Notebooks of the Young Wife (6 page)

‘You ain’t too bad, Jane,’ she said, touching me gently with the tips of her fingers. ‘A bit gooey in places, but with them loose trousers you’ll be all right.’

I offered up silent thanks I’d not come poured into a new pair of jeans. ‘Well, sweetie, you could always come along and check me out again tonight. I mean later, when everybody’s safe in their beds.’ She laughed and steadied me while I got one leg and then the other into the chinos.

‘That’ll be right. You’ll be putting me in trouble with the groom. He don’t hold with me having another woman, unless he’s there to fuck the two of us, that is.’

‘I know the type.’ Alcohol running in the veins, I was about to give her my go-for-it-dyke pitch when Tamsin opened the door. She looked me up and down with a definite air of disappointment.

‘You look pretty good to me, guv. As usual I’ve gone and missed all the action.’ Then behind her came the housekeeper and a cook still flushed from her exertions.

‘Not quite, Miss Bingley. Now that we’ve caught up with you, there is still the matter of your own introduction to the End. However, I believe a private dose of the kitchen strap will serve for a subordinate.’ There was an open-mouthed silence caused as much, I guessed, by the designation as the threat, but after a couple of seconds the PA rolled her eyes theatrically.

‘Okay, okay, okay. I surrender.’ She turned to go and I could see her eyes widen at the girth of the sweaty lady’s arms. ‘Let’s get it over with, eh?’ That’s my girl, I said to myself, never one to whinge when there’s nothing to be accomplished by it. I watched them head out into the passage, past the maid who was busy with a broom and shovel at the scene of my excoriation. Messy business, the birch. Now compared with the clean open palm and the precise cane...

A tug at my sleeve jerked me out of the reverie. The impish face and scruffy knee breeches gave the odd impression of a street urchin out of time, then the frame shifted and I saw an older teenage lad with a mop of light-brown hair. He put a finger to his lips and peered out into the corridor. Then with a whispered ‘come on’ he disappeared and I followed, intrigued. We passed a double door through which I could see a stack of pots and pans, then he ducked into a kind of pantry with stone jars of flour and meal. From there a door with two lights in its top half opened on to the main space of the kitchen and we looked each through one at the scene beyond.

Centre-view was Tamsin, or rather her rear end, framed by the raised band of skirt above and the rolled-down tights below. Mrs Jencks held her forearms from the far side of a counter while the formidable cook took down what looked like an old-fashioned razor-strop from a hook on the wall. It was rather cheering to know I would not be alone in nursing a sore bottom that evening. Also I had to give credit to one who was scarcely what you’d call a devotee of s/m, for she took three cracking strokes across the centre of the cheeks without a murmur. How many was she going to get? And how long could she play the cool stoic?

I was just settling in for the duration when I became aware that there was something else happening right beside me. While the gaze of my fellow voyeur was fixed on the reddening buttocks, I could see the fly open and the thumb and forefinger busy working the shaft of a very presentable erection. Our PA’s behind made for an enticing view, but I’d seen it before, if rarely. On the other hand, the sheer effrontery of the act of masturbation at my elbow was giving me hot stabs of lust and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

‘Three more, my dear, and brace yourself. Cook, your best if you please!’ The announcement from the kitchen brought matters to a head. At the first crack of leather on flesh the beast tensed and spat and by the third and last the fingers were squeezing from it a final drop. He looked up with a grin splitting his face and stowed the shrinking organ back in his pants. Then with half an eye still on me he rubbed the spilt semen into the floor with the sole of a shoe.

‘Hey, boy,’ I hissed, pulling him back from the door, ‘you’ve got some nerve! I ought to put you across my knee and give you a good spanking.’

He twisted out of my reach with a chuckle then turned round on his way out. ‘Yes please, Miss. Later.’ I leaned weakly against the wall, with little heed of who might come and find me there. Suddenly it was all too much excitement for one day, for the expression on the boy’s face had been utterly serious.

