“Can’t I go home with her if she will have me and come to you another time, Charlie dearest?” said I.
“Well!” he cried, “now let us get rid of this uncertainty, Lizzie! Though it rests with you, I fancy! If you had any pluck at all you would send her word that you could not see her!”
“Then she would come in here, Charlie. You don’t know my mother! She is very kind, but if she says she will do a thing, she does it!”
“By Jove! Yes! I forgot! She would come in here and then there would be a devil of a row! Run! Lizzie! run, and keep her out like a good girl!”
I dried my eyes and quickly went down stairs, and out of the hotel, and on to the pier, along which I walked, straining my eyes in the fast gathering darkness to see where my mother could be. At last I saw a figure standing just in front of the recess, and I recognized my mother and flew to her. She received me with open arms, folding me tightly to her bosom, and there we both stood clasped together, and both sobbing as if our hearts would break.
Charlie, I can’t go into the details of that sad meeting. You must spare me and let me only say that my mother did not say one word of upbraiding or scolding; she told me that she had nearly died of fear and sorrow when she found me gone and keeping her wits about her she spread no report, asked nobody about me, but putting two and two together came to the conclusion that if I had gone with anybody it would probably have been an officer of the Hussars. Then she found out that Captain Vincent had his stables behind our house and that he had gone on leave from the very day I had disappeared, and accidentally she saw his name and that of his wife in one of the Dover papers, as being at the “Ship.” She had found out that he was not married, had come straight to Dover, on a chance had sent the note, hoping that the Hon. Mrs. Vincent might be myself, as indeed it was! She said that whatever mischief had been done had been done, and that the only thing to do was not to make it worse by raising a scandal. She told me to go back to Charlie, to stay with him for the night, to manage to return home after dark to Canterbury, where she would meet me and have a cab ready outside the station. Our reserved and quiet way of living had prevented our neighbors noticing my absence, and unless some future event happened nobody need know anything about it.
All my dreams of a little house in London came to an end. I loved my Charlie, it is true, but it was slit love more than that of the heart, and my mother easily prevailed on me to give him up. Charlie, poor fellow, was overjoyed when he saw me return. He fancied I was coming back for good, and his disappointment was intense and bitter when he knew that I had firmly resolved to return to my own home, and not to go to London with him; but presently when the first bitter draught was swallowed, he said that of all wonderfully wise women he had ever heard of, my mother beat all in letting me back to him for the night. There was and could be no scandal, and he thought that a girl possessed of such lively senses as myself could never go back to such a humdrum life as mine had been before he taught me what a heaven was to be found in his arms and from his God-like and splendid staff! We made the most of that night! I, because I firmly believed I should never have Charlie again, and he, because he did not know when he should be able to have me again, though he quite believed our separation would be but a short one.
So I returned home. Oh! what a wonderful woman my mother was! Not one word of reproach did she utter! She left that to my own heart, and I can tell you that myself upbraidings were infinitely more painful to me than anything she could have said! But what she did do was to point out the awful dangers I had run. She told me how easy it was to lose one’s good name and reputation, and how infinitely difficult it was to get anything like that back again. She gave me instance after instance of girls who, commencing by being what I was to have been, the petted mistress of a rich and handsome gentleman, ended as common whores in a brothel, dying of disease and drink before many years, if their unhappy lives had not driven them to put an end to themselves by suicide. One thing kept both of us uneasy for a while. There was every prospect that my loves with Charlie might result in a baby, but that terrible event, terrible for a girl like me and a mother like mine, did not come off. I had no child by Charlie that time, though one of those I had afterwards may have been his, and I used to like to think it was.
