Chapter 1

 

July 1869

 

My Dear Sister,

Sister, I have felt rage from Papa before, when I broke the fine china dish that was his mother's wedding present to him, when I did stand knee deep in the river and search for fish, my skirts held up in a shameful and wanton fashion (so Papa said) and I felt then the terrible force of his rage and the terrible sting of the strap.

But stay, let me not think of the strap for a brief moment, though the whistle of its falling echoes loud within my head. Perhaps that is why I write this letter to you, to purge such thoughts and also in the hope, nay the prayer, that one way I will be free to send it to you! and you will know what became of your sister Clarisse after I ran away -

Let me speak first of London town where it is fine and warm. Let me tell you here in London there are people - so many people! You would not begin to believe how many people could live in one city, for sure it makes our local towns look so provincial. And people smile when they hear my voice for I speak with the voice of a country girl and I hate it.

Ah Sister, I can see you disapprove of me even as I write these lines! You always said we should be proud of what we are, country people, the salt of the earth. But who knows, it may be you will never see these words. They are to ease my mind as much as they are to be read by you one fine day.

I do wonder how are you all there, and how little Marcia is, has she recovered from her cough? Here they say there is a fine cure to be found in honey and mullein, but of course Mama will have her own ideas of what she should give such a small and frail child. How is Thomas, I wonder, does he miss his big Sister taking care of him, and the pony? And is Papa raging with indignation at my departure? How will I ever go back?

I will never go back!

Sophie, I can delay no more, I must tell you what happened before I left.

Papa told me to clean the brass in the church. I went with a bad heart for I do so hate the brass in our church for all that it is fine and been brought from bequests by our local landowners in honour and remembrance of the dear departed. It is too carved and intricate, Sophie, as you will now find, as Papa is bound to ask you to do it. Nay, order you to do it. It has many corners and curves, and Papa does so like to have every corner gleaming! So I was in church with a bad heart, polishing away wishing with all my mind that our benefactors had left the money to the church so we could have new curtains and altar cloths and not brass, when Peter James came in from the farm.

You know only too well, dear sister, that Peter James is not a religious man, he had not called into the church for a prayer or meditation on the Scriptures for the day. Nor did he come to pray for the relief from the foot and mouth raging through his Master's herd.

He came because he saw me enter the church and not quite close the door after me.

I did not wish to close the door. I wished for some of the summer heat and warmth to penetrate the cold dark prayer heavy stones, that the kiss of Nature would come into the works of Man for our church is so dark and so dour I feel my very spirits depressed at setting foot across the doorstep.

I did not wish to close the door for I saw Peter James in the distance and I wondered if he would see me. I did make it clear when at market that I was interested, did I not toss my dark curls and flash my dark eyes and smiled at him with lips which I had bitten into redness and flaunted the breasts God gave me to interest a man? And did I not see the answering smile and look he gave me, for I have long since learned to read a man, as you will one day, dear Sophie, my quiet subdued sister!

For I did sore long for a man's arms round me.

Oh sister, it is a sin, I know it is! but I did so long for a man to have an arm around me and press his lips to mine and open up the fire that is burning deep within me! And these were the thoughts I took - grievously sinful that they were - into the church.

And as I stood with rag and vinegar and salt for polish and the candlestick in my hand, so did Peter James enter the church and without a word take the rag and candlestick from my hands, and draw me to his breast. And I felt the work hard muscles and the softness of sun kissed skin for he do work outside and is a fine upstanding man for sure. And sister, he kissed me with summer in his mouth and fire in his loins and I did cry out with the pleasure of it.

Down on the carpet before the altar did we go, forgetting where we were, forgetting what we had been taught for in our minds I am sure was nothing more than the feelings which raged through us, for I felt his manhood stiffen against me and I felt my own answering body yield to his - and we were in that position, he about to do that unthinkable act, when Papa came in.

Well! I have seen Papa in many a rage, but sister, I have never felt anything like this! Peter James hustled out, fled the church even as Papa roared after him that his Master would be told and retribution rained down on him. And I stood, skirts awry and blouse awry for he had sought and I gave a breast into his warm sunny hand. I must have been a sight, stood with hair atumble and my eyes aflame with the feelings I had. I know my bosom heaved with breaths so deep it was as if I would take into myself the whole atmosphere of the church and breathe it out suffused with life!

And Papa looked at me and I saw in his eyes the truth.

He lusted after me.

