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 Searle. She lives in a pretty little bungalow, some three miles deep in the hills of Ramsket; 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 Mteerut 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 pretend to think it impossible that 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 Searle, 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 Searle and had, like everybody else, heard funny reports about her, which, like I see you do now, I only half believed. Well! I did not then know she lived at Ramsket, 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 Ramsket instead of Naini Tal. There is reason in everything and Mrs Searle was his reason, no doubt. However, without being too long winded, I met Lord Henry Broadford, the Assistant Military Secretary, you know. Broadford was at school with me, and is a damned good fellow. One day, soon after I went to Ramsket, 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 Searle.”
‘ “Is it,” says I. 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 Searle 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 Searle, 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 stark-naked lady, cunt and all complete, and, says he, “Mrs Searle 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 charms 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 Searle, he added his initials and “WTBF?”
‘ “What does that mean?” I asked.
‘ “ ‘Will there be fuck?’ 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 Searle. 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 after my own signature, WTBF? 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 Searle. TWBF.”’
‘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 Searle 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 to her, jammed her knee against mine and, whilst asking me where, how and when I had known Lord Henry Broadford, showed off her splendid shoulders and magnificent bosom. I had been awfully randy on my way there, 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 at her touch — the contact of her hand on mine, to say nothing of the kisses which from time to time she gave me — I began to pluck up courage. So by way of showing her I was no fool but expected something, I offered to put my hand on her bosom, and take hold of one of her 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
