A. N. Dedeaux - An English Education Read online

  I hastened to do as bid. I liked plump, dark Miss Miller, always brimming with cheerful laughter. Once again I felt I had a friend.

  When I rejoined her she motioned me forward, saying "Quick, quick." And when I fell into step behind her as we were supposed, she warmly took my arm and brought me beside her. Thus we went up the long carpeted main stair.

  "Feeling better now, Jane Eyre?"

  "Much, thank you, Miss," I answered, with grateful smile.

  "All the same, I wonder at three making you blub."

  "These canes ... are so terribly stingy and, and licky, Miss."

  She chuckled. "All the more reason to keep your sensitive skin out of the light, Jane. Were they low?" Her hand was feeling behind me, cupping under my skirt. I winced expressively.

  "The last one was."

  She laughed again. "By the time you leave here you'll be taking ten like that as a matter of course. Or almost. Just you wait and see."

  We were now navigating deserted upstairs passages, making for the wing where the mistresses had their, chambers. The woman was flushed and hot, almost holding me to her as we went. I was curious as to what "treat" she was taking me, like any child, and answer soon came. She half-whispered in one ear:

  "I am going to whip a good big Minor girl with the birch. Come, won't that cheer you up, Jane? To see the twigs singing into someone else's skin? Oh there's nothing like it. Our birches sting like fury, you ought to know by now, having put some up. I cannot tell you, my child, how completely alive I feel at this moment. Ah, here we are."

  Miss Miller all but licked her lips. A well-grown girl with round, though not heavy, hips was standing like a sentry in front of the mistress' door. She was quite pale of face, though expressionless. Already I observed myself, in Lowood habit, assessing the nether hemispheres.

  The mistress strode in before us.

  "Come in, Eleanor," she said. "I'm going to birch your buttocks. Clear the room with Jane Eyre and let me get at you, then."

  While I helped the poor girl, obviously in palpitating apprehension, push back chairs and a table to clear a large space in the center of the comfortable room, the mistress proceeded briskly to an earthenware pot from which she drew out a dripping verge. The lithe instrument was soon hissing through the air.

  I had, in my under-week of preparation, indeed confectioned a number of these fearful rods. Miss Miller evidently favored the spare variety, hers having only three or four withes. But all were literal whips, lean whippy limbs toughened by pickling in vinegar, then the standing brine, toughly budded, and latticed with thin wire up their length. The girl gulped with dismay at these monitory preparatives. She was clearly very frightened. The rod looked as long as her.

  "Tell Jane Eyre what you're here for."

  The girl looked at me and said in an impassive painstaking way: 'To be whipped by the birch-rod for Inattention."

  "Where?"

  As if correcting herself the girl stammered, "To be whipped across the buttocks by the birch-rod, Miss. For Inattention."

  "First this term?"

  "Y-yes, Miss."

  Again that tell-tale gulp. This, was no Helen Burns. A heat was warming up in me at the spectacle, I had to confess.

  "Well let's make it a good one. I feel in just the right mood. Do up your skirt." As the girl, with a lost look, rolled it up into her belt, the mistress snapped. "Retain your knickers. I like the sound. Besides, I still have the ambition to split a pair." Her eyes shone. She grinned maliciously and a bubble of saliva shone on her ivory teeth. "Turn round now, Eleanor. Yes a fine impudent pair. Let's see if we can thrash a little attention into them. Stand straight, do not bend. Hands clasped before you, so. Nice and relaxed. Any clenching and it's cut over. Let's see you show a new-knick how to bear it. Don't they stand out well for it, Jane Eyre?"

  I freely admitted that they did. Sheened in the transparent pale blue stuff, in which not a wrinkle might be seen and against which the darker blue of the leg ribbons stood in pretty contrast, it was a proud pair, indeed. The cheeks were round, sturdy and well protruding, with deep division (into which the gauzy material fitted) and not so much overhang as mine. The jut from the corset back was pronounced.

  "Oh Good Heavens, I can't wait to get at them."

  The mistress gave her creamy gurgle of mirth and, turning, slipped fingers under her own under-garment and quickly slid it down over her stockings and off. She winked at me in complicity. "I always whip better knickerless." She turned for her rod and the swing of skirt gave me a glimpse of her own opulent hams. My caning was now a pleasant gluteal warmth that spread through my being, and I was beginning to feel my heart pounding up in a new way. I remembered Eliza's look during the thrashing of her sister by Mr. Brocklehurst. Our Lowood rods were always bound at the holding end by twine, but Miss Miller took a wet rag and wound it around hers. The twigs quivered livingly under the expectant seat as she took aim and I realized that her own body was a-tremble, too.

  "You may count the cuts, Jane. You will stand in front of her and count aloud. What is more she will smile—do you hear, Eleanor?—and you will tell me if she does not retain that smile throughout. 'Twill be excellent control of her lower emotions. Good Lord, the birch is pure poetry, is it not!"

  I went to my place before the wretched victim. She had put on a rigid absurd smile and clasped her hands at her lap.

