Gynecocracy

We talked freely, unconstrainedly, and at ease, and in peace, which is more than most youths and maidens, when alone in each other's company, can say, and we did so as we had had the philosophy and the courage to satisfy nature first. 379

How she laughed at my experiences! How she rejoiced in my discovery of Lady Alfred's sex! How she gloated over the description detailed minutely, which she obliged me to give her, of the attempt made to make me believe myself a girl! What sly references she made about that ivory plug!

"And you are still in petticoats. Oh, Julian!"

"Mamma, I came into the world under them. And it is my belief I shall have to wear them until I leave it. How any man can escape them is to me a mystery."

"Indeed," she said, "but Mademoiselle has news for you. Shall I tell you? You are not Julian Robinson any longer. You-you petticoated thing! — are now Lord Viscount Lady-wood. Your father has at length accepted an earldom. The general election was too much for him. He would not, he said, associate in the House of Commons with men he could not admit to his own servants' hall."

"Mamma!" I exclaimed, overcome by my new dignity.

"And Mademoiselle is determined to keep you in petticoats just the same. She declares you will feel them all the more. And what is more I believe the first thing Mademoiselle will do will be to make you take off your drawers to be birched by her, to prevent your head being turned."

"Oh, Gertrude!"

"And speaking of drawers," continued she, turning me over, "I shall take possession of them now."

Half serious and half in fun, she dipped her hands underneath my skirts, and despite my half-hearted resistance, took them off. She passed her hands over my sore legs and bottom, for Ellen had not 380

omitted the tawse even on that morning, being determined to give me something which would make me remember her for a few days.

I cringed and shuddered.

"It is so sore still?" asked Gertrude, with a winning wile. "Women do nothing but beat you, and you do nothing but beat them with this rod of yours. But we must be going. I wonder if there are any nettles about here?"

"Mamma!"

"Oh, yes! That is all very fine. You expect to escape, but I know that unless I carry out my sentence myself, it will be unexecuted." And she looked about. "There are some, I declare."

Drawing her gloves on, she got up and went and picked two bunches of strong, rank, stinging nettles.

I also got up and made off as best I could.

She followed me. The chase was not long for she knew how to run in petticoats; hers indeed were shorter than mine, and my black dress had a train and her frock had not.

I tripped and fell and she was upon me in a moment. She drew a tape from her pocket.

At once the fact that she had a design in meeting me flashed upon my mind.

Oh, Woman! Woman! What a crafty, dissimulating creature you are.

I remembered hearing of a young lady who had gone down to Richmond with a man to tea. She carried a bag and when they found 381

they could not return to town in due time and must needs sleep at the hotel the bag was found to contain a nightdress! How lucky!

I could not resist Mamma. She possessed too much influence over my being. She tied the nettles with her tape, which she fixed under my clothes round my waist, one bunch behind, the other in front, and then she made me rise and walk. I walked after a fashion-a most ridiculous one-which made Gertrude scream with delighted laughter. The expression of my face she declared was beyond anything-at every step I was mercilessly stung.

"Now, Julian, now, Lord Ladywood, pray, walk decently," and she would give me a push with her parasol. "Come along, we shall be late! Come-your Lordship has had too much champagne-you seem intoxicated! Come, do walk properly! Give me your arm."

"How extraordinarily you walk, Julian," exclaimed Mademoiselle in her serio-comic way as, a few minutes after, we met her in the hall, looking in a puzzled manner first at me and then at Gertrude. "What piece of folly have you been perpetrating now? Whatever can Lady Alfred have done to you?" she remarked very gravely. "She surely has not-no, it is impossible-why cannot you walk? You are not ruptured, are you?"

Gertrude screamed with laughter and clapped her hands.

"Oh, Mademoiselle, I met this young lady, and we found some nettles, and she defied me. I felt bound in honour not to let her defy me, and-look!"

She lifted my skirts and shew my stung legs and the nettles.

"I deprived him of his drawers. If young men will openly defy a girl and then wander alone where nettles grow-they may find their defiance cost them dearly."

"Upon my word, Gertrude, you are too bad-you will have to extinguish the fire you have lighted. The irritation will make him wild for you."

"I think I should be so without it," I exclaimed, throwing an anxious look at Gertrude.

"Well," said Mademoiselle, "the luncheon bell has rung. Are you going upstairs first?"

"Yes," I exclaimed.

"Are you?" said Gertrude, coyly. "Not without my leave."