Chapter 4
Mrs. Seward was waiting for her in her bedroom when Joey got out of the bathtub. She was mumbling something about 'not being told' something when she turned around, and then she shrieked. "Dirty girl!"
Joey looked startled, and the woman flew across the room to where Joey was holding her clothes and shoes. "Look at your shoes, you dirty little girl! Didn't you wipe them when you came in?" Joey looked at the soles that Mrs. Seward was holding upward, and saw dirt and sand and debris from Ororo's garden stuck under the heels and buckles of her shoes. Fortunately, Mrs. Seward was far more worried about the dirty shoes than she was about where the dirt had come from.
"Did you walk all over the house in these shoes?" Mrs. Seward demanded. Joey lowered her eyes to the carpet and nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Seward. I'm sorry."
"Take these disgustingly dirty shoes back into your bathroom, wash them thoroughly, and scrub out all the mud with the shoe brush in the sink," Mrs. Seward said, disgusted. "Put them in the bathroom to dry, then I want you to fill the bathroom bucket with water, get the cleanser from the cabinet under the sink, and I want you to start at the front door. You will scrub the floor of every room you have walked into, clean every speck of dirt from all of the rooms, and then you will finish by scouring your bathroom from floor to ceiling. Do you understand?"
"A-all the rooms?" Joey stammered. "Mrs. Seward, I took the bag up to the gentleman's room. Do I need to clean there too?"
"All the rooms!" Mrs. Seward shouted at her, and Joey stumbled back a step. "And you will do a thorough job of it. When you are done come to my room. You shall not go to bed tonight."
Joey trudged back into her bathroom down the hall, tears filling her eyes. No food that day, and now she was not to be able to sleep either. This was so unfair!
She scrubbed and scrubbed the soles of her shoes until every speck of mud and dirt was off them, then cleaned the tops so that they looked almost like new. Setting them down in the bathtub to dry, she took the bucket out from under the sink and filled it with warm water, took the spray bottle of cleanser and a scrub sponge, then made her way slowly down the stairs to the front foyer. Dropping wearily to her knees, she started scrubbing every square foot of the hardwood floor.
The grandfather clock in the hall was chiming eight thirty when she finally finished the entire room. She paused wearily at the foot of the steps that led from the foyer to the upper floors, rubbing her aching shoulders, then reluctantly took the scrub sponge and started working on the first step.
It was well past nine thirty when she finished the last of the twenty-five marble steps. She sighed and wilted to her knees, fighting tears as she looked down the long hall. Surely Mrs. Seward didn't mean the whole hall, did she? She'd only walked down a little part of it. The guest room was only five doors down from hers. She started scrubbing.
At ten o'clock Mrs. Seward came out of her room, next to Joey's, and watched the girl scrub the floor in front of her room. "Did you do the entire hall?" she demanded.
"N-no," Joey said, sitting back on her heels. The knees of her white nightgown were dirty from scrubbing the floors. "I only walked down a little of it, so I figured I'd clean where I'd walked--"
Mrs. Seward grabbed Joey's arm, grabbed the bucket with her other hand, and half-dragged the girl down the hall. She let Joey fall to her knees at the top of the hall, where the stairs started, and said, "I said every room you walked in, and I meant it. I want every inch of this hall floor scrubbed, do you understand that?"
Joey flinched at the sound and tone of the woman's voice, but she didn't dare argue. She dipped her sponge in the pail and grimly started scrubbing over the floor.
It was almost midnight when she finished the entire hallway. She leaned against the wall at the end of the hall, her arms trembling from the strain, and let the tears fall silently down her cheeks. She was tired, so tired, and she wanted to curl up right there and fall asleep…but she would get in even more trouble if she did that, and so she forced her heavy feet to the door of the guest room and knocked softly when she saw light under the door. "Come in."
Mr. Hunt looked surprised when she opened the door. "Shouldn't you be in bed by now?' he asked her.
