Story from Janus 17.
Sir Rodney's New Maid
by David Redshaw
When our great-great-grandfathers were alive the caning and birching of schoolgirls was common practice throughout the land: no wonder they're referred to as the Good Old Days! Hansard (Commons, June 1863, col. 193) reports the birching of a 16-year-old girl by the lady superintendent of the Royal Patriotic Asylum, a girls' institute in Wandsworth. The birching was recommended by the chaplain, who doubtless was present at its execution.
On February 14th, 1900, as chronicled in The English Vice by Ian Gibson, a report was read before a select committee of the London School Board which stated that the managers of a certain girls' Industrial School had just passed a resolution that in future its girls 'should only be birched across the shoulders', which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that previously girls of that age had been exposed to the painful indignity of being birched on their bottoms.
On examination of the punishment records of 16 such schools for girls, we further find that two gave instances of birchings, ten of canings, two of tawsings and two of unspecified 'whipping'. Assuming there to have been at least 100 girls on the roll of each school, that adds up to a sum total of 1,600 trembling schoolgirl bottoms liable at any hour or minute in their academic careers to be either birched, caned, tawsed or 'whipped'!
Such punishments were invariably public affairs, carried out before either the whole school (pour encourager les autres) or at the very least before the board of governors, composed of clergymen, magistrates and philanthropic industrialists, pillars of society to a man. Like all other decent Victorians they believed firmly in Justice and Discipline and they attended these caning and birching sessions purely and simply to witness the saucy little madams being whipped into a state of true contrition, signified by pleas for mercy, copious weeping and scarlet, wealed backsides.
If any of the said worthy gentlemen evinced more than a passing interest in the little preliminary ritual of denuding 16-year-old Charlotte Hopkins of her tight cotton drawers, or in the sight of 18-year-old Grace Bicton, already a fully developed woman, clad-only in waist-length chemise and black silk stockings, bent bottom-upwards over the birching block, the unmentionable parts of her nether anatomy shamefully displayed... then it is certainly not recorded in Hansard, nor in any school board or governors' report. Such stirrings of gentlemenly loins were discreetly swept under the carpet.
One other historical fact is worth a mention. The senior pupils of girls' Industrial Schools served as a convenient pool for 'servant fodder', and members of the aristocracy, as well as the nouveau riche, were known to visit such establishments in order to select a suitable girl to fill a vacancy below stairs, as the following now historical exchange of correspondence illustrates.
* * *
Oakfield Road,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent.
October 12th, 1897
Dear Miss Marchmain,
Mossborough Industrial School for Girls, of which you are, I believe, the Principal, has been recommended to me in the warmest possible terms by a contributor to your charity fund, Colonel William Standish.
I am currently afflicted, dear madam, with what I believe is generally known as 'a servant problem'. I urgently require a reliable, trustworthy girl to train as junior parlour-maid in my household. Might a suitable female be found in your establishment? I am prepared to offer appropriate remuneration, full uniform including underwear, laundering expenses, and one half-day holiday per fortnight.
Colonel Standish advises me to inform you that I am inclined to prefer a girl who has been well disciplined. I trust that I make myself understood, and remain, madam, your servant.
Sir Rodney Maltravers
* * *
Mossborough Industrial School
For Girls,
Institute Lane,
Mossborough,
--shire.
October 15th, 1897
Dear Sir Rodney,
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enquiring as to whether it would be possible for your esteemed self to select from among my senior pupils a girl suitable to fill the vacant position of junior parlour-maid in your household.
I am more than sensible, Sir Rodney, of the honour that your choice of our humble establishment confers upon us.
Might I take the liberty of suggesting that if you would be kind enough to call upon us next Thursday, October 21st, at a time convenient to yourself, I should consider it a further honour to put myself entirely at your disposal with a view to fulfilling your every requirement in this matter.
Please believe me to remain, your obedient and humble servant.
Harriet Marchmain, B.A.
(Principal)
* * *
Sir Rodney Maltravers' arrival the following week was a red letter day in the annals of the school. The girls were informed of his visit, and they were exhorted to look their very best and behave impeccably. Any who so much as put a foot wrong could expect a merciless flogging before the whole school the next day.
As to what did transpire at Mossborough Industrial School on that fateful Thursday, we shall let Sir Rodney take up the narrative himself...
* * *
I regret to say (he later wrote to his cousin Edgar) that my first impressions of Mossborough Industrial School were hardly favourable. I glimpsed from the carriage a gaunt, squat, grey stone building huddling in a fold of windswept hills.
A formidably high wall, crowned with spikes, surrounded it and to the left hand side of its massive iron gates there stood a rather dilapidated lodge. The keeper, a grim silent fellow, grudgingly allowed us admission through the gates, while his snarling cur snapped viciously at the wheels of our carriage.
I was received at the school by an awe-struck, curtseying maid who conducted me down a long stone-flagged corridor towards the library, where I was ushered into the presence of the Principal, Miss Harriet Marchmain.
The instant my eyes rested on her I was struck as much by the august beauty of her form as by the austere dignity of her attitude. Her figure was tall and bespoke power, her eyes piercing and resolute. Yet over all there hung an aura of female sensuality that more than hinted at a passionate nature.
She greeted me warmly and we quickly got down to business. She recounted a brief history of the school. It was founded in 1859 for the purpose of educating daughters of the victims of the Crimean War. Since then it had opened its arms further to receive daughters of the deserving poor, orphans, and other worthy recipients of charitable education.
I broached the subject of discipline, for I was all agog to see whether Miss Marchmain would authenticate the tales of birchings and canings galore with which old Standish had so frequently regaled me. I was not to be disappointed.
'We have a strict code of conduct here at Mossborough, Sir Rodney,' she replied to my probing questioning, looking me straight in the eye without a trace of embarrassment. 'Any instance of moral turpitude, however slight, is punished with the utmost rigour. We never hesitate to use the cane.' Her eyes still fixed mine in a bright intense stare. 'The birch is, of course, reserved for more serious infringements and is administered only by me.'
I noted the grim smile of self-satisfaction lingering on her lips...
She led me over the school. We visited every classroom. The girls, spick and span in their neat pinafore dresses and black stockings, rose as one and honoured me with their prettiest curtsies. Together Miss Marchmain and I picked out the most eligible candidates for my vacancy below stairs.
