‘Now then Amelia, don’t make a fuss, girl,’ Jamie had said, smiling contently.
So it had been rubber bloomers again. The latex legs showed below the hem of the smock and they squeaked insistently as she walked, provoking all sorts of witty comments from Lady Alicia. And they rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed. The worse thing of all was that Amelia knew only too well to whom she was squeaking towards across the park. There was no forgetting whose cold grey eyes would be waiting at the church.
All of which would have been sufficient to explain her distracted expression during the hymns, and the way she stared stonily at the back of Mrs Justice Ormorund in the pew in front of her during the sermon. But there was worse.
The Reverend Dawes had chosen a favourite line from Proverbs as his inspiration for the sermon.
‘There is a rod in pickle for the arrogant, and stripes prepared for the backs of fools,’ he snarled, with barely disguised relish. It was not an especially cheerful text and, glancing furtively around the church, Amelia noticed that a few female cheeks had paled, and she observed several slender hands tremble on their hymnals as the rector of Hatherby expounded on his theme. ‘A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass and a rod for the fool’s back!’ the rector exhorted from the pulpit, cracking his hand against the oaken structure as he did so, producing retorts that echoed around the church and provoked visible flinching among certain of the more comely members of the congregation.
The Reverend Dawes’s lip curled as he elaborated on the words ‘whip for the horse’, and his grey eyes stared so hard at someone seated to the rear that Amelia, along with most of the rest of the congregation, turned to look at the trembling girl in a modest maid’s uniform sitting at the back of the church. She recognised the red-haired Rose from their encounter in the birch groves. Rose kept her eyes downcast, but Amelia could tell from the girl’s blush that she was perfectly well aware of the Reverend’s attention.
A plump blonde farm girl received similar treatment when the good rector turned to the value of bridles when dealing with asses. Then, to her horror, Amelia found herself frozen to her pew by the man’s basilisk stare, as he expounded on the value of rods when it came to the backs of fools, with all too evident enthusiasm.
‘Arrogance, disobedience, wilfulness, all are forms of foolishness, and all may be mitigated by the application of the firm corrective rod!’ he boomed as Amelia hung her head, horribly aware that half the church was now following the preacher’s lead and staring at her. Her rubber bloomers were
driving her to distraction now and she furtively tried to ease her position just as he paused. To her horror, a loud rubbery creak rang out in the sudden silence. There was a nervous girlish titter from somewhere to Amelia’s left, and then the distinctive sound of a sharp slap and gasp of pain.
‘There is a rod in pickle for the arrogant,’ the Reverend repeated in stentorian tones, once the commotion had ceased, ‘and I think we may safely predict that it will not be steeping there for much longer!’
A knowing chuckle rippled around the church. Amelia stared miserably at her silk-sheathed knees and tried not to think about where the taut rubber was chafing.
The walk back from church was no more cheering. Amelia and Clara, together with all the Hope Hall maids, walked back solemn-faced and subdued. Lord and Lady Alex, Jamie and Mrs Pritchard, on the other hand, were positively animated and jolly. They swapped witticisms and pleasantries, and affected puzzlement when Amelia did not join the general jollity.
The rubber drawers were vexing her now and the corset’s grip was equally unrelenting. But the discomfort occasioned by her underclothing was but part of the reason for Amelia’s misery.
She was dreading the famous Sunday Service. All Amelia’s recent experience had not inured her to public humiliation, and she knew that many of the Whippery seats were bound to be filled that afternoon. Also, she was truly frightened of the birch. She had only ever had it once before, and that had been a light switching at school. Light or not, she remembered the experience with terror. The thought of a more severe birching made her feel faint.
‘What – what is the birch like, Amelia?’ Clara asked with frightened eyes, as they waited in the nursery parlour to be summoned.
The cousins had been left with the nursery-maid after a cheerless luncheon of bread and water shared with a subdued and ashen-faced Betsy. Jamie had left the girls to their crust repast and gone down to the dining room for cold pheasant and claret.
