Portrait of a Disciplinarian (22 page)

‘What did you tell them?’

‘They didn’t give me a chance. They knew about the eggs, so maybe if I’d just been in the nude I’d have got away with it, but they’d seen what I was doing. Then they made me bring Great-auntie a note saying what I’d done. You can imagine how embarrassing that was, and so that’s why I got done at tea, in front of the vicar! It’s so unfair!’

She pulled a face as she finished. Her bottom still smarted, and she put her hands back to rub her cheeks. She had returned just an hour before, following the painful events on the moor, at least the later half of which had happened exactly as she’d described them to Hermione. Her great-aunt Victoria had been furious about what had happened at the Brown Shorts rally as well, which had made the spanking both harder and more prolonged.

‘There’s one good thing,’ Hermione said. ‘Now we’re not allowed to be in the Brown Shorts any more it’ll make our alibi even better if we’re spotted taking the pig to the station. But anyway, what are you doing getting engaged to that nut Attwater?’

‘It all got a bit confused,’ Stephanie said. ‘I thought that if he was my fiancé I’d be able to touch him for enough to get to London, and he’s more or less admitted that he intends to spank me when I’m his wife, and that probably means before, so it will be easy to break it off, but I had second thoughts, and he got the wrong end of the stick, and …’

She trailed off with a despairing gesture.

‘You didn’t need to do that!’ Hermione answered. ‘To get money, all you have to do is hold Porker up.’

‘What, rob him?’

‘Yes, why not? He must be carrying hundreds!’

‘But H …’

‘Don’t be wet, Stiffy.’

‘It’s not that, but what am I supposed to do? He’ll recognise me, and besides, he’s a sort of human gorilla. He’ll just laugh at me.’

‘Biff him on the head with something, from behind.’

‘Biff him on the head? I can hardly reach his head.’

‘Nonsense. Put a lump of granite in one of your socks. That’ll see to him.’

‘What if I don’t knock him out? What if I kill him?’

‘Make your mind up! Look, it’s easy, you just give him a sort of medium tap, not too soft and not too hard. You see people do it in the films all the time.’

‘What people?’

‘Oh, you know, gangsters, hoodlums, bootleggers …’

‘You’ve been spending too much time at the cinema, Hermione … How do you manage to sneak off to Plymouth? The aunts would never let you watch that sort of film.’

‘Porker takes me to see educational films,’ Hermione explained, ‘or at least that’s what we tell the aunts.’

‘I bet you do,’ Stephanie answered, ‘so that’s … that’s what you’ve been up to.’

She had only just caught herself before revealing the full extent of her knowledge, and went on quickly.

‘All right, if it’s so easy, you do it.’

‘You’re the one who wants the money.’

‘Don’t you? I’ll go halves, after expenses of course.’

Hermione paused for thought, then spoke again.

‘It would be awkward if he called the police.’

‘A little, yes!’ Stephanie agreed. ‘And Mama says she’ll leave me in the jug if I get pinched again, for anything at all, never minding socking a curate with a lump of granite. What would that count as, anyway?’

‘I think it’s called robbery with an offensive weapon,’
Hermione
said doubtfully, ‘or something like that, but I don’t suppose you get the option of a fine.’

‘No,’ Stephanie agreed, ‘probably not. Look, H., why …’

She trailed off, wondering how to phrase her suggestion without giving herself away, then realised that it wasn’t hard at all.

‘He’s jolly keen on you, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘And I bet he’d like to make a beast of himself if you offered, maybe to suck his cock –’

‘I couldn’t!’ Hermione broke in. ‘That’s disgusting!’

‘Tug him off then.’

‘Stiffy! I couldn’t, not ever, not –’

‘Why not?’ Stephanie demanded. ‘You were going to with Lias Snell, and he’s a grubby old drayman, so why not Porker?’

‘I just don’t want to,’ Hermione said, putting on her most sulky face. ‘Why don’t you do it? He’s probably still at the show, so you could meet him in the lanes near Bridestowe, start talking to him, and suggest going in among the bushes, or …’

‘He’d realise I was up to something,’ Stephanie objected.

‘He’d realise I was up to something too.’

