A. N. Dedeaux - An English Education

by P. N. Dedeaux

  As the senior girl advanced with a curtsey to the block I could see she looked a little dismayed. This excruciating additive of strokes with one of our knotted cord martinets, falling on flesh that resembled that of some skinned rabbit, was, I later learnt, a recent directive or encouragement from the ever-thoughtful Mr. Brocklehurst, who felt we did not suffer hellishly enough on such occasions and were in danger of growing "soft."

  Nell, who had been supervising the buckets of birches, came forward with the "fig," or caustic anal suppository. This foul thing was supposed to discourage us from clenching during cuts; it burnt horribly and had the effect, on me at least, of making my sphincter open and shut involuntarily. It was administered to the girl bending over, then she straightened and Nell kept her finger fully up to drive it home and let it melt for a minute or more, the while the girl had every eye upon her. She was then put to the block by the two accessories of the administration, black-leathered Nell and the Duty Pre' in white.

  "Miss Hall, the first dozen, please."

  The young undermistress, tall and blonde, looked obviously pleased to have been chosen for the all-important first dozen, as she bowed gracefully to Miss Temple and stepped down off the dais, her tiny skirt swinging. The arse she approached, with a slight smile, was certainly a regal one, spread out for her ministrations. The girl's knees were nicely apart, her shins secured at ankle in the shallow troughs for them on the ledge. Straps also bound her knees into the block, which she gave the odd impression of clasping since her arms were secured either side of it, at elbow and wrist. Her upper body then fell well forward over the transverse slope which, alas, I must relate had a serrated surface in its ebon wood. The culprit was forced to gain purchase with her palms at the sides to push her chest up off these points, thus arching strongly in the celebrated "anvil" pose beloved of birchers. For it was an important element of the ceremony at Lowood that the sinner's face should be seen by all; I cannot express how dismaying and discouraging it was to see a great girl one admired with starting eyes and crimson cheeks after a couple of dozen. To this end Nell was now tying back the girl's hair.

  I felt a nudge and the silly girl at my side, Susan, whispered boldly, "What a bum!" If she'd been caught it would have been the birch for her, too.

  Facing that solid arse, I must confess I had seldom seen one in such prime condition for a rodding. Moreover, with the broad strap around the waist now secured, forcing the culprit to curve it up even more over the leathern boss beneath her pelvis there, the natural tremors of apprehension, unable to communicate themselves elsewhere in the body, sent their anxiety to the well parted cheeks. It was as if there were a seething beneath the skin there and, anxious to show her true mettle before her superiors, tall Miss Hall spent much time with her Prefect tensening the pose till the thick cheeks, which she prodded inspectingly, literally seemed to be bursting, the anal bud in full view.

  "Mistress, do your duty," came Miss Temple's voice from the dais. "The first of four, if you please."

  Miss Hall selected a dripping verge of the thicker kind, with more twigs than most. Her task was to lay the groundwork of the entire flogging and one invariably knew how bad this was to be by those first cuts. They should be "long," that is, whippily lapping round the right and forming a broad band of smart on which her successors could work as wished. The tips could send you half-crazed with pain when they bit in already livid skin.

  The woman performed her assignment magisterially; it was an exemplary first dozen, really ferocious and perfectly timed.

  She stood a pace or more back, measured off carefully, and cut like a tiger!

  Zzzzzsch!

  "Hah!"

  "One," drawled the Prefect from the side.

  The long sweeping stroke looked absolutely agonizing; it had driven up under the bum, making the round cheeks bound forwards and inscribing on them violet striatums. The mistress had "taken" her target at just the right place; with spread legs she would have lost good tender flesh to have whipped any lower than she did—which was just above the intersection of the cheeks, or, as that ninny Susan Cuningham muttered to me, "Right behind the cunt."

  Three more terrific cuts sliced into the same place, at good intervals. The girl took them in silence, her body jerking each time. She had not had a tenth of her count, yet her back could be seen sweating beneath the chandeliers, always burning even in daytime in this grim chamber.

  Miss Hall's strength was astonishing us all. She whistled the wire-enwrapped twigs across the springy flesh, clawing up purple furrows. These were beginning to meld on the right into a single scalding contusion. After the ninth the girl gasped out "Oh God no!" but controlled herself. The dozen was completed with three brutal swipes that must have stung to the very soul. The girl let her upper body fall forward, gave a cry and straightened. While Miss Hall returned smiling to the dais, to receive the congratulations of our Headmistress, Nell bathed the sufferer's forehead and administered the smelling salts.

  Miss Boyden was chosen to administer the next twelve, which could be given very slowly indeed. They were again merciless cuts, broadening the weal on the right and turning all on the left side the hue of the poppy and plum. Verily the girl was going to have the skin flayed from her at this rate. She was groaning in agony and the salts were given again and again.

