By Governess
liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com
Copyright 2024 by Governess, all rights reserved
[3,019 words]´
* * * * *Chapter 67
Just think about what
I have told you. From the age of eight until he went up to varsity,
Laura Ravenscourt was the one person that really governed James’s
development. Her love was warm and generous, generous in her affection
and in her discipline. But she was his governess, not his mother. And
even though a mother might equal her in strictness, there is a bond
between a mother and a son that no governess can replicate or replace.”
“That is so true, Diana. A boy who is suckled at the breast, who is
hugged and kissed from his earliest years and held against the warm
softness of his mother’s flesh is bound in a relationship for which
there is no substitute.”
“But James’s mother does not seem
to have been particularly warm or affirming, Cordelia. By all accounts,
she regarded him as an unwelcome encumbrance to her social life. He was
bottle fed by a girl from the village., who lived with the family
during these early years, right up until he went to his prep school.
And there he encountered, for the first time, a strict punishment
regime. For serious offences, a boy could expect to be birched by the
headmaster, while for lesser offences caned by his housemaster.”
“So, Miss Ravenscourt’s discipline would not have been altogether surprising.”
“Well, I am not sure about that, Cordelia. I think it would have come
as a great shock. Having to submit to regular birching was something
entirely new. But as great a shock must have come from being stripped
and beaten by a determined young woman.
“But as he left
childhood, the image of a governess who confines a boy within strict
rules and who birches him whenever he strays into forbidden paths
became a comfort and an anchor in the pressures and turmoil of life. He
can live again in that childhood where there was clarity of expectation
and where the birch freed a small boy from sin and guilt and restored
him to acceptance.”
Cordelia nodded.
“Yes, I can see
that. We were suckled and held against a mother’s warm skin, and later
held over her knee for a well-deserved spanking, and because of that,
we now have the confidence to provide that loving discipline ourselves
and the confidence to feel no shame about doing so.”
“Exactly,
Cordelia. We area active disciplinarians, whereas James was shaped by
his experience to be passive. He lacked our inner confidence and
preferred to cede the right of chastisement to another and to watch it
being administered by a woman who actively disciplined as Miss
Ravenscourt had disciplined. And he found that in me, and now in you.”
“Diana, may I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, I remember your telling me that James used to regularly birch
your own boys; and now, of course, he is responsible for birching the
boys in the orphanage. So, well, I’m not sure how that fits in with
what you’ve been saying.”
Diana looked down guiltily.
“Well, of course, it doesn’t, Cordelia. The truth is that I normally
maintain the pretence that James has, like any father, played an active
role in providing the discipline in our family. Most people would fail
to understand that he prefers to leave it to me and regard him as weak
and ineffectual, which he most decidedly is not. I am confiding in you
because I trust you and regard you almost like my sister.”
“That’s so lovely, Diana. And I feel the same about you. And of course I’ll respect your confidence. Of course, I will.”
She felt quite emotional at this intimate exchange. But her curiosity impelled her to continue.
“But what about the discipline in the orphanage?”
“Well, in most cases he has not found that so easy to delegate. Largely
because, until you arrived, there was no one to delegate to. On one or
two occasions, he has asked me to birch a boy while he watched , but as
the Principal’s wife, and not strictly on the Orphanage staff, the
scope for doing that is limited.”
“What about my predecessor?”
“Miss Hodge? We inherited Miss Hodge when we arrived,. And she was
aghast when we reintroduced the birch. The idea of her flogging a boy
herself is laughable. She believed that all boys need only love and
understanding,”
She smiled.
“Which of course is
right. Except her understanding of love and of what boys need was
rather different from mine. I am pleased to say that she needed little
encouragement to give in her notice and we were so delighted when you
filled the vacancy.”
Cordelia frowned.
“But how does
James cope with having to administer the birch himself when his
preference is otherwise? Doesn’t he find that difficult?”
“Well, his imaginative engagement clearly has to change somewhat. When
I watch someone punishing a child, I strongly identify with the person
administering the whipping, and am myself whipping that child through
them. And when James birches a boy, I am sure each stroke given across
the boy’s bare flesh is as though he is that boy suffering at the hands
of his governess, while he becomes no longer the disciplinarian, but
somehow the observer.”
“And it has to be the birch?”
“Yes.”
“Because that was the choice of Miss Ravenscourt?”
“Yes, Because he is re-entering the world of discipline that he was subject to for so many years.”
“What do we know about Miss Ravenscourt, Diana?”
“Well, her father, Justin Ravenscourt, owned a considerable estate in
Northumberland and was additionally the rector of a large rural parish.
