Some Girls Talking: Mary

We each had our duties, caring for the house and its head and, in my own case, helping him with his studies and studying in my turn, to be prepared for the mission to the Eastern heathen, but we girls were able to spend much precious time together, especially at night, when we would often forsake our own beds to gather together in one, talking and exchanging caresses deep into the night.

I told them much about my own history, concealing nothing save the true nature of my feelings for Mr Rochester, there being no reason to hold anything else back now my secret was out. I described my joys and sufferings at Lowood, and they replied with tales of their experiences as governesses in wealthy families in Bath. Each for her own reasons was happy to get away from her duties to these demanding employers.

Mary, always the weakest, had found much difficulty, from time to time, in restraining her charges' high spirits. She had been responsible for the education of two sisters, and two female cousins who had been taken into the household, which was large and wealthy, including several sons, a little older than the girls, who were either under the care of a tutor or gone to University or the Army.

Her most recent trial, which had led to a very sore denouement, for her at least, had been occasioned by a chance remark of one of these young men. He had been discoursing on the noble art of boxing and, in particular, remarking on the new rules governing the sport, that had been promulgated by the Marquis of Queensbury, and almost universally adopted, banishing the old bare knuckle fights to clandestine meetings in fields, with look-outs to spot any ultra-zealous magistrate and his constables. Keen to impress his sisters and cousins with his hardy manliness, he had given it as his opinion that the new rules made it a sport only fit for girls.

The young females, like Paul's Athenians ever seeking something new, seized upon the idea, and nothing would suit them but to arrange a match between themselves as soon as maybe. All four hoydens having volunteered, lots had to be cast to settle who should fight whom, the winners to compete in a final. Thus far all was simple, and all other rules had been set out for them by the sporting Marquis, and they turned their attention to that most important and crucial of all the questions raised. What to wear?

Discrete enquiries of the young man elicited that, under the new rules, the boxers were clothed just as before; that is they were bare to the waist, below which they wore loose knee britches and stockings, with the lightest shoes they could afford, since this made their movements the more nimble. Unused to britches and, in any case, unwilling to sacrifice their femininity, the girls decided that the correct dress would be to wear long drawers, ribboned at the knee, with silk stockings and satin pumps, and so they appeared, their hair tied back with black ribbons, their chests bare in the accepted style, swelling breasts pouting, pink nipples standing proud.

It is probably not necessary to state that all this activity was arranged with the utmost discretion, since it was highly unlikely that the parents of these wild young women would have been anything other than horrified and incensed had they known of it in advance, forbidding it outright. They did however take Mary into their confidence, having considerable power over their easily led governess, and appointing her referee for the matches. She accepted reluctantly, and because she was, as usual, unable to stand out against their combined will.

On the evening appointed the contestants and the referee assembled in secret in a large upstairs room in a quiet wing of the great house, where they could be confident that no-one would be likely to surprise them. There was no official audience, but one of the cousins, infatuated with one of the sons of the house, had let her tongue run too loosely as she lay in his arms, relaxed from love-making, and there was a trio of watchers hidden behind the curtains that screened the deep window alcoves.

The first two girls, a sister and a cousin of the male watchers, slipped off their peignoirs, revealing their enticing costume and delicious breasts. Mary adjusted their gloves and consulted her watch.

"Seconds out," she called, well tutored in these matters by the eldest son, and the other two girls stepped off the large Turkey carpet that they had designated as the 'ring'. "First round!" and she struck a cloisonne vase that gave off a resonating gong sound to start the contest.

In true professional style, the two girls circled for a minute, feeling each other out with jabs of their left hands, seeking the vulnerable breasts but foiled by the other's blocking arm. Having sized up her opponent, Jenny, a dark athletic type, an inch taller and longer armed than her opponent, opened up the fight proper, punching in rapid succession to head and body, trying to either shock her opponent by striking her on the face, or hurt her by bruising the tender breasts. She did score on both counts, catching the shorter Claire on the cheek, and then, as she wavered, punching her hard on one white globe, leaving an angry pink patch and drawing a gasp of pain, but her more compact opponent came back to get inside her guard and give back the blow, and another like it, so that Jenny had two bruises on her bosom when time was called at the end of the round.

Their seconds bathed their faces and breasts with cold sponges and a little cologne water, and Mary struck the vase again. Once more they sparred to start with, testing each other, but soon moved in to trade punches to chest and face. By the end of the round the honours were even, each girl a bit puffy round the eyes and cheeks, both sporting angry red patches on their breasts where they had each taken several bruising blows.

