Richard was studying her face: it told him nothing. Then the grey eyes were raised, and he saw them glitter as they met his own. The old familiar smile that curved her lips made him shiver slightly: it was the same sinister smile she had first shown him, a year ago, at Christchurch.
'Where are we going?' she said. 'You will find out quite soon enough, my boy.'
Nine hours later Harriet roused her ward from his slumber in the railway compartment; at luncheon she had made him eat heartily and drink several glasses of wine, and he had fallen asleep some hours before they reached their destination. He awoke like a child, rubbing his eyes and smiling; he was still half asleep when they descended from the train at a small deserted station.
The air here was cold, the rain was still driving down in torrents; he thought he could detect the salty odour of the sea, and looked around curiously. Harriet was superintending the removal of their luggage, and he noticed two tall cloaked figures with her. Harriet called him to her.
'These are Berthe and Angèle, Richard,' she said to him in French.
The women made him a half bow, half curtsey; then, at a word from Harriet, they occupied themselves with the trunks. Displaying the strength and address of porters, they lifted the heavy boxes and carried them to a closed carriage whose lamps were burning dimly in the yard.
'Come, Richard,' said Harriet. 'Stop gaping at those women and get into the carriage.'
She got in behind him and they took their seats. When the luggage was stowed in the boot, the women entered also and sat down opposite, their manner still displaying the mixture of deference and familiarity proper to old and trusted servants. As the coachman spoke to the horses and the carriage moved off, Harriet broke the silence.
'Berthe and Angèle will look after us here for the next two or three weeks,' she said to him. 'They are excellent women, who understand many things.'
She had spoken in English, but at the sound of their names the women raised their heads, and the younger of them smiled with reserve. By the light of the lamp beside the station Richard caught a glimpse of her face before it was hidden by the darkness - a broad, fresh-cheeked face, comely in the peasant style, with a pair of fine black eyes that had seemed to fix on his own countenance with a glance respectful, and yet faintly satirical, as if their owner were privy to a secret which he himself did not share. The face of the other remained invisible in her capuchin; she appeared to be about forty years old, and was even taller and more robust than her companion.
Silence fell again. After a few minutes Richard was emboldened to speak. 'Miss...' he said timidly.
'Yes?'
'May I ask now... where we are?'
In the darkness Harriet pressed his arm with a warmth which surprised him.
'We are in Brittany, my dear,' she murmured.
'Brittany?' The name meant almost nothing to him.
'Yes. It is a stern country: stern, but very healthy. I have brought you here for the sake of your health - and for other reasons... Now do not ask any more questions. If you wish, you may go to sleep again. Here, you may rest your head on my shoulder. Yes, like that...'
Completely happy, he relaxed himself against her. When he awoke almost an hour later, it was to find the carriage drawn up before the doorway of a large building whose lights streamed welcomingly through the rain-striped darkness.
'Berthe,' said Harriet, 'you will take Monsieur to his room at once. He will have dinner by himself, first of all. And come to me for your instructions in half an hour.'
'Yes, mademoiselle,' said the younger woman. 'Come, if you please, Monsieur Richard...'
Surprised, Richard turned an appealing look on his guardian. 'Miss,' he stammered, 'can - can I not—'
'Richard!' said Harriet in a warning tone. 'You will please go with Berthe.'
Obediently he followed the girl into the house; they passed through a cold, richly furnished hall and along a long panelled passage, mounted a flight of narrow stairs and after threading through another passage entered a small whitewashed bedroom. It was comfortably furnished and lit by a pair of lamps; the curtains were drawn, a fire was burning brightly in a pretty faience fireplace, and the covers on the small carved four-poster bed were turned down.
'This is your room, monsieur,' said his guide. 'The cabinet de toilette is in there.' She pointed to a door beside the bed. 'Angèle will bring your dinner to you shortly. Good evening, monsieur.'
Before Richard could say a word she had left him, closing the door quietly behind her.
