Tutelage

THE GENTLE ART OF TUTELAGE

by Noël Burch (nburch@wanadoo.fr)

Surrey 1905. Spoiled rich boy John’s new tutor, Miss Gilham, has studied Jujitsu in Japan and uses it for discipline and vengeance.

Part 1

“Johnny, Miss Gilham is here for you! ” The piercing voice trilled up the giant staircase and down the hallway, scarcely muted by the bedroom door. The boy gave a start and slipped the French novel under his pillow. Rising from his bed, he unbolted and opened the door a crack, called “Right away, mum!”, adjusted his waistcoat in front of the wardrobe mirror and buttoned his flies. John - as the boy preferred to be called - was tall for his fourteen years, nearly 5 ft. 10. In a poor light, people often mistook him for a grown-up and he was vexed that Lady Dunsany - not really his “mum” at all but his divorced foster-mother - had hired a woman for his tutor. As if he needed a nanny! His school marks were certainly disgraceful enough and he had been sent down for the Winter term on account of a lavatory prank. But his scholastic fate was of little concern to John and he was at no great pains to hide the fact. Of what use to him were Greek, biology, or mathematics? He was sole heir to the family fortune, however depleted by now and he could reasonably look forward to a life of leisure. Whence an affected air of bored resentment as he descended the wide arch of carpeting.

Miss Gilham, when first he saw her, stood stiffly in the centre of the round foyer. A suitcase that had seen better days lay on the white marble by the burnished lace-up boots just visible under the coat. While John was at an age to have discovered the charms of the opposite sex and the delights of Onan, his new tutor’s ageless silhouette seemed thoroughly unprepossessing. Yet his gaze was unaccountably drawn to the extraordinarily supple footwear which delicately moulded the woman’s individual toes, and to the gloves of pearl grey suede which encased her slender fingers.

Everything about this new domestic was grey, the shapeless travelling coat, the wide-brimmed hat and veil of mourning that added a dash of mystery - or coquetry - to her modest dress and demeanour. From where John stood at the bottom of the steps, the woman’s eyes and mouth were indistinct; only a prominent, well-formed nose and extraordinarily high cheek-bones showed clearly through the veil, and the blurred, inscrutable visage gave John a sense of unease.

At his foster mother’s bidding, the boy took two steps forward and held out his hand stiffly. And became aware, with an inexplicable sense of relief, that this woman meant to have authority over him was a head shorter than he! Miss Gilham reached out and took his proffered hand…in a grip so astoundingly firm for a woman that he gasped aloud. At the same time he was sensuously aware of the softness of her elegant glove.

Deciding the moment had come to reveal her face, she lifted the veil. The drab hair was drawn back in a tight bun and the cheeks were pulled taut to the temples. This was certainly not a pretty woman, John decided: those cheekbones gave her a disquieting air of authority, and the tight smile was almost threatening. But he was transfixed by the steel-grey eyes.

He made to withdraw his hand and felt a sharp pain at the base of his thumb. He tried to pull free but in vain : his whole hand had gone unaccountably numb, it could feel pain but no longer obeyed him. He looked down and discovered that Miss Gilham was deliberately causing this to happen, burrowing into some vulnerable recess where two bones joined with the tip of her gloved thumb. His indignation knew no bounds: a domestic was purposefully hurting him in this underhanded way! The new tutor’s lips parted at last and she drawled loudly, with the affected accent of the servants of the rich : “So this is the young man who won’t learn his lessons? Well, we’ll soon put that to rights, won’t we John?”

John was too ashamed to protest his pain and humiliation. But he knew the woman had no right to do such a thing to him. Some years ago, a headmaster had struck him: John had complained to his foster-mother and she had had a word with his father, who was something important at the House of Lords. The headmaster had been replaced. It occurred to him, however, that Miss Gilham might be a tougher nut to crack. He made one more feeble effort to withdraw his hand, then turned to Lady Dunsany. “I say, Mum she’s…” Miss Gilham cut him off in mid-sentence with an excruciating squeeze that sent pain shooting to his armpit : “Master John and I will get on famously, I know. I have a way with young boys…”

Then she abruptly relaxed the punishing handclasp: the pain ceased soon enough but the numbness simply would not go away, however much he rubbed his hand.

“Pick up my bag, John, and show me to my room…”

Though still smarting from the foul trick the woman had played on him - which she seemed to see indeed as part of some game - John was grateful to her for naming him a grown-up. He conquered his resentment and picked up the suitcase - with his left hand. Yet scarcely had he gone two steps towards the flight of stairs when a surge of resentment made him to turn to plead with his foster-mother, still hovering in the background. He hardly got out three words.

“ Go along with Miss Gilham, Johnny, and see you obey her! I’m at my wit’s end, you know. Think what your father would say if he knew!” John’s heart sank: there would be no help from that quarter. Yet still he hesitated - a shade too long for Miss Gilham’s taste: he heard the rustle of her coat at his side as she grasped his arm firmly, just above the elbow. “Yes, John, from now on you’re in my care.” The pressure of her fingers grew suddenly so painful that it was impossible to resist the woman’s next move : with her free hand she gripped his wrist, twisted his palm upwards and pressed down hard. John gave a squeal of fright for his arm was caught in such a way that he could not hope to withdraw it and had become utterly subject to the woman’s every move. She still held his arm firmly with the other hand and her wiry fingers were still on that sensitive spot above the elbow. She had stopped squeezing his elbow in that horrid way, but he knew he could never break free. In this humiliating posture, with his foster mother and at least two servants looking on, she marched him briskly toward the top of the carpeted stairs.