For the third and final round they both came out punching, taking and giving serious punishment. They could abide the blows to their breasts but flinched from the punches to the face. The one was merely pain, the other a devastation of their looks, and no young woman would hesitate to place the former as more supportable than the latter. It ended with a blow to Claire's nose that brought tears to her eyes and blood from her nostrils, and she retired hurt to leave Jenny the victor.

The other pair of female pugilists performed much the same balletic battery of each others delicate physiognomies and tender mammaries until, in the third round, Caroline, Jenny's sister, dealt a deadly blow into poor Sophie's stomach, that doubled her over, gasping and honking for breath, quite unable to continue. It was felt by some that this might be a low blow by the new rules but, on the other hand, vanity had caused her to wear the band of her drawers very loose, to expose her smooth rounded belly of which she was inordinately vain, and it was finally held that the blow was not 'below the belt', since she had set her belt so low as to expose her navel.

The final was now between the two sisters. The first two rounds were very even, each girl giving several hard blows to the breasts, leaving them gasping and red-eyed, but they battled gamely on into the final round. Here they began to really 'mix it', the 'mill' becoming fast and furious, tears and blood flowing freely, until they fell into a clinch, leaning on each other quite exhausted. So exciting had the bout become that the boys had thrown caution to the wind, coming out of their shelter to cheer, while the women were equally carried away, and hardly noticed their presence.

"Break," cried Mary, "you must let go and step back before you continue."

"Break indeed," thundered a voice from the doorway, "and you shall in no way continue. Desist at once!"

All looked in horror at the door where the girls' mother, all unnoticed, stood seeing all. All was confusion. The girls rushed to cover themselves as best they could, though the matron had seen their nudity and all else. The boys slunk out as fast as they could while the mother vented her wrath on the combatants and their seconds and, most particularly, their governess.

"Go to your rooms, all of you," she declared when she had expressed herself comprehensively and at length, "as to you, Miss Rivers, you will attend me in my room in ten minutes."

Mary made sure her charges went to their rooms then, in fear and trembling, reported to the lady of the house to hear her own fate. She found her in a mood of quiet anger.

"I am very disappointed in you, Miss Rivers. I realize these girls are growing to that state of young womanhood where they are difficult to control, but that is your duty. The disgusting activity in which I caught them this evening was not only unladylike, but bade fair to damage their value in the matrimonial market. I do understand that none of them has taken any permanent harm, but that was no thanks to your lack of discretion in the matter. Their bruised faces and breasts will recover soon enough, and are probably punishment sufficient in itself, but suppose a nose had been broken, or a nipple split. The girl would have been damaged for life and her chances of making an advantageous match much reduced. They understand their folly, and are sore enough to be sorry, but you must be punished for letting the risk be taken."

It was no more than Mary expected, or believed she deserved, but the nature of her punishment, when her employer pronounced it, quite took her aback.

She was made to strip, not unexpectedly since she anticipated a whipping, but it was to be more than her drawers she had to remove. Before the implacable eye of Lady Bagrain, she must remove also her stays and shift, until she stood in stockings and shoes only. First she was made to bend and receive six cuts of a heavy malacca cane in her buttocks. The black rod sank into her flesh with venomous force, the welts rising finger thick at once, and still prominent and sore two days later. She was no stranger to the rod, and took then without flinching, though she grunted a little and her nether cheeks writhed and clenched with the pain.

This was no more than she had anticipated but, on its completion, though she was allowed to rise, it was only to be made to bend over a hard-backed chair, her hands on the seat. In this position, the vengeful mother delivered a dozen blows of a thick heavy leather strap across the white shoulders, until the tears sprang unchecked into her eyes, and she cried at the pain of every stroke.

Her torment though was not finished, the worst was yet to come. Made to stand upright, Lady Bagrain addressed her once more on the folly and risk she had courted in permitting the fight and, in particular, the blows to breast and belly. Coldly, displaying neither pity nor anger, she dealt her three blows of the strap across her soft belly, then made her put her hands behind her head, thrusting out her breasts, and brought the belt slashing down across their full white globes three times more, pausing each time to order her, under threat of dismissal and disgrace, to straighten from where she had folded in pain, and offer her soft breasts and tender nipples to the next blow.

Finally she lectured her anew on the iniquity of allowing the girls to hazard their looks and, with calm deliberation, struck her open-handed across the face, great stinging blows, left, right, left, right. As her head swum, Lady Bagrain ordered her to gather up her clothes and, with the bundle hugged to her sore breasts and belly, she staggered, almost completely bare, to her room.

To Lady Bagrain's credit, she considered the lesson learnt and the matter closed, never referring to it again, but Mary was more than relieved when the news came to her of the inheritance we were to share, and which would enable her to leave Lady Bagrain's employ.