INTRODUCTION

 

"You two sluts come here. Come here at once I say!"

Sybilla's green eyes blazed angrily as she swept the two apprehensive maidservants with an icy stare.

The two young women, abashed, came and stood before their mistress, eyes downcast. Sybilla Armitage surveyed them contemptuously.

"So, this is a house of mourning. Your master awaits below in his coffin to make his last journey to the grave, and you unfeeling trollops would laugh as if it was some amusing entertainment, arranged for your pleasure! Is that it?"

The older of the two girls shuffled uneasily, avoiding the new mistress's penetrating gaze.

"Please Mistress, it weren't like that at all, really it weren't. It was just that we forgot, just for the minute like, about poor Sir Richard lying there. We didn't mean no disrespect, honest we didn't."

"No, truly!" echoed the other girl, Ruby, gaining a little courage from her friend's explanation.

"You forgot!" mimicked Sybilla. "How long have you worked for Sir Richard - the late Sir Richard?" she corrected herself.

"Two years the both of us," said the first girl, Dorcas. "We came together from the orphanage."

"Two years!" Sybilla raised a scornful eyebrow. "Two years he fed you, kept you, pampered you in the lap of luxury. No doubt condoned your idle and sluttish ways, and three days after his death you care so little that you forget!" continued Sybilla, intent on her tongue lashing. "And tell me Dorcas, and Ruby, isn't it? Do you hope to continue in employment here?"

The two girls looked at each other. "Oh yes Ma'am, if you please Ma'am!"

"If I do please then I will see that you learn manners and respect for the living as well as the dead," gritted Sybilla. "Would that I had time to deal with you now, but the hearse is expected at any moment. Besides it would not be fitting. You will both report to me in my room after dinner this evening - say at 9.30 - when you will both learn self control - or display a lack of it - with the aid of my switch! Now go, and circumspectly mind, or by God you will smart all the more tonight!" And the two maids, crestfallen and shaken, crept away about their duties.

Sybilla watched them go with some satisfaction. There would be some changes made! Richard has been too lax, too easy going. Why it was even said that he had left the disciplining of the maids to the housekeeper, who was so old and fat that she could hardly lift herself from her chair. She would go for a start, Helvellen Hall was not a rest home for the aged. Well it was never too soon to begin as she meant to continue. Once Richard was safely in the grave she would begin her new regime, and what better way to begin than with that brace of plump partridges? She promised herself that they would be giggling on the other side of their silly faces after dinner. Sybilla relished the thought.

"Mamma! You look splendid. Will I pass muster do you think?" Sybilla turned to see her daughter standing beside her open bedroom door. Like Sybilla she was dressed in the convention of deep mourning, but both mother and daughter were in the height of fashion. Both were dark and beautiful, Sylvia already beginning to rival her mother, who had a thrilling and austere beauty.

Sybilla smiled. "Yes my dear, quite delightful. Let me look at you!" Sylvia swept down the staircase in a froth of skirts and halting before her mother made a deep curtsey, gracefully, elegantly.

"Oh Mamma, how wonderful it is to have you here. Here all the time, rather than just on brief visits. When can we talk? I have so much to say to you."

Sybilla patted her shoulder in genuine affection. "Not now my darling. I hear the sound of the carriages and the hearse out on the gravel. The undertaker's men will be here at any moment and we had best repair to our rooms. It will not do for us to be found gawping here like a pair of country bumpkins. We must away to our chambers where we are suitably overcome with grief." She laughed mirthlessly. "If they only knew how glad I am to see him dead! No, there will be plenty of time to talk later, after the funeral and the reading of the Will."

The two woman, striking as sisters, rather than mother and daughter, turned and made their dignified way up the staircase as the doorbell rang and a footman crossed to open it.

 

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The last of the mourners had gone and Paul was alone at last, alone with his thoughts and his grief. Entering his room he looked moodily out of the window across the darkening landscape, over the rolling green acres that were Helvellen Park, to where a row of majestic elms stood silhouetted against the dusky red of the setting sun. Oh why, WHY, he asked himself for the hundredth time, did his father have to be killed in that hunting accident, and he such a superb horseman? The horse had refused a jump and Sir Richard had been thrown, falling against a tree being killed instantly. A faulty girth it was said. God's will, and death by misadventure. But now Paul was alone and the future, which only a week ago had seemed so bright with promise, now lay void and uncertain.

Paul, Sir Richard's only son, was sixteen. A shy, delicate boy, pampered and spoilt by a father who had denied him nothing. Sir Richard Armitage had married young and against all advice. Predictably his marriage to the young and headstrong Sybilla Hardcourt had been a disaster, ending when his wife had run away with a groom, leaving him to bring up their baby daughter Sylvia. After the divorce Sir Richard had married again, this time to Helen the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. They had two and a half years of blissful happiness before Helen had died in childbirth, giving life to Paul. As a result Sir Richard, heartbroken, had lavished all his love and affection on Paul, while Sylvia, though looked after conscientiously enough, was barely tolerated.

