Over the Barrel

Blair Farbor tore the bottom hem from her
long, dirty skirt while muttering obscenities under her breath.
 
The words felt good as they slipped from
her lips, knowing that Great-Aunt Imelda would likely throw a fit if such
language crossed her all-too-proper hearing.
 
Clutched in the young woman's hand was a
letter from the Headmistress of the Philadelphia Academy for Young Ladies,
advising her aunt of the expulsion.

"Rancorous and unladylike behavior
will not be tolerated at our esteemed school," the prune-faced matron had
declared after discovering Blair behind the stable, experimenting with a man's
cigar that she had stolen from the school's overseer.
 
"I have excused many of your
indiscretions, Miss Farbor, but this act of rebellion and spite is one not to
be ignored.
 
Fetch the cane."

"Fetch it yourself, you mean old
pig-faced sow.
 
I will no longer subject
myself to your cruelty.
 
I have been
doing all I can to be discharged from this institution, and you are too stupid
to see it," Blair glared back.
 
"I am no one's fool!
 
You keep me here for your own purpose.
 
You would sell your damned soul for my
aunt's approval and your maidenhood for her fortune, and all here know
it!"

"Well!
 
I never in all my years … You are a
curse of the devil, you wicked child.
 
You are dismissed!"

Blair's departure was not without drama
as she released a string of profanities learned from the academy's
groundskeepers and stable hands.
 
It
was truly satisfying to observe the headmistress grasping at her heart and
fanning her wrinkled old face as she fell back in her over-stuffed chair in
shock.
 
Blair offered one final
gesture of questionable origin, and pleased with the headmistress's response,
that included prayer and supplication to God, she trotted out of the room and
away from the despised school.

Blair slowed her pace as she walked
through the academy's gates and looked down the long, deserted road.
 
Even in a carriage, it took a solid hour
to reach her aunt's home.
 
With the
prospect of rain looming overhead, Blair knew she would have an uncomfortable
journey in front of her.
 
She had no
doubt Great-Aunt Imelda would have her whipped for her behavior, but anything
was better than staying in this wretched place.
 
She began to daydream of a time and
place where she could be free from this archaic attitude that women were
designed to be mothers and servants of their husbands.
 
She was intelligent and quick on her
feet, and sitting in a room quoting Shakespeare and sewing buttons was not on
the agenda.
 
She wanted complete
freedom to do what she willed—something special with her life, something
memorable.
 
She did not want to die
and be forgotten like her mother had been.

Melancholy set in as Blair recalled her
mother's final days.
 
Consumption
drained her quickly and she passed away in the middle of the night, without a
sound and without a goodbye.
 
Her
burial was conducted the next day and was only attended by her aunt, Blair, and
a household servant.
 
There was no
explanation why her grandfather, Imelda's brother, had not arrived to exchange
condolences.
 
The headstone was
simple—her mother's initials and a date—nothing more.
 
The service ended, and Great-Aunt Imelda
shooed the nine-year-old Blair away, with instructions to practice her letters.

Blair's memory was blurred after that
day.
 
She was placed in a tiny room
in the servant's quarters and clothed in the simplest, most modest attire.
 
Her meals were taken in the kitchen,
amidst the scurrying workers, and she was forbidden to receive visitors or
leave the premises without being in the presence of her aunt.
 
Determined to be noticed and never
forgotten, the child launched a campaign of mischief.
 
At her aunt's command, she received
daily beatings from the old cook, with the large wooden spoon—always over
her skirts, so they neither hurt nor discouraged Blair from finding new ways of
making herself be seen.
 
She was
constantly threatened with being sent to live at her grandfather Malcolm's
bison and cattle ranch in Colorado territory, surrounded by outlaws, thieves,
and the lowest of human kind.
 
Each
day Blair prayed Imelda would follow through with that threat.
 
Blair believed that, even in the
imagination of the most horrible of conditions, she would be free of the
oppression and control that surrounded her.
 
