“Hannah, you must report this to the sheriff. Someone will have to find Daniel.” Jolie’s words were so unexpected. So calm. So sure and steady. So unlike the whimpering girl of the last hour.
Hannah whipped around, having found some reserve of strength.
“NO!” Her eyes flared with purpose. “No one is telling anyone. Ever! I will not go to the sheriff. No one needs to search for Daniel. I will not have you telling my husband or anyone else that I’ve been soiled by these men! It would dishonor him as much as it has dishonored me. He does not deserve that. I brought this on my house and I will bear it myself. You hear me?”
Jolie stood back, stunned.
“You hear me, sister? We keep this to ourselves. No one knows. No one! Ever.” She shook her sister by the shoulders. “I want to hear you say so.”
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“But you will honor my wishes. This is my body that has been violated, and my husband’s wife who has been defiled.”
“I was abused as well!”
“Yes, your ass was beaten, and I’m sorry for that. But it was no worse than getting your due from the judge—which you clearly earned. My violation will never be mentioned again.”
“It will not be easy,” Jolie said.
“Oh, yes, it will be. You erase the memory, Jolie, just as I will. You hold your head up high and so will I.” She began to soften. “But you will do what I say.”
“Yes, yes, I will.” Her eyes were filled with tears again, and the two women hugged long and hard before they filled a wash tub with scalding water and washed the stench of the three men from their bodies. If only they might have washed the memories from their minds, but that would be impossible to do.
CHAPTER SIX
The first time she met, actually met Daniel Crowe, he spanked her. She had seen him a dozen times before in town, and always the handsome fellow filled her with lustful thoughts. On those occasions she never would have believed how the passionate relationship between them would begin. Rather than opening with a polite hello, or a proper introduction, it started with an argument that became a fight that evolved into an incident neither one would forget.
She was in a hurry that day, moving briskly from the small lending library to the store with a load of books in her arms, her head down against the cold chill of wintry air. It had rained all morning and the sidewalks and streets were wet, which made it important to concentrate on what she was doing. Although the wind was strong and she could hardly hear anything beyond her own thoughts, Hannah heard a voice speaking to her from behind. In a hurry to get home, she chose to ignore it, tucking herself in a little tighter while shunning the man’s increasing requests for her to stop.
She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. Not an angry hand. Just a determined one. She jerked about, rattled by the unexpected intrusion and was knocked off balance. Unable to right herself, she stumbled off the sidewalk step, into the mud and landed flat on her bottom, with the books falling all around her. She came up fighting mad.
“What is God’s name is the matter with you!” she blared, still not seeing who she was talking to. Her upswept hairdo toppled forward, carrying with it her modestly small black hat, so they were in her eyes, obscuring her vision. Again all she could hear was the strange voice above the rushing wind.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you claimed the wrong package of books. I was simply trying to call you back, but you paid no attention.”
“Maybe I didn’t hear you!” she declared. She attempted to sit up without making a further mess of herself. When she finally pushed back her disheveled hair and looked up at the man, she was startled to see the young man known as Daniel Crowe towering above her. A loner, she’d been told. He lived on a small farm a few miles outside of town. “It’s you!” she said, making it sound like an accusation.
“Me, yes, it’s me,” he said calmly. “Let me help you.” He held out his hand.
“Help me? You’ve already helped me enough, thank you, sir!” She indicated her muddy books and hands, her eyes shooting fire from beneath the bobbing hat brim. “Look at what you’ve done to me! I’ll thank you to leave me alone.”
His kind face turned grim. “And I’ll thank you to place the blame where it’s due, Miss Noble.”
“How. . . how,” she sputtered, “You know my name?”
“Everyone around knows your name. I’m Daniel Crowe.”
“Yes. I know who you are. Not that I care to know you now.”
“Oh, you cared to know me before?” He looked amused.
She pursed her lips and struggled to stand, shaking off his offer for help. Once on her feet, she looked down at her muddied dress in disgust.
