Alice was surprised at this but I informed her my mother died when I was young and my father would not part with me, but preferred teaching me himself.
Alice told me Madame was very strict with the new girls until she had the chance to whip them a few times, after which she was very indulgent.
She told me that Saturday evening was punishment time and she had found out that gentlemen were admitted to Madame's room to peep at the girls punished. I enquired how she knew that. She said I had no doubt noticed that the grounds reached the water's edge.
Well, said Alice, one Saturday Madame sent me into the garden to get some fruit the gardener had forgotten and I saw two boats stop at the boat-house. I hid behind some bushes and saw four gentlemen, muffled up in cloaks, walk up the path which leads to the side entrance of the house. They were admitted by Mrs. White, the housekeeper. My curiosity was excited, so I quickly brought Madame the fruit and ran into her private room, and crept under the sofa to listen, thinking I would be certain to find out something. Nor was I wrong in my conjecture, for in a few minutes Mrs. White ushers in the four gentlemen and two of them sit down on the very sofa I was under. They talked to each other about the superior manner in which Madame's establishment was conducted. Two of them said they had daughters at present in the school and hoped they would have broken some of the rules that week.
This remark astonished me but my surprise was greater when by the voice of the next speaker I recognized my own father, Sir Thomas Moreton! He had visited me that very morning, gave me a supply of pocket money, wished me goodbye and said he was going back home at once; and here he was in the same house!
The other speaker was the rector of the parish church, the Hon. and Rev. Algernon Stanley. I knew his voice, for in the course of the conversation he was addressed as Stanley by my father.
Evidently the party of four were acquaintances, for they all chatted away on good terms.
In a few moments I heard my father's voice:
"Well, gentlemen, I will bet you five pounds that when you see the punishment this evening you will allow my daughter's bottom to be the plumpest and most exciting of any you shall see tonight!"
rector. — "But suppose your daughter is not birched tonight?"
sir moreton. — "Then we will let the bet stand over till some other Saturday when she is flogged and we all are here."
Here, dear Kate, was a revelation to me! My father and three other gentlemen evidently were here for the purpose of witnessing the punishments about to be inflicted on the schoolgirls' bottoms! And my father must have seen my bottom on some previous occasion, or how could he make this bet! I knew I was to be punished that evening for my name was on the blacklist.
How should I escape from under the sofa and reach the schoolroom? For my ambition was fired by my father's words of admiration about my plump bottom and I wanted him to win that bet!
Fortunately for my intentions, Madame came into the room and invited the gentlemen to adjourn upstairs.
Directly they were gone I crept from my hiding place and ran up to the schoolroom by the back staircase and seated myself at the piano and commenced practicing my exercises.
In a short time the German governess, Fraulein Hoffman, came to me and said:
"My dear you must prepare for punishment."
"Yes, Fraulein," I answered.
And, according to the custom, I retired to my bedroom, took off my form, skirts and corset and returned to the schoolroom in chemise, drawers and stockings, which was the regulation dress for punishment.
Three other girls were to be punished; one rebelled from Fraulein's order and had to be dragged to her room and undressed.
At last we heard a bell ring and each of us, the culprits, was escorted by a governess to the room especially used and fitted up for punishment. It was lighted from the roof and had ladders, Berkeley horses and other appliances, such as ropes from the ceiling, rings in the floor and ceiling to which to fasten refractory culprits.
On this occasion we were made to slowly take off our drawers and then kneel on a kind of table with our heads low down and our posteriors sticking well out, with our hands and ankles tied securely.
Next, our offences were read out to us by Madame as follows:
"Margaret Stanley, your offence is as usual peeing in bed. I give you notice that I intend telling the worthy rector, your uncle, of this most disgusting habit of yours.
"Emmeline Chesterfield, your offence is greediness in eating up the cake you brought from home, and not sharing it with your schoolfellows.
"Constance Le Ray, you were discovered viewing your naked person in the glass; such vanity must be checked by the rod."
And then Madame read my name.
"Alice Moreton, your offence is one against decency. It is that of having received a letter from a lover whom you obstinately refuse to name or give any information as to how you have carried on this clandestine correspondence.
"I will read it aloud to you, Miss Alice Moreton, and I hope your cheeks will blush with shame as much as the cheeks of your bottom will blush under the rod, presently. This is the horrid letter:
My Dear Alice:
How I do long for another kiss on the lips of your pussey! The last I had was delicious! I dream of you every night and sometimes fancy I am in one of those high pews at church with your naked bottom sitting in my face, so I can kiss and suck your pussey! At other times in my dreams you catch hold of me by the cock and sing: "I will not let thee go, unless you fuck me!"
You cannot wonder at these dreams, sweetheart, for they are only repetitions of the facts of the day!
Give my love to Madame and asked her to notice the beauty of your cunny!
From your devoted love,
Henry.
Madame having finished the letter told the governesses to commence flogging us, and to strike as she called out, One, Two, Three.
They were stationed close to our heads so they had to strike over our backs to reach our bottoms, which were turned towards the end of the room at which Madame was seated on a dais, raised up six steps above the level of the floor.
I remembered the conversation of the gentlemen and the bet of my dear father, and I had no doubt they were watching us from some secret peep-hole, or were perhaps under the dais. So at every blow of the rod I writhed and twisted my posteriors as much as possible, in order to display all its beauties.
Margaret received fifty stripes, Emmeline sixty, Constance eighty, and I, the greatest offender, received one hundred, which caused me to faint away.
What do you think of that, Kate dear?
I told her I thought it was a great shame and asked if the gentlemen ever came again.
Alice said no doubt they did although she had never had an opportunity of proving it; still, on Saturdays occasionally she had slipped into the garden and found boats moored to the boat-house. "However, my dear Katie, I have told you all I know, perhaps someday we will make more discoveries."
Kate said she warmly thanked Alice for telling her all the circumstances, and they kissed and went to bed.
chapter IV.
A letter from susey.
About this time I received a letter from Susey, who, when the vacation commenced, went to her uncle in Scotland, and I may as well give her adventures in her own words:
My Darling May:
You remember the morning you took leave of me, I had to walk a mile to meet the coach. John Cox, my sister Jane's intended husband, came to start me off, and he carried my box on his shoulder as we walked across the fields and down to the crossroads where the coach takes up passengers.
John told me he and Jane were soon to be married, and he said her belly was so big that it looked beautiful.