CHAPTER 1

A BATTLE OF WILLS

To say that Karen Lamberton-Marchment did not appreciate certain aspects of her stepdaughter’s, shall we say - contrary - nature would have been an understatement. But on the other hand young Alice Lamberton’s latest rebellious dalliance ironically seemed set to provide the key to change all that. Narcotics!

Not that it was that unusual to read in the tabloid press of students flocking to the latest less-than-legal pharmaceutical recreation, even upper school students, such as Alice and certain of her cohorts. And of course it was not to the likes of ‘crack’ cocaine, ‘crystal meth’ and those other pollutants of disenfranchised inner-city youth that girls of Alice’s class and social position were likely to gravitate. Nor was it strictly speaking recreational - at least not initially; it never was that simple, was it? No, as far as girls of Alice Lamberton’s standing were concerned ironically it was all about ambition, never despair - at least not despair born of poverty, financial poverty that is. It was peer competition as much as peer pressure that drove these girls. If there was a sense of pressure, then it was academic pressure; the pressure to perform, to move on to the most prestigious universities.

Ritalin-fuelled, they’d stay up all night cramming and revising. Then through the day too, once the candle became too depleted at either ends to maintain attention in class. Other ‘smart drugs’ soon followed, then even more addictive prescription agents of the benzodiazepine family - it had been typical of the pattern of upper-middle class substance abuse once confined to the high flyer’s office and certain university campuses but having now begun to trickle down to corrupt that all-important final year at school. But it was still drug addiction, pure and simple: so stupid... and yet so fortuitous - at least insofar as Karen Lamberton-Marchment was concerned.

At one level it had been easy enough to deal with. The physical side of her stepdaughter’s withdrawal could be handled by her doctor. A long term friend, this singularly enlightened physician had devised what turned out to be the perfect substitute, and one which she had been more than happy to prescribe.

The unfortunate fact that this substitute was nearly equally addictive - perhaps more so in certain respects - was not without its advantages.

Her stepdaughter’s insolent devil-may-care audacity, impertinence and the discourtesy the girl habitually showed her she put down as much to the laissez-faire attitude of the school the girl had until recently attended towards matters of discipline as to the pampering of the girl’s over-doting late father. Well, the doting father was gone, the school was out of the picture and she herself - in her guise as Alice’s legal guardian - was no longer powerless, despite the girl’s years and the fact she was not now far from the ‘age of majority’. Much of that ‘self-reliance’ and ‘independent spirit’ the girl’s school had always crowed on about in their literature citing the benefits of their ‘progressive approach to education’ had now largely evaporated in the face of her stepdaughter’s new-found reliance on her physician’s script. Indeed, Alice’s growing dependence on the good doctor had placed her now well and truly under the woman’s control, and by proxy her own. But it was time now to more fully tame the girl, to get her stepdaughter properly ‘domesticated’ as her doctor friend liked to put it. In short; it was high time some ‘structure’ was introduced into the carefree life of Alice Lamberton.

Outside of the involvement of her tame physician - Dr Anne Ecclestone - the action she considered to have been most pivotal in the development of her plans for her errant stepdaughter was the moment she anonymously tipped off the local police. The latter intervention had resulted in getting the girl’s dealer acquaintance safely put away for quite some considerable time, but not before she had carried out several ‘deals’ of her own through a trusted intermediary.

Spread over several weeks she had accumulated quite a respectable stock of illicit pharmaceuticals through that route, certainly sufficient to implicate the girl’s fiancé as somewhat higher up the food-chain than a mere ‘user’, higher up than the dealer himself in fact. Planted about the young lad’s car - something that had proved surprisingly easy to achieve while both had been ‘distracted’ in the girl’s room - no longer neatly bagged up in ‘street deals’ but combined in a couple of large packages, the implication in the eyes of the investigating officers was obvious enough.

As if this had not been enough to have ‘taken care’ of young Alice’s boyfriend in itself, patiently, over many months, she had been withdrawing various unconnected amounts from several different bank accounts in dribs and drabs - a precaution intended to avoid any risk of a pattern forming. She had amalgamated these sums into a substantial stash of cash that she had craftily contrived to have secreted away in the guy’s flat, using her very own stepdaughter as the tool to place the package, the latter having been wrapped by an intermediary as a further precaution against the discovery of her involvement. A single empty, used ‘wrap’ carelessly left interleaved between the wrappings was enough to supply the dealer’s DNA, connecting him to the cash. The implication, of course, was that Alice’s boyfriend was in actuality the supplier to the pair’s dealer rather than that nefarious chap’s ‘customer’ as was the truth of the matter.

Bringing it all together had then involved simply choosing a time and date to tip-off the police when she was confident that her stepdaughter’s fiancé would be meeting the dealer to pick up a ‘fix’ for her young charge, the final piece in a jigsaw that had been, in fact, somewhat more complex in implementation than in description. She had been somewhat shocked, though, when through her machinations the girl’s fiancé had been awarded twelve years for supply and possession. In truth she had only really intended to get the lad out of her stepdaughter’s life by discrediting him, placing the blame on him for her stepdaughter’s troubles. The judge, though, had had different ideas; he had wanted to ‘send a message’, make an ‘example’ to ‘others out there’... But TWELVE years!

Alice Lamberton herself had only just avoided prison; that had been the point when Karen Lamberton-Marchment had really begun to appreciate that she had gone too far. She had not cared too much about the fate of the girl’s beau - not once she had gotten over the initial shock - but she hadn’t wanted to relinquish her control over Alice, despite the notion of seeing the girl languishing behind bars not being without a certain frisson.