And all this while she was speaking into his ear, quickly and quietly, almost intimately: “Have you never heard of Jujitsu, John?” He shook his head. “Really not? Well, it is what I’m using on you now. I always use it with unruly pupils, you must remember that, John. Now in Japanese, Jujitsu means “the gentle art”, and you can feel how gentle I am being now, how easily I can subdue you without hurting you… unless I wish to. And I could hurt you very badly, John. If you were foolish enough to resist me right now, your arm would snap like matchwood : your own strength would injure you, that is the secret of Jujitsu… Few women outside of Japan are as proficient as I at these techniques. I spent eight years out there as governess to the children of an American diplomat, and my only recreation was practising Jujitsu with a grand master. He found me a very apt pupil. You, John, are considerably taller and heavier than I … And yet whenever and wherever it pleases me, I can throw you on the floor with a sweep of my ankle, break your arm with a twist of my wrist, render you unconscious with the pressure of my thumb on some artery, or simply punish you a little… thus! ” They had reached the top of the stairs, and she unexpectedly slid her gloved hand over and under his captive arm, gripping her own wrist and applying such powerful leverage that a fresh pain almost made John drop his tutor’s suitcase.

The boy was genuinely frightened by now: this woman was obviously insane! But even as this worrisome thought passed through his mind and as she led him briskly down the long hallway in this new grip, he was aware that her control over his body came in part from the pressure of a firm, muscular hip braced against his thigh, while his captive arm was in fact nestling against a resilient bosom. It was the first time he could remember that he had touched a woman’s breast and to his confusion, he felt his manhood stirring.

On the threshold of John’s inner sanctum, his precious refuge from Lady Dunsany, he ventured a verbal rebellion - no physical resistance was conceivable in the grips of Miss Gilham’s “gentle art”. “I demand that you release me at once! You are a domestic here, my foster-mother pays you a wage and you have no right to be doing these things to me!”

“Of course I’ll release you,” Miss Gilham fairly chortled as she withdrew her restraining hands, gracefully and without haste, giving John time to admire the suppleness of the fine suede that moulded the wiry fingers she trailed softly across his face in what was almost a gesture of seduction. Yet he would face her angrily, massaging his outraged limb, and still searching for the strong words appropriate to the situation when she glided forward with a smile and “accidentally” planted the sole of her boot on his instep just as she poked him “playfully” in the pit of the stomach with the tip of one gloved finger. He recoiled instinctively from the disconcerting blow and was amazed to find himself falling helplessly backwards. For a split second he knew his trapped ankle must break, but Miss Gilham mercifully freed his instep before the irrevocable occurred and he merely crashed to the hardwood floor with an explosion of pain down his spine and across his shoulders. He sat up instinctively nonetheless, and was about to scramble to his feet, but a gesture from his nemesis froze him to the spot.

“Now listen to me young John.” Even as she spoke - softly, almost kindly - she unbuttoned and removed her travelling coat to appear in a short, tight, rather stiff linen jacket and bloomers that she wore tucked into the calf-length lace-up boots like plus-fours. “You and I are going to spend the next three months in each other’s company and I am going to help you to improve your learning methods. You will be expected to perform in accordance with your capacities as I shall evaluate them, and if you do not, you will be thrashed! Not with a cane but with… Jujitsu.” She stooped without warning and lifted his legs by the trouser-cuffs, wedging his ankles under her armpits and clasping her hands tightly across her flat stomach. John was again helpless. But then she did something so shocking, so outrageous, that John’s heart skipped a beat and his mind went completely blank: she placed the sole of her boot squarely between his legs, bearing down gently but firmly on what had recently become the most important part of the boy’s anatomy! And the most private! Now she was leaning imperceptibly forward and the of her boot began to induce that unpleasant feeling familiar to all males.

“I saw you looking at my Jujitsu attire. I hope you like it. I had it specially designed to facilitate certain footwork and certain kicks which the Jujitsuan uses to disable her adversary. I always wear these clothes when I am with a pupil, if only to remind him of my skills. Do you understand what I am telling you, John? Do you believe me when I tell you that I can and will punish you whenever necessary?” And the frightening pressure increased. “Don’t, please… Yes, I understand…”

But still she did not relent and the dull pain grew sharper by the second.

“Yes, who?”

“Yes, Miss Gilham… Ma’am...”

“Good.” She removed her boot, dropped his legs and stepped back a pace. “You may stand up now, John.”

And John stood up to gaze more calmly upon a hitherto undreamt of side of his tutor’s terrifying persona: when her body was at rest, when she was no longer inflicting pain and humiliation, Miss Gilham’s “Jujitsu attire” revealed a very fetching silhouette indeed.

As the weeks went by, John rapidly found himself doing his best to please his tutor. For apart from her daunting physical prowess, Miss Gilham turned out to be an intellectually stimulating presence, able to make him enjoy subjects he had hitherto found excruciating, like mathematics and poetry. Miss Gilham had, moreover very advanced ideas, of which his father and Lady Dunsany surely would have disapproved had they been apprised of them. She spoke to her pupil of suffragism and Mrs. Pankhurst, of socialism and Mr. Morris, she even spoke to him of anarchism and a Russian named Kropotkin whom she seemed to admire.

By the end of the first month, he had only once incurred his tutor’s displeasure, albeit not for any lack of studiousness - he had truly turned over a new leaf, was learning to use his natural faculties - but for a very different breach of discipline.

