Once the subject of love and women was started rolling the tongues of those who had been most reticent during dinner were set wagging, and I found a most entertaining host in the fat, pudgy, double-chinned major, who seemed to take a fancy to me. He proposed that we should adjourn outside where the band of the regiment was performing some operatic airs, and lively dance music, and there we sat, in those voluptuous Madras long arm chairs, enjoying whatever coolness there was in the air, the sounds of the suggestive music and the brilliancy of the myriad of bright stars which glittered overhead, literally like “diamonds in the sky.”
“Searles, our Brigade Major, said he would come this evening,” said the Major, “but I rather think he won’t.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he is struck with a very pretty little woman in the Dak Bungalow.”
This I guess was a shot at me.
“Indeed! Well! I hope he will succeed and get his greens! Poor chap!”
“Oh! Do you! Well! We are all saying that it was a damned shame, because we had made up our minds that you were surely in her good graces yourself, and we thought it mean of Searles to try and cut in whilst you were out! ha! ha! ha!”
“Oh!” I said quietly, “but I am a married man, Major! and have just left my wife, and do not go in for that sort of thing! So, as far as I am concerned, Major Searles is welcome to the lady if he can persuade her to grant him her favors.”
“Well! But Searles is a married man himself, Devereaux!”
“Oh! I dare say! I don’t mean to imply that a married man is impervious to the charms of other women because he is married. I am not strait-laced, and I dare say I should be quite as liable as anybody else to have a woman who was not my wife, but you know I have not been married long enough to be tired of my wife, and I have not been long enough away from her to feel any inclination to commit adultery yet!”
“Well! Searles is a Major—but he’s a brute! Yet I somehow pity the poor devil too! I don’t know how it is, but he and his wife, a devilish fine woman, a perfect Venus in her way, don’t get on altogether well; in fact she has left him!”
“Oh! my! do you say so?”
“Yes! Now mind you Devereaux, you must not give me as your authority, but I can tell you that he treated that poor woman like a brute, half-killing her with a blow from the side of his hair brush; devilish—nearly smashed her skull, you know, and after that she left him, and went and set up on her own account at Ranikhet.”
I am sure my dear readers are amused at my assuming the air of a thoroughly moral young husband still contented with the breasts of his spouse, as Solomon, I think it is, tells us we ought to be, but of course I was not going to amuse my new friend or indeed any others, with tales which somehow spread so wonderfully quickly, and in rapidly widening circles, until they reach the ears of those we would least wish to hear them. Really and truly, my heart and conscience pricked me when this conversation brought to mind my beloved little Louie, and I thought of her in her lovely bed, perhaps weeping in sad silence as she prayed for the safety, welfare and quick return home, of him whom she loved so dearly, who made her joyous by day, and gave her rapturous fun at night, her husband, and the darling father of her angel baby girl. But alas! the spirit is willing and the flesh weak, as I have remarked before; and the weakness of the flesh exceeds the strength of the spirit in importance.
But the conversation was bearing directly on a subject which was becoming interesting to me since I had seen Searles and heard Lizzie’s indignant remark that his wife was a regular whore, whose price for her charms was, however, uncommonly high. I did not mind what my fat major said about Searles’ designs on Lizzie that evening, because Lizzie would have to have been a most unaccountably stupid deceiver, if she had merely expressed abhorrence of him to blind me! No, I felt certain the abhorrence was real and true, and I had no fear that I should find that she had afforded him a retreat, either hospitable or the reverse in her sweetest nook, when I got home to her again.
“How do you mean setting up on her own account, Major?” said I.
“Oh! hum! well! look here; bend your head a little nearer to me! I don’t want to talk too loudly! Well! she is—that is any fellow almost, who cares to give her a cool five hundred rupees, can have her.”
“Ah! bosh! Major, I can’t believe that! Surely you are mistaking some ill-natured gossip for facts!”
“Oh no! I’m not!” replied my pudgy friend, speaking with great gusto. “By God! Sir! If seeing is believing I can swear to it! I can swear to the fact!”
