By Governess
liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com
Copyright 2025 by Governess, all rights reserved
[2,548 words]´
* * * * *Chapter 81
O Lord, our heavenly
Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the
beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and
grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of
danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance, to do
always that is righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
After this
concluding third Collect for Grace, the chapel emptied. Cordelia knew
that in flogging Clough and Graham she would indeed be doing what was
righteous in God’s sight. She had an absolute confidence in the
reforming power of punishment and in the deterrent value of such a
public flogging. She led the two boys, accompanied by Elizabeth, to the
infirmary.
“Elizabeth please undress both boys and place their clothes in the wash basket.”
Cordelia could see their angry embarrassment and Graham refused to
cooperate twisting and holding his arms awkwardly. She watched as her
daughter struggled to remove his shirt, but said nothing until the boy
was eventually stripped and standing completely naked. She beckoned to
the boy and she could see his fear as he regretted his stupidity.
“You’re a rather stupid boy, aren’t you, Graham. Very shortly, you’ll
be held across a vaulting horse to be flogged. Do you think being
awkward and uncooperative inclines me to treat you more or less
severely? Well?”
“I . . . I suppose you . . . you might be . . . be more severe.”
“Yes, Graham, more severe. Your flogging will not only be displeasing
to you, but a source of great satisfaction and pleasure to me. I will
enjoy every stroke as it ruptures the flesh of your soft little
bottom;.”
She paused.
“And the additional discipline you have earned by your thoughtfulness and lack of cooperation.”
She reached tor the extra heavyweight tawse.
“Feel that, Graham. Feel how thick and solid it is. Just imagine that
lashed across your rump. Lashed with as much strength I can muster.”
She raised the tawse and brought it crashing down across her desk. She watched as the colour drained from his face.
When Clough, too, had been stripped of his clothes, Cordelia fetched two, freshly laundered, white shirts.
“Elizabeth, help Clough and Graham on with these.”
They were then ordered to stand facing the wall. Their shirt tails just
asked to be pulled up exposing their firm round buttocks for a flogging
that would reduce them to two mounds of wealed and smarting flesh. She
glanced at Elizabeth. She, too, was staring at the two boys, and no
doubt anticipating the part she was to play in their punishment.
“Turn round, the two of you. We shall pray before making our way to the hall. Please kneel.”
She and Elizabeth remained standing.
“Bow your heads and hands together. And eyes shut.
Dear
Heavenly Father, We thank you that you are indeed a father. That you
love us enough to discipline us and have granted those who rule over
children the authority to punish and chastise them. We pray that Clough
and Graham may learn from the flogging they are to receive, May Mrs
Fairclough and I provide a truly reforming punishment, and inflict such
suffering that having looked into the abyss of Hell they may flee from
it and from all the works of the Devil and turn to you, the one true
God, who alone can save sinners. Amen
Both muttered an
Amen. And being told to rise, made their way to the Hall followed by
Elizabeth and her mother. There was a faint buzz of muted conversation
as they entered that immediately ceased as they made their way to the
stage where Mrs Fairclough was already waiting, standing by the horse
over which the boys were to be flogged. The Principal then rose to
address the assembly.
“Boys, and I am pleased to say girls
too, for it has been decided that the girls who are part of our
community should also be present. It does them no harm to see how boys
are punished when they behave as these boys have behaved . And it
serves as an additional humiliation to the boys concerned. However,
girls are subject to corporal correction in school here, and it will
also provide a warning to them of the inevitable consequences of
misbehaviour and disobedience.
“So what have these two boys
done? Quite simply they have acted in a way that is shocking to any
right thinking person and an affront to the God who created them. We
all came into this world through a man and a woman lying in a bed
together and although boys may find this something to snigger about,
there is nothing odd or smutty about it. Some men, however, choose to
sleep together and to amuse themselves by playing with each other’s
genitals, and even sometimes worse than that. This is against nature
and against the law of God who has decreed that such intimacy is for a
man and a woman alone, never for two men.”
