“It’s just… it’s been so long, sir. Since it happened. Maybe it’s time to…”
A cold column hardened inside me. “That’ll be all, Mrs. Gibbins.” I saw her look up but I was staring through her already. If I’d known she was going to bring it up, I never would have asked.
“Sir?”
“That’ll be all.”
She straightened and stiffened, no doubt offended at my reaction. I had asked, after all. It was true.
“Very good, sir,” she said quietly and turned to squeeze through the door again.
I picked up the cup and saucer and took a sip of my tea. The warm liquid started to ease the tightness that her words had brought. I pushed it all farther back, out of my mind. I didn’t want it clouding my judgement the next day.
I’d been contemplating the argument I was sure to have with Mrs. Everton for the last several days. Every year she insisted on lining the girls up to be inspected by me before she presented me with her selection. I had never been comfortable doing it in this fashion. I would have preferred to meet with the eligible girls myself. I would have preferred to speak with them, to find out who they were.
I had sworn that this year was going to be different and sent her word as such. This year I would insist that it run my way.
It was my generosity, after all. I could expect some manner of cooperation from the crusty old sow.
Chapter Three
Tennie
She had us stand in line after breakfast the next morning, the way she did every year. He’d never said anything about it one way or another in the past, Dr. Renshaw hadn’t, but some of the girls had heard him giving her grief in the office afterwards.
Every year, when Mrs. Everton would line the girls up, she would tell them that it was for their own good. So that the girls not selected could see which one he picked and try to be more like that particular girl. Even though everyone knew she was the one doing the picking. It was obvious from the way the girl who was chosen year after year was dressed. Mrs. Everton obviously knew well in advance who it would be.
This year, as we stood in the courtyard, it was very obvious who was going to be picked. Evelyn was practically sneering at the rest of us. She looked quite well proportioned in the dress Mrs. Everton had found for her, while the rest of us were standing in our usual worn skirts and blouses, looking lanky and too lean.
She’d probably been given a bit of extra bacon and butter to go with her bread, to enhance her assets before she was paraded in front of her new owner like a prize cow.
For some reason that made me feel better, in a sort of shameful way. Even if I was headed for a life in the back alleys, at least I could live it with dignity. At least I wasn’t just someone else’s prize.
There were five of us there that were all eighteen and all set to leave the orphanage that year. I looked at the other girls. While they might not have Evelyn’s looks, they at least had had the good sense to pay attention and mind their lessons. They would surely end up seamstresses or cooks or maybe even minding children.
I suppose it was my own fault that I hadn’t done the same, but the truth was that I wasn’t trying to be lazy. Every time I’d try to concentrate on doing something, one thing, my mind would drift and float and by the time I knew it, I was getting rapped on the knuckles for not listening or doing something wrong.
I’d tried. Oh, how I’d tried to be better. Mrs. Everton’s threats did not fall on deaf ears, no. I kept them with me even while I slept and every single day I tried to get better. I would try to pay attention, to mind whatever the teachers were telling me. And every single day it would all end the same way until everyone seemed to give up and I spent most of my time doing laundry or scrubbing plates or carrying garbage out the back when Jonah, the boy who usually did it, didn’t come.
The sound of hooves on cobblestone made us all look over toward the gate and all five of us watched the covered carriage pull up. It was black as night and the horses matched the color. The driver stepped down and opened the door. I could have sworn I felt all the girls except Evelyn draw in a breath. It wasn’t that they were stupid. They knew just as well as I who was leaving with Dr. Renshaw this year but you couldn’t blame them for trying to hold out a little hope. Sometimes that was all we had.
Mrs. Everton came blustering down the stone steps, her round frame shaking as she walked. No one paid her any mind. We were waiting for him.
He was the way I remembered him every year, as if he didn’t age. A tall man with broad and muscular shoulders, dark hair, and a strong jaw. He didn’t wear a top hat, which we all thought strange. But stranger still and what only added to the rumors, was that a man that looked like that, of his station, didn’t have a Mrs. Renshaw back at home.
As soon as he straightened out of the carriage, the corners of his lips seemed to turn down. He looked up and down the line of us, his eyes resting on Evelyn of course, before sweeping back and forth over the rest of the girls again.
“Dr. Renshaw!” Mrs. Everton twittered, blushing and batting her eyelashes.
“Mrs. Everton,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing the air just above it. When he straightened back up, he looked us over one more time. “Might I have a word?”
The smile left her face slowly, one wrinkle at a time. It tried to shiver back to life but she couldn’t revive it in time and soon she had on her usual scowl again. “Is something the matter?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. I let my gaze glance up and down his frame. If I couldn’t let myself hope, at least I could enjoy the view.
“Nothing I’d like to speak about here.” His answer was stern but not commanding. Firm but not imposing. It threw her off balance, I could tell. “Might we speak in your office?”
She let out a pale, wheezy sigh, her lips twitching from having smiled too long. “Of course.” She spun around and started up the stairs. He looked at us with a scowl. We all stared straight ahead, no one daring to meet his gaze.
