Hirst Hall

Chapter 7 – I visit the mills and view the crushers

The following morning I was alone with Rose and desperately nervous as to how we should manage Sir Thomas’ orders.  As I was debating with myself exactly what avenue to take my maid spoke up.

“Ma’am, please lean over the bed.”  Her tone was courteous but firm and I obeyed her instruction without comment thinking it easier to retain my dignity in silence.

“Ma’am, please help me with gaining access to your ladyship.”  Again courteous but I could hear the strain in her voice.  I felt tears prickling in my eyes as I kept my face in the bedcover and reached back to pull my bottom open.  I felt the cool greased tip enter me followed by the expected and dreadfully uncomfortable flood.  I evacuated and the process was repeated. As I rose from the chamber pot after the second I went towards my bath.

“Once more, Ma’am, please.”  I was taken aback.  Sir Thomas had said twice would suffice if the water were clean and the second had been barely discoloured.

“But Sir Thomas…” I was too hesitant to convey any authority.

“Better safe than sorry, Ma’am,” Rose insisted, “and it is my backside that will be thrashed if the master is dissatisfied.”  In tears I lay over the bed and was flushed a third humiliating time.  This time the water was spotless.  Wordlessly I took my bath while Rose cleared the bedroom of all unpleasantness and laid out my clothes. As I emerged she handed me my towels as usual.

“Ma’am, I think it best if I shave you today.”  She sounded embarrassed and nervous.

“But I am still smooth, Rose.”  It had been less than two whole days since James had removed my bush and my hair is not coarse in any way.  I was sure that it would be several more days before any sign of regrowth could be detected. Once a week would be more than sufficient.

“Yes Ma’am.  But I am nervous about performing the task and I hope that practising on your ladyship when you are nearly smooth will be easier and make me more confident.”

“Rose, this is ridiculous.  I will not agree.”

“Very well, Ma’am, but if Sir Thomas asks me I will have to inform him of your refusal.” She sounded both upset and fiercely determined at the same time.  I supposed she did not wish to lose her hard-won drawers and hoped for a proper maid’s outfit soon.  Yet what could Sir Thomas do to me?  He could hardly treat me worse than he already had.  I felt secure in my response to Rose but still was assailed by a deep and insistent doubt: Rose was my only ally here at Hirst Hall and I did not wish to lose her.  I might well need her efforts during the house party so as to dispatch my letter.

”Very well, Rose.  You may shave me but I expect you to take extraordinary care.  How shall we do this?”

“On the bed will be best, facing towards the windows for the light Ma’am.”

And so I found myself once more on my bed (I had not even slept in the cursed thing and yet it was a place of torment for me) with my legs drawn up while my maid went about her appointed task.  I saw her hands tremble at the start and was so very fearful of being cut.  Yet once she began she was firm carefulness personified and followed James’ instructions to the letter.  The cologne at the end stung awfully but this time I was prepared for the pain and managed to hold my tongue.

At breakfast Sir Thomas surprised me by remarking that he would not be back in time for tea that afternoon as he had to go over to the mills and would not be back till after nightfall.  As I was contemplating an afternoon free of debauchery I was surprised to hear him invite me to accompany him on the visit as I had yet to see the mining valley except from a considerable distance.  I agreed with pleased alacrity being eager to have a day away from the hall and to see the source of our great wealth.  I went to change into a riding dress while Sir Thomas ordered my filly to be brought.

The ride north was pleasant in the cool early March air.  The sun was burning off the frost from the previous night.  I doubted we should have many more cold nights this year.  As we entered the north valley we passed Green Mountain, the great deposit of copper ore that was now being worked to such effect.  We climbed it from the south side and when we approached the summit my breath was taken away.  In place of a peak there was now a great and growing hole.  There was not a scrap of vegetation and a series of six wide terraces was being worked by groups of men.  Using picks and shovels they were loading the excavated rock (‘ores’ my husband called them) into great wagons pulled by teams of four shire horses on the level below.  On the north side of the mountain there was a notch in the side of the mountain where each of the terraces opened out into the valley beyond and it was clear that this was where the loaded wagons would be moved as there was no manner in which wagons of such size could be moved up-hill once laden with rock.