I pulled myself together with the realisation I had no idea how to find my way around. But I managed to make it back to the Hall where all traces of the ‘welcome’ had been removed, and was glad to find its rigours already fading from my mind. So much so that when I saw the maid Laura passing by – she who had kept such a tight grip of my right arm – I was able to hail her in quite a matter-of-fact way to ask for her help. She pointed out where the books were to be found behind a door off the lobby, then showed me to the pair of rooms we had been allocated on the first floor. The mullioned window in mine commanded a view of the ornamental garden, and the furnishings were a large bed with a carved headboard and a heavy wardrobe also equipped with shelves. I felt at home immediately under the low ceiling, and was soon soaping under a warm shower in the compact bathroom.

When I emerged I checked the guest quarters opposite, but there was no sign of the PA, so I went down to take a first look at the library. It was a well-appointed room, with upright chairs around a polished table and deep armchairs by the fireplace. I wandered around finding whole sets of Dickens and Thackeray, to say nothing of a complete shelf of three-deckers, a large number of political biographies and a whole section devoted to the locality: its history, geography, flora and fauna. There was even a substantial astronomy collection housed between the two windows that included atlases and detailed charts. Someone had been, and relatively recently, a stargazer. Some of these things might have been the means of whiling away a wet afternoon in the country, but none of them was even remotely connected with the cause of our being at Ardingley End in the first place.

Just then the door opened and Tamsin appeared looking a little flushed. ‘Sorry, I got held up.’

‘No problem. Are we sitting comfortably yet?’

‘A lot better now.’ The expression was almost coy and there were definite spots of colour in the cheeks. I began to suspect the strapping in the kitchen had not been the end of it. ‘But how about you? Was it bad?’

‘Sheer bloody hell. But it’s right what they say: a birched bum soon mends. Or words to that effect. So I’m fine. All I need now is someone to tell me where they’ve hidden the dirty books.’

‘They’re in here,’ she said, going over to a small door in the corner, and led me through into another book-lined room that was about half the size of the one we had left. I pulled down a volume at random that proved to be Millet’s
L’Escole de Filles
of 1668. We possessed a slightly tatty copy, but the one I was holding was in pristine condition. On the next shelf was
The Serving-Girl: Her Morals and Discipline
, a rare anonymous text dated 1725 that I knew of only by reputation. It was a promising start.

‘There’s about five hundred of them, at a rough estimate,’ offered Tamsin, opening up her laptop, ‘and then there’s that little lot.’ She pointed at a counter against the far wall that was piled untidily with box files, some spilling their contents.

‘Oh dear. And have you chanced upon anything resembling a catalogue?’

‘Nope. Matilda – I mean Mrs Jencks – says there isn’t one as such.’ I let the slip go by without comment thinking I could probe later if I wanted. ‘However, there is a list of additions up to eighteen hundred or thereabouts. And the books seem to be arranged on the shelves more or less in chronological order.’

‘Right. So you know the deal: we find enough to hook Samantha and she’ll put in an offer for the lot from the coffers that Oceanus, Inc keeps overflowing.’

‘And then goes on to donate the ninety-nine percent she doesn’t want to us?’

‘Just so. Now we’ve got a couple of hours before dinner and I want to root through some of these papers. How would you feel about starting a scan of the titles for pornographic gems?’

‘Sure thing, guv.’ I was expecting acquiescence but Tamsin seemed positively enthusiastic. ‘That’s strictly f-f stuff I’m looking for, yeah?’

‘Well, with goings-on between women providing the main thrust of it – and not too much literal thrusting unless it’s dildoes. And you can check anything you turn up against their catalogue. I was told it’s bang up to date.’

By the time twenty to seven came round I’d had enough of dusty papers, most of which were meaningless through elisions made for the purposes of concealment, or if decipherable, uninteresting. I could bear only so many repetitions of statements of the type: T–– gave G–– 2 doz with the b–– after which they c––ed. The fact that this particular birching and copulation (?) took place at M–– H–– on the 12th June 1731 helped not one jot. Tamsin, on the other hand, was looking well pleased with a pile of six or eight volumes at her elbow. When she saw me glance over, she nodded up at the clock.

‘We’re getting dinner on the hour and there’ll be an aperitif laid on first.’

‘Enough said, my girl. Lead on. I take it you know the way.’

