The maid on the train

My train sped from the north towards London, amidst the cold snap last month. From the window, the scenes seemed age-old: snow-dusted fields, frozen canals, not a car in sight.

It was a steam train, of course, in the late nineteenth century. A girl in service in a grand northern house had repeatedly failed to meet the required standards. She’d been spanked by the housekeeper, horse-whipped by the butler, even birched by the master of the house. Yet still she failed to concentrate, to be sufficiently diligent, to show suitable respect.

Trustworthy maids being hard to find, her employers decided to make one final attempt to correct her ways. “We shall send you to London,” they’d told her. “You’ll spend the weekend at a private establishment run by Mr Jenkins. He’ll give you a… refresher… into the standards you were taught before you joined us.”

And so she would be sitting, slightly apprehensively, as the big city drew near. He would meet her at the station, she’d been told, with a sign displaying her name. And their discussions would begin that very evening.

—

Oh, how I like this as a basis for a scene. It doesn’t feel quite plausible enough to be turned into a story. But for an extended period of play? With a girl stripped, shamed, beaten most severely? It could be such fun… And I’m happy actually just day-dreaming about the very idea.