We descended carefully to the uppermost of these terraces and made our way along it towards the far end and this egress into the valley.  The entire place was a dark burnt brown colour and this extended to the men and animals that worked there as if they had been stained by the rocks they worked. Men paused and doffed there caps as we passed before returning to their duties.  As we approached the exit of the terrace we encountered one of the great wagons on the level below also arriving at the notch. The four great draft horses pulled the thing though in truth they had but little to do, as my husband explained.  Apparently each of the terraces was built on a slight incline which meant that the full carts ran down under their immense weight. On the front bench of the wagon sat a driver flanked by two burly men.  Each of these had a powerful wooden lever which when pulled applied itself to one of the front wheels slowing the great device.  If the wagons picked up more than a steady walking pace they would career out of control and crush the horse team in front.  Outside the mine proper we were on a wide roadway with a gentle incline and surrounded by green fields, hedges and trees, all quite incongruous with the scene we had just left.  The roadway was fully paved, the first paved road I had seen since leaving Ludlow.  The cost of creating and maintaining such a roadway would have been prodigious and spoke of the value of the copper being extracted.  We came upon an empty wagon ascending and watched as the full wagon comfortably passed it on the wide road.  The team pulling this empty cart had to exert themselves despite the even incline which spoke of the sheer size of these ore carriers.

Below us in the valley was a panorama of the mill works that processed the ore to copper.  I could see eight or nine large buildings and three large reservoirs of water.  At the lowest end was the canal which brought in the coal and carried away the refined copper. On the far side of the valley I could see the three large villages of workers’ houses that provided accommodation for the industry below.

My husband gave me a tour of the entire place and I applied myself to understanding the processes involved.  First came a stamp mill where the wagons were emptied into hoppers that funnelled the ore so that it was brought under vast engines that lowered and raised gigantic pestles which dropped onto the rock crushing it to smaller pieces all driven by a vast water wheel.  There were three such crushing mills each with its own reservoir and great wheel.  The noise of these works was so deafening that even though I never entered the building fully my ears were left ringing.  I noticed the men who did work in there wore rags tied round their heads to prevent the complete loss of their hearing.  And everything was covered in the same dark brown rock dust.

The next buildings housed roasters where the now finely crushed ore was heated over beds of coals to dive off the sulphur that is bound to the ores.  The heat and smell of this work was quite immense and I wondered how the men inside tolerated it.  The resulting material, calcine, was mixed with sand and limestone and reheated to even greater temperatures.  These latter materials had the effect of creating an impure slag that could be taken off leaving molten copper as the final product.  This was poured into ingots for loading onto the barges in the nearby canal. 

We left past the workers’ cottages.  In all the three large villages must have held a thousand working men and their families.  It was hard to comprehend so many folk dependent on the Dalrymple estates.

We rode back in the late afternoon as dusk was gathering around us.  I asked Sir Thomas why he put so much effort into the mills when it could be left to a manager.  He replied that most land-owning families would just collect a royalty from the mine and let a company own and run the works.  However his father had believed that the family should not let someone else have their profits and by keeping the supervision and running in the estate the moneys would stay as well and so it had proved.  Sir Thomas’ father had been mainly interested in books and the arts and had left management of the estate to agents.  His son was interested in the estates and not books and so was deeply involved in the day-to-day running of both the farmland and the mills.

After our long day together I felt closer to my husband than at any time before and as we rode up to Hirst Hall I felt genuine affection for him.

I had a long bath to wash out the fine brown dust which and permeated every seam of my dress and my hair despite it having been tied up and covered.  Never had water felt so pleasant.

After a delicious meal together Sir Thomas suggested we retire early and I made no demur.  The long day had left me tired and the time spent in his presence had left me eager for his attentions.

As we disrobed under Lady Anne’s ever-present gaze I turned to see his playful grin upon me and I shivered as I guessed that he had some new task for me.  At least we were in private and I should not have to be watched and appraised by the servants.

Our lovemaking began in a conventional enough fashion with much touching and kissing but soon enough my husband pushed me back against the cushions and lowered his face towards my sex.  I shuddered as I anticipated the intensity of what his tongue and fingers could wring from me down there. As had happened the day before his tongue and fingers roamed and explored every crevice of my sex leaving me gasping with desire.  He avoided any contact with my bud even though I was soon begging him to touch me, lick me or suck me in that place.  Then his finger, wettened from my sex began to play with my bottomhole sending my poor soul to an even higher plane of unsatisfied want.

As I was moaning and begging for release his finger entered me, not in the conventional place but in my bottom and not just the tip but the entire length of his digit. It felt uncomfortable and disgusting but instead of reducing my ecstasy it only served to intensify it. So desperate was I for my climax now that I sent my fingers down towards my poor little clittie.

His free hand, the one that was not molesting my bottom, merely caught my wrist and held it fast. I bucked my sex against his mouth in an attempt to rub my bud on it.  I had to find relief somehow! Then I felt my bottomhole being stretched as a second finger forced its way in beside the first. It was moderately painful but that only seemed to heighten my desperation for release, a release that my husband seemed determined to keep me from.  My torment was indescribable, but it was a torture of unfulfilled craving.

