Jane and Her Master

by Stephen Rawlings

  He took a casket of jewels from inside his robe and laid it in front of her, taking bracelets to put on her wrists, while she registered joy and astonishment. It was the very picture of Eliza and Rebecca at the well, where he claimed in marriage the first to offer him drink at the well.

  After the curtain’s fall there was a considerable delay, while loud grunts and muffled imprecations marked the passing of the marble basin. In the interregnum Colonel Dent was heard to remark that Blanche’s barbaric costume made him recall the time when, disguised as a Bedouin, he had travelled in Arab lands, and observed their customs. There, he told us, he had seen many slaves, for they were as natural to them as domestic animals to us, being driven about like cattle, and as subject to their masters as any beast of the field. There were many exquisite shudders from the younger ladies at the thought of being treated so, and they entreated him to tell them more.

  Bedouin And Bridewells

  Obligingly he described the ‘coffle’, a line of naked women, secured by iron collars, linked with chains, often with their ankles fettered also, and marched in this condition across deserts and through dark forests, their flagging footsteps goaded on by the overseers’ whips on their backs.

  In the cities they would be put, one by one, on the block and auctioned off to the male that was prepared to pay most for their charms. I thought how this might well be compared to the fate of the daughters of the County families, whose matches were arranged on much the same terms, but did not disturb the young ladies delicious shivers by mentioning the topic.

  The Colonel went on to describe how these men, having laid out their gold, required value for it, expecting abject obedience, devoted service, and unlicensed pleasure from their slaves, but first they must mark them as their own, so that there could be no hope of escape. Before she left the block, each slave would be bent over it, and a hot iron, carrying her new owner’s mark, would be pressed into her buttock, while she screamed her defeat and enslavement.

  These brands were very carefully applied, so as not to diminish the woman’s beauty and the man’s pleasure in it. Often the design was an ornament in itself, and some of the more delicate and decorative might be burnt into the shoulder, the thigh or the breast, where it might show to advantage.

  Beside the branding iron, owners also employed the piercing needle, to perforate nipples, noses, even labia, in which they would set heavy rings of gold or silver which, like the brands already burnt into their flesh, both marked the wearer as slave and the man’s property, and enhanced her attraction for him.

  While he described the means by which men marked and decorated their slave-girls, the younger ladies had continued to give off excited sounds of sweet alarm and delighted terror, but they fell more quiet as he told of the other side of the coin, of the punishments with whip and bastinado, cruel cords and cheerless dungeons, while they sat quite frozen when he spoke of the mutilations that might follow some sexual indiscretion. Not adultery, for that a sewn sack, weighted with stones, would carry them to the bottom of the sea, or the executioner would stretch them naked in the sun and peel the skin from them strip by strip with his cruel blade, but there were lesser crimes between women that must be paid for.

  Men and countries varied, he said, some treating it as harmless as is the case among ourselves, in this civilized country of ours, but others resented it as a reflection on, or a detraction from, their own masculinity, and forbade it utterly. A girl caught polluting herself, or another, in such a household might have her delicate sex bud torn from her body, so that she neither indulged in its stimulation again herself, nor allowed another to.

  This frightful intelligence bid fair to cast a shadow over the girls’ bright chatter, and it was as well that, about this time, the chaos on the far side of the curtain stilled and the cast were ready to proceed.

  When the curtain rose again, it was on a most sombre scene. The walls were draped with coarse canvas, painted to represent bare stone, and from a hook, that normally carried a heavy lamp, a length of crude iron chain depended. The only furniture was a kitchen table and wooden chair, at which sat Mr Rochester, in sombre black, with stove pipe hat, writing in what appeared to be a ledger, or register of some kind.

  Now Blanche appeared again. Her costume could not have been more different from those that had gone before. She was dressed in black bombazine, her hair caught in a severe bun on the back of her head, under a small lace cap. She dragged with her her sister Mary, who was wearing a stuff gown of the poorest quality and, it would appear, little else, for her head and feet were bare.