‘What is it like?’ Betsy looked as if she was about to cry. ‘Two words for a proper birching, girl. Just two words: red hell.’ She put a knuckle in her mouth and started chewing it.
‘What are you worried about, anyway?’ Amelia demanded of her cousin crossly. ‘You did not even get a black mark in the book!’
‘Jamie – Master Jamie, said he would mark me down so that I got a dozen anyway.’ Clara’s voice had died almost to a whisper. ‘On general pr-pr-principles. He said that I ought to know…’
‘A lot that little beast knows about principles,’ Amelia hissed. Both Betsy and Clara stiffened as she spoke and she suddenly felt afraid. What if these sycophantic creatures reported what she had said? she thought, appalled. Could she trust them? No, of course not. Betsy disliked her and loved nothing more than to see her betters thrashed. And Clara? She seemed to think that Jamie was some sort of demi-god!
So Amelia held her tongue and tried not to listen as Betsy expounded on the terrors of the birch.
‘Next to the tawse, taken on the hand, I think the birch is the worse. A heavy cane, see, after a dozen or so good hard strokes, it dulls the nerves a little. The birch, though, that is a surface-scourer. It doesn’t bruise, you see. There is no weight to it and the nerves never get stunned and numbed. But, oh, how it scours your skin! There does not seem to be a peak of pain after the first dozen, or the second. It just—’ her voice had become very quiet, no more than a hoarse little whisper ‘—it just gets worse and worse and worse.’
The glum trio was interrupted at that point by the arrival of Mrs Pritchard. The housekeeper regarded the three of them with smug satisfaction.
‘Right, Amelia and Clara, come with me. Betsy, time to put on your flogging smock. Then you can join us in the Rod Room. Quick as you can. Come along you two, there is a little job for you to do.’
Soon Amelia and Clara found themselves following Mrs Pritchard down the long corridor, now familiar to them from their visits to the barber’s. Amelia felt the churning knot in her stomach grow tighter with every step. Her legs seemed to have grown inordinately heavy. It was almost as if there was a force, some malevolent radiation, pushing her back. She was compelled to walk forward to her fate, but a growing sense of dread made it ever more difficult to progress along that doleful passage. Mrs Pritchard seemed to have no such problems, however. She fairly skipped along.
‘Not like the old days, but with you two and the new kitchen-maid it will be a decent Sunday Service for a change. The last few weeks, there has barely been a brace of bottoms to be blistered.’ The woman’s lips curled contemptuously; she clearly felt that the very idea of such thin pickings was an insult to the traditions of the house. ‘Some may call me old-fashioned, but I say that there should always be at least a half a dozen ready, all nice and shivery, for the rod!’
Amelia had assumed that they would march right up to the Whippery, but Mrs Pritchard paused halfway down the frieze-lined corridor. Selecting a key from her collection, she unlocked a dark oaken door and threw it open.
Amelia felt her knees weaken. So this was where Betsy had brought the birches they had cut on their return to Hope Hall. There was the pile of twigs, their leaves curled and shrivelled now, stacked up to one side. It was not that that made her heart hammer in her breast, however.
The Rod Room was big, no mean ante-chamber but a long hall lit by a row of windows set high in the far wall. First Ameli
a’s attention was drawn to the canes. There were dozens of them, arranged on racks hanging from the walls. No, she realised as she noticed the half barrels stuffed with rods and the coils of uncut rattan hanging from hooks, more like hundreds. The room smelt odd, of linseed mixed with green wood and something that might have been the tang of vinegar. Something
told Amelia that, from that moment on, this pungent mixture would always represent the true smell of fear.
‘Now girls, this should have been done already, so you had better get busy. Take those branches—’ Mrs Pritchard indicated the pile of recently cut birch ‘—and start stripping off the leaves. If you have not done sufficient on my return, you may rest assured that you will have a black mark entered in the big book.’ The housekeeper favoured them with a cold smile. ‘Yes, there is still time, just!’ She indicated some small three-legged stools. ‘Sit down there and get on with your task.’ She looked around the grim chamber with evident satisfaction, then took a deep breath, as if drinking in the gloomy atmosphere, and turned on her heel.