One winter afternoon in the library, as his tutor bent to stoke the fire, he had been unable to resist abandoning one of Keats’ longer poems, to lay a timid hand on the woman’s gracefully firm posterior. With astounding quickness, Miss Gilham whirled and seized the offending hand, gave it such a powerful and painful wrench as to cause him to rise precipitously out of his chair and onto the tips of his toes where she held him an instant to glare at him : then she wheeled about with a great sweep of the arms - John had an absurd recollection of Loïe Fuller dancing at the cinema - and sent him tumbling head over heels to land flat on his back with a screech of pain. He became aware that she was still holding his hand in a painful twist and that her knee was jammed against his distended elbow in a such way as to make him unable to move. His position of helplessness reminded him of his first meeting with Miss Gilham. Not unpleasantly.

“Little boys do not touch their female elders in that way,” his tutor snapped. “Especially not when she knows Jujitsu.” And she underlined the ominous word by probing the back of his captive hand with the knuckle of her thumb : he squealed and beg for mercy. The lesson had been well-learnt, and never had he touched Miss Gilham again. But it had also served to spark the fire of a secret infatuation, especially as her glowering expression had softened into a half-smile when she relaxed her punishing grip and gave him permission to stand.

The following week-end, visitors arrived at the manor-house: a Mr. and Mrs. Prendergast. Molly Prendergast had been Lady Dunsany’s best friend since grammar school. She was an exquisitely dainty woman with surprisingly large, beautiful eyes, whom none would have taken for a classmate of John’s foster-mother, had Harold not been her third husband. John took an instant dislike to this loud young man with the plummy accent and resented the time he was forced to spend with him. The weather grew unexpectedly clement and at Lady Dunsany’s behest (only Harold had heartily concurred with her) wickets were set out upon the lawn. Partnering John against the Prendergasts, Miss Gilham displayed great skill at croquet. The boy, on the other hand, had always been clumsy with a mallet, and his tutor never tired of chiding him for his awkwardness. His inability to concentrate on a children’s game which he secretly despised, however, did allow him to make one interesting observation: Miss Gilham stole several very affectionate glances in the direction of Mrs. Prendergast, herself clearly bored by the game and by her husband’s noisy boasting.

At supper, it seemed to John that Harold was drinking more than usual, and that Lady Dunsany was beginning to frown upon it. That night, the boy heard loud voices and even what sounded like a muffled scream coming from the guest-room at the end of the hall, and the next morning at breakfast, Molly wore an incongruous scarf around her neck, lamely invoking a cold. John caught Miss Gilham looking quizzically at Harold’s wife, and when the husband asked her to pass the sugar, she complied with a hard glint in her eye such as the boy had never seen.

The next day, John was out visiting the snares he was in the habit of laying down for squirrels and hare when he heard a faint rustling in the underbrush and caught sight of a man making his way rather cautiously through the wood. He stood perfectly still and in a short time Harold Prendergast passed less than six feet away from him, oblivious to his presence. The boy decided to follow and see what was afoot. Molly’s husband seemed too preoccupied to notice.

Suddenly, the man ducked behind a tree, and crouched there, silhouetted against the brightness of a clearing ahead which was now the object of his scrutiny. John circled about until he too could observe the grassy glen, where a startling sight met the eye: Mrs. Prendergast and Miss Gilham lay on the turf by a mulberry bush, locked in amorous embrace. The two women were kissing passionately and John even thought he saw Miss Gilham’s hand under Molly’s skirt. Miss Gilham herself wore the men’s riding habit she affected as an accomplished horsewoman. He favourite mare was grazing quietly nearby.

A muffled sneeze was heard, which John knew belonged to Harold Prendergast, and which caused Miss Gilham to leave off whatever she was doing, raise her head and look about. John lay perfectly still in the tall grass and heard a loud scurrying through the bushes. Miss Gilham stood up, gently shook off Mrs. Prendergast’s clinging hands, and moved quickly towards the trees. John prayed she would not discover him hiding there - for although he dearly loved and admired Miss Gilham, the idea of her using Jujitsu on him in anger was not one he cared to contemplate. His tutor, however, had drawn a beeline on that sneeze, but now seemed reluctant to follow whomever could still be heard crashing through the underbrush. In fine, she returned to her companion and sank down onto the grass.

John averted his gaze and crawled away as silently as he knew how.

That evening, a hush hung over the supper table. Lady Dunsany strove valiantly to spark a semblance of conversation. But Harold could only glare at Miss Gilham and his wife by turns, while Molly kept her eyes on her plate throughout the meal. And neither John nor his tutor were much help, either.

The boy retired early to his room and lay on his bed, conjuring up the tableau in the clearing whilst fondling himself. Miss Gilham had turned out to be one of “those women” the servants sometimes talked about amongst themselves when they thought he wasn’t listening. But though he knew that the idea of women together was meant to be revolting, it had always secretly excited him. Was there something the matter with him, he wondered? In his mind’s eye, disturbing images returned unceasingly: Miss Gilham’s gloved and booted figure on horseback; Molly Prendergast, yielding her body into the Jujitsu-skilled hands of his tutor; and he himself, voluptuously helpless at the mercy of those skills…

He took his pleasure and dozed off.

He was roused from a fitful slumber by loud whispering in the hallway. Unable to identify the muffled voices or understand the words, he cautiously opened his door a crack. The hall was lit only by the dim glow of night-lights, but he could plainly see the trio of adults in tense confrontation: Miss Gilham, Molly and Harold. His tutor actually had her arm around Molly’s waist : “So you see how things stand, Harold,” Miss Gilham was saying.

