Part 1 described how Rudyard Kipling and his younger sister were consigned
to the care of Mrs Holloway, a committed Evangelical and a bigoted and ignorant woman who took a
dislike to Kipling and treated him very badly. He endured many years
of her cruelty and neglect, not to mention hell-fire Christianity.
There
are some more questions to be asked.
Why
didn’t Rudyard Kipling say anything?
Kipling
said that his beloved aunt asked him this question many times.
He later gave two reasons for his not telling anyone how he was being treated.
He said that children accept everything that happens to them as
inevitable and eternal; he also said that they sense what they will
get if they betray the secrets of the prison-house before they are
well clear of it.
These
are good answers – as far as they go.
Children
in general do think that whatever adults do is normal behaviour;
children are often threatened with dire consequences for speaking
out, perhaps verbally or perhaps with unspoken but well conveyed and
understood intention. They may be afraid of losing what little they
have.
However,
there may be more to it.
Children
in general may not be able to put things into words; they may lack
the necessary concepts and vocabulary. It is up to adults to set an
example and educate children in how to express themselves.
Children
may also be overwhelmed, unable to speak. The necessary assertiveness
and inner strength may have been destroyed by the vicious attacks. It
is up to adults to draw children out and encourage them to speak up.
Children
may be subconsciously afraid of mentioning bad treatment in case they
find that no one cares and nothing is done; they may also fear being
accused of lying. Sometimes the default, the instinctive reaction, is
to hide all injuries and carry on as if nothing has happened. Some
people dissociate very easily.
These
are all psychological factors, explanations that will make sense to
most people. There is also the possibility of other, metaphysical
influences. For example, something like bad energy or an evil spell
that prevents people from saying anything by may be at work: victims
may feel choked and smothered when they try to speak about forbidden
topics.
Why
didn’t anyone notice anything?
It
is up to parents to be responsible for children's wellbeing and to
satisfy themselves that their children are healthy and happy. Kipling
didn't see his parents during his years of captivity; they just sent
books and letters. His mother might have sensed his inner distress if
she had come to visit him.
Kipling
said that what saved him was going to stay with his maternal aunt for
one month at Christmas each year. He said that it was like going from
Hell to Paradise. These breaks were missed opportunities; he said
nothing about the abuse he was enduring and no one noticed anything.
His aunt really should have asked him about the details of his daily
life. However, he appeared well and happy, as he did to visitors who
came to see him in Southsea.
An
obvious explanation is that escaping from prison for the Christmas
holidays and receiving visitors would have relieved some of the
pressure, so of course he looked well and happy – for the duration.
Kipling conceded that Mrs Holloway fed him adequately, which would
have made him appear in reasonably good health.
Other
factors may have been at work here. Sometimes attacks and their
consequences are invisible because they take place on another
dimension. The whole affair, especially the difference between Mrs
Holloway's behaviour towards Rudyard in public and private, reminds
me of Beverley Nichols' witch Miss Smith and her victim Snowdrop the
pony. He was forced to fawn on her in public while
she was torturing him in private. She fed him magic pills to hide his
injuries and extreme thinness.
The
end of the prison sentence
Kipling's
aunt did eventually notice that all was not well with him. This was
during his Christmas visit in 1876. She informed his mother, who
arrived in England in the spring of 1877. By that time, Kipling's
eyesight was failing and he was having a kind of breakdown. This was
the first time he had seen his mother since late 1871, when she
abandoned him without warning.
Mrs
Kipling removed her two children and took them for a holiday that
lasted nine months, after which Rudyard was sent to a boarding school
in Devon and Trix was sent back to Southsea for three more years.
It
seems that nothing much was said by or to anyone at the time.
Presumably Mrs Holloway got away with everything and was never
confronted. I wonder whether she worried about what the children
would say about her after they were removed from her care. Why on
earth was Trix sent back? Why didn't Kipling's parents try to
discover exactly what had happened to put him in such a bad state?
His father remained in India all this time; his mother behaved much
the same as the Reverend Patrick Brontë had after his two eldest
girls died after attending the dreadful Cowan Bridge School. Maybe
they assumed that it was just one of those things and best forgotten.
Maybe unseen influences prevented these parents from thinking
clearly.
Kipling's
parents were devastated when they first read Baa Baa, Black Sheep in
1888 and learned the full story. They may have deserved to suffer and
feel guilty; they may have been victims of something that they were
not even aware of.
Many
other creative people had miserable childhoods, with both chronic and
acute suffering. These things often seem arranged, a process that
people with potential are put through.
More
about this in the final part of this article. In the meantime, here
is what Kipling said at the end of Baa Baa, Black Sheep about his
ordeal:
“...for
when young lips have
drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all
the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge.
Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach
faith where no faith was. ”
Rudyard
around the age of six again:
