Chapter 7

The following day, a letter arrived from Miss Archibald thanking Miss Barker for taking the girls under her wing for a day or two but reassuring her that she (Miss Archibald) was better now – the implication being that no further fraternisation was necessary. Josephine Barker was not one for random associations, she didn’t really like strangers; but even more she did not like to be ordered around. She responded by inviting the three to tea. It would have been rude to refuse, so the next day two sprightly well dressed young ladies, all in white and cream, were accompanied by Miss Archibald to Acacia Crescent. Emily Smythe was delighted not to have to think of a variation on soup; scones and little cakes were the order of the day.

The etiquette dancing began. It was a dance that Miss Archibald was good at, but she was up against a grand master, or mistress. So it was that by the time they left, the three girls and boy were booked to attend the warm water bathing sea pool for the purpose of the ladies learning to swim. Miss Archibald was not entirely sure how (or when ... or if!) she had agreed. At one point it had appeared that she too was being invited to learn and in backing away from that Josephine Barker was heard to say: “Oh, I’m sure you are right Miss Archibald, perhaps it should just be your two charges that learn. Really I am so impressed by your perspicacity.” The bathing pool was gender separated in the large pool. Ladies only sessions from ten of the clock to eleven and two of the clock to four; but there were smaller pools where family groups could play in privacy. One of these would be used.

“But, is it? Well, I should not like to get young master Peters’ reputation bespirched.” Miss Archibald said as a last ditch defence before the barricades were finally thrown down.

“Oh, no danger there, I am sure. Susan is eminently sensible and would have no truck with anything untoward. The whole town knows that, I assure you.” Simon’s great aunt replied. For her part, Susan did not know how the whole town had such confidence in her reputation, when she herself did not.

The warmed salt water baths had become popular when women first started to bath. Privacy combined with comfort (warmth); but it was becoming fashionable to brave the North Sea cold; and becoming fashionable to be daring and share the sea with the opposite sex. The main baths were less frequented now and the management committee were weighing the reputational risk of allowing mixed bathing in the larger pool. Two of the men on the committee (it was all men) were still not quite sure if it might not, possibly, be possible for a maiden to get pregnant as the result of men ‘emitting’ into the warm water. They could not bring themselves to ask the question, they simply said they had doubts. The other three men on the committee had no doubts but only because they lacked the imagination to think that men’s sperm might relish a swim in warm sea water – actually one of them lacked the knowledge to have that imagination since he was unclear what the process of conception involved beyond the basic physical act.

The two girls were due to arrive at 11, by that time the governess had retired back to bed with ‘one of her heads’. “Oh you are such a martyr to you headaches, I do hope you recover soon.” Elizabeth had said with comletely genuine feeling; Emily was a little more realistic now. Still, they didn’t mind the loosening bands of control. They were sure that Miss Josephine Barker was an easier supervisor, which did seem to be the case; but which came first? The easing of her nature or the young women arriving? She had been strict and boring when Simon had first arrived. It was the icecream! She had been touched by his simple act of friendship and consideration and it had melted her a little, allowing her earlier playful nature from so many years ago to start to re-assert itself. She found herself in a reverie periodically, remembering times past when ... oh, but it does not do to dwell on such stories.

“Simon? A word if you please.” he and Great Aunt Jo went into her private study. “I am not one to beat around the bush. I re-assured Miss Archibald that no harm could possibly come to her charges; I have already had a similar word with Susan, you should know. I will not sugar this, but be plain. You are an attractive, vigorous young man.” He suspected where this discussion was going and wanted to interrupt, but that was not something one did with her. “I am sure you understand; there is to be NO ... umm what do we call it? Hanky Panky is I think the colloquial phrase. Or at least if there is, make it innocent, remember their ages. I understand that some flirting is acceptable. When I was young, it was all in language, but I realise that some physical flirting may take place now.”

“Aunt, I do understand. I promise I shall not do anything that reflects badly on you, or myself. Elizabeth is only fourteen -”

“But even a fourteen year old can get pregnant, young man! It would stop your plans to be a vicar and no mistake!”

Simon gulped, she really was being blunt, “Aunt, I would never, no, honestly...”

“Simon, I do not mean to cause offence; just be on your guard. We have this ridiculous notion that women are a prey to their emotions and men are sane and sensible. It isn’t true. A woman is far more aware of the consequences of their actions, men can be remarkably driven by their desires. Now, go and enjoy your swim.”

“You could come with us? To preserve propriety.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Simon. I can already swim, and anyway I fear my body would be less attractive than the other three ladies in their revealing costumes.” Revealing is a relative term of course. The current fashion in costumes did little to amplify a lady’s assets, but they did reveal more bared flesh than would normally be seen. He wanted to ask when she had learned to swim, another story from her past that would remain hidden for ever.

The four walked down the hill to “Newborough Natural Seawater Baths”, it had an impressive frontage with columns and double doors into a marble floored hall. “May I help?” a young man asked, with a smile.

“We have a private bath booked for our ... umm family.” Simon said. They had agreed that they would pretend to be a family when they arrived, to prevent any unwanted suggestions. He gave the name and they were escorted down a corridor.