Now the slender woman pulled away from the grasp of this tutor extraordinary, and came striding down the hall, past the doorway where the peaking youngster crouched, and on towards the guest room at the end of the hall. “You settle it between you, I’m going to bed!” she exclaimed in a whisper so forceful it was almost a shout. Harold glared at Miss Gilham, then decided he would follow his wife. Miss Gilham, however, grasped his sleeve to retain him and when he swung about to confront her in anger, she cuffed him sharply with the edges of her hands on both his shoulders, and then, pinching him bizarrely under the chin, propelled him effortlessly to the wall. Though the scene was taking place only a few feet from his observation post, John could scarcely hear Harold’s feeble croaking : “What have you done to my arms, I can’t move them!” “Just a little Jujitsu, Harold,” was the woman’s reply, “hasn’t anyone told you I’m an expert? The numbness will go away soon enough… But I’m warning you: if ever you so much as raise your hand again to Molly, I will see to it that you never use your arms again! Is that perfectly clear? And I shall destroy what is left of your manhood!” So saying, she clapped her free hand between his legs and appeared to squeeze! At this new proof of Miss Gilham’s lack of respect for male genitalia, John gasped aloud and the Jujitsuan half-turned towards her pupil’s room. Worried she might have heard him, he silently shut the door and pressed his ear to the panelling. Harold was whimpering pitifully and he heard Miss Gilham saying, as if to herself: “But no, not yet and not here … Just a little something to remember me by.” There was a dull impact, a loud “whoosh” of breath and what sounded like a body collapsing onto the carpeted floor. Miss Gilham’s voice was light but it had a deadly edge : “Another Jujitsu strike, Harold, to an something called the pancreas, actually. Did you know you had a pancreas, Harold? It’s quite delicate…The force of the blow - something like 10 lbs. to the square inch I believe - was concentrated in the edge of my hand, you see, and I’m afraid it has caused a considerable shock to your central nervous system. You will be feeling very unwell for the next twelve hours or so, plenty of time to ponder on what I could and would do to other parts of your body if you were so much as to contemplate imposing your male prerogatives on your lovely wife! Molly no longer belongs to you, Harold! Is that clear?”

Soft footsteps climbing the attic stairs soon told John that Miss Gilham had gone to her room under the eaves. A door closed and the house was silent again. Seated on the floor behind the door, John recalled how a half-smile had softened the formidable woman’s beloved lips when she half-turned towards the doorway where John crouched and watched. He started to stroke himself again but then suddenly remembered “poor Harold”. He opened the door a crack and saw the man lying flat on his stomach, arms and legs twitching feebly. He lay with his cheek to the carpet, facing John, and the boy could see that he was quite conscious. When he espied John peering at him, he made a tremendous effort to speak but only incomprehensible gargling could be heard. What on earth had Miss Gilham done to him, John wondered. And what was he going to do now? Shut the door as if nothing had happened and go on about his pleasurable business? Try to help the man? Get someone else to do it? His foster mother would be useless, she’d be likely to call the police, dismiss his tutor… And as for Miss Gilham herself, well clearly she wanted Harold to suffer. That only left Mrs. Prendergast. But telling her what had happened would necessarily involve him, and this he did not want, though he was not sure why.

He was about to close the door again when, mercifully for his conscience, a plan formed in his mind. He moved quickly and quietly to the guest room, knocked sharply on the door, then hid in the closet across the hall. Mrs. Prendergast appeared, glanced this way and that, gasped at the sight of her husband’s recumbent form. “Oh my God, she’s done it! ” Molly exclaimed under her breath in a tone that was almost admiring. Yet when she rushed to her husband’s aid and found him alive, her relief seemed sincere enough. The valiant woman actually managed to half-lift, half-coax the tall man to his feet, supported him to their room, and shut the door behind her with one dainty foot.

Deeply aroused by what had transpired between Miss Gilham and Harold, John lay awake most of the night. Considering the turn which events had taken, he assumed the Prendergasts would be leaving the next day, a perspective he viewed with dismay. Indeed, for reasons he dared not think upon overmuch, he was determined to see enacted before his eyes Miss Gilham’s threat to mete out further violence to Harold. He had spent hours searching for a way to bring this about, and as the first rays of dawn filtered through the French windows, he finally hit upon a plan.

Mr. and Mrs. Prendergast failing to appear at the breakfast table, Lady Dunsany took her porridge in silence with her sleepy stepson and his tight-lipped tutor. The maid was just clearing the table when Molly appeared at ten, threw Miss Gilham a fleeting, impassioned glance, and announced in strangely buoyant tones that her husband was feeling unwell and would be keeping to his room. As Miss Gilham and John retired to the library for a geography lesson, the tutor shot her pupil a warning glance of complicity which thrilled him to the marrow. She knew he’d watched the scene in the hallway.

At midday, Harold dined in his room on cuts of cold meat prepared specially by the cook and brought to him by his wife. After which, Molly and Lady Dunsany drove off together on an errand while Miss Gilham retired to her room “to catch up on some correspondence.” John decided it was time to put his plan to execution. Always clever at disguising his handwriting, he had covertly devoted his morning study hours to the calligraphy of two short missives addressed to Miss Gilham and to Harold Prendergast. The house fell silent, but John waited half an hour longer before quietly slipping them under the respective doors of the two enemies, then watching from a safe distance until each had been collected from within.

An hour later, John lay hidden in the bushes on the edge of the clearing in the woods. Scarcely fifteen minutes had passed before Harold appeared on the scene. Thinking himself alone, he sat down on a thick stump to wait. Soon there came more rustling in the bushes and Miss Gilham appeared. She was a striking sight with her back to the afternoon sun, wrapped dramatically in a long cloak of fine white linen. It was an unusually elegant garment for John’s tutor, one which she had never worn at the manor, was reserving, perhaps, for just such a special occasion. John was fairly sure he knew what she was wearing under that cloak, and that it augured badly for Harold Prendergast’s well-being.

