By Governess
Copyright 2026 by Governess, all rights reserved
[2,379 words]´
* * * * *Cordelia Lavington
Chapter 83
James
Fairclough watched the boy kneeling naked in front of the chamber pot,
and memories flooded back from his own childhood. Several weeks after
Miss Ravenscourt’s arrival, he had wet the bed. He knew on waking what
he had done and curled up in a tight disconsolate ball. His pyjamas
were sodden and the sheet soaking wet. He could scarcely breathe. Never
had he felt such shame. He listened fearfully, knowing that in a few
moments his governess would enter the room and strip off his
bedclothes. He heard her approach and the door opening. For a moment
she said nothing. He looked up desperately but saw no sympathy as she
frowned with narrowed eyes and tightened lips.
“James, you have wet the bed. How old are?”
“Please Miss Ravenscourt. I’m sorry.”
“James, I asked your age.”
“I . . . I’m eight . . . Miss Ravenscourt.”
“She nodded.
“A boy of eight, does not wet the bed. “
She shook her head.
“Get up. And take off your pyjamas and strip the bed completely. And I need hardly say I am seriously displeased.”
She watched as he removed his nightclothes.
“Now take all the sheets and place them, along with your pyjamas, in the laundry room.”
And on his return, he had been taken to the bathroom, washed and then soundly spanked.
“And from now on, I'll be supervising your bodily functions a great deal more closely.”
Now, Cordelia could see that the sight of Graham, suffused with shame,
and kneeling before the chamber pot had stirred some deep and affective
memory in the Principal. After the flogging was concluded, including
two dozen additional strokes of the tawse, she waited for an
opportunity to question Diana about it.
“I'll come across
later when you have settled the children down. There are some
interesting passages in Laura’s book that I can show you.”
At nine o’clock that evening, their was a rap on the door and Diana entered. Soon they were settled with a large pot of coffee.
“It was very perceptive of you to notice James's reaction. When you’ve
read the section I've marked, I think you’ll understand why.”
“Thank you, Diana.”
She smiled.
“Laura Ravenscourt is rapidly becoming my favourite bedtime reading.”
“Yes, she has a vivid and compelling way of relating things. But tell
me, Cordelia, what are your thoughts about the punishment of the boys,
this morning?”
“I absolutely loved every minute of it, Diana.
Laying my tawse across flesh birched raw by you, and watching each boy
writhe in an endless smarting agony was beyond anything I could have
imagined. There’s the saying ‘you have to be cruel to be kind’. Well,
this was cruelty refined to a saving act to redeem those boys from
their lust that was dragging them down a steep slope to Hell.”
Later, when Diana had departed, Cordelia opened the book at the place Diana had marked with the ribbon.
Early
on I realised the importance of having complete authority over the
children's bodily functions. I discovered this right at the beginning
when I had charge of my two half-brothers, Marius and Torquil. Although
my formal tutoring of them did not commence until they were around
four, I had been given the unenviable tasks of toilet training them. I
accepted this reluctantly, knowing that that were I to refuse, my
father would come down heavily on me and I would be forced to comply. I
was determined that their training out of nappies and regular use of
the pot should be achieved rapidly and I had no compunction in applying
harshness to achieve that. As far as I was concerned it simply required
an act of will.
The first time Marius went on the pot at the
age of two, he screamed and attempted to struggle up. I sat him back
on, pressing down firmly on his shoulders.
“You will do a wee and a poo into the pot, Marius. Now! Or I will take you off and spank you.”
He struggled and screamed. I lifted him off, and soon provided a better
reason for his screams than his sitting on the rim of a cold chamber
pot. A child’s bodily functions have to be disciplined. And that
discipline needs to be unforgiving, and unrelenting. It regulates the
disordered life of the body, and is a preparation for the coming
discipline that will regulate the child’s choices and behaviour. And,
like that later discipline, needs to be set in a firm, rigid structure.
I started training Marius and Torquil for the pot just before their
second birthday. Establishing a regular framework was clearly
important. On rising I would place them on the pot for ten minutes and
then check to see if anything had been forthcoming. If not, they would
be lifted off, chided and soundly spanked. They would then be replaced
for another ten minutes and if they had still not gone they would be
spanked more soundly and returned to their nappy. This routine would be
repeated after breakfast, before lunch, and again after lunch. Then,
before their afternoon nap and afterwards, and then before their
evening snack, and again before bed. Sometimes after being taken off
the pot and returned to their nappy, they would immediately mess into
it. After nurse had cleaned them up, I would then punish them with
particular severity, regarding their withholding of stools as
deliberate wilfulness. I have to say that this routine meant that both
boys had red, sore bottoms for much of the time.
Marius
quickly understood what was required of him, after which there were
occasional lapses which I regarded as slackness or laziness. And I took
some pleasure in spanking him until his small bottom was a deep,
smarting crimson and he was sobbing unrestrainedly. Torquil however was
quite different and exceptionally slow in becoming continent. This was
concerning and presented a real challenge.
I was friendly in
the church with the wife of the vicar's warden. She was in her late
forties and I regarded her as a person in whom I could confide. Evelyn
Hawkshead had five extremely well-behaved children; and I asked how I
might best respond to what I regarded as my younger step-brother’s
wilful intransigence in the face of my efforts to train him.
“Despite being spanked, and spanked soundly, he refuses to go, but once
back in his nappy, he will mess into it. Nurse cleans him up and puts
him into a clean nappy., but I see no point in putting him back on the
pot as he's just gone. Frankly, I’m in despair, Evelyn.”
“I am
sure you are Laura. I had this with my child, again a boy. I’ve found
that girls seem far more willing to make the transition out of nappies.