  Miss Miller stepped back. "Here it comes," she said in a low voice, as if talking to herself. "Twelve beauties right across your you-know-where."

  She paced and cut. The twigs seemed veritably to double before they lashed, ending in their dry whip as they met firm flesh. The sound made me jump and I quickly got out "One, Miss" in a startled tone.

  A pause and another long sweep—"Two."

  The girl gasped but retained her rigidity of grin. The third lapped round her wickedly.

  "Three!"

  "Plenty more to go, eh, Jane Eyre!"

  It was truly a whipping. The birch thrashed the whole seat and I got a sense of its clawing sting as Eleanor bowed or jerked her upper body, then ducked her legs with hisses of pain.

  "Brace back your knees."

  We had got to seven. The poor girl's face was a mockery of mirth; her grin had become a grimace, her forehead a single frown. Eight . . . nine . . . she shot her hands back, then recovered.

  "I ought to give you an extra for that!"

  Zzzzsch!

  "Ten!"

  "Ow!" The girl ducked, fisting her fingers in her groin. "Oh please, Miss," she whispered in a broken tone.

  "What is it now?" asked Miss Miller; she was smiling broadly herself.

  The girl was silent for a few seconds, then got out a single, sobbed word—"Mercy!"

  "What do you mean, mercy, Eleanor?"

  "Please let me off the last two, Miss."

  "They're going to do you the most good of all."

  "I ... I can't take them . . . unless you tie me, please."

  "Nonsense. Stand up straight and show a little courage. And get that smile back on your face, quick. As a matter of fact I shall give you three for making such a fuss. Yes, we'll make it a butcher's dozen as Mr. Brocklehurst invariably gives, and no rubbing after. You've hardly felt a thing. I haven't even drawn yet."

  Slowly the girl straightened herself. Squeezing shut her eyes she forced the grin on her face again, which was quite completely contorted. Remorselessly the twigs bit in, one, twice, thrice. At the last, a ferocious cut, the girl gave a long moaning "Oooooh!" She sank to her knees with a thud and bowed over, rocking in speechless pain, crossing her arms to keep her rebellious hands from rubbing.

  "Jane, quick," I heard in an almost mischievous hiss. "A birched buttock. Look."

  I looked. The streaks stood out sharply on the now bent cheeks, on the right of which they were darkly purpling and had lapped round the hip. I thought I saw a speck of blood on the stuff, but was not sure.

  "I cut long," said Miss Miller reflectively. Then to the girl, "Y
ou birch well, Eleanor. Feeling sorry for yourself? Well, get that bottom out of here unless you want some more on those."

  The girl curtseyed and obeyed, her face writhen. When I looked back Miss Miller was standing with feet widely apart and the hem of her skirt lifted in front; I saw a strong black curly bush and a wetly gleaming seam. Her face was scarlet, her breathing harsh.

  "Jane Eyre! do you know how to?"

  "Yes, Miss," I said meekly, and truthfully. Eliza's training was not to go for nothing here, then. I knelt on the carpet, among the shards of twig.

  "Quick! My clit's like an iron spring. Oh my God yes ... get your tongue . . . and, and lick, suck . . . suck it like that, squeeze it in your lips . . . oh my God wasn't it heaven when she begged for mercy . . . Jane, Jane, good Heavens you know how to . . . and grab my bottoms behind, yes, yes yeeeeees. . . ."

  When I was finally allowed to get up and wipe my mouth, Miss Miller smiled as she collapsed into a chair with a sigh. She straddled one leg over an arm and I could see the slick sweat on her haired sex.

  "Where did you learn to be so expert, Jane Eyre? Good Lord, I can't think when I ever let a new-knick do that to me." She gave her gurgle of mirth. "You realize you've just enjoyed a great favor and you realize, too, that this will only make me the more eager to whip you. Will you writhe nicely, do you think?"

  "I expect so, Miss."

  "Know what the scum buss is?"

  "Yes, Miss."

  "What?"

  "Tongue up the anus, Miss."

  "Tongue right up the anus, you monkey," she chuckled. "And kept there till you taste a bit of shit. Now run along with you. I promised you a treat and I gave you one, I think."

  That night Helen Burns was collected from prep with four other culprits. She went to her doom impassively. The girl to get eight was crying softly as she left. We later learnt—for Dorm talk was full of these "swishings"—that she got a magisterial flogging on the underhams, and that the last two had made her yell. Parker's injustice still rankled and I took my three from her before the dorm stoically, though it was hard to keep my hands outside the bedsheets, as required, for Matron's inspection, later. As the lights were doused I realized that my first day at Lowood had passed, that I had had nine, and that the first thing I would be conscious of upon awakening was corporeal pain.

  Phhhhhhrrrrrp!

  The seventh hewed mercilessly into me, driving my poor bum upwards. Merciful Heaven, what agony! I twisted and shook in the triangle. The punishment was attaining a new plane and a more ferocious rigor. A fierce fart escaped me.

  I dashed my head back. My whole buttock felt on fire though he had but only slightly broadened the band of blue weal. I clenched in, then cambered back involuntarily—and Mr. Rochester chose his moment and cut in again!

