'Tilly, Tilly, will you come here girl, I won't tell you again. If you don't get yourself here this minute I'll thrash you within an inch of your life. I should've done it years ago.'
I stayed on my back in the cornfield at the edge of the woods, safe in the knowledge that Mother would never thrash me as she threatened, she was much too soft for that, and anyway I could wrap her around my little finger.
The sun was warm on my bare legs and nothing in the world was going to spoil my fantasy. I had pulled up the long bloomers that Mother insisted we wore, until they were bunched up around the tops of my thighs so I could feel the sun on me. The feeling of freedom I experienced as I spent the day on my own was wonderful. I would tramp through the woods enjoying the peace and quiet, the damp ferns wetting my bare legs.
I lay there lost in a dream about The Master from the big house riding past me, while I lay in the soft mossy furrow between the edge of the wood and the field. I imagined he was so taken by my long wavy hair - the colour of ripening wheat mother said - that he leant down from the saddle of his horse and scooped me up in front of him and rode off with me into the woods. Just as he had with Isobel!
I had only ever seen The Master twice, but that was enough for him to fill my daydreams. First there had been the day he came for my eldest sister Margaret and then for Isobel. When he came for Margaret I didn't remember much because I had only been nine and had been sent to my room. But I remember when he left he bent down, tilted my chin up and looked deep in the eyes. It was as if he knew me. He winked at me and turned to Mother saying; 'She's the one Eveline.'
When Isobel's turn came everyone had obviously been expecting him and the house was in complete upheaval preparing her. She had been scrubbed and polished and brushed until she shone. Mother pulled a white silk corset out of the wooden hope chest in her bedroom and laced poor Isobel into it until her waist measured a tiny twenty three inches. At the time I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.
That second time I saw him he stole my breath away and my stomach did wild cartwheels. He strode into our little cottage without knocking, as if he owned the place - which indeed he did. He had to duck to enter the parlour and as he raised his head again I gasped and blushed involuntarily. His dark brown eyes met mine and I swear he stared into my soul. I felt the sweat prickle between my growing breasts and the secret place between my thighs throbbed with heat. He strode over to me and just like he had the first time, he lightly placed one finger under my chin and raised my face to his. I stared down at the floor and fixed my embarrassed gaze on a scuff in the toe of my shoe.
'Look at me Matilda,' he whispered. Just to me.
Slowly raising my eyes to his I waited, holding my breath while he searched my features. He took my long hair in his fist, and grasped it firmly holding my head still as he looked at me. I felt my breath quicken and a sticky hot dribble run down my thigh but I pulled away from him, angry at his assumption that he could treat me like that, and furious with myself that it affected me so dramatically. I had no idea what I was feeling but I liked the sickly churning in the pit of my stomach. I especially liked the way I throbbed in other places - places no one talked about.
Isobel broke the spell by almost swooning, the stupid girl. For someone her age she behaved very childishly sometimes. Anyone would have thought she was going to marry The Master not going to the big house as a servant.
A pretty red dress had arrived for Isobel and I have to admit I was shocked when I saw it - it didn't look much like a servant's dress. The front of the dress was cut very low even for the fashions of the day; you could almost see the entire swell of her chest. The bodice was heavily boned and her white breasts thrust out shamefully. I found myself hating Isobel when The Master looked her up and down and seemed very pleased with what he saw.
'Turn for me girl, let me have a look at you,' he instructed.
Isobel giggled coquettishly and did a very pretty turn for him that swirled her skirt and showed her ankles. He must have been pleased because he threw back his head and laughed with pleasure. I was totally forgotten. Or so I thought.
'Did you follow my other instructions, Eveline?' he asked leering at Isobel and nodding toward her torso.
'Well,' stammered Mother. 'I thought it would be better coming from you or Miss Burns."
The Master looked very annoyed at this exchange as he turned and sat deliberately on the sofa.
'You should know by now that if I give an order I expect it to be obeyed, and not just by the girls. You are under contract to me Eveline and I expect you to uphold your part of the bargain. Now, where is it?'
