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.
She found her employment too enjoyable to abandon it yet awhile.
She seemed indeed to devote herself to her task with ever increasing gusto, and without for a moment forgetting the particular methods of applying the rod which a long experience had shown to be most efficacious. She had stood first on the right side and had flogged the hemispheres crosswise. Now she stood on the left side and performed the same process.
Then she had taken a curious implement and put it within reach of her and before employing it.
It consisted of an ebony stick of about a foot in length. At each extremity, was a widely branching fork to which was attached a strap and buckle. This she inserted between the legs of the poor girl who could see nothing of these sinister preparations, but who trem bled the more for her uncertainty.
She did well to tremble.
Lady Flayskin attached the straps to the victim's knees. Virginia was now obliged by the ebony rod to keep her legs apart, nor could she possibly rise to her feet.
The preparations finished, her ladyship placed herself behind the girl and laid a firm hand on her neck. Pitilessly deaf to the piercing shrieks of the unfortunate victim, and easily controlling all efforts to escape her hold, she proceeded with all her strength to flog lengthwise, from below upwards.
The rod whistled and curled and the girl writhed and squirmed beneath this cruelty.
It was no use for her to cry in broken syllables that she would prefer, ten times over, the hide-covered scourge; that her sufferings were more than she could bear. It was in vain that she entreated her pitiless mistress to finish with one good bow rather than kill her by inches. In spite of all she could cry or entreat, she was destined to drink her cup of agony to the dregs – or, at any rate, until the arm of Lady Flayskin grew tired.
The flogging was plainly of long duration, and Virginia was more dead than alive when at length she was freed from the curious thigh-dividing implement which had exposed her tenderest parts to the biting cruelty of the birch without enabling her to protect herself in the least from its stinging attacks.
With maternal solicitude, her ladyship now took the weeping girl and raising her in her arms, laid her upon the sofa where she continued to sob, her face covered by her arm, in a manner to touch the most unfeeling heart.
Was savage Lady Flayskin touched? In any case, it is a matter of knowledge that she took a bottle of very old sherry, uncorked it with the respect its venerable antiquity merited and filled two glasses with the really precious wine. One she placed for herself, while the other she offered to her weeping, but still beautiful pupil.
She said to her quite simply:
'Your very good health?'
The girl had withdrawn the arm which covered her face and she now looked with an air of stupefaction at this glass of fine crystal reflecting the warm rich colouring of the topaz hued liquid. What the liquid might be, Virginia did not know, but she looked with dark suspicion, as was natural, at every gesture of Lady Flayskin.
In bitter tones she demanded:
'Is this the consummation of your treatment of me? Do you think now to poison me?'
With a smile of indulgent pity for such folly, the directress, for all reply, put to her own lips the glass she had poured out for herself, drank it off and smacked her lips with an air of enjoyment.
The girl became ashamed of her ridiculous suspicion, did what she had seen done, and found herself feeling much better in consequence. She felt new strength in her body; the sense of prostration caused by the whipping seemed to disappear as the generous wine warmed her blood.
She felt indeed as though she were being warmed by a veritable flame which coursed through her veins increasing the great vibration of the nerves caused by the skilful flogging of Lady Flayskin.
Seeing her rosy cheeks and bright eyes, where tears, which only a moment before had ceased to flow, shone like dewdrops and more brightly than diamonds, Lady Flayskin could not help being moved. Such sweetness and charm compelled her to imprint a kiss 195