“What!” said I in well effected incredulous tones, “you want to persuade me that an officer’s wife, a lady like Mrs. Searles must be, has actually done a monstrous, not to say such an idiotic thing, as not only to leave her husband, a thing I cannot understand, and to set up as a whore, and in such a place as Ranikhet, a thing I cannot understand! Surely, Major, you are mistaken! Remember! we are told to believe nothing we hear and only half what we see!”
“I know! I know!” said he, still as calmly as if he were Moses laying down the law, “but look here Devereaux, you won’t tell me I am a liar if I say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that my proof of what I say is that I, Jack Stone, have had Mrs. Searles, and paid for my game! Yes sir! Rupees five hundred did Jack Stone pay Mrs. Searles for a night in Mrs. Searles’ bed.”
“Goodness, and you have actually—”
“I have actually had her, sir! and had her well! and a damned fine poke she is too, I can tell you, and well worth the five hundred she asks for the fun. Such a damned fine poke is she that Jack Stone, who is not a rich man but must lay up for a rainy day, has put three times five hundred rupees away in the bank of Simla, and means to lodge them some day soon in the bank of Ranikhet, Mrs. Searles banker and sole proprietress, which bank is her voluptuous slit, between her voluptuous thighs. Did you mark that, young man!”
“And does Searles know this?” I asked, still incredulous.
“What? that I have had his wife?”
“No, not that you in particular have had her, but that she is had by other men, and for money paid down on the nail.”
“Know it! of course he does! It’s her way of paying him off for his brutal conduct to her, to give him nuts by writing and telling him how nicely she is dragging his name through the mud.”
“Then why does he not divorce her?” I cried, indignantly, for I felt that it was monstrous that a wife, no matter what her grievance might be, should behave in such an outrageous manner.
“Ah!—but sink your voice a little lower, Devereaux, not that all this is not perfectly well known by our fellows, but about the divorce. Well you see if what I have heard is true, a divorce is the last thing Searles can get, or would care to ask for, no matter how much he might wish it could be managed.
“Certain little things would come out at the trial, and he might find himself not only minus a wife whom he hates, and also minus his liberty and what remains of his honor, and I don’t think anyone would care to become a convict even to rid himself of his wife!”
“What was it?” asked I, quite bitten with curiosity.
“Oh! Searles was a long time in Persia before he married, and he got the Persian taste for boys! I wig! sodomy! you know!” And the modest major sank his voice to a whisper. “Sodomy! he tried to get Mrs. Searles to acquire a taste for it herself, but she, like a proper woman, indignantly refused to comply. It might have stopped there, but one night Searles, full of zeal and brandy, actually ravished his poor wife’s—hem—hem—well!—bum! and from that day she hated him—quite naturally, I think! Then of course she gave him the nag, nag, rough side of her tongue, until he nearly killed her, as I told you, in his passion. Then she went and set up at Ranikhet.”
“But,” said I, horrified to hear such a disgusting story, so loathsome on either side, “how is it she ca
n demand such enormous sums for which I expect equally good returns can be got almost anywhere in India!”
“Oh! but you don’t know. First of all, Mrs. Searles is in society—she is, I suppose, the most beautiful woman in India, if not in all Asia!”
“In society!”
“Yes! bless you! you don’t understand. Now come! You, who have seen the world at home! Have you not heard how Mrs. So-and-So is suspected of poking, and yet you have met her every night at the best houses? Have you not seen common or fast women, who dare to do what your own wife or sister dare not, and nobody says more than that they are fast? Do you suppose you know what women actually do poke, and those who only get the credit for it? It is just the same with Mrs. Searles. She lives in a pretty little bungalow, some three miles deep in the hills of Ranikhet, she calls it Honeysuckle Lodge, but the funny fellows call it Cunnie-Fuckle Lodge; Ha! ha! ha! and she has named the hill it is on Mount Venus; she stays there all the hot weather, in the cold weather she goes to Lucknow or Meerut, or Agra, or Benares, or wherever she likes. No fellow has her without an introduction. The Viceroy is damned spoony on her, and that is sufficient to keep the fashionable people quiet. People suspect, people know, but people only pretend to think it possible for the quiet lady, living in a little bungalow, away from all the world, minding her garden and her flowers, is anything but a poor, persecuted wife whose husband is a brute!”