“Roll over dearest,” my husband ordered me as he lifted his now wet face from my sex.  He flipped me over onto my stomach and I unthinkingly raised my hips as if to offer myself to him.  I wanted him to take me so badly. My hand crept beneath me to find the spot.

“Put your hands on the headboard, wife!” I could barely stand it but obeyed as I felt him spreading my legs and moving behind me.

Then I felt him running the head of his organ over my sex and gasped at the heat of his flesh.

“Please.  Please take me!”

And he did but not in the way I expected and desired.  He lifted his thing and pressed the tip against my bottomhole withdrawing the two fingers skewering it as he did so. I was so shocked and so overwrought that I did not resist him and as he pressed the thing it slid inside despite my natural resistance.  All I could do was absorb the pain and discomfort in an effort to speak.

“Please.  For God’s sake, take it out.  It hurts; it’s not right.  Please!”

“Relax, dearest.  Just let it happen. And put your hands back on the headboard.”   His voice was calm and firm.  He hadn’t moved since entering me and only the head was in my bottom.  It felt so big, and so hot, as if his flesh were on fire.  He had clearly greased himself otherwise there was no possible way it would have been able to force its entry. It was the lowest, most debasing provocation to have been inflicted on me in this house and yet it affected my lust not at all, unless it was to enflame it further.

Gradually I felt him applying his weight and driving it deeper into me.  I groaned and clenched my fingers on the headboard carvings till I was sure they would break.  With every fraction of an inch of his flesh that was slid into my bottom my fire was stoked.  I was beyond caring and quite beyond any decency as I sought my release.  Finally I felt his weight resting on me as the full length of him had been driven into my bottomhole.  I felt appallingly full and stretched, expanded, opened and spread.  It was as if every ounce of feeling in my body was focussed on that aperture where he had forced his body into mine.

At that moment his fingers crept under me and seized my swollen bud. I climaxed uncontrollably, squealing my pleasure and gratitude.  It went on and on, like the great bore on the River Severn, washing over me and pulling me this way and that.  When finally my sensations settled to a point where I was compos mentis once more I realised that Sir Thomas was still in my bottom.  Moreover he was now moving himself gently back and forth within me, irresistibly stoking the flames that had only just been banked.  Twice more his fingers moved beneath me and strummed against my bud.  Twice more I howled my appreciation.  Twice more I came back to find him still working against my behind. How much strength did he have? 

“Beg me to finish in you!”

“Oh God, please finish in me!”

“Not like that.  Say: ‘Please, Sir, let your cock cum in my arsehole.’”

I couldn’t bear it so I complied.  “Please, Sir, let your cock cum in my arsehole!” 

He moved faster and deeper.  There was no more discomfort on my part; I was completely opened to him. Once more his cruel fingers sought me out and as I felt him spurting inside me I was overcome by a last climax. 

I was destroyed.  I felt as smashed as the great lumps of ore I had seen that afternoon: crushed, heated and finally smelted into some other substance, except that in my case instead of the impurities being driven off it was the pure part that had been set aside.  How could anything so appallingly indecent have had such an effect on me? As he rolled off me I rolled slowly over and he took me in his strong, hirsute arms.  I was pathetically gratefully for this comfort.  Lady Anne looked down on both of us.

“Well, my dear, I think we have found what it is that makes you a real woman.”  His voice was teasing, but only a little.  For a little while I could find no response.  A woman, yes, but a lady, no.

“Was it the same with your first wife?”  I had to know.

“Not at all,” he replied jovially.  “Lady Anne was excited by two things in particular.  She derived pleasure from being humiliated, particularly in front of the servants.  It made her dreadfully, uncontrollably wet.  And she also was transported to rapture when men put their cocks in her mouth.  Sometimes she could reach her climax just from having a man push his prick into her throat in front of others.”

“I… I don’t understand…”  And in truth I could not comprehend this.

“What don’t you understand?”  He lifted himself onto an elbow so he could look down at me.  I blushed.

“’Men’, you said ‘men’.  You mean others besides you?  And throat, how could it be in her throat?”

“Quite right, my dear, ‘men’.  She liked it when I had her taken by others: strangers or the servants.  She found the humiliation quite intense.  And yes, a well-trained woman can take a man’s prick into her throat.  It is simply a matter of learning to swallow it.  One of these days I will teach you how it is done.”

“But that’s not possible…”

“Lady Anne derived a deep humiliation from being buggered in public.  But not real pleasure, not like you.  I have never seen anyone derive such ecstasy from having her arsehole played with.  I noticed the very first time I touched you there.”

I knew in my soul that he was right.  I knew that he had found out something about me that could not be denied. Something mean, nasty and hidden had now been revealed. Where would we go from here?