Bonnets and Bondage Ch. 04

This is a story about damsels in distress in the Regency period. It contains non-consensual bondage and bad period dialogue; reader discretion is advised.

1.

On the whole, Catchpenny Lodge was an unhappy building:—it had no sense of harmony, and many faults. Every thing was either too large or too small; the chimneys all smoked, and the modern plumbing did not work; most of its rooms were cold throughout the year. And like all new buildings designed to look old, it had a curious air of insincerity.

But every house has at least one room that its owner enjoys, and at Catchpenny Lodge, at least as far as Mrs Catchpenny was concerned, that niche was filled by the morning-room. She loved the morning-room immoderately. She sat there, of course, every morning, or at least every morning when there was the faintest chance of a call; but she often went there at other times of day, furtively, if she were tolerably certain that the maids were engaged elsewhere. She had the idea that this behaviour was somehow indecent.

Fortunately for Mrs Catchpenny, we begin our story in the morning, so she need have no compunction about being discovered in her preferred location. Behold! There she is, bathed in bright warm sun-shine, pretending to read a book of sermons. You have remarked, no doubt, that she has not turned a page in fifteen minutes. She is not reading. She is worrying. Or perhaps I should say that she was worrying, for our tale takes place in the year 18–, in the month of April, and upon a Friday.

Mrs Catchpenny was principally worried about a personage by the name of Harriet Fitzgerald. Mrs Fitzgerald, the alert reader will instantly re-collect, was a pert young widow of six-and-twenty with blonde hair, an agreeable figure, and a propensity to find herself in dangerous situations. Mr Henry Catchpenny had hired Mrs Fitzgerald to solve a mystery involving his daughters, in pursuance of which assignment the widow had been taken captive the previous day by a highwayman. Her whereabouts were at this time entirely unknown.

Rather than the book of sermons, Mrs Catchpenny's mind was occupied with a multitude of competing sentiments. She hoped, most fervently and imaginatively, that the gentlewoman detective was not in real danger; that she had not been wrapt with chains and cast into the ocean, or over a cliff; that she was not at present gagged and bound and slung wriggling across a camel in a Persian slaver's caravanserai—this latter scenario one which had fascinated Mrs Catchpenny since before she married. But at the same time she was unable wholly to wipe from her thoughts the consciousness that an especially noteworthy catastrophe might bring certain benefits: that it might result in greater official interest and investigative resources being brought to bear in the case, or at least stop the neighbours from talking about her daughters' scandalous mishaps. Needless to say this unworthy thought produced a good deal of guilt in Mrs Catchpenny's heart, for she was a pious soul; but she was yet, after all, only human.

There was a knock upon the door. Mrs Catchpenny was fully prepared to answer, but it burst open long before she was able to do so, the butler being as new and unsatisfactory as the house. His name was Pilcrow.

"Mrs Thrash's compliments, if it please your ladyship," said he, at an excessive volume and with the utmost complaisance; "and might she be permitted to use the squire's horsewhip again?" He turned to go, re-collected that an answer was necessary, tript upon the Turkey carpet in his confusion of spirits and very nearly fell; then added, in a smaller voice, "Which these two letters is come from the village."

Mrs Catchpenny did her best to soothe Pilcrow's injured dignity, supplied him with an affirmative to the housekeeper's query and a modicum of brandy, banished him firmly from the room, and settled back to peruse the letters.

The first letter was from Captain Halfpenny, a dashing young officer with side-whiskers and no income to speak of. He offered his compliments and best wishes; congratulated the Catchpennies on the accomplishments of their youngest daughter; prophesied that Miss Ann might happen to quit her name at an earlier time than either of her sisters; and then very meaningfully begged permission to pay a call. Mrs Catchpenny wondered which accomplishments he might possibly mean, and turned to the second letter.

This said merely, "Send that fool of a clergyman to The Unlucky Wench."

2.

The Reverend Edmund Fox was a remarkably well-looking fellow, but it would be an exaggeration to say that he was in the very acme of physical condition:—he ate and drank with a lively and occasionally shocking interest, a practice which had never succeeded in enlarging his slender frame, but sometimes impeded his capacity for exertion; and he liked to stay up late playing cards, or talking to pretty women, or both. In short, when he arrived at the village inn, as directed by Mrs Catchpenny, in turn directed by the letter, he was quite out of breath and feared he was very likely to perish.