  7

  My initiatory week at Lowood proceeded without anything untoward. Until that fateful Thursday. Come Monday and we would be enrolled in the Minimus class, and regular tasks and occupations be assigned us. No. more would we be lowly new-knicks. How eagerly we four looked forward to that small elevation in our humble stations.

  Repetitions in history, grammar, geography, writing, arithmetic were all measured by the block. Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin one afternoon. A class was standing around the chair of Miss Scatcherd who was reading. It was English history and, sure enough, I soon heard the inevitable exhortations—"Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe, turn your toes out immediately,"

  "Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly, draw it in,"

  "Burns, I will not have you before me in that attitude."

  A slim cane was soon called for and this time the mistress gave the favor of its administration to another great girl who plied it across Helen's bottom with positive relish.

  It must not be thought, however, that our days were drear. Far from it. It is true there were always those whippy little licks in the dorm of a morning, but I managed to keep my hide reasonably inconspicuous and intact for the first half of that week. Moreover, girlish ebullience is impossible to repress and, well fed, kept warm, our spirits were generally high. There was love at Lowood, as never there had been under Mrs. Reed's stern roof. We also had a strong esprit de corps.

  The day after I had seen the girl called Eleanor "swished" by Miss Miller I met her in a corridor. Imagining that she might not want to meet the witness of her discomfiture, if not disgrace, I was about to hasten on when the other detained me. She was smiling widely at me, obviously without a care in the world.

  "You're Eyre, aren't you?"

  "Yes, Scott-James."

  "Sorry I didn't do better in that birching."

  "I thought you . . . took it very well," I consoled, dubiously.

  She shook her head decisively. "Rotten show. It was lack of practice. I don't get it in the hols, you see. And that tenth was a whistler."

  "What did she mean by cutting . . . long?"

  "It means that the twigs lap round your side, silly. Look."

  She turned and bent forward, lifting what was left of her skirt; the traceries of stripes were still visible through the transparent veil of blue. She chuckled as she straightened. "Blue, brown, green, yellow, all the colors of the rainbow, eh? Miller can always be relied on to be tight. I worship her, really."

  With that she strode on, insouciantly.

  That evening I had the pleasure of seeing my colleague Susan Cuningham, who I was liking less and less, get a nice "tight" caning and the following morning a great girl was chastised publicly, before the whole school, in Assembly, which was very salutory. But on Thursday my world fell about me.

  Throughout the morning the lessons had seemed long and hard and I was fortunate to get through them without cuts. I was looking forward to the play-hour when we came in from exercise that afternoon. The grounds of Lowood were a large enclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect. It was an inclement day for out-of-door exercise, soaking wet underfoot and with a drizzling yellow fog. Yet we were herded for a dismal run around the extent, conducted by the gym mistress Miss Boyden. At last, wet through and panting like puppies, we returned to the communal changing-room, a large boarded room with a tiled bath steaming with hot water set at one end. Two undermistresses, Seale and Hall, were "taking" this changing-room and I saw them laughing and chatting at one side as I ran in; Miss Seale was holding the inevitable cane.

  Now it was a traditional that the last girl in from exercise got cuts. And I duly saw a Minor bend down for four sweeping stripes across her solid seat, over which the wet knickers were taut as skins. Then I was undressing fast for the bath. There was also a custom that the last girl out of the room also got a dose.

  "Let's see, Maud, let's see," the girls chorussed as the Minor who had been punished advanced naked, her face creased and holding her chubbies, to the splashing throng of pink bodies. She duly showed her back for us.

  "She didn't have to hit that hard," said the girl sulkily as she eased her offended parts into the soapy, steaming water. Georgy Reed's similar opinion came to mind.

  Unluckily the mistress had approached. Rapping her cane on the side of our bath she said, "When I want criticism of my activities, Maud, I'll ask for it."

  "Sorry, Miss," the girl gulped hastily.

  "Rather late, I fear. You'll take two Demerits for Impertinence."

  There was a shocked hush at this. Two Demerits for a Minor meant facing up to eight with a Duty cane that night. The girl said "Thank you, Miss," impassively, and reached for a sponge.

  The hubbub round the tub did not resume. Soon the room was in silence while girls dried themselves, folded clothes tidily in lockers, and strove to get dressed. Oh, all those knicker buttons!

  I was aware of girls leaving and did not become conscious of my own tardiness until there were but a handful of junior girls left, all straightening stockings and drying necks.

  Miss Hall it was now who was smilingly swinging the cane. "Come on, Illing
sworth. Buck up, Mary. Hurry, Eyre. I'm dying to get at one of you."

  She was a tall blonde woman in her twenties. A girl scampered out. There were two of us left. Those buttons ... I should have to leave one undone, for Illingsworth was at the door. With a gasp I made for it, trying to thrust in front of her. For a second we were wedged there, then, with a laugh, Miss Seale pulled me strongly back by an earlobe.

  "Oh no, you don't. Come on you!"

  "Please," I quavered, quaking. "I tried."