Rectory of Correction (7 page)

‘Oh no, what is...?' Gretchen craned around to try to see the source of the sound.

‘That's torn it!' Bella chortled.

‘I wonder what the punishment is for that?' Amelia said slyly.

The woman's drawers had split from top to bottom along the seam that ran between her bottom cheeks. Instantly several inches of pink flesh appeared in the gap. Gretchen felt the damage mournfully.

‘You think he will punish me?' she asked fearfully.

‘Course he will, you fat trollop!' Bella chortled.

‘But yours split, too...' Gretchen looked at the other girl, tears brimming in her pale blue eyes.

‘Different,' said Bella, getting up off Charlotte's lap and patting her own bottom ruefully. ‘The Reverend split them with the cane. Don't you remember? He said it was no disgrace to have one's drawers split by the rod, but if we were to rip them through poor deportment we should expect no mercy.'

Gretchen had finally got her lacing loosened and pulled her corset off. Her plump body was pink and softly inviting, and the mournful expression in her eyes almost melted Amelia's heart.

‘No mercy,' she repeated distantly.

‘There is no mercy for any of us from that terrible man,' Charlotte said bitterly as she sat on her little bed.

‘No, the Reverend Dawes is not known for it,' Amelia said, unable to quite rid her mind's eye of that pitiless grey gaze.

‘He is a real tartar, that's for sure,' Bella said cheerily. There was something hot in her eyes, however, that Amelia found she did not like at all.

‘Away, he's no' that bad,' Kirsty said calmly as she got into her own bed.

Five pairs of eyes looked at her in complete astonishment.

‘Not that bad?' Charlotte spluttered, utterly incredulous.

‘I do not understand,' Gretchen gasped, amazed.

‘You must be joking, surely?' Amelia said, blinking at the figure in the bed.

‘What constitutes bad in your book, then?' asked Bella with a laugh, but she was not destined to get an answer.

Kirsty's bed was at the far end of the dormitory and all the other girls were staring at her, and away from the door. Something in the girl's green eyes sent a sudden prickle of cold fear down Amelia's spine.

‘Quiet time,' the Reverend Dawes said in a calm but displeased tone, ‘is a time for quiet rest, not idle chatter.'

There was a little chorus of shocked gasps as the six young ladies blushed scarlet and did their best to shield their naked charms from the intruder's gaze. The Reverend, however, seemed quite untroubled by what seemed to Amelia the scandalous impropriety of the situation.

‘As you all seem to have so much energy to spare we must put it to constructive use. Faith will issue you each with sporting kit. I think it is time you girls were introduced to the wholesome pleasure of a bracing, cross-country run.'

 

 

 

Amelia stared at the new outfit with utter horror, but it was Charlotte who voiced the girls' common concern.

‘Really, this is too much. He cannot intend for us to go out in public in these,' she spluttered, her pretty face quite crimson.

Charlotte had already pulled on the white shorts and short woollen singlet Faith had brought up to the dormitory at the Reverend's departure. The clinging jersey of the singlet did little to disguise the shape of her firm young breasts; indeed, Amelia could make out the girl's jutting little nipples perfectly clearly. The shorts were legless and seemed to be skin-tight. Knee socks and white plimsolls completed the strip.

‘Come on, Charlotte, we had better make the best of it.' Bella's statuesque body looked particularly splendid in the gym kit, her full breasts straining perilously at her singlet whilst her long legs and powerful thighs were shown off by the shorts. With a sigh, Amelia pulled up her own shorts. After the constriction of the flogging drawers they felt quite comfortable, though there was no denying the fact that they were almost obscenely tight.

Pulling the vest on hurriedly, Amelia glanced around. Charlotte was still blushing furiously and looking utterly aghast. Kirsty, as usual, seemed quite unworried by the outfit, which hugged her generous curves most flatteringly.