Not unnaturally, a wall of enmity raised itself between Sylvia and her half brother. Being three years older there were all kinds of spites and petty cruelties that she was able to inflict on him, and Paul retaliated by telling tales on his sister - many of them exaggerated or even lies. The punishments that Sylvia incurred as a result were neither harsh nor unfair, for Sir Richard was a kindly man. But on one memorable occasion when Sylvia was sixteen, Sir Richard, his patience exhausted, had led Sylvia to the morning room, placed her across his knee and administered a stinging whipping with his riding crop, while Sylvia, white drawers pulled down to below her knees, squirmed and kicked as the plaited leather thong bit into her white bare buttocks.

Sylvia had taken her punishment stoically, with only a few stifled gasps of pain and no tears. But she knew that the swish and impact of the short whip on her exposed flesh must be clearly audible to Paul, who she suspected was hidden outside the window, probably peeping in and gloating at her humiliation. The smart was to her pride as much to her smarting bottom. From that moment she had hated her half-brother with a burning intensity which far outweighed the fire ignited in her young flesh. She vowed revenge and Sylvia was not one to forget or forgive.

Some years after the divorce, the affair with the groom long over and regretted bitterly, Sybilla had returned to the district and she and Sylvia met often and in secret and planned and plotted their future and the downfall of Sir Richard and Paul. It was never proved that the fall that resulted in Sir Richard's death was more that an accident, but there were several suspicious circumstances; a frayed saddle girth and a groom who left hurriedly and without explanation, among them.

Directly after the accident and despite the talk, Sylvia openly invited her mother to the house and announced that she was to live there. Sylvia was after all Sir Richard's eldest child, although Paul was the heir. But he would, in any case, be going away to boarding school. There were no other close relatives and the family lawyer Amos Sleep saw no reason to dispute the forceful Sylvia's decision. To him it seemed admirable. Anything that caused the minimum of work to the bumbling and half-sozzled Sleep was always admirable. Besides, he saw money in his agreement. Despite the ravages of drink Sleep was shrewd and unscrupulous.

Paul turned away from the window and flung himself down on the bed in flood of tears. Why, why, why had his world turned upside down? Here he was heir to a rich estate and considerable fortune, but was virtually under the control of his hateful half sister and her scheming vindictive mother. It was worse that this woman should have returned, welcomed back to the house of her ex-husband so soon after his death. How could the lawyer allow it!

 

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In the library an animated discussion was taking place between Sylvia and her mother.

"Well that's settled mother dear", purred Sylvia, with an assurance far beyond her nineteen years. "You shall come here to live at Helvellen, where else?" Her sulky face lit up in a rare expression of pleasure. "Oh how lovely it will be to have you here! The Will, as we expected, provides that almost everything goes to that sneaking Paul on his twenty-first birthday, with only a small allowance for me and nothing for you!"

"I would hardly expect it otherwise my dear," murmured Sybilla.

"However," Sylvia went on. "Paul is only sixteen and does not come of age for another five years. Five years will be more than enough! In two years time, when I reach the age of twenty-one, I become his legal guardian. So the Will states, and in the meantime that old fool Sleep handles everything and in theory, makes all the decisions."

"And you have the right to live in this house until Paul's majority, and with sufficient funds from the estate to run it adequately," mused Sybilla. "Well Sleep will be no problem. The man is a disgrace to his profession, which would be evident to anyone but your father, who was too blinded by past friendship to want to see. The old idiot is fuddled by whiskey most of the time and we shall see that he gets enough to remain that way! Not that we want him drinking himself to death - not for two years anyway!"

"No," she went on, "I am quite sure that I can twist Mr Lawyer Sleep around my little finger, especially in the choice of a suitable school for Master Paul. If the dotard does suddenly develop fits of conscience, either about that or wider issues to do with the estate, then there are two things about Amos Sleep that he certainly would not wish to come to the attention of the Law Society."

"And you're sure that there won't be problems abut the school, Mamma?" asked Sylvia anxiously.

"None at all my pet," assured her mother. "Clairmont is a VERY select school, dedicated to carrying out the entire wishes of parents and guardians - at a price - and the principle, Victoria Carmichael, is an old friend of mine. DOCTOR Carmichael she insists on calling herself, though that may not bear too close a scrutiny. One can never be sure about these foreign doctorates - at least we do not yet admit women into the medical profession in this country! However that is not to underestimate her, for make no mistake, Victoria is a brilliant, if unscrupulous woman. What she does not know about the mind, and its weakening by the secret use of drugs is not worth knowing.

"Anyway, she will follow my instructions to the letter, and Master Paul will find that life at a select coeducational school suits him wonderfully. He will probably have never been so happy, thanks to Dr. Carmichael's loving indoctrination."

Sylvia pouted. "But I don't WANT him to enjoy it!" she snapped pettishly. "Why not a tough boy's school, one in which the boys will bully the little milksop unmercifully, and the masters will flog the little toad until he blubs for mercy!"

