Our story began here.
Sylvia awoke the next morning desperately trying to resent all that had happened. In fact, in a long lazy life she could not recall ever quite working so hard at anything before. The truth was however, not only was she no longer bored, but recent events had left strangely excited about what the future might bring. She even found herself caring what her husband thought and where he might fit in to her… she grouped at an idea, reluctant to consider the implications of a train of thought… her new life?
As she turned in bed she became aware of the hardness of the bed under hip and the usually soft Egyptian cotton sheets chafing at the skin of her bottom. Instead of rolling over, she wriggled a little to enjoy the unfamiliar sensation. The she remembered that she no longer had the liberty to loll around in bed and that ‘Lady’ Granger would be expecting her.
The jokey appellation suddenly seemed both disrespectful and oddly appropriate and Sylvia blushed. That thought held her in further procrastination for a moment longer and then she again recalled she was expected elsewhere.
After a quick shower she had dressed and made her way to the little office in the servant’s quarters where Mary was awaiting her.
“I was beginning to wonder if you had had a change of heart about helping,” Mary said dryly.
If Sylvia noticed the implied opt out, but she ignored it and in the spirit of jumping in at the deep end she hastily said, “So what do you want me to do?”
Mary cocked an eyebrow before reaching for a grey paper folder on the desk.
“Go through these and see if the columns of numbers add up. Then mark any expenditure or incoming payments for that matter, which you do not understand. It is okay, this is only a copy of what is on the computer,” the housekeeper explained.
“Is that all?” Sylvia frowned.
“It is quite sufficient for you today and it is quite a long list of entries. It is a balance sheet you see.”
“Oh,” Sylvia stared back blankly.
“You know what a balance sheet is?” Mary asked.
“Eh… something to do with accounting,” Sylvia ventured.
Mary sighed and looked to heaven as if in prayer for patience.
“Look, it is quite simple. Down this column are the items written out in English. Here are the incoming monies and here are the expenditures. Follow them down to the last page here and you will see that they add up and both figures are the same. I want you to add up the figures in both columns yourself and make sure that there are no errors.”
Sylvia blanched and flicked over several pages. There must have been more than a dozen of them, with several hundred entries.
“Here,” Mary said, handing Sylvia a calculator, “You might need this.”
“Thanks,” Sylvia said queasily, not looking the least bit grateful.
“I’ll leave you to it,” the housekeeper said with a smile.
*
Sylvia had been running the numbers for what seemed like hours. All the columns seemed to add up; it said so at the bottom of the last page. She reasoned that if Mary had made a mistake, which was very unlikely, then how would she know anyway? It was simple enough, she decided as she took a sip from her fourth cup of coffee; work wasn’t so bad after all.
She was still feeling satisfied with herself when Mary returned.
“How are you getting on?” she asked encouragingly.
“No problems here that I can see,” Sylvia said confidently.
“Really,” Mary frowned, “Did you see any entries that you might wish to query?”
Sylvia shrugged. As far as she could tell the items were just a very long list of boring household purchases, wages and a few payments in from her husband.
“Are you sure? You didn’t think that the purchase of 250 cases of exploding purple flowerpot paint for £3.89 was at all odd?”
“Eh…?” Sylvia began to quickly shuffle the spread sheets, seeing them no more clearly than she had before. “Um… where was that?”
Mary had a face like iron as she pointed to the bottom of the second page.
“What about the purchase of 13 concubines for an orgy?”
“Concubines?” Sylvia looked confused and again ran her eyes down the list of entries. That one did ring a bell. “Concubines… I thought it said porcupines… what’s a concubine?”
“Porcupines? Why would we need 13 porcupines? What for an orgy?”
“I didn’t read it that closely, I thought…”
“And the figures were okay with you, even though I deliberately left in two mistakes in the amounts?”
Sylvia felt the world close in and it became somewhat hot as she bit her lower lip.
“You didn’t do much more than sit here drinking coffee did you?” Mary accused her.
Sylvia looked away to the side like a surly teenager.
“Numbers are not really my thing, they are boring,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Tomorrow we will try again,” Mary said with an exasperated sigh, “But for now…”
The sentence was finished by the act of taking a large clothes brush from the desk draw.
“Remove your clothing from below the waist,” Mary instructed, “After I am done with you, you can go and stand in the corner somewhere very prominent in lieu of lunch.”
“But…”
“Do it now,” Mary barked.
Sylvia was two people as she stood up and began removing her skirt and sliding her knickers down and off her legs. The meek foolish girl caught cheating and the grown-up, angry and amazed that she was surrendering so easily. She was still divided as Mary pulled her gently down across her lap and positioned her still tender bare bottom for another assault.
“Until I can trust you with such supervisory tasks as the accounts, then you will have to learn less edifying skills,” Mary said sharply.
Sylvia had no time to consider her words before the brush swept down with an impossibly loud impact that stole her breath and ran away with it. Nor had she recovered before the next swat bit into her hind end with jaws of fire.
“Mary, please,” she shrieked, but to no avail.
“Ms Granger or Ma’am to you while you are under correction,” Mary scolded.
“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia replied miserably, her last coherent utterance for the best part of 10 minutes.
When at last the spanking was over, Mary led the sobbing Sylvia out of the office and up the passage to the steps at the end. Nor did they stop there.
This time Sylvia was taken to the main entrance hall and then halfway up the stairs to a half landing where she was placed facing the wall.
“As I told you before, I really hope you try to test me,” Mary growled. “Now stay there where everyone can see until I come back and tell you to move. And that my girl, will be well after lunch.”
“Yes Ma’am,” Sylvia sobbed and then put her face to the wall for her second round of corner time in as many days.
To be continued.