The inn was named The Unlucky Wench in tribute to a young lady of an earlier era. The nature of her misfortune was illustrated by a lavish painted sign and an endlessly retold fireside tale which Mr Fox would have been able to hear from multiple tongues at the present moment, if the establishment were a fraction less like Piccadilly Circus at mid-day. The Maidengate hunt were meeting for the final time of the season and the building was packed; the air was thick with cigar smoke and good sensible high-Tory opinions; the bar wenches were being worked so hard that several were privately of the opinion that swapping places with their unlucky, helpless but above all stationary erstwhile colleague might not have been a bargain worth accepting; and there were no free chairs whatsoever. This, he thought with the complaisance of the university man, must be what sea-battles are like.

Breathing heavily, Mr Fox strained his ears in vain for a sign of Mrs Fitzgerald's whereabouts. He had not the least idea of what to expect. While taking the poor beautiful widow as his captive the previous afternoon the highwayman had exhibited troubling symptoms of a personal dislike:—of malevolence, spight, and a wish to cause her in particular the maximum possible allocation of suffering. Was it conceivable, Fox wondered fretfully, that he would discover, not her living, breathing and exceptionally pretty self, but merely her corse? Was this to be the darkest of all imaginable jokes? The highwayman had previously seemed motivated by a playful rather than a wrathful cruelty, by a desire to humiliate rather than to harm; but now Fox was not so sure. He shuddered.

There was a lull in the inn's barrage of noise, as so often happens by malign fate when some poor gentleman is about to make a disastrous faux-pas, and Fox became convinced that he could hear something new, something unexpected. A knocking, very faint, very muffled; an accompanying barely discernible moaning; the entirety repeated, rhythmically uneven, unmistakably human.

Fox's demeanour transformed in an instant from anxious but essentially civilian concern to a warrior's fierce determination, wholly alert, utterly implacable:—he had, after all, seen battles of his own. His attention narrowed from the general to the minutest of specificities: the character of the sounds, their timbre and direction, the physical obstacles between his friend and her deliverance. He roared for quiet, desiring the hunting folk in the strongest terms to stow their d—— gab lest they answer for the contrary at their peril, and stalked through the resultant pin-drop hush with one finger in the air and his ears pricked. All eyes were fixed upon the lunatic clergyman, all talk at an end. They watched him, a parcel of squires and country blowhards shocked and fascinated out of their instinctive love of deference and dislike of instruction, as he crossed the saloon, veered away from the bar after the briefest pause to call for and consume an enlivening glass of Madeira-wine, and approached a set of antient steps in a shadowy corner of the building. A scullery maid of unusual pluck pointed out that the parson "had no business going down there, and no right to walk mud on her clean floor, for shame," and met with such a shocking cannonade of language and physical threat that she had cause heartily to regret her outburst, her vocation, and her birth.

Certain now of his path, Fox snatched up a lantern and descended the stair-case to a disused and cobwebbed cellar, followed a dozen wary paces behind by a moderate croud of well-wishers. The noise was louder than before, but was this because the maker of the noise was closer, or because she was growing more desperate? There was, he now realised, a perceptible beseeching character to the moans. She knew, he felt sure, that rescue was at hand, but he could only hope most fervently that this would be a cause of hope rather than anguish.

The cellar was dark, and damp, and noisome. Holding a handkerchief to his nose, Fox moved crates and assorted detritus to one side until he was able to approach a cupboard in the back corner, almost certain of its contents. There was a lock upon the door, heavy and suspiciously new. He cast the handkerchief aside and took up a brick from the dusty floor, raised it high above his head, and brought it down with all of his strength:—once, twice, three times. The lock broke; the door swung open. Fox raised the lantern.

"Mmph?"

There was a collective intake of breath. A slender figure was revealed within: naked, blinking, and pale with fright. It was Mrs Fitzgerald.