In the sewing room I was much taken with the appearance of a pretty little blonde girl.
'That's Belinda Edwards,' whispered Miss Marchmain. 'An excellent choice, Sir Rodney! I congratulate you on your perspicacity.'
On Miss Marchmain's recommendation I selected two other likely girls: Polly Turner, a slightly plump good-natured brunette, and Arabella Bennett, a pertly vivacious slender red-head. That done, the Principal – this strangely magnetic woman – led the way back to the library.
Warming myself cheerily before the roaring log fire, I plotted my next move, like a general before battle or a surgeon before a tricky operation. The prognosis seemed good. Pulling out my cheque book I declared that I was prepared to donate generously to the school's charity fund.
Miss Marchmain, acutely sensible to my requirements, understood my meaning perfectly, excellent lady!
'By some amazing coincidence, Sir Rodney, all three girls you picked have recently been guilty of breaches of school regulations... trifling offences, I'll admit... untidy lockers and beds, shoes insufficiently polished, whispering in Chapel and so on. Nevertheless they have not gone unrecorded and what I now propose is that they be punished directly, by me, with you as an impartial observer. I take it, Sir Rodney,' (again that flicker of a cruel smile!) 'that you have no objections?'
'None whatsoever, dear lady,' I assured her blandly. 'If the saucy minxes deserve a good lesson then by all means take down their drawers and cane them soundly, and I shall gladly act as witness to make sure that justice is well and truly done!' I settled back in a comfortable armchair and lit a cigar.
Miss Marchmain disappeared, only to return several minutes later with the three blushing culprits: Polly, Arabella and Belinda. Clearly they already knew why they had been summoned. They stood in the middle of the room fidgeting nervously, eyeing Miss Marchmain dolefully while she lectured them sternly. Every now and then they cast sheepish glances in my direction as the awful realisation dawned on them that I, a male, was to be present at their shameful, degrading punishment.
'I counsel you to bear your canings with fortitude and refrain from blubbering!' the Principal warned them. 'For whichever one of you Sir Rodney chooses for parlour-maid, she will definitely not be a cry-baby!'
Miss Marchmain was deliberately putting the girls on their mettle, sadistically spelling out the fact that the painful fate awaiting them was not just punishment, but also a cruel process of elimination. Trial by ordeal!
But Polly and Belinda seemed very near to tears already, although Arabella, the most rebellious natured of the trio, fixed me coolly with those insolent dark brown eyes of hers. She was too haughty by far for her adolescent years. I knew I was going to particularly relish seeing her being tanned.
Miss Marchmain told all three girls to remove their dresses and petticoats, and lower their drawers to their knees. An outraged silence greeted this humiliating instruction. They exchanged horrified looks then, blushing to the roots, glanced sidelong at me, indicating their deep repugnance at being made to disrobe while I was in the room.
Miss Marchmain went to a cupboard and returned bearing three canes of different lengths and thicknesses. Immobilised by shame and fear, the girls meanwhile had made no effort to commence undressing, so Miss Marchmain repeated her command in more peremptory tones.
'But Miss, I can't! Not with a gentleman present – it's not decent!' Polly wailed, real tears now glistening in her eyes. Arabella sulked mutinously while poor little Belinda tried vainly to stifle her sobs of despair in her lace handkerchief.
'Disobedient wretches!' Miss Marchmain snapped, stamping her elegant foot angrily. 'Do I have to disrobe you myself? False modesty does not become you. Do you fondly imagine Sir Rodney has never seen girls' bare bottoms before?' They cringed miserably at the mere thought of such an idea.
How she berated them! But the threat of being forcibly stripped had its desired effect. Amid groanings and yet more violent blushes the three pretty little minxes began removing their gowns and petticoats. Outer clothing soon gave way to more private, intimate garments until at last they were standing there all forlorn, shivering in their cambric chemises, figure-hugging white cotton drawers and black silk stockings gartered at mid-thigh. They presented an enchanting tableau and I longed to dismiss Miss Marchmain and cane them myself!
The plumply nubile Polly Turner was the first to be caned. Miss Marchmain seized the quaking semi-nude girl by the ear and marched her over to the librarian's ornately carved oak desk. Yanking Polly's drawers down to below her knees the Principal ordered her to bend right over the desk so that her bare behind was fully raised and vulgarly exposed. In spite of her 17 years, Polly whimpered and snivelled childishly, clenching her hind cheeks tightly together in an act of instinctive self-preservation.
'I intend to administer eight strokes of the very best on that incorrigibly wicked bare bottom of yours,' Miss Marchmain announced briskly. 'Pray compose yourself in readiness.'
From my excellent vantage point, ten feet or so away, I was able to scrutinise in great detail the girl's naked charms, right down to the endearing little mole near the base of her right buttock cheek. The bottom she presented was well-fleshed, succulently rounded with a deep narrow crease dividing its two melon-shaped halves. Wisps of dark pubic curls peeped out shyly from below the soft, delicate zone between her legs.
Polly's bitter mortification doubtless stemmed from her awareness of the disgracefully indecent spectacle she was now presenting of herself. The other two girls gazed at the proceedings in horror. I caught Belinda's eye, and the dainty little creature went crimson with shame at the thought that soon she, too, would be made to take Polly's place, lower her drawers and display her bare bottom for my keen appraisal...
Miss Marchmain chose the medium cane, and after one or two exploratory taps on Polly's bare seat, raised it aloft and then sent it swishing through the air towards its all-too-ample target.
It exploded across the crowns of Polly's out-thrust buttocks. The shock of the impact caused Polly to suck in air loudly between clenched teeth. A vivid crimson weal sprang up almost immediately, marring the flawless pallor of her broad cheeks.
Again the cane whistled down and splatted resoundingly against Polly's plump, yielding bottom flesh. She yelped in anguish and commenced to wriggle and cavort her nether regions in a most licentious, abandoned manner, vouchsafing me glimpses of those intimate sexual regions of her person that so far she had managed to conceal from view.
The third and fourth strokes were delivered within seconds of each other, so that Polly hardly had time to draw breath in between them. When she did it was to let out a series of choking sobs. She began to plead pathetically with Miss Marchmain for clemency:
'Oh Miss – I beg you! It stings so! It burns so!'
