Edith's New Governess
By HandPrince
Chapter 12. Flora Keeps Lily's
Secret
"What in Heaven's name...?" exclaimed
Flora. She stood in the doorway, her shawl and
gloves which she had brought for warmth from the
December chill draped across her left
arm. She had come hoping to discover a
stairway to the roof, never imagining she'd discover
two disobedient girls. The wicker chair
carelessly positioned by the dumbwaiter, the
latter's sliding door standing wide open, and the
chair's sheet heaped on the floor, all betrayed at a
glance how the two little co-conspirators had
accomplished their illicit assignation.
Edith leapt from the sofa and fled through the
doorway on the far side of the room while Lily
remained frozen in place. Flora frowned as she
regarded that far doorway. She would deal with
Edith in good time, Flora thought, closing behind
her the door through which she had just
entered. For now there was the matter of Lily.
Jumping abruptly to her feet, Lily
dropped a deep curtsy as Flora drew close and stood
before her. "Good afternoon Miss Field!" she
stammered. "I'd best be gettin' below stairs
now 'afore Cook misses me!"
"You certainly will!" replied
Flora sternly, taking a firm hold of the child's
wrist, "but first you and I shall have a very
serious talk!" Flora seated herself on the
sofa, placed her shawl and gloves beside her, then
sat Lily on her right knee. "This is the
second time I've caught you above stairs, where you
well know you aren't permitted. What did you
promise me that first time?" Lily shifted
uncomfortably on her perch atop Flora's knee,
avoiding the woman's austere gaze. "Answer
me!" Still avoiding Flora's eyes, Lily bit her
lip and shrugged her shoulders as if she couldn't
remember.
Flora took hold of Lily's chin
and turned the girl's face to her own. "You
promised never again to set foot above stairs
without permission, did you not?"
"Yes Miss Field," came the
murmured reply, barely audible.
"And against my better judgment I
refrained from informing your mother of your
naughtiness on the basis of that promise of yours, a
promise which you have now broken... haven't
you!" Lily nodded and began to blubber
softly.
"B-but... Miss Edith told me to-"
"Never you mind what Miss Edith
tells you, my girl! You mind what your mummy
tells you!" After allowing that admonition to
sink in for a few moments, Flora continued, "and
your mummy agreed with me that you should wear your
new dress and pinafore only to church today, and not
again until a week from today. And now I find
you've not only disobeyed that rule," Flora glanced
in the direction of the dumbwaiter and back again,
"but you wore it while gallivanting in that
thing! What have you to say for yourself?"
"I'm sorry Miss Field. Only
wanted to show Miss Edith me new frock I did. I were
going to take it off afterward straight away!"
"That is no excuse. You
know perfectly well that you may not make for
yourself exceptions to your mother's rules whenever
it suits you." Flora glanced at the doorway
through which Edith had earlier absconded, resolving
not to demean herself by searching for the
child. She would report Edith's misbehaviour
to Mrs. Fogarty. If necessary, Edith's mother
would send the hallboy or a lower-ranking footman to
retrieve the errant youngster should she continue to
conceal herself and postpone her inevitable
chastisement. Turning her attention back to
Lily, Flora continued, "You have been naughty twice
over - above stairs without permission, and wearing
your new frock without permission. I am very
disappointed in you!"
"I-I'm sorry Miss Field," sobbed
Lily.
"I daresay you shall be a whole
lot sorrier once I inform your mother about this,"
declared Flora, rising to her feet and guiding Lily
to hers. "Come with me."
"Please please please don't
tell me mum!" cried Lily, collapsing to the floor
and gripping Flora's skirt.
"You have been disobedient
and you simply must be punished, Lily. Because
I am so very fond of you I care far too much to
allow such faults as you have committed this
afternoon to go uncorrected. You need a right
proper smack bottom from your mummy to teach you to
behave yourself in future. Now get back on
your feet and stop this nonsense!"
"She won't smack me Miss Field!"
wailed Lily, making no move to rise from the
floor. "Leather me 'til the skin comes off me
bum she will! Please don't tell 'er Miss
Field! Please!"
The timbre of Lily's entreaties
froze Flora in place. She was long accustomed
to the carryings-on of naughty girls attempting to
persuade Flora to spare the rod. But Lily
seemed uncommonly frightened, almost
terrified. Into Flora's mind flew the image of
Helen, in a towering rage, whipping her little
daughter on and on and on with her tawse. To
Helen's mind, Lily would have risked the two of them
dismissed from service and cast out into the cold
without a reference. Flora imagined herself
explaining to Helen that Lily had been guilty merely
of unremarkable childish naughtiness, for which a
routine spanking with Helen's open hand would
suffice. But just as quickly she imagined
Helen shouting at Flora to 'bunk off' and slamming
the door in her face, followed by the crack of
supple leather snapping against bare flesh and
Lily's screams of anguish as her mother punished her
with far, far greater severity than her misbehaviour
warranted.