“So you want to have it out with me, do you Harold?” she called, steadily advancing towards him, undoing the clasp at her throat “ ‘Man to man?’ ” she added sarcastically, as she threw the cloak on the grass with a graceful flourish and appeared indeed in bloomers and jacket, with matching white gloves and suede boots with rawhide tips that were also new to John. “Dressed to kill,” the boy joked flippantly to himself.

Harold appeared nonplussed. As John well knew he had never expressed any of the bellicose intentions complacently flaunted in the letter which Miss Gilham had found under her door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you have something important to tell me about Molly…well, I’m listening.” Under other circumstances, this might have prompted Miss Gilham to further question Harold, possibly to revise her deadly purpose. Such an eventuality did not jibe with the boy’s expectations and he held his breath. But the formidable Jujitsuan, since the moment she received John’s cleverly provocative forgery, had clearly been priming herself for violence. Nothing on earth could have kept it from erupting then and there, a scarce twenty feet away from John’s marvelling eyes.

Miss Gilham had pursued her inexorable advance and was now within a yard or so of Harold. Her posture remained unthreatening, her arms dangled harmlessly at her sides. Watching her smile incongruously at her enemy John nearly missed the short, quick kick she gave his ankle with the tip of her boot. From his own experience of Miss Gilham’s bag of tricks, John knew that while she seemed almost to strike at random, her blows always hit some particularly sensitive nerve. And indeed, the effects on Harold of her kick appeared out of all proportion to the moderate force behind it: he quite simply shrieked like a woman and sank to one knee, reaching feebly for his injured ankle, seeming about to faint. Miss Gilham stood arms akimbo, watching him suffer with a look of satisfaction. “How do you like a little pain for a change, Harold… I know how often you have made Molly cry with your slaps and punches, many’s the time in the last few days I’ve dreamt of evening the score … But here,” she offered hypocritically, “let me help you up.” The man was still in such a daze that he let her grasp the sleeve of his jacket and set him on his feet again. But as he loomed unsteadily above her, still dazed with pain, she grasped the lapel of his jacket with her other hand, spun with that ballet-like grace she always displayed, drove her buttocks unceremoniously into his stomach, and bending forward, effortlessly and spectacularly flipped his tall frame over her shoulder! His legs flailed high in the air and John saw in a flash that if Miss Gilham were not holding on to Harold’s wrist, he would land straight on his head! As it was, he landed on his back with a thud and another shriek of rage and pain. John was tempted to applaud the spectacular exploit. Nor had Miss Gilham finished with the man: twisting his hand in a certain way, she planted her soft boot on his throat and jammed her knee against his elbow: the man gave a strangled scream of pain. “Shall I break your arm Harold? Would that be adequate punishment for your many sins?” The man tried to talk, the boot blocking his windpipe forbade it.

Bringing both gloved hands to bear now, Miss Gilham stepped back and did something to the captive fingers which caused the defeated man still more pain, but this he found he could relieve by rolling heavily over onto his stomach, which was of course what his captor desired. It was a pitiable and laughable thing to see, John thought, this man who must have weighed fifteen stone in his stocking feet, alternately screaming obscenities and begging for mercy from a chit of a woman in bloomers, who could not have weighed more than ten stone and yet was in total, overweening control of his every move. Still holding his wrist in her gloved hands, the supple Jujitsuan circled about the prone male, bent forward, forced the captive arm between his shoulder-blades, and stepping on his biceps locked the bent forearm against her arching instep. She stood now with hands on hips: the integrity of her pinned victim’s shoulder and elbow was at the mercy of the slightest flexion of her leg. There was something so magical in the way she stood there in radiant white, pinning this tall man helplessly to the ground with one dainty boot, that caused John such a thrill as he had never known before: she was like some avenging fairy godmother from the picture books of his childhood, endowed with mysterious powers to make mortals pay for their misdeeds!

“It was awfully stupid of you, Harold to challenge me to a duel. For you see I am an expert Jujitsuan.” Harold was in great pain and his face was buried in the grass, so that John could not hear his reply. But Miss Gilham was listening carefully, and suddenly she raised her head to look around the glen, her eyes uncannily seeming to encounter John’s stare. He ducked out of sight. Had she seen him in the shadow of the trees? Impossible to say.

“That’s all very well, Harold. And I do believe I know who’s at the bottom of this misunderstanding. If it’s of any comfort to you, rest assured he too will get his comeuppance! ” She was speaking quite loudly now and John felt certain he was meant to hear every word. Fear began to cast its sickening pall over his excitement, he longed to run away, and yet he could not: he had to see more, never would he tire of the spectacle of Miss Gilham “mixing” it with men.

Just as John was loathe to run away for fear of missing out on his tutor’s further exploits, so too Miss Gilham seemed in no hurry to be done with Harold. “At all events,” she went on, “I have a score to settle with you and I am not yet entirely satisfied. Why don’t you have a little nap while I think the matter over?” She reached down, grasped Harold’s hair and laughed as his toupee came away in her hand. She tossed it aside and reached over his forehead, seemed actually to hook her fingers into his eye-sockets - an impression which Harold’s horrified shrieks confirmed. She lifted his head a few inches from the ground, took careful aim with the edge of her white gloved hand and struck the man a sharp blow on the side of the neck, just under the ear. Harold stopped struggling. Miss Gilham felt his pulse for a moment, seemed satisfied, then whirled and began to run - with remarkable speed “for a girl” John thought - straight for his hiding-place!