Joey blinked back tears. "I came in with dirty shoes," she whispered. "Mrs. Seward got mad at me and she told me to scrub the floor of every room I'd walked into. I'm not to go to bed tonight."
"Poor child," the man said, smiling. "You know, I didn't see any mud in my room. Skip my room."
The offer was tempting, but Joey shook her head. 'I'll get in trouble if Mrs. Seward finds out," she sighed. "I'll try to hurry so I don't bother you too long." She dropped to her knees and started scrubbing.
She could feel Mr. Hunt's eyes on her as she scrubbed. She felt really uncomfortable under his scrutiny; and once or twice, when she caught his eye, she noticed his gaze was directed somewhere toward her body. It was very uncomfortable. She hurried, scrubbing faster.
She finally finished in a corner of the room and dropped her scrub brush in the bucket, sighing heavily as she stood. A hand took the bucket from her and set it back down, and Mr. Hunt took her over to a chair, sitting down and lifting her onto his knee. Joey gasped in shock and tried to squirm away, but his hands were wrapped firmly around her hip, pinning her to his leg. "Let me go!" she cried. "Let me go, I don't want to sit in your lap, stop it…" She wriggled again.
Mr. Hunt's breathing sounded odd, like he'd just run a mile, but he held her firmly on his lap, and Joey panicked. She lunged out of the chair, throwing all of her weight forward to try and break his grip, but all she succeeded in doing was dragging them both out of the chair. She landed on the floor hard on her chest, gasping as the breath rushed out of her lungs from the weight of Mr. Hunt's body atop hers.
"Get off me!" she cried. "Please, get off me!!" He pushed himself up on his elbows, and she wormed out from under him, grabbed her bucket, and fled the room.
Hunt got up, slowly. Maybe he'd pushed it too far too soon. He should have tried to gain her confidence first. Well, if he was lucky, her nanny would dismiss her story as a fanciful child's lies, and then no one would believe her. The nanny didn't seem like the sympathetic type, anyway.
He groaned as he remembered the tiny body wrapped inside the voluminous folds of the white nightgown. When she was on her hands and knees scrubbing her panty-clad backside had showed plainly through the thin white fabric, and it had been all he could do not to drop to his knees behind her and take her right there. He returned to his bed, lying down and pulling the sheet up, and reached under the covers to feel the hardness there. Thinking about the girl soon brought him fulfillment, and he settled back and went to sleep.
Joey fled down the hall to the library, tears falling down her cheeks. What had happened? It seemed innocent; her mother had had her sit on her lap many times, and Joey had never felt anything but safe and protected there. But this man…this stranger…something didn't feel right, his intentions hadn't been innocent, of that much she was sure.
Her mind awhirl with confused thoughts and misgivings, she finished the library, then dragged her tired, aching body down the hall to her bathroom. Fishing out her now-dry shoes from the bathtub, she put them on the floor as she emptied the bucket of dirty water down the drain, then started cleaning the bathroom. Fortunately it was a small bathroom, and she didn't have a lot of things in it. She wiped down the counters, scrubbed the toilet, sink and tub, then finished off with the floor. When she was satisfied that the bathroom was as clean as she could make it, she picked up her shoes, took them to her room and put them in the closet, then lay back on her bed for just a moment, tears filling her eyes. She wanted so much to curl up and go to sleep; her arms and shoulders were aching from all the scrubbing. Instead, after a moment, she pushed up off the bed, smoothed the covers so it didn't look like she had lain down in it, and trudged off to Mrs. Seward's room.
The room was dark, and she tiptoed in hesitantly. "Mrs. Seward?" she whispered. "Mrs. Seward, I'm done scrubbing the floors."
"Well it's about time," came a sleepy grumble from the wide bed in the middle of the room. "Go stand in the corner, face to the wall. I don't want you to go to sleep, so raise your arms." Joey sighed. Having to stand in the corner with her arms raised, hands directly over her head, was a familiar punishment; the ache took a while to settle into her shoulders, but eventually when it did keeping her arms up would become torture. Well it wouldn't take long this time; her shoulders already ached from the strain of scrubbing. "Um, Mrs. Seward?"
