Harriet Read online

  “Master Pounder! You do good work!” she pronounced. “At this moment the slut is obviously feeling very repentant indeed! But what is swiftly over is swiftly forgotten!” Mrs Macgiven nodded vigorously in agreement. “A spell of reflection, during which she can reflect upon what is to come, will doubtless impress the lesson even more firmly.”

  They sent to the magistrate again, leaving Harriet sobbing bitterly on her stool of penitence with her reddened bottom exposed to view in the cool air, while the appreciative ladies were served with refreshments brought in, at Lady Horter’s expense, from the coffee room of the Horter Arms. The gaoler meantime retired as well to anticipate his fee by treating his cronies at the public bar of that same establishment. From time to time one or other of the ladies inspected Harriet, estimating with cool hands the degree of heat emanating from her flagellated hind parts. The magistrate, when tracked down, impatiently referred the matter to the discretion of the ladies and so by general agreement the continuance of the rest of the sentence was allowed to be suspended until the day following and ordered to be administered to Harriet in the same place and manner at the rate of six strokes of the birch each day, until the sentence was completed. The time was settled to be at two in the afternoon by the striking of the town clock so as to allow the interested ladies ample time to dress and prepare themselves.

  Held in durance in the House of Correction, Harriet was brought out accordingly to be birched, at two o’clock prompt every day before a similar audience, until on the next to last day just as she was being led out, a letter arrived from Tom. She had to undergo the six slashing strokes of the birch with the missive unopened in her fingers, clutched tightly for fear of losing it. Back in her cell, kneeling on the flagstones since she couldn’t sit, with her tears adding to the mud, she read the crumpled paper at last.

  In Dublin, Tom had reported to his commander, to be informed that he was being posted on immediate active service to the West Indies and he could evidently think of little but the Lieutenant’s commission, his longed-for promotion. He was now on board a troopship in the harbour of Cork awaiting a wind and expected to sail at any instant. He wrote in intimate terms and ended by revealing that he was now aware that their liaison had been discovered and so feared that Harriet might be dismissed from her post by the malice of his stepmother. That she might not be in any need while she waited for him to become established in a regular place of garrison and make a place for her to join him, he revealed that he had left a sum of money, obtained by selling his favourite mare, concealed in an old ruin, one of their favourite trysting places, instructing her to recover the money and use it for her support until he sent for her.

  Harriet had only thought of fleeing Horterstown for her position was now intolerable since Pounder had entertained all his cronies with the account of her ordeal and Mrs Pounder the same to all her female gossips. The ladies had condemned her case over their teacups while latterly Mrs Macgiven and Lady Horter had been much applied to for invitations to be among the observers. Harriet was unaware that Tom’s letter had gone first to Lady Horter to be opened by her, read, and resealed. His stepmother reading his news, at first had only fervently hoped that some dread tropical scourge might carry Tom off before he could get any further towards getting a female with child, to the ruin of her own child’s hopes. But Tom’s coy reference to meeting his love with his ‘little Sir Tom’ was misread by Lady Horter as proof that the deed had already been done and that an impending heir was to be interposed between her husband’s fortune and her child, sealing the fate of the disgraced governess.

  Harriet was released, spared the last six strokes ostensibly as an act of mercy and that same evening unwittingly led the stepmother’s agents to the hoard. She was taken up immediately and charged with having stolen the money from Lady Horter in an act of revenge.

  Once more Harriet was consigned to the damp and dismal confines of the House of Correction, bereft of the vital letter and unable to explain how she came into possession of so large a sum so quickly. There was but a week until the next summer-assizes and Harriet was transported by ox-cart to the assize town, this time in chains and clad in coarse brown serge imprinted with the broad arrow, the cynosure of gaping strangers. On the way in, she was further demoralised by passing a group of busy carpenters refurbishing the gallows, its platform and ladders, for the condemned. She made but a brief appearance as one item in a busy session, amid a train of housebreakers and incendiaries, an appearance not improved by being now half starved and unwashed, before a court eager to proceed onwards to a particularly juicy murder case. The mare had been secretly retrieved from its purchaser and its presence in the Horter stables could be fairly sworn to, Lady Horter denying that her stepson had ever sold the beast, or had even been the legal owner of it in the first place. An examination in the House of Correction by the probing fingers of three experienced matrons having found Harriet not to be a virgin, her story was dismissed as an obvious fabrication of a female of loose morals, anxious to invent a moneyed lover.