What was once a smooth, snowy-white bottom was now cruelly striped with four blossoming weals. The next few strokes caught her lower down on the delicate underside of her cheeks and must have hurt excruciatingly, judging by the shrill urgency of her cries:
'Please, Miss, not there, Miss! Anywhere but there, Miss! Oh God, it's so awful!' she shrieked, and there was a sensual hissing sound as her silk stocking-clad legs gyrated and rubbed madly together.
Arabella and Belinda looked as though they might faint any minute, so aghast were they at the sight and sound of the cane whistling mercilessly down upon poor Polly's frantically cavorting behind.
When the springy yellow cane wrapped itself spitefully around Polly's throbbing, enflamed flanks for the eighth and final time she was in fits of tears, blubbering unashamedly.
Miss Marchmain raised the weeping girl up from the desk and led her over to the wall, where she was made to stand with her hands on her head, crimson weal-racked bottom on full display. Her drawers had long since slipped ignominiously down to her ankles.
Now it was the turn of Arabella Bennett, the saucy impudent member of the trio.
'You're never going to take my drawers down, Miss, not in front of him you're not!' she muttered stubbornly, making an insolent gesture in my direction.
Miss Marchmain positively bristled with ire. Bosom heaving, eyes flashing, she drew herself up to her full height. She was powerfully built and well used to physically subduing rebellious schoolgirls like Arabella Bennett.
'We shall see about that!' she hissed menacingly, advancing purposefully towards her disobedient pupil who shrank back in alarm, her hands clutching protectively at the waistband of her white cotton drawers.
Seizing her around the waist, Miss Marchmain dragged her bodily over to the punishment desk.
'Pray be so kind as to secure her hands, Sir Rodney,' she panted.
I sprang to her aid, my heart beating excitedly. Grabbing the struggling, protesting girl by the wrists, I moved around to the far side of the desk, hauling her so far across its surface that her feet left the ground and she lay on her tummy, legs kicking furiously in the air like a stranded mermaid.
Her coppery red hair fell in delicious disarray across her face, and those lovely dark brown eyes of hers blazed defiance at me. With such a quick, wildcat temper she was obviously unsuited for service; she would have been more of a liability than an asset below stairs. All the same, I had to admire her spirit.
But Miss Marchmain was fully roused too, and her patience exhausted. She took hold of the top of the girl's drawers and, with a splitting, rending sound, literally tore them away from Arabella's surging posterior.
'Oh my drawers, Miss! My drawers!' Arabella wailed frantically. 'You've ripped them – they're my best pair!'
How typical of the female sex, I thought, to be more concerned about a pair of drawers than about a caning!
But the furious manner in which Harriet Marchmain set about belabouring Arabella's bare bottom with the stoutest of the three canes very soon caused the unfortunate girl to entirely forget about her damaged drawers.
This was a caning totally lacking in finesse. It was delivered in the white heat of anger, and stroke after stroke rained down in unbroken succession upon the general area that lay between Arabella's hips and the tops of her stockings.
I completely lost count of the number of strokes, they fell so thick and fast. Arabella's tomboyishly compact little bottom cheeks quickly lost their pale coppery sheen as an untidy array of thick ridged weals sprang up to spoil their ivory beauty.
Arabella's shrieks of distress, loud enough to awaken the dead, echoed all around the vaulted, oak-beamed library. She bucked and writhed like a wild pony being broken in. I had one devil of a job holding on to her.
I later learned that Arabella Bennett had fallen foul of Miss Marchmain early on in the year, and this unusually severe punishment was in the way of a settlement of old scores...
Indeed Miss Marchmain's fury knew no bounds. She wielded that cane like one possessed. Because Arabella was pinned horizontally across the desk the strokes fell directly downwards, hence all the more viciously.
But until Arabella was howling and bawling lachrymosely like a well-spanked five-year-old did Miss Marchmain at last relent. She threw down the cane with a clatter and stood there, wild-eyed and panting from exertion and spent passion.
I helped Arabella up to a standing position. She made a truly poignant spectacle. Her poor bottom was by now virtually corrugated with the marks of the cane's numerous visitations. I judged she'd not be sitting down with ease before the month was up.
Touched with pity for her though I was, nevertheless when the trembling near-naked girl instinctively sought the reassuring haven of my shoulder to cry on, I confess I could not resist slipping my hands behind her to explore the ridges of her bruised maltreated bottom. She winced and caught her breath when I touched her there, and drew in closer to me for comfort – encountering, I have no doubt, the rampant bulge in the front of my trousers...
I consoled her as best I could, after which I eased her rent, tattered drawers back up over her hot, palpitating, crimson bottom – judging that she had suffered enough already without subjecting her to the fresh degradation of having to stand and display her cruelly chastised behind to the world. Womaniser I may be: but sadist – never!
Drawing Harriet Marchmain into a private corner, I expressed my displeasure. She had, in my opinion, grossly exceeded her authority and abused her position. No girl, however fractious and unruly, deserved the punishment that poor Arabella had received at Miss Marchmain's hands. And to implicate me in the unsavoury affair showed a marked lack of respect for a peer of the realm.
Miss Marchmain grew flustered and grovellingly subservient, eager to please my every whim lest I report her sadistic treatment of Arabella to the Board of Governors.
I must confess here that, far from behaving altruistically, I was in fact shamelessly exploiting this delicate situation for my own ends.
What I desired above all else was simply to be left to my own wicked devices with the delectably demure Belinda – for she, and she alone, was my choice. I'd picked her out of all the other girls right from the start, exquisite creature that she was, and now I fumed and fretted with impatient longing to take a rod to her naked buttocks and flog her into abject, wailing submission... for if she was to be my maid, she needed to be initiated into her master's pleasure.
Eager to escape further censure from me, Miss Marchmain was more than happy to leave Belinda to my sole care. She departed hastily from the library with Polly and a still weeping Arabella in tow, carrying their dresses and petticoats in their arms.
* * *
The field was mine, the day was won! With mounting excitement I turned to address the little blonde charmer, trembling nervously in her chemise and pretty little lace-trimmed bloomers.
'Rejoice, my dear Belinda!' I began blithely, 'For I am resolved that you shall be my new maid! You will be decked out in silks and satins – the finest black stockings, the frilliest chemises and under-petticoats, the most translucently frivolous drawers that money can purchase...'