All along, though, the ever-resourceful, ever-imaginative, Ms Lamberton-Marchment had been entertaining a notion of an even stronger frisson. It was not so much the general idea of young Alice being thrown in prison per se she had objected to, rather that it was she, herself - Karen Lamberton-Marchment - who she had always seen in her mind’s eye as the girl’s gaoler and the ‘prison’ a private one of her own singular conception. And yet in a way this ‘near miss’ had served to strengthen her hold over her stepdaughter. Several years’ worth of suspended sentence - suspended in so long as she received medical treatment and remained under the supervision of her stepmother - provided no little leverage.

And she needed that leverage if she was to keep her paws on the family purse-strings. She managed the girl’s trust fund and dolled out the girl’s allowance, but the remainder of Alice’s father’s estate - by far the major part - was all tangled up in restrictive covenants aimed at protecting his over-pampered daughter’s interests. That was not to say she hadn’t been able to surreptitiously purloin a fair fraction through some rather dubious legal shenanigans of her own - the girl’s late father had not been the only one with the financial nous, foresight and wherewithal to employ clever legal representation. But that had probably made matters worse, long term - or at least it would have, if not for this new set of circumstances.

The ‘foresight’ part of the equation had on occasion passed her by - and some of her ‘dubious legal shenanigans’ had been dubious indeed. She had tended to live for the day and had, if she were to be honest, squandered a fair portion of the estate earmarked for her late husband’s blessed daughter. In so doing, while not exactly blind to the possible legal repercussions - once her stepdaughter came of age and took control of her own affairs - she had certainly been guilty of living in a state of denial. But none of that would matter one iota now - not if she played her cards right!

As for the pair’s dealer acquaintance: Being well known to the courts and with several previous convictions under his belt, he had stood to receive a good few years behind bars himself. He had been only too willing to agree with the investigating officers’ view implicating Alice’s boyfriend as his supplier, testifying against the unfortunate youth in return for a more lenient sentence. He certainly would not have risked bearing witness against the members of his true supply chain; East Londoners, from eastern European stock having strong links to Albanian organised crime; he would not have lived long if he had.

But that had all been some time ago. Today was another day. Smiling to herself, those thoughts ever-fresh in her mind, Karen Lamberton-Marchment turned sidelong to the cheval mirror, her large almond shaped eyes narrowing. As so often, today she was in full equestrian attire: a greenish-tan fitted wool jacket monogrammed with her initials having a silk collar, a white shirt and black leather riding gloves, her tight white riding breeches showing off her curvaceous, shapely bottom to its seductive best. Having just ‘done the rounds’, as she referred to her habit of personally giving the stables the ‘once over’ - her traditional morning ride always completed before breakfast - the latter were tucked into the tops of a pair of rubber Wellingtons.

The tall, green hardwearing classic Wellingtons she usually reserved for whenever she seemed likely to be spending the morning organising and supervising the stable hands rather than out riding - as she much preferred - had been eschewed this particular day in favour of a pair of super-glossy Wellington-style fashion boots that wouldn’t have looked amiss on a catwalk. These were of a sophisticatedly fruity split colour design, having a broad band of rich, deep fruits-of-the-forest purple, proudly embossed with the maker’s emblem, occupying the upper quarter of the leg before changing abruptly to a dense black there after.

The shiny, glossed finish of the vulcanised rubber looked as if it could only have been achieved through the boots having been polished to within an inch of their lives. Yet that wondrous mirror finish was now streaked in shades of putrid yellowish brown, the moulded rubber perfection marred by the sort of detritus and muck typical of the stable yard. It would take even more sweat and even greater amounts of elbow grease to rehabilitate those streamlined, classically equestrian, sleek uppers with their sensually moulded slim ankles to the showcase condition Karen Lamberton-Marchment demanded. Glancing down, other than momentarily light-heartedly clucking her tongue, she barely batted an eyelid as she surveyed the ruination. She hadn’t been exactly careful where she’d trod. But then again; it wouldn’t be she who would have to expend the considerable energy it would undoubtedly take to rehabilitate them.

It had hardly been a practical choice perhaps, wearing her latest fashion boots in such an environment, brand new and out of the box, but there was a practical aspect to it too. There was a method in her madness that ran deeper than any consideration of the way their sensuous silhouette flattered her coltish legs and calves and the intimidating effect that, together with the somewhat regal bearing that came - she liked to think - naturally to her, seemed to have on the stable hands. Sometimes, like the Devil, Karen Lamberton-Marchment liked to make work for idle hands; and there were certain hands hereabouts that had been idle for far too long. And she had one pair of hands in particular in mind - and they didn’t belong to either of the two, horsey, plump-bottomed young stable girls that she presently employed. Not that either of those two were ever left with idle hands.

She sometimes felt she ought to thank the lord - if not the nation’s bankers - for having provided the sort of dire economic climate that could deliver two school-leavers into her lap under such blatantly exploitative conditions. Under less desperate financial conditions the dress stipulations she demanded alone would have had them up and leave. It wasn’t that she considered herself some sort of an old-fashioned harpy; it was just that she didn’t like to see young girls going around looking like young lads. She liked to be surrounded by femininity, though never in so attractive a form as to put her in any danger of comparison. It seemed quite reasonable; after all perfectly adequate feminine working attire had existed in the not so distant past.

