The Girls of Cropton Hall

by Stanlegh Meresith

  'CRACK!' came the strap almost instantly. Margaret jolted at the blow, wincing and gasping as she bore it.

  "Two, Miss," cried Emily.

  "Two, Miss," groaned Margaret.

  Prudence and Monica exchanged looks. Monica nodded quickly to her younger colleague who immediately raised the cane again and sliced in a third, searing stroke.

  Emily's yell had scarcely left her mouth before Monica's strap landed with a wicked CRACK on Margaret's bottom and Margaret too was crying out. It took then some seconds before two pained voices groaned,

  "Three, Miss," in self-pitying tones.

  Sir Stanlegh turned to Verily with widened, glittering eyes. She looked up at him, saw that look and smiled.

  Monica and Prudence, warming to their task, delivered their strokes at about ten second intervals, the strap following the cane almost instantly each time creating a kind of punitive rhythmic chant: 'Swisssh-THWAPP - CRACK ... Swisssh-THWAPP - CRACK'. And in counterpoint came the human responses, Margaret's increasingly desperate yelps merging with Emily's agonised cries to form that alluring choral symphony that was indeed a kind of music to Sir Stanlegh's ears.

  As 'Six, Miss' came hissing from the two submissive mistresses' grimacing mouths, they were both shifting very uncomfortably over the desk. The more obscene gyrations belonged to the owner of the bottom with the stripes though it was the strap that had landed the harder, Monica's arm being, as we know, a fearsome prospect. As Emily and Margaret clutched each other's now sweating hands, their shoulders heaving with their breathy efforts to conquer their pain, Monica announced,

  "Right, girls! Get up and change places, and I trust that our efforts have ensured that some at least of your lesson has been learned."

  The two half-punished mistresses' hands slid apart and they eased themselves up.

  "Yes, Miss," they muttered. Clutching their skirts at their waists, they waddled awkwardly round the front of the desk, tiny steps necessitated by the knickers now at their ankles. They faced each other in the middle, uncertain for a moment which side to pass each other. They half-giggled half-groaned before Margaret took the outside route.

  "Come along now! Look sharp!" said Monica impatiently.

  As Emily approached the hockey mistress, she said, "But, Miss! It's not fair!"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  Despite Monica's icy tone, Emily bravely plunged on.

  "Miss, it's worse getting the strap on top of the cane, 'specially from ... from you, Miss!"

  "Stokes, you will regret that remark. For a start you are implying that Miss Waring is in some way more lenient than I, and secondly you are making the erroneous assumption that you are not deserving of more punishment than Dawson, when in my view you display a tendency towards disrespect that warrants whatever we deem appropriate."

  Emily seemed to shrink as she lowered her head. Meekly she squeaked, "Yes, Miss. Sorry, Miss."

  "I shall see that you are," said Monica peremptorily. "Miss Waring, would you care to respond to Miss Stokes' impertinent suggestion as to your undue leniency? It would seem that six strokes of your cane has been insufficient to tame this young lady's penchant for cheek."

  "I would indeed, Miss Gibson," said Prudence, coming round the desk. Emily looked up now in alarm.

  "No, Miss, please. I'm sorry, Miss!"

  "I dare say you are, but you're about to be sorrier. An extra two strokes should suffice, Miss Waring," said Monica stepping back to allow Prudence room to manoeuvre.

  "Bend over, Stokes," commanded Prudence, coldly.

  "Aaaw!" complained Emily as she leaned forward, reaching out, her head inclined to the left to watch as Prudence stood back readying the cane. Emily's posture, however, somewhat belied her protest as she dipped her back, thrusting her bottom out to its fullest extent.

  Prudence's arm drew back; she shifted the position of her feet for a better swing and, with a heave of her shoulders, she thrashed the cane hard into Emily's buttocks.

  "OOF!" gasped Emily.

  Almost immediately the second stroke struck, as full-blooded as its predecessor.

  "YEOUCH!" Emily screeched, bending at the knees.

  Prudence stepped back, flushed and breathing heavily.

  "Now Stokes," said Monica, stepping forward and leaning over towards Emily. "Do you have any other observations you'd like to share with us?"

  There was a pause whilst Emily's shoulders rose and fell with her deep breathing. "N-No, Miss," she croaked.

  "Very well. So we have your permission to continue with your correction, do we?" Monica's voice oozed sarcasm.

  Emily nodded. "Yes, Miss."

  "I'm glad to hear it," said Monica.

  Prudence had made her way back to her side of the desk, where Margaret stood waiting.

