Previous Chapter Back to Content & Review of this story Display the whole story in new window (text only) Previous Story Back to List of Newest Stories Next Story Back to BDSM Library Home

Review This Story || Author: Tavy

Georgina

Chapter 10 The Colonel


GEORGINA - Chapter 10: The Colonel


The workhouse porter was appalled at the coal-dust being scattered about the tile floor of the entrance and through to the Relieving Room from the unconscious girl's cloak and the waggoner's boots as he helped the constable to carry her in.   "Neither the master not the medical officer are here.  You should have made an appointment if you wanted her assessed."

The constable dismissed the driver of the coal wagon before turning to the porter "Find a nurse to see her then."

"Take that filthy cloak off her,  we can't have that coal-dust everywhere" grumbled the porter."

"She's wearing nothing under it" the constable pointed out.

Once a nurse had arrived and started sponging Georgina's face to try to revive her, the exasperated porter set off to find the matron.

But before he returned the workhouse master entered pursued by two elderly gentleman.  He looked in contempt at Georgina who was just regaining consciousness then dismissed the policeman saying "What are you hanging around here staring for? "

The constable replied "Sir, I ought to speak with this woman to ascertain whether she has been the victim of a criminal assault."

"I shall speak with her and call your station if any crime has been committed" replied the master.  "In any case I need to find out which parish she belongs to if she's to be admitted here."

Georgina,  now vaguely aware of their conversation but confused and terrified of being returned to the pit  starting mumbling "No,  no!"

As the policeman turned and left the shorter of the two elderly gentlemen, who wore a white dog-collar, pushed forward to insist to the workhouse master "You should not refuse to allow the fruits of our Harvest Festival to be distributed to the needy in your care..."

Infuriated he turned to the pestering rector "How many times do I have to tell you, it is for their own good that the inmates here are not allowed to become too comfortable and pampered.  You of all people, Sir, should understand it is our moral duty to persuade the lazy and indolent that they should work rather than loiter here; both for their own spiritual good and for the good of society upon whom they should not be a burden.  Look at this wench here who I must urgently attend to."  He suddenly paused reflecting that perhaps it was not proper for the gaze of a man of the cloth to fall upon such an indecent female.

The other gentleman interceded "Perhaps, Your Reverence, we should seek the advice of the overseer as to families who are suffering and in need elsewhere in the diocese?"

Georgina immediately recognised that voice and without thinking weakly called out "Colonel Wilson, Sir."

He turned and stared at the miserable female lying with thin, filthy legs indecently exposed below a dirty loose fitting cloak wondering whether he should recognise her.  Then she turned her head to look pathetically up at him and he stared into her pleading eyes.   "Mistress Hudson?  No, surely you can't be?"  She reached a grazed thin arm towards him, allowing the cloak to fall aside exposing   a bare shoulder, to the horror of the master.  The Colonel looked with disbelief at the slender hand outstretched in desperation "Georgina it is you, isn't it?"

She then lay back sadly asking in a quiet voice "Why did you turn me away after I fled to your home?"

"I would never turn you away dear Georgina" he reassured her, wondering if her mind was wandering.

"Charlotte sent me away, saying I should go to the workhouse..." Georgina mumbled.

"Charlotte!" the Colonel spat "I don't know how I was taken in by that woman, she walked out on me, to go off with some rake from Manchester, once she decided I wasn't likely to die soon so she could get her hands on my money.  I am so, so sorry, I didn't know..." he continued shakily.

"Reverend Armstrong, can you please go out and call for my carriage.  I must get this young lady attended to by Doctor Bachasson immediately."  The clergyman obeyed the Colonel's command despite his revulsion at the "Lady" referred to.

Dr Bachasson had never before had such a patient to deal with in his house.  The first thing she needed was a good wash,  but he hesitated to ask his own housekeeper to deal with such a squalid creature.

"Colonel,  do you have a maid or housekeeper who could assist me?" he enquired.

"No,  I'm still trying to engage one, none of the ones I select stay more than a day or two"  the Colonel replied.  "Don't worry,  I'll clean her up a bit before you look at her."

The Doctor decided to leave the Colonel to his task while he retired to his study for a smallish glass of brandy to steady his nerves.

When he returned he was  slightly shocked to see the girl stripped totally bare with the Colonel carefully trying to clean dirt and grit from the deep cuts in her feet with a wet sponge.  As the Colonel probed her wounds her glistening pale body tensed and occasionally arched off the table in pain.

