Portrait of a Disciplinarian (19 page)

The rain had stopped and a breeze was beginning to break up the clouds rolling in over Cornwall, so that, as they drove, the lanes were sparkling wet from intermittent sunshine, with huge puddles that sent up impressive splashes as the wheels hit them. Just outside the town they reached the end of a long queue of drays and other vehicles. They abandoned the car by a gate, and again Stephanie was glad of her Brown Shorts uniform as they found their way to the field where the show was being held.

‘Let’s look at the pigs,’ she suggested, ‘I want to be sure we’re on to a good thing.’

‘Grandpapa’s bound to be there,’ Hermione agreed. ‘With any luck he might give us some spending money.’

They began to walk down the field towards the stock pens, where horses, cattle, sheep and, most importantly, pigs were gathered in neatly fenced-off squares, each surrounded by a group of interested bystanders. Elsewhere on the field was a huge white marquee for refreshments, the last thing Stephanie currently wanted, a bandstand, assorted stalls, a large podium hung with bunting from which the speeches were to be made and the winners announced, and another, smaller podium from which flew a set of brown pennons and a larger flag with the emblem that Claude Attwater had chosen picked out in gold. Claude himself was visible, along with several other Brown Shorts, and signalled to the two girls, who pretended not to have noticed.

‘He can’t expect us to be there all day,’ Stephanie said.

‘I expect he wants us to hand out leaflets or something,’ Hermione suggested. ‘Look, there’s Porker.’

Stephanie looked where her sister was pointing and saw a group of people, among whom the Reverend Benjamin Porthwell’s large, round head protruded as if it were a balloon held by a small child in the throng. He appeared to be doing a brisk trade, but looked nervous, repeatedly glancing guiltily round the field.

‘He’s jolly scared old Tredegar’ll find out what he’s up to, isn’t he?’ Stephanie remarked. ‘If he got caught, do you suppose he’d be defrocked?’

‘Yuck,’ Hermione laughed, ‘what a horrible thought! There’s Freddie too.’

Stephanie felt her heart skip, then sink. Freddie was indeed visible, walking towards them from the group gathered around the curate, and fixed to his arm in an unpleasantly possessive manner was Myrtle Finch-Farmiloe. Stephanie grimaced, then forced a smile, determined to hold her own. Freddie had seen her, and gave a cheerful wave. Myrtle made a remark to her companion; the words were inaudible but her subsequent laugh was enough to send the blood to Stephanie’s cheeks. Two men were also approaching, Roly Bassinger and Eggy White, both London friends, increasing Stephanie’s determination not to let Myrtle annoy her.

‘Hello, Stiffy,’ Freddie said as they drew close, his voice betraying just a trace of awkwardness.

‘Whatever are you wearing?’ Myrtle laughed. ‘You look like a boy!’

‘A very pretty boy,’ Roland Bassinger put in.

‘We’re Brown Shorts,’ Stephanie explained.

‘You don’t mean to say you’ve joined that ass Attwater?’ Eggy White demanded. ‘Oh, I say, Stiffy!’

‘Only for the time being,’ Stephanie hurried to explain.

‘But you don’t believe all that rot he talks, surely?’ Eggy insisted.

‘No, of course not,’ she assured him.

‘What?’ Roly Bassinger queried. ‘Do you mean you’re trying to subvert them from within?’

‘Something like that,’ Stephanie admitted. ‘I’ll be able to explain in a week or two.’

‘Ignore her,’ Myrtle advised. ‘She’s just trying to be mysterious. Now tell me, Stiffy, I hear you’re in disgrace, and that your mother had to spank you.’

Stephanie felt her face start to burn, unable to deny the accusation but equally unable to admit it was true. Hermione came to her defence.

‘She was trying to get a policeman’s helmet for the Gaspers election, and she’d have done it if Freddie hadn’t been playing about.’

‘I say, baby sis has found a voice!’ Myrtle declared in mock astonishment. ‘You were always such a mouse at Teigngrace, Hermione, but I suppose that’s better than being a clown like your sister. I couldn’t possibly tell you some of the things she used to do, boys, it would be quite indecent! Stiffy, that is. Little H. wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and she used to blush ever so prettily at bathtime.’

‘That’s hardly surprising with you about …’ Stephanie retorted, only to trail off as she realised that any revelations would be far more embarrassing to her and to her sister than to Myrtle.

All three men were listening with polite interest, hoping for more, which Myrtle happily provided.

‘Of course, Stiffy’s still a complete clown. Do you remember that time she was dancing the black bottom at the Kit Kat Club, Roly? It was simply frightful. She had this awful dress on, like a cream puff, with great big bows down the back. Every time she came close to his table, Puffy Froplinson would tug a bow open, and she didn’t even notice until her dress fell down! But the funniest thing, she didn’t have a stitch on underneath. It was a scream!’

‘That was not funny,’ Stephanie said, doing her best to sound cold and haughty but only managing self-pity.

‘Oh, it was,’ Myrtle insisted, ‘an absolute hoot. And why ever weren’t you wearing any drawers, or those frightful American combinations your mother puts you in?’

‘They spoil the line of my dress,’ Stephanie managed. ‘I prefer to look elegant.’

‘You looked a prize chump,’ Myrtle assured her. ‘Imagine, starkers, in the middle of the Kit Kat, and then she tripped over her own feet. You’ve never seen such a disgraceful exhibition!’

‘I tripped over my dress,’ Stephanie struggled to explain, ‘and it wasn’t awful. It was from Paris, the very latest …’

‘Paris is so prewar, don’t you think?’ Myrtle interrupted. ‘But what was I saying? Oh, yes, you’re in disgrace, aren’t you, so can we assume you’ll be standing down from the election?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Stephanie replied. ‘I will be there on the night, and I fully expect to become the new secretary.’

‘Take my advice and give it a miss,’ Myrtle responded. ‘You haven’t a hope anyway, and you’ll save yourself an awful lot of embarrassment and pain. Do you know what her ghastly aunts will do to her if she leaves Devon, boys? They’ll whack her bare bottom with a cane, quite possibly in the drawing room, and they don’t mind at all who sees. Perhaps we should get up a party to watch?’

She finished with a silvery laugh. Stephanie’s face was burning, and her eyes had begun to fill with tears, but at least it was plain that Freddie hadn’t told Myrtle about her caning on the previous afternoon, and despite his failure to support her she found herself feeling pathetically grateful.

‘You’re an absolute beast, Myrtle!’ Hermione put in. ‘How would you feel if Stephanie and I made jokes about you getting your discipline?’

‘But I don’t, do I?’ Myrtle replied with a laugh. ‘As Stiffy knows, I have never been spanked and I never will
be
. Even at Teigngrace I was exempt. It’s only you peculiar country types who go in for that sort of thing nowadays, and it’s dreadfully vulgar, of course, but also rather funny.’

‘Maybe,’ Hermione said, ‘I should put you over my knee right now and teach you how it feels, because if anybody ever, ever needed a jolly good spanking, Myrtle, it’s you!’

‘How dare …’ Myrtle began, but stopped, drawing closer to Freddie as Hermione took a step forward.

‘Ladies, please,’ Roland Bassinger said, although he was plainly having difficulty keeping the laughter out of his voice.

‘Not here, girls,’ Freddie agreed. ‘I mean, damn it, we chaps really ought to be setting an example, don’t you think?’

‘Absolutely,’ Myrtle agreed, ‘but you’d hardly expect a Truscott to appreciate that. They’re in trade, after all.’

‘We are not!’ Stephanie retorted.

‘You own mines, don’t you?’ Myrtle answered.

‘Grandpapa has sold his interests,’ Stephanie responded, ‘largely to your father, as it happens.’

‘Oh,’ Myrtle said, briefly discomfited, only to rally. ‘Well, when you’ve lost all your money I dare say I’ll have a place for a maid – not a lady’s maid, of course, but in the scullery, or perhaps between stairs. Anyway, must rush, they’re judging the pigs in a minute. Oh, and Hermione darling, there’s a class for the best piglet this year. I’m sure if you run you could just make it, and who knows, you might take a prize!’

She finished with a peal of laughter, leaving Hermione as red-faced and angry as her sister. Freddie gave Stephanie an apologetic look but allowed himself to be led away, the other two men following and discussing the current odds. Stephanie and Hermione waited a moment, then came on behind.

‘I should have done it,’ Hermione said. ‘I should have spanked the horrid beast.’

‘She’s jolly strong,’ Stephanie said doubtfully, ‘and I don’t suppose the boys would let you, not in front of everybody. Anyway, the aunts are over there, and you’d only get in worse trouble yourself.’

‘It would be well worth it,’ Hermione answered. ‘Anyway, with any luck her money isn’t on the Emperor.’

‘It’s bound to be,’ Stephanie countered, ‘but not at the odds we got, so she’ll be jolly green when she finds out how much we’ve won.’