‘No, he wouldn’t. He’d probably think … oh, for goodness sake, H., I know he makes you tug him off when you have piano lessons, and spanks you, and has all your clothes off, and …’

Hermione had gone crimson. Stephanie stopped and shrugged.

‘Sorry, H. I watched,’ she admitted. ‘But I wasn’t peeping, I … I just don’t like him making you do dirty things, and … and I went to talk to him about it, and he laughed at me and said you liked it, and that afterwards you … you diddled yourself. Don’t worry if it’s true. I’m just the same. I … I like sucking Lias Snell’s cock, but I hate it too. It’s like that for you with Porker, isn’t it?’

It had all come out in a rush, and she had only just stopped herself confessing the truth about Myrtle. Hermione said nothing, but she looked angry and embarrassed.

‘Sorry I peeped,’ Stephanie said quickly. ‘Please don’t be cross. Maybe … maybe you should spank me, but not now. I’m awfully sore behind, and …’

She stopped as Hermione shook her head.

‘I’m not going to spank you, but you shouldn’t have peeped.’

‘Sorry. Do you want to tell me about it or not?’

Hermione nodded, and after a deep sigh she began to speak.

‘He tricked me into it. When I first started going for piano lessons he was ever so stuffy, but perfectly proper. The aunts think he’s wonderful, so when he suggested that he should take me into Plymouth to see an educational music film they let us go. He took me to see “The Jazz Singer”, which has sound and everything, and I suppose is about music, but we both knew the aunts would disapprove, so it became our little secret. Next he took me to see “The General”, which is jolly funny, and afterwards he stood me dinner and cocktails … several cocktails. On the drive back he parked up on Roborough Down and started telling me how much he loved me and trying to kiss me. I wouldn’t, and he got in a tizzy, crying his eyes out and begging me to do all sorts of rude things. In the end I agreed to show him my top.’

‘While he tugged his cock?’

‘No, that came later. He’s really sneaky, because he never actually said he’d tell the aunts what we’d been up to, but I knew he would …’

‘No he wouldn’t! You’d get caned, but he’d get thrown out of the church.’

‘That’s what I told myself,’ Hermione answered, and Stephanie nodded understandingly as her sister carried on. ‘Once I’d shown him my top there was no going
back
. Next he wanted to see my bottom, then have me in the altogether while I played piano. He made a little game of it, so I have to strip if I can’t do my piece properly, and the third or fourth time he got his thingy out on me. Next he added spankings, and having to tug him.’

‘I saw,’ Stephanie said, ‘all over your titties.’

‘He’s a dirty pig,’ Hermione answered, making a face, ‘and so sneaky. He said I had to diddle myself in front of him for a punishment, not all the way, but you know how it feels, and I’d got there before I could stop myself. Now I always do it. I have to.’

‘I understand,’ Stephanie said softly and put an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

‘Now he wants me to suck his thingy,’ Hermione went on, ‘and he says he’d like to stick it up my bottom, and do you know the worst thing? I think I’m going to let him. What am I going to do, Stiffy?’

‘I don’t know,’ Stephanie answered, ‘but I’m going to biff him with a lump of granite in a sock.’

As Stephanie stood in the hedge beside the narrow lane between Bridestowe and the Okehampton Road she was beginning to realise that were considerable drawbacks to the project. It was all very well to talk of biffing curates with weighted socks, but the Reverend Benjamin Porthwell was an exceptionally large curate, and once biffed would be impossible to move, forcing her to complete the deed in the middle of the road. Also, he had been at the show in a suit rather than a cassock, so the money would presumably be easy enough to find, but the thought of rifling his pockets while he lay unconscious and possibly bloody in the road made her hesitate.

Nevertheless, she had promised her sister, and a promise was a promise. She had also paused a while to admire the portrait of Devil John Truscott that hung in the hall. Devil John, she was sure, would not have
hesitated
for a moment. He would simply have biffed his curate, pinched the money and gone his way with a merry song on his lips. She planned to do the same.

She was at least well armed. The socks that went with her Brown Shorts uniform had proved ideal for the task, and as her own were still wet she had selected one of Hermione’s. No suitable pieces of granite had been available, and walking up to the high moor had seemed an unnecessary detour, so she had chosen a half brick instead, which, while less aesthetically pleasing, would no doubt do the job.

