The Girls of Cropton Hall

by Stanlegh Meresith

  "And she will be visiting this study again on Monday morning, Lady Althorp, for a further four, laid on, I can assure you, with appropriate zest. And her offence was not of great seriousness. No," she said, turning to Edith for support, "I am confident young Susan French will soon learn to buck up her ideas." Edith nodded vigorously, eyeing Lady Althorp, and said,

  "Yes indeed. I believe Miss Markham has made a huge diff-"

  "Oh, very well," said Lady Althorp, sinking into further detailed contemplation of the list on page two, as Verily turned to Sir Wilfred with an indulgent smile and he shrugged his shoulders and looked to the heavens with a small smile of his own.

  ---oOo---

  With collars up and hugging their blue blazers close to keep out the slight chill in the wind, Julia Bennett and Gabrielle Pearson walked up the side of the First XI hockey pitch towards the tennis courts, kicking the first fallen leaves of autumn and deep in conversation. Julia had already, on Friday night, given Gabrielle a detailed account of her extraordinary conversation with the Headmistress in which she had been offered the role of Head Girl and informed about the apologies due to and from Miss Gibson. Gabrielle had at first protested vehemently at the notion that they had to keep Gibbo's apology to themselves - if, she had exclaimed, they ever got it anyway, an eventuality Gabby found almost inconceivable - but after much soothing, and reminders of how the Head's intervention must inevitably effect a change in the sadistic mistress, Gabby had been won round and had sworn to keep the secret. The topic now was Julia's dilemma.

  "I just don't know, Gabby, I really don't." Julia kicked a stray pine cone and sent it rolling over the white touchline on to the pitch. Gabby tutted and went to retrieve it. "I'd hate being an officious priggy type ... reporting people for silly things like running in the corridor and talking during prep ... I just couldn't do it!" Gabrielle tossed the pine cone into the hedge on their right, and fell back into step with her friend.

  "Well, maybe that's not what it's mostly about," said Gabrielle, reasonably. "The mistresses mostly do that kind of thing. I'm sure Marky wouldn't be too bothered if you weren't forever reporting people." Julia didn't much like the nickname already gaining hold among the girls for the new Head: Marky - it seemed, somehow, unworthy ... belittling of the woman who had first caned her - hard - and then taken her into her trust about her own experiences at Cropton Hall, about which Julia had not, as she had promised she wouldn't, breathed a word to either Gabby or Shirley, her closest friends.

  "I know, and I do feel really, I don't know... special that she even asked me. I mean ... ME?" Julia laughed, not for the first time since Friday evening, at the absurdity of it. "And then I think, no more whackings - that can't be bad!" Gabrielle looked up sharply.

  "Maybe not whackings, Julia, but you can still get the cane from the Head, and if you do ... whooee! You'd need more than Ponds, I can tell you." Gabrielle laughed ruefully. Julia looked crestfallen.

  "What? I thought..."

  "Don't you remember Wagsy? Maggie Wagstaff? Head Girl our first year?"

  "Oh! Gosh! Yes, I'd forgotten," said Julia, in sudden recollection. "I heard about that. They said the Old Boot must've really lashed her."

  "She did. I saw the marks that night. I was in her dorm and I caught a glimpse. I swear I've never seen stripes like that since - not even yours ... or even Patterson's!" They both laughed at the thought of The Worm. "I think she got nine. There were certainly plenty of them. No, the Head Girl's expected to be a model of good conduct - isn't that what Weekesy always said about Lloyd last year - and if she does do something a bit seriously bad then she gets it worse than anyone else would."

  "God! And what are my chances of not being a bit seriously bad sometimes, eh, Gabby?" said Julia with a mischievous grin. "No thanks!" Gabrielle looked serious.

  "But isn't that the point, Julia? Isn't that why Marky's chosen you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well..." Gabby thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully, "just that, isn't it time you ... grew up a bit? You're going to university next year. I know you're brave as anything, and funny, and really good fun to be with, but you can't go through life always thumbing your nose at authority." They walked on in silence for several steps while Julia digested this. Eventually she said,

  "I was going to say, just watch me! But I suppose you've got a point, Gabby. That's how I felt when Miss Markham was talking about it too." Julia took a big swing and kicked some leaves, sending them flying up to be blown back onto her skirt and legs. She brushed them off clumsily. "Oh, I don't know, Gabby, I just don't KNOW!" Her voice rose in frustration.