Mother's demeanour changed completely. She rushed to the door that led upstairs and left the room looking more flustered than I had ever seen her. When she returned she had a bundle of what looked like straps of leather in her hand. Isobel whimpered. She obviously knew that something was about to happen; it would involve her and was very likely not to be very pleasant.
Mother hovered in front of The Master until he became quite exasperated and almost snarled his next instruction.
'Do it, Eveline. Do it now! You know this should have been done months ago and if you had followed my instructions poor Isobel would now be accustomed to it. Because of your disobedience she is going to have to suffer the indignity of her preparation in front of me. And, she is going to have to wear the stuffer for her first day in my house, also trying to cope with all that entails. I am most displeased at your tardiness but I will deal with you at a later date.'
The Master turned to me, so he hadn't forgotten that I was there. His expression softened as he spoke. 'This does not concern you, Matilda. You may leave us. There will be time enough for you to learn, when it's your turn. Run along my dear.'
I darted through the front door and into the garden, grateful that I didn't have to go through whatever it was they planned to do to Isobel. I ran as far as the field but my heart was pounding with excitement, and curiosity got the better of me. I returned to the house and trying my hardest not to make a noise I crept through the flowerbed and leant up against the window to the parlour. Cupping my hands I peered through the glass. It was difficult to see properly but I could make out The Master's back and Mother sitting beside him with her head bowed.
I felt a little peculiar about the way he had spoken to Mother but something about it all excited me.
Isobel was standing facing The Master but all I could see was the outline of her face in the shadows and the shape of her bright red dress. I could hear her sniffing and snuffling and I wondered what she had done to annoy them.
The Master instructed Isobel to raise her skirt, shocking me to the core. At first I thought I couldn't possibly have heard right but there was Isobel slowly pulling her skirt up to her waist. I moved every which way trying to see what they were doing but the best I could do was watch the back of The Master as he bent and picked up the jumble of straps.
'Open your legs, girl,' he barked.
I saw Isobel's legs appear either side of his black riding coat as she obeyed his instructions; my legs trembled in response. The Master fiddled for a minute or two and I longed to see what he was doing between her thighs. Isobel shied away from his ministrations but she was dragged back by my Mother until she stood again in the spot right in front of The Master.
I think I squealed out loud when he held up what looked like a thick stumpy stick attached to the straps but luckily no one heard me. He leant further forward and pushed the stuffer, as he had called it, between Isobel's legs and it disappeared from sight.
'Oh God!' I sobbed. 'What are they doing to her?'
I ran from the window and threw myself face down in the flowerbed, nowhere near ready to think about what was in store for Isobel, and therefore me, at a later date.
The front door opened and I jumped up so they wouldn't know I had been watching. The Master strode out of the door as if nothing had happened and Isobel followed sheepishly after him. She was walking as if her bottom hurt and I knew how that felt. Father's attitude had always been, spank first and ask questions later. Many was the time I had waddled the way Isobel was waddling, after a particularly severe bout of bending over Father's hard knees.
'Come, Isobel!' The Master snapped as he untied his horse. Isobel, with tears still streaking her face, followed slowly behind. She had her valise gripped tightly in her hand as she moved very uncomfortably in his shadow. By the time Mother got to the doorway, he was on his horse and leaning down with his hand outstretched. He grasped her hand, and with an effortless flick of his arm plonked her face down over the saddle in front of him. Her bottom was stuck up in the air and her legs were wriggling as she squealed at his daring.
He looked magnificent up there on his horse with the helpless Isobel squirming under his restraining hand. His tight cream riding breeches outlined the hard muscles rippling along his thighs, complementing the shiny black leather knee boots that made my heart pound with excitement.
He took his leather riding crop from under his arm and flicked the horse's rump lightly, then without a word of warning he raised Isobel's skirts right up to her waist, exposing her white cotton bloomers and whacked her hard across her rump. As she tried to get away from the pain of the blow Isobel spread her legs shamelessly. The black of the straps as they dissected her white flesh was stark against the split crotch of her underwear.