He seethed in his anger and rage at his own feelings and what I was about to do before the high altar, and he the Vicar of this church too! I knew my time had come. That this would be a punishment not to equal any other I had ever had.

I know not what was in his mind. He left the church locking it behind him, without so much as a single word passing between us.

And I sat down on the step where so soon before I had lain in willing surrender to Peter James' arms, and I cried. Cried for hunger and for fear of what was to happen to me.

And, as I wish to be honest in this account to you, dear sister, I confess too I cried that I still retained my maidenhead, for I would sore like to have given it up!

Sister, I stayed locked in the church. The sun rose high in the sky and burned through the windows onto the gravestones over which we walk without thought every Sunday, and I fancied the sun would warm the corpses amouldering there and raise their spirits up so they would want to stand up and stretch their limbs into the warmth and lifegiving rays. And I sat afeared that the stones would rise up.

Then I was overcome with a desire to piss so hard that it was a pain. I fought the pain but it overcame me and I knew I could not wait, so I crept into the vestry and there relieved myself in a corner. Papa will find that smell later and know what took place there, but what was I to do, sister? What would you have done?

And then the sun left the sky, climbed down to go away and leave the world to the darkness. An owl hooted outside and bats swooped around the windows casting tiny flickering shadows.

And I was more afeared than I had been before.

For if the spirits are to walk then it is in the night they walk and I knew they would not like my being there. And I sat alone, huddled at the foot of the altar where the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ might protect me. Oh the dreams I had and the fears I had and the monsters I conjured!

I prayed many a prayer that night, sister, but confess to you I did not ask forgiveness, for Almighty God would smile on love in the sun. I felt I did no bad thing, no matter what Papa might have thought. For were not virgins sacrificed for crops in the past?

I heard your voice in the morning, oh so early, calling through the lock to me - how sweet a voice, how kind you were, how good to hear a living sound that did not mean ghosts or ghoulies! Never have I loved a person so much as I loved you that moment, my sister! But without the key there was nothing you could do for me.

Then you went away as I knew you would.

And Papa came.

He came with Verger Pearson, a hard man with no mercy in his eyes, and he smiled a cold hard smile that was worse than the sharpest slap across the face I have ever had. There was Peter James' master, Farmer Gray, the Blacksmith, Adam Smith, with Joseph Olberon from the Plough Inn, and with cold Mister Tilling from the village.

The church elders gathered in one place. Papa locked the door behind them and they stood, cold and hard and yet smiling. How the elders do love a punishment, most especially when it be a fresh young woman to receive the strap!

"Daughter, you have sinned against God and man in this holy place."

And I stood up and faced them, Papa, Verger and all. I smiled at them.

I said "I have not sinned, I did that which comes naturally to those who are young and comely."

And they started back as if I had struck them one by one yet altogether.

"Your sin is compounded from your own mouth, young lady." And Joseph Olberon produced ropes from a pocket. Farmer Gray took a bench from the back of the church and stood it in the centre and Papa took my arm and dragged me to the bench and pushed me down so I laid along it. Mr Olberon took my wrists and ankles and tied them to the legs of the bench so there was no way I could escape. My face was pressed against the cold scratchy wood and I was much afeared then, sister, I can assure you! I was more afeared than I had been alone when the ghosts walked in the church, creaked the pews and touched my curls and when Satan prowled around the outside of my thought!

"What think you, gentlemen?" Papa sounded so satisfied, and they had not even begun!

"I think we should beat the Devil out of her." That was Mister Tilling.

And even as I lay uncomfortable flat on the bench, my face pressed down, my body waiting for what would surely come I felt a move to laugh aloud, for surely they knew afore they came that they would beat me! It is the punishment the elders give for all disobedience, and I remembered in that moment that Peter James had been flogged on this very bench, birched fifty times they said, for consorting with the farmer's daughter. It seemed the birching did no good, for there he had been about to consort with me.

And I knew too that it was said to put fear in my mind and trembling into my body. And it did.

"You be the oldest here, sir, and the most Elder of our church, may I suggest you start?" Papa, how kind you were to delay your own pleasure for so long! My skirts were ripped away by a firm hand I could not begin to see. My pantaloons were down and I laid, bare and waiting and much ashamed, before the gathered eyes of the elders of our church. I am sure my cheeks were much flushed, for sure my face was!

Old Mister Tilling may be an old man, sister of mine, but be sure he has a firm arm, especially when that arm ends with a strap well worn by Papa on our backsides over the years! Ten times old Mister Tilling lashed me with that strap and ten times I cried out.