He paused. The whole hall was silent, listening with rapt attention.
“So, here we have two boys who have slipped into bed together and
mutually played with their private parts. I say private parts but there
was nothing private about it. It was done in a dormitory full of other
boys, while they two boys excited each other until the inevitable
happened. The evidence of their sin was to be seen the following
morning on their stained pyjamas when these were examined by the
dormitory staff and Mrs Lavington, our Matron. Both boys have already
been punished in their dormitory but such is their sin and so
iniquitous is it, that I have decided that, as a warning, every boy
here should witness their punishment. They are to be publicly flogged
and that is what you are shortly to witness. The flogging will be
performed by Mrs Lavington and Mrs Fairclough. Each boy is to receive
forty-eight strokes delivered alternately with a birch rod and a tawse.
They will be assisted in this by Mrs Lavington’s daughter, Elizabeth.”
He stepped back and indicated that the flogging was to proceed.
Cordelia and Diana lifted Clough over the flogging horse and Elizabeth
reached out and grasped him by the arms, hauling him forward. Cordelia
rucked up his shirt exposing his bottom, and then picked up the tawse
from the table where she had placed it. It had been decided that she
would give the first stroke to be followed by Diana, and then for them
to proceed alternately with a pause when a dozen strokes had been given.
Cordelia was aware of the weight of the leather as she raised the tawse
and draped it over her shoulder. She was acutely conscious of the
various lives held together in this moment of time: Diana already
holding a birch taken from the pail, James watching with a frown on his
face; Elizabeth tense and flushed holding Clough above the elbows one
of which she noticed had a graze on it; and the expanse of white rapt
faces waiting expectantly for the first stroke to be given.
The tawse was swung upward. And with a flick of the wrist brought
sweeping down, two solid leather tails impacting the boy’s soft bottom
flesh with chilling force. His head went back and he looked up, his
eyes wide open as the pain coursed through his body. Elizabeth looking
into them saw behind the agony, both fear and resignation. She had
expected him to struggle but he lay there, either too frightened to
fight or else overcome with a hopeless acceptance of his fate. And yet
he screamed, a long piercing, chilling scream. She had heard her own
brothers scream under the rod but nothing like this.
Elizabeth watched as her mother then stepped back and made way for Mrs
Fairclough who raised the birch and swished it briskly across flesh
already marked by the strap. She felt a tightness in her chest and a
dryness in her mouth. Never had she seen anything that stirred her
more, that made her feel so alive and so alert. The thought that the
boy’s punishment had barely begun and would be followed by a similar
prolonged flogging made her almost dizzy.
Slowly the
punishment continued. Cordelia and Diana had agreed that it should not
be rushed. but paced to allow each boy time to smart. It was to stretch
into what was for him would seem like an eternity of suffering. A
glimpse into the endless torment of the damned.
Cordelia was
shocked by effectiveness of the tawse, at the angry ridges it was
raising on the boy’s buttocks, and over which were then laid the
strokes of the birch. She felt a tinge of guilt that, contrary to the
Principal’s wish, she had chosen this extra heavyweight tawse. At the
age of ten a boy’s buttocks still had a softness about them and she
wondered whether the flogging would leave him so cut and ravaged that
he might need to spend a good week recovering in the infirmary.
At the end of a dozen strokes , there was a pause to allow a short time
of respite. Cordelia looked into the mass of assembled children. She
could see her two boys toward the front, looking pale and frightened.
Others looked flushed and excited. One boy she noticed had brazenly
inserted his hand down the front of his trousers and was clearly
attempting to masturbate. She smiled inwardly and made a mental note to
send for him later for a little chat. The girls were seated at the back
of the hall and it was difficult to measure their reaction to the
proceedings. She wondered what the would think about Elizabeth’s
assisting in the flogging. Some she guessed would be disapproving,
others envious.
She glanced at James. What, she wondered,
was going through his mind. What was he thinking as he watched the
flogging proceed? Was he reliving his own discipline under his
governess, Laura Ravenscourt, or was he seeing her and Diana as the
embodiment of his former governess. Perhaps both merged together into a
single memory of suffering and subservience.
