The Bride of Bowmanor

by Helen Highwater

  

Chapter Three

 

A humiliating preliminary to punishment. Gagged at my stepsister's dinner- party. Lady Hartley's views about young ladies. "They should be dressed beautifully and treated as dainty convicts." I am bound, fettered in my evening frock and high-heeled shoes. In the comer, like a child under Miss Priscilla's observation.

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"Certainly she must be punished," said Miss Helen. She pushed towards me a gilt chair with a white satin seat.

"Lift your skirt carefully, Denise, and kneel on this chair," she said sternly.

A little frightened, I obeyed at once this humiliating order. Miss Helen dipped a pen in the ink upon the writing-table.

"It is the rule in this house, Denise," she said, "that one punishment always involves a second to be inflicted later on; and so that we may not forget it we make a note of it upon the sole of one of the culprit's smart shoes."

"Oh!" I protested. "I am to be punished twice for the same fault."

"That is the rule. It teaches pretty young ladies to be careful to avoid punishment altogether."

She took my instep in her hand and stooped over my feet. My position was of course extraordinarily humiliating. But the feel of her gloved hand on my round, warm, silk-stockinged instep, and the sight of her in the mirror as she wrote down in a tiny hand on the new white sole of my dainty satin-slipper the punishment I was to endure, fixing upon me the evidence of my disgrace, sent a voluptuous thrill through my blood.

"Now stay as you are, Denise, until the ink is dry", she said, and, laying down the pen, she adjusted my feet, taking care with her usual love of neatness, that my ankles were pressed together, and my high-heels and pointed toes exactly level.

Miss Priscilla meanwhile squeezed and rolled into a ball a small lace handkerchief. She came over to me with the ball in her hand.

"Open your mouth, Denise!"

I obeyed. She thrust the handkerchief into my mouth. "Close your mouth now, dear!"

"Oh! Oh!" I cried in a stifled voice, wringing my hands. Miss Priscilla smiled at my sufferings.

She took up a bigger handkerchief of the finest lawn and carefully folded it.

This she adjusted over my lips and tied the end very tightly behind at the back of my hair, binding my mouth so that I could not utter a sound.

"Now stand up Denise!"

I stood up and Miss Priscilla carefully smoothed down my shining skirt. What a bizarre spectacle met my eyes in the mirror! I saw a grown-up girl in an exquisite evening gown of white satin with her mouth gagged, her white throat and bosom flashing with jewels, her white-gloved hands toying with a pretty fan, the delicate bows and bright buckles of her luxurious little slippers, peeping out from delicious billows of white tulle.

But what made the spectacle so piquant and seductive to me was the knowledge that the pretty girl was myself, an effeminate youth in corsets and a frock and high heeled shoes with his satin-gloved hands quite free. The round white breasts, which showed above the low cut frock, were a permanent part of him, a reminder of his position. If he had wanted to he could have tom the gag from his lips in a second. There were only two ladies to prevent him. But he did not dare. He was undergoing discipline in girls' frocks and pearl- embroidered satin slippers at their hands. He was being punished by them. He was in subjection.

"Now go downstairs into the drawing-room, Denise," said Miss Helen. "Our guests will be arriving in a minute."

I was to be seen by her guests in this ignominious condition. The shame of it came home to me. I looked piteously at Miss Helen. But there was no sign of relenting in her face. Luckily, I thought, the guests will not recognize me. It is only Denise the girl whom they will see with the gag in her mouth and Denise will disappear forever to-morrow. I picked up the train of my frock and went sadly out of the room. As I turned to latch the door, I heard Miss Helen ask:

"Well, what do you think?" And Miss Priscilla reply:

"... In a few weeks he will be the prettiest fetichiste-du-pied in the world."

And then they both laughed heartlessly.

I was troubled by the words. What was a fetichiste-du-pied? I must find out. I had an intuition that phrase was the secret to the riddle, was the clue to the plot they had concocted to nullify and ruin me. But I had no time to think about it now. My heels were so high and thin, my skirt so tight, that I had to be extremely careful in going downstairs. There were two big maids like Phoebe waiting in the hall to receive the guests and they both burst out laughing when they saw me. They knew who I was at all events and my cheeks grew hot with shame.

