The Girls of Cropton Hall

by Stanlegh Meresith

  The girls fumblingly obeyed and the Headmistress, starting with Jenny Simpson, lifted the blazer and skirt of each girl up and out of the way until there were five bottoms crowning five pairs of bare legs facing the room. She paced up the line again, checking fingers were indeed touching toes and lifting Jennings' skirt slightly higher. Then she stepped back and surveyed her targets for a moment, before announcing,

  "You will each receive six strokes, and you will stay in position until I instruct you otherwise. Is that clear?"

  The girls nodded in their bent-over positions, one or two half turning and muttering, 'Yes, Miss.'

  Miss Markham stood behind and to the left of Jenny Simpson and placed the cane across the middle of her bare buttocks. She tapped twice, making a slight patting noise, before she raised it and brought it smartly in to make its biting dent in the soft flesh of the girl's bottom. A red line appeared almost instantly and Simpson's legs bent slightly at the knee. Only Alice, her face not two feet from Jenny's, heard the quiet gasp the younger girl emitted.

  The Headmistress took one pace to her right and repeated the procedure. The cane swished and struck, the flesh gave way and absorbed, answering the impact angrily with a scarlet stripe, and Alice, too, gasped and mouthed a silent 'OW!' at the carpet. Jenny turned slightly and watched in sympathy Alice's scrunched up face, the eyes shut tight. Miss Markham had moved on and a second later it was Grace who was letting out a pained 'Eeesh!' as she received her first. Sally Evans, like Grace a newcomer to a caning, reacted more dramatically, emitting a high-pitched, 'YEOOW!' which was followed by a series of further, whispered 'Ow's as she struggled to bear her first taste of the cruel implement. Peters mewled before the cane even struck and she too responded to its impact with a squeal of outraged pain, bending her knees and wiggling her bottom.

  The Headmistress stood back, surveyed the five neat, red lines and moved back to stand behind Simpson again. Jenny braced herself and gripped the sides of her black shoes as the cane bit again. A second red line appeared an inch above the first. Jenny breathed heavily, bent at the knees and shook her legs trying to throw off the scorching sting. Alice wanted to whisper words of support but didn't dare with the Headmistress now standing right behind her, ready to deal out her own second helping.

  Verily Markham worked methodically, taking careful aim and laying on each of the second strokes an inch above the first. She wondered at the differing reactions of the girls - Simpson so quiet, Peters not - and whether some really did feel it worse than others. She'd always doubted this, assuming it had more to do with psychology than physiology, but she remembered larger schoolmates claiming that a plumper bottom suffered more. Certainly, looking at the present collection, she noticed that the stripes on Evans' fleshier rear were already turning a deeper red and looking angrier than the others. But did they hurt more?

  By the time she had administered five strokes to each girl, Evans and Peters were crying openly, and all the girls were shifting from foot to foot and bending their knees and generally shuffling around very uncomfortably - as indeed they should.

  "Last stroke, girls," she said breezily, walking back to stand behind Simpson again. She followed time-honoured tradition in swishing the sixth in with more gusto, that little extra twist of the wrist being all that was necessary. Jenny groaned and wriggled; Alice yelped loudly and rubbed her knees together furiously back and forth; Grace emitted an "Aaoooh!" and her shoulders started to shake with sobs; Sally, poor girl, screamed and almost collapsed while Peters, still swaying her bottom from side to side so markedly that Verily had to wait for it to be still before dealing the final stroke, jumped and clutched her bottom in both hands, wailing. Verily decided to ignore it and brusquely ordered them all up. Hands went to bottoms almost immediately, hovering, touching tentatively, gently rubbing, before the girls slowly reached down and very gingerly pulled knickers up and over the sizzling, striped buttocks. Sniffles continued, eyes were dried on sleeves and gradually five sorry faces turned to face their Headmistress.

  "I sincerely hope," said the latter, "that we shall not be repeating this exercise next Friday, or any Friday for that matter."

  Vigorous shakings of heads from Peters and Evans greeted this statement, whilst the other three stood with bowed heads, still wincing. Miss Markham strode to the door and pulled it open.

  "Off you go, and mind you do your prep properly this evening - you have some catching up to do."

