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.