  A large sigh swept the room after the third stripe of the third dozen had been given by Miss Emily Oakes, however. The blonde Latin mistress had taken a leaner verge, with perhaps only four long limbs bound in it. She could cut into the vividly tenderized meat now and did so, witheringly. After this stroke it was as if a razor had sliced: a ruby pearl swelled where a tail-end had fallen and Nell applied the stinging pimentade, painting into the graze. The girl was now in sorry state, for this burning solution, together with the rub of a bar of cattle salt that succeeded it, would now be driven fully in beneath the skin by succeeding cuts. And what cuts they were! The streaked rounds writhed ever more desperately, occasioning new tautening of the straps. Miss Oakes took three rods to her dozen, wanting the full penalty of tough tips to be felt, and by its end shards of wood were flying and the Duty Prefect's white-clad lap was marked by spicules of blood. At least two inches of skin on the right had been grazed away and the tips ate into wet stuff there, with unspeakable rigor. The girl shrieked at the last. And how the arse-cheeks now convulsed at the touch of the pimentade brush.

  A sigh like low wind over wheat fields brushed the assembly then, as' Scatcherd came down to give the coup de grâce, the last dozen, and she had been chosen too to apply the flail. With what diabolic skill did she cut. She did so "short," biting the tips into the full richness of weal in the right buttock-cheek. With what drear sound did they fall, each echoed by a shrill cry and a lurch that shook the very block. After each cut the buttocks spasmed as the girl gasped speechlessly for air, her eyeballs bulging; she hung there in a trance, sweat pouring down her shoulder-blades, then relaxed like a lump, breathless—and Scatcherd sliced again.

  "Mer-mer-meeeeeer-oooouigh”

  The thick right cheek was no longer merely oozing its crimson dew, it was trickling in at least three places. Esteeming this welt benumbed, Miss Scatcherd then cut the left chub alone, finally "whipping in" so that the end of the tails nipped right inside the cheek, forming blood-clotted weals close to the anus.

  When it was over, the girl was almost gone. She panted, making raw sounds, her head wrenched back to see what next her tormentress was preparing for her. Her brutalized buttocks seemed to throb, steaming.

  "No more," she could be heard calling weakly, "no more, Ma'am, I do beseech you ... in the name of God Whom you love, do not give me the cords. I am cut through entirely behind."

  This babbling on the part of such a big girl frightened us exceedingly and had its effect on poor Jessica Cameron, trembling like a leaf and crying openly.

  "You have sinned," said Miss Temple drily, "and must atone to the full. Ten strokes, Miss Scatcherd; let them be felt and take your
time."

  The martinet was another bitter, wicked instrument with which we were afflicted at Lowood. From a shiny wooden handle depended a number of hard cords given weight by soaking in water and rugosity by the tough knots made in them, the last of which were sometimes stiffened by sealing wax.

  "For pity's sake . . . ooooh, mercy, mercy. . . ."

  To receive these "master's" strokes the girl's legs were brought together and extended behind her; a bar braced her knees absolutely straight and on the tumified cheeks, huddling and juddering together, the martinet ripped down. Its strokes are truly like red-hot tongs at the best of times, especially where the knots fall, and what they must have been like to the broad-arsed girl flayed in front of us that day I dread to think. All I know is, she howled. Miss Scatcherd whirled the thongs round her head to separate them and, rising a-tiptoe, brought them down with a thick matt sound into the martyrized flesh. After four they were wet and stained. Dark dots as big as peas were sewn across the full surface; with her last mighty swipes, given with all her power, the mistress was "lucky" enough to burst some of these blood-blisters which fairly spurted in complaint. When it was all over the girl was restored, stood up, and again lectured, after which she was led round the three ranks of the school as a lesson by the Prefect, her arms again behind her. She completed her calvary bowed over, hardly able to stand up, and making a continuous low groan. When she passed before us Minnies I had a full view of the arse which had been so cruelly cut into: it looked twice its size and blood runneled down the right thigh. I suspected it would be two weeks ere it was white again. Alas, each day of Solitary Confinement, on bread and water, was invariably accompanied by six of the best morning and night with a cane. Of Detention I shall recount the horrors to which we were there subjected below. Useless to tell of Jessica Cameron's almost equal agony. During the flogging of her friend fear had made her "wee," as we used to say. A small pool was found between her feet, when she was called for; her nose was rubbed in this and she was ordered another six. So altogether she suffered about as badly and her thin, ivory-skinned cheeks were fearfully raw by the time it was over. She too was paraded past us, sobbing.

  When it was finished and we had filed out, there were, I regret to say, more bright glances exchanged, and hot hands held. The connoisseurs of the rod made their comments. All opined that Hall's first dozen was what had made the birching so "tight." One monster of thirteen avowed she had been able to come thrice, watching. I need say no more but that my own pulses were pounding, and my little slit wet. As time passed, the seasons changed if the scene did not. With the passage of another year I was advanced into the Minor class, thanks in the main to my fine size and shape, and was allowed several keenly felt privileges, like rambles in the grounds unsupervised. Ever and always, of course, was I reminded by physical chastisement that I was a defective being, of an inferior race, whose superior I should strive to emulate—with stoicism, control, and courage. I had many faults and few redeeming points. Never again did Miss Miller favor me as she had, and twice did she get me birched. The second occasion was worse, but the very worst of all such I ever had at Lowood was in my penultimate year when, in common with three other upper girls, I was involved in refractive behavior, bordering on rebellion, to our dormitory monitor. It was five dozen, a full sixty no less, after which the insulted prefect was permitted to take her revenge by placing twelve of the juiciest with a Duty cane on our quivering, virtually flayed undercheeks. It was hell itself, a long protracted punishment that took all the time from break to second Hall, for we swallowed our doses in turn, of a dozen each, and then the last two dozen together. The caning alone took a full three minutes and was one of the most agonizing I had ever had.

