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The Country Mouse Flappers or the Devil May Care Club for Beastly Punishments

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spanking the flapperPetunia had scouted ahead first to make sure the coast was clear. Well it had been her turn and anyway she was the oldest. That left Amelia ‘Bother’ Botherington and ‘Spiffy’ Susie Watkins to sneak up behind in her train.

They both thought that Petunia, Spiffy’s elder sister, was a bit wet, but she did have her uses. First among these was that she was the oldest of the three and therefore took all the heat when Aunt Hortensia and Uncle Mort were discussing why they were not yet married. Another use of course was that she could easily be impressed upon as the senior girl to take all the risks for them.

The risks being, getting caught after one had sneaked out to the ‘speakeasy’ in town for a snort and a spot of sizing up the boys with some chums. Alcohol not being outlawed in Hampshire, well not yet anyway, the speakeasy was actually the Red Lion, which was hardly that dare as the vicar and his wife were known to frequent it on Friday nights. But that was about as racy as Haughton got and the Country Mouse Flappers, as they were informally known, just had to put up with it.

It didn’t matter that they were all now over 21, well damn well near it in Spiffy’s case, as Aunt Hortensia was of a mind that young women should not be considered sentient until they were at least 30 and even Petunia at 24 just did not yet qualify. As for Amelia and Spiffy, it was unthinkable that they should be anything but seen and not heard.

The thing of it was, that in their own little ways none of the girls entirely disagreed with Hortensia, not in spirit anyway. After all this was Hampshire and there were limits. Nor did it trouble them overmuch that Hortensia and Mort weren’t actually blood relations to either of them. It was just that no girl worth her salt could stand by such fusty rules no matter how sensible; certainly not girls who aspired to be the snazziest flappers in all Hampshire. Well Petunia didn’t, she thought it all very silly. But she didn’t altogether count and anyway she just had to be included otherwise they couldn’t be a club as no one who was anyone had ever heard of a club with only two members.

No it would not do to knuckle under without a rebellion of some sort, it wasn’t the modern way and it certainly wasn’t dare. And in any case, without the danger and friction of rebellion there was just no fun. Getting caught and punished, while tiresome, was just an occupational hazard.

But what neither of the girls was ready to admit was that these carefree days of dare were coming to a close. Amelia even secretly suspected that Petunia had rather set her heart on getting married, although why anyone would want to marry Charles Ingram was anybody’s guess; he was positively ancient.

“Listen up, I think Petunia’s been captured,” Spiffy whispered loudly. Captured sounded so much more dare than caught, she thought with a grim satisfaction.

The bubbly blonde had two little frown lines marring her forehead under short tight curls. Her eyes were just a little too large and deeply blue to be fashionably beautiful, but then as style went she did stick out so in all the wrong places.

“Are you listening to me?” Spiffy hissed.

Amelia eyed Spiffy’s big behind as it made a bid to escape the obscenely short hemline and muttered “ah-huh.”

“I said, I think Petunia’s been caught,” Spiffy whispered again.

Amelia crawled from behind her and alongside to peer around the same corner.

She was somewhat more fashionably sleek than her friend, as was her dark brown hair which was cut to a neat bob that hung to her shoulders to frame her triangle face. The daring fringe covered her brow entirely and was a frequent subject of scolding from Hortensia who was wont to ask, “How ever can you see anything?”

“I think you are right,” Amelia giggled, the aforesaid hair curtaining her face.

“Are those other two frightful girls with you, I thought they were in their room?” Hortensia could be heard saying.

The door to the drawing room must have been open for the house was old and solidly built like Amelia’s grandmother who had once owned it and who had now retired to Brighton. It was a ghastly place, the girl’s always thought, the only thing Amelia liked about it was the black and white checked tiles on the hall floor which matched her favourite dress which was the bees knees.

“Our goose is cooked; shall we go and face the music?” Spiffy suggested.

“Not on your life, that just wouldn’t be jazz. Besides we will be kept in and miss the village dance if we do,” Amelia replied.

Spiffy might have answered that they could always sneak out anyway, but she supposed that was beside the point.

“Come on,” Amelia whispered.

The two girls crawled like the trench-bound Tommie’s they had seen in their childhood news reels, although no British Army sergeant-major would have suffered his men to waddle-so as they moved about on all fours and certainly not with the backsides sticking up in the air.

