Cordelia Lavington 70

By Governess
liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com

Copyright 2024 by Governess, all rights reserved

[2,987 words]´

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This work is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It may contain depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 70



“And I am sure you are right about fortitude, Cordelia. I think that for Laura that was an important virtue, and in her eyes, one of the keys to successful learning. A teacher may assist in the transfer of knowledge but as important is imparting the capacity to learn. Learning requires a degree of struggle and the fortitude to keep going in the face of failure. And providing the courage to do that is so essential.”

“But it is also clear from what she says that, for her, submission to authority was also an important virtue.”

“Yes. And so it is. Until a child is brought into submission and is prepared to respect and obey the authority set over him, learning is simply not possible. I know there are some who think that rendering a child submissive militates against an inquiring mind. But inquiry is only valuable if the mind has received something worth inquiring about. And for that there first needs to be some proper learning. And, of course, to bring a child into submission, punishment needs to sit at the very heart of the relationship.

“Yes at its very heart. Some draw a distinction between punishment, which is negative and controlling and ought to be avoided, and discipline which is positive and supporting. But that’s complete nonsense. Punishment is as much guidance and support as anything else. There’s nothing negative about punishment. It makes a positive contribution to shaping a boy and providing a real stimulus and encouragement to learning. Laura makes that very clear.”

“But there’s something else comes across even more forcibly, isn’t there? Her deep satisfaction in punishing the two boys. She relishes every smack of the hairbrush on their bare little bottoms and later every cut of the birch as it raises throbbing weals on their flesh. I wonder what you think about that, Cordelia?”

“I’m reminded of the old adage ‘You have to be cruel to be kind’ But it is a refined cruelty, isn’t it? It is never thoughtless or brutal. For her, as for us, whipping is an essential part of a discipline which holds the boy securely within our will. So, perhaps cruelty isn’t the best word to use.”

“Although a lot of people would certainly consider her discipline bordering on cruelty. And sometimes her enjoyment seems at least equal, if not greater, than the intention to discipline. I’m not sure how far into the book you’ve read, but her account of the early tutoring of James, and her eagerness to discipline him is a good example of that.”

Diana picked the book, and found the page she was looking for.

“Just read that Cordelia.

I tutored my two half-brothers until first Marius and then a year later Torquil went off to school. Then, in my twenties, I moved to Cambridge and continued my own studies at Lady Margaret Hall. I missed tutoring the two boys and in particular the pleasure in correcting them and, whenever I saw a birch tree, I imagined holding a birch in my hand and swishing it through the air and then raising weals on smooth immature flesh. And I knew, even then, that once I had graduated, I wanted nothing other than to become a tutor of small boys and reestablish a relationship similar to that which I had enjoyed with Marius and Torquil. The grounding my father had given me in classics and history that had been well-beaten into my own flesh stood me in great stead. I outpaced my fellow students and enjoyed my superiority, eventually leaving with the equivalent of an excellent degree. Not that I was awarded such, for Cambridge did not admit women to full membership of the University or confer degrees upon them. I began scanning the relevant publications for a position as tutor with a strong preference for tutoring boys, and it was not long before my heart missed a beat as I read the following in one of the periodicals to which I had subscribed.

Governess required for eight-year-old boy. High academic qualifications required with the ability to coach to common entrance. Responsible for both his academic and moral welfare. Willingness to impose strict discipline essential.

I remember the excitement that pulsed through me as I read this. I immediately put pen to paper and responded, stating my qualifications and eagerness for the appointment. And, of course, I cited my experience in tutoring my two half-brothers. After some hesitation, I mentioned my strong belief in physical discipline as an essential element in fostering a good attitude to learning. I had wondered whether to stress this commitment to the rod, and hoped that this was what the advertisement meant when it referred to ‘strict discipline’.

I waited with increasing anxiety for a reply and within two days I had received an encouraging response inviting me to an interview.

Dear Miss Ravenscourt,

Thank you for your application for the position advertised in Educational World. I am most impressed with your qualifications for the post and invite you to an interview. May I suggest that you make arrangements to visit us on Wednesday next and stay overnight. That would provide not only an opportunity to meet for longer, but also enable you to spend time with James. Please cable when you have made the arrangement and we will send the car to collect you. All expenses will be reimbursed.

James previously boarded at a preparatory school from which sadly he was expelled. Both his father and I consider that his need is now for a single tutor imposing a strict regime governing not only his studies but every aspect of his life. I am greatly encouraged by your stated commitment to physical discipline that I now see as essential for keeping the boy on the straight and narrow and bringing about the reform that is required.