  She was found guilty of felony by theft from her employer and, according to the sentence prescribed by statute, condemned to be hanged. This penalty, however, was commuted on account of her youth, to transportation for life. A ship was lying in the haven at that time, reported bound for a projected penal settlement on the southern tip of Madagascar, where it was hoped with convict labour to grow citrus trees and fresh vegetables to provide a victualling station for shipping, and by this she was ordered to be removed.

  “Neither she nor young Tom will be likely to return!” Lady Horter reflected happily. “If anything the coast of Africa is even more deadly than the West Indies!”

  Wearing the coarse brown arrow-imprinted gown and linen cap provided for women convicts, her slim wrists heavily weighted with iron shackles, Harriet joined the ship ‘‘Cormorant’’ which had sailed from London with fifty women convicts on board and had called in at the small port to fill her water casks and purchase a few sheep and pigs for sea stores. Harriet was first confronted with the need to have the metal pin of her shackles knocked off and the man, who produced the small portable anvil and a hammer and punch, demanded that she give him a kiss as the fee and when after hesitating she reluctantly kissed his whiskery cheek, contrived to get one hand under her petticoat fondling her bottom and the other diving in her bosom. The crowd of a score or more bedraggled women in dirty gowns merely giggled and shouted ribald abuse as Harriet struggled to escape. Next appeared the matron, appointed as trusty over female convicts, slapping her rattan cane into her palm and Harriet’s heart fell further for she could recognise a dominant female by now when she saw one. Mrs Grimes, she was later told, had been matron of a workhouse condemned to transportation for having sent out orphan girls onto the streets to work for her as whores.

  The ship sailed and there followed a day and a night of heaving, swooping and crashing, of cold clammy blankets in a black dark wooden crib, any item put down instantly spilling, sliding or rolling out of sight but not of sound. By daylight the sails were curves of light grey against a tattered sky of deeper grey, every rope taut and strumming. Spray flew constantly, every part of the ship seemed to be cracking, groaning or reeling. Wildly racing seas bearing great sheets of foam heaved and sank terrifyingly, the wilder heaves spilling surging water across the deck. The horizon was one of leaping, white pointed waves seeming no more than a mile or two away, tearing at the grey sky. Harriet emerged from the hatchway carrying a bucket and stepped out onto the wet planking. The men on deck watched her, grinning expectantly. As she started across the upwardly inclined deck the ship lurched heavily and Harriet taken by surprise, hurtled across the now downward tilting deck at a run. Then, finding herself reaching the side quicker than she had expected, she hurled the contents of her bucket towards the sea, glad to be rid of it so quickly. They flew only a few inches from the bucket before being caught by the gale. With face and hair deluged in sloppy vomi
t, Harriet slipped and went sliding into the scuppers just as the sea burst through every gap and then washed her back across the deck with her wet skirts up around her waist, her head enveloped in her shawl and long white legs kicking exposing flashes of dark pubic bush.

  Harriet fought for her life, expecting to be swept into the heaving foam over the other side when a fist, descending upon her hair, yanked her spluttering and groaning out of the water.

