though, my objectivity was lacking and I was horrified at the indignity of it.
The rod was a good three to four feet long comprising a dozen or so birch switches. None of them looked especially thin and I guessed that this was going to be horribly painful. The General went and stood to one side and without a single word gave her bottom the most almighty blow with the birch. The birch seemed to splay out when it hit her and her whole bottom rippled away from it, the birch itself leaving what seemed like a huge rash on her beautifully soft skin. Patricia herself, who is a brave girl, jerked massively on Wallis's back and her legs kicked up and she let out a high pitched shriek. My hands began to tremble.
The swish of the birch through the air was terrifying to my ears and the horrid ‘shrack’ sound it made on landing was even worse. Each time it landed, Patricia's reaction was similar, except it got worse each time. Her cries grew higher pitched and more frantic at each horrid blow but her father ignored it and flayed that birch down on her bottom as hard as he could. It crashed against her soft bottom and wreaked havoc upon it, deepening and widening the rash until her bottom began to look angry and raw with tiny dark pinpricks where the tips of the switches dug in. Bits of the birch switches began to break off and fly across the floor. Bizarrely I wondered if anyone was going to pick them up. Her legs kicked upwards and her body writhed but Wallis held her firmly in position on his back and the score of strokes began to climb swiftly upwards not stopping even at twelve. My body joined my hands in beginning to tremble and shake for I was next.
At eighteen the General stopped flogging her. Her whole bottom right around to the hips was terribly marked and it was clear to me that any more punishment and she would have started to bleed like some of the horror stories I had read about schoolboy floggings in the old days. He told Wallis to release her and when he did it was seen that Patricia was crying. She simply couldn't stand still but sort of wriggled and writhed on the spot with no regard to anyone looking at her.
Wallis look relieved to have her off his back and stretched his arms and back and walked about a bit. When he seemed ready again the General looked at me and indicated I should take Patricia's place.
When you are ordered forward to a severe punishment it seems to me you have a choice: either you can beg or plead and have to be dragged to the place of punishment or you can go under your own steam and try and have some dignity. I chose the latter. I walked forward as strongly as my wobbly legs would carry me with my head high and no attempt to cover myself. Wallis was looking at me but his face was impassive. As soon as I reached him he turned his back and I stepped nearer. He smelt of horse and some rich tobacco. I reached my arms out over his shoulders feeling very odd indeed being so close to a man in my state of undress. He grabbed my wrists in a very firm grip and my whole stomach seemed to crash to the floor as I was now at the punishment part. In one swift movement he bent forward and lifted me up and onto his back. It was a horrible feeling and the stink of horse and tobacco was joined by the odour of his sweat. The thick shirt he was wearing felt prickly against my bare flesh. He pulled my wrists together and held me very firmly in that position.
Abruptly, with no word of warning or sign the birch crashed against my bottom. It wasn't a hard blow like the cane is but the sting everywhere across my bottom was simply enormous. I know I did exactly what Patricia had done by kicking my legs and crying out. Now I was even more terrified to be honest because the stinging was just so bad and it didn't ease.
I could hear the panic in my cries as the birch crashed again and again against my bottom and my hip. I know I writhed against Wallis and kicked my legs but it did no good for he held me firmly and my
bottom remained exactly where it needed to be for punishment. The pain grew with each lash of the birch adding to and compounding the awful stinging. Soon it was beyond stinging and just sheer agony but utterly different from the cane. It was ferocious and was everywhere across bottom and hip. There was no relief, no pause between strokes as there is with the cane, it was fire building upon fire. It was utterly impossible to be stoical and I did exactly what Patricia did and cried out constantly.
I made no attempt to keep count because trying hard to deal with the pain of my flogging and making a constant effort not to plead for mercy absorbed all my efforts. My mind began to seek refuge from it all and I felt almost delirious with snatches of nursery rhymes racing through. Her mother came and caught her, and whipped her little daughter for spoiling her nice new clothes. Her mother heard the noise and thought it was the boys, a-kicking up a rumpus in the attic, but when she climbed the stair flight, and saw Jemima there alright, she took her and did whip her most emphatic." As abruptly as my punishment started it stopped but I had heard nothing, it was only the fact that Wallis was putting me back down that made me aware of it.
I couldn't stand still though, it was simply awful and I was really indifferent to anyone, I just tried to ease the horrible fierce burning of my bottom. I could have had my bra come off amd wouldn't have noticed. After a while I became aware and saw Patricia standing there delicately holding her bottom with her face tear stained and woebegone. Wallis took the discarded birches away and the General followed him, leaving us with Lady Catherine. She had that usual mother look that follows one of her children doing something wrong and being punished, that curious mixture of annoyance, exasperation and concern for the state of the child.
"Come on you two, pick up your clothes and let's be off."
Finally I protested, "We can't walk through the house like this, we're almost naked."
"We shall use the back stairs. Nobody will be there or see you."
Waking out of the stable block and to the side of the house was a journey I wish never to repeat. There was a stiff breeze now and it seemed to inflame the burning of my bottom. I was constantly worried that someone would see us but if they did it wasn't obvious. Finally we arrived at a funny little door and into a narrow staircase that wound around and up. It wasn't the servants' staircase so why it had been built I couldn't say, but that staircase began to play a part in my life. We finally came out through a quaint little door which I had previously thought to be a cupboard door. We were right by Patricia's room and I realised that my room was directly underneath and that what I had thought to be a cupboard door close to mine led to the staircase.
Patricia's mother ran a salt bath for us to prevent infection. The bath was huge and she made us both get in, me at one end and Patricia at the other. I suppose I must have had a bath with my sister when I was little but I don't remember so this was a new experience for me. Getting in was torment but after a while it eased. Patricia’s mother went off to get our dressing gowns and some salve for our bottoms.