“Won’t you dismiss these ladies first?”
She stopped on the steps, her skirts bunched in one hand for the climb. For a moment I thought she might turn and unleash her unholy rain of expletives on the dignified Dr. Renshaw, the way she did on us sometimes. She seemed to be trembling at the edge of her patience, but managed to keep her control. She turned and smiled a tight smile, just at him.
“Of course.” When she turned to look at us, it was with a kind of steel in her gaze that meant we would all pay for Dr. Renshaw’s mistakes later that day. When she spoke, it was in a whisper that sliced the air like a knife.
“Girls. You are dismissed for the time being. Gather around the dining room and wait there.”
Then she turned back around and lumbered the rest of the way up the stairs.
Dr. Renshaw glanced at us one last time. None of us dared move before they both left. He sighed and followed her up the stairs.
As soon as they were gone, we all began to breathe once more.
Chapter Four
Dr. Renshaw
“I just don’t see what the problem is!”
The old sow had worked herself up into quite a frenzy. The red on her face was starting to color her ears and for a moment I feared that she might suffer from an attack of the heart.
“Mrs. Everton,” I said, motioning that she might sit down. “I’ve told you time and again. I don’t want the girls displayed that way. I’ve always said I’d prefer to speak with them myself.”
“You don’t understand the importance of the lesson to them, though!” she argued, stomping her foot like a child might. “You don’t understand that the other girls must see what proper schooling and grooming can do. What rewards it might bring!”
I did my best not to roll my eyes. “Perhaps I don’t,” I agreed, “but I think those young women must find being lined up like cattle to the slaughter quite humiliating, don’t you?”
“Well, of course! That’s part of the lesson that they might derive from all this!
Perhaps feeling so humiliated might finally shock them into behaving like a young woman might!”
I failed to see the logic in the argument, but at the same time knew I was going to get nowhere with this line of discourse. I would simply have to put my foot down.
“Let me put the matter to you simply, Mrs. Everton,” I explained. “I will not be taking the girl you’ve chosen or any of those girls if I can’t at least speak with each of them myself.” I left no room for argument in my tone.
She huffed a lungful of air, ready to launch into another tirade, but she must have seen I was serious because she thought better of it. Her back straightened and she puffed her large chest out and put her chin up, as if I had somehow wounded her dignity and she was trying to save what was left of it.
“Very well,” she said finally, tight-lipped. “I shall have them sent to you one at a time. I shall take up a position here in the corner and…”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No. You won’t. I’d like to speak with them alone.”
Her eyes bugged a bit and her mouth opened in disbelief. “Well… I never…” she whispered, glaring at me as if I’d offended her gravely. “As you wish!” She threw the threadbare shawl she was wearing dramatically over one shoulder and stormed out.
I allowed myself a chuckle at the old biddy once she’d left and settled into the well-worn chair behind the desk to await the first of the young ladies.
* * *
Tennie
Mrs. Everton came storming down the hall, looking like steam might start puffing from her ears at any moment. She shrieked at Jenny to attend her office immediately, then positioned the rest of us in a line with Evelyn last and me directly ahead of her and Darla just ahead of me.
I could practically feel Evelyn’s sneer on the back of my neck as I stood there awaiting what would come. I gathered that Dr. Renshaw had done something that had angered Mrs. Everton, but I wasn’t sure what that could be. Nor did I know why we were standing in line to walk into her office except for the fact that I hadn’t seen him leave it.
Jenny emerged and she looked like a leaf trembling in the wind. It made me want to reach out to her, but I knew I would get a swift smack if I did. I resolved to speak with her later about what had happened that had frightened her so, but for the time being, her fear became mine as I began to wonder what was going to transpire in the office once I walked in.
Perhaps the rumors were true? Perhaps Dr. Renshaw was a cruel man with a proclivity for young flesh that he indulged by picking girls out of the orphanage? Perhaps he’d spoken to Jenny about what she would have to endure were she selected, frightening her and leaving no doubt in her mind that going to live with him would be the last thing she wanted? Perhaps…
“Jenny!” I hissed, glancing at the door to make sure Mrs. Everton wasn’t listening. “What is it? You look terrified!”
Jenny shook her head. “No. I just… oh, it’s silly!” She looked like she might start to cry.
“Tell me, Jenny!” I begged, grabbing her by the hand.
“Oh, it’s silly… but I thought… I thought…” I could hear her voice tightening. “I suppose I thought that there would be a chance that it would be me…” With that she yanked her hand away and ran down the corridor.
I wanted to get up and run after her, to tell her it would be alright. The truth of it was, though, that now that he wanted to meet us all alone, I was terrified, too. Not just about the rumors of what kind of a man he might be. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be chosen. That it would be Evelyn, as Mrs. Everton had decided already. That even given a chance I wouldn’t be able to impress the man with who I was.
But there wasn’t more time to think on it. Leila emerged from the office ahead of me looking just as shaken as Jenny had been and making my stomach twist into a knot. Darla got up and took her turn walking through the door. Evelyn’s voice startled me as she spoke from behind me with a sneer.