There was a moment of shocked indecision while the croud took in the sight. The poor widow had been chained and shackled with quite prodigious cruelty:—heavy iron manacles held her wrists close together behind her back, while her ancles were imprisoned in an other pair bolted to the floor; yards upon yards of slim chains encircled her legs and torso, biting into her soft flesh and thwarting any attempts at escape. The chains were secured here and there with small strong locks.

A thick band of cloth pressed tightly across her mouth, rendering her well-nigh silent. An especially cruel iron collar about her throat, secured by a small chain to a ring driven into the wall above her head, kept her in a ruthlessly uncomfortable rigid posture, desperate and breathless upon her bare tiptoes. And although she had been deprived of her gown, shoes and smallcloathes, a satin-covered bonnet had with malicious wit been placed upon her head, its jade-silk ribbons fastened securely to her gag. A scrap of paper pinned to its brim made the observation, seemingly directed at the poor captive, that "Her beauty won the applause, to which her wit had but feeble claim."

The lady was exhausted, terrified and utterly helpless, barely able to move or make a sound; and it was a miracle that she had managed to rotate her body sufficiently to knock softly upon the door with her chained hands.

"Mmph!"

Vext by the gentlemen's collective failure to do any thing other than gaze complaisantly, the fettered beauty jiggled and mmphed angrily through her gag. Her chains rattled slightly, her bosom bounced up and down, and a strand of hair escaped from the bonnet and fell across her face rather endearingly; but other than this she was entirely powerless to change her position.

"A pretty treasure haul, upon my honour!" said the master of hounds, smiling broadly. "Well chained, and pleasingly silent. Perhaps we might allow ladies into the saloon bar if they be prepared in the like manner."

"Provided they are leashed, by God, and well trained," added Sir Saunderson Saunderson, who had a bright red face and a fondness for horses.

There was loud laughter and general agreement with this proposition, and Mrs Fitzgerald blushed almost as bright as Sir Saunderson as the men gazed, and laught, and gazed, and laught some more; one would read out the witticism upon the bonnet, and an other would cry that it was a capital jest, to be sure, before being distracted by the captive's most agreeable bosom. This went on for perhaps two or three minutes, but eventually they grew tired of the sport, or amenable to Mr Fox's urging that they "give the lady some privacy, for all that is decent and holy"; whatever the cause, the groupe moved back to the main bar to continue their drinking. As they did so, the landlord could be heard promising to make a sign indicating a change in policy for the benefit of ladies prepared to wear chains and a gag; "and d—— tight corsets," someone put in, whereupon the discussion broke down into disputation about clothing, and wenches more generally, and before long the scheme was forgotten.

With the menfolk dispersed, Mr Fox was at last able to rush forward and pull down the cloth across Mrs Fitzgerald's lips, whereupon she spat out a small laundry basket's worth of linen which had been concealed beneath. Had Mr Fox been more discerning in such matters he might have perceived that the garments, firstly, had been worn before being stuffed into the captive's mouth, and secondly, belonged to the same; but he made a point as a churchman of having no awareness whatsoever of the theory or practice of underwear; indeed he never wore the stuff on principle and refused to allow his wife to do so either.

"Mr Fox! Thank heavens," said the lady, as the bonnet tumbled to the ground. "Kindly free me from these chains, for we have much to do."

3.

Mr Fox's mind was willing, but his body was weak; or at any rate too weak to part iron chains with his bare hands. He made a shew of trying, but of course the thing would not do. Mrs Fitzgerald giggled, and asked the gentleman if he was under the impression that he was some species of Greek god; he countered by advising her that there was no need to be saucy and should she like to spend an other night chained, gagged and helpless in a pitch-black cellar? The lady lowered her eyes demurely and said no sir, she should not.

Aid was now sought from Master Brick, Fox's redoubtable ally of a few minutes previous. But his powers were found to be limited:—the chains binding Mrs Fitzgerald's body were too close to her person to admit of any kind of violent blow, lest they mar her loveliness, as were the fetters and the locks. Fox was able to strike decisively at the stout ring bolts sunk into the brickwork, with the pleasing outcome that the lady's leash could be separated from the wall, as could the chain leading from her ancles. She was still bound, thoroughly and cruelly tight; she was still helpless and unable to walk or shift her arms from the small of her back, or cover her bosom in any way for that matter; but she was able for the first time in at least eight hours to crouch, and sit, and breathe freely, and be shifted bodily out of the cupboard, all of which were a great relief.

