Story: Florence, Lady Cranwell. Chapter 9.

By Jackie J

Her head bowed and her gaze lowered for the most part Jess awaited direction from Cathy whilst Lady Isabelle and Lady Downton dined. Jess took a few hidden glances at the two ladies at table, Lady Downton close up was quite different to how she had imagined. Having seen the lady dismounting her carriage, on her arrival in her beautiful dress, although at some distance, that figure exuded graceful femininity. Dressed how she now was it was a contradiction of Jess’s first impressions. Pretty of course, her raven hair, sparkling green eyes and unblemished pale complexion perhaps she was something beyond pretty, perhaps beautiful would be a more apt description. Jess wondered about her attire quite manly, butch even. On the rare occasions Lady Downton had been mentioned by Jonathan and they were rare occasions indeed, the impression given was of a more girly persona, much more in keeping with the woman that Jess witnessed arriving at Stoneleigh. 

Jess’s thoughts were disturbed, by a discrete and gentle nudge from Cathy.

 Jess approached table and curtsied, raised the wine and recharged the ladies’ glasses with a perfect twist of the bottle before another curtsy and returning to take up her expectant station at the rear of the room. Lady Downton smiled watching Jessica’s humble and impeccable service amused to see Lady Florence Cranwell, a lady of wealth and leisure, serve table in such a submissive and accomplished manner. But Lady Florence had become accomplished in all aspects of serving table, along with all her other more menial duties at Stoneleigh. Cathy had been a good tutor and where Cathy’s endeavours had fallen short in her teachings Miss Hutchings had intervened with her own brand of encouragement.

The meal progressed and with desert taken and sipping port, whilst the two maids cleared table, Lady Downton stood and walked towards the fireplace to take a seat by the blazing fire soon to be joined by Lady Isabelle who sat at the other side of the long hearth a large sheepskin rug spread between them.

Mary her eyes glinting in the firelight smiled.

“Do you have the key for Jessica’s belt Isabelle?

Miss Hutchings had custodianship of such things and Isabelle started to stand.

“No, shall I go and bring it for you?”

Mary held out her empty glass.

“Yes, and a refill, and bring that file will you, the one for Jessica, I should have looked earlier but I will read through it now.”

Lady Isabelle returned and having handed Lady Downton the file, key and her refilled glass giggled retaking her seat.

“You like her don’t you I knew you would, special isn’t she.”

Taking her first sip from the recharged glass Lady Downton looked up with a sneering smile.

“Oh yes Isabelle, very special, very special indeed.”

Placing the key to Jessica’s chastity belt into her jacket pocket Lady Downton chuckled scanning the file. The main page with Jessica Thornberry’s details, her photograph and palm print, the application signed and sealed by Lady Florence Cranwell offering her maid Jessica for training in service to the highest standards. Subsequent pages detailing her training all the tasks maid Jessica had completed to the satisfaction of Miss Hutchings. The last page listing the punishments she had received, strapping, spanking each humiliating stripe and slap recorded.

Taking the letter of introduction from Lady Florence which Jessica had given to Lady Isabelle on her arrival a broad grin grew across her face at what the silly and naive cow had done. Obviously, Lady Catherine was complicit in all this she had to be, she had brought Lady Florence to Stoneleigh although in her meeting with her she had denied all knowledge of her whereabouts? Along with all Lady Catherine’s lies one thing was becoming clear she truly did despise poor Florence and had obviously conspired to have her disappear to open the opportunity for her son to remarry. Lady Downton could not help but have a sneaking admiration for the conniving bitch and her scheme was obviously well advanced. But how on earth had she convinced Lady Florence to be so stupid to place herself into the clutches of Lady Isabelle to train to be a maid at Stoneleigh?

Reading the letter again it was unambiguous, Lady Florence should be contacted when Jessica Thornberry’s training is completed and she will personally arrange for her maid’s collection from Stoneleigh. Lady Downton laughed at the stupidity of this request and thought that Lady Catherine may well have assisted in the penning of this particular phrasing of the note. No wonder Lady Catherine was so adamant that Lady Florence would not be returning to Cranwell, how could she?  Lady Florence could never be contacted, how could she, she was here at Stoneleigh; she was maid Jessica, the actual maid under training.

Lady Downton looked again at the personal file for Jessica Thornberry, the photograph, the palm print, the detailed description all endorsed by Lady Florence Cranwell herself, maid Jessica’s Mistress.

With Lady Florence having disappeared, an undeniable truth promoted by the respectable Lady Catherine whose word would be beyond reproach, and of course with Lady Florence unavailable to contradict matters, who was to say that the girl in the photograph was anyone other than Jessica Thornberry, just another one of Stoneleigh maid’s.