Her position had been chosen carefully, concealed in a thick beech hedge on top of a high bank, from where she had a commanding view of the junction between the lane and the main road, some two hundred yards away. She could see who was coming and would know if anybody else was following close behind, so that unless someone approached from the Bridestowe direction she could at least be sure of not being caught red-handed. Nevertheless, the lane was busy with people returning from the Okehampton show, and she knew she would have to be both lucky and fast if she was to secure her prize.

A figure had appeared at the junction, causing her heart to give a little jump, but it was one of the local farmers, his suit brown rather than black, and his collar the right way around. She settled back on the conveniently horizontal branch she was using as a seat, only to rise again as another figure appeared, this time in a black suit and with his collar back to front, His bulk removed any possibility of mistaken identity. It was the Reverend Benjamin Porthwell.

The farmer was some twenty yards in the lead, and Stephanie reasoned that a man who spent his days doing active things with cows and sheep would probably move considerably faster than one who not only divided his time between the cure of his flock and seducing young girls but was markedly obese. Sure enough, by the time
the
farmer disappeared from view the gap had lengthened to a good twenty-five yards, and Stephanie braced herself for the attack.

It seemed to take an inordinate length of time for the farmer to reach her hiding place, and when she heard his voice, remarking on the availability of daffodils with which to decorate the church for Easter Sunday, she realised why. Rather than getting on with whatever important work awaited him back at his farm, he had chosen to pass the time in idle conversation with the curate, thwarting Stephanie’s plan. Nor did he seem likely to hurry on his way, changing the topic of conversation from daffodils to the advanced state of the primroses in the hedge as the man strolled past her hiding place.

Despite a secret sense of relief, Stephanie said the rudest word she could think of under her breath. She knew she would have to follow, and, reasoning that it was hard to look nonchalant while holding a long khaki sock with a half brick in the toe, she reluctantly abandoned her weapon. As soon as the farmer’s voice had faded she slipped down from the hedge, paused to brush leaves and a stray caterpillar from her dress and set off behind them, intent on catching up and including herself in the conversation.

As her last contact with the Reverend Benjamin Porthwell had been to kick him on the shin, a conversational opening seemed a little difficult, unless it was an apology. That could hardly be made in front of the farmer, but before she caught up with them he had turned down a smaller lane, presumably to his home. For one moment the curate had his back turned to Stephanie, with nobody in sight either way along the lane: the perfect moment to biff him, except that she no longer had her sock. Deprived of choice, she spoke to him.

‘Good afternoon, Reverend. May I walk with you?’

He turned, looking somewhat wary as he recognised her.

‘Good afternoon, Stephanie,’ he said, ‘if it’s about your money …’

‘No,’ she said sadly, ‘a bet’s a bet, and I lost. I, um, I want to apologise for my behaviour the other day. It was very rude of me.’

‘Yes, it was,’ he answered, his tone changing instantly from worry to sanctimonious disapproval. ‘Especially as I was right.’

‘I know,’ Stephanie admitted, deciding that it was no time to argue about the details of her sister’s seduction. ‘I spoke to Hermione.’

He didn’t reply, and they walked on in silence for a little way. There was a conspicuous bulge in the left-hand side of his jacket, which suggested an inner pocket filled with a very substantial quantity of money. The opportunity to biff him was gone, and it was highly unlikely that there would be another, even if she dared take it, when he was sure to guess who the culprit was. Yet there was every chance of putting their second plan into operation, if only she could steel herself to the task. All she had to do was get his jacket off, and once they had been rude together he would be in no position to complain. It was nasty work, but it had to be done, and once more she thought of her ancestors in order to strengthen her resolve, although she was fairly sure that none of them had ever sucked a curate’s penis in order to rob him.

Having decided to do it, the technique was simple.

‘I was very naughty,’ she said.

‘Very naughty indeed,’ he agreed.

‘Perhaps I should be punished?’ she suggested. ‘I know you punish Hermione.’

‘I do,’ he admitted. ‘Yes, perhaps a punishment would be in order, if you assure me that you think it appropriate.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, and forced herself to add, ‘but you will do it the way you do it to Hermione, won’t you?’

‘I knew it,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘You’re just like your sister, you delicious little trollop!’