"Gosh! How long have you been out here like that, my..."
"None of your business, grocer’s boy," laughed the freezing Girl as she playfully pushed off the lad’s cap and threw it away before her could stop her, causing him to have to dive into the snow-covered garden to retrieve it. "Why the bicycle, is the van broken down?"
"Yes. Wouldn’t start this morning, so here I am getting bloody frozen just to deliver your Mistress’ weekly food. Not as cold as you, though! I don’t know how you do it; come here a minute!"
And with this, the boy stepped up to the Girl and folded her shivering nakedness in his arms, giving her a little bit of much needed warmth, as well as the human sympathy and contact she had been deprived of for much too long. After a few seconds of this welcome solace she gently pushed him away and pointed to the gate.
"Put your delivery down on the ground and I will carry it up to the Castle. Now be off with you and don’t, whatever you do, skid on the path and fall off that bike! If you do, then yours truly will get a very bloody back indeed!"
The grocer’s boy glared in fury. His eyes seemed to be bursting out of his head and his face was deathly white.
"Those wicked bastards! I’d gladly kill them all for what they do to you! Just tell me to kill them and they are all dead!"
Then he rode off back towards the town and the Girl was left, shivering and near collapse, to continue her snow clearance. It was a very cold and near moribund Girl who staggered back into the castle at the end of her task. There was fierce pride in her undaunted heart as she collapsed in front of the Mistress and the Huskisson and Jenkins. These three stared down at the blue and pinched body beneath them. Not one of them could have endured one tenth of the horrors that this wonderful Girl had survived, but they still kicked her by turn in those poor frozen ribs until she got shakily to her numbed feet.
"Just because you have cleared the path, a job any one of us could have done in half the time, don’t get ideas, Girl! There is the rest of the day’s work to be done before you go to your rest," sneered the Mistress, aiming a final devastating kick at the Girl’s trim athletic stomach. The other two laughed heartily as she bent double, her face contorted in her agony.
"Get on with your work, Slave," said the Mistress. "I want every room cleaned before that useless stomach is filled with the food we pay good money for and you guzzle like the lazy greedy pig you are!"
It was five days before the snow melted and for each of those terrible five days, fresh snow fell every night. The Girl was allowed no respite from her painful outdoor labours in the whole of that time. When at last she awoke to hear the sound of rain falling and knew that the cruel cold tormenting snow was finally being swept away by the warm rain, she wept helplessly to know that her hideous travails were over, at least for a time.
The Mistress walked down the path every day, several times a day, but did not slip once, so good was the job that the Girl had done. Jenkins and Huskisson similarly failed to slip. The three of them gazed at the mighty whip that one of the Earls had been wont to use to punish peasant women who resisted his advances. They fingered it lovingly in turn.
"Never mind, Ma‘am," said Jenkins one day after the Girl had once again failed to commit any offence, "her time will come."
"I can’t think why you need an excuse," said the sadistic Huskisson. "Just use it, Mistress. Just use it on her. Please, Ma’am -- use it anyway. It‘s been lying there all these years, lying idle when it should be used on that Girl."
But Mrs. Bottomley was adamant. The Ninth Earl’s Whip was only to be used when the Girl deserved it and the two servants had to be satisfied with this. Her crucial transgression would be punished in a suitably ceremonial way, with the Girl being taken down to the cellars and chained facing the wall.
They determined to pile ever more heavy burdens on the hated Girl and as soon as she failed in any task, their vigilant eyes would spot it and the Mistress would be immediately informed. The Mistress, too, was anxious not to miss any opportunity that the Girl might present to them.
The Girl was only too well aware of this, and strove successfully to avoid the fate which one serious misdemeanor would bring upon her head or back. She would choose, for herself, the time and circumstances of her worst ever torture. She decided on a date in late July, much nearer to the hour when her mission would be completed, and with long enough for her to recover her strength before the final great task.
She knew that once the Mistress had used the Whip on her just one time, the demon-possessed woman would pretty soon become addicted to this latest and worst cruelty.
By the time five months had passed without a good reason for using the Whip, Jenkins, Huskisson and the Mistress had virtually given up hope and the subject had begun to fade from their minds. The Girl had not forgotten, though, and the nearer the time came, the more fearful she got and the greater were her doubts. Could she really see this through to the bitter end!
But we are anticipating and running ahead of ourselves! Let’s get back to the present.
Christmas was here! The Festive Season. Peace on Earth and Good Will towards Men! The Mistress had decided to visit her mansion in Bishop’s Avenue and spend the festivities there with her beloved husband and a few close relatives.
Jenkins and Huskisson were away for a few days with their respective nearest and dearest. The said nearest and dearest were, truth to tell, far from overjoyed at having these disagreeable persons with them, but Christmas comes but once a year!
The Archivist, Miss Amelia Parradine, was spoon-feeding her elderly mother her Christmas dinner and hating every second of her monotonous and disgusting life on the edge of the world, as ever. ‘How long, Oh Lord, how long?’ was her unspoken prayer on that glorious day, when the Saviour of the World was born and fallen Mankind was given hope of eternal life.
Professor Granville was in Madeira with a group of friends. These kind people had become concerned at the good professor’s increasing irritability and obvious mental distress.
"Come and join us for a week in the sun, James darling!" had been Dr. Jessica Middleton’s cheery words. Do you good to get you out of yourself for a bit. I wish you’d tell us what the trouble is, but at least get away for a bit with us!"