  She seemed rather reluctant to play her part, and was hauled up in front of the table, as if before a tribunal or magistrate. He appeared to address her sternly, pointing at her and at his book, then making some note on the page. Mary fell to her knees, her hands placed together in an attitude of pleading, but the black figure at the table waved her away. Blanche dragged her to her feet, then over to the chain on the opposite wall. She wrapped the chain round Mary’s wrists, hooking the free end up so as to secure her, partly on her toes, facing the wall. She took the gown between her strong hands and ripped it clear down the back, then tore it again, so the material hung in tatters, leaving Mary bare to her waist. Though it was a dumb show. she cried out at the exposure, but Blanche silenced her with a hiss of disapproval.

  Though not of such exceptional beauty as her sister, Mary was never the less very well formed, her shoulders smooth and inviting, her breasts full and firm, crowned with delicate red cherries that stood out thick and hard now, whether from fear or excitement I could not tell.

  Now the audience made a collective sound of surprise, or was it expectation? Unseen in the gloom, and from the angle at which we looked up at the stage, a martinet lay on the table at which Mr Rochester sat, and he rose and handed it to Blanche. She accepted it and stood behind her sister, a little to one side, and lifted her hand. When it fell, the cords of the martinet hissed through the air and struck Mary across her white shoulders. She grunted and jerked in her bonds, and Blanche struck again. Mary gave a small cry, then protested in earnest.

  “Not so hard, Blanche. There is no need to whip me so, it is only a show.”

  “Be quiet,” Blanche hissed back, “there must be no talking in Charades.”

  Mary whimpered, for she, quite rightly, feared what Blanche was capable of, and she was not proved wrongly fearful. Blanche continued to bring the four cords whistling down to eat painfully into the soft flesh offered to them, until Mary’s back was laced with bright red lines from neck to waist, the knotted ends digging into her side and even touching the side of one tender breast on several occasions. Poor Mary received a dozen full strength strokes from a whip that was no make-believe, but one kept for disciplining the dairymaids, stout girls who needed a strict instrument of correction, nor did Blanche hold back, but laid it on with all her athletic strength. By the end Mary was in tears, and had to be helped from the room, so distressed she made no attempt to cover her nakedness, leaving her bare breasts for the eyes of all.

  It had been obvious to all that Blanche disdained her sister as a ‘milk-sop’ and it would appear she had taken advantage of the situation to thrash her far more harshly than anyone had expected, in order to make her expose herself for weakness. If so, she signally failed, for Mary showed considerable bravery under a cruel whip.

  It did not take the divining party long to decide on the word. BRIDE had been immediately obvious, but the scene at the cistern was a little more ambiguous. However, Blanche’s performance in whipping her sister as a bawd made all certain, and Colonel Dent gave the jury choice as, quite correctly, BRIDEWELL.

  The party broke up into little groups, each discussing the merits of the playlets, or congratulating one of the players, who had come out to receive their due. When someone remarked that poor Mary, who had not reappeared, had been treated rather more harshly than necessary, Lady Lynn was heard to snort in derision.

  Why, she declared, what was
shown and done was nothing. When she was a girl, she’d been taken to see the old Bridewell, when it was in full flower. Then the bawds were whipped to the blood, on entering and on leaving the establishment, and any person of quality, who cared to present the Keeper with an appropriate fee, might take a whip or rod to any delinquent that caught his, or very often, her, fancy. The women were particularly fierce, she opined, using the poor wretches as whipping girls for their husbands’ mistresses, that were out of their reach, though the latter was not always the case. A discarded Mistress might well find her way to the Bridewell, either because, bereft of her protector she might quickly sink to join the drabs or, sometimes, because, once vulnerable, a jealous wife might find the means to persuade the authorities to take her up on some flimsy charge. In either case she might look forward to an unhappy stay, for the wife might call and skin her back, any time she chose.