  "It's all right, Julia. You've still got a day to think it over. Just do what feels right for you," said Gabby, putting her arm through Julia's, picking up the pace and changing the subject. "Now, I'm feeling really bad about Jennings."

  "What! Why on earth?" exclaimed Julia. "She deserves whatever she gets, and it's got to be at least what I got for cheating, surely? Six of the ... VERY best," she said swinging her arm as if delivering a stroke of the cane.

  "I know, but I kind of believe her when she says she didn't mean to, and she's so funny ... sweet really ... and have you seen how utterly glum she was looking this morning? I felt really sorry for her. I think I should give her at least the comfort of letting her know I've forgiven her."

  "How can she say she didn't mean it? She did it plain as day! Wham! You're too good, Gabby! Really you are. It's you who should be Head Girl!" Gabby smiled. They'd reached the tennis courts and she stopped and looked at the small wristwatch she'd got for her birthday.

  "We'd best turn back. It's twenty to. Mustn't be late for the first service of the term. Lady Whacko'll be there." They both giggled and Julia made another swing of her arm. Lady Althorp had given a talk after church on the first Sunday last year, when they were in the Lower Sixth, and they'd never forgotten how flustered and annoyed Mrs Weekes had looked when her Ladyship had gone on about how a 'good hard whacking' had never done her any harm.

  They made their way briskly back in silence, each with their own thoughts.

  Gabrielle's were about being Head Girl.

  ---oOo---

  During Sunday services, staff and any visiting dignitaries were seated on a slightly raised dais on either side of the chapel behind the choir near the front, leaving the main stage free for the presiding vicar, the altar and the lectern where selected staff would come forward to read the two lessons for the day, one from the Old, one from the New testament.

  Lady Althorp had made sure she got a seat at the end nearest the main body of the school so she could indulge her favourite activity on such occasions, albeit one she had not been fully able to enjoy for over two years. She had developed, as a Cropton girl herself back in the 1890's, and for a reason probably best attributed to the peculiarities of adolescence, an uncanny ability to spot the sore bottoms in a room, despite all the occupants being, of course, fully clothed and engaged in some entirely unrelated activity. It was a matter of the subtlest shifting, a slight awkwardness of posture, a minute wince, even simply a kind of aura that her highly attuned antennae, even at seventy-three years of age, would home in on. She found it an utterly engrossing pastime, one which had in her own days as a pupil helped while away many a dull sermon and deadly lesson.

  Opportunities to indulge this particular peccadillo had been limited to the occasional service or school gathering that Sir Wilfred could be persuaded to attend, and of course the awful Mrs Weekes had almost completely ruined Lady Althorp's innocent pleasure with her lily-livered forbearance. However, with fifty-two recorded incidences in six days of that corrective action designed to produce a sore bottom, even if some of those bottoms had recovered sufficiently to preclude any remaining soreness, Lady Althorp positively glowed with anticipation as she surveyed the rows of girls on their wooden pews in the hall.

  Imagine her surprise then when, glancing around during the First Reading (from Deuteronomy) to remind herself of
the complement of staff now in place, her antennae immediately signalled with an unusually bold clarity an extremely sore bottom belonging to none other than their shy Head of Humanities, Margaret Dawson! Well I never, thought her Ladyship. How extraordinary! There was absolutely no doubt - the young woman was almost hovering over her seat! And not only that, she appeared to be glowing with that unmistakable pride, even joy, that Lady Althorp remembered so well in both herself and some of her similarly inclined fellow pupils after a sound thrashing.

