The Vicar's girl

Anonymous The Vicar's Girl

Chapter One

The house that stood on the edge of the moorland had a look of total remoteness, as if all within were quiet and ever would be so. White palings, newly-painted, surrounded the frontage and-reaching halfway around the back of the stone-built residence-gave way on either side to a barred gate which led into a paddock where a horse was grazing.

Reining in his own quiet nag, the Reverend Percival Jubstone wondered which of the two new inhabitants of Edgemoore, as it was aptly called, were at home. It would almost surely be Miss Vanessa Markham, he told himself, since her brother would be at his teaching post at this hour. Village gossip, which so often reached his ears via his housekeeper, told him that she was an attractive woman. He hoped it would be so and, having tethered his horse, took the path to the front door and drew upon the bell, hearing it jangle within.

Scarcely a moment passed before the door was opened by a young maid, cap askew and with a cloth in her hand.

'Your Mistress is in?' enquired Percival politely, taking note all at one and the same time of the girl's age, which he judged to be about seventeen, the slimness of her figure and the promising gourds which her black dress revealed.

'Oh, sir, your Reverendship!' Mary uttered, quite taken aback by the appearance of one who seemed to her such a lordly person.

'It is all right, Mary', came a voice from an adjoining room, and therewith appeared Vanessa herself-a comely young woman indeed of perhaps twenty-eight or so, as the Vicar immediately perceived.

'Yes, ma'am', Mary said almost thankfully, for it was her first day at the house and no one had told her how to receive visitors, this in great part being because Miss Markham had expected none as yet. Edging away while trying to give all appearance of not really doing so, Mary succeeded in giving way to both and scuttled thankfully back into the kitchen.

'I thought to call-to make myself known. Forgive me if I have arrived at an inopportune moment', boomed the reverend gentleman.

'Not at all, not at all-pray come in. I am sorry about Mary's ineptitude. She is young and…'

'Untrained?' he interrupted her as they entered the small drawing room that was pleasingly uncluttered. 'Forgive me for having broken across what you may have been about to say, Miss Markham. It is a matter to which I have given much thought, however'.

'Yes?' asked Vanessa in a tone of voice that to some more sensitive souls would have appeared strained. Indicating a comfortable armchair for her visitor, she took up her seat on an equally-well-padded sofa which the Vicar regarded with a professional eye-professional, that is to say, in relation to his private interests, for the arms of the piece of furniture were nobly curved and were winged outwards at an angle which was immediately cogent to his thoughts of how one such as Mary could be put over one of the arms with her bottom well up.

'The-er-yes, the training of young girls. I was about to say, with your permission, that it is most desirable, do you not think?'

'I have not given much thought to the matter, Vicar', responded Vanessa, whose cheeks flushed slightly while- as though to distract herself-she summoned Mary by means of a small silver handbell and ordered tea.

'I have made it already, ma'am, and you wish', said the girl, showing much pride at having anticipated the request.

'You see', declared Vanessa when after but a few moments they were served, 'she is a good girl'.

'In all respects?' asked the cleric with something of a twinkle in his eye, for the more he looked upon his hostess the more he liked. Vanessa might have been described by some as a strapping girl (no pun thereby being intended),

for she was but an inch or so shorter than the Vicar. Unclothed, however, her full beauty was revealed: two noble breasts as white as mounds of snow, a subtly-curved belly beneath which a thick triangular thatch gathered around her slit, thighs of columnar splendour, vaselike hips, and a bottom that would have stirred the penis of a statue.

'You touch upon her modesty, I believe-or mine', she murmured, casting her eyes down to the thin bone china of her cup.

'Modesty may be used as a cloak for devilment-I have often known it so-and vice versa'.

'Would you then constantly upbraid one such as Mary?' Vanessa asked defensively. A warm trickle ran through her belly at that moment, which was caused not so much by the tea as by the magnetic look that this tallish man in his middle years-slightly craggy of aspect, but well-dressed withal-cast upon her.

'May I sit with you? We can converse more quietly, my dear?'

Without waiting upon permission, Percival did so and found a warm hip agreeably close to his own. His eyes took in the fetching dimple on her cheek, the sweet corners of her mouth. How many times, he wondered, had those lustrous lips been kissed? How many times, if ever, had a hand-whether male or female-found its way into her corsage to fondle those magnificent orbs which appeared to strain so impatiently through her dress?

'Upbraid?' he asked in a gentle tone. 'No, Miss Markham, such does not have a sufficient strain of strictness that the female needs. There are those I know who use the birch and cause the unveiled bottom to twist and burn. Cries of protest, of alarm, may be heard which in a quiet household are unseemly and may disturb those who had best know least about it. For myself, I employ mainly the tawse. Do you know of such?'

Blushing deeply at his choice of words, Vanessa clutched rather desperately at her cup and gazed straight before her so that naught but her attractive profile was presented to his view. No one had ever spoken to her thus before and she knew not how to reply, though having rather mumbled something was politely asked what she had said.

'I said no', she gulped.

'Ah, then, I better understand, my dear. The tawse is a Scottish instrument of thick broad leather, alike unto a goodly luggage strap, if you will, but split at the instructive end so as to form two fingers. At the moment of their meeting the offered bottom…'

'Oh, sir, I do not think we should speak of such!' Vanessa gasped.

'Ah-I had no idea that you were uninstructed. Truly I had not. Pray forgive me. Are you well accommodated here? Is the residence roomy enough for you?'

'Indeed yes. May I show you around?' Vanessa asked hastily as if she would rather do anything at that moment than continue such a conversation.

'It would be pleasant, yes, and more than that, for I like to think of my parishioners at night at prayer, Miss Mark-ham, and thus do I envisage them-each and all-in their rooms of retirement, the fires lit in winter and a pleasant glow upon the ceiling. Is that not one of the jolliest and cosiest sights?' he asked, assisting her to rise and thereby brushing his hand down one svelte hip in the process.

'I s… s… suppose, yes', the young woman responded. She had not thought to show him anything as intimate as her bedroom, but there seemed no escape from it. And thus a little tour was conducted-first the dining room, then the morning room and the small conservatory whose blooms the Vicar much admired-and then followed the hesitant moment when Vanessa conducted him up the stairs.

In so doing, she distinctly felt his hand pass behind her and pass lightly over and beneath the noble cheeks of her bottom, the which she was quite unable to believe was happening. Being a well-brought-up young lady, she had experienced little of the like before, and most certainly not with a stranger. Such was her modesty, however, that she could not bring herself to remark upon that libertine straying of his palm which, through her gown, her petticoat, and her drawers, could well feel the warm rotundity of her nether cheeks.

As they passed along the landing, the Vicar stole his encroaching fingers a little further beneath her orbs, this causing Vanessa to gulp audibly, though-as he had well anticipated-no word of protest broke from her lips simply