  Nor was it just Mistresses of low birth that could be trapped so. One Lady of not just gentle breeding but, also, titled in her own right, was denounced to the authorities, at the time of the late wars, and found to be carrying letters to the French tyrant giving details of the disposition of troops, and expressing admiration for his person and his government. Despite her denials, she was sent to the Bridewell to be held. For a month, the wife of the Nobleman whose bed she had been warming, would visit her daily. When she finally was rescued by her family, her back was torn to ribbons, and she never held her head up in Society again.

  You may imagine the state of lubricious excitement in which the girls of the party retired to their beds that night, each refusing to sleep alone, on account of the nightmares that might come, and hence sharing a bed with a friend of their bosom and, no doubt, other delicious parts of their anatomy.

  Called To Account

  It was two days after this merry evening when Mr Rochester sent for me.

  “I believe it is time for you to render me some accounting for yourself, and your charge,” he said, and my stomach lurched as I realised I would soon receive another thrashing. “I trust you have your notebook about you?”

  I did, and produced it from my pocket, where I always carried it to record AdŠle’s short-comings and punishment, not to speak of my own. I was painfully aware that these were all numerous, for the excitement of the house party and its guests, had driven AdŠle’s natural exuberance to new heights. In the best tone I could muster, trying not to let my apprehension show, I listed the faults, two cuts on her palm here, for noise, three there for running down the corridor without care for others. It came to ten strokes in total, which I would have to take on my bared buttocks, from Mr Rochester’s cane, rather than the thin stick AdŠle enjoyed. Moreover I was desperate to hear what additional strokes I was due for faults he had observed in me.

  “Hmm,” he mused, conning my neat columns of offences and awards, “half a score on the girl’s account, and I hold you guilty on two of my own accusing.”

  Two! That could mean a dozen between them. My knees shook, for a dozen plus ten from my Master’s strong right arm were enough to make any woman blench, but it was my lucky day.

  “I shall award you four strokes for continually absenting yourself from the drawing-room when I am present, although you know perfectly well I desire your presence there, and the like sum for not entering into conversation with me, when you are there. Now, as to AdŠle’s general behaviour.”

  Again my heart sank, for I was due eighteen already, by my count, and even six for AdŠle’s faults would see me facing two dozen, which would be a stern test. I awaited his judgement with quivering lips.

  “I shall make no award for her behaviour and manners, for you have adequately and honestly dealt with them, drawing down strokes on yourself thereby. On the other hand,” my stomach lurched again, “her English is very greatly improved since you took her in hand, while her recitation and drawing show genuine promise, so you may have a remission of six strokes to reward your success with her education.”

  I think my mouth must have dropped open at this astounding announcement, and I stood for a moment, unable to think, then dropped to my knees and thanked him heartily for being so kind as to sentence me to only one dozen cuts of that penal cane he kept behind his desk. Another woman, at another time, might have screamed, wept and begged for mercy at the thought of such torture, but when one has been spared something stronger, a mere dozen seems like mercy in itself.

  “I shall expect you here, prepared, after dinner this evening,” he said, and dismissed me.

  I may have experienced some euphoria when my Master had decreed that my tally should be reduced to ‘only’ one dozen, but the relief had evaporated quite by the time it was the hour for reporting to his study to receive them. By then all I could comprehend was that I was taking my shrinking buttocks to have them laced by twelve full blooded and merciless cuts of a penal cane wielded by a man who knew well how to use his power to apply it with the most effect on woman flesh. I had no thought whatsoever that his clemency with regard to the number of the strokes would be extended to their application, being convinced quite rightly, that he would feel he was not treating me with proper respect if he were to do so.

  Accordingly I reported to his study a half hour before that set for dinner, and knocked with apprehension, entering when bid. I found him already dressed for the dining-room, save that his jacket hung on the back of a chair, and his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, like a workman freeing his arms so that he could apply himself with unhampered vigour to the task ahead.