Fox placed his black wool coat about the lady's shoulders and lifted her in his arms, much as he had carried Mrs Fox across the threshold of the rectory a half-decade earlier. Together they proceeded up the stairs into the saloon bar, which became quiet the moment they appeared. The cellar party had wasted no time in telling their tale; all eyes turned upon the chained damsel with a lively and knowing interest.

Mrs Fitzgerald's bright blue eyes flashed with a dangerous inner fire, and her chest, so far as it was able given the constraints, swelled with righteous anger.

"A fine way to treat a lady, upon my word!" she cried. "Am I a truss'd heifer to be weighed and purchased? Or a lamb-chop to be thrown before a pack of hungry dogs? I trust you are all able to see, my lords. Would you prefer to croud around and stare with your tongues hanging out? Prodigious fine doings, indeed."

Fox called for a chair. One squire was sufficiently abashed to give his up, making a surprisingly adequate leg and advising Mrs Fitzgerald that she "make herself comfortable, if such a thing were within her powers, and ignore the grass-combing buggers with nothing better to do than stare." The clergyman placed the lady delicately within and took a moment to rearrange the coat to provide a trifle more decency; then whispered into her ear that he "should have her fetters struck off directly, by the good master blacksmith." She nodded and smiled, resolved to endure her privations with courage.

"You, boy!" said Fox, selecting a comparatively respectable-looking specimen from the pub's habitual collection of urchins. "Run and fetch Henry Catchpenny's carriage; tell them Mrs Fitzgerald needs it most urgently; if you are quick I shall pay you a farthing." Then he sat upon the floor and in a low voice asked the lady if she would do him the honour of recounting the events of the previous night.

oOo

"I wish, my dear sir," said she, having made short work of a glass of brandy which Fox held obligingly to her lips, "that I could forget last night; but its events are seared upon my brain for evermore.

"You will re-call my dreadful state when the carriage departed: naked; tightly truss'd hand and foot; and so thoroughly bridled that I could scarcely mewl for rescue. I had seen the implacable ferocity on the highwayman's visage as he stowed me in the carriage and thought I was surely done for.

"And oh, my dear Mr Fox! the taunts and threats to which I was subject as we drove along! He named me a hussy, and a harlot, and a fine proud strumpet who must learn her place; he laught as I squirmed uselessly in my bonds and asked me how I did, and should I care for a trifle more rope?; he even dared, on more than one occasion, to bring the carriage to a halt in some obscure byway and there take intolerable liberties, gloating all the while that I had no means to prevent him from taking full advantage of my poor helpless body... which was lamentably true. I moaned through my gag and thrashed against the tight ropes as best I could, and achieved precisely nothing. Worse than nothing, indeed, for the more I struggled, the more conscious I became of one rope in particular–so intimately entwined about my person–so snugly and cunningly knotted–so humbling in purpose, so vastly distracting in effect..."

She drifted off, colouring prettily, and endeavoured to continue her narrative.

"Eventually I was obliged to lower my eyes in defeat and acknowledge his complete and utter mastery over me:—a cruel humiliation. My only consolation was that the sport seemed to lose its interest for him when I stopt resisting, and he treated me thereafter like an hundredweight of turnips."

"Oh Mrs Fitzgerald!" said Mr Fox with instinctive gallantry; "scarcely seven stones, I am sure."

The lady narrowed and then rolled her eyes, which were as expressive as they were lovely.

"It was long past midnight when he brought me here," she continued, at length; "a squirming helpless bundle with, it grieves me to say, precious little spirit left. He broke in and carried me down here, and when I saw the sack of new chains and locks upon the floor I perceived that he had taken the greatest of pains in planning my abduction and imprisonment. My heart sank.

"Alone with my captor in that accursed room, I was at last permitted to speak. He unbuckled the straps of my bridle and withdrew the wooden bit from my mouth, now dry and parched; I do not know if I could have called out for aid even if I were not prevented from doing so by fear of his reprisals, and a very great doubt, that any one would be close enough to hear. Instead I begged for water, and he gave me a little.