“Aunt Hortensia, please,” Petunia squealed.

“Mortimer, do your duty,” Hortensia could be heard saying.

“Ooh, oh, this is shameful, I will die,” Petunia whined.

Petunia was so wet, Amelia thought with an eye-roll. But as they got to the door and peeked in they could see the cause of the girl’s distress. She was skirt up, bloomers down with her bare bottom mooning up across Uncle Mort’s knee. Luckily Hortensia was focussed on the sinful girl’s bare behind and did not see the two younger girls in plain view framed by the door. Had the erstwhile flappers indeed been on the Western Front then Kaiser Wilhelm might have had rather more luck in his conquest of France and perpetrating the downfall of the British Empire.

“Ooohch, ah,” Petunia squeaked as his the palm of Mort’s hand stung her bare bottom, “This is awful, oh don’t let him auntie.”

Amelia and Spiffy exchanged smirks and paused far longer than they ought as they enjoyed the proceedings. Then Amelia nudged her friend and on hands and knees they scurried on up the hall to the foot of the stairs.

Inside the drawing room Petunia was spluttering in staccato distress as she yelped and wailed her way to sobsville and a tomato red bottom. Amelia and Spiffy were openly giggling now, so much so that they were heedless of the creaking stairs and this time they were heard.

“Is that you Amelia, Susan?” Hortensia cried.

The two rebels were still in a muddle when the older woman came into the hall and they only just managed to get to their feet.

“Oh there you are,” Hortensia said sharply, “I had feared for a moment that you had been out on some escapade like Petunia here.”

“Oh no, Aunt Hortensia,” Amelia said quickly. It went entirely without notice that Spiffy was still facing up and not down the staircase, an alignment quickly amended by a curt right turn.

“You’re looking for Petunia no doubt,” Hortensia continued her monologue, “Well she has been a total fright, come and see.”

Amelia and Spiffy exchanged looks and then affecting reluctance strolled casually down the stairs to the drawing room.

“Ow,” Petunia yelped as well she might for her bottom was indeed tomato red now and getting darker and shinier by the spank.

“That’s quite enough now. Put the little hellion in the corner for a spell.” Hortensia was becoming bored with the whole affair.

As she was set to her feet you could forget the daggers, Petunia looked bloody great broadswords in her sister and fellow ward’s direction, but not for long. For on sanction of another spanking she was directed to the corner and “on no account let your hem slip.”

“I want to see that naughty bottom until it thoroughly cools down,” Hortensia scolded the girl.

“But auntie I am too old for this and Uncle Mort will see,” Petunia whined even as she obeyed.

“Nonsense girl, now do as you are told,” her guardian snapped, “I don’t know what you are suggesting.”

Uncle Mort did and gave the other two a wink.

What followed was a rather awkward late evening gathering as Petunia cried softly in the corner nursing four very red cheeks while her secret partners in crime tried hard not to giggle as they watched her. The only other sounds were the mantle clock, which painfully pinned the seconds of the young woman’s ordeal, and the occasional rustle of Mort’s newspaper.

Uncle Mort was a stern but friendly cove who was only a little above 40 and who had served with distinction in the Great War. He wasn’t overmuch given to fussy dressing, but he did sport a rather walrus-like moustache that more properly belonged to an earlier age.

Aunt Hortensia was rather younger, although by how much the girls could not tell. She liked to give out that she was a matron of the old school, but she had scarcely been out of school herself when the war had come, although in its dying days she had served as a nurse.

She wasn’t a complete fright when it came to fashion either, and often went in for hobble skirts that had been very dare when she had first obtained womanhood, which if one was not 20 and 21, had not been so very long ago. So quite how it was that she had been chosen to oversee the girls when their respective parents had gone out India, none of them were sure. But everyone agreed that both Mort and Hortensia, for all their posturing, were more relaxed guardians than either of their cane-wielding fathers. Perhaps far too relaxed, Amelia pondered and as she considered this further, she wondered if the Country Mouse Flappers didn’t need a more worthy opponent.

*

“Spiffy,” Amelia said thoughtfully as they lay on her bed.

“Mm,” Spiffy answered absently.