I look forward to meeting you.

Immediately I reached for Bradshaw’s and checked train times. And within the week, I was driving up a long and spacious drive toward an impressive country house. I was met by Mrs Fairclough who greeted me in what I thought was an eager but somewhat worried manner, and was led through long corridors to a drawing room that opened onto the garden. Looking through the french doors, I could see this ran as far as the eye could see, and that the house was set in grounds that were as well kept as they were extensive. Her husband was an eminent and busy QC and the running of the household was left entirely in her hands, including the welfare and education of the children. James’s expulsion was the last straw, and she had decided that he should be banished from the family home and live with a governess in a cottage on the estate. She made clear that, if appointed, I would assume full responsibility for the boy, subject only to the requirement of providing a strict and demanding regime that would render him submissive and hardworking, and also that on no account were any concessions or privileges to be accorded him.

I confess I was more than a little shocked at the depth of her rejection. On the other hand, the situation offered more than I could reasonably have expected and I told her I was willing to take the position if offered, adding that I would have no difficulty in providing the discipline the boy required. She knew from our correspondence, that I regarded the rod as essential for effective discipline and that it would most certainly not be withheld.

She then took me to the cottage where it was proposed that I should live with James. It was in fact a cottage only in name, being a converted coach house with six substantial rooms.

“I trust you will find this acceptable, Miss Ravenscourt. There should be enough rooms for one to be a dedicated schoolroom, as well as a room to which you can banish James when he needs to be disciplined.”

“You mean placed in isolation as a punishment? Is that how he is currently disciplined?”

“Yes. That’s where he is at the moment. Confined to his room. Unless he’s run off into the grounds. I cannot tell how grateful and relieved I am that you will be lifting this burden from me.”

I nodded.

“This is a beautifully spacious house, Mrs Fairclough, but hardly a cottage.”

“Yes. But we’ve always called it The Cottage, right from the beginning. Anyway, I hope it will meet the current need. But you must meet James.”

When we returned to the main house, despite her fears, James was still in his room, and came when called. I smiled and greeted him in friendly fashion.

“I am Miss Ravenscourt, and I am to be your governess, James.”

He looked down at the floor.

“Do you know what a governess is, James?”

He shook his head.

“No? Well a governess is a lady like me whose business it is to govern boys like you”

“I take it you know what ‘govern’ means, James.”

He looked up and stared at me.

“To govern means to rule. And that means giving him clear rules.”

I paused

“And beating him if he fails to keep them. Have you ever been beaten, James?”

“Ye . . . yes.”

“And when was that?”

“At my school. At St Leonard’s.”

“And how were you beaten?”

“With a cane. Over my gym shorts"

“Well, let me tell you, James, that when I beat a boy, he’s punished on his bare bottom. Have you never been spanked?”

“Spanked?”

“Spanked. Had your trousers taken down and beaten with a hairbrush on the bare bottom?”

“N . . . no. I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so! Well, let me tell you, James, any boy spanked by me would be in no doubt he’d been spanked.”

I looked at his mother.

“Perhaps James might be returned to his room for a while, Mrs Fairclough.”

He was sent off with a warning to stay there until called.

“This is a boy, Mrs Fairclough, greatly in need of discipline. He must be kept on a tight rein. He’s a young colt that needs to be broken to bit and bridle, and for that there will need to be frequent resort to the whip. I confess I am already anticipating the pleasure of providing the discipline he requires and knowing that you will have the pleasure of the boy's being properly taken in hand.”

“As I said, Miss Ravenscourt, being relieved of responsibility for James’s discipline is a such a blessing, and to find someone who does not shy away from providing the punishment he needs is little short of a miracle. From the outset I knew that he needed firm handling. But discipline is demanding and time-consuming and, to my shame, it was neglected. I suppose I lack any real maternal instinct. It was such a relief when he began at St Leonards, but now by his wicked stupidity he has brought that to an end. And I blame myself for failing him. For not providing that discipline he needed.”

“Mrs Fairclough, you may have failed to discipline him, but he knew what he was doing and he carries the blame. As for your failing him, we all are different, with different dispositions, and different strengths and weaknesses. When these are leading us astray, we need to resist. No doubt you should have fought your lack of resolve to discipline him, but now you have wisely appointed someone to do what you found difficult to do yourself.”

By now it was late afternoon. Mrs Fairclough rang for tea and as we chatted, it became increasingly clear that whatever intentions I might have for James, there would be no interference from his mother. The relief at having her responsibility for the boy lifted was all too evident, and she had no wish to see him on a regular basis. ‘Once a month is quite sufficient in the circumstances, Miss Ravenscourt. I expect you to take full responsibility for the boy, and for him to be subject to your rule and your determination. To see him on a regular basis would be far too confusing for him.’

