By Governess
liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com
Copyright 2025 by Governess, all rights reserved
[2,639 words]´
* * * * *Chapter 73
In
view of his fervent pleading to be spared, I was not surprised at his
noisy protestation and violent struggling. I lifted him off my lap,
stood him in front of me and smacked his face hard, several times, with
the flat of my hand. The shock had a sobering effect and he burst into
tears and threw his arms around my neck. I reached round and gave his
bottom several sharp smacks, and spoke to him firmly but without anger.
Anger expresses shock and outrage, but a boy’s bad behaviour should
never arose either. A boy is a sinner. Selfish, thoughtless behaviour,
lying and deception are only to be expected. Correcting him is a labour
of love and should be undertaken in the honoured way of applying the
back of a hairbrush to the bare buttocks of a younger boy and, when a
little older, birching him. The perfection of a boy’s body to receive
such discipline, and the pleasure it bestowing it, are a wonder both of
creation and of God's loving provision.
“James, I warned you
of the consequences of opposing me, and of refusing to obey. You have
already received the soundest of spanking. And yet, you seem to have
learned nothing. You are behaving like a little three-year-old girl
whose dolly has been taken away. But worse, you are showing a
regrettable lack of manliness and fortitude.”
I gave a sigh.
“You set yourself against my will, and then expect me to do nothing, to
let your gross misbehaviour go unpunished. I'm afraid, James, you need
to understand the importance of punishment in your life. It marks out
what is forbidden and what is to be avoided, and because it is painful,
it deters from further wrongdoing. It provides a payment for sin and
opens the way to forgiveness; and every act of wrongdoing requires such
a payment, a punishment equal in severity to the sin committed.”
I paused to let my words sink in.
“So, for all those reasons, punishment can never, ever be remitted. Never.”
I gave his bottom another sharp smack and pulled him back over my lap.
There was now little, if any, resistance, and with a firm and steady
rhythm, I proceeded to apply the back of the hairbrush to his already
tortured flesh. I gave him a further two dozen strokes that left him in
a state of near hysteria, sobbing and pitifully gibbering. There was
now not only significant bruising and soreness, but places where the
skin had been abraded and in places burst, leaving areas of red rawness
and where the pressure of sitting, or even lying in bed would provide a
grim reminder of the future consequences of further wrongdoing.
Much as I loved the hairbrush, particularly for spanking a younger boy,
I felt strongly that at James’s age, there was no excuse for sparing
him the floggings that a stout birch rod would provide. A similar
result would have been achieved with much less effort. Not that I
objected to the length and demands of the spanking that had been
necessary. To be honest, I relished it. But the birch exuded power and
authority. It ruled over a boy in a way that the humble hairbrush never
could. And a boy of James’s age needed to experience that sense of the
rod being an ever present and threatening presence in his life.
And the versatility of the birch is something, too, that should be
treasured. It can be used to punish a small boy, even as young as three
or four, tickling his bottom to a warm and tingling glow, and providing
the promise of further, more painful punishment if his behaviour does
not improve; while it is quite capable of reducing an older boy, even a
late teenager, to a blubbering, quivering wreck, with buttocks and
thighs covered in the long throbbing weals that are the marks of a
thorough birching.
Suddenly, I was aware of Diana's entering the room. Sensibly she must have left the front door on the latch.
“So how are you getting on with the magnum opus?”
“I’m loving it, Diana. But what about you. You’ve been back and forth
between here and the house like a cricket that’s escaped from its cage.
Is there a problem?”
“David was very unhelpful when Mary asked
him to assist with cleaning the silver. She pointed out that as he
lives in the house and is part of the family, he needs to help with
some of the chores. I fully support her in that. All our boys were
asked to pull their weight and do a range of jobs both is the house and
in the grounds. And if they didn’t or did a slapdash job, then there
were consequences.”
“And that presumably meant a birching?”
“Yes. Or a painful session with the hairbrush. It depended on their age and how dilatory they’d been”
“And who gave that. You or James?”
“In most cases, me For the reasons I explained earlier.”