Lady Downton placed the closed file on the side table beside her glass and smirked pondering the revelation. The girl who stole her man and potential wealth for some unfathomable reason had chosen to become a trainee maid at Stoneleigh. Thanks to the connivance and duplicity of Lady Catherine, Lady Florence whilst blissfully unaware, had laid the foundations of her own entrapment.

Isabelle smiled at Mary watching Mary put down the file.

“Should I bring her, the new girl, Jessica?

Lady Downton making herself comfortable stretched back in her chair in front of the fire. She had been planning her visit to Stoneleigh for some weeks and her meeting with Lady Catherine and the subsequent discovery that Lady Florence had become a maid at Stoneleigh, whilst intriguing to say the least, was not going to dissuade her from her original plans.

The first few days of her frequent visits to the seclusion of Stoneleigh, after being served a fine meal, always began with what she liked to refer to as a purification of her spirit. Lady Downton was domineering and aggressive but her sadomasochistic tendencies and desires had many facets and needed to be sated. During her last visit it was the whole week taking her to the brink of insanity. 

 “No, not now I will open that present later I suspect I will have plenty of time for that, ring for Miss Hutchings, we will go to the East wing as normal, I presume everything is prepared?”

Lady Isabelle stood becoming wet at the prospect of what she knew lay ahead, she like Lady Downton had been counting the days to her arrival and what the first week of her visit would bring.

Lady Isabelle looked at Lady Downton smiled and gave the bell cord its five distinctive tugs a signal Miss Hutchings would recognise.

“Yes, everything is prepared.”

Miss Hutching chuckled to herself hearing the signal from the dining room. She was fiercely loyal to Lady Downton and very well rewarded for her discretion, but for this activity she would pay good money of her own.

Opening up the locks of the cabinet at the back of her office she wheeled out her trolley and double checked she had everything she would need, she made her way to the dining room.

If Stoneleigh itself was secluded and secure, which it was, then the East wing was at the core of that privacy. Outwardly no different to the rest of Stoneleigh manor, if not a little more decorative with its stained-glass windows, its original use being that of a chapel. Its use now different and specific prepared exclusively for Lady Downton’s excesses. Self-contained, internally the windows boarded and barred its walls and ceiling also boarded to retain all sound within its walls. To enter this inner sanctum two sets of stout wooden doors and the threshold sealed by a large steel gate.

The door to the dining room opened and two heads turned.

Miss Hutchings entered pushing in her trolley.

“Well ladies what is it to be?”

Lady Downton stood.

“Five days again, I doubt we could take much more, but before we start, the new girl, Jessica, tell her that Lady Isabelle is unable to contact her Mistress, Lady Florence and until she can she will remain here at Stoneleigh. I note from her training she has not completed any work upstairs. Put her with Peggy on the upper floors.

Lady Downton picked up Jessica’s file for the table and handed it to Miss Hutchings.

“Here, this is her file you have done well with her.”

Miss Hutching took the file and smirked, she knew her role, what was required and that she would not be thanked for being anything less than being totally brutal during the “purification.” It was what Lady Downton demanded of her.

“Is that all, shall we begin?”

Lady Downton filled her glass and having gulped down the full measure looked across at Lady Isabelle, then at the trolley and its contents.

“Yes continue, five days you know what’s required...”

“Argh Ow!”

Grabbing Lady Downton’s hair Winifred dragged her across the room to Lady Isabelle grabbing a lump her hair in her other hand.

“On your knees my little pigs.”

Lady Downton and Lady Isabelle buckled to the floor, their period of “purification” had begun.

Why Lady Downton wanted to be humiliated and treated this way was a throwback to her early years. Her farther, a hard taskmaster and no doubt perverse himself often punished the young Mary locking her away for days on end in an old barn with the animals. How this experience mutated in later life to this masochistic ritual of “Purification” perhaps not even Lady Downton herself knew but what she did know is that it had to be done and Stoneleigh at the hands of Miss Hutchings was the ideal place to exercise her cravings.

Miss Hutchings had each first strip the other naked before having them crawl into their shackling harnesses that she laid out on the floor. A design of Lady Downton's own making by the local blacksmith the steel and leather harness was restrictive and securely designed to serve its purpose well, which it did. Both familiar with the harness from previous sessions of “Purification” the two naked Mistresses were quickly restrained and helpless within the confines of the devices by an also familiar Miss Hutchings who snapped closed the locks. The steel spine bar attached and jointed to the shoulder and thigh plates ensuring the captive within remained restricted semi prone. Beyond the more comfortable posture, of hands and knees, for greater mobility, stretching back the legs and pressing up with the arms the harness allowed for a low and slow scampering movement across the floor but nothing more.