  The girls shuffled painfully out and past the final group of four who were standing now, readying themselves to enter the swishing room.

  "Right! You four, in here," said the Headmistress. "Thank you, Pearson. You may go now."

  Linton, Wilson and Hughes followed Susan French into the Headmistress' study and the door closed behind them. Gabrielle watched as Jennings and Simpson disappeared round the corner into the main corridor and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Her face immediately resumed the expression of anguished pain she'd been hiding since she emerged from her own ordeal, and she reached behind and under her skirt to place her hands inside the top of her knickers, peeling them away from her raw, throbbing bottom to provide some air and coolness. But her spirit was high and she smiled at her accomplishment.

  Alice and Jenny made their way down the corridor towards their classrooms, walking slowly and awkwardly and wincing at almost every step. As they neared 4B, Alice stopped and said, in a low voice,

  "Meet me in the loos in five minutes, all right?" Jenny looked at her quizzically. "I've got some cold cream," explained Alice. Jenny smiled and nodded.

  "Thanks," she said. "I'll come."

  They went on and Jenny entered her form room which was wrapped in quiet now as the girls got on with their work.

  Alice too returned to her form room, 5B, where Grace, ahead of her, was standing by her desk bracing herself to sit down. The Countess, still on duty and marking exercise books at the teacher's table, looked up.

  "Sit down, you two," she said. "If you're sore, you have only yourselves to blame."

  The two girls sat down reluctantly. Alice opened her desk, quite legitimately, to get out her English work but at the same time took out the pot of Ponds Rachel had given her and slipped it into her lap. After two minutes she put her hand up. She had to wave it a bit to get the Countess' attention.

  "Yes, what is it, Jennings?"

  "Lavatory, Miss?"

  "All right. You may go."

  Alice concealed the Ponds under her blazer, holding it in place with her left forearm, and headed for the door.

  The toilets were located on the right at the end of the corridor leading to the changing rooms. They smelt of disinfectant and pee. Five cubicles ran along one wall and at the end the passage turned left to reveal a further three. On the wall at the end of this shorter passage was a mirror. Alice stood with her backside reflected in it, her skirt tucked into its own waistband and her knickers round her knees, peering over her shoulder at the colourful picture that was her bottom. Holding part of her skirt out of the way with her left hand she used the fingers of her right to gently trace the ridges of the stripes.

  She heard footsteps entering and hurriedly but silently went into the end cubicle and, equally quietly, pushed the door so it was almost closed. She waited. The footsteps sounded tentative as they came down the corridor, then she heard a voice.

  "Jennings?" It was Jenny and Alice opened the door again and stepped out. Jenny appeared and smiled.

  "You can call me Alice, you know. And you're Jenny aren't you?"

  Jenny nodded gratefully. Alice leaned down into the end cubicle and produced the pot of Ponds.

  "All right," she said, "We shouldn't stay too long. I'll do you first if you like. Do you want to have a look though?" she asked, indicating the mirror.

  "Wouldn't mind," said Jenny, stepping up to the mirror, turning round and reaching under her skirt to carefully lower her knickers.

  "Ouch!" she said. "They stick to your bum after a hard caning, don't they?"<
br />
  "Yes, it's like your bum's really raw," said Alice in agreement.

  "Gosh!" said Jenny, seeing her own stripes. "No wonder it hurts so much."

  "Well, this should help," said Alice, unscrewing the lid of the pot and dipping the fingers of her right hand in to scoop a generous dollop. "Right, Simpson," she said in a pretend stern voice, "I think you'd better bend over, hadn't you?"

  "Yes, Miss," replied Jenny in an exaggeratedly high-pitched, meek manner. She leaned forward and thrust out her bottom, holding her skirt up on her back with both hands. Alice leaned close to inspect.

  "Hm! Interesting stripes, Miss Simpson - and they look pretty angry to me. Let's see if we can calm them down a bit, shall we?"

  "Yes, please," said Jenny, bending further forward.

  Alice very gently began to apply the cream, starting at the lightest stripe across the upper part of Jenny's buttocks and then working her way down, re-dipping every now and then into the pot for more of the cool, soothing salve. Jenny took a sharp breath every now and then, at which Alice would utter a genuinely felt, 'Sorry!' and pause. The lowest one was, not surprisingly, the most painful and though Jenny made no more than a whispered 'Eeesh!', Alice noticed in the mirror a tear roll down the younger girl's cheek. Eventually Alice stood back and said,

  "Let that dry for a bit, Jenny, and then you can do me, if that's all right?"