It was Gretchen who looked most absurd in the get-up. She blushed a deeper shade of beetroot even than Charlotte, aware that her body simply was not made for such athletic attire. Her breasts seemed about to burst out of the flimsy constriction of the singlet, whilst her shorts were barely able to contain her behind. Gretchen's more mature features and matronly figure combined to make the girlish little gym outfit seem quite absurd.

‘I really would not protest, if I were you,' Faith said softly in response to Charlotte's shrill complaints, though she also looked meaningfully at each of the other girls in turn.

 

Another man might have looked ridiculous in those baggy khaki shorts, Amelia thought as she stood in the line of girls outside the rectory. The Reverend Dawes in shorts and singlet, however, appeared even more formidable than he did in dog collar and tweed jacket. Partly it was the fact that more of his body was revealed. His biceps might not have been massive, but there was a well-honed power about the man's lean musculature that Amelia found strangely compelling in an ominous way.

Then there was his carriage. As always he stood erect, shoulders back, stance well balanced. The gym kit made him look more like an army drill instructor than a prelate. Certainly Amelia felt every bit the hapless conscript, quivering before his baleful gaze.

The final element making him seem so formidable was the thing he swung casually in his right hand as he glared at the glum row of blushing trainees.

‘After luncheon, every day, we shall have a spot of exercise. Whilst the weather is fine, this will be a nice long run. Make no mistake, girls,' he slapped the short riding crop in his hand for emphasis, ‘I mean to mould your bodies, as well as your minds.'

He produced a stopwatch from one of the pockets of his shorts. ‘The course will take us into and around the grounds of Hope Hall. The Marquis and Marchioness have graciously given me their permission for us to use the park. I am sure Amelia in particular will appreciate their generosity.'

Amelia stared at the ground and clenched her fists.

‘It takes me just under half an hour to complete the run,' the Reverend continued. ‘I shall allow one hour today, as some of you,' he gave Gretchen a meaningful stare, ‘are flabby and unfit. Take more than one hour and, make no mistake, it will be a good hard slippering on your return.'

A slight sound behind her caused Amelia to turn. Faith and Rose, both attired in gym kit, came out of the rectory. Amelia remembered seeing Rose hauling the Reverend's pony-cart in the Silver Cup. As a loser the girl had been flogged unmercifully. A few fading welts could yet be seen on her pale upper thighs, but otherwise she seemed to have recovered.

‘Rose will lead off as she knows the course. Do not go too fast, girl; the others will need to keep you in sight. Faith will bring up the rear and keep an eye out for stragglers.'

The Reverend looked at the quailing row of girls, stopwatch in one hand and riding crop in the other, and it seemed to Amelia that he almost smiled. ‘All right, girls,' he said quietly, ‘go!'

 

Even before the run started terror had engulfed her. As soon as she heard the dread phrase, ‘cross-country run', Gretchen had felt sick to her stomach. She knew the other girls were, without exception, younger, slimmer and fitter than her. There was no doubt they would be faster too. The next hour or so, she knew with hideous certainty, was going to be the purest form of hell.

Nor was she mistaken. Rose had led the little pack of runners off up the rectory drive, the Reverend running back and forth along the line of girls, shouting encouragement and swishing his crop by way of punctuation. By the time they reached the road out of Hatherby Gretchen was already last. Faith ran beside her with a concerned expression.

‘Come on, Gretchen, you will have to run a bit faster, at least.'

The road out of Hatherby wound gently upwards on its way towards Hope Hall. This easy slope was quite enough to leave Gretchen gasping within the first few dozen yards. Despairingly she watched Charlotte inexorably pull away. Though she was the next slowest of the group, every time Gretchen looked up, panting, the girl was more distant.

‘Hurry it up! Hurry it up!' Gretchen looked up just in time to see the Reverend Dawes lay a sharp stroke with his crop across Charlotte's well-filled shorts. The crack of crop on bottom came back to her as she laboured up the hill, as did Charlotte's startled gasp of pain.