Flora stooped, took hold of both
Lily's wrists and pulled the child to her
feet. "I erred in not reporting you to your
mother the first time I caught you above
stairs. Had I done so, you likely wouldn't be
standing before me now-" Flora glanced at the room
then back at Lily, "-or here."
In tears, Lily continued to gaze
up at Flora, eyes spilling, and implored her to keep
Lily's misbehaviour a secret. Flora stood
rooted to her spot, caught between the
Scylla of Lily's undeniable need of a spanking, and
the Charybdis of the likely excessive application of
such correction over Helen's knee.
"I am sorry Lily," sighed Flora,
unable to maintain the stern timbre in her voice
which she deemed appropriate for times like this,
"but your wilful misconduct leaves me with no
alternative. You must be punished. It is
for your own good."
"Then punish me yerself Miss
Field! Likes ye does wi' Miss Edith!"
"I can't whip you, Lily. I am
neither your mother nor your governess and it simply
isn't my place to discipline you." After
several renewed supplications from Lily, Flora
added, "and if I were to do as you ask of me, and
your mother learned of it, she would be furious with
me and rightly so."
" 'Ow will me mum know 'bout it Miss
Field if ye don't tell 'er?? I know I
shan't!" To Flora's way of thinking concealing
a child's naughty secret from her mother certainly
wasn't the least bit proper. Still, compared
with Charybdis...
Hardly aware of having made a
decision, Flora found herself leading Lily back to
the sofa and seating herself while standing Lily
before her. She reached under Lily's skirts
until her fingers found the waist of the child's
bloomers. These, it turned out, had a
drawstring which tied in front, and which Flora
unfastened, allowing the garment to fall to Lily's
knees. "A-are you going to whip me, Miss
Field?" whimpered Lily. Flora responded in the
affirmative and placed the unresisting child face
down across her lap. "Will you be a-tellin' me
mum?" came the anxious query over Lily's right
shoulder.
Flora took a deep breath, striving to
dispel the unease she felt at the highly irregular
course upon which she had now set forth. "No
Lily, I shan't tell your mother, much though it
troubles me not to."
"Thank you Miss Field!" sighed Lily
with relief tinged with fear as Flora gathered the
crisp blue fabric of Lily's new gingham frock above
her small waist, followed by a flounced lacy
petticoat, followed by a plainer one, and followed
at last by the sheer fabric of her shift, leaving
only her knee-length knickers. As Flora
unbuttoned and slipped down this latter garment, she
plumbed her memory for any previous instance of a
child in Lily's predicament thanking Flora
immediately prior to a punishment, but could recall
none.
"Lily?" asked Flora, struggling
to purge from her tone the note of apology which
pressed within her for expression, "you've been a
naughty girl and you're going to be smacked.
Tell me now what you did to earn for yourself the
chastisement you shall shortly receive." Lily
looked back over her shoulder at Flora, the corners
of her eyes tightened with apprehension but didn't
speak. "Answer me and be quick about it!"
"'B'cause I went upstairs where'n
I oughtn't... a-and I broke me promise not to."
"And what else?" Lily was
silent, seemingly from puzzlement rather than
stubbornness. Flora took a pinch of the back
of Lily's frock between her thumb and forefinger and
gave it a little wiggle.
"Oh and I wore me new frock after
church let out, when I weren't s'posed to."
"That is correct, Lily, and
furthermore-" Flora stopped in mid-sentence. A
great gathering of words had arisen simultaneously
in her mind - admonitions, moralistic lectures,
examples from Flora's own girlhood, verses from the
Book of Proverbs - when all at once from a different
corner of Flora's mind came 'JUST GET ON WITH IT!'
Flora knew she must heed this
latter voice. How needlessly unkind of Flora
to keep poor Lily in frightened suspense one moment
longer! After Flora had slipped her glove onto
her right hand, and placed her left hand and forearm
snugly across the child's lower back to hold both
Lily and her skirts in position, the young governess
allowed herself for the first time to fully
appreciate how perfectly horrid she felt
inside. A leaden weight tugged dolefully
within Flora's bosom. Not since she'd had
occasion to correct her two dear little cousins
while acting as under-governess in her benefactor's
house had Flora felt such grief at the prospect of
administering a smacking - condign and necessary
though she knew it to be.
Steeling herself for the unhappy task
ahead, Flora began to slap the twin orbs of Lily's
petite buttocks in a brisk unhurried rhythm.
The child burst into full tears at once. Flora
did her utmost to mentally close her ears to the
sounds of Lily's tearful cries of pain, with only
partial success, for they tugged at her heartstrings
still. Focusing her full attention upon Lily's
flushing posteriors Flora continued to smack the
spare little mounds of flesh, so distinct from
Edith's plump well-nourished hindquarters.
