Do you remember me posting these two pictures a couple of weeks ago? I'm sure you do.
Well there's an interesting story that goes with them.....
.....DEEP in the leafy country-side, behind its high protective walls, Balcombe Manor basks in the languor of a drowsy English summer afternoon. The sun is shining out of a clear blue sky and it would be too hot if it weren’t for the gentle breeze which is keeping the air pleasantly fresh. The four young women, Mrs Blackett’s pupils, are in the garden for their Tranquillity Period, in the rose garden beneath a magnificent Albertine rose from which pink petals now and then fall gently down.
‘You’ve some petals on your hat,’ Felicity tells Annabel. ‘But leave them; leave them for your husband. His rose adorned with rose petals; isn’t that poetic.’
Annabel smiles. All four young women, as usual, are wearing wide-brimmed hats against the sun and are in calf-length dresses of an elegant bygone age – the middle 1930s perhaps. Under those dresses each girl’s form is tightly held in that ultimate of feminine discipline, a tight-laced corset, a garment which is worn at all times at Balcombe Manor. Annabel’s smile hides a certain nervousness. Today, this afternoon, her husband is visiting her for the first time.
Annabel is excited yet apprehensive. She has been here a week and a week can be a long time, especially a young woman’s first week at Balcombe Manor. As is usually the case it has not been as easy adjustment. Modern girls are simply not taught to accept submission and discipline. In particular they have had no experience of being regularly caned on the bare bottom. So when a young woman in her early twenties is sent to Balcombe Manor there is an ingrained behavioural pattern to be broken.
It is always a shock for the new pupil but Mrs Blackett’s methods are tried and tested and she is also a strong, dominant personality. Mrs Blackett and Balcombe Manor are invariably successful in remoulding a modern young wife into traditional feminine ways, but the remoulding, especially at first, is painful.
‘Lucky you,’ smiles Felicity. ‘You are allowed a whole hour alone with him in your room, you know.’ She giggles, as do the other two, Susan and Rosalind. Annabel flushes slightly.
It will be marvellous to see Roger again, to be with him, but at the same time… Annabel wonders if she dare ask him to take her away – as she has told herself all the past week she will. She suspects that even if she dares it will be quite useless – and could even make matters worse. Mrs Blackett could very well ask Roger if Annabel had made such a plea, and it would be very difficult to lie to Mrs Blackett. And then… it would simply be more of that cane, from Mrs Blackett herself or from Gillman, the head servant.
That dreadful cane. Annabel has had it every day, scything mercilessly into her tender bare nates. Yesterday an eight-stroke session and a six-stroke one.
Read the rest of part II here but you may want to go and read the first part here. Both on the Janus website.
Thanks has to go to Bob who found the stories for us.
Have a fun weekend.
Ronnie
xx