She blushed, yet brightened considerably at the thought of leaving Mossborough School behind, and with it all the humiliating, degrading punishments of girlhood.
But I was cruelly baiting her, raising her hopes only to dash them upon the rocks of my implacable flagellant's appetite.
'...and you will be whipped, my dear Belinda,' I continued crisply, my eyes devouring her affrighted innocence, 'well whipped, morning, noon and night, by myself and by your mistress, my Lady Caroline, for she too likes nothing better than to see a brand new parlour-maid well and truly humbled, her drawers down around her ankles, weeping her heart out and clutching a well-whipped bottom... a well-whipped bottom! Do I make myself plain, Belinda?' I repeated slowly and deliberately.
She gazed at me miserably, like a stricken fawn. Her delicate porcelain features were darkly clouded by gloom, despair and naked terror. The painful whippings that Polly and Arabella had suffered were preying on her mind. She could not banish from her memory the awful vision of Arabella's frantically writhing haunches, vainly endeavouring to dodge the lashing rod, her shrieks and howls filling the room.
But Belinda now knew that a far worse fate awaited her. She was under no illusions. She knew she was about to be severely whipped on her exquisite, virginal little bottom – not by one of her own sex – but by a man!
'Belinda,' I murmured cruelly, stroking the cheeks of her bottom through the thin cotton drawers, 'I intend now to give you the most atrociously smarting bottom you have ever endured in your life!'
Then came the command she was dreading all along:
'Loosen you drawers, Belinda. Let them fall to your ankles.'
She began to whimper and cast me many a beseeching look. But Lust had me in its grip and made me immune to all her pleadings. I was fully resolved to whip the shamefully naked bottom of this sweet young innocent, until my right arm hung limp and exhausted at my side.
Her immaculately laundered white drawers hugged her hips like a second skin, clearly delineating the well-defined cleft that separated her beautifully sculpted hind-cheeks. Out of modesty she kept her back turned while she unbuttoned and lowered her drawers, lest I glimpse her sacred, unravished mount of Venus.
Her palely flawless bare bottom slowly came into view. Slight traces of puppy-fat accentuated the soft sensual curves of those rounded little buttocks of hers.
My spirits rose to dizzy new heights, my blood roared in my temples. My manhood engorged and erected, like an accusing finger pointing at my pretty victim.
I chose the slenderest of the three canes, the whippiest and hence the most viciously damaging. I essayed trial slashes with it through the air.
Belinda began to cry softly, her hands shielding the base of her buttocks lest I glimpse between her legs the blonde curls guarding her most intimate shrine.
With the cane I lightly tapped her hands away from her bottom. All modesty was denied her now that she was mine, and I longed to slake my thirst on all her charms.
Accordingly, I instructed her to bend over and touch her toes like a schoolboy. She winced at the gross indignity of having to assume such a posture, but fear made her obey me.
Weeping piteously now, she bent her back taut as a bowstring, and her bottom acquired a cheeky, pouting prominence. Hobbled as she was by her fallen drawers, nevertheless I enjoined her to stretch her feet wider apart, thus affording me a clear view of the precious dewy secrets between her thighs.
Her slender arms hung down obediently before her, her hands an inch or two above her toes. I delivered a warning swish across the tops of her bare thighs. She groaned as she felt the cold kiss of the cane upon her tender, yielding flesh.
'You are a saucy, disobedient little minx, Belinda!' I admonished her severely. 'Touch your toes properly, this instant!'
She gasped with the effort involved in complying with my instructions. Her girlish body tautened and strained as she tried desperately to bend over still further. Her bottom swayed appealingly and her blonde ringlets fell in profusion across her deeply blushing face.
Again I tapped her with the cane, but on the backs of her knees.
'Bend your legs a little, Belinda.' This thrust her bottom outwards, into even greater prominence. Exactly as I desired it.
The moment had arrived. Gripping it tightly just below the handle, I raised the cane. Belinda was breathing heavily in spasmodic, jerking sobs, her eyes closed as though to blot out the impending bottom-searing pain...
I administered four swift whirring cuts, one after the other, across the saucy plumpness of her vulgarly presented derriere. She yelped urgently each time I struck her.
The impact drove her forward and she all but tottered to the ground. Somehow she regained her balance and pluckily resumed the vulnerable, submissive posture required.
I saw the sweet rain of her tears, falling drop by drop upon the toes of her shoes. Four livid weals now cruelly branded her once peerless bottom, mocking its ivory beauty. Goaded beyond endurance by her maidenly meekness I sent four more hearty strokes whistling down onto the base of Belinda's out-thrust posterior.
She jumped in the air, as though stung by an electric eel. Now her bottom resembled the glowing bars of a prison cell at sunset. The air vibrated with her passionate lamentations.
'Oh sir!' she sobbed wretchedly, clutching frantically at her blazing rear, 'I believe you are the very cruellest of masters, I –'
'Remove your hands from your posterior, you immodest, brazen girl!' I stormed at her in anger, vowing to punish her unmercifully for that foolishly injudicious little outburst of hers.
Grimly I waited until her hands were once more touching her toes, then I whipped her again more soundly than ever. Five strokes, diagonally applied, to form a crisscross pattern all over her madly squirming seat. Then, with one final resounding 'WHUP!', I savagely rechristened the crimson pouting summits of her nether cheeks before watching her sink to the floor, overcome by lachrymose convulsions of penitence, her bottom more fiercely colourful than if she'd been made to sit for an entire hour upon a hornets' nest!
Belinda wailed and blubbered like one totally distraught, caring not a jot now what part of her precious person she displayed, for she was sprawled indecorously, her legs wide apart revealing all.
I let her weep on until she had practically exhausted a year's supply of tears, then when she had grown more composed I touched her on the shoulder.
'Be dressed and ready to depart within the half hour, Belinda,' I said, 'The road is treacherous and we must reach Tunbridge Wells before nightfall.'
As we drove out of the gates, past the lodge and its morose old guardian, I took one last look at Mossborough Industrial School for Girls. It appeared as grey and forbidding as when I had arrived – more so now, since I had plucked a veritable pearl from its oyster shell. Belinda, tearful and fidgety, sat gingerly alongside me, every bump in the road causing her fresh posterial agony.