Distinct as well was Lily's dutiful submission to
her punishment, so unlike Edith's usual rebellious
struggles to cover herself and to escape.
An odd image arose in Flora's mind of
herself as an elf mother, chastening her little elf
maiden upon catching her straying beyond the borders
of Faerieland. Then it dissolved as quickly as
it had come, while mortal Flora administered slap
after slap to the wailing mortal child's elven
fundaments.
Flora, after two or three dozen smacks,
rested her arm. Had Lily had
enough? Had she learned her lesson?
Flora wished for that to be so, but wasn't
certain. Then she remembered that Edith,
concealed in the adjoining room, surely heard every
sound through the open doorway. Glancing in
its direction, a small face vanished behind the door
frame, almost quickly enough to escape Flora's
notice. The correction she had given Lily thus
far, although a sound one, was nevertheless
distinctly milder than the ones Edith had received
over Flora's knee. It wouldn't do for Edith to
ever perceive Flora as lax in the matter of
administration of correction. The prospect of
a smacked bottom from Miss Field must continue to
inspire a high measure of wholesome fear in the
child, so that the prospect alone might prevent
Edith from straying on most occasions, with the
administration of correction required only
infrequently.
With this in mind, and wishing to make
certain Lily truly wouldn't misbehave again in the
manner in which she so recently had, Flora took a
deep breath, raised her palm and slowly gave the
crying child's twin posteriors seven crisp swats,
with a bit of added emphasis each time, causing Lily
to bawl more heartrendingly than before.
Flora sighed with relief as she
administered Lily's seventh and last smack. But such
relief felt hollow. A leaden weight of sorrow
still tugged at her heart just as before.
Several deep breaths failed to dispel that ache in
the slightest. Flora removed her glove from
her right hand and set it beside her on the sofa
with its counterpart atop her shawl. She
pulled Lily's bloomers back up, then shifted the
crying child onto her back across Flora's lap,
retied their drawstring and attempted to set the
little girl onto her feet. Lily collapsed to
the floor at once still crying. Flora frowned
at the sight of Lily's immaculate new frock once
again touching the floor, but did nothing, finding
herself quite unable to reprove the little girl any
further.
Then came a small hand on her lap, then
a second, followed by a small knee with a little
girl's weight bearing down upon it, followed by the
collapse of a sobbing Lily curled up against Flora's
bosom. A sharp pang of love in Flora's breast
joined with the ache of sadness and guilt which
already abided there as Flora tenderly placed her
arms around the crying child. This, thought
Flora, must in small measure resemble how a mother
feels when inflicting painful discipline upon a
little one whom she loves more than life.
She noticed that Lily was rubbing the
seat of her frock, and without a word, Flora slipped
her right hand under Lily's skirts and began
soothingly rubbing the hot little hillocks of Lily's
bottom through the fabric of her bloomers.
Lily had had quite enough pain thought Flora,
rendering any further discomfort in her nether
regions superfluous from a disciplinary
perspective. "There there," whispered Flora
softly, her lips close to Lily's right ear, "it's
all over. You're a good girl again now."
As Lily tears quieted, she looked up at
Flora, wide eyed, and asked, "Are ye still cross wi'
me Miss Field?" Flora tenderly reassured her
that she was not, as she wiped the tear stains from
Lily's face with a corner of her shawl. But as
Lily recovered from the pain of her spanking, Flora
enjoyed no comparable recovery from her own pain of
having spanked her.
"It... it made me very sad to have to
give you your smacking just now," Flora heard
herself say, before she could check herself.
"Not as sad as it made me I'm bound,"
sniffled Lily with a hint of sulkiness.
"Let's hear no more cheek from
you, my girl," cautioned Flora, in the closest to a
stern tone she could muster at that moment.
"Or," she added, "I shall have to put you back over
my knee," despite having not the slightest intention
of doing any such thing.
Flora told herself that it was
all for the best. Then she told herself again.
Lily had needed to be disciplined she told herself,
and then told herself again, and then once
more. Flora had done nothing wrong declared
Flora to herself, pitting her mind against her
heart. Yet her heart refused to yield. Still
the sorrow of having whipped dear little Lily
continued to pull upon her heartstrings as
dolorously as ever. How long must I suffer
thus before it subsides? she wondered. Hours? A day?
If hours of that achy guilt could somehow all
compress into the space of a minute, Flora had no
doubt she should find herself wailing as urgently as
a severely whipped little girl.
And in that moment Flora realized that
in the fullness of time, that spanking she had just
given truly would hurt Flora more than it had hurt
Lily.
<--Chapter
11
Chapter
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