"Now hark thee well, said he; for I do not mean to repeat myself. I propose to unbind you:—I can, you may see, be merciful if it please me, and if you shew yourself submissive and obedient to my will. You are, I believe, entirely tamed; you have become demure and docile; and I am pleased with you. I intend to reward you with a few moments free of your bonds, a brief respite for your doubtless stiff and sore limbs. Perhaps you will betray my trust and attempt to escape. But such an attempt would surely fail, and I should then be obliged to bind you and gag you even more tightly than I planned; under such circumstances it is a matter of uncertainty when I would trouble myself to notify your friends of your whereabouts, if I troubled myself at all. Should you, then, like me to untie you? And will you promise to behave? He smiled, the d—— villain! He wished to make me grovel."

"The gentlemen is indubitably a c——, upon my honour," Mr Fox agreed.

"Well put," said the lady. "I nodded, of course, as submissive as you like: kindly untie my ropes, master highwayman, if it please your honour, I give my word I shall not attempt to escape. Obliging smile, eyes down, voice low. I knew how to play the part, and he was pleased. The ropes were untied, removed: lifted slowly, painfully, from deep grooves in my skin, leaving marks behind to shew where they lay. I was free. For a few moments only, I am sorry to say, but what precious respite, nonetheless!

"After a scant few minutes he took up a set of manacles and shewed them to me. I propose to fetter you, my dear, said he; you should like that very well, would not you? Ask me to chain you up and then say thank you, my lord. And oh, Mr Fox! I saw no choice but to comply. Please bind me with those chains, sir, said I, colouring with the liveliest disapprobation; fetter me tight and secure, like a criminal paraded in shameful captivity to the courthouse. The highwayman enjoyed hearing those words, upon my honour, and lost no time in doing as I asked. I was quickly bound:—even more helpless, even more discomfited than before. The chains were wound tightly about my body, the manacles were placed upon my wrists and ancles, the iron collar about my throat, and all was locked securely in place. Once more I was a helpless captive.

"Thank you for chaining me up, sir, I was obliged to say, even as I groaned with agony. Thank you for my fetters. Thank you for reducing me to a state of the most abject, helpless subjection. And could I trouble you for a gag, in addition to these excellent bonds? I remain capable of speech and must be muzzled at your earliest convenience, if it please your lordship. Oh, the degradation!"

Mrs Fitzgerald was a woman of the utmost pluck and gumption, but her day of humiliation and night of terror had sapped her energies most abominably. Mr Fox laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"I am perfectly well, I thank you," she went on. "I must tell all.

"He threw open the cupboard and my horror was complete:—the new ring bolts driven into the wall made his awful purpose, his painstaking preparations, quite clear. Well; you saw his handiwork for yourself; I need hardly tell you of the painful and needlessly humiliating posture in which he chained me, gagged and bound as tight as could be, fettered to the wall at the feet and the neck, as if his aim was not merely to imprison his captive but to cause as much suffering and mortification as possible. That long dark night:—oh! Mr Fox, I can hardly tell you of my fears. I writhed and moaned into my gag for the first two or three hours until I was exhausted, but it was apparent that I had not the faintest hope of freeing myself; my hopes rested entirely on rescue by an other. But I did not know if any body knew where I was."

The lady was briefly overcome with emotion, and was obliged to pause her narration. "The villain sent me word," said Mr Fox, squeezing her arm. "Thank the dear you were shewn at least that much mercy."

"You are quite right, my dear sir," she replied briskly, the moment of vulnerability vanishing as quick as it had appeared. "It could have been a vast deal worse. I shall be thankful for what I have. I am alive; I have a glass of brandy, (supping aukwardly from the vessel, which Mr Fox held again to her eager lips), I have the company of my excellent friend, and I shall soon be free of these accursed chains."

"Let us drink gladly to that," said Mr Fox, draining lustily his own tankard, which contained an invigorating blend of champagne, beef tea and laudanum. "Perhaps, while we wait, a further supply of beverages..?"