Amelia did not want any more marks in the big book. She had been sent to inscribe the black cross by her name on the previous day. The journey, alone down the long corridor, had seemed even worse than in Mrs Pritchard’s irksome company. Somehow, she had done as she had been told, pausing at the entries, looking at the marks inscribed by the various maids. It had been some small crumb of comfort to see that other girls, and Betsy in particular, had black crosses stalking their names. Some comfort, but not, alas, enough.
The Honourable Amelia Colinbrooke was thoroughly frightened now. The whole day might have been designed to force her to dwell on her impending fate. How much would it hurt? She tried to remember the birching at school as she stripped the leaves away. Then she tried not to remember; to think about something else, a task nigh impossible in that place.
‘What an awful lot of canes,’ Clara said in a small voice. ‘What do you think are in all those barrels, Amelia?’
Amelia glared at her cousin. Clara was sitting next to her on one of the little stools, bent over the birch branch she was stripping of its leaves. They sat in a pool of light from one of the high windows, the better to see their work. The sunbeams made Clara’s golden curls glitter and made her cream smock glow angelically. The girl’s face was angelic too, innocent and apprehensive, as she turned questioningly towards her cousin.
‘How should I know?’ Amelia snapped. ‘Nothing good in this damned place, I would warrant.’ She had wondered about the rows of big barrels herself. If it was wine or beer, the vinegary smell did not bode well for the palatability of the contents. She shrugged and picked up another leafy bough to strip.
The cousins had not finished their task when Amelia heard a commotion at the door, for they had cut a good load of birch branches on that sunny afternoon. She looked down anxiously at the prepared twigs which lay denuded at her feet, and wondered if it would be adjudged enough. Fortunately Mrs Pritchard seemed satisfied, more concerned with issuing fresh orders than inspecting the cousins’ work. For the maids had arrived with her and Mrs Pritchard lost no time in giving them their instructions.
‘Kitty, Lucy, Betsy, you will show these new girls how to prepare their rods before braiding your own. Emma, as you have not yet been to the groves, you will take some of the young ladies’ switches. I am sure they will not begrudge you a few twigs! Make haste, girls, for I shall be back in half an hour to take you through.’
Amelia looked up from her withy in time to see the
housekeeper’s black receding back as she swept out of the room. She turned her attention to the new arrivals and her eyes widened in surprise. In place of their usual uniforms, the maids were wearing short white smocks, similar to her own.
‘What are those garments?’ she asked, without disguising her astonishment.
‘What a question, coming from such a fashionable young lady!’ Kitty, the blonde maid, retorted sharply.
‘She only asked.’ The brunette girl, Lucy, seemed less hostile. ‘These,’ she fingered the hem of her little gown, the hint of a blush on her pretty cheek, ‘these are our flogging frocks. Have you never seen them before?’
Amelia shook her head and Lucy smiled wanly in reply.
‘Emma,’ she instructed, ‘come over here.’
The small girl blushed much more obviously, but did as she was bid. Amelia stared. The smock was clearly fine cotton, rather than silk, and it was a little longer than the cousins’ garments, falling to about halfway down the girl’s slender thighs. She also wore black silk stockings, gartered just above the knee, and a band of bare flesh was thus left visible, despite the longer hemline. If the other maids were used to this exposure, Emma clearly was not, and she hung her head and fingered the hem of the garment distractedly.
‘They are very practical, you see.’ Lucy favoured Amelia with a bleak little smile. ‘Turn round, Emma.’
The kitchen-maid did as she was told and Amelia watched intently. The flogging frock opened at the back and was secured by three pink ribbons, one at the neckline, one in the middle and one along the hem. Each of these had been secured with pretty bows. Lucy pulled the bottom ribbon and undid the bow, then did the same to the middle tie.
‘Bend over, girl,’ she ordered. Emma glanced around anxiously, but obeyed, and Amelia understood how clever the little frocks were. Secured at the back now only by the top ribbon, the garment fell away to either side as the girl bent over.
