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A VICTORIAN SPANKING ADVENTURE

by Stanlegh Meresith


1. The Problem of Cecil

Mary Hartwell
Pimlico
London SW1

Prof. Harold Hastings
Dept. of Cultural Studies (C19th CP Div.)
University of West Anglia
Feshampton
UK

October 22nd 1932

Dear Professor Hastings,

Further to our recent telephone conversation, I enclose this letter with a parcel containing the collection of my grandmother's correspondence written during the late 1860's. Some of the letters she must have acquired from relatives during the course of her life, particularly from her brother (my Great Uncle Cecil) and from their cousin Jasper and their Aunt Julia. I have sorted them into chronological order. I hope they may prove useful to you in your research.

Very briefly: my grandmother, Lydia Hartwell, was born on December 16th 1849 at Hartwell Hall, then as now the family seat of the Hartwells. Her father, Sir Lionel Hartwell, and his brother Richard had both been educated at Greystones, the public school featured within much of this correspondence. As I mentioned to you, my grandmother lived a full life right up until her death a month ago. These letters bear witness to an early episode - she was eighteen - which typified her courage and adventurous spirit.

I feel sure you will find the narrative that unfolds here as engrossing as I did. Should you have any further questions concerning Lydia Hartwell, please feel free to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Hartwell


Hartwell Hall

January 5th 1868

Dear Aunt Julia,

I hope you are in good health and that life in Bloomsbury treats you well. I write to you on a somewhat delicate matter. You have always been such a kind, honest confidante and I know you will advise me well, as you always have.

Do you remember a visit you made to us when I was about fifteen? It was summer I think. I was being most neglectful of my studies with Miss Jameson at that time and one day during your visit she had cause to punish me with her ferule. I came out of the library crying and you took me in your arms and consoled me. The incident has no doubt faded beyond your recall by now, but I have never forgotten your words to me that day. You spoke of the importance of this kind of punishment - on a young lady's posterior - and how cleansing it was.

Aunt, I have an overwhelming need to confess for I am in a quandary of guilt and confusion. When I became sixteen - over two years ago now - Miss Jameson ceased that form of punishment. But, greatly to my surprise and embarrassment, I have found myself desiring to experience it again. I wonder at my strangeness in wanting to be punished, to be beaten on my derriere (as Miss J has always called it).

And now I come to the worst part of my confession about which I can only blush.

Cousin Jasper came to stay after Christmas - he is sixteen now, as you know, and attending Greystones (where Cecil would have started a year ago were it not for Mother's steadfast refusal to allow it). Tuesday last, Jasper and I had just returned from riding (he's a marvellously bold horseman) and we were in the stables alone. He had been regaling the family often during his visit with tales of the school and the all too frequent punishments of a corporal nature meted out to the boys there (all of which of course just confirmed Mother's determination not to allow Cecil anywhere near the place, despite Father's wishes that he follow in his footsteps).

I confess I had found Jasper's descriptions most alluring and after our ride, using my most beguiling charm, I prevailed upon him to apply his riding whip to my bottom - over my underskirt of course. He was reluctant at first, but I persuaded him that I was most richly deserving, and that I needed to know what it felt like in order to better understand what Cecil might face should Father get his way and send him to Greystones.

I urged Jasper not to hold back but of course he did. At first he just tapped me and I felt nothing but foolishness. I took the whip from him and demonstrated on a stack of hay the kind of strength I desired him to use. I whistled it down quite hard! He was shocked. I begged him not to be squeamish, to show me what he himself had had to endure. I swore I could, I would, bear it.

Well, Aunt, he struck me and it hurt. I thanked him and praised him and he gave me another and then another. Now, it felt right. Now, it approximated to the pain and heat which Miss Jameson used to impart with her ferule. I urged him on, and he gave me three more - six in all - but then he would do no more. My hind quarters were stinging and throbbing and I accepted his limit, though I craved more.

Oh Aunt, it felt so liberating! And although dear Jasper was blushing to his roots (as was I), he was jolly decent about it; he carried on as if nothing untoward had happened. I had wanted to broach the matter further with him but he had to leave us on Thursday to return home prior to departing for the new school term. We had no further opportunity to speak of it.

Have I erred most terribly, Aunt? Have I corrupted my cousin Jasper?

Please do reply at your soonest opportunity and share with me your sage advice once more.

In grateful anticipation, I am...

Your niece,

Lydia


23 Bedford Square
Bloomsbury, London

January 19th 1868

My dear Lydia,

I thank you for your letter and your confidences. These are, as you say, delicate matters and you did right in seeking my advice, which I shall endeavour to make as 'sage' as I am able.