But there was no time to put this cunning stratagem into effect. The boy burst through the door, red of face and short of breath; gave Mr Fox his duty and best compliments, and confided, "that the carriage cannot be had for love nor money, which the young ladies is a-visitin', if it please your honour," then made so bold as to ask, in view of his rapidity, for the promised farthing to be supplied at the gentleman's earliest convenience.

oOo

Mrs Fitzgerald looked at Mr Fox; Mr Fox looked at Mrs Fitzgerald; both looked again at the boy, who winked and did not appear to realise the dreadful import of his words. It was a calamity, crushing and unforeseen.

"How am I to be released?" asked the lady.

"I do not know, my dear. I am most excessively sorry."

"This is a setback, upon my word. My goodness."

There was a discreet cough. A gentleman stept forward and made his presence known, asking "if he might speak on the matter lately discussed, he having something to propose which the lady might find amenable to her requirements."

The detectives shared a glance which was as weary as it was wary.

"What do you wish to say, my dear sir?" asked Mrs Fitzgerald.

"Well," replied the gentleman, who had an ill countenance and a disreputable air; "I only wished to mention, that it should be a privilege if you would permit me to open the locks on them chains."

"A criminal, are you, by God?" Mr Fox's colour rose.

"Hush!" said the lady quickly, under her breath. She did not relish the prospect of spending further hours in those tight fetters. She turned to the man. "Can you truly accomplish this, sir?"

"Yes, ma'am. 'Twould be the work of a moment."

"How vastly fortunate that you came to be here! Excellent man. Please proceed."

"Well; nothing should give me greater pleasure; only I might need to ask for something in return."

She sighed, and rolled her eyes again.

"I see. And what do you propose to ask?"

"Nothing much, madam. Only..."

"Only what?" Mrs Fitzgerald was conscious that the whole room was silent. She was not sure if this was because they did not know what was going to be asked, or because they did.

"I would merely ask, sweet lady, for you to... hop about the room a little."

"Hop?! I am not a rabbit, sir. And I am certainly not going to perform for your amusement."

"Oh; I understand, of course; and may I offer my sincerest apologies and regrets? I wish you the very best and shall trouble you no longer."

He sat down again, raised a tankard to his lips, and pretended to sup; but he was still peeping at the lady out of the corner of his eye. She blushed again, this time from frustration.

"Good lord! Very well. I shall hop, a small amount, mark you, and then you shall remove the chains. Do you give your word, sir?"

"Of course, lovely wench; may the good Lord strike me down if I speak not truly. But there is one other trifling matter, scarcely worth mentioning..."

"And what is that, may I ask? To prance like a gazelle? To crawl like a serpent? To sing like a nightingale?"

"No, madam. Merely that you... don once again that estimable gag."

There was a spontaneous burst of applause when the bashful gentleman managed to say this. "Well said, sir!" put in Sir Saunderson Saunderson. "Hear, hear!" added the master of the hounds.

"The gag?! That foul cloth upon my mouth?! I shall not be silenced! I refuse, sir, most positively and absolutely."

"A most regrettable shame indeed. Ah, well." More counterfeit supping; more keen attention from the other drinkers.

"Fine! I shall wear the cloth again! But exceeding briefly, upon my word."

"For the entire duration of the hopping, if it please your ladyship; from here to yonder bar. And the articles beneath, also."

"The articles..?! You mean... my own underwear?!"

"Yes, your worship, the articles of undercloathing, if I might make so bold as to ask; and me a fine respected church-going gentleman, ask any man here."

Mrs Fitzgerald glanced at Mr Fox, who frowned, shrugged, asked the lady's pardon and observed, that he could not see any other means to secure her freedom.

And so, with the greatest possible reluctance and the utmost sympathy of her friend, the present writer and, I trust, every reader without exception, she nodded her head and promised to obey to the very letter the above-recorded edicts.

oOo

"Is that comfortable, my dear?"

"Nph cmrphnnnmm nph nnph!" [1]

"No, I dare say it is not. I am most excessively sorry."

Mr Fox gave the length of grimy fabric a final yank, tightening still more cruelly the knot at the nape of her neck. The cloth was stretched across poor Mrs Fitzgerald's lower face so tightly and effectively that she had no hope whatsoever of expelling the items within her mouth.

"Phnph nph mnphph vmghnng," she said, struggling to speak through the bundle of linen. [2]

"I sympathise extremely, dear lady."

