My father’s extreme severity made me rather glad when in about a week’s time Miss Birch began to make preparations for my departure to Belgium, and in less than three weeks I found myself installed as a pupil in the seminary of the Ursuline nuns at Brussels. The Lady Superior struck me from the very first as being a frightfully severe woman; the morning after 26my arrival she sent for me to hear her read my father’s instructions, and remarked that he had given her carte blanche as to punishment, and that in their school discipline was strictly enforced. “Remember, young lady,” said she, in dismissing me from her presence, “we never overlook a fault, and that my word is law here.”
My face flushed with indignation, and tears filled my eyes as I left the apartment, fully assured in my own mind that I must soon experience a taste of their discipline, nor had I long to wait, for two days after, having confidentially expressed my disgust to another pupil, with respect to the coarse fare set before us at meals, I soon found I had been talking to a tell-tale spy, who carried everything to the Superior.
An elderly nun quietly told me she had been sent to conduct me to the private room of the Lady Superior. My time was come, and I followed my chaperone with trembling anxiety.
27Our Superior was a stern looking woman of about forty-five, with dark piercing eyes and Roman nose, thin compressed lips considerably adding to the severity of her expression.
“Mdlle. Lucille,” said the superior, “I thought the caution I gave you on your arrival, would at least have saved you from trouble for some time, and spared me the pain of inflicting personal correction on you so soon after your entry into our seminary, but I am afraid your papa must have had serious cause for wishing me to be severe with you; now what have you been saying to your fellow pupil the Mdlle. Olive; did you remark, ‘that the food was not fit for a dog, much less schoolgirls’?”
I looked down in confusion, “Ah, I see,” she continued, “you cannot deny it; well Lucille, I hope soon to convince you that our bill of fare is both wholesome and proper for the pupils, I shall give you one dozen cuts with the rod, and then let you off if you promise not to offend in the same way again.”
28The nun who was called Serena, now placed a long stool in the middle of the apartment, and made me lie on it full length face downwards, then I felt her cold busy hands as they turned up my clothes, and opened my drawers behind, till my bottom was left naked to the attack of the Lady Superior.
“Do you, Mdlle. Lucille,” she asked sternly, “consider that our fare of bread and porridge three times a day, and meat or soup twice a week, added for dinner is only fit for a dog? Ah! Ha!” she went on, cutting me slowly and severely at every few words, “This will give you a better appetite; how do you like birch sauce, Miss Dainty Mouth?”
I screamed with the pain, and plunged about so that Sister Serena had to hold me down with all her weight upon my shoulders. “Forgive me, oh, forgive me this time, I won’t speak to Olive again!” I gasped out as the heavy woman almost stopped my breath, but at last it was over, and after kissing the rod and making me 29look at the blood-stained weals on my bottom, they sent me away with a caution how I spoke about that or anything else I might see done in the convent.
I longed to have my revenge on the deceitful Olive, but knew not where to turn for a confidant, they all perhaps would be equally treacherous. I stuck to my lessons and avoided punishment as much as possible, being assured that the longer I brooded on my revenge the more complete it would be in the end, at the same time I thoroughly studied every part of the building to which I was allowed access, in the hope I might some day find it very useful if I wanted to effect my escape.
The nuns I believe slept in dormitories, where there were a dozen or more together, but every pupil had a very small room to herself, mine was in a long corridor, and Olive’s three or four doors from mine, there were neither locks or bolts to any door, as the Lady Superior and elder sisters were 30supposed to take frequent peeps at us in our sleep; I had at last matured my plan, and having everything in readiness, one dark night when there was not even a glimpse of moonlight, I patiently watched till some of the principals had paid the accustomed visit, and heard the cracked voice of an old nun say, “fast asleep,” as I feigned to be in a deep slumber.
Soon their footsteps died away in the corridor, and after waiting some time, till I felt sure every pupil must be again asleep, if the going round should have awakened them, I crept out of bed, and providing myself with some pins and a strong piece of cord, was soon at the bedside of the treacherous girl I wanted to serve out; my first act was to quietly pass my cord around her, outside the small bed, so that I could suddenly draw it tight and secure her a helpless victim in my power then suddenly stuffing the bedclothes into her mouth before she could scream out, ordered her in a rough whisper to keep quiet 31or I would kill her; it was too dark to see her terrified face, but she shuddered all over, and seemed as if her very blood was chilled, so cold did she seem to my touch.
Taking advantage of her fright, hands and feet were instantly tied so that she was spread out in a helpless fashion; I made her own handkerchief, which I happened to get hold of, into a gag, and at the same time could feel the drops of cold sweat upon her temples. Now I turned up the bedclothes or pushed them off, as I was tying the cord, till she was quite naked from the bosom downwards.
My hands roved over the soft, firm, naked flesh of her belly, then to the mount of love, which I found just beginning to be fledged with silky down. My fingers sought the crack below, and I could not help amusing myself by frigging her with all my might, the two first fingers of my right hand ruthlessly pushing into her cunny, and I knew caused her intense pain; from the slight 32groans which the gag could not entirely suppress.
What pleasure it was to me to torture her by my roughness, and outrage her every sense of modesty, although I was too ignorant at the time to know that my fingers were actually taking the poor girl’s virginity; a kind of fury possessed me, and I actually bit the lips of her cunny, and munched off as much of the silky down as I could bite away; the pain must have been intense, and her writhing, shuddering agony was so much bliss to me.
At last to finish her off I got a piece of the cord, and passing it right along her crack, tied it round her thighs and waist as tightly and painfully as possible, and then for ornament stuck a lot of pins in the plumb cheeks of her bottom and left them there.
My revenge was complete, so wiping my fingers on the bedclothes, for fear of any blood-stains, &c., I left my victim just as she was, to be tormented by her horrible 33pains and fears till some one might find it out, and release her in the morning.
This outrage was never discovered, my victim was found insensible next morning, and remained in a delirious state for three or four weeks before she recovered consciousness, and then the agony and terror she had endured on that awful night had so turned her brain that she believed it was the devil who had so grossly ill-used her, but I heard that one of the father confessors was strongly suspected of having committed the atrocity.
The Superior, with whom Olive had been a favourite, now vented her spite in every direction amongst the young lady pupils of the seminary, and I for one soon fell under her displeasure, and was ordered to be tied up to their whipping post; it was only for slightly oversleeping myself, and not dressing quickly when the bell rang for us to get up at 6 a.m.
I was suspended by my wrists being tied high up the post as I stood upon a small 34footstool, then it was suddenly kicked away, the jerk of the sudden strain on my wrists almost making the straps cut into the flesh. My feet were dangling some inches from the ground, “Oh! Oh! Ah—r—r—r—re!” I screamed, “How cruel! Oh! Papa! Papa! If you only knew how they are treating me in this awful place!”
Lady Superior (who seemed delighted at the sight of my pain),—“Hold your foolish noise, Mdlle. Lucille, wait till you have something to scream about, girl.” Then the old Serena, who it seemed was always in attendance at punishment time, pinned up my skirts and opened my drawers behind, and the Superior went on, “This rod shall make all the sluggards turn out quicker in the morning; what do you think, Mademoiselle, of making us all wait prayers for ten minutes? will you wake—wake—wake up sharper in future?”
She gave me three smarting cuts at each word, and my suspended position added so 35much to the intensity of my pain, that I screamed, kicked, and plunged about as I swung by my wrists from the post. “Siste............