A Disciplined Household

You might argue, quite reasonably, that such luxurious living is very bad for young females, and that our characters and souls might suffer as a result of our indulgent ease, but such was not the case. When I had first lodged at the Moors House, over a year before, I had been aware that the brother and sisters went off privately, for what they referred to as 'family business', on the evening of the first Sunday of each month, when St John returned from Evensong, retiring to their own rooms thereafter, and not reappearing until breakfast. Now that I, too, was 'family', I was invited to join with this monthly ritual.

We assembled in the largest room, all dressed in our strictest black, as befitted the solemnity of the occasion, St John in his sober clerical suit, with white bands, we girls in black gowns, our hair put up under small lace caps. I was surprised before the first of these 'family courts' as they became known, to be advised by Diana that it would be unsuitable to wear stays, nor indeed any other underwear, on these occasions. I soon realised the wisdom of her advice!

Apart from the practicalities of the minimal dress we wore, it bore on our feelings and sensibilities. Our tight lacing held us in check. It provided a restraint and a protection, two things that the feminine nature dearly needs if it is not to run unchecked and fearful in a world where it is both a danger and in danger. The feel of those tight unyielding bonds about our bodies, controlling our more tumultuous motions, helps us to behave with that dignity and submissiveness that is the hallmark of the true female, while at the same time reassures us with its protective embrace.

To attend for a disciplinary session without the benefit of satin and whalebone left us feeling both vulnerable and unregulated, responsible utterly for our behaviour and our demeanour under correction.

First we knelt in a row at prayer, while St John stood over us with his black book in his hand, enjoining the Lord to look mercifully on his weaker creation, woman, that she might be purged by confession, repentance and penance, from the errors to which she was slave, and to give him the strength to carry out this cleansing, for the good of their bodies and the salvation of their souls. When we had added our 'amens' in affirmation of these pious sentiments, he called on Diana to step forth. She did so, and stood with bowed head and folded hands before him.

"Being weak and female, I have erred," she began. "I beg penance and forgiveness."

This seemed to be a standard formula, rather like the mea culpa of the Catholic faith, and St John invited her to list her sins. She confessed at once to a short litany of misdemeanours, to forgetting to examine his coat for missing buttons, to speaking sharply to Hannah when that ancient broke a china plate, to going into church that morning without observing that a passing horse at the Churchyard gate, had kicked a smear of mud onto the hem of her gown.

"And is that all you have to tell?" St John enquired in a voice that seemed to imply he expected more, or that she had wilfully omitted some mortal sin.

"Yes, Brother," she replied, "I can think of nothing else, save of being woman, and therefore weak and open to wickedness."

"The latter is true enough, and I shall have something to say on the matter later that concerns you all, but have you forgotten how I asked you, yesterday, while composing my sermon, for fresh paper and ink? You were playing the piano at the time, and continued with the piece to the end, rather than satisfy my wants."

"But St John, you were not out of either, merely short, as I could well see, and I fetched them to you as soon as the piece was done, when you still were writing freely."

"You miss the point, Sister. When I call on you for something that is to further the Lord's work, it is your duty to obey without thought, trusting to my judgement as a man, rather than your fallible woman's estimation."

Diana kept her eyes directed to the floor. "Yes, St John," she said meekly.

"It appears to me," he said sternly, "that you are altogether too stiff and proud. This independence you now all enjoy," casting his eye over the three of us, "is not conducive to a proper Christian humility in you. I shall therefore from now on, administer a caning to each of you at the conclusion of our Sunday inquisition, in addition to any other penances that you may have deserved. You will each take it with fortitude and restraint, to show your acquiescence and acceptance of the Lord's will."

He turned his attention back to Diana.

"As to you, Sister, there is the matter of your neglected domestic duties. You shall receive three strokes of the cane on either hand."

If we had been meek before, this speech rendered us more than docile. We were aware already that his entry into preparations for the missionary life had made his stern nature even more implacable, and we could now look forward to a very 'tight' regime indeed. Though he had not specified what manner of caning we were to receive, to temper our souls, it was obviously going to be a sore trial if he was to achieve his object of inducing humility in us.

I subsequently learnt that, whenever he referred to a caning without specifying strokes, it was always a tradition hallowed 'six of the best' upon the bare.