But oh that was nothing to Mister Olberon who is much strengthened with the lifting of barrels of ale and pulling of the pints in the Plough every night! Twice as hard and half across my thighs did Mister Olberon strap me and I knew for sure I would not easily forget this!

And Adam Smith, hands well strengthened with all the work of the forge, strapped me even harder, were that possible! but of course I grew sorer as each blow landed and went across those already there. For all that I was already hurting and afire with the awful strap I knew he was stronger even than Mister Olberon.

Awash with tears, sister, I awaited the Farmer for he too had a strong arm, and I was not mistaken, how I screamed as the strap hit me another ten times.

And Verger Pearson, he looks like a weak man, perhaps that was why he came near to last when I was red sore and weeping heartily and crying out for mercy even though I knew there was none there, these men were the elders and I had offended against their church. And Verger Pearson laid on his ten with a firm hand that near broke me.

And then it was Papa's turn and he put into it all he had in him, all his anger and his lust for he knew I had seen that lust when he saw my bosom exposed and my skirts awry and I know he wanted me for himself and it is the biggest sin of all to want your own daughter. In his anger he lashed me so hard I thought the strap would break on me!

"Gentlemen, have the sins been beaten out of my daughter?" and it was said in such a way I knew full well they had, all of them, every last man of them, enjoyed my suffering and the taking part in inflicting it on me. And I knew full well that given a chance they would do it over again, another ten times each and delight in the strap hitting flesh now surely scored with blood!

"I would say the Devil has gone out of her." Mister Tilling again, pronouncing judgement, with a tone of regret I could clear enough hear. How I hated them, every last one, for the pain I felt and the tears I shed and the shame of it all! And even as I thought all this, I wondered what they would do this time to Peter James, and I feared for his skin for surely he would be publicly whipped at the post!

Then I had to lie there and listen to a sermon on sin and morality and foul violation of the sacred holiness of the church and all the time I felt nothing but the terrible pain which swept across my backside and my thighs, and the tears which choked me and the hunger which stalked me even at that time.

Then Papa forbade me to tell you or any of the others or indeed dear Mama what I had had to endure. And I was to have nothing but bread and water for a month and be confined to my room when I was not cleaning every inch of the church, the floor to be scrubbed, the walls to be washed the pews to be polished to cleanse it all of my sin.

Sister, I could not stand the thought of that! A thrashing, yes, well, for all that it was so hard, sixty strokes! Would ever you believe anyone could take sixty strokes? Well, I did, and I suffered for my sin of wanting Peter James. But I would not wash the church! But then I said nothing but stood up so carefully when the ropes were untied and curtsied to each of the elders and begged pardon when bidden. And the eyes gleamed in the darkness of the church and the lust came at me in waves and any one of them would have borne me down to that carpet before the high altar and taken my maidenhead.

But I wanted nothing to do with old men who smelled of stale ale and smoke, of old age and piety, when underneath they sinned every bit as much as I did! For sure every one of them should have knelt in that church for a day and a half and asked for absolution from their sin of lust and desire!

So Sophie dear, I crept away with a bundle of clothes and my prayer book for companion and I asked the carter to take me to the railway station for all that it was hard to sit on the plank without covering with the bruises telling me I had been thrashed. And as he knew me well, he said he would, and ask Papa for the money when he got back.

How small a revenge that is! But how much pleasure it gave me!

And I approached the first gentleman I saw, for fear and loneliness and sheer desperation makes bold women of us all, to ask if he would pay for me to go to London if I sat with him during the journey and entertained him.

And Sophie he smiled at me and said he would be delighted. And this man, his name is Albert Lymardson, was going to London where he lives, and he took me with him and here I am, installed in his house right in the very heart of London, and I am his maid and servant, and it is a pleasure to work for him.

But I am not sure I am going to stay. For he is old and I need a young man to love me. I am awakened by the thought of Peter James' sunlit hands and body and Sophie, I need a young man!

My thoughts are with you often, and dear Mama, and the baby and everyone. I wish I could send this to you but Papa would see it and confiscate it and he might even find me! And that dear sister, would never do. But one day I will find a way to get this to you so you know your loving sister is alive and well.

And sister, I pray you never have to suffer at the hands of the elders as I did, for the bruises took a month to go, a month of sitting slow and careful and Albert Lymardson never to know what happened to me.

Because - a small confession comes here that is for my eyes alone, on a page I will never send - I dream of that thrashing and I am aflame with desire.

God help me!