There was no one as yet in the drawing room, but my heart sank at the ordeal in front of me.

I heard a light quick step outside and Doris Hunt, now a lovely girl of fifteen in a smart little short frock of pale pink mousseline de sole with black silk stockings and patent leather slippers ran into the room. A bright fire was burning in the grate; I turned to it, to hide my gag as long as I could.

"Who are you, you pretty thing?" she asked. I could not answer.

"What's the matter?"

She turned me round and saw the gag over my mouth. She stared at me astonished for a moment. Then the truth broke in upon her and she clapped her hands with pleasure.

"You are Denise. And Miss Helen has gagged you. How delicious! You are a perfect girl now, Denise."

I blushed to the roots of my hair, and unconsciously I placed one foot upon the fender to warm it, lifting my skirt an inch or two. Doris uttered a rapturous cry.

"What adorable feet! And, oh Denise, what divine little satin slippers. Let me see!" I blushed again, but this time it was with pleasure.

"What lovely buckles and what fairy-like bows! And those dear little pearl- embroidered toes! And what jolly high-heels. Show me your ankles!"

I raised the skirt higher, and the delicate cleanly rounded ankle in its shimmering cobweb of silk and lace came into view. Doris went into an ecstasy. "I should like to perch you on still higher heels dear, and keep you in a glass case to show to my friends. That's really all that you are fit for now. Walk across the room you exquisite thing, and let me see how daintily you can do it in your beautiful high-heeled shoes." I was delighted with her admiration, but I shook my head at her request.

At once she stamped her foot peremptorily. "Quick or I'll punish you," she cried. "Pick up your train and let me see those buckles flashing on your dainty butterfly bows this instant."

I submitted. I was beginning to learn that one of the inevitable consequences of allowing myself to be dressed as a girl was that everyone, even young girls like Doris, who knew the secret, treated me as a little child in spite of my long décolleté gown and fine jewels. I walked daintily across the room and back. Doris applauded me laughing.

"I don't know a girl, Denise, who wouldn't envy your figure and your feet and ankles. Oh, but you must be kept in high-heeled shoes all your life! It would be ridiculous now that Miss Helen has got you so smart and pretty to let you go back into stupid trousers."

At that moment Miss Helen and Miss Priscilla came into the room; and the guests began to arrive. There was Mrs. Dawson the clergyman's wife, Lady Hartley and her pretty daughter who was just out; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Rivers, and others, about twenty people altogether, mostly young and all of them neighbours whom I had known as a boy. I was introduced to them as Denise Highwater, a cousin, and Miss Helen explained how I came to be punished with a gag. I had to stand and listen, but my cheeks burned with shame.

"Denise is unfortunately very vain," said Miss Helen. "I had to punish her because she would show off her feet in an unlade-like way."

"She is very lucky to have got off so easily," said Lady Hartley with severity looking down at my feet through her glasses. "I should not only have gagged her, I should have taken her pretty slippers away from her altogether," and then to my amazement and my horror, "Mr. Guy Repton" was announced and my old schoolfellow came into the room.

He had been expelled in disgrace because of me. How did Miss Helen come to know him? Her first words explained.

"This is my new steward and agent," she said as she introduced him. I was horrified. He was the new manager of my estates. He was a young man of twenty two with a fair moustache. Miss Helen had given him a fine position, a good income. She must have sought him out on purpose, because I had caused his disgrace. She wished to surround me with my enemies, I felt sure. A subtle stroke of hers was thus brought to my notice. Guy Repton would be grateful to her and already he hated me. Miss Helen did not even pretend to conceal the reason for her choice of him. She darted a triumphant look at me. I felt more and more helpless in her hands.

We were waiting for dinner to be announced, when Lady Hartley, a handsome matron of forty-five, came to me, took me by the arm, and led me into a little drawing room which led off from the big one. She pointed to a sofa.

"Lie down there on your face, young lady," and as I hesitated, she pinched my ear painfully.

"At once."

Reluctantly I stretched myself out on the sofa. Oh, what did she mean to do with me?

"I saw something written on the sole of your slipper, as you walked across the room," she said. "A punishment of course." She felt for my foot under my satin gown and lifted it up, read Miss Helen's note. She looked puzzled. "I wonder what it means," she said. "You can get up."