The squarson, in fact. He was a Balliol man, a classicist, with a
double first in Greats. Laura was his first child. Her mother was
largely occupied in the parish and Laura was more or less handed over
to the care of a young girl from the village who taught her her tables
and how to tie her shoelaces, and so on. But apart from that she didn’t
seem to be taught much and was more less free to run wild. Although the
girl had been instructed to chastise her when necessary, she seems
rarely to have exercised any authority over her or disciplined her in
any way. And Laura rather despised her for her weakness.
In
her early years, her father showed little interest in her. But around
the age of seven, he judged her ready for instruction and from then on
he supervised her studies himself. This was a real and unwelcome change
in her life, for the freedom of the surrounding woods and hills was
exchanged for the school room and a hard confining desk at which she
was made to sit. She needed to be broken in to hard work and her father
was more than ready to oblige. He treated her exactly as he would a
boy, and any failure in attitude or work was punished with the rod.”
“And that meant the birch?”
“Yes. Her father birched her regularly. He taught her Latin and Greek,
ancient history, and German in which he was fluent. It must have been
challenging for a girl of seven, but his expectations were high, and
his unremitting demands, combined with the encouragement of the birch,
meant she made good progress. By the time she was twelve she was able
to construe Vergil with relative ease while her Greek was coming along
apace. He set her an essay each week and again his expectations were
high. Early on he concentrated on spelling and sentence construction,
rather than substance, and each spelling or grammatical mistake meant a
cut of the birch. But as she matured the emphasis was increasingly on
the coherence of her arguments and how she expressed herself. And
again, if he judged her effort inadequate, she was flogged.”
“He seems a formidable father, Diana.”
Yes, I am sure he was. As you know, in classical times, the father of
the family had the right to discipline his children in whatever way he
chose. And that authority extended over his whole household. I am sure
Justin Ravenscourt saw himself as just such a paterfamilias. And
as a Christian, he saw that authority flowing to him from the
fatherhood of God. And as God was free to act without let or hindrance,
so too was he.”
She paused.
“And I have to say that he seems to have exercised that freedom in ways that we might consider questionable.”
“How was that, Diana?”
“Well, when Laura was around the age of ten, she was passing her
father’s bedroom when she heard what she thought was an unusual noise.
Being curious, she gently turned the handle and looked in. Kneeling on
the ottoman at the end of the bed with her head down was one of the
house parlour maids. Her black uniform dress was rucked halfway up her
back and with her head forward on the bed, her bare bottom was bare and
raised. Laura could see that the girl had only recently been birched.
Her father was standing over her and clearly in an advanced state of
arousal. Only that month, Laura had seen a stallion in the field and
had watched fascinated as it mounted and thrust its enormous member
into a mare, its hooves buried deep in her flanks. Laura had found the
sight of the stallion, dominating the mare and forcing her to submit,
deeply arousing.
On hearing the door open, her father turned, his face dark and forbidding.
“ ‘And what is the meaning of this, Laura? How dare you burst into a
room without first knocking and waiting for permission to enter..”
He narrowed his eyes.”
“ ‘As you can see, I am disciplining Thompson. She is learning that a
parlour is under my authority, and subject to my rule and that I will
not accept rudeness and slovenly behaviour. You will go downstairs and
wait in the library, while I teach her the meaning of submission.’”
He paused.
“‘As I will shortly be teaching you.’“
Cordelia felt herself becoming hot and breathless.
“If that means what I think it means, that’s truly shocking, Diana.”
“I know, it is difficult to understand, but Justin Ravenscourt truly
believed that as an earthly father he shared in the Fatherhood of God .
And just as God is a jealous God, demanding that his children submit to
his rule, so too an earthly father, as paterfamilias has the
duty to establish his authority over his children and over his whole
household, and ruthlessly to teach them the meaning of submission. To
place his yoke firmly upon them.”
Cordelia frowned.
“I seem to recall that Jesus told us that his yoke was easy and his burden light.”
“Yes, he did. But perhaps it only becomes easy and light once it is
willingly accepted. That I am sure is what Laura’s father would say.”
“And how, did he deal with Laura?”
“He flogged her with a severity not experienced up to then; with the marks were still faintly visible three weeks later.”
“Do you think she resented such exceptionally harsh discipline?”
“Well, I am sure she didn’t welcome it, but no, I don’t think she
resented it. She seems to have accepted that discipline and punishment
are ordained by God and that those who rule must apply the rod to those
who are ruled.”
“But how do we know all this Diana?”
“Quite simply because Laura wrote an account of her early life. She
sent a copy to James. I still have it in my bookcase. James skimmed
through it but has otherwise shown very little interest in it. Which is
surprising. However, as he lived through much of the period of which
she relates that’s perhaps understandable. The book is inscribed with a
dedication and quotation on the fly leaf taken from Vergil.
For James whom I am sure remembers
sunt lacrimae rerum”
“What did she mean by that, Diana?”