Emma wore no drawers. The welts had gone from her chubby little bottom, and it was proffered invitingly by her posture. Despite her situation, Amelia could not help but smile at so inviting a sight. As the flogging smock had fallen away, it had revealed a tight little waspie of black satin and lace. Lucy patted the straining laces of the stays ruefully.
‘And this is a flogging corset. Short, you see.’ She indicated the expanse of bare flesh which the girl’s clothes and posture had exposed, from the small of her back to just above the knee. ‘So as to allow the greatest target area.’ She gave Emma’s bottom a sharp slap and the girl squeaked in response. ‘All right, we had better get you done up, and get on with the task in hand.’
Preparing a birch rod, Amelia had thought, was a simple matter. One lashes the bases of several limbs together with cord to form a handle and then, if necessary, secures the twigs in the middle of the rod to prevent too much splaying. At least, that was how Amelia had learnt at finishing school.
‘No, no – it won’t do. You must make a neater job than that, or you will get another dozen, if not two!’
Lucy sighed in exasperation. Kitty had deigned to instruct Clara and Betsy had taken little Emma in hand, but it was Amelia who was having the greatest difficulty.
‘For heaven’s sake, what does it matter?’ she said crossly. ‘It won’t hurt a jot more or less if the handle is braided prettily.’
Lucy untied the pale blue ribbon from the handle of the rod.
‘The patterns are traditional,’ she said patiently, as if explaining to an obstinate child. ‘It is the Hope Hall way.’
‘Oh, let her do it her way!’ put in Kitty sourly. ‘I’d like to see her catch an extra couple of dozen for poor rod preparation. That will soon teach madam some respect for tradition. It really is not that difficult, Amelia. Clara seems to have picked it up right away.’
Amelia shot the pair a furious glance, thinking how much she detested blondes, before trying to braid the ribbon in the prescribed pattern once again.
‘We had better get our own rods out,’ Betsy mumbled. The nursery-maid had been very quiet since entering the room – very quiet and distinctly pale. Amelia watched as Betsy, Kitty and Lucy walked over to the row of barrels. Removing the tops of the casks, the maids each removed half a dozen dripping birch rods, laying them in long white enamel trays. These they brought back to the little ring of stools. Using cloths to dry the ends, they set busily to work
, braiding ribbons about the handles.
Amelia watched aghast. There was something worse about these dark damp withies, that had been steeping silently for who knew how long, in their barrels of vinegar and brine. Something appallingly incongruous about the pretty ribbons in their bright colours against the dark, forbidding red of the birch twigs. The maids’ fingers worked nimbly, braiding and plaiting with skill that could only have come from much doleful practice in that oppressive chamber. The very thought of it made Amelia shiver. She bit her lip and tried to braid her own handle again.
‘Here you go, girl, a little treat for you.’
Blossom bent, put her lips to Dick’s hand, and took the piece of carrot. She stood and chewed, eyeing the stable-lad cautiously. It had been an odd day, the first since her arrival that Lord Alex had not run her through the park. The first day she had not, yet, been flogged unmercifully. It had been a quiet morning. She had heard the church bells ringing and it stirred a memory, but it did not seem to have anything to do with her. She had been left long, undisturbed, to lie in her stall. It was late when Dick had come for her.
Blossom had trembled when she saw the long whip in his hand and an equally long rope bridle coiled there, too.
‘Easy, girl. Just a bit of gentle exercise, my beauty,’ he had soothed. The lad had slipped the bridle over her and led her into the meadow beyond the lake. Here he had let out the rope and made her run in circles, flicking her from time to time with the long lunge whip. It had stung, when he snapped it across her bottom or her back, but it had been a sharp, not unpleasant pain. He had been true to his word, too. To begin with, her thighs had shrieked as she ran off the effect of the hard training from the previous days, but he had not run her hard. Around and around she had cantered, naked, first clockwise then anti-clockwise. The bees had buzzed, the sky larks sang as they rose, and the lunge whip had snapped in the midday sun.
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