stockings, or high-heeled boots.
We were pushed towards the table on which stood the flaming punchbowl and each of us was bidden to drink amid those infernal flames to the health of the bride.
How long drinking and singing continued, I hardly know. Nor do I know to what cause to attribute the strangely lascivious desires nor the mad excitement which transformed the girls into furies and the boys into satyrs.
Had the punch been drugged?
Had the moral American, highly respected Mr. Gostock, president of numerous societies for the promotion of public morality, mingled therein stimulating cantharides or some potent phosphoric acid? I know not. The fact remains that our movements became of the wildest and most unbridled order. The strangest fancies seized us in a grip there was no resisting and drew us, unwilling and yet willing, towards a seething vortex of obscenity that absorbed us, sucked us down, one and all.
No pen can write what passed in Stella's drawing-room on the evening of her weddingday. No writer would dare to paint in detail that unforgettable night of triumphant vice, that mad delirum which cast us into the arms of grizzled patriarchs, which gave us naked, yet unashamed, into the hands, sheathed in black glazed kid, of fair society ladies…
CHAPTER VIII
Eight months!
Eight months have already passed since the death of my father. I still wear mourning for him and I still wear the dishonouring garb of Lady Flayskin's highly select establishment.
Seven months have passed since I slept under this roof for the first time.
Sometimes during the night, stifled laughter from the girl's dormitory comes through the thin partition and awakes me. I fall again into a fitful slumber disturbed by bad dreams. I think I am being done to death by a goblin who sits upon my body and gnaws it. I awake and 250
find that the busk of my corset is sticking into my stomach.
My neighbour's voice comes to me in a whisper from the next bed.
'Will you play?' he asks.
Although I reply in the negative, he raises my bedclothes and slips into my bed. I am obliged to submit silently to his repugnant contact, for should I occasion a quarrel, my companion would perhaps receive the whip and I should certainly be flogged.
For such was the 'distributive justice' of Lady Flayskin.
Nor did she ever fail in her preliminary lectures to insert some fine sentiments regarding the duties of bonne camaraderie.
I shudder yet as I think of the deeds that fair-sounding expression was employed to cover in the Flayskin Academy. And many a sun has set since those far-off days.
One memorable morning, a servant entered the school-room with a note for Mrs. Stuart.
The mistress put her spectacles on her thin nose and read the short missive with an air of astonishment. I saw her read it trough a second time and then sign to Mrs. Eagle who likewise showed extreme surprise at the communication. I was idly contrasting the leanness of Mrs. Stuart with the plumpness of Mrs. Eagle, who never resembled an eagle less than at that moment, in her goggle-eyed, red-cheeked astonishment, when I heard my name called by the thin governess.
'Jimmy, come here!'
Had a thunderbolt burst at my feet, I could hardly have felt more astonishment than I did at that moment. Fer seven months I had not been addressed by my own boyish name. Why was I not 'Alice?' Why was I a boy again?
So intense were my feelings, that I found it impossible to do otherwise than burst into tears. I made no attempt to obey the summons. My schoolfellows laughed, but I did not mind that. What could it mean?
My attitude was naturally a source of curiosity to my class, but actually aroused no severe reprimand on th, part af the governesses whose order I had completely ignored. Finally Mrs. Eagle, after renewed consultation with Mrs. Stuart, came to me. The fat little creature appeared in a state of great excitement and proceeded to bundle me out of the schoolroom.
Leading me through the corridors and upstairs to the dormitory, she proceeded to undress me with much show of haste. I resigned myself to this treatment with very good grace, but hardly knew if I was awake or dreaming when a servant entered with a parcel containing all the garments I had worn on entering the school, when still a boy. I saw the broad-toed serviceable shoes in which I had run so fast in other days, excellent, strong and com fortable shoes. Then I saw my knickerbockers and my little sailor's reefer and cap.
Great Heavens! My own clothes once more! Those I had worn eight months ago! Am I going to wear again?
Such were the thoughts that coursed through my brain. In reply to all my questionings and doubtings, I found that Mrs. Eagle was helping me to put on these clothes, my clothes, instead of those hated one I had just taken off. The shoes are a little short, as the abominable narrow, high-heeled boots have lengthened my foot. But no matter! The knickerbockers no longer reach to my knees. But again, what matters, that? What too does it matter, if the sleeves of the little jacket no longer cover my wrists?
Ah, what joy!
Mrs. Eagle becomes momentarily more bustling and excited and her tongue wags faster and faster. It is 'dear Jimmy, my darling little Jimmy,' my own name repeated so frequently that I begin once more to recognise it as my very own. There is no fear of my being addressed as 'Jimmy' and forgetting to answer now. But why? Oh, why?
I decide that Mrs. Eagle is, after all, a good sort. I feel disposed to kiss her, but dare not. She, however, guesses my thoughts and imprints loud, smacking kisses first upon one cheek and then on the other, such kisses as our maid had given me long ago when my father was still alive.
At length my dressing is finished. I find the sailor cap uncomfortable, and think it must have shrunk or else that some paper has been inserted in the lining to make it smaller. But how stupid I am! My head has grown! Great C? sar! And I laugh heartily as I pull with both hands the obstinate cap and only succeed in exposing the back of my head when I manage to cover the front. Mrs. Eagle also laughs and remarks:
'Little Jimmy, you are going to be even happier presently. A pleasant surprise is in store for you.'
But this piece of news has the effect of immediately damping my high sprits. I know the pleasant surprises of Lady Flayskin only too well. They always finish disagreeably.
Mrs. Eagle can make nothing of my sudden change of mien.
'Ah, no! Not by any means! I can't have you going into the drawing-room with that sad face. Oh! certainly not, It's not to be thought of. Why, you must look happy, very happy!'
But happiness cannot be produced to order, and my step, so unpleasantly apprehensive of the promised surprise, became more and more laggard. I finish by coming to a dead stop near the drawing-room.
Mrs. Eagle, however, hurries me forward and adds to my astonishment by neglecting a most important detail of the etiquette of the establishment.
She enters Lady Flayskin's august presence and that lofty person's magnificent drawingroom, without previously knocking at the door and waiting for an invitation to enter. She pushes me in front of her and closes the door.
With a great sigh of joy, I found that my dear mother was there. Almost fainting with delight, I rushed into her arms and covered her dear face with kisses. She returned my kisses with interest and we both of us cried. She hugged me to her breast with almost feverish delight. Then suddenly she held me at arm's length from her and, looking at me earnestly, cried;
'Goodness!' How pale you are!'
Lady Flayskin intervened in honeyed tones.
'It is very natural, dear Madam; a result to be expected from emotion and joy at seeing his mother. You love your mother dearly, don't you, Jimmy?'