So, she didn’t allow boiler suits, she didn’t allow dungarees and she positively hated denim jeans. But she did like the idea of uniforms and the way a uniform identified the wearer’s station in life and over time her stipulations had tended to progress in that direction until what had evolved she now considered a ‘stable girl’s uniform’. The green check button-through overall she provided had to be worn over pantyhose not over jeans, with a bra, knickers and vest beneath - never a tee shirt or any other personal item - and with the addition of a thick plain full-length nylon slip in winter.

These overalls had started out as a conventional coat-style design but influenced by an old acquaintance of hers, whom she had recently got back in contact with after many years, she had opted to supply something embodying a little more style which, while just as functionally utilitarian, possessed a defined self-belted waistline and a pronounced flare to the skirt that made it appear a little more dress-like. In fact the most recent changes she had implemented had seen the stable girls’ overalls being somewhat substantially shortened. While ostensibly purely for practical reasons, the aim being to cut down on the amount of laundry caused by muck splashing up and splattering the skirt, the effect was not without its coquettish eye-pleasing aspects and had inspired her to have the Marchment family crest added to the breast pocket.

Styled on a day dress circa 1950s, the present incarnation was based on a one-piece princess-line dress with a shirt-like, collared bodice and long buttoned-cuff sleeves. A fitted, vertically panelled style, it buttoned from neck to hem, having a tailored waist that was further neatened by an integral, attached belt of the same fabric, itself closing at the front by way of two side-by-side buttons.

The provision of matching headscarves, checked nylon like the overalls, to keep clean the girls’ hair had gone even further towards making the two stable girls’ working attire a form of uniform, in all but name. Dark green and short-legged sturdy yet feminine rubber boots, completed the picture and made each look as dainty as any stable girl could. The short-legged boots contrasted beautifully with long, shapely if plump and invariably muck-splattered pantyhose-covered legs and the short flared skirt of a thigh-length green check nylon frock-style overall.

Even as these thoughts had been filtering through her mind, so Karen Lamberton-Marchment had been flitting, hither and dither, trying on this and that; for what was about to happen next, the plan she was about to swing into play, image would be everything. Admiringly glancing side-on at her reflection in the cheval mirror as she changed, and having discarded both riding britches and boots, she watched herself wiggle into the tight flesh-coloured rubberised girdle, before drawing her opera-length nylon stockings up legs that seemed never-ending.

She caught herself frowning with concentration and no little consternation as she fiddled impatiently, her long fingers endeavouring to fasten the metal suspender clips over their little rubber buttons without catching and laddering the sheer nylon stocking welts with her long, professionally manicured coral-pink nails. The wire suspender clips were stiff, the pink rubber buttons reluctant with newness and the suspenders so short and taut that the dark stocking tops all but merged with her thick black pubic triangle.

At long last she straightened up, pulling the white satin French knickers up her legs, before stepping into and pulling up onto her shoulders a full length satin slip, reaching back with some difficulty despite the litheness born of countless hours of yoga and zipping it up the rear. Having slipped on and buttoned a fine white silk-satin blouse she stepped into her favourite skirt before again checking herself in the full-length mirror. Her long black hair had already been tied back tightly in a black-velvet-banded ponytail, and it swung enticingly to and fro as she twisted her neck this way and that. Within a few minutes she had totally divested herself of her equestrian styling in favour of a very different look.

The mirror now shone brightly, a hallo of light encircling what amounted to an entirely different, entirely revamped personality. The woman that smiled thin-lipped in return was every bit as authoritative as the switch-wielding horse woman who had entered, yet now portraying an image tempered with a certain domesticity while hinting at the institutional. It was a look that had settled quite naturally mid way between the stern aunt and the straight-laced governess. It was a cold, intimidating look, and she liked it, no she loved it. It filled her with power; the sight of her own reflection smiling confidently back at herself, hands on hips, made her heart pound. Finally satisfied that all was in order and that she headed out of the dressing room and off down towards the parlour... It was time...

Downstairs at that very same instant Alice Lamberton was hurrying through the room that her father had always referred to as ‘the drawing room’. The walls were oak panelled and lined with book shelves filled with dusty, stuffy volumes Alice had never had much interest in - and that much, at least, hadn’t changed about her. To her left a pair of deep-set bay windows gave out onto formal gardens with beds of roses obsessively set out with an eye to symmetry and sweeping lawns edged with laurel hedges and twee miniature conifers. In the far distance the snaking line of chalk-scarred grass-topped hills with their scattered tufted stands of trees that made up the South Downs filled the horizon, putting in a fleeting appearance between the swaying poplars that marked out the furthest extent of the property.

Tucked out of sight down between steep grassy banks, the river Arun demarcated the distant ancient limestone walls from the local village, forcing the broad sandy driveway to meander this way and that on its path to the bridge that led out to the road skirting the perimeter. The latter was an elderly chain-linked affair in the style of a medieval drawbridge installed by her great-grandfather shortly after his return from the Great War. Its cast iron chains could just be glimpsed out of one of the side panes, the black painted iron gates beyond just beginning to catch the first orange rays of the morning sun as it rose above the great oak that stood just to the east of the gateway. Walking determinedly and with purpose the pursed-lipped teenager headed straight for the side door that she knew gave out onto the narrow hallway which in turn led through to the side parlour and then on to what at one time had been the tradesman’s entrance, a small porch hidden away at the side of one wing of the imposing house.

Having reached the parlour unchallenged, she paused, surprised. A goodly fire had been built in the grate and was enthusiastically blazing. Despite the day and age, an open fire was not that rare an event in itself about the house - several chimneys were still in operation and their fireplaces put to use in cold weather, augmenting the modern central heating system that struggled with the cobwebby early 19th century drafts. But this room was infrequently used, the grate rarely made up. A grunt came from behind her, a clearing of the throat. Startled, she spun around in shock, her eyes wide and her face flushing as pale as the frost that lay sparkling on the lawn outside.