First, my dear, you should not feel ashamed of your need, or indeed your desire, for punishment upon your posterior. When your Uncle Henry passed on, I lost not only a husband but also my source of corrective applications of the rod. Yes, dear niece! I feel you are of an age where I may now divulge this confidence. Your own Aunt Julia has also been subject, as a married woman, to chastisement when it has been deserved. And rest assured - that it gives us a certain pleasure amidst the pain is not only cleansing but entirely innocent and natural.

As for what transpired between yourself and Richard's boy, I agree that it was somewhat impetuous and unbecoming of you, my dear, but from your description it would seem that the young man has not mistaken your motives for anything other than those you described. Your brother Cecil, I know, is of a very vulnerable constitution and quite unfit for the physical challenges of life at boarding school; you are to be commended for your empathy.

At your age, I too found your father's and Uncle Richard's descriptions of the regime at Greystones most enthralling. I would advise you to write to Jasper and, perhaps just in passing, at a later stage in your missive, refer casually to what occurred between you, remind him of your motives and thank him for aiding you.

Meanwhile, you are long overdue a visit to your Aunt here in London! You surely know that the welcome will be of the warmest kind and that you may come for as long as you might wish to stay. There is so much I would wish to share with you, my dearest.

Until that happy time, be assured of my love and understanding,

Your devoted...

Aunt Julia


Hartwell Hall

January 21st 1868

Dear Jasper,

I was delighted you were able to visit us after Christmas. With Mother's illness, it had been far too long since you were last here. Your company relieved the boredom of home life that I confess is so oppressive to me.

I much enjoyed our rides together, and I thank you for your kindness to Cecil. I know he can't have been much fun for an adventurous young man like you, but I thought you most kind and patient in the circumstances. One would never guess he was only two years your junior. Whilst you appear older than your sixteen years, poor Cecil still has the bearing (and the cherubic voice!) of a twelve-year-old, which, as you must have gathered, is why Mother simply will not countenance his joining you at Greystones.

I will, however, admonish you just a little, cousin, on this matter. Your stories of the school - which, for my part, I found absorbing - had, I'm afraid, a most adverse effect on Cecil and Mother. The very rough-and-tumble which you find so exhilarating about life at Greystones is but terrifying anathema to them. I think perhaps you were not quite aware of it at the time, but your account of the House Captain (Perkins? Parkinson?) and his nasty strap made them pale with horror, as did your descriptions of the canings meted out by your Housemaster. For myself, I must say I thought you exceedingly brave and nonchalant about it all, but it made me realise how much Father has concealed about the matter of discipline in his attempts to persuade Mother that Greystones would be the making of Cecil.

"The un-making, you mean!" she cried the other day, in that shrill way she has. "He would be quite destroyed by the place!"

Since your visit, Father is in an even darker mood than usual - he cannot endure the thought of his son not following in his footsteps and, although Mother keeps him mostly in check, he is prone to making hurtful remarks to Cecil about his 'feebleness' which I know he then regrets. The fact that Uncle Richard sings your praises so highly and delights so volubly in how well you do at Greystones just makes it all the worse: Father hates to be outdone by his brother!

By the way, Miss Jameson remarked upon what a fine young man she thought you! She herself is quite torn as to what would be best for Cecil. She loves him dearly - of course he's the perfect student for a private tutor such as herself, with his head forever in one book or another (quite unlike me!) - yet she worries that he is missing the necessary, strengthening influences of the company of other boys. The other day she reminded me - again! - how often she used to have to apply her ferule to my posterior, yet she has never once had to punish Cecil for a single misdeed! She also scolded me for being such a tomboy during your visit!

"We only went riding together," I told her indignantly, but she then embarrassed me with reminders of the wrestle you and I had on the hall carpet after dinner on New Year's Eve!

I didn't tell her, of course, about our little experiment in the stables. I hope I didn't discomfit you, cousin, with my request. I know it must have seemed strange to you, who suffer such painful attentions to your backside at school, to have your cousin ask for such an attention! As I told you, it was partly to satisfy my curiosity about what Cecil would be faced with and partly because I felt somehow strangely deserving. But you were very manly, indeed quite the schoolmaster! I thank you, and beg you not to think me too odd.

Meanwhile, dear cousin, I wish you well in your new term. Do write me of your adventures if you have time. For now, you can be sure, I am...

Your loving cousin,

Lydia



© Stanlegh Meresith
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.