“Ask for something you’re a bit more likely to get, I should,” Rose advised the outraged little governess. “If Cecil tells a direct lie, as you call it, again, he shall be whipped. We’ve tried everything else, and it may as well be that. But it’ll be me who’ll settle when it’s done, and how, and who by. And another thing—I’m going to give Ces fair warning about it. Perhaps it’ll help him to be careful, poor lamb.”
She turned to go.
“One moment, Mrs. Aviolet, if you please. Has Cecil ever been—castigated—before?”
“He’s been hit by his father,” said Rose briefly. “He’s never had exactly what you might call a state whipping, so perhaps the disgrace might make an impression on him. But I hope to goodness we shan’t have to do it.”
She let the door slam on Miss Wade’s solemn reiteration of the hope, already feeling that exasperation had committed her to a course of action that her inner self disapproved.
Yet the thought of punishing little Cecil by beating him did not horrify her. Her own mother had administered hearty and impetuous slaps throughout Rose’s childhood, in moments of impatience, and afterwards, as heartily and as impetuously, had smothered her with kisses and given her slices of new bread thickly covered with jam. Rose had borne no malice for the slaps, although they had always caused her to roar lustily, for Mrs. Smith’s heavy-handed blows had never been half-hearted affairs, and she had enjoyed the kisses and the bread-and-jam.
“No bunkum from Dr. Monroe’s little books on Moral Education about Mother!” Rose reminded herself, and smiled in a loving retrospective appreciation of her parent’s thoroughness.
VIII
Two days later, Diana Grierson-Amberly left Squires, and Rose received an answer to her letter.
298 Ovington Street,
London, S. W.