Hadley Hall by Mark Danelaw (Part 1 here)
Hadley Hall
Hadley Hall was almost an hour’s drive from the school where Lady Josephine Horton-Grange was a trustee and governor of the board. That at least was an ordered world where girls could be controlled. In her family life a day scarce passed when one of her daughter’s was not an absolute trial. Today she was concerned with all three.
Lucy had squandered every advantage and had been dead set on fraternising and who knew what with that awful Bingham person. The threat to cut her off and the carrot of the science teacher job at St Denise had divert her somewhat, but now she was moping and insisting she did not want the job. The Horton-Grange reputation was at stake, didn’t she know, and too many strings had been pulled in her interest?
Her youngest, Amelia’s grades were going down the toilet and there was some scandal now about a reefer or some such. None of these people could get their stories straight, except to say that expulsion was an imminent possibility.
Katherine was a further trial. Yet another venture had gone the way of the do-do and she was demanding yet more money. At least she was coming home under her own steam, although heaven knows Josephine regretted ever buying that ridiculous car.
Josephine was a comely woman for a mother of three grown-up daughters; statuesque with soft blonde hair worn in a side plait. She toned down the glamour so as not to appear too vulgar, but also resisted appearing too horsey, a frequent occupational hazard of being a country woman.
The sudden departure, albeit to a better place, of her husband some years before had derailed her at an awkward time. She felt that despite her best efforts, she had not been a good mother to the girls and all three had become entitled brats.
Well she had decided that all three were partaking of their last opportunity and in due course sterner measures would be taken. Starting, or at least continuing, she supposed, with Katherine who arrived that day.
Rather later than expected Josephine heard the throaty roar of her daughter’s car, compounded by a few pointless revs before the engine juddered to a stop. She could have made a slow count to the second timing Katherine’s entrance and should have been right.
“Hello mother, sorry I am late…”
There was this darling little… Josephine supplied in her head.
“…there was this darling little…” Josephine did not listen to the rest.
Katherine pecked her mother on the cheek and asked what was for lunch, “I am starving.”
“You missed it I am afraid,” Josephine told her.
“Oh be an absolute darling and go and rustle me up something,” Katherine said as she bounced teen-like into a chaise long and grabbed a magazine.
Josephine kept her counsel and addressed herself to the moment. “No staff today dear, but you do know where the kitchen is.”
“Oh that’s not fair,” Katherine pouted, she pretended to sulk for brief moment and then reverted to puzzled adult, “No staff, but you knew I was coming?”
“Yes I wanted to talk to you,” Josephine began.
Katherine spluttered incredulously, “Well I am just here, we can talk,” but then perhaps a memory or sixth sense cut in and she hesitated to say more and she became a little more uncertain.
“So we can,” Josephine said and sat down in the armchair opposite her daughter.
“Well can I least have a drink, I could murder a G&T,” Katherine did not make eye contact.
“No,” Josephine said.
Katherine was pouting again, still not looking fully at her mother. “What did you want to talk to me about anyway?”
“Tell me about your job, the latest one,” Josephine said.
“Oh eh the photography is not going so well and I was thinking about going back to the modelling agency… still photography, but…”
“Not modelling?” Josephine asked pointedly.
“Oh no,” she shook her head.
“So what went wrong with the Stillwell’s? Something about a wedding I heard,” Josephine said casually.
“Well you know silly people; they always want such ridiculous things you know…”
“Nothing then to do with you and the best man skipping out, to a broom cupboard of all things; what was it, just before the pictured needed taking?” Josephine said lightly.
Katherine formed words to speak and squirmed uncomfortably on the chaise. “That…” she began and ended with her eyes firmly fixed on the rug.
“And tell me, this new venture, not modelling you say, although a fine profession no doubt… but it isn’t what I heard,” Josephine said.
Katherine looked like she was sucking lemons now. Then is strangled voice she asked, “Mother, what have you heard?”
“Nude photosets, all tastefully done no doubt,” Josephine told her.
“Oh that… thing is as you have rather gathered, things went a bit Pete Tong at Stillwell’s and I had to get insurance for the car and the rent is a bit laggardly… like you say all very… um… tasteful but what is a girl to do?” Katherine felt the heat rise in her face, it was bad enough she had been talked into the wretched shoot, but anyone knowing, least of all her mother was beyond anything she really wanted to ever think about and she wondered, seeing as one day she would die anyway, whether it might as well be now.
“Katherine I send you money every month. I pay your rent and a bit more. You should be earning more than enough; what ever do you spend it on?” Josephine said sharply, “As for these… photographs, it simply will not do, think of the family name, think of your sisters…”
“Oh like they think of me,” Katherine was pouting again.
“Is this what you passed up university for?” Josephine sighed.
Katherine glowered at the rug again and then tentatively asked, “I don’t suppose you could give me a couple of thousand just to tide me over?”
Josephine’s stared. “I have a better idea,” she said, her tone now had a diamond cutting edge. She went to a draw in the sideboard and took out a black polished brush. It was about a foot long and as wide as a woman’s hand. On the business end it had stiff black bristles, with an inner set of bristles in white. The reverse side was flat.
“What are you doing with the curtain brush?” Katherine asked, but she had already gained her feet and was starting to look for an exit. “Anyway, the kitchen… do you want a sandwich?”
“Katherine Elizabeth Horton-Grange, you come here,” her mother said, as she spoke she moved to a French antique chair with no arms.
Katherine remembered it well. “Mother, mother please, I am 20.”