Diana laughed.
“I am not sure how good your Latin is, but the quotation is from the
Aeneid. Literally translated it means ‘there are tears in things’. The
quotation comes from Book 1 of the Aeneid where Aeneas and his men
arrive at Dido’s palace and are confronted with a frieze depicting
events from the Trojan War where he and his men had suffered defeat at
the hands of the Greeks. And they weep at the images of loss and
desolation. James struggled with his Latin and needed regular birching
to encourage him. He probably shed more blood in his efforts to
construe Vergil than any Spartan boy at the altar of Artemis. So, it
seems to have been an oblique reference to his suffering at her hands.”
“At the altar of Artemis?”
“Yes, Cordelia. In ancient Sparta, there was an altar to Artemis where
young Spartans could show their manliness by accepting to be flogged. A
hardy boy would be flogged until bloody . The blood was an offering in
remembrance of the blood shed by the Spartans in their war with
Persia.”
“And James was flogged by his governess with that degree of severity?”
“Well, you have flogged a boy with a birch rod. It is not difficult to
leave a boy’s bottom streaked with blood after a severe flogging . And
remember, if James was struggling with his Vergil and for each lapse
was awarded two or three strokes of the birch, well that could mount up
to a significant flogging at the end of the day.”
“He must
have been an unhappy little boy to be rejected by school and parents
and then placed in the hands of Miss Ravenscourt.”
“I am sure he was at first, but before long he seems to have accepted her rule over him, and her commitment to his discipline.”
“Yes, I can understand that, Diana. He must have found it reassuring
after so much upset and rejection in his life. And I can begin to see
how the birch assumed an almost totemic importance for James. So how
long was she tutoring him?”
“Well, as it turned out, right up to matriculation when he went up to Balliol.”
“You mean from the age of eight right up to his late teenage years! And
all that time, he was without the company of boys of his own age!”
“Yes. There was some discussion about his going to Harrow or Rugby, but it came to nothing.”
“Why was that?”
“Well, Laura Ravenscourt argued strongly that she should be allowed to
continue tutoring him. She had the qualifications and the authority to
carry his studies forward and his parents were in no mood to argue with
her. After all, they had instructed her to lick the boy into shape and
she was doing that. And in their eyes there was no reason why she
shouldn’t continue to do so. And as for James, after four or five years
of being tutored by Miss Ravenscourt, I’m sure there was a security in
her continuing with her. And no doubt there was also a lingering fear
of being immersed once again in the world of masters and boys with all
that that implied. Although I doubt whether much heed was paid to his
views on the matter.”
“And how did their relationship
develop as James got older. Tutoring a boy of eight is very different
from tutoring a boy of twelve or thirteen or even older.”
“Well perhaps not all that different. Whether a boy's seven or twelve,
he still has to apply himself to his studies, and a boy whatever his
age is still capable of behaviour that demands correction. And that was
certainly Laura’s own experience. She was taught at home by her father
right up to the same sort of age as James. By then, she had reached an
impressive standard and was looking forward to continuing her studies
further.”
“And did she?”
“No, not immediately. After
the death of Laura's mother, her father remarried, and she soon found
herself with two half-brothers. Their own mother seems to have regarded
her as an unpaid nanny and their upbringing became largely her
responsibility. And by the time the two boys were four and five, she
was tutoring them more or less full time.”
“And how did she feel about that?”
“Well, she must have been about eighteen by then. Her own studies has
ceased, but she and her father continued to read Greek and Latin
together each Sunday evening. She was more than capable of teaching two
small boys and did so right up to the time they went to Harrow.”
“And, I imagine, that she treated them as strictly as her father had treated her?”
“Yes. Her method of instruction was modelled on that of her father.
Clear and careful explanation followed by a test in which any errors
were punished.”
“So, were they birched?”
“Well, when
she started to tutor them, they were four and five. Her own lessons had
started when she was a bit older, but it was not until the boys were
seven or eight, that there was a bucket in the corner of the schoolroom
and a rod steeping ready for use.”
She smiled.
“And by all accounts it needed to be frequently replaced .”
“So, before that, how were they punished?”
“They were spanked on the bare bottom with the back of a hairbrush. She
believed that small boys needed to be first broken in by a nursery
punishment, so that later they could accept the more rigorous
discipline that was necessary.”
“That’s an interesting thought, Diana.”
“Yes, isn’t it. It’s not easy for a small boy to lie still and offer
himself for the birch. At first, he needs to be held securely for
punishment and what better way than to be spanked over a mother’s knee,
or in this case, over his older sister’s knee.”
“So, given Laura’s later preference for the birch, how did she feel about punishing the boys with a hairbrush?”
“I think, given their age, she found spanking them very satisfying.”