Lord Kidrodstock - Stays and gloves

My poor mother also had had to submit to the most cruel tight-lacing, as well as to every one of the other tortures I knew so well. Her neck had been almost dislocated, and a doctor had actually been summoned after an excessive use of the "collar". And my dear pretty mother had been whipped; flogged daily and mercilessly, sometimes by Mr. Baker himself and sometimes by that execrable Betsy in his presence. Any pretext, or no pretext, sufficed as a reason for these inflictions.

In the superb Portland Place mansion there was even a special "Punishment Room." On my stepfather's death, my mother looked the door of this grim apartment and it was only some years afterwards that I could inspect it.

Nothing had been disturbed; no one had entered the room since it had been locked up. The first object I noticed was a wooden vaulting horse similar to those employed in gymnasiums, except for the addition of a blood-red pad of kid, highly glazed, and of two steel rings on each side of the neck, so to speak, of the apparatus. It was upon this pad that my dear mother was twisted by Mr. Baker and Betsy. Lying on her stomach, her arms were made fast to the rings and any resistance during her whipping was thus rendered impossible. Her skirts were then pinned over her head and the flogging proceeded with. Some times an immense whip, such as is employed by trainers and others with ungovernable stal lions, was used, and sometimes the simple, but exceedingly painful birch rod.

Should the fancy take them, they would "spread-eagle" my dear mother up on a stand designed for the purpose. This apparatus appeared particularly diabolical.

There were pullies, cords, rings, a trapeze and many other such arrangements and objects. The monster had dazzled my mother's eyes with his wealth and she had married him to be tortured by his passions.

It appears that sometimes he had made her run quite naked from end to end of this "Punishment Room" which was but a corridor. As she ran, the long lash of a whip would pursue her, and since the passage did not permit, owing to its narrowness, of side blows, Mr. Baker would strike vertically, either downwards or upwards. In the case of the latter movement, the thighs and stomach received the most severe punishment.

My poor mother would fly shrieking before the pursuing lash. If she fell, a hurricane of blows descended upon her shoulders, back, and lower parts. In spite of her groans, the unfortunate woman would be compelled to rise to her feet and provide fresh sport for the ruffian.

Mr. Baker would further compel his wife to become, so to speak, a horse, and cut capers as though in a circus, always, of course, to the tune of a long-lashed whip.

It appeared that Mr. Baker, like Lady Flayskin, was a devotee of black glazed kid. Consequently, my mother wore gloves of that material and so tight that she could not close her hands. She also wore the abominable tight-fitting combination of chemise and drawers.

But morally she had to endure even more humiliating persecution.

Baker would sometimes install Betsy in his wife's place at table and the latter would take the servant's place as waiting woman. The coarse and vicious drab would heap ridicule upon her and abuse her for clumsiness or any other fancied offence which occurred to them. They would then compel my mother to adopt a pose at once silly and obscene, while before her eyes they kissed and caressed one another in a fashion which can only be described by the one word: shameful.

My mother was allowed no personal liberty. 264

She was not permitted to communicate with any person outside the house, nor could she go out walking or shopping except on the rare occasions when Baker or Betsy consented to accompany her. She could neither receive nor send letters, except after a censorship so cruel on the part of this man that she might as well have been entirely cut off from the rest of the world.

During this period, she was permitted to receive my letters occasionally, but as I myself was unable to write independently of the head mistress's supervision, she never learnt in that way any of the truth about myself. My letters were dictated, one and all, by astute Lady Flayskin. My mother, however, possessed not only that feminine intuition which so often counts for far more than blind and halting reason; she possessed also in no common degree a passion of maternal love whose pure flame had seemed to be actually fed at the altar of her own sufferings. Thankful, indeed, she was to know, from seeing my writing, that I still lived, but her heart told her that all was not well, that I too suffered.

But what could she do? She could, and did pour out her heart to the Most High and awaited the intervention of that Providence whose ways are mysterious.

Her prayers were not unheeded. We were reunited, rich in the world's possessions and free of our bodies as of our minds.

Mr. Baker's death had been sudden. A confirmed and immoderate spirit-drinker, he had one evening indulged in a certain fiery Scotch whiskey to an extent unusual even with him. Under the influence of the alcohol, his savage passions of cruelty and lust were aroused and he ordered my mother to the Punishment Room.

His unfortunate victim, well aware from long experience that resistance was worse than useless obeyed. Betsy accompanied her and on the staircase dealt her a cruel box on the ears with the object, as the low creature averred of making her mend her face.

My poor mother was then stripped of her clothes by the same coarse and cruel hands and bound to the wooden apparatus covered with glazed red kid. The heavy, unsteady steps of the drunkard then approached from the dining-room.

Tottering into the Punishment Room, Baker selected the long-lashed trainer's whip and managed to crack it once or twice, as was his wont, with the purpose of inspiring due preliminary terror in the heart of his victim. Suddenly he stumbled the whip fell from his hands, and he would have fallen to the ground had not Betsy received him in her arms.

Alcoholic congestion and Neronic excitement had done their work.

Seeing her master without breath or move ment, Betsy completely lost her head. For getting even to free my mother who was stretched over the whipping-horse, her petticoats (which had not been removed) over her head and her back parts bare, while her hands were fixed fast in the rings; forgetting the significative humiliating pose of my dear mother, Betsy ran to the house of the nearest doctor, who did not happen to be Baker's usual medical attendant.

Entering the corridor, the first object that met his eye was my mother. He first set her free, then turned to Baker whom he found to have been dead for twenty minutes,

What can I add?

My mother has no thought of another and third mariage, young, beautiful, and charming though she is. We live together and she finds my loving companionship sufficient.

As for me doubtless I shall some day meet the girl whom I shall wish to make the adornment of my hearth. She will love and honour my dear mother, who in turn, will give her good counsel and love her as a daughter.

If it be God's will I shall have children.

But neither boys nor girls of mine shall ever know the oppression of the corset. Their boots shall be of the comfortable, practical, flat-heeled English type.

Glazed kid in any shape or colour shall be ever "taboo" in my house.

I hope that no little boy of mine will ever be dressed as a girl and called by a girl's name. And I express the same hope in regard to all other little boys.

For had not my darling mother delivered me in time I should have lost for ever my honour and my manhood.