She knew in her soul what was coming, but it did not come for a short while yet. The Reverend concentrated a little longer on Charlotte, chivvying her up the slope with a judicious mixture of sharp strokes of the crop and blood-curdling threats.

Gretchen had a stitch by the time she reached the little gate in Hope Hall's surrounding walls. Tears misted her eyes as she stumbled up towards the iron gate and the man who stood awaiting her there.

‘Not a very good show, is it Gretchen?' he asked mildly as she reached the gate.

‘Ha... I... oh, I can't...' she gasped as she staggered through.

The Reverend Dawes fell into a slow lope at her side.

‘Faith, go and up and keep an eye on Lady Charlotte, she is falling somewhat behind,' he said, breathing but little more heavily than usual, while Gretchen was now gasping desperately for air. Faith increased her pace and soon disappeared from view amongst the rhododendrons and camellias that lined the gravel drive.

Gretchen tried. True terror ensured no one ever tried harder, but it was no use. Too many cream cakes and lazy afternoons had taken their inevitable toll.

‘You are a fat, lazy trollop, aren't you, girl?'

Gretchen did not have the breath to answer. Between her broken breathing and the sound of feet on gravel she did not even hear the warning whistle of the crop.

It caught her square across the broad beam of her bottom and pain lanced through her, so sharp that it turned a laboured gasp into a sob.

‘Come along, you great tub of lard!' Again the crop cracked across her behind. Gretchen gasped and stumbled and this time she fell. Too winded to rise, she panted, quivering like a jelly, as the gravel of the drive abraded her hands and knees.

‘Come on, get up!' The Reverend Dawes ordered pitilessly.

‘I c-can't, s-sir,' she panted, the stitch still piercing her side.

‘Very well, you lazy slut. Stick that fat bottom up and out.'

Still panting, her hams trembling violently, Gretchen somehow forced her bottom to obey.

There was a whistle and a crack, and she was in agony. She had neither enough breath to howl her distress nor enough time to catch it, before he unleashed the riding crop again.

 

Amelia's lungs felt like they were bursting as she hurried through the rhododendrons, desperate to keep Kirsty in view. Leggy Bella had pulled away with Rose right from the start, and Kirsty was evidently also fit but, somehow, Amelia had managed to stay in touch, whilst slowly outpacing Linnet. She did not know what would happen if she lost contact with the leaders in this race, but she was learning how the Reverend Dawes' mind worked, and she did not like the prospect one little bit.

There was something else on her mind as she scrambled along the drive that wound through the overcast shrubbery. The course was taking her ever closer to Hope Hall. To her relief the leading runners did not take the route that led to the Hall's courtyard and stable block, but it was short-lived relief, for she realised the route would take them in front of the great house.

As she rounded the corner she knew the worst. A group of elegantly dressed gentlefolk were sitting on the bench before the house and taking tea. Mortified, Amelia recognised the relatives who had so cruelly consigned her to this fate. Lord and Lady Feversham – Amelia's Uncle Alexander and Aunt Alicia – sat sipping tea with that damned young dandy Jamie Fanshawe and her thrice cursed cousin, Clara. They turned at the sound of her feet pounding the path and smiled smugly as she panted her way towards them. Amelia clenched her teeth. She might have known the Reverend Dawes would not miss an opportunity to humiliate her further. The company clapped languidly as Rose led Bella past them and a suppressed surge of fury took over Amelia's proud soul.

Why should she be humiliated like this? Why should that little blonde slut Clara, who was younger than Amelia by almost a year, get to sit in comfort and laugh at her as she stumbled past? Tears of frustrated anger misted Amelia's eyes.

‘Come on, Amelia, pick those legs up, you old slowcoach!'

Jamie's amused comment as Amelia pounded up the drive towards her relatives made her want to weep. Cousin Clara could not disguise an amused smile. Lady Alicia let out a peal of laughter and Lord Alex clapped languidly as she laboured past the party. Desperate to get out of sight of the grinning foursome, Amelia put down her head, ignored her aching legs and ran.