Her long painful apprenticeship was only just beginning.
Sir Rodney's New Maid
by David Redshaw
When our great-great-grandfathers were alive the caning and birching of schoolgirls was common practice throughout the land: no wonder they're referred to as the Good Old Days! Hansard (Commons, June 1863, col. 193) reports the birching of a 16-year-old girl by the lady superintendent of the Royal Patriotic Asylum, a girls' institute in Wandsworth. The birching was recommended by the chaplain, who doubtless was present at its execution.
On February 14th, 1900, as chronicled in The English Vice by Ian Gibson, a report was read before a select committee of the London School Board which stated that the managers of a certain girls' Industrial School had just passed a resolution that in future its girls 'should only be birched across the shoulders', which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that previously girls of that age had been exposed to the painful indignity of being birched on their bottoms.
On examination of the punishment records of 16 such schools for girls, we further find that two gave instances of birchings, ten of canings, two of tawsings and two of unspecified 'whipping'. Assuming there to have been at least 100 girls on the roll of each school, that adds up to a sum total of 1,600 trembling schoolgirl bottoms liable at any hour or minute in their academic careers to be either birched, caned, tawsed or 'whipped'!
Such punishments were invariably public affairs, carried out before either the whole school (pour encourager les autres) or at the very least before the board of governors, composed of clergymen, magistrates and philanthropic industrialists, pillars of society to a man. Like all other decent Victorians they believed firmly in Justice and Discipline and they attended these caning and birching sessions purely and simply to witness the saucy little madams being whipped into a state of true contrition, signified by pleas for mercy, copious weeping and scarlet, wealed backsides.
If any of the said worthy gentlemen evinced more than a passing interest in the little preliminary ritual of denuding 16-year-old Charlotte Hopkins of her tight cotton drawers, or in the sight of 18-year-old Grace Bicton, already a fully developed woman, clad-only in waist-length chemise and black silk stockings, bent bottom-upwards over the birching block, the unmentionable parts of her nether anatomy shamefully displayed... then it is certainly not recorded in Hansard, nor in any school board or governors' report. Such stirrings of gentlemenly loins were discreetly swept under the carpet.
One other historical fact is worth a mention. The senior pupils of girls' Industrial Schools served as a convenient pool for 'servant fodder', and members of the aristocracy, as well as the nouveau riche, were known to visit such establishments in order to select a suitable girl to fill a vacancy below stairs, as the following now historical exchange of correspondence illustrates.
* * *
Oakfield Road,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent.
October 12th, 1897
Dear Miss Marchmain,
Mossborough Industrial School for Girls, of which you are, I believe, the Principal, has been recommended to me in the warmest possible terms by a contributor to your charity fund, Colonel William Standish.
I am currently afflicted, dear madam, with what I believe is generally known as 'a servant problem'. I urgently require a reliable, trustworthy girl to train as junior parlour-maid in my household. Might a suitable female be found in your establishment? I am prepared to offer appropriate remuneration, full uniform including underwear, laundering expenses, and one half-day holiday per fortnight.
Colonel Standish advises me to inform you that I am inclined to prefer a girl who has been well disciplined. I trust that I make myself understood, and remain, madam, your servant.
Sir Rodney Maltravers
* * *
Mossborough Industrial School
For Girls,
Institute Lane,
Mossborough,
--shire.
October 15th, 1897
Dear Sir Rodney,
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enquiring as to whether it would be possible for your esteemed self to select from among my senior pupils a girl suitable to fill the vacant position of junior parlour-maid in your household.
I am more than sensible, Sir Rodney, of the honour that your choice of our humble establishment confers upon us.
Might I take the liberty of suggesting that if you would be kind enough to call upon us next Thursday, October 21st, at a time convenient to yourself, I should consider it a further honour to put myself entirely at your disposal with a view to fulfilling your every requirement in this matter.
Please believe me to remain, your obedient and humble servant.
Harriet Marchmain, B.A.
(Principal)
* * *
Sir Rodney Maltravers' arrival the following week was a red letter day in the annals of the school. The girls were informed of his visit, and they were exhorted to look their very best and behave impeccably. Any who so much as put a foot wrong could expect a merciless flogging before the whole school the next day.
As to what did transpire at Mossborough Industrial School on that fateful Thursday, we shall let Sir Rodney take up the narrative himself...
* * *
I regret to say (he later wrote to his cousin Edgar) that my first impressions of Mossborough Industrial School were hardly favourable. I glimpsed from the carriage a gaunt, squat, grey stone building huddling in a fold of windswept hills.
A formidably high wall, crowned with spikes, surrounded it and to the left hand side of its massive iron gates there stood a rather dilapidated lodge. The keeper, a grim silent fellow, grudgingly allowed us admission through the gates, while his snarling cur snapped viciously at the wheels of our carriage.
I was received at the school by an awe-struck, curtseying maid who conducted me down a long stone-flagged corridor towards the library, where I was ushered into the presence of the Principal, Miss Harriet Marchmain.
The instant my eyes rested on her I was struck as much by the august beauty of her form as by the austere dignity of her attitude. Her figure was tall and bespoke power, her eyes piercing and resolute. Yet over all there hung an aura of female sensuality that more than hinted at a passionate nature.
She greeted me warmly and we quickly got down to business. She recounted a brief history of the school. It was founded in 1859 for the purpose of educating daughters of the victims of the Crimean War. Since then it had opened its arms further to receive daughters of the deserving poor, orphans, and other worthy recipients of charitable education.
I broached the subject of discipline, for I was all agog to see whether Miss Marchmain would authenticate the tales of birchings and canings galore with which old Standish had so frequently regaled me. I was not to be disappointed.
'We have a strict code of conduct here at Mossborough, Sir Rodney,' she replied to my probing questioning, looking me straight in the eye without a trace of embarrassment. 'Any instance of moral turpitude, however slight, is punished with the utmost rigour. We never hesitate to use the cane.' Her eyes still fixed mine in a bright intense stare. 'The birch is, of course, reserved for more serious infringements and is administered only by me.'
I noted the grim smile of self-satisfaction lingering on her lips...