We went back into the big room. Violet, Doris's elder sister had just come down.

"I am very sorry for being late," she faltered breathlessly, with a frightened appeal to Miss Helen. She looked perfectly lovely in a chiffon gown of nattier blue, which set off her white skin, and her fair hair to perfection. Miss Helen looked sternly at her, but did not answer.

Dinner was announced.

"Mr. Repton, will you take in Denise," said Miss Helen. "I am sorry, Mr. Repton, to have to give you so silent a companion."

I sat gagged at the dinner table bright with flowers, amongst those smartly dressed people, unable to eat, unable to talk. I felt terribly humiliated. It was cruel to make me come down to dinner at all. I found it difficult to breathe. I was very hungry besides. It was all I could do not to burst into tears. To make things worse the company began to talk about me Evelyn Highwater. "It is such a pity that he is coming home to-morrow," said Mrs. Dawson." It has been so pleasant and peaceful here while he has been at his girls' school." Everyone agreed. It was a revelation to me how thoroughly unpopular I was. I felt ashamed of my past behaviour.

"I think you will all find him greatly changed for the better," said Miss Helen with a smile. "His head-mistress's report speaks most highly of his docility and his ladylike ways." How I blushed. Luckily no one knew that I was present except Miss Helen.

"I can quite believe it," said Guy Repton with a hateful snigger. "I think that you are all a little unjust to poor Evelyn. I don't think that his nature is really bad, but as a boy he was not in his proper position. He must have known that dressed in male clothes he looked silly and ridiculous, and no doubt he felt uncomfortable, and that very probably made him arrogant and intolerable. But dressed and treated as a girl he would no longer have that feeling of discomfort. He would probably be quite charming." I could have boxed Guy Repton's ears for his impertinence. "Very likely you are right," said Lady Hartley, "but then he ought to be kept a girl all his life."

"Oh yes," cried Mrs. Rivers turning enthusiastically to Miss Helen. I had thrown a stone through the drawing-room window of her house, just after she and Charles Rivers had got married. She had never forgiven me. Miss Helen shook her head.

"I promised him that he should not have to wear girls' clothes after the two years if he behaved himself." She made a sign to Netta one of the parlourmaids. Netta took the handkerchief from my mouth and the second one from between my lips. My face was revealed, and Mrs. Rivers cried out enthusiastically, "Oh what a pretty girl!"

I blushed with pleasure, and then the most unfortunate event occurred. I had been sitting with my napkin on my lap, although I had no dinner. I had been consumed with curiosity to know what strange punishment it was which Miss Helen had written down on the sole of my foot. So, while the rest were talking I had slipped off my left shoe. Then dropping my napkin I had stooped to pick it up and at the same time I picked up in it the dainty high heeled slipper. I held it carefully in my lap and read on the white smartly shaped new sole the words "The glass-boxes." I was wondering what strange punishment the punishment of the "glass-boxes" could be with a thrill of awe, and believing that no one had seen my manoeuvre, when Mrs. Rivers uttered her admiring cry; but Lady Hartley had been watching me and she said at once severely: "Yes, a very pretty girl who has kicked one of her dainty slippers off."

I hung my head in confusion.

"Is that true Denise? Let me see!" said Miss Helen.

"Yes Miss Helen," I said humbly and lifted up the slipper. Miss Helen called to Netta.

"Take a shoe-horn, and put on Miss Denise's shoe."

Netta turned round my chair, and drew the slipper on my foot and put me back at the table. Then she took the bracelets from my wrists, unbuttoned my gloves there, slipped my hands out and turned the gloves back.