Again of Lady Downton’s own design Lady Isabelle was the first to be cowled. A stiff leather neck brace, based on the posture collar used by the military, this stout collar riveted to a steel head piece with blinkered eyes and extended snout. With Lady Downton similarly prepared Miss Hutchings looped lead chains through the brass ring of the collars. Having placed wax balls into their ears Miss Hutchings chuckled winding up the jaw pieces beneath the snouts leaving only a minimum of movement preventing normal speech and at best allowing gruff hardly audible grunts. Taking each hand and foot in turn Miss Hutchings completed the Mistresses’ preparation strapping on the leather hoof like mittens and bootees the attaching and tensioning the long straps to the shoulder and thigh plates to prevent any opportunity of their removal.   

Leaving the two now unrecognisable figures to squirm and familiarise themselves again with their self-inflicted helplessness Miss Hutchings poured herself a glass of the expensive wine and sat by the fire chuckling. Miss Hutchings, unlike Lady Downton, being a true sadist, could not comprehend what possible pleasure, sexual or otherwise, could be gained by the occupants of the harnesses allowing themselves to become totally helpless. What Miss Hutchings did appreciate however was the impunity she enjoyed for her sadistic pleasure in tormenting and abusing her two pet pigs.

Taking the two lead chains in hand Miss Hutchings pulled her crawling pets down the long corridor and unlocked the first door then the second then the large steel gate. Limited and failing evening light clawing through the shutters over the windows and the skylight dimly illuminated the hall of the East wing and the two prepared pen for her human pigs. Opening the pen Miss Hutching laughed guiding Lady Downton over the sewer grid and coupled the lead chain to a longer length of steel links. With lady Isabelle secured in a similar fashion Miss Hutching tipped a mash mixture into a large trough alongside the water bowl.

Miss Hutchings knew what was expected of her and she did not disappoint.

With Lady Downton shackled and her ass in the air, Miss Hutchings roughly pressed and rammed her fingers into her slick exposed slot from behind making Lady Downton grunt and squirm. After working her fingers vigorously inside the wet spread pussy, she withdrew leaving Lady Downton panting and on the edge. Miss Hutchings laughed leaving her Mistress in a state of distress then worked Lady Isabelle into a similar euphoric and degrading state.

Locking the pens Miss Hutchings laughed watching the two of them forlornly squirming and pawing with their hoofed hands to reach their stimulated sex. Their shoulder plates and harnesses, by Lady Downton’s own design, making this an impossible and frustrating task but this did not stop them trying.

With movement restricted by the insidious design of the harness, deaf from the wax balls, half blinded and unable to make comprehensible speech by the ornate pig cowls, hands and feet bound into leather hoofs this sensory deprivation and total helplessness was what Lady Downton craved for her “purification”

Miss Hutchings turned on and then turned down the gas light and, having closed all the shutters of the East wing hall, this glimmer of light would be all her captives would have to illuminate their self-imposed exile in the East wing.

This was a peculiar and elaborate fetish by any standards but one that had now been repeated several times. What her Mistress gained from her humiliation and depravation Miss Hutchings had ceased trying to reconcile. She was paid handsomely and had no problem in following Lady Downton’s orders in this ritual of self-torment.

 Over that last year however Miss Hutchings had become increasing bold in how ruthlessly she treated her human pigs. She had realised with a harsher regime after just three days how receptive to her manipulation they became, after five days, as the last time, they had no idea what time or even what day it was and, with no complaints forthcoming, following the last occupation of the sty, Miss Hutchings sadistic mind could not help but wonder what effect and even longer period in the squalor of their pen would have on them.

Miss Hutchings slammed closed the heavy metal gate and locked each of the outer doors in turn before making her way back to the kitchens.

 It was late, just after nine and Lizzy was finishing up with her cleaning and Maud was at the draining board drying the remaining pots and pans. The girls were in their rooms and Miss Hutchings took her seat at her table.

Lizzy placed two mugs of steaming tea in front of Miss Hutchings and joined her at the table.

“Busy day Miss Hutchings?”

Yes, Lady Downton and Lady Isabelle will be away for the rest of the week, always the same the first week that Lady Downton is here at Stoneleigh, so no meals in the dining room.”

Lizzy took a sip of her tea.

“So, you are in charge Miss Hutchings.”

Miss Hutchings nursed her mug and smiled contentedly thinking of her Mistress and Lady Isabelle securely secreted away in the seclusion of the East wing.

“Yes, that’s right Lizzy I am in charge.”

Subscribe to Lady2Maid Blog Newsletter