The Colonel looked up and stated "I've cleaned her up a bit.  As you can see she's suffered superficial cuts and grazes to just about every part of her body, but some of the wounds to her hips and chest are deep, you'd better take a look at them."

The Doctor stared up and down the girl's emaciated body noticing how the darker bruised areas and the raw swollen cuts and grazes contrasted with her almost white skin where she wasn't injured.  Then she turned her head and looked straight at him.  Embarrassed he turned away but then the Colonel addressed him again.

"She looks to me as though she may have suffered an assault to her private parts." The Colonel waited for the Doctor to turn back before continuing "You had better check her over there, that's one kind of injury we didn't have to attend to in the army."

Doctor Bachasson froze momentarily then mumbled something about needing some swabs.  He returned to his study and poured himself another brandy.  He had occasionally been called by the midwife to put stitches into tears after a difficult delivery, but then the patients had been covered as much as possible, leaving just the vaginal area uncovered for him to carry out his surgery without distraction.  But now he was faced with a young woman's body laid stretched out in his surgery displaying every inch of its flesh,  even if appallingly battered and starved.

  

The third glass of brandy cleared his head a bit.   His patient's body was little more than skin and bones,  so he would concentrate his mind,  thinking back to when he was a student at the College de St. Cosme, and try to imagine he was just dealing with one of the skeletons used for instructing the trainee surgeons.

Colonel Wilson watched intently as the Doctor stated to probe Georgina's vagina.   "I've repaired tears to the perineum on patients after giving birth but the bleeding here seems to be coming from deeper  inside ..."  As he eased his instruments further in Georgina uttered an inhuman scream, arching her back for a couple of seconds before trying to curl up and roll away from her tormentor.  "It's alright" the Doctor reassured her "I'll leave it alone."

Turning to the Colonel he snapped "Stop feeling her over,  a bit of dirt never did any harm.   I just need to get those deep cuts to her thighs and chest stitched up before she loses any more blood."

That evening, after the Doctor's treatment with laudanum and brandy had eased her discomfort, Georgina was carefully placed in a hired carriage, wrapped in blankets, to take her to the Colonel's house after he had reassured Doctor Bachasson that he had arranged for a nurse to tend for her.

Over the next week the infections from her wounds sent Georgina into a high fever,  she wouldn't eat and Colonel Wilson had to force water down her throat to prevent fatal dehydration.  Covered in stinking sweat she writhed furiously and kept throwing off her sheets and blankets.

When Dr Bachasson visited he was apalled that Colonel Wilson had not in fact employed a nurse as he had promised and looked in disgust at Georgina squirming naked and delirious on the sweat soaked bed. 

He increased her dosage of laudanum and further prescribed chamomile in an attempt to redress the imbalance of her humors, which he attributed as much to the lack of female attention as to her starvation and loss of blood.

The Doctor took offence at the sight of Colonel Wilson grappling with Georgina's body glistening with perspiration, as he held her down on the bed with one hand firmly pressing down on her collarbone while trying to sponge clean the suppurating wounds to her chest and breasts with the other.  "The patient needs to be kept wrapped up and warm, not manhandled and groped for your entertainment!  If you won't employ a nurse forthwith I refuse to collude any further in your abuse of her." saying which he packed his black leather bag and turned away.

As he left the Colonel called after him "Don't forget to send your bill on to me ..."

However, over the next 10 days Georgina ate little and spent an increasing amount of time curled up lying on her side complaining of stomach pains.

Before calling Doctor Bachasson again Colonel Wilson decided he had better try to engage a nurse to tend to Georgina. 

Elizabeth Platt had almost given up trying to get another job after Mrs Crawford had forced her to  resign from her post of governess to Mistress Amelia.  However Colonel Wilson had been in such haste to employ a nurse for his charge that he had conceded that Elizabeth could provide the references from her previous employer later.

Elizabeth determined to make a  sufficiently good impression that her failure to come up with the promised references might be forgotten, even though she had been given little clue as to the exact nature of the "lady recovering from distressing circumstances" whom she was to nurse.

Her first impression of Georgina confirmed her worst fears.  She had been ushered into a foul smelling upstairs room with the shutters and curtains drawn shut.  In bed she could make out a motionless thin woman with lacklustre tangled light brown hair covered by a crumpled woollen blanket.

All she was told was that Miss Georgina was recovering from an unfortunate incident and that she needed to slowly recover her strength.

Georgina seemed confused and listless.   She took a little food then refused any more,  turning her head away.  It smelled as though she had soiled her bed so Elizabeth gingerly removed the blanket and the sweat soaked soiled sheet beneath.