  "Right," said Monica. "If you would assume the position, please, Margaret."

  Margaret bent over the desk and found Emily's hands again. The two comrades-in-pain looked at each other, Margaret gazing in compassion at the tears that those last two strokes had forced from Emily's eyes.

  "I shall do the honours this time, Miss Waring, if you would care to follow my lead?" said Monica.

  "After you, Miss Gibson."

  And so it began again.

  Emily's cries under Monica's full-blooded strapping grew ever more pitifully distressed. Margaret, too, yelped with increasing force as each awful stinging line of Prudence's cane striped her plump bottom.

  As the performance neared its end (Emily's voice choking with tears as she sobbed out, "Eleven, Miss") Verily took Sir Stanlegh's hand and led him over to stand behind Monica. Their new vantage point admitted a clear view of the results of Prudence's earlier handiwork: Emily's full, round buttocks were streaked with a mess of red lines, criss-crossing haphazardly, darker and purpling on her right buttock where the last inch of the cane had dug in more trenchantly to leave its telltale tracks. And as now the strap drove home its thwacking message over those angry stripes, the young woman's bottom flailed back and forth in torment, her sobs announcing her complete defeat.

  At the last she shrieked and rose and clutched her flaming rear with both hands. Her head flew back and she stood, her face a grimacing mask to the ceiling, before she started to hop from foot to foot, protesting,

  "AAOOW! OW! OW!"

  Margaret, meanwhile, lay sprawled, collapsed over the desk, breathing heavily and moaning.

  Verily stepped forward and took Emily by the shoulders, turning her round and embracing her. The young mistress' hands held fast to her flaming, throbbing cheeks for a few moments before she surrendered to the hug, embracing Verily and sobbing into her shoulder.

  "There now," cooed Verily. "Such a good, brave girl! I am so proud of you."

  Monica had gone round to help Margaret up and they too stood in a tight embrace, Margaret crying quietly as Monica whispered soothingly in her ear. Prudence stood behind Verily and when the Headmistress detached herself and stepped back, Prudence lifted Emily's chin, gazed lovingly at her tear-streaked face and kissed her cheeks, gathering the wetness on her lips.

  "Oh, my poor darling!" she said, as Emily's shoulders shook again with renewed release, then Prudence took her gently in her arms, stroking her damp hair away from her forehead.

  Sir Stanlegh stood transfixed, waves of admiration and gratitude coursing through his veins and mind. When Verily touched him gently on the arm, he jerked slightly, torn from his reverie. She smiled meekly at him, took his hand and led him over to the coffee table where the suitcase lay. Releasing her hold, she leant over to examine the contents. She selected a light brown tawse. As she turned to gaze up at him, her eyes shining, he saw there both the twinkle of challenge and the softness of surrender. She held out the tawse across her two upturned palms and looked down.

  "Are you sure?" he whispered. Without looking up, she nodded. He took the tawse and she started to unzip her skirt. He tested the leather strips with a slap on his palm - it was light, but it stung. Verily stepped out
of her skirt and removed her knickers, then she draped herself over the arm of the sofa, leaning forward until her face was buried in the cushions. Sir Stanlegh stepped forward and looked down on her: her buttocks were tattooed from top to bottom with at least two dozen stripes and they were purplish with bruising. He felt his heart expand with such an awe he had to take the deepest breath to assure himself it wouldn't burst.

  She shifted her hips to settle herself, and then moved her feet apart, opening herself to him.

  Taking the end of the tawse in his left hand, he raised it with his right and brought it down in a gentle sweep to land with a light smack diagonally across her buttocks. At her whispered, 'Ow!' he shivered with a rising ecstasy. He breathed deeply again and aimed another light stroke across her cheeks.

  The four mistresses had gathered quietly behind him, the two couples arm in arm, watching in silent respect the woman who had transformed their lives.

  Sir Stanlegh gave Verily a succession of lightly stinging swipes, his bliss enhanced by her breathy gasps. He sensed her own bliss slowly rising. Her gasps became moans and her bottom writhed luxuriantly as the lightly slapping leather reignited the heat of her stripes.

  She turned her head.

  "Leave us, please." At her urgent whisper her colleagues backed away and within moments the door had quietly opened and closed.

  With a slow and even rhythm, slapping now here now there, Sir Stanlegh resumed his gentle attentions, bringing Verily closer and closer to the brink. Her fingers clawed at the cushion beyond her head as her breath came faster and heavier, her tiny cries melting his heart even as her own body melted slowly into a vibrant ecstasy.

  "Please," she croaked. "I want you ... come, come into me now."