Sentence having been passed, Diana was commanded to stretch out her left hand supported on her right, both elbows pressed tight into her sides to brace them. St John stood to one side and raised his rod. It slashed into the tender pink palm offered to it with a meaty sound out of keeping with the delicacy of the flesh it laced. Diana winced at the pain, but one hand held the other from flinching. She gasped at the blow, but kept her hand exposed as a red line formed across the pale flesh. A second blow followed, drawing a whine of anguish, her hands wavering under the incoming tide of pain, her face twisted in agony as she made herself offer the palm again. When the third fell she snorted down her nose, wetted already by the tears that had started in her eyes, so that a sticky mucous ran past her riven mouth to dribble down her chin.

On his command, she placed the wounded left hand under the as yet unbruised right, which she now offered to the rod, a substantial instrument, more suited to a padded buttock than a lightly fleshed palm. It was clear Diana would not be able to manage any fine sewing for days, and the ordinary tasks of housework would constantly remind her, through the soreness they aroused, of her dereliction of duty that had brought about this punishment. Methodically, he thrashed the cane into the right hand, three carefully spaced cuts, each dragging a gasp and a mewling whine from Diana, who hunched over her tortured palms, but otherwise did not move.

When she was dismissed, she wept openly, which St John commented on favourably as a sign of true repentance. My heart went out to my beloved cousin. I knew only too well that a heavy caning on the palms is more difficult to bear than the equivalent on the buttocks. A woman's hinds are well padded to absorb the blows, their sting being much concentrated in the surface and, furthermore, nature has so arranged our sensibilities, that we females can often mitigate our pain by translating it into more erotic sensations, when the seat of punishment is so close to our wombs.

Our soft hands on the contrary, are little padded, though full of nerve, and we are bruised easily, and reminded of it for days, when we inevitably, had to use our hands for the work of the house, from which, naturally, we are not excused. At Lowood I had known many a Great Girl, who had endured her buttocks beaten to the blood without a sound or a tear, reduced to a snivelling wretch by a dozen cuts of the cane shared between her two small hands.

Diana stood to one side, and Mary stepped forward to make her peace. She recited the formula of submission and confessed to a number of minor transgressions, mainly of omission rather than commission, but St John held her guilty too of a tendency to primp and powder, and take altogether too much pride in her dress. She was condemned to go barefoot the next three days, to wear no more than the penitents gown she had on this evening, and to be denied water or soap for washing, nor brush and comb for her hair.

"It will help your soul to health to be as nature intended without those arts of Eve that you use to prop up your pride, and flaunt before men."

This was a particularly sore trial for the poor girl, for she had planned to go on a visit the next day, to visit her friend, Elizabeth Warton, whose brother had shown a lively interest in Mary's charms. It was out of the question that she should appear before him in the condition to which St John had condemned her, I suspected indeed that he had had this in mind when devising her penance, and she would have to postpone her 'fishing trip' until a more auspicious occasion.

For her admitted faults she was awarded two cuts to each hand. She was not made of such stern stuff as Diana and, although she did not have to endure as many cuts, she cried openly after the first, and had to struggle to keep her hands out for the remaining strokes, sobbing and tearful at the end, her face wet and sticky, her chest heaving, and 'six of the best' yet to come. As she retired to the side of the room to await St John's parting gift, I realised with a shock that it was my turn to step forward and receive my dues.

The others were used to submitting to St John's discipline, and the manner of his treatment of them, by word and deed, but it was new to me. Not that I lacked any experience of submitting to a man's will or accepting his punishments, such came easily to my nature, but St John had not treated me so before, neither had I witnessed my dear cousins undergoing their purgatory at his hands. Putting as brave a face on it as I might, I confessed to a number of small domestic faults, no more nor more culpable than the others. St John looked at me in sorrow and magisterial severity.

"I feel both sorrow and surprise that you do not feel guilt that you have not cast yourself as wholeheartedly as myself, into this preparation for my mission," he declared. "I had believed that God would call you to this great work, and your failure to respond in appropriate fashion can only mean you are rejecting that call."

Indeed, I had felt no such call, though St John had pressed me a number of times to declare it, but I had started to read the books he presented me with, to learn at least one of the languages of the Orient, and something of its peoples and their customs that it would be our sacred duty to change to those more worthy of Christians. It was not an awareness of God's calling that drove me, but St John's will, and my inability to do otherwise than submit when one stronger than I called on me to do so.

"Since your bosom is hardened against the Lord, it shall be my task to loosen it, your penance to endure it being whipped."