"Daughter, daughter dear!" cooed Sybilla. "Where is your Christian charity, your sisterly love? Besides, where would you find a reputable public school that was willing to give him the lasting treatment we prescribe? And would you have some sadistic housemaster have all the fun that is rightly ours, and send Paul back to us brutalised and untrainable?"

"I suppose you're right," sighed Sylvia.

"It will be worth it, I assure you. Victoria is subtle. Not only is she adept in the most gentle and unobtrusive persuasion, but she is also a trained physician don't forget. Thanks to a course of drugs, which he will be quite unaware that he is taking, our Paul will become more and more like a girl, physically and mentally."

"That shouldn't be hard!" snapped Sylvia scornfully. "He's a soft, puling thing now, with his white body and girlish breasts."

"Exactly, half the work is done! Why do you think I hit on this scheme in the first place? The drugs will certainly arrest any man's development and increase any latent female tendencies which are almost certainly there. Meanwhile Victoria will programme his mind to obedience and submission. So by the time that Paul returns to us - he will spend all his holidays at school, I think - we shall have a very sweet young thing at our beck and call. A sweet young thing that does not know whether it is a boy or a girl!"

"Super!" breathed Sylvia.

"Our task, Sylvia mine, and a most enjoyable one, will be to complete the training. To turn Master Paul into, who? Miss Paula? No, that is too obvious. No, Miss Primrose, I think. Yes, Primrose should suit him nicely. So exquisitely sweet and girlish! Not only will he become completely feminised and subject to our every whim that in time he may actually ENJOY the experience! He shall become our girl slave, dressed in silks and satins and suitably chastised when naughty."

"Oh may I spank him Mamma, may I?" exclaimed Sylvia, almost jumping up and down in her excitement. "I'd love to spank the little sneak on his fat white girlish bottom!"

"Patience, patience!" laughed Sybilla. "No doubt you will, not once but many times. And not only spank him but cane him too I expect. His humiliation will be exquisite. But you will have a long wait for your revenge for it must not be ruined by half measures. It is not only the shaming of Master Paul that is the issue here but the entire control of this house and estate, which I do not need to remind you is worth nearly one million pounds!"

Sylvia calmed down and adopted a resolute look. "Yes mother I can wait. Won't revenge be sweet, won't it just!"

Sybilla laughed. "My sweet poppet, you've never forgiven Paul for instigating and watching that whipping Richard once gave you, have you? What vindictive things we females are. And as for Richard, he thought that he could oust me, the fool, and slight me still more by cutting you off with a mere pittance. Well we shall see. By the time that Paul-Primrose comes of age, who knows? Something tells me that your dear half-brother will be ready, nay eager, to make over his wealth and property to us, and who more deserving? And in return we shall be delighted to keep him as one of the family, a poor relation to wait upon us and amuse us. We shall enjoy that, won't we my dear?"

"We WILL Mamma," agreed Sylvia emphatically.

 

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"Come in!" The two maids entered nervously and stood before Sybilla, who sat in an armchair smiling expectantly, like a cat who has not only had the cream but the canary as well.

"So it's the two who think funerals amusing. Well, don't waste any time dithering, get your skirts and petticoats off!"

The two girls looked at each other, hesitated, then obediently but reluctantly began to fumble with buttons, hooks and draw strings. When they stood in only shifts, corsets, black stockings and long white cambric drawers, skirts at Sybilla's insistence folded and placed on a chair, Sybilla rose and opening a drawer took out a pliant whalebone switch about a foot in length. She swished it through the air and the song it made was cruel and joyful. The victims paled visibly. It did not need much imagination to anticipate how it would burn and sting tender flesh.

"Oh Ma'am," gasped Ruby. "You ain't going to whip us with that are you?"

"Of course not silly," laughed Sybilla, toying with her victims like a sleek black cat playing with two mice. "Not if you don't want me to! You can put your clothes back on and walk out now." The two frightened women looked at each other, hope stirring. "But if you do," and Sybilla's voice suddenly became charged with menace, "if you do, you walk out of this house for good, with no character reference or wages. Where will you go? That's up to you, but I'll see that you don't work in this area again. So that leaves you with a choice. The streets, the workhouse, a sweatshop if you're fortunate, a brothel if you aren't, the choice is yours. If you decide to stay it is on my terms and under my discipline. Now, let's have no more of this play acting. Untie your drawers, lower them and bend over the table, the pair of you, side by side. Let's see which plump bottom is the whitest, and which will mark the prettiest under the sting of Madam Ivory!"

Reluctantly the two girls pulled down their cotton undergarments and positioned themselves as ordered, two half moons of soft white flesh awaiting the kiss of the rod. Ruby's round bottom twitched in fearful anticipation. Sybilla raised the switch and brought it cracking down across the first pair of waiting buttocks, those of Dorcas. Not only a livid weal of latent fire but also an agonised howl testified to the effectiveness of the wicked rod. Without haste she turned to Ruby and laid the first of a full dozen stripes across her cringing backside. The new regime at Helvellen Hall had begun!