It was as well she did for the modest dining room, though in fact the neighbour of the study we left, was reached only by approaching it from the other side. Both had windows overlooking a rising stretch of parkland topped with a crown of trees that, just at that moment, were caught in the rays of the setting sun. I did the honours with the bottle of Brut sitting in an ice bucket alongside a bowl of mixed nuts. We stood in silence before the view for a bit, and when the glasses were empty I refilled them.

‘So is this courtesy of Mrs Jencks – or should I say Matilda?’ Tamsin blushed and I repented of the remark. ‘Sorry, I’m being nosy. Perhaps I should make a confession instead. When the cook was practicing her swing on you, I’m afraid I was watching.’ I don’t know quite what made me say it – some kind of rush of bubbles to the brain perhaps – and it was an anxious moment before I saw the smile breaking.

‘Shit, I had a funny feeling about it. That’s in addition to the far from funny feelings in my bum.’

‘Let me explain.’ I jumped in quickly in case her mood changed. ‘It wasn’t my idea. A lad came on the scene, took me round the back into a pantry and there you were through the door. Next thing I knew he had his cock out, pumping for all he was worth and to save my life I couldn’t have taken my eyes off it till the business was done. So there you are: I wasn’t exactly ogling your peachy bits, but he certainly was.’

The PA gave a chuckle and munched on some nuts. ‘Nice to know, really, but I don’t reckon I’m cut out for s/m stardom. Not when there’s muscles like that at the back of the strap.’

The talk was interrupted by the appearance of Laura, to set down hot plates and a stock of red wine. She opened up a hatch to the kitchen and carried over a dish of lasagne and a large bowl of green salad. We agreed that we certainly could help ourselves and ring the bell when we were done. So with that she left us to it and we tucked in. It was soon apparent that cook was good for more than swinging the arm.

After a while, with inroads made into the second bottle, Tamsin said, ‘I’d better come clean too. You’ll twig anyway if I don’t.’ I made well-only-if-you-want-to kind of noises, but she seemed set on telling the tale. ‘After I’d been whacked, Matilda – I may as well call her that, okay? – said how well I’d taken it, and it must have been an awful shock, and if I’d go up to her room she’d give me something to make it feel better. And she did. Fucking jeez she did.’

The girl took a swig and swished the dregs round in the glass, eyes fixed on what she was doing. ‘Well, this time I got the tights right off and the skirt too and she put me over these two pillows on the bed. Then out came this bottle of aromatic oil, I don’t know what kind, and she starts on a massage. But not like any massage I ever had before. It’s not just the arse, it’s kind of from the waist down to the thighs, and in ten seconds flat I’m ready to come. But I don’t, well not like a big climax that goes whoosh and fizzles out. This just goes on and on, and fucking on till I don’t know whether I’m laughing or crying. Jeez!’

There was just a splash of the red left and I put it out in the pause. ‘Something else, eh, kiddo?’ I said gently. ‘So you’re going back for more.’

For the first time she looked me straight in the eye. ‘Bloody sure I am. Look, Jane, I get a sore bum and get into sex with a woman twice my age. I mean it’s not been
sex
sex yet, but it will be and odds on there’s going to be more strapping. What kind of perv am I?’

‘Well, Tams, just consider this. Older and supposedly wiser than you, I spend the afternoon captivated by the self-abuse of a boy who’s of an age to be my son. I’m living in hope that he’ll appear in my room later and the gods know what
that
might lead to. You and I plainly make a good pair of deviants. Let’s drink to it, I say.’ With that I reached for another bottle from the sideboard and stabbed it with the corkscrew. The PA’s worried face creased and before the cork was out she was doubled up with laughter. That’s my girl, I thought for the second time that day, and filled both glasses to the brim.

Later, after coffee, Tamsin insisted on resuming the search for hot lesbian titles of earlier ages, but I ducked out of any more library work until the morning. I lay back on the vast bed in my room meaning to rest weary eyes, only to find myself waking with a start to an insistent tapping on the door. Head muzzy from the wine, I gulped a mouthful from the glass of water on the table and turned the key in the lock. He sidled in, the perkiness tempered by a certain hesitancy. I was suddenly struck by qualms.