Anonymous - Augustus and Lady Maude

H.B.

IX. Lady Maude to Augustus

Lago di Garda, 19 June My dear Augustus, I need not tell you with what care and concern I read your last letter. I scanned it through while lying upon the chaise-longue after breakfast, the coffee and oranges scarcely consumed. The events you described in those pages put me quite in a passion. I broke all the sticks of my fan, with which one wafts the cooler air from the open window. What am I to say, my beloved?

You have grown to such an age and learnt so little-unless it be to endure a crise des nerfs at every setback. I beg that you will listen to me while there is still time. Neurasthenia is not the worst that may afflict a young gentleman of tender sensibilities in such a position as your own. Far worse is the storm of social scandal and ruin whose dark clouds I already see gathering about your head.

You cannot-you must not-go on with these romantic absurdities involving common shopgirls and vulgar young trollops with whom you can have nothing in kind. You saw Julie and Sian having sex together in the lewdest manner. What else did you imagine of such hussies? Did you imagine that they would spend a quiet evening reading aloud the verses of Lord Tennyson or Mr. Longfellow to one another? Did you suppose they would crochet or embroider with eyes meekly cast down upon the hoops with which they worked? I trust you have learnt better, Augustus. We have waited quite five years to see you become decently attached to a young lady of your own class and condition. We have thus far waited in vain. The disorder of your venereal passions is, it appears to me, nothing short of pathological. I should imagine that there must be a term in medicine to describe your obsession with these common sluts. And if there is not such a term-then there ought to be.

An Augustinian malaise. Now let me advise you, as a woman and as one of your own rank in society. You may enjoy such sluts as Julie, of course you may. That is every gentleman's privilege. But not as you might do. You must do it without this desperate infatuation and, if possible, invoke an air of moral probity. The art of social morality in England is simplicity itself. You may do whatever you choose to the girls and young women of the lower orders, provided you talk all the time about decency and respectability. If you wished only to enjoy a ride between Julie's legs, to fondle those saucy little bottom-curves of hers-above all to whip them soundly-you might do so with impunity. I will go further. You may do so to your heart's content and earn nothing but praise and reward from the justices and the clergy, even from your own wife and family. What is true morality, Gussie? It is certainly not the feeble mooning over sights seen through bedroom windows, nor this wish to exalt a randy little slut like Julie as the future Lady of Coombe. Nothing but scandal and disgrace attends such indiscretions. True morality is the removal of such a lewd little minx from her present corruption of such gentlemen as yourself to a penitentiary institution where she may serve three or four years under discipline. Ah, I hear you wail like a little boy that your toy would be taken from you by such methods! What a silly thing you are! Girls like Julie, in such reformatories, are always at the disposal of a gentleman of your rank who wishes to play the moralist with them. Present yourself at the gate and the gaoler will doff his cap to bow you through. I do not say that you ought not to chink a little silver in his hand. He is a most worthy fellow, deserving whatever recognition of a financial kind you might care to bestow upon him. Believe me, my dear, it never comes amiss to spend a few guineas wisely. By such means trade will flourish and the respectability of society may be preserved without noise or scandal.

I can assure you, upon the authority of my father and brothers who constitute a whole bench of magistrates, that there is a simple remedy when you wish to have your way with Julie or any other girl of her class. She has only to be removed to penitentiary training for three or four years and, as a magistrate yourself, you would find her constantly available to you. Examination and wholesome chastisement are the reasons given for taking down the knickers of such young wenches. You think she could never be guilty of an offence which would ensure her detention during a few years of your own pleasure?

How wrong you are! Our good friends will convict her summarily of insulting behaviour-an insolent glance from Julie would suffice!-or threatening attitudes. No sooner would I make a request than the matters might be arranged. Now, Gussie, when the law of England can arrange such affairs of the heart for you, why must you continue to play at Tristan and Isolde with a grotesque young slut of Julie's sort? You and I, my dearest, have grown up closer than brother and sister in our affections. You must know, then, that I would not deceive you for the world. Can you believe that what I tell you now is part of some plot which finds me in league with the questionable Dr.

Raspail? Even should you think so, I can prove my bona fides in a moment. Do, I beg you, have a word with our friend Lord Rupert N- -. You shall be a magistrate yourself next month if you murmur your desire to him. You may then spend every day or night of the week with a girl of Julie's kind behind the locked door of the reformatory discipline-room. I beg you will look at certain private records which Lord Rupert will show you in confidence at my request. Or else inquire of old Justice Snook and Master Miles. You will find what fun may be had with such girls as Julie in pursuit of law and decency. A certain price must be paid but most men would yearn for the chance to pay it. Having had some fun, you must exercise the bamboo cane upon the bare bottoms of fifteen-year-old reformatory tomboys like Michele Page, and Elaine, with Pauline her big sister, a plump slut of eighteen with a round face, blue eyes, and a coquettish chignon of fair hair. I assure you most would envy you the chance to have such a pair strapped on all fours over a couple of blocks, side by side.

Would you not at least try the experiment of caning them soundly across their bare bottoms with the bamboo and then giving each sister a taste of the leather dog-whip? Faced with Elaine and Pauline over the blocks, no one will inquire what you may do to them first! No complaints are listened to from such delinquents. I can assure that no other magistrate nor even the Lord Chancellor himself would regret it if you had fun with two such bare-bottomed sisters, enjoying their tightness upon your manhood. A chastiser who has been seduced by the sight of such a pair of culprits will afterwards skin their backsides closely with his whip. You see? The world would not expect you to be other than a man from the waist down. There is no prying into such trivial lapses, for which the sight of Pauline's plump bare buttocks or Elaine's tomboy bottom-cheeks must be held to blame. Even the fact that you vaselined young Elaine would be no crime. Best of all, such moral discipline with bamboo and lash is not only sanctioned by the law in such places. It is rewarded by public esteem. The stricter the method- the more severe the chastisement of Julie or Pauline- the higher will be your reputation as a pillar of social order and probity. Can you be better employed than in dealing with such girls?

Now, tell me true, my dear, does not Julie belong to this class of delinquent? Might you not ease yourself of your present torment by having her confined in such a place and made available for whatever treatment you wished her to undergo at your hands? Far from being reproached by the world-as you will be if you continue with your present infatuation-you might earn the reward of virtue and esteem.

You will perhaps think me harsh and without finer sentiments in the matter. I beg you, though, to consider this. You desire Julie, do you not? Yet you have no present hope of attaining your goal. With equal longing, you wish to be esteemed in society as befits your rank. Yet your present conduct augurs ill for this and seems doomed to end with scandal and disgrace. The state of your nerves grows daily more hectic, for your letters show it. How better to attain your desires and avoid calamity than by the methods I have described to you? If it is apprehension which holds you back from having Julie detained in this manner, let me reassure you. No one in England has ever sunk in moral reputation by using the whip under such circumstances. Our greatest schools have thrived by its employment.