Having once formed my determination, I contrived to carry it into execution without delay. I purposely committed the same offence for which I had previously been threatened with chastisement and as I had hoped and expected, she again told me that I deserved to be flogged for it.
We were quite alone, and I at once replied, “My dear Lady Lovesport, if it will afford you the slightest amusement or pleasure to give me a flogging, I am quite willing to submit to it, whether I deserve it or not.”
She looked at me intently for a few seconds, as if she wished to discover what my real meaning was, and then said, in a careless tone, “You foolish boy! What could make you think that it would give me either pleasure or amusement to inflict punishment upon you?”
“I don't very well know,” I replied, “but I rather fancied on the last occasion that it afforded you both.”
She seemed greatly surprised but, I thought, not offended, and, as she did not speak, I went on boldly. “You did not take sufficient care to place the bandage properly over my eyes, and I contrived to slip-it partly off so as to enable me to see how much both you and another person were diverted with my struggles, and with the emotions produced by the punishment.”
She now blushed extremely, and seemed vexed and annoyed, and was about to speak, but I interrupted her, and went on saying:
“Pray listen to me for a minute. You must not be under the slightest apprehension that you will ever be subjected to the least annoyance from me on the subject. I have received too much kindness from you ever to think of being so ungrateful. I now understand the matter a little better than I did then, but though it is more than a year since the occurrence to which I allude took place, I have never breathed a syllable of what then passed to any one, and never will on any occasion, so I think you must be satisfied that you may trust me, only pray don't treat me as a child any longer by trying to conceal things from me. If it would give you any amusement to repeat the proceedings that then took place, you will find me quite ready and willing to gratify you in any manner you may wish.”
She now blushed still deeper, and seemed very much confused, and not to know what to say, and I added:
“Now, don't mistake my meaning, or fancy that I intend to presume upon your kindness or wish to induce you to do anything you may not feel quite disposed for. You will no doubt find me somewhat less of a boy than you did formerly, especially in so far as regards a certain little article whose state of excitement then seemed to entertain you so much, but I am now old enough to know that our feelings on such subjects are not altogether under our control, and that though a person may be disposed to give way to her feelings with respect to one individual, there may not be the same inclination to indulge in a similar with another. All I can say therefore is that if you think I can in any way contribute to your entertainment, you may depend upon my doing so to the utmost of my ability, without making any attempt to exact any favour in return, or to carry matters further than you may feel quite disposed for.”
Lady Lovesport appeared very much astonished, but now at least, I thought she was by no means displeased at what I said. When I had finished she made me sit down beside her and took hold of my hand. She remained silent for several minutes, during which she evidently was making up her mind as to what course she should pursue. At length she threw her arm round my waist, and gave me a more passionate kiss than I had ever received from her before. She then addressed me thus:
“My dear boy, since you have been so frank with me I shall be equally so with you. I am greatly surprised at what you have told me, for I had not the least idea that you knew so much of what had taken place on the occasion of your punishment to which you refer, or indeed that you were aware of anything beyond the mere fact of your being flogged. It certainly was not my intention that you should have known anything about it, for at that time I looked upon you as a mere child. I was indeed greatly astonished to find such manly symptoms developed in you, though I ought to have had some suspicion from the nature of the offence for which you were chastised. But before I say anything further, you must tell me candidly all that you saw on that occasion.”
I said I would do so willingly, and I detailed all that you had told me of what had passed. She then continued to make inquiries as to how I had become enlightened on the subject. I carefully avoided any allusion to what had occurred with you, but I avowed the emotions which had been excited by my flogging, and by what I pretended I had seen. I also told her of my subsequent dream, making her appear as the heroine in it, and of the consequence of my curiosity on the subject, and of how I had been enlightened by Sidney.
She seemed amused and pleased with what I told her, and she was evidently particularly pleased when, in answer to a straightforward inquiry on the subject, I assured her upon my honour that I had never had intercourse with a woman, and that my only sources of information were my young companions and the book to which I have alluded.
When I had completed my narrative and had replied to all her questions-which were particularly directed towards the flogging scenes which had taken place with my young schoolfellows-she again remained silent for some time. At length she said: “Well, my dear boy, I see from the prudent manner in which you have acted I may trust you, and you shall no longer have to complain of any concealment on my part. I have always had every reason to be satisfied with your conduct, for though I have sometimes found fault with you and punished you, I saw clearly that your faults were merely those of an inexperienced boy which would be got over, and I may tell you that I have been more than ever pleased with your conduct during the last year, though I little suspected what had been the cause of the change which I observed had taken place in you, and attributed it entirely to your advancing age giving you additional sense and discretion. I now see that you are possessed of more of both these qualities than I had given you credit for, and that I may safely give you some explanations which I had intended to delay to a later period and which will, in some measure, account for the conduct which has surprised you.
“You are aware that my late husband was a great deal older than myself. I was induced, for certain family reasons which I need not here enter upon but which referred more to other persons than to myself, to marry him when I was still hardly beyond childhood. I soon found out my mistake and discovered that rank and wealth are not sufficient to make up for the want of those pleasures which youth naturally expects to be the accompaniments of the married state, and which I soon found my husband was not in a condition to supply me with. All his vain efforts in this respect were weak and insufficient, and instead of appeasing the desires natural to my situation and age, they only tended to inflame and excite them.
“After a painful tantalizing existence in this irritating position for some months, my husband made me aware that there was only one means which could possibly be effectual to renovate his forces and rouse him to action, so as to enable him to gratify my longing wants. This remedy, he told me, was that I should flog him until the desired effect should be produced. You may well suppose that such a proposition from an old man to a raw inexperienced girl was rather likely to create disgust than any other emotion-and so it was with me at first-but after a time I was induced to listen to his entreaties and to comply with his request. The strange proceeding, however, to a certain extent, answered his expectations and enabled him to afford some solace to the raging passions which his previous impotent attempts had roused within me, not, I must say, in the most satisfactory manner, but still in a sufficient degree to induce me to continue to comply with his wishes. He was not satisfied with being operated on himself but insisted on being allowed to indulge in the same amusement on my person. The ice being once broken I was easily induced to comply with his wishes, and at length I acquired an inclination and fondness for the habit, which has never since forsaken me.
“You are aware, perhaps, that my husband left me nearly all his property, but the bequest was coupled with the condition that I should not marry again, under the penalty of losing it if I should take another husband, but you perhaps do not know that you, yourself, you young rogue, are the cause of this restriction, and that it is to you his property would go in the event of my infringing the condition upon which it has been left to me. I have always felt that my husband did not act fairly towards you in not leaving you a larger share of his property, and though I have hitherto refrained from doing anything to put it out of my own power to act towards you as I might think your conduct deserved, I have taken care that, in the event of my death, you should find I have done you justice and I have insured your then receiving a fair share of your relation's property.
“As I have nothing else to depend upon except the income I derive from my late husband's estate, it has been quite out of the question for me to think of marrying, more especially as Mr. Everard-the only person for whom I have ever felt any attachment-though he must ultimately succeed to large property has at present a very small income. But as we are mutually attached to one another we have considered ourselves at liberty to dispense with the usual formalities, and to act towards each other as if we were already united. And as he had, while at school, acquired a fondness for those practices which my husband had taught me, we have been accustomed to indulge in them upon each other, and also occasionally to contrive means for putting them in use upon a new object, when we