"What?" came the cross voice from the bed.
"I was in the guest bedroom scrubbing the floor, and…well, when I was done he tried to get me to sit on his lap, and he was touching my hips…"
Mrs. Seward sprang out of bed, rushing over to Joey and slapping her cheek. Not hard; but it was enough to get her point across. "Bad girl! Lying about your father's guest! How dare you make up such lies! Get the yardstick, now!" She switched on the light.
Joey's face went white. "Mrs. Seward, please, I swear I'm not lying! I wouldn't lie about something like that! Please, Mrs. Seward, I swear…" but the woman pointed toward her closet, and Joey went to it, her steps halting. She opened the closet door and took, from inside it, the long wooden yardstick and handed it to Mrs. Seward. Then, tears still filling her eyes, she turned around and pulled her nightgown up to her waist.
The first blow took her by surprise, as it always did. But it smarted particularly badly this time, since it had been so long since the last time she had felt the heavy wooden implement impact against the backs of her calves. And the hurt only got worse, as Mrs. Seward didn't stop with the five smacks she usually gave Joey, but delivered five more to the backs of Joey's thighs. Joey sobbed as she clenched her fists in her nightgown, willing herself not to cry out.
She dropped the hem of the nightgown at Mrs. Seward's command, and replaced the yardstick in the closet. Mrs. Seward returned to her bed without a word, and Joey went to stand in the corner, her arms raised.
It was a hellish night. It wasn't the first time she'd been ordered to stay up all night, but sometimes she could lean her forehead against the wall and prop herself upright as she dozed lightly. Not so tonight. Her legs throbbed with a fiery sting; and her shoulders ached. She bit her lip to keep her sobs from escaping and disturbing the sleeping woman in the bed, and just stood there, weeping silently, until the room lightened and Mrs. Seward woke.
"Get out." And Joey dropped her arms and fled.
The welts on her thighs and calves were distracting as she tried to concentrate on her schoolwork. She shifted in her seat constantly, earning numerous reprimands from her tutors about her inability to pay attention, and when she was finally dismissed at noon to eat, she fled to the dining room with relief. She hadn't been able to eat much breakfast; maybe lunch would be easier.
But when she reached the dining room, more humiliation awaited her. Mrs. Seward was there, and beside her was Mr. Hunt. "I have told Mr. Hunt about your lies, Joette," Mrs. Seward said coldly. "And he is rightly outraged. I have told him that you have been punished for your lies, but he wishes you to render him an apology. Apologize, now."
Joey opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She couldn't.
"Apologize, or you shall not eat any lunch today." Mrs. Seward threatened.
Joey dropped her eyes and shoulders, defeated. She hurt all over, she was so tired she could almost fall asleep standing up, and she was starving. "I'm sorry for making up lies," she mumbled.
"I did not hear you. Speak louder," Mrs. Seward rapped out crisply.
"I'm sorry for making up lies about you, Mr. Hunt," Joey repeated louder. Her eyes burned with tears she was too tired to shed.
The man nodded, and Mrs. Seward said, "Sit down and eat, Joette. And don't fidget."
Joey controlled her wriggling as best she could. She couldn't control it entirely; the dining room chairs were solid wood, and the welts on the backs of her thighs were very painful indeed. She finally took a seat on the very edge of the chair and finished her lunch that way; then went back up to the library for her last two hours of schoolwork before being told to leave. She fled to the relative shelter of the greenhouse; she didn't want to see miss Ororo that day. She had to wear a dress, since jeans would have chafed the welts on her legs unbearably; but the dark bruises on her calves were visible, and she didn't want to have to admit that she'd been punished. So she locked herself in the greenhouse and curled up on the floor, and started to cry.