  Moreover, we were not as usual allowed to go to the Recovery Room for the rest of the day, but had to dress and take our place in class and preparation for the remainder. We got permission to stand up for two whole days and our knickers had to be soaked off our flanks at the end of each. Our one recompense was the respect of our peers at sight of our ruined rears. To receive the cane on birched flesh is not an experience I wished to repeat and I was a mouse to the end of term. What's more, that fiend of a Prefect had given me much of my ration excessively low, even to the thighs.

  Hitherto, therefore, I have recorded in detail and some chronological logic the events of my insignificant existence at Lowood. But I shall not conclude in the manner of a regular autobiography ... I am only bound to invoke memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest, before I recount how I was taken on as a governess by Mr. Rochester, at Thornfield. A few lines only are necessary to help the reader to picture the connection, and my gradual growth to womanhood.

  WHRRRPPP!

  TEN!

  "Yaowww!"

  What a stroke. I screamed like a scalded cat, as the whippy ivory whacked into my wounded under-flesh. My buttocks bunched, spasming in swollen protest as the agony laved through them. Oh, Mr. Rochester was being strict tonight, very. My master's aim was sure. The tip was eating into wet meat now.

  "Please please, sir," I babbled when my breath was back, "but spare me these last."

  "Nonsense, Jane, they are going to do you the most good. So why would you want to miss them?"

  The logic was ineluctable, since the law was his.

  "Relax now" he said gently. "These are going to hurt."

  10

  I have not yet alluded to the visits to Lowood of Mr. Brocklehurst. They occurred at the end of each term and occasionally during them. His absence, usually with his friend the archdeacon, was a relief to us. I need not say how we dreaded these inspective comings. His presence invariably inspired perfect dread, and we were aware of it by some schoolgirl sixth sense. Like the Lord of Hosts he came to chasten, and chastened.

  One morning after his carriage had deposited him and we were in class, that familiar long stride measuring the passage announced his round of inspection. I was under Miss Scatcherd and sat terrified as the cortège approached.

  It was an impressive one and we rose like soldiers as it entered the schoolroom. First strode in Mr. Brocklehurst himself, doubling an endless cane under his chin; behind him was Miss Temple, smiling as ever, clad in stone-hued trousers of velvet, fitting very tight, and a brief black velvet gilet which revealed rather than concealed; behind her, in turn, also in short dark velvet tunic and pin-clean tucker was the Duty mar'm of the day, red-headed Miss Boyden, carrying an instrument. There was a Duty Prefect all in white, Matron Harden creaking on her crutches and two maids in attendance, with buckets that boded badly.

  "Sit down, sit down," he said, acknowledging Miss Scatcherd's smiling curtsey. He it was who was about the only person that harpy ever smiled at.

  I sat looking straight in front of me, without a breath, hoping the air would somehow make me invisible. I had not seen the Reverend since Gateshead and he looked twice as dark and impressive today.

  Brows beetling he surveyed us from the dais for a long time in silence, doubling that appalling cane. Our hearts were pounding like pistons as he began to speak:

  "You young ladies are aware, I believe, that you are not here to be accustomed to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to be rendered wholly hardy, patient, self-denying. I take this opportunity of reminding you of the sufferings of the primitive Christians, of the torments of the martyrs; of the exhortations of our blessed Lord himself, calling upon his disciples to take up their cross and follow Him, of His divine consolations, 'if ye suffer hunger or thirst for my sake, happy are ye.' "

  The man began to walk through our quaking rows. I was in a more forward one and breathed a sigh as he passed behind, beyond my ken. The silence was becoming suffocating. We heard him pause by a desk.

  "You—what is your name?"

  "Black, Mona, sir."

  "Have you been thrashed this week?"

  "Yes, sir," piped the voice.

  "Hurt?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "How many?"
/>   "Six, sir. Failing in Recitation."

  "Do you good?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Hm. Very well. Since it was so salutory you shall have the same again tonight. Inscribe this girl for six and, Duty Mistress, see that you work her tight and low. Make her wish she had a smaller pair of buttocks."

  "I shall, sir, with pleasure," said Miss Boyden from the side.

  The brute paced on. Again he stopped.

  "Name?"

  "Marowney, Audrey, sir."

  "You're idle, aren't you?"

  "I try not to be, sir."

  "Nonsense, I can see it in your eyes. Put this child down for a fellow six for Contradicting. Now then, Audrey Marowney, let's see how you fancy a taste of my cane across the top of those tightly stretched knickers of yours. A nice fleshy thing. Come, bend right over your desk and put it up for me now. Skirt up. Good, so. Let's see how you cut, from above."