Mr Fox stepped back to examine his handiwork. The unfortunate lady was now very securely muzzled and silenced in addition to her other woes: wrists manacled tight behind her back, ancles fettered, body cruelly chained and entirely uncloathed. She wriggled against her bonds but once again succeeded only in jiggling her bosom and giving the eager croud a tolerably entertaining shew, which they acknowledged with chears and laughter.

"Hop, then, madam, if it please you," said the locksmith, noticeably less bashful now.

"Nph mnphph nphphnrmnmm dnmph nnph," said Mrs Fitzgerald, provoked and humiliated beyond endurance; but nevertheless she resolved to do as she was bid. She bent her knees, crouching downwards into a coil of potential energy; then, anticlimactically, jumped upwards and forwards in the merest little hop. She might have achieved three inches' progress, if the measurer happened to be in a generous mood. [3]

"Well done, Harriet; well done, indeed," said Mr Fox, in what he hoped was an encouraging tone.

"Mnn mmnn wmmlm, Mn nm phnrm..." said the lady with a blush and a wry expression, leaving the conclusion unstated. [4]

An other tiny hop, and perhaps a fraction more distance gained than previously; then an other, and an other, each attempt accompanied by a small and rather mortifying squeak of effort.

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

"Mmmmmmmmnnnphh!"

HOP

"Not far to go, now, my dear," said Mr Fox, helpfully.

"A comfortable half-yard gained," conceded the master of hounds; "and just five yards remaining."

"She will be at the bar before we know it," added Sir Saunderson Saunderson. "Would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of stout, my dear, and bring it smartly to my table? There's a good wench." He chuckled at his own witticism.

"Fmphch nph ymnrphmmf, hm Gnn. Mmmphh!" [5]

HOP

Naked, tightly chained, and thoroughly gagged, Mrs Fitzgerald was in no position to take issue with her treatment; it was a matter of little importance, she reflected, whether the gentlemen were unable to understand her complaints thanks to the muffling effect of that carefully applied gag, or merely uninterested in them. Her only recourse was swift and efficient obedience, and she accordingly hopped more and more vigorously across the room.

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

She had been bound and humiliated on numerous occasions before; one might imagine that she would have become used to the experience, or at any rate inured to its sting. She had not.

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

It did not help, of course, that on this occasion there was a large audience for her misfortune; nor that the audience found her misfortune exceedingly diverting, shewed little interest in helping, and indeed specifically desired it to be prolonged. She felt that the entire room was against her, which was hard on Mr Fox; but had he not volunteered to tie the gag?

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

Not that being gagged by Mr Fox was a wholly unpleasant experience, she supposed. He could be depended upon to ensure that a gag was particularly tight.

"Mmmphh!"

HOP

With a final squeak, Mrs Fitzgerald reached the bar and collapsed on to it, her fine shapely bosom squashing against the polished wood. There was a chear. Mr Fox dashed over and untied the lady's gag as the gentlemen who had proposed the scheme produced a bundle of tools and prepared to make good on his promise.

"Wish you joy, my dear," said Mr Fox as a series of satisfying clicks announced the removal of a succession of small locks and the gradual freeing of the lady's limbs. "A fine accomplishment."

"Thank you, kind sir," she replied. "And now I trust we can commence the next phase of our investigation:—the ultimate phase, we may hope, for I believe I know the identity of the highwayman, and have a tolerably plausible plan to flush this person out; with no need, on this occasion, for my person to be tightly bound, chained, strapt, locked within an antient oubliette or subjected to any other form of physical confinement. Which shall make a most agreeable change, I must say."

The last chains dropt off Mrs Fitzgerald's body and she was able at long last to stretch fully and put on her clothes: a rather undersized gown supplied by one of the serving wenches. As she did so, the door swung open and the Catchpennies' footman stood silhouetted in the morning light.

"Which the carriage is arrived, as desired by the ecumenical gentleman," he said in a booming voice.

Both detectives looked about for the treacherous boy, but he had taken the hint at an earlier moment and departed with the utmost alacrity.

oOo

[1] "It certainly is not!"

[2] "This is most vexing."

[3] "It most assuredly does not."

[4] "You mean well, I am sure..."

[5] "Fetch it yourself, by God."