"I'm sorry Patricia," I said apologetically. "I'm older than you and I should have persuaded you not to do it. If I had all this wouldn't have happened. I promise you I'll be a better sister-in-law in future."
She started to protest and then to my amazement started to cry. It turned out she had felt as lonely in her family as I do in mine and I realised as her mother came fussing back that flogging or no flogging I was more at home in Crispin's family than in my own. Even my relationship with my mother was now more like that of an approving aunt than a mother.
Later Crispin came back and was full of concern for his fiancée but by then the pain had become tingling warmth and the tingles which had been spectacularly absent up to now came back. In retrospect the whole ritual of being horsed on Wallis and flogged by the General seemed exciting. Yes I know how very stupid that sounds but I can't help what daft thoughts went through my brain. So when Crispin kissed me I returned his kiss with passion and ground myself against him in a most indelicate way.
"You know," he was hesitant, "I could come to your room tonight."
"You'd be seen." His room was next to Patricia's and his parents did not like ‘goings on’.
"Not if I used the little staircase."
I panicked. "I don't want to fall for a baby at this point."
He smiled the smile of a man older than me. "Darling, I can prevent that."
When he finally arrived in my room later that night I was like a bitch on heat and when he left many hours later I was no longer a virgin and totally calm and satisfied. Does that shock you? I hope not but I was engaged, and after all Crispin too has his needs.
---oOo---
The two weekends after that I had to be introduced to Crispin's constituency and it was a great test of my diplomacy. I'd get some blue rinsed battle-axe telling me in tones of disapproval that my mother is a formidable woman, and I would manage, "Indeed, as I know well, but she is hard working and intensely loyal to the party and the Prime Minister." Or they would tell me I was very young for Crispin, and I would get back with, "But I shall be a good wife and he wants lots of children." Anyway what was driving my diplomacy was the thought of what the General would do if he heard about anything undiplomatic. Crispin told me after those two arduous weekends that I had made a very good impression in the constituency so all was well.
When I was next at the General's with Crispin I asked his parents to join us, and I talked to them about Patricia. It took over two hours of calm negotiation to get to the point where they summoned Patricia and in the end they agreed (after seeing the recommendation from her school art teacher) that she could go to art school. The General said afterwards, "With your blood and Crispin's I think I shall be almost nervous about my grandchildren."
It was my promise to be a good sister-in-law to Patricia that earned me my first caning from the General. The problem was that Patricia was treated very much as a little girl. I suppose it was because the General was really a lot older than his wife and Patricia was a rather late addition to the family, so there was a huge gap between her and Crispin. Anyhow they expected her to go to bed really quite early and any parties were forbidden unless they were ones that other family members were attending. I was there when Patricia asked to be allowed to go to a party at a school friend's house and the answer was that she couldn't. She argued a little (not enough to get corporal punishment) and was sent to bed especially early. I had a bad feeling and after a while made an excuse to leave the company just in time to see Patricia exiting the side door from the little staircase. She was driven off in a small MG before I could get to her. I said nothing to anyone.
We were all up late playing cards, chatting and drinking while I anxiously kept my ear open for sounds of Patricia returning. I had been pretending to have a lot to drink in case it might be useful, although in fact I was mainly drinking Whisky Macs with a great deal of Mac and very little whisky. The noise of a car outside alerted me to her return and I pretended I was off to bed and rushed up to her floor. I got up there in time to see her stagger out of the little staircase clearly having had too much alcohol. Unfortunately I was not in time to stop her staggering into a small table standing in the hall on which stood a rather attractive Chinese vase. The vase didn't last three seconds of the rocking table before it crashed to the floor and shattered.
Patricia looked totally horrified and wailed, "What am I going to do?"
"Quickly, get into bed and whatever happens, pretend to be asleep."
I then sat down by the shattered remains of the vase and acted tipsy. It didn't take long before Crispin, followed by his father with his mother in tow, came into view.
"What the devil..." The General sounded annoyed.
I acted the worse for wear. "Oh I am sorry, those drinks have gone to my head and I'm afraid I fell."
Crispin looked puzzled. "But your room is on the floor below."
I was rather proud of the silly little giggle I gave - idiot girl drunk to
o much and thinks it funny.
They were all suspicious though and not convinced because I had seemed alright when I was in their company. Lady Catherine checked Patricia's room but came back to announce she was fast asleep. "Crispin," ordered the general, "take her to her room, I'll sort this out in the morning."
As soon as I was alone I stopped pretending and got ready for bed with a somewhat sick feeling in my stomach. This undoubtedly meant a caning for me but I had promised to be a good sister-in-law to her and I did feel she was far too restricted. There is balance in everything and absolutely no harm in the party she wanted to go to which was supervised by the girl's parents. However, if the General found out she would be in trouble for disobedience, sneaking out at night, going off with someone or other in the MG and to top it all getting tipsy. I shuddered to think what would happen and he might go back on his agreement regarding art school.
Breakfast was a silent affair and when the general had finished he spoke to me. "When you've finished, come to my study."
When I arrived he told me to sit down and we sat looking at each other in silence for a while before I said, "I'm really sorry about last night. Was the vase valuable?"
"Valuable no, but my father picked it up after the Siege of Peking. (The Siege of Peking, so called, was in 1900 when an international force lifted a siege imposed by Boxer rebels and Chinese Imperial troops on the consular area. Shameful looting of the city then took place.) He wasn't party to the general looting but he felt one souvenir wouldn't matter. It had some sentimental value."
"I can only say I am sorry and accept whatever you decide to do about it."
"Well now Helen, I strongly disapprove of drunkenness and especially so in a young woman. In my family I take a very firm line about such behaviour. I should punish you severely for such behaviour."