More so, her adventurous and rebellious
spirit was excited by the thought of entering Indian Territory and primitive
living.
 
She would do anything to
forever depart the dull, colorless boredom that accompanied the well-to-do and
strictly adhered-to properness that was the city.

Soaking wet and with her feet aching from
walking in her heeled boots, Blair finally reached the steps of her aunt's
grand house,
set towards the back
of the pristine grounds.
 
Like
the other homes in the elite 'suburb' of the city, Farbor Mansion
advertised the amount of money that her
aunt had gathered.
 
It had been
painted a horrendous bright yellow to declare to all who laid eyes upon it that
the owner had wealth, power, and virtue.
 
The inside was decorated with heavy drapes, dark wood, dark wallpaper,
and hardwood flooring.
 
There were
two hallways and two staircases, one grand for company, which allowed for
dramatic entrances, and one plain for the children and servants.
 
Blair hated every brick of Farbor
Mansion.
 
It reminded her of the
stiffness and materialistic life that she had been forced to live around, yet
was never part of.

"Aunt Imelda?"
 
Blair called as she entered the
foyer.
 
It was time to face the
music.

"Miss!
 
You are chilled to the bone!" her
personal maid proclaimed.
 
"I
will get you towels and tea.
 
Your
aunt is in the parlor."

"Thanks, Madeline," Blair
smiled at the older French woman, who had been her only friend since she had
come to this dreadful mausoleum of a house.
 
"What would Aunt Imelda do if you
were not here to keep me out of her vision?"

"Miss Blair," Madeline said,
wrinkling her forehead, "I was hired as your maid.
 
To help care for you."

"And you have always done a
marvelous job.
 
Thank you,"
Blair said, kissing the woman on the cheek.
 
Dripping, she walked down the hall and
tapped on the heavy, oak door.
 
"Pardon my intrusion, Aunt Imelda.
 
May I come in?"

"Enter child.
 
What are you … why, you are positively
drenched!
 
Were you seen publically
in this state?"

Blair sighed, rolling her eyes as
Madeline began to pat her down.
 
"I was caught in an unexpected storm on the way … here."
 
She could never call this house a home,
any more than she could call Imelda family.

"A lady would have a carriage take
her to the door," Imelda said, snootily.

"Yes, but a lady without coin does
not take a carriage.
 
She
walks."

"Coin is earned, not given.
 
You have done nothing to earn a
cent.
 
Even your existence costs
money that you have no means to repay."

 
Blair held back her comments.
 
She sat in a large leather chair as the maid unbuttoned her boots and
pulled them off her feet.
 
Another
servant brought a footbath, and Blair sighed as her cold feet sank into the
steaming water.

"What is that in your hand?"
her aged aunt crisply asked.

"A note from the headmistress.
 
I can explain," Blair began, biting
her lip as the maid transferred the note from her hand to her aunt's.

"You always seem to have some kind
of explanation, don't you, child?"
 
Imelda read the letter, shaking her head as she did so.
 
"You refused a caning and were
expelled?
 
Profanity and ungodly
gestures?
 
What am I going to do
with you?"

"I am truly sorry, Aunt.
 
I've told you this in the past—the
academy suffocates me.
 
I need to be
free and not stuck in a dingy room, reciting poetry."

"I have truly reached my end with
you.
 
You are getting too old for
whippings, although I don't think they ever did you any good."
 
Imelda lifted her teacup to her lips and
stared over the rim at her niece.
 
"I believe it is time for you to take a job as a governess.
 
Perhaps being responsible for a child
will help you stay out of mischief and allow you to support yourself."

"I do not want to be a
governess!
 
I'm tired of staying
inside and being told what to do.
 
I
refuse to comply with these standards that society has placed upon women.
 
I reached the age of majority last year
and still have not experienced a coming-out.
 
I turned nineteen years last week and
still have not been given the opportunity to make decisions for myself."