He scrambled to his feet and started to run. “I’ve seen you, John and I advise you to stay right where you are if you know what’s good for you! I’ve had enough exertion for the afternoon, thank you!” His fear got the better of him and he turned to wait for her. She slowed to a walk, then stopped a few feet away. “Well, master John, what is the meaning of this little plot? Could it be you wanted the repulsive Mr. Prendergast to get his just desserts? A laudable ambition, I dare say, but not an altogether convincing excuse. Perhaps what you wanted was to watch me do it? In which case, you’ve achieved your ends,” she said moving closer. “I see your flies are unbuttoned, master John. Could it be that the spectacle of little me tossing that big man on his ear and dominating him completely has caused you to have an erection?” Accustomed as he was to Miss Gilham’s free and easy ways, the boy nonetheless gave a start when she put her hand to his crotch. “I see it does,” she said with a smile. “I’ve known males like you before, though none so young.”

John finally found his tongue. “Wha… what did you do to him…?”

“I merely put him to sleep for a while, I promise you…”

John wanted to step back, flee the embarrassing yet exciting contact of her hand: begun as a clinical auscultation, it had gradually become a caress, but turned now into a vice-like grip, whilst her other suede-gloved hand appeared taut and threatening before his eyes, fingers stiffened, thumb tucked tight against her palm: “Should I do the same to you? Would you like that? In Japan I learned to make my hand as hard as bamboo, and I know exactly where to hit a person to cause pain, temporary paralysis, unconsciousness...” her voice dropped “…even death. Would you like me to show you? Would you like me to hit you?” He dropped his eyes and said nothing, inwardly flinched at the coming blow…

“Hit you like this, for example ?” and she gave him a hard tap on the bridge of his nose, which made him see stars. But then she released him and stepped back with a fair imitation of a mischievous grin. This seemed completely out of place and surprised John even more than the impropriety of his tutor’s latest Jujitsu demonstration on his person.

Her tone became deadly serious again. “So! what should I do with Harold now? What would you suggest, Master John?” Incapable of answering such a question, the boy could only put a query of his own:

“Are you in love with Mrs. Prendergast?”

“That, young man, is none of your business… But since you mention the good lady’s name,” she looked at her wrist-watch, “your foster mother will be back from town by now with Molly, so why don’t you go find Harold’s dear little wife and bring her out here: we’ll let her decide. After all, she is the person most concerned.”

“But what shall I tell her?”

“Anything you like.”

“The truth?”

“Why not? It won’t surprise her in the least.”

“And are you… are you going to… punish me as you said just now?”

“Punish you? Hmmm… You’ve done me a service, I might never have given that imbecile his just desserts without your little subterfuge. Oh, you are a wicked boy all right, and when this is over, I might just punish you, too… But that would be more like a reward, I think, because you probably would enjoy it, n’est-ce pas, mon garçon ?”

The boy blushed and turned away, mumbling “I’ll try to find Mrs. Prendergast…”

He found her easily enough, crocheting a shawl in the drawing room. “Where is my husband,” she asked John, immediately he appeared.

“Uh… well, actually he’s with Miss Gilham. I’ll take you there.”

The woman rose without a word and followed the boy.

They were already halfway across the garden when Molly emerged from her brown study to ask: “Where are they, boy? What has she done to him?”

“In the glen where you were together with Miss Gilham yesterday…” Molly gasped and shot him a sharp glance. He hastened to cover his faux pas with what he assumed were glad tidings: “She hasn’t really hurt him… not yet…”

“Oh my God,” was all the woman could say as they trudged into the wood.

Now it was Miss Gilham who sat upon the tree-stump, whilst it’s previous occupant still lay upon the ground. It seemed to John as they drew near that Harold had been unconscious for an awfully long time now. But his breathing was even and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough. Miss Gilham joined the newcomers as they bent over Molly’s husband: “I’m afraid my atemi strike to the jugular was a bit severe, poor Harold slipped into a mild state of shock. Fortunately, I also learnt the healing massage of shiatsu in Japan. Now he is in a deep, natural sleep… something like hypnosis.” Her tone was extraordinarily business-like: “Thank you for your help, John you may go now. I have something I wish to talk over with Molly … And mind you, no snooping.”

But of course John did snoop, loping off obediently but then circling back as quickly and as quietly as he could - for John was a pretty good woodsman. Before he was close enough to see, he could overhear them talking.

And first of all, Miss Gilham : “So you see, few paths seem open to you. The enmity between yourselves will be even greater after this episode and the stubborn fool will never agree to a divorce until he’s gone through your dowry.” Her voice grew softer. “And you’ll never see me again. You know that, don’t you? Is that what you want?”

“You know it isn’t!” Molly’s voice was unexpectedly vibrant. “As for the dowry, it’s almost gone. We’re quite poor, it’s why we sponge off wealthy friends, like Lady Dunsany.” There was a pause. And then, in a hushed voice, she asked : “What do you propose?”

As was her wont, Miss Gilham, did not beat about the bush : “Precisely this: I know a way to kill this husband of yours which will leave no trace. It will look like coronary thrombosis. In fact, it will be coronary thrombosis, except that I will have brought on the attack with a Jujitsu trick which leaves no visible mark of any kind.”

A long silence followed. John’s mind was in a turmoil. What was happening here? Was this real? Was his beloved tutor Miss Gilham speaking of killing a man in cold blood? True, John had come to hate Harold Prendergast as much as he had ever hated anyone in his short life. But he was keenly aware he had at last encountered that very grown-up thing which his philosophy manual called a Moral Dilemma! Should he reveal himself and attempt to talk Miss Gilham out of her gruesome project? At how great a risk to himself, he knew not. But deep inside, John caressed an even thornier dilemma, for the idea that Miss Gilham might indeed use her Jujitsu expertise to kill a man before his eyes was an extraordinarily exciting one.

