Arrival

I cannot say that my arrival at Thornfield Hall was an occasion of unmixed pleasure. True the house itself was pleasing enough, and I was looking forward with some considerable excitement to meeting my new employer and my charge, but I looked back too, to the manner of my departure from Lowood School, where I had been eight years a pupil, two of them as pupil-teacher, since my haughty Aunt, Mrs Reed, had banished me from her home at the tender age of ten.

For all those years I had served and suffered under an iron discipline and a rigid rule, enforced with severity by all the staff of that establishment but, above all, by the Rev. Mr. Brocklehurst, its Patron and ultimate source of all authority. Such formative and reformatory exercises, performed upon our bare buttocks with cruel rods, had extended right up until the moment of my departure to take up the Governess position I had been offered as a result of the advertisement I had placed in the County paper. At eighteen years, though slight of frame, I was woman grown and ready to set off into the wide world outside Lowood.

That morning Mr Brocklehurst had sent for me and delivered me a lecture on how to comport myself in the great world outside the school and, to reinforce his point, and serve as a remembrance, for days physically, years mentally, as severe a whipping as any I received at his hands, and he had often whipped me to both blood and tears; a full two dozen, taken over the board, my feet parted so widely that I had to go up on my toes, the rod slicing in from beneath, the last four delivered 'short', so that the cruel tip whipped in and bit into my most tender and intimate woman's parts, where they pouted back between my spread thighs.

I climbed into the coach, my buttocks throbbing and bleeding, my vulva aching, to sit on them for hours as we crossed the county to the distant house that I would henceforth call home. You may imagine that I was very glad to descend, my legs stiff, my gait uncertain, hoping that the blood that had oozed from my welts had not stained my gown right through.

It was dark when we came to the hall, but I could still make out a long lowish building of three stories, a light showing in one curtained bow window.

Trying to walk with something like a proper poise for a young woman of refinement, and succeeding in producing something nearer to what one might expect from a lame cow, for he had hurt me deeply and my wounds had stiffened from the long journey, I crossed the paving in front of the house and knocked at the great oak door of the hall, to be answered by a pert maid.

As Leah, as I soon found was her name, preceded me, I observed her firm, large haunches moving under the thin black stuff of her gown. I never saw a girl built more fairly for rod or strap, which was just as well, considering the forwardness of her demeanour which, I was sure, would oblige any proper employer to award her frequent and severe chastisement. These jouncey hinds led me to a modest sized, but comfortable room, where a lady of past middle age, but still sprightly, sat knitting before the fire.

"Good evening," I said, dropping as polite a curtsy as my sore thighs and bottom would permit, "you must be Mrs Fairfax. I am very happy to make your acquaintance."

"And I pleased to see you. Come to the fire, you must be cold after your tedious journey. Leah, fetch Miss Eyre some hot cordial, and some small thing to eat, then you may fetch something to warm yourself. I have not forgotten your need, my girl."

Forty minutes later and the world had become a more cheerful place. I was rested now, and warmed and fortified by the hot stimulant and the cold meats that Leah had produced. I had already entered into the beginnings of a cordial relationship with Mrs Fairfax, but as yet I had not met my pupil by reason of the lateness of the hour. Leah cleared away my tray, and returned bearing a thick strap of black leather.

"You will excuse me, I'm sure," Mrs Fairfax said, "but the hour grows late, and this impudent chit has earned herself a smarting behind by her insolence, and I do not like such matters to be held over to another day. A girl should take her welts to her bed, and seek to learn from them to do better the next day."

It is of course, a commonplace for mistresses to whip their servants for the betterment of their behaviour, and I made as if to leave.

"No," said the lady, "wait until she has had her dose, and she may show you to your room."

Accordingly I took my place again, and watched to see how matters would befall. Mrs Fairfax read the girl a stern lesson on the ease with which she might slip into familiarity beyond that proper in a servant, and the danger that, if not checked now, she might commit the same folly when gentry were visiting. She was then ordered to remove her gown, leaving her clad only in her stays over a short chemise.

Leah was a comely country girl, very well built, round rosy cheeks above, and the same below, well set out before us as she was made to bend over a table, stretching across to grasp the far side. Her buttocks, though plump, were parted by her wide legged stance, and deeply cleft, so that her plump purse, framed in a glossy nest of dark curls, was clearly visible between the tops of her thighs, for she wore no drawers, as was common amongst the servant class at that time.

Mrs Fairfax rose from her chair before the fire and, taking the strap went to stand behind the bending girl. Now that she stood I could see that, despite the fact that she was no longer young, yet she retained a wiry leanness that suggested that this might be no gentle swishing, but something the girl might have reason to fear, as indeed she did, for the fatty halves of the buttocks twitched and flinched as the mistress approached.

Clearly this scene had been acted out before, probably many times, for the girl was of that irrepressible kind that will always exceed her station if not checked, and then only mend her manners for as long as the bruise in her bottom are sore enough to remind her of her failings. Mrs Fairfax lifted her rigorous right arm and brought the strap down with a whistling sound, to wrap itself round the full curve of the generous hinds, printing a scarlet band across them like an exaggerated and burning version of the equator on the schoolroom globe.

Leah squealed and wriggled, until silenced and stilled by the mistress's sharp command, then jerked again as the strap descended to paint its fiery band across the Southern hemisphere of the gluteal globe. At regular intervals, six more snapping cracks, six more squeaks and yelps followed, until all Australasia was coloured with the red of Empire.

"Mercy," the girl howled, "have mercy Mistress."

"Hush you silly girl," Mrs Fairfax replied, "you know you have a dozen due you, and there are four more to come. Brace back your thighs, for I intend that they shall receive the benefit of your remaining stripes."

If she had squealed before, now she shrieked, as the merciless length of heavy leather lashed the backs of her solid white thighs, leaving the top four or five inches on either side quite as red as any part of the South Seas above. When it was done the girl lay on the table, wracked by sobs.

"Let that be a lesson to you," her Mistress declared, "now stop snivelling and put on your gown. Miss Eyre is fatigued from her long journey and needs her bed."

Still snuffling the girl did as she was bid, and presently showed me into a small but comfortable room, where I bid her good night, and advised her to think twice before she next let her impudence show.

"Indeed, I will Miss," she replied, "for my poor bottom hurts so, I doubt I shall find much comfort in my bed."

I too, I thought, as the girl departed, still sniffling, and grasping her tormented bottom in her hands as she left, for I was very conscious of the soreness in my own haunches, and, especially between my thighs, where Mr Brocklehurst's whalebone 'soko' had wounded me deeply.

But, in the event, my fatigue was such that it soon overcame all my hurts and, by the morning, though I was very stiff and sore and still walked with a limp, the worst was over, for young and healthy women are well adapted to receive and benefit from the rod without enduring serious or lasting harm, even from as salutary a thrashing as the Reverend Brocklehurst's valedictory flogging of my own poor flesh.