"Yes, a very pretty girl," said Lady Hartley severely, "but if you were my pretty girl, I should tie her gloved hands behind her back, and stand her in the comer with her face to the wall and her dainty heels together." My cheeks grew red with shame. But underneath the shame I was suddenly conscious of a passionate longing to be punished in that childish and humiliating way before all of these gaily dressed people. I tried to shake the obsession off. It was dangerous, enervating, effematizing. But the venom was in my veins. I tried to think of my ambitions, my career. I could only think of the little new shining satin slippers, which so daintily imprisoned my feet under the table, the fairy-like bows, the big blazing buckles, the pointed pearl-embroidered toes. I felt the high Louis Quinze heels sinking deliciously into the thick carpet. Oh to be made to stand upon them publicly in a comer with my face to the wall and my gloved hands tied behind my back like a naughty child. I a grown up young lady in a long satin frock with my white shoulders and bejewelled throat rising from the lace and ruffles of my gleaming bodice! I rubbed my legs together in a spasm of desire. And then as Netta placed my dinner before me and filled my glass with champagne, Miss Helen cried out with a laugh.

"But dear Lady Hartley, that is exactly what I am going to do with Denise."

The men looked sympathetically at me, but all the ladies were delighted. For myself I had to bend my head over my plate to hide a smile of delight. Mr. Rivers actually pleaded for my forgiveness, but Miss Helen would not hear of it.

"And I think Miss Helen is so right," said Lady Hartley. "I am very interested in the punishment of young ladies. People allow them such a ridiculous amount of liberty nowadays that it is quite refreshing to find someone like Miss Helen. Dress them beautifully and treat them like dainty convicts. That is the only way to keep the silly creatures in good order," she said sternly.

I ate my dinner quickly; the longing to be punished tingled through my veins. Already I felt Miss Helen's quick little daintily gloved fingers binding my wrists behind me with satin ribbons and adjusting my feet in exquisite finery. As soon as dinner was over, cigarettes and coffee were handed round. I leaned back in my chair, a smile of delight upon my face.

There was to be a dance for the people of the village after dinner in the village hall. We were all to go in to it. Miss Helen rose.

"Mr. Repton," she said, "will you take the gentlemen down to the hall when they are ready. There are two motor cars. They can come back for us. If you will start the people dancing we will come in for a little while later. Then we can all come back here; have a little dance ourselves and some supper."

"Certainly, Miss Deverel," said Guy Repton respectfully.

The other two ladies rose and I followed the ladies from the room. As they crossed the hall, I heard Lady Hartley say to Miss Helen:

"I thought that I read on the sole of Denise's slipper that you were thinking of a different punishment for her."

"Yes," replied Miss Helen, "standing in the comer I look upon as a preliminary. The real punishment will be inflicted later on after supper."

"It sounds a curious one - 'The glass-boxes'."

"I think it is interesting and ingenious. You shall see it."

I was curious myself as to what the punishment was going to be - curious and frightened.

We all went into the small dressing-room, a lovely little room decorated in white and gold with a polished parquet floor scattered with thick white rugs of Persian silk. It was brightly illuminated with shaded electric lamps and a cheerful fire burned upon the hearth. The ladies took their seats in comfortable chairs about the fire with an air of eager expectation, smoking their cigarettes. Miss Helen placed me in the middle and handed a little silver buttonhook to her young cousin in the smart short pink frock.

"Doris, put Denise's hands back into her gloves and button them carefully," she said.

I gave my hands to Doris, who smoothed the tight white satin-gloves on over my fingers and fixed the buttons while Miss Helen went over to a bureau. She opened a drawer and came back carrying a large leather case and a number of strong white satin gleaming straps with big oval diamond buckles sparkling upon them. She placed the leather case on the mantelshelf and the straps on a chair. Her face was radiant, her eyes danced with pleasure.

"Now Denise, we will truss you up tightly and prettily," she said with a thrill of delight in her voice. She removed from my arms the gold bracelets above the elbows, which I wore to keep my gloves, stretched tight and round each arm just where the bracelet had been she buckled a broad white satin strap very tightly. Neither the diamond buckles nor the eyeholes were at the ends of the straps so that after the ribbon had been fastened two broad ends hung from each arm. These ends she tied in big bows and passed them back through the oval buckles, which thus flashed daintily in the middle of the bows. The bows and buckles were on the outside of my arms, and on the inside of each strap a little steel ring was stoutly sewn. Miss Helen then took a tiny bar of polished steel with a spring-hook at each end of it. She snapped the hooks on to the steel rings forcing my arms together with a strength of which I should never have believed her capable.

"There," she said, "I can now tie the wrists comfortably." She sat down.