The horse responded to his instruction and took off at a canter up the drive towards the big house. Just as he was about to turn the bend he reined in his horse and looked back at me. The grin on his face was depraved as he shouted, 'You're next Matilda!'
'What did he mean, Mother, what did he mean by it's my turn next and what did Isobel have between her legs?' I pleaded.
'Hush now, Tilly dear. Don't get all het up. You'll see all in good time. You're only fourteen so you don't need to worry your pretty head about it yet. Go and play now there's a good girl.' She stroked my hair, which comforted me a little.
Go and play indeed. I stomped off; indignant at the way Mother still treated me like a child. I was also full of other feelings. I was very confused. Why did all us girls go up to the big house on our seventeenth birthdays?
That was the day I first found my hideout by the cornfield - the day The Master took Isobel. I had run there and flopped down in the sun to think about what had happened.

* * *

I tried to puzzle out our life for the thousandth time. We lived in a 'grace and favour' cottage that belonged to The Master. Mother had obviously known him for years and years but none of us children knew what, if any, was the relationship between them.
My Father died when I was seven so we had to move from the house we lived in to escape the shame. Mother said Father had gambled away all our money. After a few weeks we had moved here to 'Foxearth'.
In the beginning we used to ask Mother all the time who The Master was and why we were living in his cottage but she just said that he had taken her on as his housekeeper as a favour to Father and he let us stay in the cottage because we had nowhere else to go.
Mother went up to the big house every morning at 8am and returned at 6pm and brought us presents and food. She brought pretty dresses and ornaments for our hair and said they were from The Master.
On the day The Master came for Margaret, Mother stopped going to the big house, but none of us girls knew why. All we knew was that Mother had two or three meetings with The Master in the parlour and after that there always seemed to be more money around. Suddenly Mother could afford for us to have nicer things. In our innocence we decided that he must be a very generous man.
Then came the taking of Isobel. From that day on I would lie in the cornfield and dream about the day The Master would come for me. My thoughts would be torn between fear at what was in store for me, and the thrill of the unknown. I found myself almost daily imagining how it would feel to be thrown over the saddle of his horse and carried off into the distance to a new life. I knew I would miss Mother but as my birthday drew nearer all I could think of was The Master and the way he had looked at me.
I would hide at the edge of the drive for hours just watching him come and go, fascinated by the carriages arriving and leaving. Often I tried to get closer to the house to get a glimpse of the life they led but Mother always knew where I was and turned me back with a sharp telling off.
Each time I actually saw the Master, even if it was through his carriage window my stomach churned. Even looking towards the house reminded me of the time he beat Isobel, and again my stomach would react by turning over. I felt funny inside and I couldn't understand why I felt so peculiar. When Mother beat us for being disobedient or insolent I just gritted my teeth and put up with it, then waddled for an hour or so just as Isobel had.
I was acutely aware that my breasts grew a great deal during my sixteenth year. I was a bit embarrassed about them, they were much larger than Isobel's and even Mother's; they ached abominably when The Master came to mind. The sensitive tips grew hard in response.
I didn't really understand much about things of the body because each time I asked Mother a question she always answered the same way. 'There's time enough for all that when you go to The Master, Tilly, be patient and wait until then. There's a good girl'.
My secret garden was beginning to madden me with needs I had no idea how to satisfy. Secret garden! That's what I called the place between my thighs until I went to The Master. I was sure it had a more exciting name but I had never heard anyone refer to it in any way and I had watched The Master's handsome gardener one sunny afternoon carefully tend the gardens. He poked a dibber into the soft, warm, prepared soil then pushed and wiggled it about until the prickly sensation between my sweaty thighs became almost unbearable. There was an urge growing deep in my belly that craved something, and watching the gardener always made that place overheat, so in my head I called it my garden.
Anyway there I was, three weeks before my seventeenth birthday, with the weak sun warming my flesh, when mother shouted for the third time.
'M_A_T_I_L_D_A!!'
'Coming Mother!' I shouted.

End of Chapter One