  ---oOo---

  Accelerator pressed to the floor, Sir Stanlegh's MG sped south down the A1. His heart soared and a hectic jumble of the morning's scenes flickered in his mind, but it was the still-tingling memory of their luxuriant love-making that occupied him most. Love thrilled through his veins, in his bones, to his very soul. Ah, Verily, Verily, Verily Markham! How I have created thee!

  Back home - not Chelsea, in reality, but a humbler district of the great old city - he sits before his typewriter (or something like it) and wonders how to bring this long, but oh so long, long story to an end. He rolls a cigarette and goes out into the garden with a cup of tea. As he sips and inhales, he ponders how it is that ideas come: for him they arrive suddenly in a tiny sizzle of synaptic connection, unforced, entirely of their own accord, just as, more gradually, the characters do. But endings? And such an ending?

  As the tobacco smoke trails lazily away, he looks up and sees a magpie perched right up on the highest branch of a neighbour's mature beech. It caws. He sighs. And then it comes.

  ---oOo---

  At Cropton Hall, in the aftermath of Founder's Day, life settles back into its wonted way.

  During hockey practice that Saturday afternoon, it is Alice who lands on her bum with a yelp and Gabrielle, still smarting from the younger girl's ribbing that morning, has a good laugh before Miss Gibson's look of disapproval cuts it short.

  The Saturday film in the hall is The Happiest Days of Your Life and it's a grand success, greeted with continual squeals of delight from all ages as the farce develops. One girl in particular has tears of mirth rolling down her cheeks throughout, emerging from the Hall wiping her eyes and giggling still.

  "It was good, but it wasn't that good," says Gabrielle. "What is it with you this evening, Julia?" Julia tries hard to put on a serious face and answer; it lasts all of five seconds before she dissolves into helpless laughter again, quite unable to utter a word. Gabrielle sighs and goes off to supervise the fourth-formers.

  Cook maintains her reputation: the toad-in-the-hole for the girls' dinner is even more of a disaster than usual - the Yorkshire pudding is flat and contains hidden pockets of uncooked flour and the sausages have an alarmingly greenish sheen to them. Alice asks Miss Bainbridge if it actually is toad-meat. She gets a laugh from the girls at her table and a fierce frown from Edith, but the Deputy Head makes a note to have a serious talk with Verily about Cook. Couldn't Meeth help somehow with hiring a new one?

  Up in Dorm C after dinner, Jenny and Susan are applying arnica to Alice and Rachel's still sorely striped bottoms when the first of many girls appears shyly at the door wanting to join SWACK. So the four friends are kept busy writing down the applicants' names while Jenny generously shares some of the month's supply of sponge and Eccles cakes her father has bought her that afternoon. Seventeen girls are accepted in an hour and Grace and Charlotte join the other four that evening in creating extra membership cards.

  In the staffroom the animated discussions of earlier about the extraordinary, some would have it outrageous, behaviour of the Meeth man (during which Misses Gibson and Dawson, and Stokes and Waring, remain unusually quiet), slowly give way to consideration of more quotidian concerns - preparing new Study cards for their form girls, the tiresome trials of marking sloppy homework, troublesome cases and the comeuppances planned.

  That night brave Alice risks all to visit Jenny's bed again. They revel in the joy of sweet carnal discovery and Alice doesn't fall asleep this time. Back in Dorm C she tiptoes carefully across to her bed, the faint beginnings of dawn edging into the eastern sky beyond the curtains, and there in the next bed is Susan, curled up beside Rachel, a pale arm draped across her friend's breasts and, on their shining faces, the peaceful smile of the sated.

  And finally, in her study alone, an exhausted but glowing Headmistress sits at the end of the sofa by the tall bay windows, reading, as she has for hours now, by the light of a table lamp. A single magpie has watched over her all night from the sill nearby. Every now and then she has looked up into its eyes and smiled, wondering what the future might hold, whether ... well, she hopes.

  And now, as the dawn brightens over the North Yorkshire hills, she finally turns over the last page of the brown, leather-bound book in her lap. Her elegant shoulders rise and her chest expands with the long, deep breath she takes as she begins to read the final, blessedly short, paragraph of this prolonged and purple tale:

  And thus with sad but satisfied heart we leave them to their daily round of instruction and study, their work and play, their loves and losses. In awe, we recall the manner of the lessons taught and learned - the punishments and forgiveness, the sufferings and redemption. We salute them for their courage, their loyalty and endurance. And finally, we thank them simply for being here, and - with a smile and a wink - we say farewell ... to these girls of Cropton Hall.

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