'Yes! Oh! Yes!'
I plucked at my mother's dress to take her away with me outside those dreadful walls. I kissed her again and murmured in her ear before removing my mouth:
'You will take me away, won't you? Oh, promise! You will not leave me here?'
She replied aloud:
'Certainly, I shall not leave you. I have come to take you home.'
A second time she held me from her and said, as though talking to herself:
'He had such bonnie big cheeks, and now they are hollow. His eyes are burning with fever. You have been ill, my poor mite!'
I burst into sobs and Lady Flayskin hastened to anticipate a possible reply on my part.
'Why, Madam, you surely do not imagine he has been deprived of anything he could wish for? The cooking is excellent; the food whole some and abundant. I never let my pupils want for anything. Our dear Jimmy will not tell his mother a story? You have always eaten as much as you liked, haven't you, Jimmy?'
'Oh, yes!'
But covertly I pulled my mother's skirt and looked at her with imploring eyes.
She understood me. The dear angel! She has always understood what I have said to her in the dumb language of the eyes:
She rose and took s somewhat ceremonious farewell of Lady Flayskin. Meanwhile, I also turned critic but said nothing. I was none the less astonished and grieved to find my poor mother looking much older. The corners of her lips drooped and her eyelids were swollen and lined as though she had cried a great deal. She also had lost her full, plump, pretty cheeks. It was another and a thinner Mamma I was looking at.
It seemed to me that she would never come to the end of her somewhat cold, but none the less elaborate thanks and compliments. For my part, I should have preferred giving Lady Flayskin a good beating and I pulled at my mother's skirt in a frenzied way.
She turned and smiled.
'Yes! we are going! Say good-bye, Jimmy! Never forget your manners.'
'Precisely!' rejoined the horrid old cat. 'That is what we always tell our pupils. Jimmy, you do not kiss me?'
How much rather would I have strangled her? Nevertheless, I managed to kiss her and weleft the room. The affectation and ceremony of our leave-taking continued, however, until we reached the front door, where at the bottom of the steps a cab awaited us.
It was a hansom cab. Again I have before my eyes, as on that never-to-be-forgotten day, the honest-looking, stout driver with his red whiskers. Again I see him touching his hat as we appear, when he took his short clay pipe from his mouth.
How delightful it was to be in that hansom, nestled against my mother's heart. It gave me a certain feeling of satisfaction and security, too, to think of our stout goodnatured coach man perched up there behind us. Whould Lady Flayskin try to take me back? In that case, I thought our cabby will not let her. He will make but a mouthful of her and her whole crew of whipping women and stay-lacers.
What joy to breath the pure air without having to be apprehensive of bones and steel busks sticking into one's stomach and stifling one's lungs!
And how delightful to visit again old scenes and think of the happy rambles and merry games of days past!
Such were my thoughts when, though I hardly know why, I burst into sobs and told my mother everything. The corset, the girl's dress, the high heels, the long tight gloves, all the diabolical 'discipline' of glazed black kid, everything was told. Nor did I, the reader may be sure, omit to mention that my name had been 'Alice'.
My mother cried too, but suddenly laughed, and clapping her hands, told me that Mr. Baker had died eight days before and left her his en entire fortune. Consequently, we were very rich. Then, for the first time, I noticed that she was in mourning.
Her face became thoughtful. A world of sorrow was reflected in her beautiful eyes, but she cried no more.
I detested even the memory of Mr. Baker, the cruel stepfather who had been the cause of all my troubles, and I felt inclined to shout with joy at the knowledge that he was dead. But my mother, I thought, must miss him 260
sadly, so I respected her pensive looks and sat back silently in my corner, always however keeping hold of her hand.
Grown-up people so frequently misinterpret each other's sentiments that there is nothing surprising in a child making a similar error. It was only later that I fully understood the reason of those painful reveries which I had mistaken for sorrow.
My poor dear mother did not mourn in her heart for Mr. Baker, although she wore black clothes. She had suffered more at the hands of that monster than I had myself in my horrid school.
My poor mother also had had to submit to the most cruel tight-lacing, as well as to every one of the other tortures I knew so well. Her neck had been almost dislocated, and a doctor had actually been summoned after an excessive use of the 'collar'. And my dear pretty mother had been whipped; flogged daily and mercilessly, sometimes by Mr. Baker himself and sometimes by that execrable Betsy in his presence. Any pretext, or no pretext, sufficed as a reason for these inflictions.
In the superb Portland Place mansion there was even a special 'Punishment Room.' On my stepfather's death, my mother looked the door of this grim apartment and it was only some years afterwards that I could inspect it.
Nothing had been disturbed; no one had entered the room since it had been locked up. The first object I noticed was a wooden vaulting horse similar to those employed in gymnasiums, except for the addition of a blood- red pad of kid, highly glazed, and of two steel rings on each side of the neck, so to speak, of the apparatus. It was upon this pad that my dear mother was twisted by Mr. Baker and Betsy. Lying on her stomach, her arms were made fast to the rings and any resistance during her whipping was thus rendered impossible. Her skirts were then pinned over her head and the flogging proceeded with. Some times an immense whip, such as is employed by trainers and others with ungovernable stal lions, was used, and sometimes the simple, but exceedingly painful birch rod.
Should the fancy take them, they would 'spread-eagle' my dear mother up on a stand designed for the purpose. This apparatus appeared particularly diabolical.
There were pullies, cords, rings, a trapeze and many other such arrangements and objects. The monster had dazzled my mother's eyes with his wealth and she had married him to be tortured by his passions.
It appears that sometimes he had made her run quite naked from end to end of this 'Punishment Room' which was but a corridor. As she ran, the long lash of a whip would pursue her, and since the passage did not permit, owing to its narrowness, of side blows, Mr. Baker would strike vertically, either downwards or upwards. In the case of the latter movement, the thighs and stomach received the most severe punishment.
My poor mother would fly shrieking before the pursuing lash. If she fell, a hurricane of blows descended upon her shoulders, back, and lower parts. In spite of her groans, the unfortunate woman would be compelled to rise to her feet and provide fresh sport for the ruffian.
Mr. Baker would further compel his wife to become, so to speak, a horse, and cut capers as though in a circus, always, of course, to the tune of a long-lashed whip.
It appeared that Mr. Baker, like Lady Flayskin, was a devotee of black glazed kid. Consequently, my mother wore gloves of that material and so tight that she could not close her hands. She also wore the abominable tight- fitting combination of chemise and drawers.
But morally she had to endure even more humiliating persecution.
Baker would sometimes install Betsy in his wife's place at table and the latter would take the servant's place as waiting woman. The coarse and vicious drab would heap ridicule upon her and abuse her for clumsiness or any other fancied offence which occurred to them. They would then compel my mother to adopt a pose at once silly and obscene, while before her eyes they kissed and caressed one another in a fashion which can only be described by the one word: shameful.
My mother was allowed no personal liberty. 264
She was not permitted to communicate with any person outside the house, nor could she go out walking or shopping except on the rare occasions when Baker or Betsy consented to accompany her. She could neither receive