“And where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Karen Lamberton-Marchment’s haughty, educated and authoritative tone belied her youth. The double-barrelled name she thought lent her gravitas and for the time being she had decided to retain her late husband’s family adjunct, despite the Marchment name being both the older and the more prestigious. The title he had bought for her and she had already decided that she would retain that, even if she did one day revert to using her old name - Lady Marchment had a certain resonance to it.

Nineteen years her husband’s junior on their wedding day, four years previously, she was still only twenty-five years of age - a rather young looking twenty-five at that, despite her favoured traditional, if not somewhat overly mature, mode of dress. The existence of his, then, fourteen year old offspring, at that time had hardly come in to the equation, the girl having long been packed off to boarding school and largely cared for over the holidays by her maternal grandmother, her father being obliged to travel far on wide on business much of the time. The same could not be said now, some four years on.

What with the sudden shock demise of the girl’s father, after just three and a half years of marriage, the near-simultaneous death of the girl’s grandmother and then the coming to a close of the girl’s school career, some four months back, the existence of his now eighteen year old obstinate, arrogant and downright abrasive progeny was now very much part of the equation - a confounding, unbalancing and destabilising part.

On the very rare occasions over the years that Alice had been home for the school holidays it had been bad enough, the girl’s father fawning over her and pandering to every wish. Now, what with Alice moping around the house all day in a state of almost permanent hangover... Well, although she received a more than generous income for supervising her ward, she couldn’t help but regard Alice as a burden, an intrusion into her own life. Still, Lady Lamberton-Marchment had to admit to herself that the girl wasn’t quite so arrogant nowadays, not since her plan had sprung into action, at least not until today. This, then, would be the first real test of the plausibility of her scheme.

It had all taken a substantial amount of time trouble and effort to set up, but she had to admit to herself that there was a certain compensatory pleasure to be had in the prospect of curbing this independent and rather rebellious girl.

“I just need to get out in the sun a while, that’s all. I mean... I’ve been in all month... Can’t I even go out in the garden now?” To the woman’s eye there was something faintly comical about the petulant pout that went along with the protestation. A delicately featured, slender, fey thing with a shortish blond pixie cut that was just on the verge of growing out and big walnut-brown eyes set in a gently tapering heart-shaped face; Alice Lamberton looked immature for her years as it was - even without the frustrated stamping of her foot.

The gentle, almost overly pretty upturn to the tip of the girl’s nose coupled with those childish cow-like eyes invested her with a girlish obstinacy when angry and the thought suddenly struck the girl’s stepmother that dressed in the right way Alice could easily be taken for a girl at least four years younger than her calendar age. She made a mental note; it was an interesting notion, something she would have to look into doing something about at some point. Then there were the pink streaks the girl had had put in - she’d have to do something about those, too, at some stage.

Where Alice had got the denim jeans from was a bit of a mystery; she thought she had taken all Alice’s pairs from her in exchange for all the little favours she did her stepdaughter, which pretty much came down to doling out what was in the packet in her pocket. Judging from the uncertainty in Alice’s step, the slight tremor in her hands and the quaver in her voice it wouldn’t be long before that pair would be helping to fuel the old wood burning stove that sat in what once had been the servant’s scullery. The thought occurred that it would perhaps be a suitably pertinent lesson for Alice to have to take them down to the stove herself, if all went well now - she could watch them burn through the little mica viewing port, along with another of those posters from her room, as a reminder of what stubbornness brings.

The jeans must have been down the bottom of one of the linen baskets - she must have missed them somehow, although Alice clearly hadn’t. But if there was one saving grace it was that dear Alice was at least wearing one of those button-through cardigans that she had procured for her, albeit worn over a plain white tennis shirt - but that was the last of those that Alice had on and she’d take it off her next time. Those awful tee-shirts the girl had once owned were all gone now anyhow.

A second saving grace was that vaporous, semi-vacuous look that repeatedly came over the girl’s face, clouding her eyes with incomprehension. It told volumes; it said that this gambit was indeed going to work. And it had been a gambit - the girl could have easily walked out, summoned help, gathered all sorts of well meaning busybodies to her cause. But that wasn’t going to happen now, she could tell; in a way she had already won. She had won that very first day young Alice had first backed down and surrendered to one of her restrictions in exchange for her medication. There had been many small triumphs since then of course, but it was the magnitude of this coming victory that would make the difference. After this, if all went well, young sweet Alice would find herself, here, in her own house, brought to heel in a manner she could hardly have dreamt of. She would come to see the strap, hairbrush and the cane - once she introduced them, as she fully intended to in time - as lesser punishments in comparison; and that after all was the point of this charade.

“You’re not going anywhere, Alice.”

The girl looked pale, jittery, shrugging in faux dismissive rebellion but with little real commitment evident: “I can’t take any more of this nonsense - I mean, where’s all my stuff, all the things you keep taking off me? I’m not a little girl to be ‘grounded’, just because you don’t like the people I mix with... You know what? You can just do your worst as far as I’m concerned. I’m off out - and that’s all there is to it!”

“Who with exactly? Certainly not with that fiancé of yours; he’s in the clink, which is where you are lucky not to have ended up in. And all your old school friends live up at the other end of the country, near that pampering, pandering waste of money holiday camp your father called a school. Some ‘school’ that was, they didn’t even have a school uniform let alone any semblance of discipline; not like the place I attended.”