“Well, what do you think, Tennie? Do you think you’ll be able to convince the good doctor of your worth? Perhaps you can show him the same thing you show the boys in the alley every morning. I’m sure he’d be duly impressed!”
I did my best to ignore her but she was persistent, buzzing about like a pesky fly.
“I’ve heard he spanks the girls that don’t do as he says, can you believe it? But I bet you would like that, wouldn’t you, Tennie? To get a spanking from the doctor on your bum?”
I felt my jaw tighten and I spun around, my hand ready to sail through the air and land on her cheek. The sound of the door to the office opening distracted me and gave me second thought.
I turned to see Darla walking out, dejected as the others had been. I stood up. Evelyn’s annoying voice taunted me from behind.
“Best of luck!”
At least it served to harden my resolve not to look like the other girls had when I walked back out into the hallway. I would not give Evelyn the pleasure of seeing that kind of tortured look on my face, no matter how bad it was, what happened inside.
With two deep breaths, I walked down the corridor and knocked on the office door.
“Come in.”
The door seemed to creak louder than normal on its hinges as I pushed it open. I swallowed, breathed deeply again, and stepped inside.
He looked different seated than he did standing. He was still large but didn’t seem as serious, somehow. I only glanced at him. His frame looked even broader in Mrs. Everton’s small chair.
“Take a seat.”
I glanced at him again as he spoke. “Thank you. I’d rather stand.” It seemed a better position for a quick getaway, should that become necessary. I was quite surprised when he smiled.
“As you wish. What is your name?”
“Tennie. Tennie Butler.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Tennie. I am Dr. Renshaw, at your service.”
I’d never heard the words ‘at your service’ spoken to me in my entire life and for some reason the sound of them sent an excited shiver rippling down my spine and made my skin pimple. I had no idea what to say to something like that and was glad for it when he began speaking again.
“You are eighteen years old, is that correct, Miss Butler?”
Nor had I ever heard myself referred to as Miss Butler. It was strange but alluring, that someone might call me something other than ‘child.’
“Yes,” I replied.
“And how have you been schooled here at the orphanage?”
I lowered my eyes. I had not been expecting to be in a room alone with Dr. Renshaw asking questions. Usually it was just a lineup of girls, to see who he might choose. I had no idea why it was different this year.
I felt my face flare red. The truth was that I had been schooled in nothing. Not for lack of trying on anyone’s part. I finally simply convinced myself that I could not learn as the other girls did and gave up and started gallivanting about the alleys looking for boys.
But I had not expected to be asked about it. Certainly not by a doctor. I had no idea what to say. No words would come.
“Miss Butler? Are you alright?”
Suddenly, in my shame at being unable to read or write or sew or even cook, I felt a rage rising from within me. I didn’t know this man, but I knew I could not stand another moment of my humiliation. This was a thousand times worse than standing in a line and waiting for him to make his selection.
“I’d like to go now.”
I saw one eyebrow raise.
“Why?” he asked, unfolding his hands.
Even that simple question I could not answer.
“I’m not interested in… any of this. I’d like to go.”
“Have I done something to offend you?”
I stood there, staring past him through the window and trying to control my breath. He let the unforgiving silence hang between us. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I looked at him again.
“May I go now?”
He leaned
back in his chair, staring at me, as if he were studying my face. I blushed at the attention and had to lower my eyes. The most confusing mix of emotions was slurring inside me, at times ice cold, then red hot.
“I was hoping to speak with all of the girls in the hopes that…”
“I don’t care! I just don’t care!” I screamed, letting my temper get the best of me. Still, I didn’t dare turn away and run. I knew Mrs. Everton would hear about it and my bottom was already quite sore.
He arched an eyebrow and stood up. He walked slowly around the desk until he was standing next to me. My breathing was quick, my heart thundered inside my chest.
“Put your hands on the table, Miss Butler.”
I balked at his request as I turned to stare at him. Surely he didn’t mean to lay his hands on me? Did he?
“I…” I began but could think of nothing else to say in reply.
“You will do as I say or you will regret it, I assure you.” The menace in his voice drove a shudder down my spine and made my body comply with his order, even if my mind hadn’t willed it.
I gasped as I felt my skirts lifted. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was one thing to be spanked by Mrs. Everton’s wooden spoon or her brush, but I’d never been touched this way by a man!
I let out a shriek as I felt him yank down my underwear, exposing me to the room.
“What?!” I shrieked, struggling to look back.
He leaned closer. “I’m a doctor, Miss Butler, I can assure you it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. What I haven’t seen before is a young lady in need of a spanking as direly as you are.”
Before the last word was out of his mouth, his hard, heavy palm landed on the soft flesh of my bare bottom. I yelped at the pain, easily twice what Mrs. Everton could evoke, as it rushed through my body.
He quickly followed with another slap to my other cheek. My mind was reeling, in shock at what was happening.
Another smack, harder this time and lower on my right backside, then on the left. His palm kept crashing into me, his other hand on my back, steadying me against the desk.
Chosen by the Doctor Page 2