To one side the indoor pool was visible; the tiling in the pool was all light blue, giving a pleasing appearance of light. The guide explained that the water was piped from the sea from some distance out, filtered and then warmed before being fed through pipes to the large pool or one of the five smaller pools. Each had a constant gentle flow of water through them and back through the filters and boiler for re-warming. Finally there was an additional pool connected to the large one, this was fed by a spring so was fresh, cold and “Very refreshing, so I’m told.” It was open to the sky, but not overlooked. The water was replaced overnight, and could be replenished through the day. They arrived at a door which was unlocked and the key handed over. “We always suggest the door is locked behind you so nobody accidentally goes into the wrong pool.”

Inside, the pool was approximately twenty feet long but ten feet wide; long enough for the purpose of learning to swim. The obvious problem was the lack of separate changing areas. When the pools were designed, the assumption was of small, single sex groups; this had evolved over time, but the small pools had not. The choice was either to use the separate rooms set aside for the large pool, or to share the room. Discussions were diffident at first, until Susan surprised herself by taking the lead: “I am sure we can all be trusted to turn our backs, especially Simon. Perhaps we should not mention this small problem? Everyone will assume there were separate facilities. Are you content ladies?” Simon noticed he was not asked if he was content to strip off and put on his costume in the same room as three young women. He was already partially priapic at the very thought! It was unfair that women did not have such obvious reactions to sexual stimuli.

So they undressed and redressed; he already realised that this would be harder in reverse, how would they dry themselves and dress without accidentally seeing each other. Then they entered the water. “Oh that is so much nicer.” They all said in different ways. Then for two hours they practised various ways of learning to float and then learning to propel themselves whilst floating.

When they floated on their backs, the girls presented a picture of the female body that was hard to ignore. Susan’s more prominent breasts stood higher of course, but all three were young and had firm busts that did not entirely disappear when they lay down. Then Simon would find himself near their feet encouraging them to make the strokes with their legs like breast stroke if they were on their fronts. The result was the legs opening wide and closing, opening wide and closing. Brief glimpses that showed absolutely nothing through the thick cloth and yet which still excited him. Then they tried floating on their fronts, holding the edge of the pool and doing the same stroke with their legs and he was presented with three bottoms, firm, rounded and shapely. He couldn’t help it, he couldn’t stop himself from growing in his own costume.

The water was clear, so when he tried to be subtle and re-arrange himself, Susan saw: “Simon! What are you doing?” she whispered urgently – the splashing of the other two girls deafening them to what she was saying.

“I can’t help it, I wasn’t ‘doing’ anything, just adjusting my dress.”

“Well ... control yourself or we’ll have to stop. They are young and innocent. I won’t have it.”

“No, of course.” he nodded. The lesson continued. By the end they were propelling themselves the few feet along the pool.

“So is that it?” Emily asked, “Can we swim now?”

“No, another lesson I think. You can move, but perhaps not actually swim yet. Then there are other strokes.”

“I suppose you like the breast stroke best?” Elizabeth asked with as innocent face as she could.

“If only ... I mean no, not really. Crawl is faster.” he replied. All three girls were laughing at his mistake.

Then came the need to dress. As Simon had suspected, this was much harder than stripping off and pulling on a woollen costume. It was all but impossible for four people to use towels to dry certain parts of their bodies without seeing one or other of the other bodies. Each girl noticed the others in brief glimpses, each compared their hairiness to the others with interest. The two younger girls envied Susan her larger bust. As they started, Simon realised that he would almost certainly either bump into one of them or would see something he shouldn’t so he said he would stay in the water and look away and when they were all done and left then he would dress.

Susan was impressed by that behaviour, but it didn’t stop him imagining what they might look like as they stripped off the wet costumes and rubbed down their lithe young bodies. They left and he quickly dressed. They would, it was agreed, meet again tomorrow.

That day dawned and as they walked down to the baths, Elizabeth made her comment: “You said we would have difficulty swimming if fully clothed; but to be honest, these costumes are very restrictive too. They hold a lot of water don’t they? I noticed that they weighed us down. I wonder what it would be like to swim without them.” She wasn’t entirely serious, but she knew that the men swam like that along the beach.

There was a silence in the group. It was true, the material used to make the costumes was very thick and absorbant; and there was a lot of material too – deliberately to hide the female shape. Simon would have been happy, no, delighted, to see more of all of them; though the lesson yesterday had involved a pleasant amount of hands on their bodies. He knew this was just an off the cuff remark (off the cuff being a comment that his school and parents would have told him off for using), but he sensed that the other two were not so horrified at the idea than they might be. It was true that the costumes were not the kind that helped people to learn to swim, they were almost designed to hinder free movement. Some were still available that had whalebone imbedded in them to maintain the body shape (even though nobody was meant to see). None of the three had them, but the thick woollen costumes were heavy when wet. Simon’s was cotton and allowed free-er movement yet it still covered him up to his neck; a man’s chest still had nipples, he supposed that was why he had to be covered.