He looked around him with mixed feelings. His bedroom was attractive, the fire was pleasant to his body chilled from the long drive; the prospect of dinner was inviting to his healthy young appetite further sharpened by the raw weather. But he was troubled by this separation from Harriet, nor could he understand the reason for it; he was conscious of no fault he had committed, that he should be punished in a way which was more disturbing than any other. He resisted an impulse to leave his room and seek his governess. - She would only be angry with me for doing so, he thought. The idea of Harriet's anger, even her displeasure, had lately become something from which he shrank more than ever before.
He was roused by a tap on the door, and Berthe entered with his luggage. She placed the boxes beside the armoire, and turned to him. 'Mademoiselle has given orders that you are to unpack your effects before dinner, Monsieur Richard.'
'Oh yes. I will do so at once.' He paused, then added hurriedly, 'Berthe, will you please tell Mademoiselle Marwood that - that I am doing as she says?'
The same reserved smile appeared for an instant on the young woman's face. 'Yes, Monsieur Richard.' And she disappeared again.
He had only finished unpacking and arranging his clothes when the older woman arrived with his dinner. He looked at her, observing her costume with surprise and interest. She was now dressed entirely in black, the close-fitting, high-waisted bodice and long, very full skirt accentuating her height and revealing the lines of her bust and hips; around her shoulders was drawn a snowy handkerchief, her hair was concealed under a narrow white cap whose wings half covered her cheeks. Richard, who had not seen the Breton costume before, gave it all his attention at first; it was a few moments before he examined the countenance of its wearer. With a feeling of uneasiness he studied the pale unsmiling face, the downcast eyes, the narrow colourless lips pressed firmly on each other. This Angèle had once been handsome, he saw; but the lines of her face had become so fixed in an expression of silent severity that the effect was almost frightening - especially to a boy whose existence had been unusually rich in experiences of womanly domination. She could have sat, he thought, for an allegorical picture of Resolve, of Repression, of Discipline.
Without a word she placed the tray on a small table and turned away. When he thanked her, she merely inclined her head slightly, and then left the room, her long skirts rustling with a sound as forbidding as her countenance itself.
In another part of the house, in a luxuriously furnished sitting room, Harriet was lying on a chaise-longue, wrapped in a loose dressing-gown; Berthe, now also in Breton costume, was seated on a low stool at her side. One of the governess' hands was playing affectionately with the young servant's hair at the nape of her neck, where it was not completely covered by the white linen cap. They were speaking in low tones, Harriet with an air of lazy, sensual assurance, Berthe with the mixture of familiarity and subservience reminiscent of a favoured amourette.
'And everything is already in readiness, my dear?' said Harriet.
'Everything, mademoiselle. Since receiving Madame la Contesse's telegram, Angèle and I have been most diligent.'
Harriet sighed luxuriously. 'Good...' she murmured.
Berthe smiled. 'It will be most enjoyable, mademoiselle. Just as in old times, in fact.'
Harriet pulled the young woman's ear playfully. 'Ah, you remember those little séances, do you? They were enjoyable, were they not, those parties de fouet with the foundlings from Rouen?'
&
nbsp; The servant's eyes glittered, her teeth showing for an instant. 'Surely, mademoiselle. And this young gentleman, is he also a novice in discipline? I did not think so, I confess...'
Harriet smiled at the question. 'No, he is certainly no novice. He has been well whipped in the past, I can assure you.'
Berthe was silent for a few moments, her gaze abstracted. 'Then we must take special pains, Angèle and I, must we not?'
Harriet's hand slipped caressingly under the young woman's chin. 'But of course. I am relying on you...' Her fingers passed lightly over the smiling mouth; as they did so her palm met the response of a quick, active tongue. She sighed voluptuously and stretched herself out. 'Well, yes, my dear you may... But not to finish, you understand. You will do that later - afterwards... Do not tire me, please...'
The other slipped to her knees, her face glowing. 'Ah, no, Mademoiselle Harriet! You may rely upon me. Ah, but later - later...'