  "Of course, Jenning ... Alice." Jenny smiled. "We're SWACK girls, aren't we?"

  "We are, and I thought you were incredibly brave, by the way." Jenny blushed and looked down. "You hardly yelled at all. Was that your first caning?" Before Jenny could answer, Alice went on, "No, of course it wasn't! You got it with Wilson didn't you, from Miss Bainbridge, last Sunday. But that was four, wasn't it?"

  "Yes," said Jenny, pleased that Alice should know of this, and remember. She felt her bottom tentatively, rubbing very gently to test the moisture of the cream. Finding it dry enough, she slowly pulled her knickers up and let her skirt fall. "Thanks, Alice," she said, turning her big eyes up to the older girl. There was a moment between them then, a quiet flash of love as their eyes met, a love born of mutual attraction and raised by shared experience. They loved each other for the dangers they had passed and the pity they felt for each other. Neither knew what to do with it, or even what it was; they just knew they felt warm and happy and strangely excited in each other's presence.

  "Jennings!" said Jenny in as deep a voice as she could muster, taking the cream from Alice's hand. "You have deliberately disobeyed me and there is only one consequence for disobedience. Bend over! It's a thorough creaming for you, girl!"

  "Gosh," said Alice, laughing. "You'd make a scary Headmistress!"

  She flipped her skirt up and pulled her knickers down, then bent forwards herself towards the mirror, exposing her bare, striped bottom to the fourth-former. Jenny dipped her small fingers into the pot and was about to apply the cream when they heard someone approaching. Alice stood and they looked at each other in alarm, then Alice put a finger to her lips to say 'Quiet!' and motioned Jenny to go into the second cubicle while she herself dived into the one at the end.

  "Jennings!" came the voice of Countess Potocki. The footsteps were approaching down the longer passage, past the first set of cubicles, and they heard the sound of a door being pushed back against a partition. Alice reacted quickly.

  "Yes, Miss," she called, pushing the door of her cubicle up against its frame as quietly as she could.

  "What's taking so long in there?" asked the Countess suspiciously, at the end of their section by now.

  "Sorry, Miss. I'm ... I've got diarrhoea, Miss. I can't help it, Miss. I think it must have been the caning, Miss. It's made me all ..." She made a groaning sound. She thought if she had some water she could pour it into the bowl to imitate the runs she was pretending to have. She grinned.

  "I see. Well, your prep isn't going to write itself, you know," said the Countess. "Return to the form room as soon as you are able please."

  "Yes, Miss, I will." She groaned again, slightly more deeply. In the next cubicle, Jenny was holding her breath, her heart pounding so loudly she felt sure the mistress must hear it. As Alice let out yet another exaggerated groan, Jenny winced and thought, 'Don't overdo it, you fool!'

  But the sounds of Alice's form mistress' footsteps were receding now and Jenny breathed out in relief. She was about to open the door when she they heard the Countess again, down near the entrance.

  "Here together, you two?" they heard. This could be trouble.

  "Yes, Miss." It sounded like Rachel. Jenny held her breath again. "I've been in prep, Miss, and I bumped into Sus-into French, Miss. She's just been ..." There was a pause.

  "Yes?" came the Countess' voice. "French? You've just been what?" she demanded. Then they heard Susan's voice, quieter and slightly choking.

  "I've just been ... dealt with ... by the Headmistress, Miss."

  "Ah, I see. Well ... don't dally, you girls. Missed prep has serious consequences these days, you know."

  At that they heard her footsteps receding further into the distance and after a moment Alice opened her door, and whispered loudly and excitedly,

  "Hey! Rachel! Susan! Down here!"

  Scurrying footsteps were followed by the appearance of a flushed Rachel, Susan slower in her wake.

  "Hey, you two! Are you all right?" asked Rachel. "Well, I mean, as all right as ... "

  "I was just about to have my turn with the cream," said Alice. She turned to Jenny. "Jen, if you want to get back to prep, I'm sure Rachel wouldn't mind doing this instead."