  Transferring her attention to the pupils themselves, she immediately noticed a couple of fourth-formers in the second row whom she assumed must be the ones listed last on page three of the Punishment book: they'd been whacked - four each with a hairbrush - by Edith (good old Edith), for talking repeatedly during yesterday afternoon's film showing. They were squirming like nobody's business! Must be new to it, she thought, and serves them right. Casting her gaze further afield her antennae alighted on two girls towards the back, probably Lower Sixth, a blond girl with tousled hair and her neighbour, a striking brunette, who were both sitting rather awkwardly. She sighed at the memories these observations brought back. And further back still, she noticed another pair, must be Upper Sixth, side by side, two recently sore bottoms adjusting themselves periodically on their hard wooden pew.

  Having identified a satisfying ten or twelve uncomfortable young minxes amongst the sea of blue, Lady Althorp's eyes alighted on a fifth former - about six rows back. She was looking particularly anxious and glum. Ah! That one's for it, she thought, and she wondered why and how many and with what.

  The young lady in question was, of course, Alice Jennings, and the answer to Lady Althorp's wondering was almost certainly six with the senior cane. Even now, as she sat deep in gloom while the vicar's sermon gradually brought all to drowsiness, Alice was still replaying, over and over in her mind, the events of yesterday afternoon, as if in doing so she might find an answer as to why on earth she'd done it.

  The hockey game between mixed teams of potential First and Second XI girls was almost over. Miss Gibson charged up and down the field with her whistle, guiding, cajoling, encouraging, while the frantic game in which every girl hoped to shine and win a First XI place drew to its exhausted close. The Red team were winning 4 - 1 mainly due to the partnership of Pearson and Bennett, the latter having scored three of the goals thanks to superb passes by the former. Alice, playing at the heart of the Green team's defence, had not had a good game and was feeling utterly annoyed. Both Bennett and Pearson were so quick, and nimble with their stick-play, that Alice had hardly been able to get near them all afternoon.

  And then came ... that moment. It was so vivid in her mind and she wished so desperately she could turn back time and just not do what she'd done...

  The Reds were on the attack yet again. Pearson had the ball on the edge of the D, but she stumbled just as she went to hit it. She fell forward right at Alice's feet, the ball skittering away over the backline. Pearson's skirt had flopped up over her back as she fell, revealing her bottom in its dark blue knickers. Fifty-five minutes of frustration came to a head and Alice saw red. As Pearson knelt, preparing to get up, Alice lifted her stick and whacked it smartly right across the centre of Pearson's unwittingly proferred backside.

  Pearson screamed and fell forward into the turf again. Alice froze, stick in hand. Everyone froze, staring at her. Even Miss Gibson, close by, was so stunned that the whistle stayed poised three inches from her lips for some seconds before she blew it furiously and marched over.

  Pearson was muttering 'Ow! Ow!", her hands nursing her bottom. Bennett had already come over and was kneeling by her, giving Alice a filthy look. Miss Gibson exploded.

  "JENNINGS," she shouted, "CHANGING-ROOM ... NOW!"

  Alice, ashen-faced, had trudged off towards the main school building, trailing her stick along the ground behind her, her mind in turmoil. Did I just do that? Why did I just do that? Why? She felt utterly mortified and ashamed. She liked Pearson; she really liked Bennett and she knew Pearson was one of Bennett's best friends. Why, why had she done that?

  Alice had waited in the changing-room, more depressed than she thought she'd ever been in her life. Before long, eagerly chatting players started arriving, but they went quiet when they saw Alice sitting there, all giving her dirty looks. Eventually Miss Gibson arrived and Alice's heart was pounding so hard at the thought of the almighty whacking she was about to get that she nearly fainted.

  But it didn't happen, and that was almost worse. If she'd got eight or even twelve of Gibbo's hardest with a strap or something, at least she'd have been somewhat redeemed, and those dirty looks might have changed to a bit of sympathy. Instead, Gibbo had told her coldly that she would be reported to the Headmistress and dismissed her without another word...

  As the service drew to a close and the girls started to fidget with relief at the proximity of freedom, Lady Althorp gazed over once more at the unhappy fifth former who was looking distinctly nervous now. Ah, yes, she thought... the wait... the not knowing when.

  ---oOo---

  "Jennings." Miss Markham herself is standing at the door of 5B, looking stern, gesturing with her right index finger, crooked to say, 'Come'.