  “Here!” It was the one legged black cook who had secured her and carried her up the deck under his arm. “Least you is well washed now, gal!” The galley was a kind of wooden box with doors either side and contained a large patent iron stove with a roaring fire, warm and redolent of cooking meat. Harriet, half drowned and still spouting water, was heaved in bodily by the cook who, despite his wooden leg, balanced without visible effort. He held her for a moment across an outstretched knee and she gasped in relief as her stay laces suddenly slackened and she could breathe deeply again. Her rescuer had whipped out a knife and sliced through the wet laces. Realising her position, Harriet squeaked in sudden alarm, trying to claw hair out of her eyes and struggle up at the same time. Before she could do so a hand bunched her sodden skirts and whipped them straight up over her head. Enveloped in wet serge, Harriet threshed blindly, letting out a muffled squeal as she singed her fingers on the hot stove. She jerked backwards, escaping from her embarrassing position on the man’s knee but only at the cost of coming out of her garments entirely. Blinded by a tangle of wet hair but aware of her sudden nakedness she tried to grab, but taken unawares by the sudden tilt of the deck, fell against a hard male chest. Laughing uproariously at her embarrassment, the cook simply tucked her under one arm where her wriggling was constrained by fear of the fiery furnace, while throwing her dripping garments expertly across a line high over the hot stove and out of Harriet’s reach. She was left naked except for her stockings and shoes, trying to cover herself with her hands.

  “Stockings too!” The ship tilted Harriet off balance and the one-legged man, just as if he had expected it, tipped her instantly over on her back with her legs in the air. He whipped one stocking off aided by her threshing. “No kicking, gal!” he spanked Harriet’s bare bottom hard and while she was momentarily startled into non-resistance, skilfully pulled off the other.

  Harriet lay upon her back on the wet planking gasping for breath, her arms crossed over her breasts, her thighs tight together, the feeling of the man’s hand on her naked bottom, lingering both on her flesh and in her mind. Her eyes widened as the cook, standing over her, stripped off his blue striped shirt, revealing a broad, black chest ribbed with muscle. Looking down with appreciative eyes he dropped the shirt on top of her.

  “Wear that, gal, while the others dry.” He produced a tin mug and filled it from the coffee pot, thrusting it into Harriet’s hand as she rose unsteadily to her feet draped in blue striping, and pulling her onto his lap. The shirt covered almost as much as her shift would have, providentially interposed between her warmly glowing bottom and his muscular thighs. The women’s prison offered no sanctuary. Of her mess of six convicts, two had been convicted for stripping children and robbing them of their clothes, one boasted of seeking out country wenches for London brothels and the other two had been employed luring customers to a flogging brothel and then robbing or blackmailing them. The thought of abandoning her proper clothes and foregoing the coffee clinched the decision. She stole nervous glances at the cook reaching out to adjust the pots upon the stove. His leg, she knew, he had lost bravely in battle against the French. This disability seemed to render his blackness less alarming and she found the smooth uniformity of his dusky skin positively fascinating. A friendly male protector held a certain attraction. Below decks was a vicious competition to be first in the favours of the men. She knew the cook, as a possible source of extra food, was a particular prize and she could not help but feel that with such unsolicited helpfulness he recognised her superior quality.

  Unhappily, Harriet was swiftly tracked down there by Mrs Grimes, who drove the truant out with loud abuse and whacks of the cane to resume her duties of emptying sick buckets. That Harriet was obliged to continue her work wearing nothing but the sailor’s shirt made her an object of hostile stares and lewd smirks and enabled the matron to use her little rattan cane of office with extra effectiveness. The other prisoners, knowing where the seaman’s shirt had come from, immediately accused her of giving herself to the cook during their sickness in return for their share of the food. Because she could read, Harriet had been appointed to fetch the rations for the cook to prepare from the Steward, but the rations being scant and unpalatable, the convict whores had taken to offering their favours to the sailors merely in return for tit-bits.

  Driven back by the storm to anchor off Plymouth, the ruling gang restored to vigour, demanded that Harriet use her standing with the cook to obtain gin by an offer of sex. Harriet indignantly refused to demean herself by such conduct despite all their dark threats.