She led me over the school. We visited every classroom. The girls, spick and span in their neat pinafore dresses and black stockings, rose as one and honoured me with their prettiest curtsies. Together Miss Marchmain and I picked out the most eligible candidates for my vacancy below stairs.
In the sewing room I was much taken with the appearance of a pretty little blonde girl.
'That's Belinda Edwards,' whispered Miss Marchmain. 'An excellent choice, Sir Rodney! I congratulate you on your perspicacity.'
On Miss Marchmain's recommendation I selected two other likely girls: Polly Turner, a slightly plump good-natured brunette, and Arabella Bennett, a pertly vivacious slender red-head. That done, the Principal – this strangely magnetic woman – led the way back to the library.
Warming myself cheerily before the roaring log fire, I plotted my next move, like a general before battle or a surgeon before a tricky operation. The prognosis seemed good. Pulling out my cheque book I declared that I was prepared to donate generously to the school's charity fund.
Miss Marchmain, acutely sensible to my requirements, understood my meaning perfectly, excellent lady!
'By some amazing coincidence, Sir Rodney, all three girls you picked have recently been guilty of breaches of school regulations... trifling offences, I'll admit... untidy lockers and beds, shoes insufficiently polished, whispering in Chapel and so on. Nevertheless they have not gone unrecorded and what I now propose is that they be punished directly, by me, with you as an impartial observer. I take it, Sir Rodney,' (again that flicker of a cruel smile!) 'that you have no objections?'
'None whatsoever, dear lady,' I assured her blandly. 'If the saucy minxes deserve a good lesson then by all means take down their drawers and cane them soundly, and I shall gladly act as witness to make sure that justice is well and truly done!' I settled back in a comfortable armchair and lit a cigar.
Miss Marchmain disappeared, only to return several minutes later with the three blushing culprits: Polly, Arabella and Belinda. Clearly they already knew why they had been summoned. They stood in the middle of the room fidgeting nervously, eyeing Miss Marchmain dolefully while she lectured them sternly. Every now and then they cast sheepish glances in my direction as the awful realisation dawned on them that I, a male, was to be present at their shameful, degrading punishment.
'I counsel you to bear your canings with fortitude and refrain from blubbering!' the Principal warned them. 'For whichever one of you Sir Rodney chooses for parlour-maid, she will definitely not be a cry-baby!'
Miss Marchmain was deliberately putting the girls on their mettle, sadistically spelling out the fact that the painful fate awaiting them was not just punishment, but also a cruel process of elimination. Trial by ordeal!
But Polly and Belinda seemed very near to tears already, although Arabella, the most rebellious natured of the trio, fixed me coolly with those insolent dark brown eyes of hers. She was too haughty by far for her adolescent years. I knew I was going to particularly relish seeing her being tanned.
Miss Marchmain told all three girls to remove their dresses and petticoats, and lower their drawers to their knees. An outraged silence greeted this humiliating instruction. They exchanged horrified looks then, blushing to the roots, glanced sidelong at me, indicating their deep repugnance at being made to disrobe while I was in the room.
Miss Marchmain went to a cupboard and returned bearing three canes of different lengths and thicknesses. Immobilised by shame and fear, the girls meanwhile had made no effort to commence undressing, so Miss Marchmain repeated her command in more peremptory tones.
'But Miss, I can't! Not with a gentleman present – it's not decent!' Polly wailed, real tears now glistening in her eyes. Arabella sulked mutinously while poor little Belinda tried vainly to stifle her sobs of despair in her lace handkerchief.
'Disobedient wretches!' Miss Marchmain snapped, stamping her elegant foot angrily. 'Do I have to disrobe you myself? False modesty does not become you. Do you fondly imagine Sir Rodney has never seen girls' bare bottoms before?' They cringed miserably at the mere thought of such an idea.
How she berated them! But the threat of being forcibly stripped had its desired effect. Amid groanings and yet more violent blushes the three pretty little minxes began removing their gowns and petticoats. Outer clothing soon gave way to more private, intimate garments until at last they were standing there all forlorn, shivering in their cambric chemises, figure-hugging white cotton drawers and black silk stockings gartered at mid-thigh. They presented an enchanting tableau and I longed to dismiss Miss Marchmain and cane them myself!
The plumply nubile Polly Turner was the first to be caned. Miss Marchmain seized the quaking semi-nude girl by the ear and marched her over to the librarian's ornately carved oak desk. Yanking Polly's drawers down to below her knees the Principal ordered her to bend right over the desk so that her bare behind was fully raised and vulgarly exposed. In spite of her 17 years, Polly whimpered and snivelled childishly, clenching her hind cheeks tightly together in an act of instinctive self-preservation.
'I intend to administer eight strokes of the very best on that incorrigibly wicked bare bottom of yours,' Miss Marchmain announced briskly. 'Pray compose yourself in readiness.'
From my excellent vantage point, ten feet or so away, I was able to scrutinise in great detail the girl's naked charms, right down to the endearing little mole near the base of her right buttock cheek. The bottom she presented was well-fleshed, succulently rounded with a deep narrow crease dividing its two melon-shaped halves. Wisps of dark pubic curls peeped out shyly from below the soft, delicate zone between her legs.
Polly's bitter mortification doubtless stemmed from her awareness of the disgracefully indecent spectacle she was now presenting of herself. The other two girls gazed at the proceedings in horror. I caught Belinda's eye, and the dainty little creature went crimson with shame at the thought that soon she, too, would be made to take Polly's place, lower her drawers and display her bare bottom for my keen appraisal...
Miss Marchmain chose the medium cane, and after one or two exploratory taps on Polly's bare seat, raised it aloft and then sent it swishing through the air towards its all-too-ample target.
It exploded across the crowns of Polly's out-thrust buttocks. The shock of the impact caused Polly to suck in air loudly between clenched teeth. A vivid crimson weal sprang up almost immediately, marring the flawless pallor of her broad cheeks.
Again the cane whistled down and splatted resoundingly against Polly's plump, yielding bottom flesh. She yelped in anguish and commenced to wriggle and cavort her nether regions in a most licentious, abandoned manner, vouchsafing me glimpses of those intimate sexual regions of her person that so far she had managed to conceal from view.