The pause
lasted for nearly five minutes,. It allowed the boy to recollect
himself and forge a new resolve to endure. But alas that meant that the
shame of being again cast into the pit has also to be faced. And so it
was. Even before a further three or four strokes had been given, he
knew he was weakening. Now he began to struggle in earnest. He pulled
against Elizabeth’s grasp, trying to tear himself free. But she was
more than a match for him. Flushed and more excited than before, she
gripped him tightly above his elbows and dug her nails into his flesh.
As he slipped back a little, she heaved him forward over the horse,
hissing into his ear that he was to lie still. And she watched as the
weals continued to grow on his bottom and listened to his roars echoing
around the hall. And then the halfway point of his flogging was reached.
Diana swished the birch through the air and examined it; and judged it
good for a further dozen strokes. After that, it would be frayed, with
some twigs broken and bent, and a new rod would be needed. And, she
thought, James was right. There was something special about the birch.
The feel of it, even the sight of it, stirred her. Perhaps because,
unlike a hairbrush, it had no purpose other than the infliction of
severe pain. But, then, it was not alone in that. That was equally true
of the cane and the tawse. But what marked out the birch, she thought,
was that it was constructed in the home, from the gathering of the
twigs, the stripping of the leaves , its binding up into a serviceable
rod to its use in the enforcement of family discipline. It was the
visible sign of an active, diligent, love. An acknowledgement that love
was never sentimental but utterly ruthless in meeting the child's need
for effective discipline. Screams and writhing there might be, but they
were the manifestation of sin being defeated and expelled, as the
devils were driven from the demonic. There was, she thought, something
comforting and reassuring, something almost homely, in seeing a birch
rod steeping in its pail.
She looked at James and noticed, as
had Cordelia his obvious sense of arousal. She knew that later in their
bedroom, they would discuss the day and relive together the birching of
the two boys. She shivered.
And then there was Graham,
standing white and aghast as he saw the boy flogged with whom he had
shared an illicit pleasure in a dormitory bed. She wondered what was
going through his mind as he watched the progression of the punishment
that was, as yet, only half completed. The boy must be numb with fear.
Or was he tingling with a fearful anticipation? Some children, she
knew, were drawn to the rod by a terrible fascination. They found, as
she knew Elizabeth did, a visceral pleasure in watching another child
punished. They would even colour up at the merest mention of a
spanking. The word itself had a power to arouse: the thought of
trousers and pants being humiliating flowered, the baring of soft firm
bottom flesh, and the careful positioning over the waiting lap for a
vigorous application of the hairbrush. She wondered whether Graham was
such a one. And as James had done as a boy, to approach his flogging
with a fascinated dread, to be entering a realm in which pain was
somehow to be welcomed.
Diana and Cordelia exchanged a
glance. It was time for the flogging to resume. And so it continued,
stroke after stroke, the birch alternating with the tawse, until the
boy’s buttocks were covered in long throbbing ridges of agony. And now
both the harsh leather and the newly selected birch were cutting into
previous weals and breaking them open. Little seams of blood were
appearing. And still the two women continued, the embodiment of a
cruelty harnessed to a deeply caring discipline that condemned sin in
the body.
At last, the final dozen strokes were given. The
boy was now hanging limp and spent over the horse. Elizabeth who had
earlier been tested by his struggling now felt as though she were
simply steadying a dead weight.
Diana and Cordelia stood
either side and lifted him off the horse. And he would have collapsed
onto the floor had they not held him up.
“Take him to the
infirmary and have his buttocks and thighs washed in a solution of
brine and rubbed dry with a rough towel. Then he may lie face down on a
bed for the rest of the day. And I expect to see him back at his desk
tomorrow morning.” So spoke James.
After ten minutes during which a slight murmur had arisen in the hall, the two women returned.
Graham knew that his turn to be purged of his sins had arrived.