“Oh! that is it! So to have her you must get an introduction?”
“Yes! Without that you might as well cry for the moon!”
“And how is it to be managed?” I asked out of simple curiosity, for I had no notion of having Mrs. Searles, but I was interested in this curious story, of which I did not know how much to believe or how much to discredit.
“Ha! ha! ha! Devereaux! I fancy you are beginning to think whether you can find five hundred rupees for yourself, eh?”
“Not a bit!” said I indignantly, “I have no idea of such a thing, but simply asked out of curiosity!”
“Well!” said the pudgy little major, puffing his cheroot hard as it had nearly gone out, “no harm to tell you, anyhow! You can get an introduction from any man who has had her! I could give you one for instance. See! This is how I had her. I had heard of Mrs. Searles and had, like everybody else, heard funny reports about her, which, like I see you do now, you only half believe. Well! I did not then know she lived at Ranikhet, but chance made me pitch upon that place to spend three weeks leave in during the hot weather of ’75. The Viceroy and his staff were spending the time there also, and everybody was wondering why he chose Ranikhet instead of Naini Tal. There is reason in everything and Mrs. Searles was his reason, no doubt. However, I must not be too long winded. I met Lord Henry Broadford, the Assistant Military Secretary, you know. Broadford had been at school with me, and is a damned good fellow. One day, soon after I went to Ranikhet, I was standing talking to Broadford, when the finest, handsomest woman I had ever seen walked by, and Broadford took off his hat and smiled, and she bowed. She looked full at me as I took off my hat and by George sir! she made my heart thump in my bosom, she was so lovely. When she was out of earshot I said, ‘Harry, who is your friend? By God, she is a clinker and no mistake!’”
“‘Don’t you know,’ says he, ‘why, that is the famous Mrs. Searles.’
“‘Is it,’ says I, and then I asked him if he knew whether it was true she poked, as people said. Broadford looked at me and grinned and said:
“‘Would you like to know for certain, Stone?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘the most certain way is to poke her yourself, for you might not believe me if I told you that I was in bed with her up to five o’clock this morning!”
“‘I don’t believe you, you beggar!’ said I, ‘you are laughing at me.’
“‘All right!’ says he, ‘have you five hundred rupees to lose on a bet?’
“‘Well!’ I hesitated, five hundred is a large sum and the subject was not worth it. Seeing me hesitate, he said. ‘Well, would you give five hundred rupees to have Mrs. Searles yourself, Jack?’
“‘Yes,’ said I, plump as could be.
“‘Then come along with me,’ said Broadford.
“Well, we went to my hotel, and there Broadford made me write a cheque, and get five one-hundred rupee notes from the native banker, new and crisp, in exchange. Then he made me write a letter addressed to Mrs. Searles, in which I asked her might I come and take dinner with her on such and such a day, naming the day. I was more than half afraid the fellow was humbugging me, but he pulled out a case from his pocket, and showed me a lovely photo in it of a naked, stark naked lady, bush and all complete, and, says he, Mrs. Searles gives one of these to each of her lovers, and she gave me this this morning, see, her name, date and the number of times I had her last night! Well, I looked at the photo, and sure enough there was no mistaking it was the lady I had just seen, besides which I remembered having seen photos of her taken in the plains.
“By God! sir! the sight of such lovely charm settled my hash. I told Broadford that he would have to bear the brunt if anything went wrong. He swore all would be right, and after I had signed my name to the note to Mrs. Searles, he added his initials and W. T. B. P.
“‘What does that mean?’ I asked.
“‘Will there be pokes? of course!’ Well, this done, I put the five good crisp notes in the letter, and we went to the post office, registered it, and then I began to think I had been made a fool of. But it was all right. The day afterwards I got a registered letter. It was from Mrs. Searles. In it were my five notes. She said she was very sorry, but that she did not think she could have the pleasure of my company at dinner for another ten days, would I write again in about a week’s time, if that would suit me, and she would be sure not to disappoint me. I rushed off, found Broadford, and nearly had a fit of apoplexy from excitement. By his advice I waited some eight days, then sent another letter, and again enclosed the notes, and I added on my own hook, W. T. B. P. Next came a letter by hand. It said ‘my dear Jack’ this time. It invited me to dine the next evening at eight, and ended with Matilda Searles. W.T.B.P.’”