But that certainly wasn’t the case with Lionel. Oh, far from it. Before
his pot training started, he would pull off his nappy and smear the
contents on the floor and walls. Well, you can imagine the spanking he
got for that! I cleaned him up myself and there was a strange pleasure
in knowing that I was not only returning his bottom to a deliciously
pink pristine softness, but at the same time, preparing him for one of
the hardest spanking of his young life. Of course, at that age, you
have to be careful not to break the skin but with care and patience you
can inflame the bottom to a smarting soreness that gets your message
across. And I must add that before the spanking I gave him the puppy
dog treatment of rubbing his nose in some of the mess on the carpet.
When I had finished punishing him, he was a very sorry little boy
indeed.”
“And did it work? Or did he do it again?”
“Twice more! But my response was the same, and after that he knew
better than to remove his nappy himself. But, once pot-training
started, he would do exactly as Marius is doing. He’d refuse to go, but
then, infuriatingly mess in his nappy as soon as he was returned to it.
By this time he was well past his second birthday.”
“So then what did you do?”
“I did as I advise you to do.”
“Which is?”
“Tie him firmly to the pot and make clear that he will remain tied to
it until he goes. Every half-an-hour, I would check, and it there was
still nothing I provide a little encouragement.”
“And that was?”
“I had a swishy length of rattan cane and with him tied to the pot the
fronts of his thighs were readily accessible and I’d swish the cane
several times across each, explaining that until he went he’d remain
tied and continue to be caned until I found the pot empty.”
“Didn’t he try to struggle off?”
“He wriggled around but I’d secured him tightly and he just had to stay
there until he went. I take it your pot has a rim to it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll find it easy enough to run a cord or thick piece of
string round under the rim, then through the handle, and up over the
front of his body. Then, to take the cord back through the handle and
up over the shoulders, finally, securing it to the handle which ought
to be at the back.”
“That sounds very harsh. How long was he tied like that?”
“The first time, he sat there for the whole of the morning. nearly four
hour., Being held in the same position for that length of time is
painful and the rim was biting into his thigh flesh. But in my book,
learning often requires suffering. And a good and diligent mother will
not shy away from that. So, for the following weeks, I secured him to
the pot, and established the routine of ‘there you stay until you go’,
and, as I said, I gave him some extra encouragement by caning the
fronts of his thighs. Slowly, over the next weeks, he became compliant,
and did what was expected of him.”
“And were there any accidents off the pot?”
“Yes, of course. And each time he was spanked. Accidents meant, of
course, that the discipline of the pot continued he was accident free.”
“And how long did that take?”
“Probably about six weeks.”
“And you think I should discipline Torquil in the same way?”
“That would be my advice.”
“Thank you, Evelyn. I am sure you are right. Sometimes, it’s helpful to
hear your inner convictions spoken aloud by someone else. I used to
worry about treating something that seemed involuntary as though it
were a matter of chosen defiance. But I am coming to see that we
discipline where there is no awareness of wrongdoing, in order to
create that awareness. The rod both defines the law and the meaning of
obedience, in this case that ‘messing in your nappy’ is wrong. It is a
very important bedrock for the discipline of the child’s will in the
years ahead.”
So, when I was appointed by the Faircloughs to
govern James, and discovered that he still wet the bed at the age of
eight, I concluded that this essential bedrock, this early installing
of the practice of obedience, had not been adequately laid. And what
was required was to re-lay that foundation. And I confess, the prospect
of doing so was not unappealing. That evening before settling him down,
I explained what I judged necessary.
“James, an
eight-year-old boy should not be wetting the bed. If you cannot control
your bodily functions at your age, then clearly your early training was
inadequate and needs to be repeated. Tonight you will be put in a
nappy, and I expect to find it soiled when you wake in the morning. And
for the next two weeks you will only be allowed to go in a nappy. Both
pee and poo. Just like a little two year old. And the reason, James, is
because you are behaving like a little two year old.”
After
prayers, I settled him down him with a goodnight kiss and turned out
the light. I listened for a while outside the door and could hear him
quietly sobbing.
The next morning I went into his room and
pulled off the sheets. Unfortunately for him his nappy was as dry as a
bone. Ordinarily this would be a matter of congratulation and the child
would be immediately put on the pot, but not this time.
“I
thought I instructed you to go in your nappy, James. This is a clear
example of your having no control over your bodily functions. Obedience
is not natural for a boy. It needs to be taught. Get up.”
He struggled out of bed his whole body taut with anxiety.
“Come here.”
I unpinned and removed his nappy and picked up the hairbrush from the chest of drawers.
“No! Please Miss Ravenscourt! No!”
I sat down on the upright chair and pulled him over my lap. I wanted
him to feel the heat of my displeasure, and the strokes were given at a
slow measured pace with a hard punishing intent. I enjoyed his gasps of
agony and the contracting of his buttocks, as they reddened beneath the
discipline. Soon he was screaming and howling. I gave him three dozen.
Then, I ruffled his hair affectionately, and replaced the nappy over
his crimson smarting flesh.
“Now, James. When you have the
urge to go, whatever it is, you will do it in your nappy and then I
will call Abigail over from the house to clean you up. Do you
understand?”
“B . . but, Miss Ravenscourt, I don’t need a nappy. I can go on the lavatory. You know I can!”
“James, I hope you are not questioning my judgement. We are having to
go back over training that should have been satisfactorily completed by
the time you were two years of age. Before long, we’ll have you out of
nappies and sitting on a pot. But first, you need to learn to obey my
word, and when I tell you to go in your nappy that is what you must do.”