“I don’t care... Perhaps I’ll just go out for a walk then, around the grounds; they are my grounds you know - or they will be once I’m twenty one - along with this house. That’s how long you’ve got, just a little less than three years; then I’ll have you out on your ear. Right, then: I’m out of here! See you later, alligator.”

“I don’t think so... do you? Or would you like me to toss this packet on the fire?”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I? Just you watch me, then.”

“You couldn’t do it... You wouldn’t dare; it would make me ill if I didn’t get my prescription, you wouldn’t risk it. You’re bluffing, you silly cow; I’m going for a walk around the gardens, maybe a little sojourn into town.” Turning the brass lever handle, the springs squeaking hoarsely, the girl stepped out into the glass-sided porch, pausing as somewhere out in the near distance a bout of gruff barking and baying suddenly started up.

“Tyson and Soldier Boy are out there, don’t forget. You step out that door without me at your side and they are likely to consider you an intruder - they still don’t know you yet. I don’t think they’d hurt you - but who knows. And you know how scared you are of dogs anyway.” ‘Tyson’ and ‘Solder Boy’ were her two Staffordshire cross bull terriers, bought her by her husband to provide her with an extra blanket of security for when he had to travel shortly before his ‘passing’. Crossed with what was another matter; there was more than a suspicion of pit-bull about the pair, certainly enough to make their legitimacy questionable under the UK’s Dangerous Dogs Act’. For a moment the woman smiled sympathetically at her pasty-faced fear-struck stepdaughter, before, her expression hardening, she went on:

“Now, come back in here and sit down at the table - I shan’t warn you again... AT ONCE, YOUNG LADY!!!”

Alice Lamberton jumped. Her stepmother could be stern - and she hated the woman’s habit of referring to her as ‘young lady’ - but she had never shouted at her like that before. She knew she had to be strong but she was already beginning to shake like a leaf as she tentatively reached for the handle of the outer door.

“Right then... Just you watch this...” Tight lipped, but with a determined smile on her attractively made-up face Alice Lamberton’s stepmother stepped across to the blazing open coal fire. A white, square cardboard pack dangled loosely from her long fingers, swinging to and fro dangerously from its corner, the stern woman’s manicured nails glinting in a pearlescent shade of pink in the flickering firelight and drawing the girl’s disbelieving gaze to the pharmacist’s label. The latter was printed in bold blue but appeared black in the orange-red glow of the coals - nevertheless it was plain enough to identify the package to Alice’s desperate and now pleading eyes. Never had a teenage girl’s attitude changed so rapidly.

“No... Don’t... No, no!!!” Alice’s eyes, wild with anger and now topped up with dread, widened still further in sheer horror as the nondescript packet casually tumbled from her stepmother’s fingers. The flames flared up immediately the slim package hit the coals, as if the packet had been pre-soaked in some accelerant such as petrol or ethyl alcohol, leaving little scope for rescue, despite Alice’s frantic dash to her stepmother’s side. The effect on Alice was as immediate as it was traumatic, the girl immediately breaking down in tears and dropping to her knees at the fireside, adopting a posture almost that of fervent prayer.

“Hush, hush, dear.” Alice’s stepmother’s hand dropped to her side, stroking her stepdaughter’s brow lovingly, despite the animosity she felt inside. “I think that’s enough to make my point, don’t you?”

“B, b... But what am I going to do now?” Alice was spluttering between sobs, her previously defiant tone now replaced by one of hushed and deflated defeat. Her huge Audrey Hepburn eyes were peering up at her triumphant stepmother as if a frightened young puppy dog looking for reassurance, glimmering in the firelight and reflecting back the image of Karen Lamberton-Marchment in all its impressively domineering gravitas.

As always the older woman’s dark hair was swept up into a practical bun that seemed a little at odds with her youth, little ringlet tendrils tucked back behind her ears softening the look. From where young Alice now knelt, looking up, the woman’s breasts seemed to tower over her aggressively, seemingly larger than life and straining outward against the buttons of her white, shirt-collared blouse. If anything the swell of her stepmother’s jutting bustline seemed somewhat over-emphasised from that angle, juxtaposed as it was above a tightly belted black satin knee length pencil skirt that cinched a trim waist and that girded broad out-welling hips and buttocks already augmented by the old-fashioned girdle the woman favoured.

Along with the woman’s expensive glossy black seamed stockings and patent stilettos that caught the light every time she shifted her weight or shuffled her feet, the effect of this almost burlesque imagery for some reason came across as deeply intimidating to the rebellious teenager. It was an effect that was somehow emphasised still further by Alice catching the scent her stepmother had on, rich feminine and undoubtedly expensive - and undoubtedly paid for from out of her trust fund, from that part set aside as a regular allowance up to the age of twenty-one and intended to pave the way for her through university.

It was all a far cry from the woman’s other favoured mode of dress and the slightly horsey smell that came with the skin-tight hound’s-tooth riding breeches and the green rubber Wellingtons she wore whenever visiting the stables but not actually intending to ride. She’d had the cheek to add the cleaning of those boots of hers to the list of chores she thought Alice should help with now she was back at home, citing that job as being outside of her housekeeper’s usual remit and her own time as being too short and too valuable to take care of the task herself. Not that the woman ever did anything other than swanning around about the estate and fussing over her horses.