“And James watched while the naughty boy suffered for his laziness?”
“Yes. He made every effort to be present when a boy needed to be
disciplined but that was not always possible. But for laziness and
skimped chores he was nearly always present. We kept a large slate
board in the kitchen on which we marked the children’s names. If a task
was judged unacceptable a number would be written against the child’s
name ranging from five to one. Of course, if the task had been done
perfectly then no number was given.. The numbers represented the degree
of failure. A five meant that it had barely been attempted or even
overlooked. At the other end of the scale, a mark of one implied almost
but not quite satisfactory. The week ran from Monday through to Sunday,
and on Sunday evening, before teatime, the marks were added up, and it
was rare for no punishment to be required. Any mark over ten probably
meant a birching; below ten, unless there were other considerations
like a pattern of poor application establishing itself, the boy would
probably be spared the birch. Very occasionally, if the total for the
week was only one or possibly two, then sometimes a verbal reprimand
would suffice, but I have to say those occasions were rare. It was
almost always either a birching or a spanking, age, of course, being
taken into account. Over the age of seven, even for a low score, the
birch would be the preferred implement. And as all this this took place
on a Sunday, at a set time, James was invariably present.”
“But didn’t the boys find it odd for their father always to watch you disciplining them?”
“James was very conscious of that. He didn’t want it to appear he was
just a passive on-looker, or that the punishment had been staged as a
piece of theatre for his benefit. So, all the punishments were given in
James’s study. The room was large with an armchair and an upright chair
in front of his desk. When a child needed to be dealt with, I would
discuss matters with the children in the kitchen and when I had
determined the penalty, accompany them to the study, knock, and on
entering, ask whether I could provide the punishment there. James would
be sitting behind his desk, either reading or writing. I would explain
that during the week the boys in question had fallen short in
completing their chores, and James would then question them, and ask me
what penalty I intended to impose. Sometimes he would suggest an
increase to the number of strokes or upgrade a spanking to a birching.
He was very much the presiding judge who passed sentence but did not
expect to administer the punishment himself. Once sentence had been
passed, James would watch as I took down the offenders’ trousers and
pants and stood them in line from the youngest to the oldest. If a boy
was to be spanked then I sat on the upright chair with James passing me
the hairbrush; if he was to be birched, he was turned over the
armchair, and I selected a birch from a pail in which several were
always steeping. I noticed that as much as James appreciated my
spanking a boy, it was my birching him that really aroused him.
“It was therefore rare for a Sunday to pass without at least one or
more boys paying a visit to the study. From an early age we expected a
boy to help in the house. By four years, we expected a boy to make his
own bed, keep his room tidy, undress ready for his bath, and more
beside. And as a boy got older, even more was expected of him. At other
times, when they were disobedient or in need of correction, I would
provide the punishment in James’s absence and provide an account later
that evening. However, if a birching was deserved, then, usually, I
would delay that until after evening bath time. And, then, the
procedure was followed as for Sundays. The boy would be roughly
towelled dry, leaving his flesh still damp but not dripping, and he be
taken naked downstairs to the study. And again, James would be seated
behind his desk. He would question the boy closely about his behaviour,
and reprimand him in a way that would often reduce him to tears. He
would then ask me how many strokes of the birch I judged appropriate,
sometimes stamping his authority on the proceedings by increasing the
sentence. Then, he would invite me to provide the flogging which of
course, I was more than happy to do.”
“Didn’t the boys think it strange that their punishment was always administered by you and never by their father?”
“No. I don’t think they ever did. After all, I’m their mother. I had
been intimate with them from the outset. I had changed their nappies;
potty-trained them; and bathed them. I tuck them up in bed, and settle
them down for the night. It was as natural for them as for me that I
should also spank them. At first, when they were still in nappies,
spanking consisted of hard smacks to the backs of the thighs but then,
when they were dry and out of nappies, they were turned over my knee to
be spanked to a smarting crimson. They simply accepted that it was I
who administered the hairbrush or birch, but recognised that their
father was the presiding authority. That he gained enormous pleasure
from watching them suffer as he had suffered under Miss Ravenscourt was
simply not something of which they were aware. Any more than they were
aware that my whipping them gave me enormous pleasure, too.”