Ah! well! I had a quiet and not altogether unhappy life with my mother until I was fifteen. The Hussars had left Canterbury and though I naturally often thought of Charlie. I was rather indignant that he never apparently once tried to see me again. He told me afterwards that he had done all he could think of to get letters to me. Perhaps my mother intercepted them. I never got any of them. I hate the next episode in my life. One day I met a sergeant, dressed in the old and beloved Hussar uniform, I got talking to him, and from talking, I got to walking, and from walking to love making, and from love making to poking! I could not help it! I wanted a man most dreadfully, and all my old fires came back at sight of the Hussar uniform. Of course I acted deceitfully, and hid all from my mother, who hoped by trusting me fully, to prevent all such action on my part. My new lover was only on furlough. He had not been gone long before I found I was, this time, let in for a baby. My distraction nearly killed me, and all the more because I feared to tell my mother. But time told her. My figure lost its elegant shape and I had to confess—the awful, awful pain of that confession. But true to herself, my mother lost none of her wits. She found out my second seducer, went and saw him, found him to be the master tailor of the regiment, told him what an excellent dressmaker I was, proposed marriage, held out the promise of a fair dowry, her savings for many years—poor mother!—and I was married to Sergeant Thomas Wilson in time to save the legitimacy of my baby. But we did not live happily.
One day when my husband was out, Charlie came to see me. Oh! I was glad to see him. We had a long explanation and it all ended on his having me on my husband’s bed! I was had again—joyful thought—by the darling man who had taught me what a sweet thing it was! But hardly had Charlie gone than in came Tom. Going from room to room he saw his own bed tumbled, and then he grinned! He accused me of having had Charlie whom he had met, and of whom he had heard about, goodness knows how, and there and then he made me an offer which I accepted. It was that to bring him custom, I should let myself be—admired. He would hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing! I was too unhappy with him not to jump at an offer which would give me back Charlie! All that had to be done was that a suit of clothes should be ordered from time to time, and Charlie ordered at least a dozen. Some other suits of clothes were ordered by other officers, and my husband had them all, everyone, from Colonel to Junior Lieutenant, on his books, and I had them all as my lovers. I had several children. I only know the father of one, for certain, and that was my husband. I think the second was Charlie’s but I am not sure. None lived.
That is my story, a sad mixture of happiness and misery, folly on my side and wisdom on my mother’s. I know I am no better than I ought to be, but I cannot help it! There! Let us say no more about it!
Poor Lizzie! As I would gaze at her beautiful face in which nothing but purity, chastity and great power and self-control could be seen by the eye of one who had not the same means of knowing what her real nature was, I could not but wonder how it could be that such a sweet countenance could be the seat of a Temple in which Venus reigned, not only to the exclusion of all other Gods and Goddesses, but with more than ordinary power. I must leave my gentle readers to form their own conclusions of this lovely wanton, but that there was much good in her I became convinced the more I knew her. At all events it is not for me to throw the stone of condemnation at her. To enjoy a woman and then run her down is not my motto. Lizzie must have had a yearning for a purer and a better life, for she was constantly urging me to send for my beloved Louie, warning me that if I did not I should most certainly constantly wander from the path of virtue, and also saying that it was not fair to any woman, especially one who loved her husband, in every sense of the
expansive word, to leave her to pine alone. Well, it was my hope that either I should rejoin my Louie in England, or that she should come out to me in India, but the fates were against it; and Venus herself, who may have considered that one so fit as myself to be her high priest, should not be restricted to only one Temple in which to offer up the sacrifice of incense so dear to her, but should have his delightful duties extended to worship of her in other shrines, of which so many were either already consecrated, or ready to be opened, for that holy and voluptuous rite.
During the remainder of my stay in Nowshera, I enjoyed my tender Lizzie in all tranquility and my tender girl readers may be sure that every opportunity was taken, and none lost, of procuring both for her and for myself the most complete pleasure which our active senses could expect. Her poor thighs were still marked by the violence of the brutal Searles when I last saw them, but the sweet, sweet mound between them lost neither beauty nor attraction on that account. To this day I look back upon that week of ardent love making with regretful delight. I have never yet succeeded in regretting having sinned against heaven and my dearest wife, in having broken the seventh commandment with Lizzie. Stolen waters are sweet, saith Solomon, and I, Charles Devereaux, say to that Amen, Amen, verily that is true.
