CHAPTER ONE

"A STRANGE MARRIAGE"

 

I have wondered many times what the result would have been if I had accepted Elbert Langdon the first time he proposed to me. I have wondered if I would have been subjected to the subsequent whippings and extreme humiliations that have been my lot. I rather suspect that I would have been compelled to go through the same mortifying ordeals I have since known. Perhaps he would have been more adroit in beginning it, realizing that I could divorce him at any time. It may be that he is now merely revenging himself upon me. But I can't help feeling that to him a wife is someone whom he would always feel privileged to dominate, and, having gotten possession of me in the manner he did, merely gave him the opportunity to unbridle all restraint.

There was really no reason why I should have refused him the first time he proposed. He was a member of my own set; was successful in business, and regarded by matrons as a good catch for any girl. But there was something about him that made me feel afraid. Since he was thirty-five years old, while I was only nineteen, I used the difference in our ages as the excuse to decline his proposal, telling him I feared it was too close to the May and December angle for there to be any happiness for either of us.

I thought at first that he had accepted defeat gracefully, but soon learned otherwise.

That was in 1929. My father had weathered the collapse of the stock market the previous year, but, like many others, thought it was merely a temporary drop and would stage a come-back. He invested heavily to regain his previous year's losses - and our finances were wiped out.

Father, I think, would have committed suicide had it not been for Elbert Langdon. He came forward with offers of help, but arranged in such a manner that it made my marriage to him necessary. Since both my parents regarded him as quite an eligible husband for their only child, they consented to the arrangements. Knowing that it meant the difference between peace for the rest of their lives instead of poverty, I went through with the marriage.

But I doubt if any girl ever had a stranger honeymoon than did I. We did not take a trip. Elbert informed me that business conditions were such that he had to remain close to his office. So he took me from my parent's home to his own.

"Well, my dear, May and December have finally been wedded," he declared in an unpleasant voice after we had reached his home and he had dismissed the servants for the night. "I suppose I shall have to regard you both as my daughter and my wife. I shall have to see that you are equally interesting in both capacities."

"Don't be foolish, Elbert," I replied.

"T am not being foolish," he declared. "You told me less than a year ago that you felt you were still only a child. Okay! You are going to be treated as one in some respects. Then, after I get through treating you as a child, I shall expect you to fulfil all your duties as my wife. You know what happens to children, don't you, Janice?"

"I haven't the least idea of what you are talking about," I answered.

"No? Then I shall be more explicit. You told me that you considered yourself still only a child, yet you have married me. Therefore, I intend to spank you as I would an unruly child, then I am taking you to bed with me for you to perform your duties as my wife!"

I looked at him in horror. It seemed unthinkable that a man could say such things in such a matter-of-fact way, and with such obvious confidence that I would have to submit to humiliating treatment of that sort from him.