I blanched at the sentence but, when he bade me lower my gown to my waist, and put my hands behind my neck, thrusting out my breasts before me, I obeyed with no hesitation, though my belly quaked and my knees trembled. The only mercy he extended me was to lay aside the rather brutal cane he had used on the delicate hands of my dear sisters in misfortune, and take up another, thinner, length. With this he commenced to cut my breasts. First the whippy length was brought down from on high to whistle into their soft top curves, sending a searing flash of pain through my whole upper body as it bit a narrow red groove in the white flesh, a groove that rapidly darkened and grew to a plum coloured cord, raised above the surface, throbbing atrociously as I awaited his next.

This time it came up from below to seize on the under sides, where the slight bulge below met the skin covering my ribs. Again it hurt atrociously, but I kept my hands behind my neck, though I writhed helplessly for a moment as the pain surged through me. The third stroke was aimed at my left breast only, or rather its turgid nipple, full of blood and quite erect from the emotions I was feeling. He caught the teat right at its base, almost cutting it from my pap.

I screamed at the dreadful assault, for the pain was intense, and of a strangely penetrating quality, as if it somehow ran directly from there into my belly, causing me to double up for an instant, before I forced myself to come upright again, although I knew it would be only to receive an even worse cut on my right nipple. When it came I screamed again. Once more my upper body twisted and shook but I gained control at last, and stood ready for whatever might befall, moaning at the throbbing ache in my poor dugs, their bruised and distorted tips, blackened by the vicious blows they had sustained.

"You have not felt this in your breast before, I believe," St John remarked. "But now you know its power, consider whether you have a vocation in the East. Tonight you did but taste it. Deny your calling again, and you shall eat your fill."

With that he laid aside the lighter rod, and took up the heaviest in his armoury, quite as deadly as that my Master used on me, or any at Lowood. I felt faint at the thought of it bruising my tender bosom, but he waved me aside. The rod was for other parts than breasts and teats.

Diana was first, as usual. Without needing to be instructed, she hoisted her skirts to her waist, revealing herself quite bare beneath, as were we all, the russet curls massed in her fork, white globes swelling behind. She leant forward, setting her fingers on her toes and letting go of the gown, which stayed resting on her hips above the roundness of her buttocks, these curving seductively into her thighs. The latter, being somewhat parted, revealed the full pouch of her sex beyond, the large lips I knew so well, dark and full, their surface stippled with tiny bumps like gooseflesh, though I did not think she was cold.

St John removed his jacket, the better to manage this heavy rod, so ripe for a woman's well-fleshed buttocks, and came to stand a little behind her. He drew back his arm, then unleashed a whistler that sang as it flew, catching her low down, not in the succual crease itself, but only a little above it where the flesh was almost as tender. Diana's body shook under the force of the blow, the weight of the rod, the power of his wrist, that had driven the last ounce of energy into the stroke, and she gasped.

It was a truly compelling cut, and my belly quaked, my nether cheeks clenched in anticipation, as I watched the track left, when the rod fell away after burrowing deep, fill with blood and thicken until a finger thick welt stood out above the white surface. St John repeated the stroke, a half inch lower, nearly in the crease now, an equal welt springing up alongside the first.

Poor Diana's buttocks cringed in on one another, the cheeks seeming to take on a life of their own. St John growled at her to cease clenching, or get extra and she groaned as she tried to relax the cheeks. This was caning indeed, and I would taste it in my turn, nothing was more certain.

St John marched on, his strokes as steady as the tramp of armies and, when he had done, his victim no doubt felt as if a mounted horde had ridden over her, printing her defenceless nates with their iron hooves. I do not think they would have bruised her more than those half dozen measured cuts. He dismissed her, to wait to one side until it was time for her final humiliation, and it was Mary's turn.

She approached him looking white and frightened. I doubted not that I already looked the same. Again without instruction, she bared her buttocks and bent fully before him, her feet spaced apart to steady her, though the posture revealed her private purse through the gap at the top of her thighs. Where Diana had taken her strokes in silence, Mary screamed after only two, but she never lost her position, squirm though she might. When she was sent to join her sister her face was scarlet and tear streaked, and she walked with the curious stiff gait, that I had often seen after 'duty' canings, and had shown myself often enough, the bruises in ones buttocks, and especially the tops of ones thighs, stiffening rapidly and causing a twinge of pain with every movement, so that one instinctively tried to swivel ones haunches from the waist to advance ones feet, rather than swinging from the hip and thereby reawakening the ache in ones welts.

