At length Miss Sinclair, the directress, and Mr. Gostock put down their empty glasses at the same moment and brushed the biscuit crumbs from their hands.
Miss Sinclair looked in my direction and raised a finger as a sign to me. The gesture was imperious. I trembled and I think I became deathly pale. The idea of disobeying did not so much as occur to me. Tottering on my hateful Louis XV, heels, my fet crushed and tortured in the ridiculous raised arched boots, I drew near the table of execution. Pretty Stella hade only to make a sign and with the docility of a lamb, I took the same position as Clara had done previously. That is to say, I lay upon it with my face thrust forwards and down wards, away from the executioner, and with my arms extended. Mrs. Stuart immediately caught hold of my wrists, and, in anticipation of possible resistance, knotted them together with a handkerchief. A quick hand raised my muslin skirts and drew them over my head which was thus muffled therein. My drawers were unfastened and slipped down my stupid black stockings to my dishonouring boots with their high insteps, and an unpleasant chilliness proved to me that my bare thighs were already delighting the class. I felt choked by an inexpressible feeling of shame. I was sick at heart and felt that I should never again be able to hold up my head.
I then knew for myself that terrible agony of waiting which had been endured by Clara. For I also, during a space of time which seemed to me endless, had to await the good pleasure of pretty imperious Miss Sinclair. As in the case of her first victim she addressed me in dulcet, honeyed tones, though they reached my ears strangely stifled by my petticoats. And this warning that she was about to begin threw me again into the most poignant sufferings at a moment when, owing to having waited so long, blessed insensibility had been creeping over me. I was beginning yet again to forget my horrible position when the first blow struck me across the thighs and all my fine resolutions disappeared like smoke, for I shrieked with all the strength of my lungs and cried for mercy like the veriest abject coward.
But the only response to my wails was the terrible birch, stinging like a nest of vipers.
Ah, that atrocious suffering and, more pain ful still, the dire humiliation! I wept, cried, shrieked, sobbed. I promised to be good and patient. I declared that not only would I never be annoyed again on account of a wret ched ball of paper soaked in spittle, but that they might spit upon my face and I would not mind. The beating continued pitilessly. I threw my head from side to side and stretched my back to the right and to the left in an effort to free myself. The handkerchief which bound me enabled Mrs. Stuart to resist all my struggles.
At length, Miss Sinclair ceased whipping I had to go on my knees at the side of the table to match Clara on the other side. The mirror showed my hinder parts to be covered with blood. Nor was I permitted to leave my position there before the end of lesson time. Meantime my posterior in its wretched plight was the cynosure of every mocking pupil's eye.
CHAPTER III
With the feminine costume I acquired more and more unmistakably feminine gait. Indeed, during our playtime, for the mistress permitted us to play a few of those games popular with little girls, it would happen that should I miss a ball, I would open my legs to catch it in my skirt instead of closing my knees together to prevent the ball running through, as little boys do. Accustomed to high heels, I would walk with little prim steps, wriggling my hips.
Lady Flayskin complimented me upon the way I held myself and upon my care for my clothes.
The carriage of my head did not entirely please her. My under jaw was prominent and massive, like that of a wolf, she told me. Before being entrusted to the hands of Betsy and entering this school, I had threatened to become a real wild beast; a savage brute. I had a propensity, I may add, to thrust forward my neck like one who is ready to face friends and foes alike with equal fearlessness. This combative advance of my chin was displeasing to Lady Flayskin. Twice had she told me so. Then, for a second inattention to her words, I had been again whipped by pretty Stella before the whole assembled class, and Mr. Gostock, the friend of the directress.
But deepseated habit was stronger than I. Whenever I was not paying special attention, my jawbone took that thrust forward familiar with boxers.
The "collar" was applied to me.
This instrument of torture consisted of a very high, thick, hard, leather collar which stretched the tendons of my neck in a manner that made me shriek with pain. It obliged me to hold my head erect. The shoulder straps were also tightened, to such an extent that they pierced my flesh. The corset which they had first put on me was relatively short. They selected alonger one for my use, with steel busks incomparably stiffer, and stout Mrs. Eagle, charged specially with my dressing, pulled the laces so tight that I could scarcely breathe.
Little by little, I acquired a wasp-like waist. My boots likewise were changed. Through walking badly, I had worn out of shape, those which were first given me. The new ones were far narrower and more arched. They pinched me horribly. The heels also were a good third-of-an-inch higher and very much hollowed out and pointed. If they had begun by assigning me these latter, it is certain that I should never have succeeded in making two steps without falling. Trough habit, I learnt to walk like a girl. For the rest, the new boots, like the others, were sufficiently long. Though Lady Flayskin was of opinion that a boot could not be too narow, she declared that it would be atrocious barbarity to have them too short.
This declaration was evidently regarded as sufficient for us. She took no pains to establish her subtle contention by the least argument. For that matter, I do not suppose that any reasoning would have prevented us all being afflicted with corns and bunions and our mistress was in consequence exceedingly proud.
She was equally proud of our gloves which she frequently examined, and with the minutest attention. We were punished for the least wrinkle or scratch and the only punishment employed was the whip.
It was the only recognised means of discipline. The birch was used to correct inattention and negligence. If I learnt anything at all in this establishment, it was drilled into me by the application of the birch to the proper part. It is the birch tat I must thank for the little I know.
Boys and girls were treated in the same way. Our toilet was to be our chief thought and care, and since the least incorrectness in our dress was punished by a public flogging, the reader may imagine whether or no we took care to be as neat as new pins. We had to wash our hands and faces several times a day, without counting the morning bath, and although we wore our gloves continuously, we had to draw them off at least four times a day in order to show the mistress our clean hands and carefully trimmed fingernails.
As regards bodily cleanliness, Lady Flayskin's establishment could rank as a model. But the corruption of the mind brought about in this same establishment, fatal and incurable demoralisation.
This discipline by means of the corset, gloves, and whip was without pity. He who invented it was certainly vicious, but he was no fool. The net result of this treatment was the bringing into entire and abject submissiveness the most unruly disposition.
Lady Flayskin proceeded in the most methodical manner possible and step by step.
With her, boys and girls showed upright figures, incredibly slender.
Her special pride was to point to three little girls, sisters, whom their father, a widower and man of fashion, had entrusted to her keeping at a very tender age, so soon as his wife had died.
He had not desired the responsibility of bringing up three girls. They promised to become exceedingly pretty.