The reality far surpassed her expectations. The pair of stays had evidently been made by a corset-maker of the highest class. Both shape and material showed it to be the work of an 183
artist. That was indisputable. The other pupils had to be content with corsets of strong linen, but this was of brocaded silk and the workmanship had been carefully and beautifully finished off. The whalebone and steel stiffeners were numerous and seemed at first to be of an extreme rigidity. Such, however, was not the case. This corset, in its pronounced an fashionable model, was as supple as it was elegant.
Miss Malville, on holding it in her hands, was not at first disposed to greatly fear it. But so soon as she had it on her body and endeavoured to hook it, her difficultie began. The more the girl tried to perform her task, the more hopelessly impossible that feat appeared.
Her ladyship watched these unsuccessful efforts with an interested and illboding eye.
She did not yet, however, intervene.
Miss Malville drew her stomach in, raised her arms high, exhausted herself, stopped, recommenced her impossible task, but all to no purpose. She was then about to loosen the side-lacing and thus make the stays larger.
"Ah! I emphatically forbid you to do that!" exclaimed Lady Flayskin.
"Then how shall I manage?"
"Set to work honestly, with courage, and without being afraid of pinching your skin. What? You do not know how to put on a corset?"
"But this corset is not like others!"
"It is you who are not like others!"
Virginia lowered her head, raised it anew, and struggled with might and main, but all to no purpose.
Her ladyship's tone became menacing.
"I am afraid there is trouble in store!"
But Virginia replied, in a somewhat sulky tone:
"It is impossible!"
She held the corset in her hands, uncertain as to what she was to do with it.
Lady Flayskin took a chair in front of her and looking at her fixedly, said, with lips trembling with anger:
"You are going to put it on immediately."
The young girl, overcome by her hard and useless struggle, burst into tears and sobs.
"I cannot! I cannot!"
"Yes, you can!"
"I tell you that I cannot!"
"Say that you will not!"
"Oh!"
"Oh's" and "ah's" are useless. I give you two minutes in which to put it on and fasten it."
With a significant air, the mistress went to the drawer of the large cupboard where the birches were ranged in order. She searched among them, making a whistling sound with the twigs similar to that made by the autumnal leaves which whirl together as they fall. Poor Virginia could not help being moved by this sinister noise. Her teeth chattered and, in consequence she bit her tongue. This little accident is often very painful and, in this case, Virginia in her momentary suffering, opened her hands and dropped the corset to the ground.
Terrified by the probable consequences of this fresh misfortune, the poor girl now sank upon a chair, covered her face with her hands and wept bitterly.
To add to her affliction, the wrathful mistress had at length fixed upon her selection of a rod. The chosen instrument was long and thin, and its tapering proportions were such as to inspire the greatest terror as it cut through the air – the directress was already swishing it hither and thither in a horrible manner.
Virginia's sobs redoubled, but she showed no signs of an intention to renew her efforts with the corset.
Her ladyship addressed her:
"Well! I am waiting for you."
The girl was stung by the injustice and cried:
"It is impossible, as you very well know."
Lady Flayskin adopted a more conciliatory tone and said:
"Shall we try together?"
"It is useless. The stays are too small!"
"Mind what you are saying!"
"Oh! If you were to whip me to death, you would not succeed in getting this corset fastened."
"We shall see. I have offered you my aid, a thing I never do, and you have refused it.
I shall help you, nevertheless, but not until after I have first well whipped you. It is fitting that you should experience the difference between the birch-rod and the cane. The latter is, it is true, an instrument of greater ferocity than the birch, but the rod has a treacherous cunning all its own."
"Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I don't want to be whipped. I prefer to but on the corset."
"You shall first be whipped. Certainly you shall put on this corset and I will help you. But since you have defied me to whip you to death, I accept your challenge. I am not in the habit of taking no notice of such high speeches. Once again you have been impertinent in spite of my kindness and it is necessary to punish you. Come, go down on your knees in front of the sofa. Put your face on the edge. Like that! Yes! Draw up your chemise and hold it in your hands. Take care not to let it fall again nor to try to protect your posteriors with your hands."
The girl was now indeed and object for pity as she cried for mercy with tears and entreaties.
But she obeyed without delay the bidding of the mistress, who was secretly delighted with this tractableness and docility. Henceforward, plainly, the once high-spirited, haughty girl would show herself completely tamed and cowed by the whip, ready in every particular to render complete obedience to her mistress now and to her master later on.
Virginia awaited her punishment kneeling humbly, ready to endure upon ger protruding posterior the penalty which a fault of so slight and venial a nature had incurred.
The mistress stepped forward with heart untouched by the charms before her. It seemed rather that her wrath was stimulated by the sight of this vast globe which reflected so little of the emotions of the unfortunate young lady. Lady Flayskin felt that these spheres were mocking her as she laid a preliminary cut across them causing an electric tremor, as it were, to stir their phlegmatic placidity.
Then, in no way disarmed by the tears, cries, protestations and groans of the girl, Lady Flayskin whipped her with her usual power and assurance, yet calmly and methodically as was 189
fitting in a lady of her position. She did not neglect, however, to put all her strength into her task.
She could allow herself to go to work with the utmost energy without running any risk of injuring the beautiful hinder part whose correction she had undertaken. She had selected the longest and most slender of the birches. The one she was now employing consisted of six birch-tree twigs tied together. They were of extraordinary elasticity, strength and length, and the rod was a real work of art in which the maker, Lady Flayskin, had displayed consummate skill.
There could be no doubt that the rod was an ideal one, admirably adapted for inflicting a thousand cruel smarts upon the skin's surface, together with the most painful yearnings. It was an instrument for drawing the blood up to the rounded surface, but not for making it flow. Rather was it a meet revel for the outpouring of passion, for firing a soul with ardour unquenchable. This whip's true end was not the infliction of cruel punishment. It was an instrument for breaking the skin without causing blood to appear. It was a whip for amorous cruelty, one such as the tenderest of lovers would wish to possess wherewith to soften the heart of his mistress by a sting and a caress. It was at the same time designed rather to inspire love than fear.
Yet as this rod sang and whistled in the air and descended whack! on the tender surface of a sensitive part of the young lady, the globe could not but writhe its vast proportions in a fashion which the malicious flogger found extremely tasteful.
The pearl-like skin assumed the appearance of marble veined with purple and rose-red streaks. The magnificent crupper, so impertinent a short time previously, seemed now to blush with confusion.
The poor girl cried out that she was being done to death and that she intended to offer no resistance to her murderer, that her sufferings were unspeakable. These cries were broken by groans of agony, but nothing availed to arouse the compassion of her ladyship who well knew what she was about.