Ingratitude

Sir John and his stern housekeeper, Bainbridge, are missing their domestic help after sending their last help off to convent school (in ‘Alice and the Maid’). Sir John makes a deal with his brother, the local magistrate, to take on two errant young ladies on their way to a year in the reformatory. In return for performing household duties, the pair are to be looked after, given an education, fine clothes, food and shelter. More so, their sentence is to be commuted. However, Eleanor and Sophie have not been cured of their wicked or kleptomaniac ways. Before too long Sir John finds them reading his private letters. He also caught them spying on his and Bainbridge’s private liaisons the night before. For these crimes, he shall punish them. First he gives them a sound spanking, by hand and then by hairbrush. Secondly he administers a harsh strapping. Satisfied the girls have learned their lesson, he lets them go. The girls, emboldened, become even naughtier and they hatch a plan. They shall steal Sir John’s gold fob watch, sell it and then make their escape with the spoils. Eleanor steals the watch and they take it to the jeweller. Their plot is foiled when Sir John realises it is missing and calls them to his study to be interrogated. The girls, of course, deny all knowledge, but Sir John produces the watch in front of them as proof. His friend, the jeweller, recognised and returned it. Eleanor and Sophie are in for it now. Sir John inflicts severe canings across his desk for lying and stealing. The girls are dismissed again and sent to bed. When Bainbridge discovers her ring is missing, all hell breaks loose. The girls’ room is searched and the ring discovered under Sophie’s pillow. Incensed with their ingratitude, Sir John demands they be sent to the reformatory after all. Bainbridge, however, persuades him their help is needed and suggests they be kept and simply punished for their disobediences. Sir John relents, lays them across the bed, nightdresses raised ... and thrashes their bare bottoms without mercy. Sophie and Eleanor will soon learn who the head of the household is.