But then Alice herself was no paragon of virtue where physical labour was concerned; ‘work ethic’ had never entered her vocabulary. She had certainly not done much to date as regards those ‘chores’ she was forever being assigned, other than perhaps recently when she had allowed herself on occasion to be persuaded to carry the washing-up out to the housekeeper after tea. And even this much had been under protest; not so much with ‘good grace’ as with grimacing petulance. As for cleaning the bloody woman’s boots - and under the nose of the housekeeper, so she might ‘keep an eye on her’ - no way!

The very thought made her angry, yet the sight of that packet now reduced to ashes in the grate, the yellowish capsules bubbling and bursting from their foil trays in little eruptions of oozing plastic dotted with blackening powder, now tempered that anger with a depressive sense of hopeless despair. “W, w ,what am I going to do now?” she reiterated, momentarily attempting to snatch one of the less damaged foil trays from the flames before withdrawing her hand in pain as the curling foil itself seemed to ignite all at once, spurting little jets of bluish flame in all directions.

“Not to worry, my dear - the doctor said she’d be calling past again in a week’s time; I’m sure she’ll be happy to renew your prescription if you ask nicely enough. Of course you’re going to have to explain how you came to drop the packet in the fire in the first place...”

“You threw it in there; that’s how - and I’m going to tell her so...” Alice had cut in, her voice starting to wail with emotion, only to be cut off in mid flow herself, her stepmother’s tone hardening with annoyance at the interruption:

“I don’t think that would be a good idea - do you? She won’t believe you. Most likely she’ll think it is evidence of what she calls ‘drug induced psychosis’ caused by that muck you got yourself addicted to. I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get her to agree to your being treated at home, not to mention keeping your name away from the police. You could have easily ended up ‘inside’ like that ‘dealer’ and that drug-pushing boyfriend of yours, you know. As it is, the slightest excuse and she’ll have you ‘banged-up’ in that clinic of hers; and you don’t want that.

If they get you ‘sectioned’ as it’s termed, committed to one of those places, it is not the same as being handed a prison sentence you know. There is no definite period set - and they can come up with all sorts of reasons to keep you there. You might never get out - or if you do you’ll likely be too old to care.” It was a scare tactic of course - but one she had calculated was bound to work. Looking down at her stepdaughter’s tearful eyes, ghostly white complexion and the worried wrinkling of her otherwise smooth youthful brow - the latter making Alice now appear almost haggard in the fire’s glow - she could see that it had indeed hit the mark.

“...But a,a a week - I can’t get through a week... Not without my medicine.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that, before you decided to defy me, before you decided to try to call my bluff - I don’t bluff, young lady... ever! That’s something I can see you still have to learn.” And there is a lot more you’re going to have to learn - and in the more conventional sense of the word, ‘learning’, - if you are going to have any hope at all of fulfilling all those highfaluting ambitions of yours.”

“W, what... What do you mean?” Young Alice’s voice was becoming delightfully timorous; Karen Lamberton-Marchment could hardly disguise the smile on her face and it was taking a supreme effort of will to maintain some semblance of sympathetic concern.

“Well... Look; I’m not sure how well you expected to do in your exams, but...”

“B, but? But w, what? Please! Just tell me, for heaven’s sake!” Yes! She had her stepdaughter really worried now. The girl was too worried, even, to mention her medication, despite the uncontrolled tremor afflicting her hands, her shivering leg muscles - the movement clearly discernable through the denim of her jeans - and those trembling lips that were already beginning to invest her speech with a notably drunken-sounding slur.

“There’s no easy way... Provisionally, at least, the university you applied to has accepted your application - we both know that...”

“Yes, yes... B, b but what are you telling me? Please... For God’s sake, I can’t take this as well as...” She was cut off by her stepmother clearing her throat, her eyes now focussed hungrily on the last smouldering silvery embers of what had been her prescribed narcotic substitute, puzzled as to why she should be going ‘cold turkey’ so soon after having received her day’s allocation.

The thoughts running through her stepmother’s mind at that very moment would have shocked her, had she any inkling: ‘Oh my God; here we go, this is it - the perfect moment to press home the advantage, after all this time. Produce the rejection letter first, and then the school report - that was the way to do it; just as Mrs Larkspear suggested’.

Using the girl’s new-found dependency as a lever to ensure her passivity she planned to take Alice back a couple of steps, pass her back through the upbringing of a different era, something more akin to the 1950s. There would be no easy ticket through university for the pouting, foot-stamping young Alice Lamberton while she had any say in the matter. Quite the opposite: She planned to have the girl home-schooled for a period, ‘in the hope of improving her dismal academic performance’. She couldn’t help but smile to herself at that last thought: Improving academic performance indeed - just how cynical could she get?

Karen Lamberton-Marchment cleared her throat a second time before continuing, just to make sure - it was important to sound confident now, unimpeachable. It was ironic, then, that the news she was about to deliver - and particularly the protracted manner in which she was going about delivering it - was designed to shatter young Alice’s self-confidence like a fumbled hand mirror. She would be in a million shards after this - and ready to be introduced to the next stage in her re-education.

She was gladdened to see that kneeling posture already come so naturally to the girl; she could foresee her Alice someday spending a lot of her time down on her hands and knees:

“Ahem... As I said; Provisionally, the university accepted your application, based on the results you achieved in your mock exams - though I understand that even then their decision was a little... shall we say... borderline. A little leeway was cut in respect for your family’s name and your father’s memory - he funded an entire wing at one time, I am given to understand. That letter of acceptance you received back then was not an absolute promise but rather was provisional on you achieving at least the grades it was suggested you might, based on your academic performance at the time...”

