I screamed for mercy.
"You had better be thoroughly birched tonight, darling," she said, "The recollection will save my pretty Miss. High Heels many a birching in the future."
The twigs split and slashed me between my thighs, curling up onto my stomach underneath and torturing the most tender parts of my body.
Then she set me free.
"Put on your knickers, Dennis," Helen said with disdain.
Writhing with pain, I took off my slippers for I could not have gotten the tight knickers over my high heels. I drew on my pantaloons and knickers, and Miss. Priscilla fixed them up and buttoned and buckled the cod-piece at my poor, welted thighs. Then she removed my coat, stays, and chemise, stripping me naked from the waist upward. There were some panels of looking glass in the walls. How strange I looked in the reflection. The buckled slippers the silk stockings, the frills, the pretty black velvet knickers with the jewelled buttons-and rising out of them the white bosom and shoulders of a girl!
They forced me on the ottoman at the end to which a pair of stocks was fixed. They put me on my face, fixing my ankles in the stocks and my hands down to the legs of the ottoman.
"It is your turn now, Aunt," Helen said to Miss. Priscilla.
I was sobbing as if my heart would break.
My thighs were on fire.
"Oh, please, no more," I wept piteously.
Helen took a seat in front of me and slapped my tear-stained face with playful fingers.
"We are going to dress you in a scarlet corsage dear, which will go extremely well with your smart black velvet knickers. It will be a skin-tight decollete corsage, and Aunt Priscilla's birch will do all the dressmaking. I am not sure that it ought not to be a high-necked corsage. We will see. Go on, Auntie."
Miss. Priscilla took a new birch, long and supple and horrible. She swished it up and down and then she began cutting my back from left to right, and afterward from right to left, carefully avoiding the skin of my shoulders, which an evening bodice would have exposed.
I struggle and yelled and sobbed.
"Oh, it's dreadful! It's intolerable! Oh, take all my fortune! Turn me out as a beggar! Only don't torture me!" I was feeling none of the pleasure with this pain, for I was not dressed in my lovely women's clothing.
Helen laughed and lifted up her lovely little pink satin slipper to my mouth.
"Kiss my foot, dear!"
I obeyed. The feel of her warm dainty instep under my lips almost made me forget the pain and terrible loss I was suffering.
"There, that will do," said Miss. Priscilla. She released my hands and bound them behind me. I had no power of resistance. I was twitching and writhing and torn with sobs, but they had no pity for me. They turned me over on my back and then Miss. Priscilla birched my stomach. The agony of that punishment was the worst of all. When she released me, I was trembling from head to foot, my teeth were chattering, I was going to swoon.
"No nonsense, Miss. High Heels," said Helen sternly.
"Stand up prettily in your bright-buckled slippers and pretty velvet knickers."
She gave me some champagne and brandy. Then she took a little riding whip.
"Oh, no more!" I screamed in horror.
"We shall teach you obedience, darling. There is a good one and here's another. Oh, we'll cook you well. All your wealth. All your jewels. All your pretty clothes and high-heeled shoes won't save you."
She kept turning me round, searching out white spots on my body, and when she found one, she slashed it until it matched the rest of me.
"There you are dear. A scarlet corsage!" she said, kissing me contemptuously. Phoebe was rung for, and she carried me, half-naked and sobbing bitterly, upstairs and put me to bed.
I remained in bed ten days, thinking-thinking very hard. On the eleventh day, I was able to bear corsets once more around my breasts. I was allowed to get up. It was evening, after dinner. I was dressed in the most wonderful costume of palest lavender satin: decollete corsage, a sash with long gold-fringed streamers down to the heels of my shoes, and a great bow at my back, short satin knickers with a ruby buckle in front, and diamond buckles at the thighs, the frills of my drawers- which also were short and did not hide my knees-fluttering, open-worked silk stockings and satin slippers that were covered with diamonds and had diamond bows besides and five and a half inch heels, and, of course, long white kid gloves.
I was led to Helen. She kissed me affectionately.
"Helen, please don't keep me dressed like this!"
"But I love you like this," she said leading me to a long mirror. "Stand with your satin slippers together. You look exquisite, dear, with your curls swinging down to your waist and your tall slender figure encased in lavender satin."
"But I can't go out dressed like this."
"This is an evening dress, darling. You can go out in your velvet knickers and your little buttoned patent leather boots."
"But everybody will jeer at me."
"I think that you will find that they will make love to you, dear," Helen answered with a smile.
"But when am I to be allowed to wear trousers again?"
"Never," said Helen decidedly. She sat down. I stared at her aghast.
"Never?"
"Of course not. How can you wear trousers with those hips and that waist and that pretty posterior?"
"But it's my corset that intensifies the girlish look of them," I said blushing deeply.
"No doubt, but you can never get rid of your corset darling. Remember that you have a girl's round breasts. You must have a support for them, otherwise your figure would soon be ruined. It would be ridiculous to let you wear trousers. You look pretty now. You would only look silly and rather improper in trousers."
I got red with confusion.
"Yes," Helen went on, "I am responsible for your good name. That can never be."
I saw that it was in vain to bend her. I recognized the truth in her observations. She and Miss. Priscilla had gotten their revenge. I had inherited my father's fortune and in return they had irrevocably made me a girl.
I fell on my knees before her, as she had prophesied that I would.
"Then Helen I have been thinking. Let Dennis Beryl disappear altogether."
I saw a flash of triumph in her eyes.
"Let him die! You will become mistress of the estate. Let Denise return to you. I am never to marry. I am never to wear trousers. I want to be your pretty slave. Let me have the life of a girl."
Helen kissed me ardently. She had been bringing me to this.
"I will make you very happy, Denise," she said. "I will keep you beautifully dressed. You shall have Violet, your friends, all the fine enjoyments."
So it was settled. With Guy Repton's help, my enormous fortune was easily arranged. I was sent down dressed as a girl under Miss. Priscilla's charge to a little lonely house by the sea. Helen announced that Dennis had gone to a German university to complete his education. A student dying of consumption with a very poor family was bribed (as were his parents) to assume my name. He died and was cremated as Dennis Evelyn Beryl. His tombstone is in a little churchyard in Bonn.
Helen went to Germany for the funeral. No one raised any difficulties or suspected fraud. Guy Repton was well paid. All over my estate, the tenants were delighted that Helen was now the real owner and mistress. On her return, she announced that she was going to make a home for Denise Beryl out of memory for poor Dennis. Denise had made herself popular. Denise was welcomed. I came back as a girl. Violet was delighted. What of me? Let one final scene be the answer.
Two years later a magnificent ball is held at a great house at the height of the London season. A conservatory is screened with palms and dimly lit. Through the door comes the languorous music of a waltz. Inside the conservatory two armchairs sit close together. In one sits a girl dressed in a lovely rich frock of white velvet, pink roses in her corsage and in her hair, jewels on her white neck and her gloved wrists. Her red lips are smiling, her bright eyes sparkling, her fair face radiant with pleasure. At her side, bending toward her, is a young handsome man with a forceful look upon his face. It was the young man who made the brilliant speech in Hampshire and become a cabinet minister. The young man speaks. "Denise, I must call you Denise. You are adorable from your curls to the tips of your satin slippers."