Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/512

502[April 24, 1869] smiled. This, however, passed, and she looked steadily at the agitated girl.

"Geraldine, my dear, you quite forget yourself. You call upon me, with authority, to dismiss this excellent lady, whose aid I have, at great personal sacrifice to myself, secured on your behalf. Her invariable condition is, that no one interferes with her system of education. To resist is to lose her. I have been compelled to pay her highly, in advance. Dismissal is out of the question. But what I can do I will. Let us go back to her."

She drew her stepchild's arm within her own. It felt like the coil of a snake. The reception of her just complaint had given shape to her indefinite misgiving. Geraldine was already convinced that a secret understanding existed between the two women to degrade and mortify—perhaps maltreat her. What was to be done?

"For my sake, dear Mrs. Manning," said Melusina, with a sweet, entreating smile, as they re-entered, "you will forgive my wilful one—will you not?"

"At your request. For this time," replied that imperturbable lady. Then, turning icily to her pupil: "Music next, if you please."

The next morning, Geraldine, the tumult of whose mind had rendered her unfit for study, found her tasks once more augmented. She lost heart, and, on a sharp reproof from her governess, flung down the book, declaring she could do no more. If she intended to kill her, she might.

"I do not destroy; I mend," said Mrs. Manning, unimpassioned as ever. And once more the riding-rod appeared.

"By what right do you offer me this outrage, defenceless as I am?" cried Geraldine, indignantly. "You are stronger than I, it is true; but lay one finger on me, and I will shriek till I am heard and rescued."

"Spare your cries," replied the governess. "There is no one within hearing of this house who will not disregard them. As for my strength—look here."

She caught Geraldine's wrists in one hand.

The action manacled her, as it were, with rings of steel. Nor that alone; it seemed to paralyse her entire frame. At the same moment the woman fixed her great gloomy eyes upon her with a stare so concentrated and manacing, that the poor girl, sickening with terror, felt as if she were in the clutches of some furious beast.

"Spare me!" she gasped. "I will—will obey!"

"Well for yourself that you have done so. Bare your neck and shoulders."

Mrs. Manning released the trembling hands, which had hardly strength to do the office commanded. They did it at length; and Geraldine's fair neck and round pearl-white shoulders received the first angry touch they had ever known. The strokes were few, perhaps slight; but each elicited a low cry—the plaint of wounded delicacy, not of pain.

Then her governess locked up the whip, and left the room.

It would be useless to dwell upon the anguish of the succeeding moments. The thought that she—the tenderly-nurtured child, the darling of the kind convent sisterhood, the grown accomplished woman—should be exposed to the punishment of a child—worse, of a slave! Geraldine gazed wildly round, and waved her arms as if for help. Then the thought of escape occurred. She flew to the barred casement.

There, without, as if anticipating her intend, stood, like a motionless sentinel, the horrible La Pareuse! Geraldine fancied she saw upon her ghastly face a grin of exultation. From that moment she felt her situation hopeless.

In effect, the victory was already gained. An idea that they intended to render her mad, and, if thwarted, might use some dreadful violence, took possession of her perturbed mind. She ceased to resent or oppose the orders given her.

Mrs. Manning did not use her triumph nobly. She increased the tasks, she repeated (and increased) the correction, until, one day, mad with pain and shame, Geraldine broke in upon her stepmother, and, turning her beautiful wealed shoulders to her gaze:

"See!" she exclaimed—"cruel heartless woman! See how I am used under your roof—perhaps with your sanction—the child of the man whose wishes were your law—your law! Is this your tenderness and care? Did you take my inheritance—almost, alas! my father's love—away from me, and are these shameful lashes your inhuman return?"

Melusina turned her green lambent eyes slowly on the speaker.

"And you dare address this speech to me?" she said, in a low creeping tone, and, rising, seemed to uncoil like a surprised snake that shows its fangs. "Reproaches to me? complaints to me? Then take the truth. Do you conceive, you little fool, that I have not read you from