  “Come in, Jane,” he said, “let us get this done without delay, so that I may join my guests.”

  I also wished to finish it swiftly, but for quite other reasons! Quickly I stripped, my petticoat skirts thrown up onto my shoulders, my drawers dropped to my ankles, until I was bare from the waist down but for my slippers, and my stockings, which I wore gartered at the knee with simple ribbons, leaving all bare above and not interfering with any application of the rod to the flesh there. I bent over the straight chair he indicated, grasping the edges of the seat with my hands, so as to steady myself for the coming ordeal.

  Without further ceremony or delay, he sent the first stroke whistling into my lower buttock. I made shift to suppress the howl of agony I would have liked to have expressed, and held on grimly the while the pain built in my hinds, and hung almost unbearable at a crest. If this was how the first had taken me, how should I endure the rest?

  With difficulty and distress, I answered myself, as he caught me at my peak with his second cut. I held firm still, but my breath snorted in my nostrils. The third was no better, and the fourth seemed of an even more venomous bite, making me gasp and whine with its sting in my lowermost sitters.

  “Are you feeling it, Jane?” he asked, as if enquiring whether my meat was seasoned to my taste. My meat was over seasoned already with chilli peppers and mustard it seemed!

  “Intensely, Sir,” I gasped, my throat constricted by my anguish.

  “I rejoice to hear it,” he replied, “I will try and ensure you continue to benefit from it,” and he laid on a fifth stripe to join the thick welts already throbbing in my poor rear.

  I endured six, seven and eight with no more movement than a certain cringing of my buttock cheeks that seemed to clench in on each other without any conscious effort on my part, greeting each cut with an inelegant grunt of pain, and a mewling recognition of the throbbing tide of agony that followed. After eight he addressed me again.

  “On your toes, Jane. Lift those quivering buttocks and let them hang loose. No clenching mind. I wish to work you underneath, so that you will have the best to sit on.”

  I struggled to obey, although my body recoiled from exposing itself even more vulnerably to that devastating rod. It is one thing to be bound and helpless to resist. To be called upon to actively co-operate in one’s own torture adds wonderfully to the tension and the benefit involved. I went up on my toes and leant my weight further over the chair so as to lift my welted bottom for the
cane to come at its under side the better.

  To say those last four strokes were difficult would be to understate the case woefully, and woeful was my case when it was finally done. I hung over the chair, my shoulders heaving as I suppressed the sobs that threatened to burst from my throat. Tears had long begun to trickle from my eyes and invade my nose, and the results of my snorting protests at the lancing cuts had bubbled from my nose to mire my lips and chin, which glistened, streaked and sticky. I would have liked a moment to compose myself, but he called me to attention again.

  “Come now, Jane, there is no time to lose,” he said, “the dinner gong is about to sound, and I would have you sit with my guests tonight. Sophie can bring AdŠle to the drawing-room when the ladies retire, but you shall make good your disinclination to respect my wish to be of the company, for which those last four welts you carry are part-payment, by attending tonight. No doubt their presence under you will serve to remind you of your fault. Pull up your drawers, and adjust your dress, and we will proceed.”

  I was aghast at his proposal of having to appear in public immediately upon my chastisement and sit on my sore bottom in the presence of the other guests and, especially, that the other women would certainly observe my disarray and very probably guess at its cause, for they would have all, at some time, even if it were a little time gone in the case of the older ladies, have either suffered or inflicted similar embarrassment.

  It was, however, out of the question that I should refuse and, wincing, I drew the cambric under garment over my blazing hinds, and dropped my skirts into place. I looked in vain for the means to wash my face, until Mr Rochester relented and showed me where he kept ewer and jug in a closet. My cheeks were still burning red, both above and below, when I took my place at table, unable to suppress a groan and a pained grimace as my poor bottom contacted my chair.