She paused, waiting for the information to soak in, just as Mrs Larkspear had told her she should, knowing that Alice would be racking her brains, struggling with the memory that surely her mock results had been good to excellent rather than ‘’borderline’. In the latter young Alice would be correct - but she had an answer to that; yet another solution that had been proffered by the redoubtable and talented Mrs Daphne Larkspear, a woman who had actually once been one of her teachers when it had been she who had been the schoolgirl. The letter presently residing on the little round fireside table would be the convincer, along with the final exam results and the report from Alice’s school that she had ready and waiting in the wings, hidden away in her desk.

These too had been the devious Daphne Larkspear’s doing; for a woman of her generation she was no slouch with the computer. The university letterhead had been the easiest to acquire, downloaded straight from their website. The school’s letterhead had proved a little more difficult and had had to be scanned in from the original documentation. While a correspondence opened up with the school’s head teacher - on some pretext or other - had at length furnished a signature and yielded plenty of handwriting samples from which could be pieced together the damming indictment that spelled out in no uncertain terms young Alice’s utter academic failure.

“... I know what you’re thinking: ‘surely my mock exam grades weren’t that bad’. The trouble is they were that bad; it is the school’s fault as much as the university’s, really, for encouraging you to build up unrealistic expectations. Apparently they don’t like to risk discouraging borderline pupils whom they consider might do better at a later date and so the exam markers tend to try to find excuses for poor answers, dredging up marks where they can - and in your case exaggerating your, frankly rather poor performance. And in your case you most certainly didn’t do better at a later date, you just didn’t apply yourself at all from the looks of things. In fact you seem to have been on a downward spiral academically from day one...”

She took a deep breath before going on. “I could show you earlier school reports, those you father kept hidden away from you for the same reason as the school; to avoid discouraging you in the hope you would one day improve scholastically.” And she could, too; thanks to the efforts of good old Mrs Larkspear. “Up you get! Let’s have no more of all this silly whining.” Tucking her hands under the kneeling girl’s armpits she helped the shaking teenager unsteadily to her feet, all the while smiling sympathetically. “Here; read this.” Gathering up the folded letter from the side table she thrust it into her stepdaughter’s shaking hands, watching the girl struggle with the crisp paper and the shocked expression spreading across her pale face as the gold and red university crest came in to view and the gist of the rejection letter became clear.

“Please... I need help... I need a, a, ...a fix...” The hand with the letter had dropped down limply by her side, the three sheets fluttering to the floor. Her other hand, her right, swept up to her brow, dislodging the beads of sweat that had now broken out before cradling her face and attempting to hide the tears that were now flowing freely, the droplets trickling between her slender fingers to splash down on the red knotted silk rug. “Please... I can’t go a week, I...”

“There will be no more ‘fixes’ for you, I’m afraid young lady - as I have told you before. Even if you had made it in to town there is no one you know there who could help you. The police mopped up the whole bunch your boyfriend had become involved with; one of the most successful drug busts there has ever been in Britain, apparently. They broke the whole supply chain; the streets of that town are officially the cleanest in the United Kingdom as far as narcotics are concerned. No, I’m afraid you are just going to have to rely on that prescription substitute the doctor was kind enough to provide you with until you can be slowly weaned off of it entirely.” The latter point made her smile involuntarily; she could feel the corners of her mouth twitch as she fought against it, but the irony was almost too much to bear.

“But I don’t have any... and a whole week...”

It had gone on long enough now. Tucking her fingers in to the tight confines of her skirt’s hip pocket Karen Lamberton-Marchment plucked out the key to Alice’s late father’s office safe, twirling it triumphantly around her index finger on its ring. Such a little thing; but it was as much the key to his daughter now as his safe - at least in so far as it pertained to the control of Alice Lamberton’s behaviour. She’d see about the girl refusing to clean her Wellingtons when she came in from the stables and refusing to work under the supervision of her housekeeper. She’d have the girl polishing those new custom designed rubber boots she had recently bought to a mirror finish before long, let alone cleaning them - and in a manner the girl probably couldn’t even conceive of at the moment. If young Alice felt humiliated now, standing there weeping like a child, it was nothing to how she would feel after she had accomplished that task a few times.

Looking her stepdaughter up and down for a moment she nodded pointedly at the denim jeans that offended her so much, dangling the little silver key. “There does just happen to be one more packet - safely under lock and key, mind. And it will have to be rationed out if it is to last the week.”

Alice Lamberton made as if to snatch the key, only to have it whisked out of her reach by the much faster and somewhat less addled older woman. “Hold you horses, there, my girl! This key would be of no use to you without the numerical combination to go with it; and, yes, I have taken the precaution of changing it since your father’s day.”

“But please... I need it!”

“Yes I know! And I need you to understand that I won’t have jeans in the house; not for you, anyway. So perhaps we can do a deal; you get those things off right now and I’ll get you a capsule from the safe.”

“But what else can I wear?”

“You have that old tennis dress I came across.”

“But it’s a least two sizes too small - and it’s a bloody child’s dress!”

“Don’t exaggerate, it’s a little tight around the bust and the skirt is a little on the short side, but it’s perfectly adequate for around the house - and there’s no one to see you here, anyway.”

“But it’s going to be too bloody cold!

“That’s enough of that swearing - I chose to ignore it just now; but any more, or if you continue to raise your voice to me, I’ll see to it you get nothing.” The girl’s stepmother shook the key threateningly as she spoke, her voice taking on a serious tone. “Now say you’re sorry - come on... I’m...” she coached.

Alice could only now bite her lip in frustration, her face colouring red in the embarrassment of defeat. “I’m, sorry” she finally managed, twisting back and forth and staring down at the rug.