“Maybe you should take that off and get cleaned up,” Daniel Crowe advised her.
She was already shaken; her nerves were on edge and her heart fluttered so excitedly with emotion, that when she gathered up a full head of steam and hauled off and slapped his face, hard as she could, she was as stunned as the man with the burning cheek.
“How dare you make such an improper suggestion!”
Daniel glared back at her angrily. “What the hell!”
“Don’t you dare swear at me! Anyone who makes imprudent advances to a woman gets exactly what he deserves.”
“What did I say?”
“Something about removing my dress.”
“I didn’t mean in public,” he said tersely.
That was enough to silence her for the moment, until she came back with a flustered, “Well, you certainly should take care with the words you use, or not bother to come to town where you might encounter civilized women.”
“Oh, and you consider yourself a civilized woman?” he mocked, as he rubbed his sore cheek again.
Her eyes flashed fire. “I expect an apology!” she exploded.
“Oh, do you? I think I’m the one owed the apology.”
“I apologize? Never!”
“No?”
“I have not wronged you, and you practically pushed me into the mud and then insulted me.”
“Miss Noble, you are a sorry—” he began angrily. Unable to complete the remark the way he would have liked, he turned on his heel to leave, which put Hannah in a panic.
“Aren’t you going to pick up those books?” she squealed indignantly.
He turned back. “No,” he said evenly, and he resumed his retreat. “As you yourself said, I have already helped you enough.”
“You miserable man!” She charged after him with an anger she’d never expressed before. Beating him on the back with her fists, she got his attention again. But it was not exactly the attention she was after—not that she knew then what it was she wanted from Daniel Crowe. What she got was upended over the man’s knee as he raised his foot on a step for support and held her body firmly against his. His hand came down against her bottom, spanking her overtop her coat and skirt. Despite the padding, after a number of hard whacks she could feel the sting right through her clothes. Worse yet was the humiliation from the small crowd that gathered to watch. It wasn’t a brief incident either. He spanked her like he would a naughty child until Hannah felt the sting turning her tender bottom hot.
“Stop it!” she yelled more than once. All to no avail, at least until Daniel paused long enough to say:
“I’ll stop when you’re ready to apologize.”
“I will NOT apologize!”
He kept on while she struggled. Hannah had the idea that eventually he’d give up and let her go. Perhaps he’d tire and she could wrest from his grasp. If she’d known Daniel a little better, she would have known that neither occurrence was likely. Finally, because she became so painfully aware of those laughing at her expense, she shrieked, “I’m sorry. I apologize! Put me down!”
Daniel immediately stopped the determined swats and let her up.
Fuming still, Hannah looked the man in the eye and sputtered, “You say those are your books?” She pointed to the ones with mud clinging
to their spines.
“I believe they are,” he said.
“Well then, you can pick them up.”
She turned and managed to retrieve her purse from the soggy ground then took off briskly for home.
Daniel was so stunned by the woman’s effrontery that he calmly did as she ordered, and picked up books, at the same time filing the facts about Hannah Noble away in his mind. She might have been a comely woman, but she was a bit of a bitch. Certainly not the woman he wanted in his bed.
That evening at dinner, the family was settling in at the table as their mother was bringing a plate of meat in from the kitchen. The seventeen-year-old Beau whispered to his younger sister Jolie, who was sitting beside him, “You should have seen Hannah today.”
Before the girl could answer, his mother spoke. “And what should we have seen?”
Beau looked at Sarah Noble not knowing what to say. He stared speechless for several interminable seconds, while Sarah stood waiting for the answer.
“Nothing, really,” he finally said.
But that wasn’t enough for the woman. “But I want to know,” she said tersely. “As Hannah’s mother, I have a right to know what happened in town.”
“B-but—” he started and stopped.