Our new station staff officer, my good friend Major Stone, got a dak for Lizzie and two ekkhas for me, and we started off on our respective routes on the same day; Lizzie started in the morning and I in the evening, she making for India proper, and I for Shakkote, at the foot of the hills on which Cherat is situated. It was not without a pang on each side that we parted, and we exchanged locks of hair, pulled from our respective bushes. I have hers still and never look at its now somewhat faded curl but that the delicious days and nights I spent in her fair arms at Nowshera, come back to my memory with a force that if she only knew it, adds to the happiness I feel every time I seek the joys I experience so keenly, between my Louie’s delightful and voluptuous thighs, and my Louie does not lose, I can assure you, by my having been unfaithful with Lizzie!
I took Soubratie with me, leaving “Mrs. Soubratie” to look after my luggage for which her husband was to return when he had seen me safe as far as Shakkote. I heard that she formed the delight of the gallant officers at Nowshera during her husband’s absence, and that she brought a big bag full of rupees with her to Cherat, where her charms enabled her to add a good many more to the stock earned by her active and diligent grotto.
Of my journey, of my arrival at Cherat, and the two lovely maidens I found there who as yet had not known man, but to whom it was my most happy privilege to communicate the thrilling sensations of soft desire and voluptuous sentiment, I must tell my readers in my second series.
Volume II
I never in my life journeyed in such an uncomfortable conveyance as an ekkha, and I only hope that none of my fair readers may be subjected to such aches and pains as I had to suffer. As for my brave male friends who may peruse these memoirs, I can only hope that, should an evil fate bring discomfort upon them, they may be solaced by remembering that the fact is that briars and flowers both grow in the world, and that their path won’t always be through all briars, that it may be that briars and flowers will follow one another in far too quick succession for a life of even comfort. And yet, who is there who has not suffered agony and nights of ecstasy bought by the subsidence of pain! With me, on this occasion, however, It was pain following the acme of voluptuous pleasure, and oh! how different was my seat in the execrable ekkha to my soft reclinings on my lovely Lizzie Wilson’s fair belly, and the cushion between her rounded ivory thighs! Ah! I had been wandering indeed in the field of flowers, and had now reached the desert of briars and thorns.
But what is an ekkha? some of my fair readers may ask. I will tell you. It is a two-wheeled conveyance much used in Northern India. It has no springs. It has a platform with but three square feet on which you sit as best you can. It is drawn by a small pony. The shafts generally rise so platform on which you sit generally slips back. The driver sits on the shafts, and if, as is very likely, he is highly odoriferous, you get the benefit of his evil smell. But that is not all about the ekkha. It has its good points. It can go almost anywhere. It is light and strong. Many and many a time I have seen one carrying half a dozen natives, who can squat with ease where one European cannot find half room enough for himself. It is a cheap conveyance, and it is generally a most gorgeous one to behold, for every one of its four corners rises a pillar of white carved with all the cunning of the India carpenter’s art. Over this is a dome generally surmounted by some brass ornament, and the entire ekkha is painted in most brilliant colors, and ornamented with quaint patterns cut out of brass, hung with little tinkling bells, and in fact, is of the most barbaric appearance which pleases the native eye and fancy so much.
Amongst the European soldiers and their wives the ekkha is known as a “Jingling Johnnie,” a name which perfectly describes the noise it makes when in motion, for it does nothing but jingle, thus adding to the civilized ear as much torment as its uncomfortable shape and motion do to his feelings. Altogether it is not a kind of carriage which I can recommend as forming one of the comforts of Indian travel.
