But have her play a different role. There can be only one leader to the pack! Install her, if you will, as a first pupil. Then (oh, cunning!) she can report to you on what goes on behind your back, though not maliciously but simply for your information, as you used to do with me. Alison? No, I think not. She has not the right character for it. Nor Maude, for she may be indiscreet and confess to having run away from just such an establishment. You know what young girls are when they begin to talk! I say again, you must be strong, my dear, and refuse all males their entrance, save for workmen and the like. From what you have told me in the past, Dick will fret at this, but it cannot be helped. You may otherwise cause scandals and alarms.
Should girls who have “passed through” decide to visit him and Sylvia, that is another matter and one wholly to his future advantage-but offer him no more than that. He has done well enough from my endeavours first, and then your own. Be merciless, for it will pay you dividends. The guiding of the girls is your first care. But how I lecture you! Forgive me, do. You do not need advice, but plain assurances, I know. You have them here. I hope you have! Besides, how utterly excited I am to know that you will do it anyway. Our correspondence will then be reversed, or at the least will be complementary! It is I now who will show impatience for news of the forwarding of your plans, for as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, they will transpire. Be stern, be kind, be firm, and know your purpose. That is all you need to know.
Your loving Julie
Readers, as I am aware, will not so much want to see “plans of the house” as the intended residence itself, and with its curtains gently raised so that one may peep inside. To this end therefore I hasten forward to a period just over two and a half months hence, when we find Caroline installed and ready in a modest but roomy country mansion in the further reaches of Surrey.
Darling Julie,
It has all begun, and what a tremulous excitement I feel! I know now the delightful thrill of seeing a fetching young thing for the first time and envisaging how she will look with her skirts up and drawers down, receiving the first admonitions of the birch-or at least, those from my hands! How careful one has to be in interviewing! Thus, the first was Colonel Patherington, who came accompanied by his soi-disant wife, though I suspected her rather of being a mistress, having at the least twenty years less than he and hence being hardly ten ears the senior of Adelaide, his daughter. I held myself with confidence-this being in my “study,” small and cosy as it is-and mulled through my curriculum with them, not hesitating when it came to discipline, but then not brooding on it either! To my surprise, the lady fell on that. “The girls are birched when they are awkward or recalcitrant?” she asked. I wondered then at her motive. Did she resent Adelaide's existence and see in her a bar to being favoured in the Colonel's will? Did Adelaide resent her presence in their house, and for this was to be punished? I replied briefly “Yes” and waited for another question on that topic.
The Colonel cleared his throat and asked if birching were then “regular.” “With some- with others not,” said I, and smiled at Adelaide. A careful smile! She is willowy, tallish, a straight nose, brown hair, and lovely eyes, her mouth patrician and waiting itself, perhaps, to be broken in. The Colonel appeared to wish to ask more, but was seemingly prevented by the presence of his lady from so doing.
She rather tartly said, “Well-so long as they are regular.” I marked her then again as most unusual (in this particular circumstance, I mean), but fetching both in face and form, and of a height that just matched Adelaide's. They soon enough departed, leaving Adelaide to me, and I showing no dismay at the Colonel's generous cheque, which lay upon my desk! Another future pupil, Rose, came next. I thought of your Dorothy on seeing her-shy (but soon will giggle), small and shapely, not yet seventeen! I knew immediately the purpose for which her “guardian” brought her-a man who cannot wait (I am sure) to get upon her as soon as he believes I have her ready for the fray. He had the impertinence to speak of teaching her to do what she is told! I shall certainly do that, but in MY way, not his, and will nurture her as you did Dorothy. It will not be to his advantage, that I am determined on. I shall teach her how most winningly she may refuse to entertain his lusts while garnering the greatest benefits for herself.
He shall pay, he shall pay! The philosophy comes all the quicker once one has encountered males such as he, does it not? Sylvia, being present and introduced as the first of the arrivals, all three were soon a-chatter and I left them to it, gave Rose into her care and Adelaide a separate room. No lessons having yet begun, they were free to disport themselves as they wished and were utterly delighted by the “informality” of things. After tea-for I must tell you this-I accompanied Adelaide to her room as if to further settle her in. She turned to me immediately the door was closed and asked, almost with tearfulness, “Am I to be birched?” She is twenty, my dear-and had not, I asked, yet felt the sting of twigs? “Somewhat,” she replied and bit her lip. I motioned gently to the bed, and we sat down.
“Somewhat?” I fended, “you must tell me all.” She wore a pearl-grey dress with ribbons at the bodice. Nice-quite nice-but not as expensive for her station as I would have thought.
“Occasionally-well, twice,” she said and flushed and gripped her hands together in her lap. Was she alone-were “they” alone? I asked. “Oh, she was present,” Adelaide said bitterly and might have cried, so woebegone she looked! I placed one arm around her shoulders, comforting. I dearly wished to get more details from her then.
“Such things should be private,” I remarked, whereat to my surprise she said, “I know!” and twisted up her fingers more. Were her drawers down, I wondered? Was there then a feast of spitefulness in this for the Colonel's lady? “How many strokes did you receive?”
“Just six. No-four the first time, and then later six. She said… she said that I must feel the sting of it,” said Adelaide and gritted up her teeth. “Whereas you would rather have birched her,” I said most daringly, yet it came naturally to my tongue and- I believe-came rightly to her mood, with sweet surprise! “What?”
She could hardly then suppress a laugh of nervousness and some relief that I should have guessed it. “A young lady being birched sometimes wishes another one to be; it happens here-I observe it in their eyes,” I said, ignoring the fact (which she appeared not to have noticed) that I had not started yet! “Do they?” she blurted, eyes on mine, then said, “I mean…” “I know well what you mean, my dear. We have all in part been through it, have we not? A bared bottom soon attracts the eyes. Was yours then bared?” I had not meant to ask, but did. “No,” she said quickly and defensively, “well, at least…” I gathered from that only that her dress had been raised up.