“I really do not care,” Josephine said beckoning her middle daughter to her.
“I could leave,” Katherine said defiantly.
“Then you will have received your last ever cheque from me,” her mother told her, “The photographs get rather less tasteful as the years go by.”
“I won’t do anymore, I swear,” Katherine said.
“Katherine.”
“Look I know someone who can get me another photography job, no more modelling I swear, I just need…” her daughter was whining now.
“Katherine,” Josephine said sharply, her patience evaporating.
“This is… so not happening,” Katherine responded, but she had taken two steps nearer to her mother.
Josephine stood and closed the gap between them and then led her back to the chair. “Over my knee,” she said.
“Mother please this is so embarrassing.”
“Aren’t you grateful I gave the staff the afternoon off?” Josephine said, “My knee at once or you will still be in the corner when cook arrives back at four.”
“Oooh,” Katherine complained but she half cooperated and was half pulled across her mother’s lap. So that her covered behind was neatly framed and uppermost and her head was down so that her hair draped onto the carpet.
“You still fit across my lap then, how gratifying,” her mother said as with quick expert fingers she unbuttoned and unzipped the side opening on Katherine’s trousers.
“Mother, please,” Katherine gasped as first her trousers and then her underwear descend past her knees exposing her now famous bare bottom, “N-no, please, this is…”
“Just what you deserve and what you need,” Josephine said, “Consider this your last warning.” She raised her right arm holding the brush high, so that it pointed at the ceiling then brought down again in one swift movement so that flat surface met bare bottom with a thwack.
“Uhhhh,” Katherine exclaimed as air ejected from her lungs, she had so forgotten that bite.
The brush fell again and not once, as spank followed spank in a steady but relentless rise and fall.
Katherine reacted by kicking futilely as her toes failed to get traction on the rug even as her bottom gyrate in tight circles. She might have clung on to stoic silence to preserve some dignity but after the first few swats an involuntary yell betrayed her and she sacrificed all dignity for trivial relief. At one point too she reached back to shield her backside but her mother seized that hand and pinned into the small of Katherine back in a judo like hold.
“Mother, mother, mother,” she gabbled, her left arm flailing, “Pleeeease.”
Josephine answered with silent determination and a pitiless rise and fall of the brush.
“I won’t do it, I won’t I promise, I’m sorry, please… a-huh, a-huh, a-huh,” she bawled.
A minute or two and perhaps nine dozen spanks later there came a blessed pause. Katherine could have kissed her mother’s feet.
“You have to hear me my girl, you really do, and compared to seeing you throw your life away the family reputation means nothing. But I intend to save both you and our reputation, so hear me and please, please hear me well, this really is the end of the line…”
Katherine steadied her breathing as her eyes darted under hair at the weave in the rug. Her bottom had found a new epic level of agony, but her mother’s words sliced through liked a razor blade with final doom. The dread was all encompassing and in that moment she knew Josephine Horton-Grange’s will. Any words or promises form her would be meaningless in comparison. She also knew in her despair that in a week Katherine the brat would chalk it up to experience as the bruises faded.
“I so fear that you won’t,” her mother sounded sad, “But I will try,” the iron was back, “So you will stay the weekend, you will listen to what I propose and on Sunday before you leave on Monday you will report to me for another spanking in the forlorn hope that I can make it take.”
Another spanking, Katherine fell down a well of panic and almost begged, would have begged, but the brush resumed its rise and fall and all she could do was growl and rage until even that gave way to mewling and bawling.
Time passed in treacle and it might have been days before she realised that she had been released to her hands and knee on the floor. Her shoulders heaved with laboured breathes and her burning bottom still uppermost on account Katherine’s feeble posture; she did not, could not speak or move. She had no strength for that moment.
Josephine stood up and salvaged a long forgotten cigarette from the draw where she returned the brush. Then with trembling fingers she managed to light it. “You know that might have been the longest and hardest spanking I have ever given,” she said after a couple of puffs and a long exhale. “If it is any comfort, your grandmother and I had a similar conversation when I was pretty much your exact age. Sadly for me, I think she was more adept than your mother; I did not sit down for almost a week and she neglected to dismiss the servants. It took years for me to forgive that second cruelty, which is why I was more considerate. But mark me with hindsight I deserved it all.”
“Yes Mother,” Katherine knelt up so that her hands were free to massage her bottom.
“Now this morning I had that vase stand and vase moved out of that corner of the room, my pretext was cleaning, but the corner will remain vacant from now on and this afternoon you will take its place.”
Katherine opened her mouth to protest but one look form her mother set it clamped like a steel trap. Pathetically she pointed at the said corner as if requiring conformation.
“That is the one, nose inwards bottom out, no rubbing and you are free to pray that no servant or visitor chances in here. I won’t be far,” her mother passed sentence.
“Yes Mother,” Katherine sniffed and with enflamed buttocks with every step she trudged to her humble station. Then with one last forlorn roll of the dice she looked back over her shoulder her face tear drenched and said meekly, “Mother, you really don’t have to spank me again on Sunday, I will be good.”
“Sadly we both know that that is a lie,” Josephine finished her cigarette and then dispersed the crime wishing that all sins were so easily disposed of, “So ask me for clemency again and you will get three spankings this weekend, same goes for any hint that you took your nose form that corner. Is that understood?”
Katherine miserably stood taking deep breaths as her mind raced for some obvious comeback, argument or previously unseen salvation.
“Is… that… understood?”
“Yes Mother.” Katherine thought she might cry again.
By Mark Danelaw
Next part is here.
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