Molly finally broke the silence : “Have you ever done it before?” It was a practical, not an ethical question.

Miss Gilham hesitated a fraction of a second and did not really answer the question : “I can do it,” was all she said.

All this time, John had been inching forward over the ground until at last, through a gap in the bushes, he had what he felt sure was a safe purview of the proceedings. The two women stood in silence over the prone body of the man. It looked like a wake, was the morbid thought that came into John’s head.

“Then do it!” Molly fairly shouted and turned away with her head in her hands.

Miss Gilham came from behind to comfort her, but something was clearly bothering her: “Molly, dear: do you think you can go through with it? You must go back now, you must appear very distraught, and you must have a story: you went for a walk, you met Harold on his way back to the manor ; the two of you then went for a walk in the woods and he suddenly just… collapsed. You immediately ran for help … Do you think you can manage that!”

“Yes… yes, my beloved, I can manage it all right,” Molly said firmly and the women sealed their crime with a long embrace.

“You might as well start back now, no need to stay for it, I’ll be done in a jiffy. But we mustn’t see each other again around here, you understand that.”

The woman moved away like a ghost.

Miss Gilham stood for a few moments looking down at the sleeping Harold, said distinctly “You sod!” then knelt beside him. She grasped his limp left wrist with gloved hand and raised it high in the air. Then, with a queer, hoarse shout that John had never heard her utter before, she drove the stiffened finger-tips of her other hand deep into the man’s exposed arm-pit. Harold made strange noises in his sleep, his body writhed in agony. Miss Gilham placed a soothing hand on his forehead. “Now, now, it will be over in a few seconds”, she said gently, but then spoke a harsher epitaph : “Can you hear me, Harold? I hope to Heaven you know you’re dying, I hope you know who’s killing you and why…” She bent over to inspect the man’s eyes, felt the pulse in his throat and shook her head in irritation as she again lifted his arm. Once more his armpit was the object of her attentions, but this time she seemed rather to squeeze it with all her might. The man’s body arched once and then lay still.

John had taken in every sickening detail of the murder, and now he was rooted to the spot, less by the terror of the scene than by his own horror at the voluptuous sensations which he had experienced as he watched: in fact, he had ejaculated violently, pressing one hand to his mouth to stifle his cries.

Satisfied that Harold was dead, Miss Gilham searched his pockets until she found what she was looking for: John recognised the letter he had put under the dead man’s door before it disappeared inside her fighting jacket.

The woman picked up her cloak, threw it over her shoulder and walked away beneath the trees at a leisurely gait, without once looking back at the cadaver she left behind. She might have been a woodsman homeward bound after an honest day’s toil. But for John, she was the goddess Diana, who had punished the giant Orion with her scorpion’s mortal sting.

He lay the better part of an hour, half hoping that Harold would get up and walk away, half fearing he might encounter Miss Gilham in the woods were he to leave too soon. How would he feel when next he met his forbidding goddess at lessons! What would she do if ever she found out he’d seen what she’d done that afternoon in the clearing? But would he be able to keep from telling her straight out! After all, he loved her!

Everything went as the women had planned. It even came to light that Harold’s father before him had prematurely succumbed to the self-same affliction, and so it was that the coroner’s inquest quickly concluded to a natural death and the bereaved Molly Prendergast took Harold’s casket up to London in the train with her and buried it in Highgate cemetery.

In the meantime, life resumed at the manor house, and John spent long hours each day with a murderess. Did she guess he shared her guilty secret?

Miss Gilham’s mood had greatly improved, John thought. Since the fateful day, she had seemed happier, more jovial, even exalted at times. For one whole French lesson she talked to him, in English, about a French woman writer named just Rachilde and about her strangely perverse novels which were the talk of Paris in those years before the Great War. She spoke to him of one of her heroines, a certain Mary Barbe, who killed off one by one all the males in her life - her baby brother at ten, her uncle at twenty, her husband at thirty and no doubt many more afterwards. Feeling increasingly embarrassed, John suddenly interrupted her: “Miss Gilham, forgive me, but do you really believe this is a suitable conversation to be having with a child of fourteen?” There was something caustic, almost hostile in John’s manner that made Miss Gilham look at him sharply. And what she saw displeased her. For suddenly she knew he knew.

“You were there, weren’t you? You were watching? You stole back to watch when I forbade it! Is that what you did? Is it?”

John felt sick to his stomach : “I don’t know… what you’re talking about,” he said lamely.

She had been moving towards him, staring him down with those steel-grey eyes he had learned to love and fear.

“You were there, I know you were there… John, I…” She put her hand out to him and he fled to the furthest corner of the room.

“I won’t tell, ever! I promise! I’d rather die. I love you.”

Miss Gilham looked long and hard at the tall fourteen year-old. Then, without a word, she turned and left the room.

John’s state of mind may easily be imagined: he was in mortal terror of the first woman he had loved since his mother died when he was three. What was he going to do? More to the point, what was she going to do? He felt incapable of any action at all, let alone anything so definitive as confiding in Lady Dunsany or one of the servants. Or going directly to the police himself. Would she kill him, too? Would she do that awful thing to his armpit which would make him die? Casting about for more reassuring thoughts, he said to himself that coronary thrombosis would be awfully suspicious in a healthy boy of fourteen, a coroner’s jury would never “buy” that!