Added to this great discomfort were several others. First. the road had been cut to pieces—by the thousands of men, and carts of all descriptions which included artillery, light and heavy, which for the last two or three years had been constantly pouring along it, over all the road, to and from Afghanistan. It was consequently inches deep in dust as fine as flour. This dust rose’ during the day and did not settle for hours and formed a perfect fog which choked the driver, dried up his mouth and filled his eyes and ears, besides covering me from head to foot. Again, how many camels died on the march? I believe they numbered tens, even twenty of thousands. Judging from the stench, which hardly without break, filled the air between the outskirts of Nowshera and Publi, there must have been a fair proportion of those deceased camels all along the road. As fast as possible the carcasses were either burnt or buried, but enough were left above ground to sicken even the strongest stomach. Oh! Lizzie! Lizzie! how different from the sweet perfume which always emanated from your, beauteous charms, when you clasped me in your ecstasies of love and voluptuous lascivious passion, and returned me transport for transport on that never to be forgotten bed, on which I so often, so often, fucked you, in the delightful public Bungalow I am now so swiftly leaving behind me! Oh! indeed these were briars, briars after flowers, pricking thorns after smelling the sweet, sweet rose.
It grew dark soon after I had commenced my painful and uncomfortable journey. Every now and then a mounted Native Lancer would pass and by the feeble light of our candle lantern, I could see his glittering spear and sword, and the metal ornaments of his horse’s accoutrements, for the road between Attock on the Indus and Peshawar is never quite safe, and is, or was at this time, largely patrolled. More than once Nowshera itself had been sacked, during years when there was no war in Afghanistan, and naturally if it had been unsafe in times of peace, it was less safe now that the war had just closed.
I dare say had the ekkha been less hideously uncomfortable I might have dreamed away the hours it took me to reach Dubli by running over in my mind the totally unexpected and rapturously vivid joys which had made my stay in Nowshera so truly delightful, but I must confess that instead of blessing my stars, I cursed them freely, as I felt my back getting more and more broken by the strained position I was forced to maintain, and I longed for the time when I should be able to leave the cursed vehicle in which my evil fate had condemned me to travel.
At last I reached Publi, a small village situated where the road to Cherat turns off. It was full of liveliness, native shops, in which comestibles and sweet meats were exposed for sale, were still open. more or less brilliantly lighted up with—oil lamps, consisting of an earthenware cup and a wick dripping in oil. Men, women and children were moving about, as if the idea of sleep never ente
red their minds, and the sound of native minstrelsy (God save the mark), and the monotonous beat of the favorite tom-tom, rose fitfully on the air. Bullocks, elephants, camels, horses and dogs lined each side of the road, and added their various noises and smells to the general collection.
We waited just long enough for our drivers to obtain a supply of parched corn, and a drink of water, and to stretch our cramped legs, and then Soubratie and I once more mounted on the ekkhas, and we set off at a good pace along the Kaccha road, towards the mountains now hidden from sight by the deep darkness of the night. But overhead the whole heavens were ablaze with stars, and if we had a more uneven road to travel we at all events left the dust and the stench of the main road behind us. The night air, sweeping across the open plain, felt pure and refreshing, and whatever were the discomforts, if any, of which Soubratie might have to complain I had none but those caused by the uncomfortable position I was forced to maintain in my ekkha. Quite bad enough for me, however, to prevent my entertaining any pleasant thoughts, for, if I did happen to think of Lizzie, it was not to wish for her sweetest, most lovely and delicious cunt, but to envy her the comfort of the Dak Gharry in which she was fast rolling home to Muttra.
In spite of the friendly warning which my excellent friend Jack Stone had given me, not only not to shut my eyes between Publi and Shakkoe but to be sure and have my sword drawn, ready for action at a moment’s notice in case of attack by robbers and in spite of my cramped position, sleep at last came with her friendly hand overpowered me. I had indeed so far followed honest Jack’s suggestion and drawn my’ sword, and placed it across my lap, but I could not keep awake. I fell fast asleep, nor did I waken until the ekkha stopped and I found myself in a little grove of trees close to which was the last native shanty beside a guard of native infantry, where I was told I had to dismount as I was at Shakkote.
Erotic Classics II Page 150