“That’s fascinating, Diana. Did James ever talk to you about his feelings?”
“Well, not at first. But I knew right from the beginning, even though
he didn’t say anything, that he had a keen interest in my spanking
Howard. And I think James sensed that spanking his little bottom was an
aspect of motherhood that I really enjoyed. And of course, as you might
expect, Cordelia, the place we first spoke about it was in the bedroom.”
I smiled.
“Yes. I can understand that!”
“Once Howard had completed his potty training, I was able to spank him
properly, taking down his trousers and pants and putting him across my
knee. I remember that first spanking and the exhilaration I
experienced. And my enthusiasm and enjoyment must have been very
obvious to James given his own discipline at the hands of Miss
Ravenscourt. That night, when we were in bed, he simply said, ‘I think
you enjoyed giving Howard his first spanking, didn’t you?’ And I told
him I did, and you can guess how the conversation went from then on and
how it all ended.”
“Yes, I can well imagine, Diana! But what else did James say?“
Well - and I’m sure the darkness helped - he started to tell me how
he'd had a strict governess who believed that discipline meant
controlling every aspect of a child's life. This was achieved through
the imposition of strict rules and regular birching. He made it clear
that he expected our own children to be brought up in a similar way
with my being responsible for every aspect of their care, and above
all, their discipline. And I told him that that I was very happy with
that and it accorded with my own understanding of a mother’s role. But
at that point, he didn’t mention his wanting to watch my disciplining
them. Nevertheless, I was left wondering about his relationship with
his strict governess and the influence she had had over him.”
“And the importance of the birch and his fascination with that?”
“Well, I think he told me that Miss Ravenscourt after a severe spanking
on her first day with him, from then on birched him. apart from the
occasional spankings for errors in schoolwork, just as she had punished
her two half-brothers.”
“Yes, I’ve just read about that in
her book. So how soon did you decide to use the birch on your own
children, Diana? Presumably it was largely under James’s influence?”
“To some extent, I suppose it was. But as a child, if you remember, Mrs
Dunlop who was our nanny, would refer my brothers, to my mother, if
they were particularly naughty, and she would birch them.”
“Yes, I remember your telling me that, and how much you looked forward to seeing them birched .”
“Yes. I did. And so the birch was not some strange alien instrument of
punishment or something that was used only in institutions but was as
familiar as the hairbrush or the cane. And when I first saw Tom
birched, not only did I want to see him birched again, and soon, but I
knew that if I ever had sons then I would birch them and enjoy doing
so. Just as my mother did.”
“And how old were you then? You can’t have been very old.”
“No. I was about eight.”
She smiled.
“I was very precocious!”
“In Ste Foy it was of course the martinet that was the feared
implement. But even though I was beaten with the martinet and saw my
brothers beaten with it many times, when I imagined being a mother with
children of my own, strangely it was never the martinet I used to
punish them. It was always the hairbrush, and sometimes the cane. I
suppose by the time I was old enough to think about such things we had
moved to England, where our next-door neighbour was a committed
disciplinarian and spanked her boys with a stout wooden hairbrush and
also frequently resorted to the cane. A crook-handled length of rattan
that hung prominently in her kitchen. I saw all Mrs Atkinson’s boys
punished on numerous occasions and that not only confirmed my longing
to have children of my own to discipline, but I am sure shaped my
imagination when I thought about being a mother and disciplining my own
children. Of course, my mother still used the hairbrush, as well as the
martinet, but it was almost certainly my playing with the boys next
door and witnessing their spankings that made me consider the hairbrush
as my implement of choice. And that was both in my childhood imaginings
and then with my own children, right from the beginning until they were
old enough for the cane. But although my mother did occasionally use
the birch, it never figured greatly in our discipline and I suppose,
unlike you, I have always regarded it as more appropriate for an
institution than in the home.