“Sarah dear, it seems that your daughter got spanked in town today, right out in the open,” Andrew Noble answered on behalf of his son. Beau and Jolie giggled to themselves as the meaning of the comment sunk in.
Sarah’s sharp eyes stung Hannah hard, then returned to her husband. “Who spanked her?”
“Mr. Daniel Crowe. It was said that Hannah and he had a scuffle over some books. A misunderstanding, really. But quite a sight from what I hear.”
“And they all laughed?” The woman was mortified.
Hannah was embarrassed. “It’s over and done, mother.”
“I beg your pardon; it is not over and done. You’d better explain yourself, child. You’re not too old to get a whipping from me.”
“The man behaved like a boor,” Hannah said. “He tripped me, so I was sprawling in the mud. When I finally got to my feet—with no help from him, I slapped his face for his impudence, and well—”
Sarah was aghast. “You shame us all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You shame, me, yourself, your father. A lady would never behave so boldly.”
“Well, then, I’m not much of a lady, mother!” Her eyes spit arrows.
“Hannah, please,” her father said, as he often did in a plea to mollify the testy spirits of the two women.
“You will go to the man tomorrow and apologize,” Sarah said.
“No. I will not!”
Sarah bristled. “You will or I’ll march you in front of the Brethren who will see to your punishment.”
“Father?” she turned to Andrew, her face suddenly pale.
“You’re not going to the Brethren for any reason, Hannah. But as I understand the incident, you were as much at fault as Mr. Crowe. Tomorrow you will ride out to his farm and make proper amends with him.”
“But, sir!” she whimpered.
Her mother glared.
“Enough from both of you!” the man declared. “We’re going to have a pleasant dinner with smiles on our faces. Beau, young man, pass me the biscuits.”
And in this way, Andrew Noble settled every matter that needed to be settled. There was no doubt that it could be any other way. In Sarah Noble’s world she would never dare to defy her husband, though she often disagreed with the man. He did not have her sterner sensibility about life and how it should be rightly lived. Sarah could be a foul and mean-spirited woman. Her religion was hard and punishing. She hated where they lived, in a world she considered savage and remote. In her mind, extras measure had to be taken to ensure good discipline for a brood of spirited children. If Andrew would not give them appropriate guidance, she would. That was where the Brethren came in. The five elders of her strict religious sect could be called on to counsel children in need of discipline, although ‘counsel’ virtually equated with the heavy use of a rod, paddle or switch on a miscreant’s bare behind.
Andrew was totally against such measures and on all but a few occasions forbade his wife from subjecting his children to the dreadful dealings at the Meeting House. He preferred to take care of such matters himself if his children needed discipline, using a switch Sarah kept for that purpose. Most often, he believed that corporal punishment was ineffectual as a child-raising tool. The scientist in him rationalized that such treatment would only skew a child’s sense of right and wrong. He used the treatment sparingly and usually to satisfy his wife.
There were occasions, however, when each child ended up before the Brethren. At those times, the subject in question had so angered Andrew that he willingly gave in to Sarah’s methods and gladly watched their proffered behinds punished with a healthy dose of humiliation and the Brethren’s dreadful rod. To earn this wrath, Beau had stolen goods from a local merchant and the high-strung Hannah had lashed out against her shrewish mother. In this case, Andrew would have preferred to have had Sarah face a punishment equally as damaging as his daughter’s, since she was as much to blame. He actually threatened it.
Hannah’s punishment before the Brethren had so humiliated the girl that when Jolie misbehaved enough to earn a trip before these sober judges, Andrew refused to let her go. By then, he was convinced the practice was barbaric, despite his daughter’s misdeeds. Jolie had been smoking tobacco with one of the wild young men in town—which was two strikes against her. On hearing of the girl’s bad behavior, he informed Sarah that he would take care of the matter himself, and she was not to subject Jolie to ‘those self-righteous bastards’—he rarely used such language, but he did this time. Unfortunately, he was called away before he had the opportunity, and Sarah in defiance of her husband’s wishes brought the girl to the Meeting House for the counseling she deserved. When Andrew learned of Sarah’s subterfuge, he was so furious with his wife that the two hardly spoke for a week. The entire family was on edge for months afterwards. The siblings quarreled with each other and their mother. The parents sometimes quarreled late into the night. Life in the Noble family seemed splintered beyond repair. It was only after Andrew Noble was accidentally killed in a hunting accident—he had an unfortunate back-breaking fall—that the family finally stopped battling. They were all in shock.