To her surprise, the Professor had agreed. He had been in a strange state for a few weeks, now, ever since that freak cold weather at the beginning of the month, come to think of it.
The grocer’s boy was at home with his mother and grandmother. He kept looking up at the Castle, which was visible from his house. Each time he glanced up there, his eyes filled with tears.
"I know, dear," said his mother, kindly. "But don’t fear, she’ll be alright in the end, believe me! And then the good days will be back for us all. Just don‘t forget to say your prayers for her, as we all do."
The aged grandmother nodded in her armchair. As a little girl, she had known the last of the old good times and longed to see them return before she died.
The Girl was alone in the Castle, scrubbing busily at the kitchen floor. When this had been done, there would be every square inch of the rest of the old place to clean. When that had been done, there were the gardens to tidy. The Mistress had decided on refurnishing some of the bedrooms and the new bedroom furniture had been delivered on the day before Christmas Eve, when the household had been about to depart to its various destinations.
"Don’t take it upstairs," the Mistress had told the removal men. "My staff will do that."
The said "staff", in the shape of the Girl was going to have all this heavy furniture in place by the time the Mistress and the others returned on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Either that, or the Whip would be used to slice her back open right down to the bone to use the Mistress’ choice phrase. As the cruel three left, they were all convinced that the Girl would surely fail and their loathsome wish be granted.
So what should have been a joyful holiday, a time of fellowship and magic, was for the Slave in the Castle, several days of non-stop labour, in which the poor Girl scarcely had three hours’ sleep a night. But she finished all her allotted tasks, much to the Mistress’ surprise and fury and the enraged mystification of the other two.
Despite the fact that no one was around to see her disobey, she ate all her meals off the floor just as if the others had been present. All she had to consume on the sacred day was her usual diet of bread and water and one glass of milk every alternate day. The Mistress had decreed that there be no change of routine even for Christmas.
On Boxing Day, very early in the morning, she did her chilly round of the gardens as usual and found a parcel inside the gate. It contained ham, cheese, cold chicken, savory biscuits and seasonable fruits, along with a bottle of Sancerre, still chilled, which had been recently opened and with the cork partly pushed back in.. She smiled at this act of kindness. There was a note attached and when she read it she cried uncontrollably, as much from happiness as from sorrow.
Mr. Hanspacker was packing. He had spent three days in a British gaol having had an extradition warrant served on him by the US Government. Although his lawyer had managed to get the warrant quashed on a technicality, he realized that his days in England’s green and pleasant land were all but over. He was to skip the country the very next day in his private jet and spend a while in a country, any country, less accessible to the long arm of the American law.
As he packed he thought again of that lovely lady who seemed to have taken on a new career as an exhibitionist. For no good reason that he was ever able to figure out, he decided to look up the Professor in Who’s Who. What he saw caused him to drop the large tome onto his foot, so startled was he.
"Gee! Now there’s a thing! No time to tell old Fred, though. Probably not important in any case, but real interesting all the same!"
Amy, now that Fred was restored temporarily to the loving bosom of his capaciously overweight wife, was spending the Yuletide festival with Priscilla, an old school chum, at that young lady’s bijou residence in Chelsea.
The two had dined and wined exceeding well, in addition to their prodigious intake of intoxicants the previous day and night, prior to attending Midnight Mass at St Margaret‘s Church, Westminster. (Setting, Krönungsmesse by Mozart.) By the time that Her Majesty’s broadcast to Nation and Commonwealth was beamed to the world, both girls were as tipsy as either could remember since this time last year. They both stood unsteadily to attention as the strains of the National Anthem faded away and collapsed together on the sofa.
Priscilla nibbled tenderly at Amy’s ear.
"Heard anything of old Cynthia since she bagged that gorgeous..."
Priscilla stopped, rendered speechless by a savage blow to the solar plexus. When she had recovered, a tear trickled down her face.
"That’s not fair, Amy! I know you two were something special -- we all knew that, you lucky thing! But all the rest of us loved her too, you know. There’s nothing any of us wouldn’t do for dear old Cynthia, absolutely nothing. We’d all of us die for her if need be!"
Amy hugged her friend and drew her face near to hers so that she could kiss her on the lips.
"I know, Priscilla, I know! Cynthia’s fine, just fine, but there is a lot I can’t tell you at present. As you say, she was a popular girl all right. Golly, the things she got up to, eh!"
Priscilla recovered her poise a little although she remained a bit inclined to sniff for a while.
"I still can’t believe some of the pranks she led us into. The night they found that whisky still that she and you rigged up in the garden shed, and she took all the blame herself! Do you remember the state of her arse after that? Fantastic load of marks. The best by far any of us ever got! None of us ever came close! Ye Gods, I bet the signs are there to this very day! They told her she could either be expelled or take twenty of the best off the Boss! She took the lot without a murmur in front of the whole school. I can hear that cane swishing and landing on her bare bum even now! The Boss had a fabulous action; the way she brought that stick down was something marvelous to behold! She never tired all the way to the last whack! But good old Cynth! She could sure as hell take it! What a girl!"
‘Good training for what she’s going through now;’ thought Amy silently and sadly, ‘I just hope it’s good enough.’
What she said out loud was "Priscilla darling! Let’s get undressed and spend the rest of the day starkers. I can’t say why, but trust me! It’s sort of for darling Cynthia‘s sake."
And so the couple did as Amy asked and they soon found plenty of jolly things to do to each other!