“Right, thank you - now; no more of it! Yes, I accept it is a little chilly around the house at this time of the year but that cardigan you have on will be perfectly acceptable to me if worn over the top of the dress and I realise your legs would be cold with its short skirt, but if you look over there at the armchair in the corner you’ll see that I have thought of that in advance.”

So saying Alice’s stepmother nodded toward a red wingback chair at the far side of the room. The contentious little white cotton A-line tennis dress lay folded on the seat with what appeared to a particularly voluminous pair of high-waisted knickers spread out on top. The latter Alice had not seen before but appeared to be made of some glossy white manmade fabric that took on an almost silvery appearance in the wintry light filtering in through the frost-laden window and had a diamond-shaped panel over the abdomen, a stiff-looking kite-shaped gusset and broad elastic around the waist and leg openings.

Over the back of the chair was spread out a pale blue quilted housecoat with a plain mandarin collar and long sleeves terminating in buttoned cuffs. It looked both heavy and to be long enough to hang practically to the floor on Alice’s petite frame. It fastened down the front from neck to hem with glassy-looking plastic buttons of a similar appearance to those that might be found on a gentleman’s pyjama jacket. A frumpier looking garment Alice would have been hard-pressed to name, though there were those around her - or soon to be around her - who would not have been quite so hard pressed to come up with something, as she would find out in due course. The real surprise was the breast pocket. As it was hung over the chair the upper portion of the housecoat was upside down, but Alice could see that there was a crest embroidered in red and god thread on the pocket. It was in the shape of a shield having an open book at its centre, a gold church cross surmounting it and extending beyond its perimeter and a scroll top and bottom bearing an inscription.

Reading upside-down, something Alice was particularly adept at, she could make out the words ‘St Aloysius Convent Reformatory School’ running across the upper scroll and ‘Re-education and Indoctrination Centre for Delinquent Girls’ running across the lower. It had been part of some sort of school uniform at some time, and she was going to have none of it. She certainly wasn’t going to be dressing up as some sort of schoolgirl. What sort of school made their pupils wear a thing like that in this day and age - or in any day and age come to that? And what did ‘Re-education and Indoctrination Centre’ mean? Didn’t indoctrination mean some sort of brainwashing or something? And Delinquent Girls’ - she wasn’t going to walk around the house with the word Delinquent pinned to her chest.

Her stepmother seemed to read her mind even as her lips began to form the word ‘no’. “Don’t think I’m going to take no for an answer! Or do you want me to get the whole pack from the safe and toss it on the fire in front of you, as I did the other one? Then you will go the whole week without your medication - make no mistake.” Again her stepmother dangled the key in front her, right under her nose this time. “Right, then - let’s get those jeans off right now, that dress and those knickers on and that housecoat buttoned up over the top - I think we can dispense with the cardigan for the time being. There’s a proper longline bra that should fit you lying under the tennis dress - we’re going to have no more of your fripperies and fancies in your ‘undies’ drawer from now on. Now, get going - I won’t tell you again, you’ll just see your medication going up in smoke!”

Ten minutes later and shaking worse than ever, sweat pouring down her cheeks and cramping starting in her abdomen Alice found herself shuffling down the steps to the cellar and that old wood stove she knew was waiting to receive what was her last pair of jeans. In fact she was carrying pretty much the last of any of her clothing she could actually call her own, now that her stepmother had insisted she collect together the last of the contents of her underwear drawer and her last couple of tee-shirts.

The tennis dress was every bit as tight and brief as she remembered it being the first time she had been obliged to try it on. The knickers pulled in her tummy mercilessly with their Elastane front panel while the elasticated side panels constricted her hips and waist, and the thick back-seam worked its way up between her buttock cheeks as she walked, the tight leg and waist elastics cutting into her flesh and adding to the discomfort. The longline bra lived up to its name, nearly reaching as low as the waistband of the knickers at the front and elevating and thrusting her bust upwards and outwards, making the constriction of the little ill-fitting tennis dress even more apparent. The housecoat was as heavy as it had appeared - and as she had feared it would be - when first she’d seen it folded over the back of that chair. The quilting made it actually a little on the over-warm side rather than cosy, despite the drafts that seemed to permanently chill this part of the old house, the nylon fabric’s inability to ‘breathe’ detracting still more from its comfort and the buttoning cuffs on the long sleeves adding to the unrequited warmth. The hem brushed the ground as she negotiated the stone steps, constantly threatening to trip her and somehow continuingly bringing her mind to dwell on that embroidered badge on the housecoat’s top pocket and that shaming word - delinquent.

Her stepmother had got her own way but still she had had no respite from the gnawing hunger that seemed now to be consuming her soul. Now there was something else she had to do first. Now, she had been told, she would have to wait and watch while the flames consumed the last of her personal things, her last few posters, those taken from the bedroom wall alongside her bed, having been carried down by her stepmother to further fuel the fire.

“Hands on head, fingers interlocked” her stepmother had ordered. She’d thought the woman to be joking - but she wasn’t and that key had been again dangled under her nose. Despite herself and the humiliation it made her feel she had hurried to obey - hating herself for her weakness even as she had complied. But was it over? The flames were beginning to die down behind the mica window of the stove and even that dense strong denim had been reduced to unidentifiable ashes, helped along by her stepmother’s wielding of the poker - but was it over? Something about her stepmother’s face suggested it wasn’t. And that hairbrush that her stepmother had carried down to the parlour with her after gathering up the posters was one of her stepmothers’ own, not hers, and definitely had not been destined for the flames - so what was it destined for then?