"Stand with your back to me Denise." My elbows almost touched in the small of my back. My shoulders were drawn most painfully back. An extraordinary sense of helplessness, delightful and at the same time alarming overwhelmed me. Slowly and with hesitation I obeyed my cruel little tyrant. I stood in front of her chair with my back towards her, and I crossed my daintily gloved wrists for her to bind. There were mirrors let into the wall panels and I could see myself in my glistening white frock, which delightfully reflected the lights, from the buckles and pearls gleaming on my satin slippers to the curls of my exquisitely coiffured head as I stood in this humiliating position of subjection. Yet how the spectacle aroused my passions! I felt dreadfully excited.

"Keep quite still now, Denise," said Miss Helen, with a laugh. "Have you ever had your hands tied together for bad behaviour before?"

"Never Miss Helen."

"It seems a pity that you should have to have them tied up on an evening when you look so pretty and are so delightfully dressed."

And my girlish vanity made me answer with a smile of confusion.

"If I have got to have my hands tied behind me would rather be prettily dressed than not for the ceremony." The ladies laughed, I blushed, and Lady Hartley cried out:

"That is charming of you Denise."

I felt Miss Helen's fingers and suddenly was it in a panic or was it to prolong the delight I felt? I began to struggle. But my arms were already bound, and the struggle was soon over. In the mirror I saw four white gloved-hands suddenly interlaced and fluttering like four doves. Two quick, little nervous strong hands, Miss Helen's and two slender helpless things, my own. The four hands fell apart. Miss Helen's were holding the ends of white satin strap, which encircled my wrists, and drawing it tighter and ever tighter. Mine were glued together with helpless twitching fingers. "Oh, oh, you are hurting me Miss Helen," I protested. "You shouldn't make it necessary for me to hurt you, darling," she answered, and she tied the bow and passed it through the oval diamond buckle as she had done with the other straps.

"That will do," she said, rising briskly. My arms hung down behind me in their delicate long satin-gloves, inert, useless. She took me by the elbow.

"Take care how you walk on your high-heels now that your hands are tied behind you Denise. Point your toes, arch your pretty insteps!"

She led me to a comer by the fire and placed me in it with my face to the wall. "Hold your head well up darling! That's right! Put the high-heels together, and turn out the pointed toes. Let me see!"

She stooped down and picking up the train of my dress wound it tightly round my legs tying them in its folds and exposing to view my ankles and feet. She fixed it at the knees with a satin strap.

"Now stand without moving," she said, and with the handle of her fan she gave me a sharp tap on my bare white shoulder.

"Take care! If I see a flutter of the butterfly bows or a flash of the diamond buckles on your daintily slippered feet, I will lock a bright, tight pair of fetters over your gossamer silk stockings, round your slender ankles, which will bind them so fast that you won't be able to twitch one of your toes."

"Oh Miss Helen," I sighed. But it was not a sigh of alarm. It was a sigh of voluptuous, languorous desire.

Strange as it may seem it was delicious to be standing daintily in the comer with my arms and hands cruelly bound behind me, in my exquisite satin frock, my long girls' gloves of supple white satin and my jewels, a pretty punished thing of ribbons and pearls, and rich lace. But to have my ankles in their girls' lustrous transparent open-worked white silk stockings fettered tightly together too! To stand in a comer with my girlish feet unable to move in their exquisitely cut high-heeled slippers of white satin with the delicate bows, the diamond buckles, the pearl-embroidered toes, to see my round pink insteps gleaming daintily through, the lace insertions of stockings which only the richest of heiresses would wear at a ball in the London season! The mere thought of it made me almost swoon with delight. This is what I had dreamed of I could make my dream world real by a single movement. An irresistible impulse to do so was upon me. "

"I don't see the use of my wearing beautiful satin slippers with valuable diamond buckles if I have to hide them in a comer," I pretended to grumble.

"Nonsense, Miss Denise," replied that common and practical woman Mrs. Dawson," it is delightful to us to see an elegant young lady with pretty feet smartly shod standing obediently in the comer." She evoked a picture of myself in my mind, which carried me away.

"Mayn't I even do this?" I asked impertinently and I stretched out a foot pointing the toe, and drew it back again. An exclamation of indignation at my wilfulness broke from all those tyrannical ladies.