Somewhere Petunia was still crying and Spiffy could well imagine that she was in her room melodramatically lying face down on the bed as she bemoaned that the world was against her. For Spiffy and Amelia it had been a narrow escape and she revelled in the fruitiness of it as much as she might if she had heard that Petunia had been carried off by pirates. Big hairy whip-wielding pirates who would tie one naked to the mast and…

“Spiffy are you listening?”

“Oh… eh, yes, you were just saying…” Spiffy wondered what she had missed.

“I was about to say that don’t you think we get away with cold blooded murder?” Amelia said impatiently.

Spiffy frowned and then sat up.

“I suppose,” she said carefully, “What do you mean exactly?”

“Well I know that we do get caught like Petunia was, sometimes at any rate…” Amelia pondered aloud.

“Not as often as poor old Petunia,” Spiffy scoffed as she cut in.

Amelia joined her in a laugh and then frowned again.

“Yes, but what I mean is…” she sighed, “Look what if we never got caught?”

“Not ever?” Spiffy tried the idea on for size and wasn’t sure what that world would look like.

“Not ever,” Amelia said emphatically, “Just hypothetically I mean.”

“Oh hypo-whatsit, well I suppose it would be rather fun in a way…” but she broke off uncertainly.

“Would it though? I mean wouldn’t things get a little dull? Think of the village dance. It is a dreadful little commonplace jig when you think about it. So why do we go?” Amelia was excited now and willed her friend to see what she was driving at.

Spiffy pushed her lower lip out and shrugged.

“Because Hortensia doesn’t like us mixing with the apprentices and those travelling salesmen types I suppose,” she finally decided.

Amelia winced and made a gesture which asked ‘and so?’

“If we push her too far then we have to box clever or she boxes more than our ears,” Spiffy answered with a shrug.

Amelia sat up and tucked her legs under her knees excitedly and bounced up and down.

“Yes that’s what I mean, we don’t want to get caught but it is always possible. Get captured and pay the piper. Otherwise it is just like a game of forfeits without the forfeits.” Amelia’s eyes danced as she studied Spiffy for a glimmer of understanding.

“But… it’s not that big a deal anyway is it? I mean… well I mean, listen to Petunia, she absolutely hates a smacked botty and having Uncle Mort see her bare behind but we…” Spiffy began to see what Amelia was driving at.

“…we know that it is pretty grim when it happens, but afterwards it is just a bit of a lark. You know like at school, we compare marks and rub on a bit of cold cream and it all gets a little bit… you know…” Amelia completed Spiffy’s sentence with a blush.

“Yes well a young lady doesn’t talk about that kind of thing,” Spiffy said pompously.

“Well forget that part then, but we can’t can we? I mean to say, it’s like…”

“Pirates,” Spiffy said excitedly.

“If you like,” Amelia wasn’t sure, she always thought about white slavers, but maybe it was the same.

“It would hardly be exciting if they only spanked a girl,” Spiffy said in a dreamy voice. She thought about shameful exposure and whips and…

It was the same then, Amelia thought and blushed again and then mockingly said, “By Jove she’s got it,” covering her own little foible. Then she added with a sigh, “At last.”

“Oh I see, you think… what do you think?” and then with less certainty Spiffy asked, “I mean I get it… I think, but… well what can we do about it?”

“We need to up the stakes a bit,” Amelia said thoughtfully, “We need to give Hortensia more opportunity to catch us, you know, to test our mettle a bit, but also we need…”

“…bigger consequences, I know, I see that, or at least, I see what you mean. But even supposing I agree, how do we… arrange that?” Spiffy sometimes despaired of Amelia’s grasp of the details.

Amelia thought of writing to their fathers and letting slip that they were running wild, but they might send for them or pack them off to Brighton. But at least it was an option worth considering. But then what? It might get Petunia a good thrashing, she paused to think of the older girl howling under the cane or worse, but it wouldn’t make Hortensia any better at catching them, would it?

Not that she wanted to get capture. But it didn’t seem very dare of them to be able to get away with so much and face so little consequence on the few occasions they were caught.

“What about that mad bird, what was her name? Mable something, you know, that friend of Hortensia who is awfully Bohemian and a stickler for discipline at the same time.

“You mean Edwina Maple,” Amelia gushed, “Oh yes, she is very modern, well after a fashion, such strange ideas. If we invited her down for the summer and…”

The two young women got into a huddle and began to draw up plans.