Elizabeth had never seen a body with its bones so visible beneath its stretched skin, the ribs accentuated by the reddish brown healing grazes over them.  She hurried off to fetch the bath then away to the kitchen to fetch kettles full of hot water. She reflected that at the Crawford's household maids had done such fetching and carrying for her.

Georgina was surprisingly light to lift into the bath,  lighter even than sweet little Amelia.   She wriggled weakly but didn't resist being gently lowered into the warm water.  

Amelia had always struggled and fought to avoid being put in the bath,  Elizabeth had always quite enjoyed restraining Amelia,  twisting her arm so she grimaced with pain while threatening terrifying consequences should she cry out.

Elizabeth studied the wounds and scars on Georgina's body.   She tried to imagine what had caused them, to visualise the girl's pain.   Her heart beat faster as she wished she had been there.  Wished she had inflicted them and seen the girl's agony.

Perhaps there was still time?  As she wrapped her arms round Georgina to lift her she momentarily gave her chest a sharp squeeze.  

Georgina turned and stared at her,  Elizabeth saw pain in her eyes but also defiance.  This wasn't a child she was dealing with this time and she couldn't afford to lose another job.   "Sorry" she said as sincerely as she could.

Two weeks later Elizabeth regretted having done so good a job caring for her patient.  For now she was no longer required, the fever having passed and Georgina was back on her feet.   She now hated Georgina for recovering and wished she had taken advantage of her weakness when she's had first arrived.

But as she packed her few belongings Colonel Wilson knocked on her door then entered.   He handed her a letter.   A testimony to her skill and dedication in caring for her patient.  "Thank you sir,  this will make finding new work a bit easier."

The Colonel smiled kindly.   He then handed her another slip of paper "If you are seeking a new position go to this address and ask for Mrs Vaughan.  She will be expecting you and is looking for a nanny for her two daughters."

Elizabeth Platt thanked the Colonel, curtsied, and left.

Colonel Wilson had listened with horror to the tales Georgina told him.   As her strength returned she started talking of taking revenge on Ben,  Agnes and Mr Thomas.

"Is it really them you should be blaming?"  Georgina stared back at him in disbelief.   "It seems to me that they're as much victims of Lord Rawtenstall as you are" he reflected.

"Yes him,  as well" she conceded.  After a minute or so's reflection she added "But I do regret hitting  Mr Woods."  She paused "Though I might never have escaped from there if I hadn't been..." she hesitated "...attacked.  And left for dead."

Colonel Wilson did make enquiries, the pit had recently closed and few of the former workers remained in the village.  

When he returned home he told Georgina of the desolation which had already set in there.   Rather than dwelling on the horrors of the recent past he suggested she look instead to the future.   She didn't reply, but looked listlessly down at her feet.

"We should go on that Grand Tour which you had been so looking forward to before!" he announced.

Georgina shrugged and moved her gaze from her feet to the fire "Who would accompany us?" she sneered, wishing to forget her past life of comfort with her family.

"I have someone in mind who would be willing to accompany us,  subject to your approval."

Not that Elizabeth Platt, thought Georgina, wishing that the Colonel would just let her rest, alone.

"Come in!" the Colonel called out to someone waiting silently in the hall.   Georgina looked up as she heard footsteps entering the room.

Nervously holding his cap in both hands stood the young gamekeeper yeoman.   "At your service Mistress Hudson" he said after a moment's hesitation.

Georgina smiled shyly at him,  slightly embarrassed as she remembered how they had met before.

"Isn't it proper for me to have a female companion."

The Colonel started to reply "Of course,  my dear.  If you want to be proper I'm sure... "

"No!"  she interrupted  "I don't care about being proper,  this young man... "  She paused,  embarrassed  "I must apologise, I don't think you ever told me your name!"

"William Kipling,  Miss."

"But don't you work for Lord Rawtenstall?"

"Not any more Miss, things have been going bad for the estate recently,  three of us keepers have been sacked.  'Tis said his Lordship has lost a lot of money in railway shares."

"I'm sure that Kipling will be much more capable than your brother should it come to needing firearms to protect us."  added the Colonel.

"Very well.  But if you are too join us you are to call me Georgina, not Miss."  She smiled slightly,  for the first time in many months.

THE END



Review This Story || Author: Tavy
Previous Chapter Back to Content & Review of this story Display the whole story in new window (text only) Previous Story Back to List of Newest Stories Next Story Back to BDSM Library Home