"Lock and chain together those satin slippered feet at once, Miss Helen," cried Lady Hartley.

"I will indeed," answered Miss Helen. "Come Violet, Miss Hartley, help me please." With the assistance of the two young ladies she absolutely carried me from the comer, lifted me on to a chair, and held me standing on it.

"Support her please," said Miss Helen. I was quite helpless, with my satin train swathed round my legs and my hands and arms tied behind me. Miss Helen opened the leather case and took out a pair of bright fetters of thin polished steel.

"Oh they are too small," I cried. "They will never go round my ankles." "Hold your tongue," said Miss Helen and she stooped over my little buckled feet. Oh, wonderful blissful moment! I felt the cold cruel bands close about my ankles. Click, click, sounded sharply through the room. It was done now, past recall. I was chained. Thrills of voluptuous exquisite delight tingled warmly through me from my high-heels to my curls. I looked down - oh bizarre and entrancing spectacle! I saw the bright bands of steel glistening on my filmy silk stockings, fettering my ankles. I saw the small feet in gleaming white satin pearl-embroidered slippers, made doubly dainty with quivering butterfly bows and blazing diamond buckles - slippers for a beautiful girl to dance in at a Court Ball, chained together unable to move. Oh what waves of sensuous pleasure swept over me! Miss Helen raised her hands and smoothed down my skirt from the waist to the knees. Oh the look, the touch of those little active masterful satin-gloved hands, which having bound my arms and wrists behind me, and fettered my ankles, were now engaged on the feminine work of making my frock set prettily. The blood rushed into my face. A pang of undreamt-of bliss shook me.

"Oh, oh," I murmured. I stood quite still with every nerve tense. It seemed to me that Miss Helen's hands half-opened a door into an unimagined Paradise.

She looked up at my rapt face shrewdly. Then in a triumphant whisper she said.

"You wanted me to chain your feet, Denise."

Her words brought me to my senses. It was part of her plan I was sure, to produce in me a craving for these dainty punishments. It was part of her plot to keep me in subjection.

"Lift the pretty creature down," said Miss Helen contemptuously.

"Your head well up! Turn your shoe-buckles out!" She stooped and adjusted my chained feet.

"Now cry away baby, as much as you like, while we go down to the village. Aunt Priscilla will sit here while we are away and see that you don't move," she whispered in my ear. "Think of your pretty feet! Think that in those dainty buckled high-heeled satin slippers I have punished you Denise," she whispered caressingly, tempting me with seductive images.

The ladies put on their cloaks and went away. I was left in the little sitting- room, standing in the comer, sobbing bitterly while Miss Priscilla, seated at the bureau where she could see every movement that I made, callously wrote letters.

She had no pity for me in my bondage and misery. She was perpetually chiding me. One moment it would be, "Don't work your shoulders in that violent way. Keep them still and sob silently!"

At another:

"I see your fingers twitching, Denise. Open your hands and let them lie quiet against your satin dress." And a third time it would be,

"Your feet are trembling Denise. Keep them still. Your slipper-buckles are flashing so that they continually attract my eyes. I shall have to cut them off your shoes."

She came over to the comer with a pair of scissors in her hand. All my vanity, all my love for my dainty slippers rose in alarm.

"Oh please don't cut the buckles off. Please Miss Priscilla!"

"Be careful, then," she said and rapped my insteps exposed in their open- worked thin silk stockings with the handle of her fan until my tears broke out afresh.

At last the pain of my hands began to diminish. I sniffed rather than sobbed. Finally I said in a humble voice, "Miss Priscilla!"

"Well, what is it?" she answered testily.

"My hands are tied. Would you be kind enough to wipe my nose for me?"

She consented. I was eighteen years old, a youth, and the owner of this house, a person of great wealth and position. And yet standing in a comer in a girl's evening frock of white satin, girl's gloves, girl's silk stockings and high heeled shoes, girl's tight satin corsets and frilled batiste drawers, girl's earrings, and necklaces, and my long hair done up beautifully like a girl's, bound with my hands behind me, and my ankles chained, I had to have my nose wiped by an old maid whom a year or two ago I despised. With what strange contrasts does life provide us!

  

  

  

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