Although Andrew was not a perfect father or husband, he was loved by them all and their world turned exceedingly grim with his passing. Worse than anything was that the three adolescent children were left with their mother and they quaked at the thought of her assuming complete control over the household and their lives.
To the trio’s surprise, however, a strange miracle took place. Having hated her home with great passion, and feeling little affection for her children, Sarah Noble announced just a month and a day after her husband’s burial that she was returning to Philadelphia where her mother lived. She made no effort to encourage her children to go with her. Announcing her plans to her shocked progeny, she said directly, “Some will probably think I’m skirting my duties with the three of you, but I cannot bear to stay in this Godforsaken place a moment longer. Your father’s affection and a wife’s propriety were the only things that kept me here. I suppose I’m not much of a mother,” she conceded with an odd, wistful air, “and I’m not sure I even regret that fact. But I do get the notion that the three of you would rather take care of yourselves without me. Now you’ll get your chance. You’re certainly old enough.” Her voice nearly cracked with pain and she sniffled noticeably, but she didn’t actually cry. Her stunned children stared at her silently as she wiped her nose with a crumpled handkerchief, then made her final remark in the same stern tone of voice they would always associate with their mother. “Make your father proud.”
She did not say more, but turned away, walked into her bedroom and closed the door. The following day, she was packed and ready to leave, catching the early stage which
took her to Springfield for the train ride to Philadelphia, and they hadn’t seen her since.
By the time Sarah Noble left for her mother’s home, Hannah was nearly engaged to Daniel Crowe. How she got to the place was another miracle that astounded everyone but Hannah and Daniel.
After their unfortunate run-in in town, Hannah did as she was ordered by her parents and went to Daniel to make amends. Sarah insisted that she take Beau with her because ‘Young ladies of breeding do not put themselves in vulnerable situations with strange men.’ Once the pair arrived at the entrance to the Crowe farm, Beau agreed to wait at the gate, out of earshot, while Hannah searched for the man.
She looked in the immediate area seeing nothing but a few cackling chickens, then she peeked in the barn. No sign of him. As she was moving back toward the house, suspecting he was inside, she reached the porch steps just in time to find Daniel moving from the farmhouse to his porch. He must have seen her from the window.
“Why, Miss Noble! How surprising to see you here,” he said with some amazement, a glint of amusement in his eye. No sign of his previous animosity remained.
“I’m sure you are, Mr. Crowe. However, I’ve been told that I must apologize to you for my unseemly behavior over our encounter in town two days ago.”
“I see.”
This was the first time that Hannah had looked at the man closely when she wasn’t furious with him. He was more handsome than she remembered. The light in his eyes was intense, almost blistering to her sexual body. It hardly seemed fair that he could affect her so profoundly. She wondered if this had anything to do with the violent reaction she had to him while she was foundering in the mud.
“I was needlessly overwrought. I reacted badly,” she explained. “And despite the fact that I still think you’re culpable as well, it is the sign of a lady that she can put behind her any unnecessary ire.” She attempted a smile while speaking the words she knew her mother would approve of. “Please, sir, if you’ll forgive me, I would be grateful.”
After she finished her apology, Daniel let her sweat it out for several seconds, then finally said, “It would be hard not to forgive a woman as beautiful as you.” He smiled at her, too, his face lighting his usually dour expression. He was positively handsome!
The Humiliation of Hannah Page 6