  Jenny blushed and rather quickly said,

  "No, it's all right, Alice. I don't mind, really. Anyway ..." She held up her fingers which still held the scoop of cold cream from before the interruption.

  "Good girl," said Alice, uncovering her bottom and bending over again.

  "Hm! Corkers," said Rachel appreciatively as Jenny started to apply cream very tentatively to Alice's sore places. Alice groaned.

  Susan cleared her throat. "Er, Rache, when you've finished admiring those JUNIOR cane stripes, perhaps you could ..."

  "Susie! I'm sorry!" said Rachel, turning to her friend. "Anyway, I haven't had a chance to ask - how was it?"

  Susan grimaced and shook her head. "Horrible as always, and she had us all in a row so it was longer between each one," she said, but then she perked up. "But you know what?"

  "No. What?" asked Rachel. She still had half an eye on Jenny's ministrations to Alice's rear.

  "Marky stopped me on the way out and said she was going to personally help me with my spelling. Said she was going to arrange some special sessions and give me some strategies for improving it."

  "Well, isn't that nice!" said Alice, sarcastically, turning from her bent position. "First she thrashes you, THEN she offers to help!"

  "Well I don't care," said Susan. "I just don't want to get whacked every bloody Friday just 'cause I can't spell."

  "Quite right, Susie," said Rachel. "Now why don't you bend over and let me cool you down, hm?"

  "Bend over, bend over! That's all I ever hear," said Susan, smiling now. Jenny and Rachel giggled.

  And so the soon-to-be-titled knightesses at the heart of SWACK continued their repairs to those sacrificial seats, bringing Rachel's hard-won healing cream to comfort and quieten the ravaged sites of conflict in this strange struggle for a kind of glory on the battlefield of life at Cropton Hall.

  ---oOo---

  The small coach pulled up outside the main entrance to Cropton Hall and Monica Gibson came slowly down the steps from the front door, followed by Gabrielle Pearson in her hockey kit, required, as Captain, to be part of this welcoming committee. Monica noted the nervous, rather hostile faces of girls peering at her from the windows of the dark green coach. First to emerge was a tall, middle-aged woman.

  "Eileen! Welcome," called Monica, coming forward, hand outstretched.

  "Monica!" replied the Pickering Girls High hockey c
oach, taking the proffered hand and shaking it robustly with a strained smile. A keen observer would immediately have surmised that there was no love lost between these rival schoolmistresses, though convention demanded a civility neither felt.

  The Pickering girls in their green uniforms were stepping down onto the gravel, each carrying a holdall.

  "This way, girls," called out Monica. As she and Gabrielle led them into the building and down the corridors towards the changing-rooms, Monica explained to Eileen Pringle that a plumbing problem meant that the two teams would have to share the same showers after the game.

  "I'm so sorry," she was saying, as they turned the corner into the main corridor. "We've been trying to get the second shower room sorted out for weeks, but they just can't seem to locate the problem."

  "Never mind," said Mrs Pringle, frowning and suspecting some kind of slight, "I'm sure the girls will manage."

  Once the visiting team were settled in the part of the changing-rooms where the fourth-formers had their lockers, and Gabrielle had introduced herself and shaken hands with the opposing captain, Monica left the Pickering girls to get changed and made her way back with her captain to the Upper Sixth B form room where the Cropton team were already changed and ready for the pre-match talk. She had worked hard these past days to smooth out the wrinkles in the team. Jennings' jealous assault on Pearson and Thomas' tantrum had been worrying disturbances in her preparation, but Bennett and Pearson's newly-formed bond seemed to have had a beneficial influence on those younger girls remarkably quickly, though with Thomas and Jennings forming half the back line, that was the part of the team she was most worried about.

  At three o'clock, almost the entire school, girls and mistresses, were ranged around the First XI pitch, excited chatter drifting in the chilly easterly wind. The whistle blew and a high-pitched chant of 'Crop-ton-hall, Crop-ton-hall' started to spread from the younger girls on the west touchline. At the half-way line on the east side, her back to the wind, the Headmistress stood imposingly in her elegant dark blue overcoat, Edith Bainbridge at her side and other staff around her, occasionally booming out, 'Come on Cropton Girls!"