'My lady, have pity! I cannot breathe. Set me free. I cannot suffer more. '
But the cruel mistress, far from showing pity, replied:
'Be silent! You are too talkative! The commencement is painful, I know. But as I have told you, it is necessary to know how to suffer in order to acquire beauty. Your sole thought should now be the regulating of your breathing. It is unnecessary for a woman of society to puff like a grampus. Take in just the amount of air that your lungs require. The discomfort will vanish and you will be as beautiful as a dream. There now, stand up! Like that! Let me help you.'
The unfortunate girl, in the hope that the change of position would bring her a measure of relief, had attempted to stand up and had fallen heavily backwards. She now lay at full length on the sofa, just as she had been laid there after her faint by Lady Flayskin.
Assisted by the strong arms of the mistress, Virginia rose in a wooden fashion as though she had no joints. A rumbling was in her ears and the voice of Lady Flayshin came to her as though from the other side of a wall. Her sight was dim and difficult, for blood rushed to her head, giving a look of smouldering fire to her pupils. This look would quickly disappear and the eyes would appear as colour less and expressionless as doubtless did, to their owner, the scene upon which they fell. Lady Flayshin spoke again.
'You shall see how beautiful you are going to be. This corset fits you perfectly, it inakes you appear delicious, dearest. When you have on your dress… no, not the silk one you have taken off… the other one, of muslin, in accordance with the regulations of the establishment… I tell you that when you wear this its dress, waist measure matching that of the corset, and when you look in the glass, you will not recognise yourself…
Now you abuse me for making you suffer…
You don't deny it? Don't make that pretty gesture of denial; it is needless… The day will come, I tell you, when you will thank me for having taught you how to show of your charms to such perfect advantage.'
The poor girl was certainly unable to make any interruption. Her arms felt as heavy as lead and she had not the least desire to make the smallest deprecating gesture. She had, it is true, made a faint effort to join her hands in an attitude of entreaty, but the slight 205
movement bad proved beyond her exhausted strengh. The chattering of the mistress made her giddy. Every sound echoed in her brain like blows on an anvil.
Lady Flayskin appeared resolved to increase her pupil's discomfort yet farther, for her gestures increased an multiplied in a manner as useless as disagreeable, while, contrary to her wont, she raised her voice until she almost seemed to shout.
'I suppose,' she continued, 'that I must have a weakness for you, to be spoiling you to such an extent. Here am I passing you your dress after having laced up your corset? Upon my word I am acting like your lady's maid. It is past belief. Tell that to the other pupils! But I flatly forbid you to do any such
thing. Will you tell them?'
Them girl's lips stirred but no sound did they make. Her mouth felt dry and burning, as did her throat also, for all saliva seemed to have ceased to flow.
Her ladyship insisted. Approaching her mouth to her pupil's ear, she shouted with all her strength:
'Will you kindly do me the honour to reply?'
Virginia trembled as though a thunder bolt had burst in the room. With a grimacing expression of suffering, she forced her lips to utter a sound, and Lady Flayskin received the almost inaudible reply:
'Yes!'
'Yes what?'
She made no reply. Her ladyship cried:
'This is insupportable! You now fail in respect to me, who thought your silly pride had been driven out of you. You speak to me as to a lady's maid. I have helped you to dress, it is true, but that is no reason for thinking me the servant of your whims. Servile work is not my work. If I have been disposed to consent to do it, it is because it pleased me. My motive is sufficient and is no extenuation of your bad manners. Reply properly. Or, if not… '
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
