She feigned passionate anger, ground her teeth and shook her fist in the face of the suffering girl, who faintly murmured:
"Yes, my lady."
"Very good! Your dress is now fastened up. Come and look at yourself in the glass. There!"
She led her along, half pushing her, for in her present condition Virginia was incapable of guiding her steps. She was like a walking statue, her movements being stiff, mechanical, lifeless. The wretched girl was losing all appearance of health and naturalness because she could not find what the rest of humanity finds without searching: breath. And when breath cannot be found, death is not slow in making its appearance.
Virginia was led in front the tall glass at the end of the room which reflected the full length of her frame, and looking therein she saw something white and misty which was herself. She gazed dully at the muslin dress adorned with the azure-blue sash in accord ance with the custom of the school.
The head-mistress insisted upon her admiring herself with enthusiasm:
"Ah! What a slender waist! You outdo my three "Wasps" of whom I am so proud and who arouse admiration wherever I take them.
Upon my word, you are better than they! I had said I would make a marvel of you. But how spiritless you are! You are as indifferent as though the matter concerned another person, as though the glass did not reflect your face, your tempting bust, your rounded hips, but merely the charms of another. Come, a little more coquetry! You had too much and now you have not sufficient. It is past belief. A young girt so beautiful as you, unable to raise a smile before her looking-glass!"
But enthusiasm was the last matter of which Virginia felt herself capable. It was the breath of life, for which she feebly sought. It was the burning in her stomach that she would fain have calmed, striving vainly with her ribs to resist the cruel pressure of the unyielding stays. Nothing seemed to her of any moment in comparison with the necessity of escaping from the prison in which her body was held captive, and to have gained such freedom she would willingly have given her beauty of which her mistress was so desirous she should be proud. She had, in truth, been proud of her beauty, but now it seemed to her a burden, responsible for the awful garment she was doomed to wear.
Her ladyship brought back Virginia's thoughts to the full horror of the moment by the announcement of a new torture.
"You do well to refuse to admire your costume, for you have not your gloves. I am becoming as stupid as you. It is true that it is not necessary that I should think of everything. You ought yourself to have thought of them. But here they are. Put them on! Ah! clumsy girl, why do you drop them?"
It was plain that it would have been ridiculous to think Miss Malville capable herself of picking up the gloves which had slipped from her grasp. It was, however, not so evident whether the gloves had been dropped by simple clumsiness on the part of the girl, or whether the mistress, cruel and unnatural to a degree, had not desired that they should fall in order that the sufferings of her unfortunate victim might be increased to her most extreme limit.
She stood a moment in front of the girl and stared into her eyes until she seemed to transfix her pupil with terror.
The latter attempted to go down on her knees, in the hope that without bending her chest, an absolutely impossible action, she might be able to feel about blindly on the ground with her hands to find and pick up the gloves.
Possibly Lady Flayskin rightly estimated the peril of such an attempt and thought matters had been pushed far enough, for she picked up the gloves herself, remarking:
"I am going to put them on you myself, though not of course because you are incapable, as you desire to appear, of doing so yourself unaided, for that I do not think to be the case. This, however, must be the last caprice I can humour, as I warn you."
She raised the hands of the girl and found them as cold and limp as if they had been a doll's. Angrily she exclamed:
"Stiffen your fingers!"
It seemed as though she had some kind of hypnotic influence over the girl, for her fingers stiffened immediately and the gloves could be put on, tight though they were. The mistress buttoned them dexterously and drew them up in a skilful manner until the arms of their wearer were painfully encased, up to and beyond the elbow, in their creaseless black kid coverings.
It was only a discomfort the more.
Virginia had now no portion of her body at ease. The excessively high heels and tight boots gave her cramping pains in her calves and thighs. Her ribs threatened to crack beneath the corset and now her hands were forced into gloves far too small fort hem. The easy grace of her movements of which she had formerly been so proud, as befitted an English girl of the aristocratic class devoted to out-door sports, where now was that grace?
Lost for long days to come!
So confused had become her mind that this thought come to her but dimly.
What occupied her troubled brain was the feeling of giddiness, the racking persistent headache which seemed to fasten talons of steel into her tortured scalp. Lady Flayskin now thought fit to thrust the girl before her into the class-room, that her schoolfellows might see her new costume.
CHAPTER VII
It was as the head-mistress had predicted. The slender waist of Miss Malville made a sensation. The glory of the "Three Wasps " was somewhat dimmed.
On Sunday, at church, the men were transfixed with admiration as they looked at the figures of the schoolgirls, while the women went pale with envy. As for us boys, we too shared in these attentions, as owing to our tight-laced corsets, we were likewise taken for girls. Our modest becoming air, our short little steps, the way we had of keeping our eyes lowered, all these and other outward signs aided the deception.
For the present no one had eyes except for Miss Malville, who, in her person, was the embodiment of all the graces due to the inexorable discipline of our establishment – the stays worn night and day, the high boots with their exaggerated heels, the gloves of glazed kid reaching above the elbow.
Lady Flayskin had likewise made her don the "combination," that garment which was bodice and drawers in one, and made of black glazed kid fitting exceedingly tight.
She had been spared the shoulder straps nor had she ever worn the leather collar.
It is true that Virginia carried herself so perfectly upright that these objects would, in her case, have proved absolutely superfluous.
Lady Flayskin was practical before everything. If the carriage of the body was correct, why use artificial aids?
Meanwhile an event of the highest interest took place. It had long been expected and no one was taken by surprise.
One day, the head-mistress announced, in a manner even more ceremonious than that to which we were accustomed, that there would be no school the following day. We were all, boys and girls alike, invited to the wedding of worthy Mr. Gostock with pretty Stella.
The austere, hypocritical old fellow had long meditated this action and his dissimulation had deceived nobody, so true is it that passion always betrays itself. We had one and all expected either a marriage or an elopement and the only thing which surprised us was that one or other of these contingencies had not occured long ago.
Mr. Gostock was almost an old man and he was marrying a girl who had scarcely had time to greet her sixteenth summer.
In our opinion, he was marrying her less for her grace and prettiness then because she would be so good to whip.
There was reason to believe that the pious American revelled in the pastime of flagellation. He was passionately fond of seeing children whipped and was always on the spot at the precise moment when Stella was about to apply the birch to a rebellious posterior. So soon as the "trussing" of the victim began, he quickly made his way to the best place. Then with eyes which ordinarily seemed dead, mere colourless marble devoid of all expression; and now aflame with a lugubrious light, he literally drank in the scene of suffering. He intoxicated himself with the spectacle, uttering little involuntary yelps of pleasure. There was something repulsive in this greedy satisfaction, and we were terrified and disgusted, though we should have found it difficult to say why, by the sight of him at these moments.