‘Four hundred and forty pounds,’ Hermione breathed. ‘Four hundred and eighty with our stake back.’

‘I’ll have to pay Freddie back his twenty, I suppose,’ Stephanie said, ‘but still.’

They had reached the pig pens, where the judges were already assessing the rival entrants in the top class. A complicated system of gates and fencing allowed each of the formidable beasts to be guided on to a weighing platform. It was hard to see anything with the press of people, especially as even some of the children were taller than she was, but by pushing between a pair of lanky farmhands Stephanie managed to get to the front just as a large white sow was led on to the scales.

‘Mr Beston’s Taworthy Sally,’ the chief judge announced, and paused to allow the fluctuating needle to settle. ‘Sixty-seven stone, eight pound.’

There was a little polite clapping, but all eyes were on the gate at which Cyril Wonnacott stood with a braided leather lead attached to the Emperor’s snout ring. Stephanie allowed a smile to spread across her face. Farmer Beston’s pig was an impressive beast, but next to the Emperor she looked positively underfed. He bulged in every direction, and as he was led on to the scales they gave a protesting creak and the needle shot upwards, above the hundred-stone mark, only to return and quiver a fraction below.

‘Sir Richard Truscott’s Emperor of Driscoll’s,’ the
chief
judge stated with a satisfying hint of awe in his voice. ‘Ninety-six stone, four pound.’

Stephanie gave a quiet sigh. It had all been worth it, since the Emperor’s weight was still four stone or more short of his rival’s. Across the pens, she could see Sir Murgatroyd Drake, his face set hard in annoyance, and her grandfather, smiling complacently; also the Reverend Benjamin ‘Porker’ Porthwell, who was looking far from happy and making hasty calculations in his book. Again Stephanie smiled, thinking of the consternation and disgust on her sister’s face as she tugged on the man’s twisted erection.

A motion in the crowd drew her attention, and she turned to find Farmer Urferd approaching, with a length of what looked like ship’s rope in his hand. Attached to the rope was a snout ring, and attached to the snout ring was a pig. Although gigantic pigs had figured quite prominently in Stephanie’s recent life, she found her jaw dropping slowly open in astonishment and anxiety. It was a sow, not only so colossal that it might have been passed off as the Emperor’s big sister and no questions asked, but quite clearly pregnant, and looking as if she might produce a full litter of twelve piglets and a runt at any instant.

Stephanie’s hopes had plummeted as soon as she saw the monster, and dropped further still as the stewards were forced to pull back the fence to allow it to mount the scales. As with the Emperor, the broad iron plate creaked in protest as it took the beast’s weight, and as with the Emperor the needle shot above the hundred-stone mark, but this time it stayed there. A murmur ran through the crowd, voices in both Devon and Cornwall accents in agreement, many a pig farmer exclaiming in envy, not a few more genteel voices groaning in despair.

‘Mr Urferd’s Mother-in-Law,’ the chief judge announced, then waited for the laughter and witticisms to die down before he went on. ‘One hundred and twelve stone, five pound, and a new county record.’

‘National record, I wouldn’t wonder,’ one of the farmhands beside Stephanie remarked, part of a rising buzz of conversation that barely penetrated her senses.

She felt sick, not only because of the forty pounds she had lost and the effort it had taken to earn it, but at the smug expression on Porker Porthwell’s face as he flicked through the pages of his notebook. With all the money on either Singularis Porcus or the Emperor he had clearly made a substantial profit.

Much of the pig show remained, but Stephanie had lost interest and pushed her way clear of the crowd to wander dazed in the now bright sunshine as the full extent of the disaster sank in. She now had no money to get to London, with or without Singularis Porcus, while she had publicly declared her intention of standing against Myrtle in the Gaspers election. She had to be there, and yet she had already touched both Freddie and her grandfather for substantial sums, leaving her with nobody who could be good for more than a few shillings, with the possible exception of Claude Attwater, but only if she accepted his proposal. It was an appalling thought, but she found her steps turning towards the podium where he was currently haranguing three small boys and an elderly but determined heckler.

She stopped some fifty yards away, telling herself that it was a simple matter of accepting him, touching him for enough to make the all-important journey to London, then finding some excuse to break the engagement once she’d got safely back. Unfortunately there would also be the stigma of having been engaged to Claude Attwater, which Myrtle for one would never allow her to forget. It also seemed entirely possible that he might extend his opinions on the virtues of domestic discipline to engagements, although a spanking would at least provide an easy excuse for breaking it off.