Nanny Diaries 2 - The New Litter

Home Truths

Mr Brewster seemed rather pleased with the progress I had made. He stood in front of the sofa in the lounge, admiring his granddaughters, who were sitting in a nervous line, on rather sore but newly padded bottoms, sucking furiously on their pacifiers. But it had been more of a struggle than I had expected, if I am honest, and if we had moved forwards, I feared that it was purely superficial, and provisional. Like Philippa, Georgina/Hope and Henrietta/Charity were both temporarily tamed by my paddle. Children who have never been spanked before always underestimate the pain, for a start, but also the emotional effect of being forced to behave. It really knocks the stuffing out of any recalcitrant child, and then, used sparingly, and only for serious issues, serves as a meaningful deterrent. The three sisters were no different. Bella and I overwhelmed them and made them do the minimum to allow us to get them dressed and ready for a chat with their grandfather, just two hours after we walked through their front door. But they were not nurslings at that stage. Not by any means. It was not like my experiences with Nicola, Caris or Bella at all, who all knew exactly what they were facing and all basically surrendered to the inevitable as soon as I proved that I was more than capable of controlling them, whatever they tried to do about it, and that their parents were not going to change their minds. But my latest charges did not seem to have any prior knowledge of the church, or their late mother's upbringing in the Reformist community, and I could see that they were not remorseful, or repentant, which was not good, I told myself, as my new employer prepared to address my new litter.

"Good...we seem to be getting somewhere," Mr Brewster smiled, perhaps not seeing what I was seeing. Samantha, his late daughter, had been out of his life once she was eighteen, apart from some long-distance communication, and the occasional awkward visit, and he had played little or no part in his granddaughter's lives. Despite the liberal tendencies that had tempted him to let his daughter, his only child, spread her wings when he moved to New York, I knew that he was a devout and traditional man. And because he had lost Samantha, he had no hands-on experience with nurslings in the previous twenty years. I began to realise that he had no idea what he was looking at, or doing. "Girls...I know this awful situation with your father is very upsetting...but you really don't have to worry...we are your real family and we are going to look after you..."

"No one asked you to do that," Henrietta interrupted, after spitting her pacifier out of her mouth and landing it at his feet. She was fifteen and even whilst Bella and I were overwhelming her earlier, I had been struck by her composure. All three girls seemed very mature, and quite confident, even in a situation where they might be expected to be unsettled and even frightened when you considered the trouble their father was in. But they all seemed remarkably relaxed about that, much to my surprise. "We don't want anything to do with you...or your sick church either...and the studio won't let you take us anywhere."

"This is child abuse...we will tell the studio," Georgina added after spitting out her comforter like her big sister.

"And our fans will be all over you...as soon as they know," Philippa insisted, completing the hattrick of blatant disobedience. I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Bella, who looked rather shocked, I think. Although she had worked at Charlesfield, and had more knowledge of the world outside of Meadvale than most traditional Reformists, she was not exactly streetwise. I had a much broader education than her, and came from a very different background, but that did not mean that I was much more experienced in the ways of the world. After all, my family were middle-class and I had attended Norland Nanny College after my Grammar school, which was designed to produce nannies for the richest people in the world, so I was hardly down with the kids. But one thing that did concern me, I must admit, was my work coming under scrutiny from the people who watched their shows, bought all their music and followed their extremely popular accounts on social media. Mr Brewster, and all the important people from Meadvale as far as I could tell, including Helen Hughes, who was not as sheltered as some, seemed to believe that all we had to do was get the girls back to Meadvale and save them in God's endless love, but we were not dealing with ordinary girls.