Darkness had fallen; a prey to an ever-growing uneasiness, Richard was still sitting in his bedroom, still waiting for some word from Harriet. - Perhaps she is resting, he told himself, trying to shake off his mood of perturbation, his intuitive sense of some recent alteration in his guardian's attitude towards him, some indication that he was to be presented with yet another aspect of her mysterious personality. By now, he was only too well aware that he knew nothing of this strange being, that he would never be able to gauge in advance her reactions or her behaviour, that there were depths in her that he would never plumb: this very unpredictability was indeed a part of her troubling charm, an integral element of her attraction for him, but it imposed on him the burden of an uncertainty that was always unsettling and often productive of anguish. - Ah, if only she would come to me, he thought. At that moment there was a tap at the door, and he swung around eagerly.
Berthe and Angèle entered the room. The former was smiling slightly.
'Monsieur Richard,' she said, 'Mademoiselle will see you now. You are to undress yourself and come with us. At once, if you please.'
He stared at her in stupefaction. 'Uh - undress myself?' he stammered. 'But - but—'
'At once, Monsieur Richard.'
He turned in dismay from one woman to the other: their faces were impassive. Berthe was still smiling, but the smile was backed by a firmness which found its heightened reflection in the stern face of the older woman.
'At once,' said the latter, speaking for the first time.
'I - I cannot believe it,' he said protestingly. 'Mademoiselle Marwood would not—'
'Mademoiselle has given her orders,' said Berthe calmly. The blood had slowly risen to the boy's cheeks; he was about to speak, but he could not find words. Facing these two powerful women, he was suddenly conscious of his inability to oppose them, to do anything but put up a pointless and token resistance and thus emphasise his shameful situation. In spite of his long habituation to the authority of woman, tears of helpless anger sprang to his eyes.
'If those are Mademoiselle's orders,' he said with an air of forced carelessness, fumbling with the buttons of his jacket, 'I shall of course respect them...'
In less than a minute he was undressed and standing before the two women in nothing but his short drawers.
Berthe pointed. 'The calecon also, if you please.'
He stiffened, trying to control himself, to stifle his sense of outrage. 'No,' he said firmly. 'I will not. That is not—'
He was not allowed to finish. Angèle stepped forward, and for the first time he saw the buckled strap in her hand.
'No!' he cried desperately. 'No - you shall not—'
His hands were drawn behind him in a powerful grip; before he could begin to resist his wrists were encircled and strapped together. He gave a cry, and lunged forwards; but with that single movement his spirit was suddenly broken by the sensation of physical impotence, by the experience of being reduced to helplessness which he had known so often in the past. He ceased to struggle, enduring with the patience of despair the final baring of his body. Then, preceded by Berthe and followed by Angèle, he let himself be marched from the room like a prisoner, holding his head high, dissembling his chagrin and his fear. - I am merely going to be flogged, he kept telling himself: it has happened before, it will happen again, it is nothing to fear. I must not break down too soon. But ah, why am I afraid tonight? This place, these women! Where are we going?
They had reached the ground floor, but they were still descending: a door was opened, and a dark corridor sloped downward before him; the air grew cold, and he saw that the walls were now of stone. Another door, and a flight of stone steps leading still downwards; a single lamp cast its light along another low, narrow passage. He began to tremble, oppressed by the atmosphere of the tomb into which he seemed to be penetrating; his spirits suddenly failed.
'Miss Marwood!' he cried, stopping short. 'Where is she? Harriet!'
As if in answer, the younger woman stepped forward and opened a heavy door. A low-ceilinged, dimly lit room appeared; he saw nothing for an instant but a mysterious engine of wheels and cords, a leather bench, a rack of whips; then he saw Harriet seated beside the engine in a great chair, motionless, hooded, her face barely visible.