The third and fourth strokes were delivered within seconds of each other, so that Polly hardly had time to draw breath in between them. When she did it was to let out a series of choking sobs. She began to plead pathetically with Miss Marchmain for clemency:
'Oh Miss – I beg you! It stings so! It burns so!'
What was once a smooth, snowy-white bottom was now cruelly striped with four blossoming weals. The next few strokes caught her lower down on the delicate underside of her cheeks and must have hurt excruciatingly, judging by the shrill urgency of her cries:
'Please, Miss, not there, Miss! Anywhere but there, Miss! Oh God, it's so awful!' she shrieked, and there was a sensual hissing sound as her silk stocking-clad legs gyrated and rubbed madly together.
Arabella and Belinda looked as though they might faint any minute, so aghast were they at the sight and sound of the cane whistling mercilessly down upon poor Polly's frantically cavorting behind.
When the springy yellow cane wrapped itself spitefully around Polly's throbbing, enflamed flanks for the eighth and final time she was in fits of tears, blubbering unashamedly.
Miss Marchmain raised the weeping girl up from the desk and led her over to the wall, where she was made to stand with her hands on her head, crimson weal-racked bottom on full display. Her drawers had long since slipped ignominiously down to her ankles.
Now it was the turn of Arabella Bennett, the saucy impudent member of the trio.
'You're never going to take my drawers down, Miss, not in front of him you're not!' she muttered stubbornly, making an insolent gesture in my direction.
Miss Marchmain positively bristled with ire. Bosom heaving, eyes flashing, she drew herself up to her full height. She was powerfully built and well used to physically subduing rebellious schoolgirls like Arabella Bennett.
'We shall see about that!' she hissed menacingly, advancing purposefully towards her disobedient pupil who shrank back in alarm, her hands clutching protectively at the waistband of her white cotton drawers.
Seizing her around the waist, Miss Marchmain dragged her bodily over to the punishment desk.
'Pray be so kind as to secure her hands, Sir Rodney,' she panted.
I sprang to her aid, my heart beating excitedly. Grabbing the struggling, protesting girl by the wrists, I moved around to the far side of the desk, hauling her so far across its surface that her feet left the ground and she lay on her tummy, legs kicking furiously in the air like a stranded mermaid.
Her coppery red hair fell in delicious disarray across her face, and those lovely dark brown eyes of hers blazed defiance at me. With such a quick, wildcat temper she was obviously unsuited for service; she would have been more of a liability than an asset below stairs. All the same, I had to admire her spirit.
But Miss Marchmain was fully roused too, and her patience exhausted. She took hold of the top of the girl's drawers and, with a splitting, rending sound, literally tore them away from Arabella's surging posterior.
'Oh my drawers, Miss! My drawers!' Arabella wailed frantically. 'You've ripped them – they're my best pair!'
How typical of the female sex, I thought, to be more concerned about a pair of drawers than about a caning!
But the furious manner in which Harriet Marchmain set about belabouring Arabella's bare bottom with the stoutest of the three canes very soon caused the unfortunate girl to entirely forget about her damaged drawers.
This was a caning totally lacking in finesse. It was delivered in the white heat of anger, and stroke after stroke rained down in unbroken succession upon the general area that lay between Arabella's hips and the tops of her stockings.
I completely lost count of the number of strokes, they fell so thick and fast. Arabella's tomboyishly compact little bottom cheeks quickly lost their pale coppery sheen as an untidy array of thick ridged weals sprang up to spoil their ivory beauty.
I later learned that Arabella Bennett had fallen foul of Miss Marchmain early on in the year, and this unusually severe punishment was in the way of a settlement of old scores...
Indeed Miss Marchmain's fury knew no bounds. She wielded that cane like one possessed. Because Arabella was pinned horizontally across the desk the strokes fell directly downwards, hence all the more viciously.
But until Arabella was howling and bawling lachrymosely like a well-spanked five-year-old did Miss Marchmain at last relent. She threw down the cane with a clatter and stood there, wild-eyed and panting from exertion and spent passion.
I helped Arabella up to a standing position. She made a truly poignant spectacle. Her poor bottom was by now virtually corrugated with the marks of the cane's numerous visitations. I judged she'd not be sitting down with ease before the month was up.
Touched with pity for her though I was, nevertheless when the trembling near-naked girl instinctively sought the reassuring haven of my shoulder to cry on, I confess I could not resist slipping my hands behind her to explore the ridges of her bruised maltreated bottom. She winced and caught her breath when I touched her there, and drew in closer to me for comfort – encountering, I have no doubt, the rampant bulge in the front of my trousers...
I consoled her as best I could, after which I eased her rent, tattered drawers back up over her hot, palpitating, crimson bottom – judging that she had suffered enough already without subjecting her to the fresh degradation of having to stand and display her cruelly chastised behind to the world. Womaniser I may be: but sadist – never!
Drawing Harriet Marchmain into a private corner, I expressed my displeasure. She had, in my opinion, grossly exceeded her authority and abused her position. No girl, however fractious and unruly, deserved the punishment that poor Arabella had received at Miss Marchmain's hands. And to implicate me in the unsavoury affair showed a marked lack of respect for a peer of the realm.
Miss Marchmain grew flustered and grovellingly subservient, eager to please my every whim lest I report her sadistic treatment of Arabella to the Board of Governors.
I must confess here that, far from behaving altruistically, I was in fact shamelessly exploiting this delicate situation for my own ends.
What I desired above all else was simply to be left to my own wicked devices with the delectably demure Belinda – for she, and she alone, was my choice. I'd picked her out of all the other girls right from the start, exquisite creature that she was, and now I fumed and fretted with impatient longing to take a rod to her naked buttocks and flog her into abject, wailing submission... for if she was to be my maid, she needed to be initiated into her master's pleasure.
Eager to escape further censure from me, Miss Marchmain was more than happy to leave Belinda to my sole care. She departed hastily from the library with Polly and a still weeping Arabella in tow, carrying their dresses and petticoats in their arms.
* * *
The field was mine, the day was won! With mounting excitement I turned to address the little blonde charmer, trembling nervously in her chemise and pretty little lace-trimmed bloomers.
'Rejoice, my dear Belinda!' I began blithely, 'For I am resolved that you shall be my new maid! You will be decked out in silks and satins – the finest black stockings, the frilliest chemises and under-petticoats, the most translucently frivolous drawers that money can purchase...'