  The tweendecks where the convicts slept were pitch black, since no lights were allowed during the night hours. The women by now knew every inch of the space and could find their way unerringly to the night commodes at either end. The space was never silent, timbers creaked and groaned, water swashed heavily in the depths, feet stumped heavily or gear was dropped thudding on the deck above, but the women were used to all of these. In the darkness that night more bodies than one moved in the thick darkness, brushing between the sleeping shelves. Females not involved huddled in their blankets or clutched one another, nervously hoping the trouble would pass them by. A spark flashed briefly but astonishingly bright in the confined space. Something progressed in the thick darkness along the planking between the sleeping shelves.

  “Give me a glim to see the padlock!” The sudden scrape of a flint and steel showed by its astonishingly bright, brief spark one of the fastened side ports, female hands grasping the securing padlock and, momentarily, Harriet’s lifted face dripping with glistening liquid, a soaked rag as a gag between her jaws, her eyes wide and terrified. In the resumed darkness a muffled voice hissed, “You don’t like your face dirty? We can arrange a bath for you. One you won’t come back from!” There was the sound of scraping. “Got it!” the first voice said breathlessly.

  “No lights now!” another warned. “Open the port!” A vague square opened, only a little lighter than the rest of the darkness, but alive with noise and wetness. Three stout iron bars had been fastened across the opening to prevent escapes or accidents, but the middle bar had been loosened and removed. The sea roared and swelled only a few feet below as if to snatch away the panicking young woman who was thrust head and shoulders out of the port, then almost to her waist, suspended perilously, then at last drawn back into warm familiarity. “That’s what will happen if you talk about this to any man.” The port closed and briefly the flint and steel flashed again. The much-feared Aggie’s gang had Harriet in their grip, Big Aggie herself, smiling evilly and wielding a wooden hairbrush, Sukey behind her with ominously rolled up sleeves. Bella and Nance were breathing down her neck while it was Maria who shielded the forbidden light from the hatchway and the eyes of the watch above.

  “Don’t think anyone will come to your help, Haughty Harriet!” Big Aggie hissed. “We are going to teach you to do your share when it’s expected of you!” The hairbrush smacked loudly hard and flat against a hand in the returned darkness.

  “I couldn’t just do a thing like that... I don’t know how... I’m not a whore...” Harriet protested still spluttering.

  “She thinks she’s too good for it!” Different voices competed for attention. “Teach her what to do!” “She’s afraid of a black babby!” “We’ll plug you tight all right! One of Mrs Grimes’ specials!” They grabbed her from all sides and it was evident at once that Harriet had no hope of escaping their ire. She was prostrated face down on the planking, spread-eagled with a girl on each limb and he
r thin linen shift quickly stripped from her by nimble feminine fingers, dragged off over her head so that her hair spilled out in a tumbled fan. Naked in the darkness, she was pressed down with her breasts squashed flat on the planking, numerous fingers prodding and pinching her bottom, anonymous voices making rude and alarming remarks about the fatness of her bum. Realising that she was going to be beaten, Harriet struggled but without conviction, for she knew these women were savage and immoral creatures, such as would stop at nothing to enforce their will.

  “She’s shivering, poor thing! Warm her up a bit!” With glee they used the hard back of the hairbrush on her bottom, taking turns to spank her with a good deal of squabbling and hands slapping as they sought to locate the target, adding jibes about how much her wobbling fat arse would excite the cook. Both bottom cheeks were soon the twin seats of throbbing fire and Harriet abandoned herself to shame. She wept and pleaded for mercy, expressing her capitulation but they only mocked her then for cowardice.

  “You still need training for it, your Haughtiness!” Big Aggie laughed unpleasantly. “We won’t leave it to the black to break you in! You can show us what you can do for us first! Get in here, and lick me out!” She was kneeling on the planking at her victim’s head and enveloping her in a mass of petticoats like a warm tent, Harriet’s cries being effectively muffled and the bully’s voice coming to her muted by the folds. “Lick me out well or Maria will take the hide off you!” She had Harriet’s head pressed to the yielding bulge of her belly, her fat soft thighs enclosing the victim’s hot cheeks, her thickly haired, pubis pushed against Harriet’s mouth, its soft wet split, bulging like a burst fruit.