'Harriet!' he cried again, trying to throw himself on his knees before her. The strap tightened on his arms, pulling him sharply backwards. The hooded figure did not answer nor move; the eyes were fixed on him, glowing with a strange light. Terrified, he tried to call her name again, but his voice failed him. The next instant his wrists were separated, his arms were pulled above his head; he heard the sound of cords in pulleys and felt himself being drawn upwards, upwards, until he stood on tiptoes, helpless, exposed, his naked body hanging like a sacrifice in front of the terrible silent figure in the chair.
Behind him, he heard the soft premonitory whistle of whipcord - and even before the first stroke caught his loins he began to scream.
Until now, we have not shrunk from depicting the measures which Harriet Marwood took to assure the subjection and corruption of her pupil: that these have been harsh, unusual, even repulsive, is a fact which could not be blinked by the chronicler of such a bizarre romance as theirs. But what occurred in the punishment-cell of the Breton chateau that evening must go unrecorded; there are limits to cold-blooded cruelty, and while the heroine of our story may have seen fit, in the inscrutability of her own designs and her own emotions, to pass beyond them on this occasion, we have thought it advisable, by suppressing any detailed account of this evening, to obviate the risk of alienating the reader's sympathies from this remarkable woman.
Suffice it to say that from that hour onward Richard looked on his beloved governess with new eyes. In a single night his love was changed: no less deep and fervent, it was now hedged around with such fear that he could no longer regard her as an object of desire: in the mysterious depths of her nature which had been revealed to him he had seen what had appalled him, a blend of savagery and sensuality before which he could only shudder and close his eyes. It had been like being confronted with the desires of some infinitely ancient, incredibly cruel deity, a female Moloch who watched her victim's torments without a word or a movement, with fierce unwinking eyes fixed on his own, as if drawing from his terror and agony the very stuff of her divinity.
That evening had in fact seen his love transformed into a pagan adoration, a worship instinct with awe and a veritable holy dread. Not for years was he to look on his beloved without a shudder, without a contraction of his flesh and a total abasement of his spirit: that night, in the dim light of a rocky cell, he had seen the face of the Medusa, and had realised, with an emotion which shook him with panic and ecstasy, that his body and soul were devoted to its beauty...
And what of Harriet herself? We still hardly know that character at once so passionate and sombre, so inalterably fixed on its own ends, so merciless in the choice of means by which a woman's tastes were to be linked to those of a boy and the vision of their eventual happiness to be realised. Indeed, it is
not our part to examine into her consciousness at this period. Yet it is possible that her emotions may have been of a far more crucial nature than Richard's: for him, the lasting basis of their love was established in a single night; for his guardian, it was two weeks before she gained the assurance of her conquest over herself.
Thus, it was not until May that they left the castle behind forever.
Lust Under Licence
Entrepreneur Tom Glass, the youthful darling of British industry, has a whole-hearted approach to business. He's prepared to go to any lengths to land the deal he wants. But his first big coup away from home brings him face-to-face with American mogul Ralph Simons, a wily old boardroom fox who's been devouring up-and-comers like Tom for decades. Getting into bed with the Simons Corporation, as Tom discovers, is an exhausting affair - except that 'affair' doesn't quite cover his relationship with Simons' six-foot, treacle-eyed daughter, Laura. When it comes to devious footwork in the bedroom, Laura proves to be even more of a handful than her father.
Lust Under Licence is the third of Noel Amos's sex-and-satire novels - 'sexy fiction as it should be written,' according to American mystery writer Ed Gorman, 'erotic, dark, funny, suspenseful - in short, all the elements of a good book with some sex to spice it up.'
Tom dreamed of New York. Of an apartment on the Upper East Side overlooking Central Park where the winter sunlight sparkled on the crystal goblet in his hand and picked out every crest and cavity of the Jackson Pollock canvas on the wall. And glistened on the auburn tresses of his colleague and lover, Meredith Rich, sitting by his side.
Opposite them reclined their host, the owner of his luxurious apartment where servants glided across polished mahogany floors like phantoms and the walls were adorned with enough priceless modern art to furnish a small museum. Ralph Simons raised his brandy glass to Tom and Meredith in salute.
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