mysterious establishment of Lady Flayskin. Tongues were not idle. Voices were not raised high, but they talked none the less for all that. Our sharp ears surprised every happening. The girlish education and costume seemed to arouse in us boys a feminine appetite for scandal and gossip.
If means of information as to what was happening about us were otherwise lacking we found in the servants' gossip all we sought. It was for the most part perfectly reliable, for the servants; like other members of the humbler classes, did not believe that any embellishments proceeding from their own simple brains could make truth more wonderful or interesting.
They would tell what they knew, in the course of conversation, to the elder pupils who naturally found nothing better to do than to repeat what they had learnt to the younger children.
The stories would go the round of the school and, contrary to gossip in a bigger world, did not vary nor grow as it passed from mouth to mouth.
In this way we were kept fully informed of the doings of the little world about us.
Thus, too, we learnt what happened in Mr. Gostock's new home.
The day after his wedding, the American decided that he could not occupy himself better than in beating his children. The scene was the dining-room at the hour of dinner. He found that all of them were in fault and to each addressed a reproof, although not one of the poor children was to blame. Since the death of their mother, they had been in the habit of payingtrembling attention to their good conduct. Deprived for long of all affection or tenderness, very unhappy in the charge of the woman to whom their father had entrusted them, they hoped to find in their stepmother something of that love and maternal devotion they so sadly missed.
Children readily believe appearances and believe in the goodness of those they find young and beautiful to look at. For children, fine appearances are a rich source of deception, though it is true some carry their delusions on this score with them through their riper years.
The poor children, fork in hand, now listened to the slow measured tones of their austere-visaged father who told them many things they found disagreeable to hear, to gether with a plentiful sprinkling of such word as decency and morality!
Malicious Stella had immediately under stood to what such observations, addressed by her husband to his children by first wife, were intended to lead.
As she spoke, the children were charmed by her pure crystal tones, and feeling reassured, they turned their attention anew to their plates.
Alas! they were greatly in error.
What pretty Stella proposed to her virtuous husband was simply to flog, there and then, the bare bottoms of all these brats.
'They really merit a flogging on account their behaviour at table,' she said. 'It is plain that they have been brought up deplorably and if the whip is not immediately applied we shall have a great deal of trouble with them in future. We shall no be able to have our meals in peace with the children at the table. We shall have to be continually employing cross words. In my opinion the children of so respected a father should have good principles instilled into them, and the sooner the better, in order that as they grow up, they may be respected in their turn. If you have no objection, we will begin immediately?'
The wretched old fellow felt his cup of joy running over as he saw his wishes so perfectly understood. He felt that this was indeed a fit realisation of the dream his heart had nursed so long. Kissing the hands of his sweet young wife, he told her that she was mistress in her own house and begged her to do as she thought for the best.
Thereupon, doubtless with the object of heightening her husband's amorous desires and giving him further joy, vicious Stella fell into his arms as though transported with gratitude and rewarded him with a long, affectionate kiss.
Then she went to the collection of birch rods in a corner of the room, and chose from among them those wich appeared most suitable. Stella possessed to an admirable degree a sense of proportion. Accordingly, for the elder children she chose thick and heavy rods, while for the smaller her choice was made from among the slender and tapering bunches of birch.
All therefore were whipped, beginning at the eldest and concluding with the youngest, tears and protestations making not the smallest difference in their sufferings. Each child after being whipped, had to ask papa's pardon and promise to be good in future. The penitent had to go upon his, or her knees with face turned to the wall. In this position, the little girls had to hold up, with both hands, their chemise and petticoats, while the little boys whose knickerbockers were about their ankles had to similarly raise their shirt-tails. In this position they had to remain until the end of the meal. Their choking sobs and stifled wails of suffering agreeably supplied the place of skilled musicians, in the opinion of virtuous Mr. Gostock. From time 226
to time he cast his eyes along the row of bruised, scarred sterns, this exhibition of the flesh of his flesh so pitilessly beaten. His face would then light up with a smile of content while he kissed the fair hands of his adorable young bride.
This scene, alternated with others – for lovely Stella's imagination matched her intelligence – was often re- enacted.
For the rest, Mr. Gostock had only to let fall a word to find it immediately under stood by his wife, who deferred to his every passing whim to the despair of the hindquarters of the puny members of his household.
Not only had Mr. Gostock made arrangements in his will whereby everything which by law had not to revert to his children should fall to his wife, but he had further (so skilled was he in legal chicanery) managed to despoil his lawful heirs of nearly all their legal inheritance in favour of this second wife so greatly and unfairly favoured.
In exchange, Stella gave him all the happiness one can hope for on this earth when united to a lawful wife and awaiting a better world – that paradise where doubtless, for the joy of virtuous Americans, the angels whip little children.
But I have anticipated. It is difficult to be as orderly in one's narrative as in one's ideas, more especially in the case of a narrative opening out so many attractive bypaths as the present.
I return therefore, after this disgression, to the marriage rejoicings of Mr. Gostock. We were all, boys and girls alike, as I have said, invited, and we were in charge of the headmistress.
Early in the morning, we all, servants, pupils and governesses, took our places in two breaks, drawn, each of them, by four horses to the gay music of two energetic posthorn players. The populace of the villages rushed to their doors and gates to see us pass, attracted by the music and the horses. We were flattered by the remarks of the country wenches, women and their husbands, and by the cries of exclamation or admiration of the pleasure in the somewhat sour, unmistakably envious looks of the elder girls. We had no need to hold our heads as though we had been supplied with bearing-reins. We did not wear the cruel leather collar, but our stays kept our figures in excellent shape and very erect. It is hardly necessary to say that all corsets had been laced under the eye of the head-mistress and that her ladyship had paid particular attention to the operation.
The nine miles which separated us from Mr. Gostock's house at Faversham were covered in an hour and a quarter.
Of the actual ceremony I shall say nothing except that, as always, our waists did not fail to attract considerable attention. After the service, fine ladies fingered and felt the 'Three Wasps' and asked them questions. The replies were dictated by what they knew to be their head-mistress's wishes, otherwise their questioners would have received some strange revelations. The young ladies, it is unnecessary to add, made their answers with perfect politeness and amiability.
Lady Flayskin's prediction was realised. The triumph of the 'Three Wasps' was as nothing in comparison with that of Miss Virginia Malville.
Virginia had paid dearly for her glory. Interminable sleepless nights were only a part of the price she paid for the admiration and astonishment aroused by a waist whose like had never hitherto beenseen.
The head-mistress had spared no pains with this unique example of the power of corset discipline.
The corset! Dread word whose meaning the poor girl at length thoroughly understood! In the morning before she rose, Virginia was wont to receive three visitors, the head-mistress and those two strong-armed servants whose task it had been on the day of Virginia's first flogging to thrust her back into the class-room.
These visitors would find the girl relapsing into a short, fitful slumber after a night of weariness and wakefulness.
It was necessary that she should rise. Her night-corset was taken off in order that her day-corset might be put