“And did you go?”
“Oh! What a question! Of course I did. By God, Sir! I was simply bursting. Even now I can hardly tell my story with any degree of quiet! Well, I went; I was received by her in an awfully pretty little drawing room, most beautifully furnished, and bristling with knick-knacks, mirrors, pictures and everything that can make a room handsome and elegant. The floor was covered with carpet into which one’s feet sank as one walked on it. Mrs. Searles was sitting reading when I arrived, and as soon as the bearer had gone out of the room she came and took my hand, shook it, and then kissed me! I was so excited, I felt such a sense of false shame, that at first I was like a stuck pig! But she quickly put me at my ease, sat on the sofa, made me sit next her, jammed her knee against mine, and whilst asking me where, how and when I had known Lord Henry Broadford, she showed off her splendid shoulders and magnificent bosom. I was awfully randy in my way, I had been randy all the days I had been waiting for her, but I was so knocked over by the elegance I saw, on my first arrival, that I declare, if the truth were told, I felt inclined to run away. But little by little, as I got to see the woman I was going to have, as I began to hear her talk as if we were quite old chums, and as she talked, her hand playing with mine, to say nothing of some kisses from time to time which she gave me, I began to pluck up courage. So by the way of showing her I was no fool, but expected something, I just made the offer to put my hand on her bosom, and take hold of one of the glorious bubbies, of which I saw nearly half over her dress. But she laughed and said it was not time for that yet, that when we had dined, and I had had my smoke, we would go to bed, where I should find her all I could wish for, and where I should have the fullest liberty, so long as I did not exceed the bounds which every honest man observed wh
o had a woman. Well! I kissed her and begged her pardon. I had a rose bud in my button hole, and she took it out and said, see, I place your rose where you shall be! and she put it between her bubbies and said, there it is, a rose among the lilies, but that is all of you I can allow at present to be there. Well, sir! we had a splendid dinner. In spite of my love I did wire into a rattling good feed, and afterwards she made me smoke a cigar, and when it was nearly done she said she would go and undress, and that, when I heard a little bell ring, I was to go to her bedroom which she had already pointed out. Soon I heard the bell and I went. Oh! I was delighted! By God, sir! I had had many fine women, but I never saw one who was a patch to Mrs. Searles when undressed. She had on a quite transparent kind of nightgown, which covered her from neck to heels. It had no sleeves, and her arms were something splendid. Her bubbies looked more enticing covered with this transparent stuff, than when I saw them bare. Her nipples looked like strawberries, red and luscious. I would have been able to see her mound, but all the whole of the way, from her chin to her feet, there was a broad rose-colored ribbon, which fell exactly over it, so that I could only see the fringe of hair on either side, where it passed over her bush. I declare, Devereaux, I cannot describe the night I had with her, for it would drive you wild and you would be trying to slip into that woman at the Dak Bungalow, and it would never do, you being as you say, a married man, but I never—never—never had such a glorious poking in my life. It is true I was five years younger than I am now, and as I keep a pretty little piece of brown meat, and have my regular greens twice a week, I might not be able to do as good a turn now, as I did then, but I had that woman eight solid times, sir, seven times before I went to sleep, and once in the morning. She said herself that she did not expect it of me at first sight, as she said I was too fat, and fat men were bad pokes as a rule. When I went away after breakfast she gave me a case like the one Broadford showed me, and told me not to open it until I got home, and she told me she relied on me not to show it to any one, unless I thought him a fit fellow for her to have. I’ll show it to you now! Ha! Bearer! Khitmatgar! koi, hai!” and the excited major shouted to the servants, one of whom came. By his orders the major’s bearer brought a little writing dispatch box, and from this he took a small case, some six inches by four in size, and then, giving me a nudge, he walked to the anti-room of the Mess, which was deserted, showed me a very well-executed photo of a perfectly naked woman. On the back of the photo was written—from M. Searles to Jack Stone—15 June 1875, —8.
Erotic Classics II Page 144