I inquired whether his father might not have a view about this, and was told, ‘His father will be more than happy with the arrangement’. And so, I thought, would I.

At five o’clock, I asked Mrs Fairclough to call James, and proposed that I should be responsible for his bedtime routine.

“Normally, Miss Ravenscourt, his bedtime is quite a bit later than this. He’ll not be pleased.”

“If he argues about it, he’ll be even less pleased, Mrs Fairclough.”

When he entered, I explained that as his new governess I had decided on a change in his bedtime and that from now on, he would start getting ready for bed at five o’clock.

“But that’s not fair, I don’t go up to bed until half past six.”

“Is that when you went up to bed yesterday, James?”

“Yes. It was.”

“And is it still yesterday?”

No, of course not.”

“Exactly. Today is a new day, and you have a new bedtime. Now go to your room and undress. And when I come up I want to see your clothes folded neatly, and you standing, naked, with your nose pressed against the wall.”

When he had gone, his mother looked at me with an almost shocked, yet approving look on her face.

“Are you going to spank him, Miss Ravenscourt?”

“Yes, Mrs Fairclough. Nothing he could have said or done would have spared him. Boys need discipline, even boys that are often to all appearances good. In my bag upstairs in my room is a hairbrush; and upstairs, too, there will soon be a small eight-year-old boy standing face to the wall with a very bare bottom. Before I left the house this morning, I was already anticipating the pleasure of spanking that bottom. And when I’ve finished with him, he’ll be sobbing and choking, and his bottom two swollen mounds of red smarting agony.”

I wondered whether it had been wise to speak so frankly to Mrs Fairclough. But she clearly regarded my eagerness to discipline the boy as contrasting favourably with her own reluctance to provide what was necessary. I
left her and mounted the stairs, going first to my room. For a moment, I stood at the window enjoying the view of rolling countryside, and in the far distance, a hill with a single tree. I stood looking for a moment before retrieving the hairbrush from the drawer in which I had placed it, smacking it several times across my palm, before making my way to James’s bedroom. It would not have surprised me to find him still dressed, but, no, he was standing face to the wall as instructed. I felt a tightness in my chest and shivered, as I ran my eyes appreciatively down his smooth back to the fullness of his buttocks. Two mounds of soft sensitive flesh, firm and compact, stripped of all protection, awaiting my discipline. Gently, I placed the hairbrush on the top of the chest of drawers.

I stepped over to the boy who stirred uneasily as I stood beside him. I reached out and placed my hand beneath the weight of his buttocks and felt his body tremble.

However frequently a boy may be spanked, and even if owing to a lapse of time, he has forgotten how painful are two or three dozen strokes of a hairbrush across his bare bottom, the effectiveness of a spanking is never in doubt. Even were a boy to be spanked daily, the buttocks never lose their sensitivity, and given that some boys, indeed most boys, need regular and frequent spanking, and later birching, that is indeed fortunate. And James whose bottom had been starved of disciplinary love for so long was soon to discover just how sensitive a bottom could be. I felt the firm weight of his buttocks beneath my hand, and could scarcely credit that this boy had been placed so readily under my governance. I was to exercise a total control over every aspect of his being, his education, his moral welfare, but above all, his discipline.

Once my two half-brothers had departed to Harrow, the pleasure of flogging a boy was entirely absent from my life. While at Oxford, I had taken on some tutoring of boys for common entrance. However, the harsh but effective methods I had adopted for Marius and Torquil were unacceptable to their parents. Consequently, assisting their sons to reach the required standard became both difficult and unrewarding; and for behaviour that merited a good flogging, I had to content myself with the sterile response of a verbal reprimand. For so many years I had enjoyed birching the firm, young buttocks of my half-brothers that having to endure a life without this pleasure was becoming increasingly unendurable.

It was to make good this loss that I decided to offer myself as an academic governess to tutor boys from their earliest years, right through to common entrance and even beyond. My qualification in classical languages, equivalent to a double first, more than qualified me for such a position, but whether I would find a family who shared my belief in the value of strict discipline and frequent recourse to the rod remained to be seen. However, I made clear in my advertisement that I favoured well-established disciplinary routines and strict discipline, in the hope that it would attract those parents who believed, as I did, that corporal punishment was a prerequisite of a boy's making significant progress in his studies. That I would receive so swift a response and one that more than justified my optimism was as startling as it was welcome.















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