Now I must essay that brutal rod, and St John's muscular attack, for myself. Learning from those who had endured before me, I lifted my skirts, the cool air making me all too conscious of my bareness and vulnerability, and reached my fingers to the floor. St John muttered his benediction, then struck. It was like fire, and quite as bad as any I had taken. I grunted indelicately with the first hurt, then hissed as I felt the welt rising on my buttock and the pain flowing into the riven flesh.

Again he struck, the laceration equally abominable, and I squirmed with the effort to contain the agony. Each stroke seemed harder than its fellow, until I feared for my ability to stay down and let the rod cut into me behind, but somehow I found the strength, though I was as tear-stained as either of the others when I finally rose, my chest heaving with sobs as I limped, stiff-legged, to stand with Diana and Mary.

They had each quite deliberately set their hands to the backs of their necks, as soon as they were allowed to rise, and still kept them there so, although I ached to set them to my screaming bottom and knead the ridged fatty mass to assuage the continuing hurt, for it was still rising a minute after the last stroke had fallen, I followed their lead, which seemed the custom of the house.

I had thought the proceedings done, but I was wrong. From a drawer St John produced a small carved box, which he laid on the table.

"Since it is well said, 'frailty, thy name is woman', it would be as well if you were to remove from yourselves the temptation to mitigate your sufferings, and nullify their efficacy by self indulgence tonight. Each will wear a pair of restraints until after breakfast tomorrow."

I did not understand at first, but soon all was clear. Both girls had looked unhappy at his decision but advanced to the table and opened the box to reveal metal clips like small sugar tongs, though more strongly made, the bowls edged with small sharp teeth. Diana took out a pair, and raised her skirt again. With one hand she grasped the fat lips of her outer labia, pulling them out firmly, then set one clamp to grip them near their base. When the clamps had closed on the flesh, one could squeeze them further, increasing their grip, and springing the two halves until a catch caught, holding them tight clamped until the catch was released. When she had set the clamp at the base of her slit, she pulled out the lips at the top, above where that sweet button I loved to caress lay hidden, and set a second clamp there also. Now she was sealed quite, and could not touch herself, nor ask another for relief with finger or tongue. The pain was obviously severe, for she bit her lip, her mouth awry, and she walked back to her place with her legs parted like a goose.

Mary took her place, repeating the operation, but with much groaning and flinching, being made of less stoic matter than her sister. After her I stepped to the table, and found a third pair left in the box. I was to discover later that these had belonged to their mother. She had still attended the monthly 'courts', under their father's jurisdiction then, when they had first come to womanhood, and joined the Sunday ritual, new clips had been obtained for the neophytes to compliment their mother's. Now the originals devolved to me, and I accepted them with pride, and anguish, for I was very conscious that they had let me have these relics of their departed mother as a gesture of welcome, but they hurt terribly, even when the first bite had been numbed by time there was this underlying gnawing ache in ones most tender part.

I knew enough, too, to anticipate it would be agony when they were released in the morning. When I went back to my place my walk could only be described as a waddle, and St John spoke sharply to me, to maintain my posture and dignity.

After breakfast the following morning, we all three repaired to Diana's room, to rid ourselves of the troublesome grips. We went eagerly enough, but our enthusiasm was tempered by the knowledge that we would have to subject ourselves to one last torment before we could be free. Each of us groaned and squealed as we released the catches and drew the clamps from out of our flesh, indeed poor Mary screamed enough to draw a word of reprimand from St John, who still sat at table with his book. When I came to release my own I found the teeth had dug so far into my flesh I had to pull them from the fat lip, each clip drawing from me a hissing whine as I fought to maintain some control and avoid the scream that bubbled in my throat, so intense was the pain as the blood returned to the starved tissue.

These 'courts' became a fixed feature of our life together, sometimes no more than a crisp caning for each of us, sometimes as severe as that first session, with a variety of ingenious punishments designed to fit the crime, at least in St John's estimation, his word being law since he was the only man of the house.

But do not think this clouded our days at the Moors house. We were all grown women, accustomed, each in her own way, to accepting discipline and correction and, although we might become a trifle solemn on these Sundays and, at breakfast on the Monday, we were often far from the trio of chattering birds we resembled on other days, it was appropriate to the nature of the day, and the rest of the month was of almost unbroken happiness, especially for me, who had found loving sisters at last.