*

It took a lot of dare and rebellious thinking; not to mention a couple of undignified sacrifices, but finally Amelia and Spiffy came up with a plan.

For the purposes of their operation they had to exclude Petunia, which meant their little club had to have sub-committee or a club within a club, the name of which had yet to be decided. Abortively they had kicked around a few ideas whilst writing letters to both their fathers and a certain Edwina Maple; all in the name of Uncle Mort and Aunt Hortensia of course. There were no outright lies, but just hints that advice would be welcome.

“What about the Hellfire Girls,” Spiffy suggested.

“Catchy, but it does rather outshine the Country Mouse Flappers for a name,” Amelia said doubtfully, “Besides it does sound rather mannish.”

“Oh we can’t have that,” Spiffy agreed.

“What about the Devil May Care Club?” Amelia fluttered her eyelashes, this was quite fun.

“Oh yes, the Devil May Care Club for Beastly Punishments,” Spiffy made moustache with her pen and fluttered back.

“Oh quite dreadful punishments,” Amelia giggled, “We shall be keelhauled naked in front of the townsmen’s guild.”

“And whipped.”

“And thrashed until we can’t stand up.”

“Or sit down,” Spiffy said archly.

The girls collapsed in heap of giggles.

*

Miss Edwina Maple was youngish and had style. She wasn’t exactly a flapper, being an actual woman above 30, but nevertheless Amelia and Spiffy thought she was very dare. She wore her reddish brown hair bobbed like Amelia’s, but she had her fringe just on her eyebrows for that more intelligent appearance. The flapper look was modified in other ways too. For instance she wore black and white checks, but small ones, and none of her hemlines rose above three or four inches below the knee.

The only thing about her Amelia didn’t like was the woman’s nose. It was too big and pointed, so quite marred her beauty and made her look hawkish. Spiffy didn’t agree, although she didn’t say so. But she did rather think Edwina’s eyes were rather calculating, cynical even.

Now they were all sitting in the garden. Well, all but Amelia and Spiffy who had opted to stand and lean against the balustrade between the veranda and the rose garden; the consequence of a bothersome but necessary part of their plan.

Only the day before Amelia and Spiffy had been ‘caught’ coming in late with the distinct smell of alcohol on their breath. Mort had spanked them both soundly and after an hour in the corner they had been sent to bed without supper.

“You are having trouble with your girls,” Edwina said simply.

Hortensia who had rather a short-term view of the world quite forgot that she hardly ever caught the girls out and instead remembered recent events as typical and asked, “How ever did you know?”

“You wrote to me,” Edwina replied, not the least surprised that Hortensia had forgotten.

“Did I? Oh… I must have done,” Hortensia said hesitantly. Then she remembered the letters from Major Botherington and Colonel Watkins out in India. “That’s what messrs Botherington and Watkins told me. How did they know? Both letters arrived within the week.”

“You make them sound like a music hall act,” Edwina said pleasantly.

Mort and Charles Ingram both laughed, the latter having called on the off chance of something. No one but Edwina noticed, but Charles stole a glance at Petunia.

“The gels parents don’t you know,” Hortensia said seriously.

Edwina leaned forward and patted her friend’s arm and said, “I had rather gathered that.”

“Oh yes I see,” Hortensia affected to laugh.

“What did the good military gentlemen advise?” Edwina asked.

“Oh the usual parental cautions, the colonel even said I was too soft on them, but he did refer me to an old disciplinary colleague of his, a certain Major Merriman.” Hortensia sighed, “He said the man might have some ideas if we needed them, but left it up to Mort and I”

“And does he?” Edwina asked casually without looking up from stirring her tea.

“Major Merriman recommended a good dose of the cane and even went as far as to suggest the birch rod after a sound… oh, what was it? Something to do with figs or ginger or some such diet…. What do you think? ” Hortensia took on a pensive look and leaned forward as if she might miss some great pearls of wisdom from her friend. She was desperate to appear modern, but she didn’t want to let anyone down, least of all the girls.

Edwina ran her eye over the three young women and allowed a small delicate smile to play across her lips. Spiffy glanced at Amelia who was doing her best to look demure, but Miss Maple looked like a cat a mouse; a country mouse perhaps.

“You know I think I can help you. What else did the major say?” Edwina asked innocently.

To most definitely and daringly be concluded…



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