“She” did not appear at dinner and John could not swallow a morsel. He finally excused himself and went to his room. As he pushed open the door, he had a dire premonition and sure enough, she was there before him, sitting on his bed in her Jujitsu attire, boots, gloves and all. A gracious sight which sent terror to his heart.

“Shut the door, John,” she said quietly. He did as he was told but then just stood there with his back to the door. “Now tell me: just how much did you see?”

John already saw himself doomed to die by those deadly hands that now lay in deceptive innocence on his beloved tutor’s lap. His instinct was to get it over with. “I saw the whole thing,” he said as neutrally and as confidently as possible.

There was a silence. Neither had moved.

“Come over here.”

But still he stood his ground.

“John, you know I’ll be all over you before you can possibly reach that door … You might as well come a little closer so we can talk properly. I’m not going to hurt you… not yet, in any case. Sit in that chair…” John found her tone surprisingly light and almost intimate. He obeyed.

“Now John, what would you do if you were I?”

He though a moment: “Probably kill me, Miss Gilham.”

She laughed in a way he didn’t understand: “That is absolutely correct, Johnny! By rights, I ought to kill you! And perhaps I shall do, I think it’s only fair to warn you. However, I can promise you shan’t suffer, and you won’t even know it’s coming… I’ve grown very fond of you, John…”

John began to cry for the first time since he cared to remember…

When Miss Gilham took him in her arms, he panicked and half-tried to ward her off. But in his present state of confusion and despair, he could only surrender to his tutor’s maternal warmth and tenderness: was this to be the end of his life, he wondered dimly? Would these caressing hands suddenly burst some vital organ? Stop his heart? His breath? His life?

But Miss Gilham was talking softly in his ear and when the meaning of her words dawned upon him, hope returned: “There is another way my dear big boy: you and I shall elope together and you will become attached to my person. I know I have a certain sexual power over you, which you must not confuse with desire on my part: I have none for you or for any man. You will have a new life but you will never have freedom out of my sight. The moment to decide is now… If you cannot accept such a perspective …” and suddenly her hands became unyielding as she gripped his skull with both gloved hands and twisted till he knew something must snap. “…you’ll have had a nasty fall down that beautiful staircase and sadly broken your neck.”

John finally found his tongue : “Please don’t! Please take me with you to the ends of the earth, you are my dream come true, Miss Gilham.”

The hands on his head were caressing again: “You understand this means a lifetime of servitude? Perhaps a short one…I will I never become your wife or your lover… I suppose you’re a virgin, aren’t you? Just a little wanker! Well, that’s probably just as well!” She hugged him and stepped back. “I will never allow you to forget that these hands can kill you at any time…” She smiled ambiguously. “And when I grow tired of having you around, that’s probably what they will do, so this dream-life of yours will be fraught with suspense!” She kissed him on the forehead and went to her room to pack.

They left on the stroke of midnight. To start the old Dion-Bouton where it dwelled would wake the entire household and too great an effort would be required to push it as far as the gate. Miss Gilham had decided therefore that they should take horses from the stable.

She didn’t expect old Bart to be there with a lamp at this time of night. Attending to a sick foal, perhaps. Miss Gilham, whose boots and bloomers were visible under a dark cloak, pushed John back into the shadows and stepped confidently towards the old man. He stood up and doffed his cap. Miss Gilham said a quietly disarming “Good evening” and he hardly had time to be surprised how close she had come when she cocked her arm and drove the edge of her hand into a certain spot on the old man’s abdomen. He said something like “ouf” and collapsed into her arms, dead to the world - or perhaps dead tout court, John feared. She lowered him carefully to the ground, turned his head gently, picked up a rake and gave him a hard poke on the forehead with the tip of the handle, then laid the tool down beside him at an appropriate angle. Clearly, she was simulating an accident and John could not help marvelling at her ingenuity as he saw a welt forming on the old man’s brow. Joining her to saddle up, he ventured the first opinion he had dared to emit since the conclusion of their pact : “You look as if you’ve been doing this sort of thing all your life!” Miss Gilham made no comment and he took another tack: “Why did you hit old Bart like that again? He was already unconscious and doing no harm!” He tried not to make it sound like a reproach.

She was tightening the cinch on her mount : “I wanted to give us more time. That spot on the skull will give us three hours, perhaps more.”

“That’s not much time on horseback,” John worried aloud.

“Ah, but we’re being met in Kimberly with a Bugatti that does at least 25 miles per hour.”

John knew little about automobiles, but was duly impressed.

They were in their saddles now. Miss Gilham gave both mounts a touch of the crop and they were off.

They had reached the woods and the cross-country trail to Kimberly without mishap, when Miss Gilham broke the long silence : “Aren’t you going to ask me who is driving the Bugatti”.

“No, my dear Miss Gilham!” he said ironically. “It might just be someone I don’t want to know!”

“It seems to me, Master John that you are getting a little uppity for your tender years…” but then her tone became disturbingly salacious “In fact, you are getting a damn sight too mature for your age, and you will probably have to be punished ‘ere many days go by, wouldn’t you say?”.

John, of course, said nothing: what could he say to that?

“And though the idea may excite you now,” she continued with the nuance of sadism he remembered from their first encounter, “but you may be disillusioned. You have not seen one tenth of the unpleasant things I can do to a man’s body. And rather enjoy doing, I might add… As for the driver of the Bugatti, you do know her as a matter of fact, for she is none other than the Widow Prendergast, Molly herself! What a trio we will make, my boy, three partners in crime à la vie, à la mort! ”

As they rode into the night, John was shivering in his saddle.

End of part 1