  Alice gulps. This is it. Her form-mates are silent, watching this moment of drama. Most have heard about what Alice did. Alice, bright red with embarrassment, fear twisting her stomach, gets up from her desk and goes to the door, from which the Headmistress has already turned to walk off down the corridor towards her study. Alice follows, terrified, but at the same time just a little relieved that at least the wait is over.

  Miss Markham opens the study door and stands back, motioning Alice to enter.

  Heart beating in her ears and tummy churning, Alice enters the dreaded study. The last time she was here she got one stroke of the senior cane. It hurt like mad and she thought then that she'd die if she ever had to have six. Now she does feel as if her death is approaching.

  Alice makes her way to the desk and waits while Miss Markham shuts the door and comes over to take her customary place facing the miscreant. Alice looks down and plays with the front of her skirt. Her legs press together, she is sweating and afraid she won't be able to stop herself peeing right here on the carpet.

  "Jennings, can you remind me please what I said to you on the last occasion you were standing before me here?"

  Alice's mouth is so dry she has to pause and move her tongue around her mouth before she can speak. When she does, it comes out as a squeak.

  "Um ... you said ... er ... um ... I'm sorry, Miss..." A pleading panic pours from Alice's eyes as she looks up at the Headmistress. "It had a lot of P's in it Miss ... punishive ... peragatives ... I'm not sure..."

  Miss Markham wants to smile but doesn't. "Yes. I believe I said you were not to appropriate the punitive prerogatives of mistresses." Verily notices that Alice looks as puzzled as she did on the previous occasion Verily uttered this phrase. "And what, in your own words, was I warning you about, Jennings? I think you did understand, didn't you?"

  Alice looks down again and, in a very small voice says, "Yes, Miss."

  "And...?" Alice continues to study her hands twisting the front of her blue skirt.

  "You said I shouldn't ... whack other girls, Miss," says Alice to the carpet.

  "Yes, I did. And what did you do yesterday afternoon at the end of the hockey game?" Another pause ensues. So twisted has it become, the front of Alice's skirt has ridden up by several inches. Alice, her face crimson, hates to say it out loud, as if that will confirm irrevocably the reality of what she did; as if in saying it aloud her fate will be sealed. She has no choice.

  "I ... whacked Pearson, Miss." Her chin subsides to her chest as tears of shame, regret and fear come springing from her eyes. She wipes them away with the back of her right hand and her legs cross over in awkward embarrassment.

  "But, Jennings, what on EARTH made you do such a thing?" Verily's voice rises as much in frustrated disbe
lief as in anger. "After I had expressly warned you? And, you KNEW, I believe, that Pearson had been severely whacked only two days before?"

  Alice's shoulders shake with sobs and she raises her tear-streaked face to look with mortified supplication at her Headmistress. "Yes, Miss," she wails. "I did know, and I ... I ... (sob) ... don't know why I did it, Miss."

  "NOT good enough, Jennings!" says Miss Markham very firmly. "Now, tell me why ... the truth, Jennings."

  Alice recovers slightly, and still twisting the unfortunate skirt, embarks on a rushed but truthful explanation,

  "I was angry, Miss ... Pearson played so well, Miss ... we were losing four one and she'd made me look so bad all game, Miss ... and ... and ..." More tears come. "Her bum was there, Miss, and ... and ... I just couldn't help it, Miss..." Chin glued to her chest, Alice's torso shakes with more sobs of shame.

  Miss Markham stands and walks over to the chest of drawers. She opens the middle drawer and takes out the senior cane. Alice sneaks a frightened peak out of the corner of her eyes. The Head comes back to stand by Alice, cane in hand. She looks down at the distraught pupil with an expression not without some sympathy, though Alice, eyes still fixed on the carpet, does not see this.

  "Alice, I think you know what is about to happen. You must be punished for this, and this punishment must be a severe one, mustn't it?"

  Alice nods, acknowledging the truth of the Headmistress' statement and comforted slightly by the mention of her Christian name. She's mortally afraid of that cane, which she can't help staring at, but also knows that to find any favour with her team-mates again she must suffer this and be seen to have done so.

  "Am I right in thinking, Alice," says Miss Markham, "that the stroke I gave you the other day was your first taste of the cane?"