She blushed, yet brightened considerably at the thought of leaving Mossborough School behind, and with it all the humiliating, degrading punishments of girlhood.
But I was cruelly baiting her, raising her hopes only to dash them upon the rocks of my implacable flagellant's appetite.
'...and you will be whipped, my dear Belinda,' I continued crisply, my eyes devouring her affrighted innocence, 'well whipped, morning, noon and night, by myself and by your mistress, my Lady Caroline, for she too likes nothing better than to see a brand new parlour-maid well and truly humbled, her drawers down around her ankles, weeping her heart out and clutching a well-whipped bottom... a well-whipped bottom! Do I make myself plain, Belinda?' I repeated slowly and deliberately.
She gazed at me miserably, like a stricken fawn. Her delicate porcelain features were darkly clouded by gloom, despair and naked terror. The painful whippings that Polly and Arabella had suffered were preying on her mind. She could not banish from her memory the awful vision of Arabella's frantically writhing haunches, vainly endeavouring to dodge the lashing rod, her shrieks and howls filling the room.
But Belinda now knew that a far worse fate awaited her. She was under no illusions. She knew she was about to be severely whipped on her exquisite, virginal little bottom – not by one of her own sex – but by a man!
'Belinda,' I murmured cruelly, stroking the cheeks of her bottom through the thin cotton drawers, 'I intend now to give you the most atrociously smarting bottom you have ever endured in your life!'
Then came the command she was dreading all along:
'Loosen you drawers, Belinda. Let them fall to your ankles.'
She began to whimper and cast me many a beseeching look. But Lust had me in its grip and made me immune to all her pleadings. I was fully resolved to whip the shamefully naked bottom of this sweet young innocent, until my right arm hung limp and exhausted at my side.
Her immaculately laundered white drawers hugged her hips like a second skin, clearly delineating the well-defined cleft that separated her beautifully sculpted hind-cheeks. Out of modesty she kept her back turned while she unbuttoned and lowered her drawers, lest I glimpse her sacred, unravished mount of Venus.
Her palely flawless bare bottom slowly came into view. Slight traces of puppy-fat accentuated the soft sensual curves of those rounded little buttocks of hers.
My spirits rose to dizzy new heights, my blood roared in my temples. My manhood engorged and erected, like an accusing finger pointing at my pretty victim.
I chose the slenderest of the three canes, the whippiest and hence the most viciously damaging. I essayed trial slashes with it through the air.
Belinda began to cry softly, her hands shielding the base of her buttocks lest I glimpse between her legs the blonde curls guarding her most intimate shrine.
With the cane I lightly tapped her hands away from her bottom. All modesty was denied her now that she was mine, and I longed to slake my thirst on all her charms.
Accordingly, I instructed her to bend over and touch her toes like a schoolboy. She winced at the gross indignity of having to assume such a posture, but fear made her obey me.
Weeping piteously now, she bent her back taut as a bowstring, and her bottom acquired a cheeky, pouting prominence. Hobbled as she was by her fallen drawers, nevertheless I enjoined her to stretch her feet wider apart, thus affording me a clear view of the precious dewy secrets between her thighs.
Her slender arms hung down obediently before her, her hands an inch or two above her toes. I delivered a warning swish across the tops of her bare thighs. She groaned as she felt the cold kiss of the cane upon her tender, yielding flesh.
'You are a saucy, disobedient little minx, Belinda!' I admonished her severely. 'Touch your toes properly, this instant!'
She gasped with the effort involved in complying with my instructions. Her girlish body tautened and strained as she tried desperately to bend over still further. Her bottom swayed appealingly and her blonde ringlets fell in profusion across her deeply blushing face.
Again I tapped her with the cane, but on the backs of her knees.
'Bend your legs a little, Belinda.' This thrust her bottom outwards, into even greater prominence. Exactly as I desired it.
The moment had arrived. Gripping it tightly just below the handle, I raised the cane. Belinda was breathing heavily in spasmodic, jerking sobs, her eyes closed as though to blot out the impending bottom-searing pain...
The impact drove her forward and she all but tottered to the ground. Somehow she regained her balance and pluckily resumed the vulnerable, submissive posture required.
I saw the sweet rain of her tears, falling drop by drop upon the toes of her shoes. Four livid weals now cruelly branded her once peerless bottom, mocking its ivory beauty. Goaded beyond endurance by her maidenly meekness I sent four more hearty strokes whistling down onto the base of Belinda's out-thrust posterior.
She jumped in the air, as though stung by an electric eel. Now her bottom resembled the glowing bars of a prison cell at sunset. The air vibrated with her passionate lamentations.
'Oh sir!' she sobbed wretchedly, clutching frantically at her blazing rear, 'I believe you are the very cruellest of masters, I –'
'Remove your hands from your posterior, you immodest, brazen girl!' I stormed at her in anger, vowing to punish her unmercifully for that foolishly injudicious little outburst of hers.
Grimly I waited until her hands were once more touching her toes, then I whipped her again more soundly than ever. Five strokes, diagonally applied, to form a crisscross pattern all over her madly squirming seat. Then, with one final resounding 'WHUP!', I savagely rechristened the crimson pouting summits of her nether cheeks before watching her sink to the floor, overcome by lachrymose convulsions of penitence, her bottom more fiercely colourful than if she'd been made to sit for an entire hour upon a hornets' nest!
Belinda wailed and blubbered like one totally distraught, caring not a jot now what part of her precious person she displayed, for she was sprawled indecorously, her legs wide apart revealing all.
I let her weep on until she had practically exhausted a year's supply of tears, then when she had grown more composed I touched her on the shoulder.
'Be dressed and ready to depart within the half hour, Belinda,' I said, 'The road is treacherous and we must reach Tunbridge Wells before nightfall.'
As we drove out of the gates, past the lodge and its morose old guardian, I took one last look at Mossborough Industrial School for Girls. It appeared as grey and forbidding as when I had arrived – more so now, since I had plucked a veritable pearl from its oyster shell. Belinda, tearful and fidgety, sat gingerly alongside me, every bump in the road causing her fresh posterial agony.
Her long painful apprenticeship was only just beginning.
This is a great story and requires that the fate of young Belinda be tracked and reported on by the author. It is too good not to be continued.
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