Venus in India. Charles Devereaux
hardly got across the road before Searle, who had apparently been watching for you to go, sneaked on to the verandah around the corner, and asked if I had got his note. Now I had received a note from him which I had kept to myself, and which I had not shown you, dear, for I did not want to make you jealous; a fine production it is, too, and a very useful one for me, I can tell you. I think he must have been either drunk or mad when he wrote it, for he could not have written a more damning piece of evidence against himself if he had tried to do it in his sober senses. Oh! Mrs Searle would give a cartful of her rupees to have it, for she could then get the divorce she longs for. Plenty of good fellows are ready to marry her if she could get divorced, and I know she has often said she would be glad to give up her present life; but Searle knows this, and his only revenge against her is to behave so prudently as not to give her any chance. If ever he has a woman it is so on the sly that no one knows it. Well, he has written down in black and white that he has had me — and since Mrs Searle left him, too. Let’s light a candle and I’ll show you the letter!’
Full of curiosity and rather astonished to find how the truth comes out, for I had certainly understood Lizzie to say that Searle had never had her, nor ever should have her by her permission, I went for my candle and lit it. Lizzie then took the precious letter out of her pocket and gave it to me to read.
It commenced with prayers and entreaties to let him come and have her whilst I was at mess. It said that he knew well that I did nothing all day and night but fuck her, that by this time she must be tired of me and at least that a little of her accustomed change of diet would be agreeable. From prayers, it went to using threats. Her husband’s regiment was at Peshawar, now with a newly appointed colonel who was death on adultery and fornication, and he had given out that the first time he found any of it going on amongst the married women of his regiment, he would set the penal laws on the subject in force and that he (Searle) had plenty of evidence which would put me (Devereaux) into prison and send her out of the country branded as an unchaste woman, a whore and an adulteress, and that unless she admitted him to her embraces he would help the colonel to make good his word. Then came more prayers and more earnest entreaties — then offers of a thousand rupees (twice what his own wife charged) — jewellery, anything, if she would but consent, and then in a postscript, he boasted that he had already fucked her, at Agra, on an occasion when, stunned by a fall from an overthrown gharry, she had been carried into his bungalow, and seeing who she was, and determined not to lose the precious opportunity, he had raped her in her unconscious state, and enjoyed the ‘wealth of her voluptuous cunt’ — he actually used these last words.
‘The intense blackguard,’ I exclaimed, moved to great wrath by the reading of this precious epistle.
‘You may say so, Charlie! But now hear what the brute did. At first he asked had I got his letter. I said yes. Then he asked me in a wheedling tone would I consent and let him have me. I said not for all the thousand rupees in India, that he was too loathsome a brute for me to touch with the end of a barge-pole, let alone take in my arms. Then he began to threaten me with our new colonel, saying that I could not get away from here now unless he, Searle, gave me an order for a gharry, that everything like a cart with wheels was engaged for the next ten days, and that long before that time was over the regiment would be on the march from Peshawar to Muttra, and that the colonel, finding me here instead of at Muttra, where he had ordered me to go, would be furious, and he, Searle, would take the opportunity then of telling him why I stopped at Nowshera, namely, to have three separate officers who stayed here, two on their way down country, and one on his way to join his battalion at Cherat, and he would tell who these officers were, and it would go hard on them, each of them would lose two thousand rupees or get two years’ imprisonment, and “then they will have good reason to curse you for being a damned little bitch, for why should you condemn them to these fines and punishment when by letting me have you for an hour or two you can prevent any harm arising, and I will keep my word if you don’t …” and he got more and more angry.
‘I told him I would see him damned before I would let him touch me, and I dared him to report me, or you or the others, and I reminded him of what he had said in his letter, and how completely I would cover myself, and you, and others by it, and I advised him to go away quietly or I would call the khansama. That put him in as complete a passion as ever I saw a man. He rushed at me and swore he would have me. I put myself like a shot behind a chair. He stopped for a moment, unbuttoned his trousers, pulled out his prick, which was in a furious state, and then rushed at me again. I shouted for the khansama, but Searle did not mind. He seized me around the waist, and lifted me off the floor, and ran with me into my room, dashing the chick down as he lunged into it. But I was not going to be ravished without making the best defence I could. I got my ten nails well into his cheeks, and scrawned them down as hard as I could. I could see and feel the blood spurting. Searle yelled and cursed, swore and called me the most awful, dreadful names. I gave him as good a clawing as I could, but he got me down on the bed, pulled my petticoats up to his face, and lay on top of me with all his weight, trying to get his knees between mine. But I kept my thighs locked hard; although he pounded with his knees on my thighs, and nearly choked me with his hand on my throat, he could not get between them. I could feel the tip of his prick banging against my motte like a bar of iron, but he never once got it nearer my cunt than that. At last, finding that he could not manage to make me open my legs to him that way, he began to put his hand between my thighs, and to pinch me most frightfully. Oh! he gave me dreadful pinches. I am sure I am all black and blue, but his weight was off me now, I was able to scream; and I yelled. I called out murder! murder! help! help! as loud as I could, and at the same time I tried to get hold of his balls, so as to crush them if I could, but he managed to keep them out of my reach, whilst he pinched, scratched and beat my thighs as though he would tear them to pieces. But before my fast failing strength left me, help came. Two young civilians came in today from Peshawar, whilst you were dressing for the mess, and got a room on the other side of the bungalow. They at last heard my screams, and came running to see what was the matter. When Searle saw them he ordered them out of the room, saying that I was his wife, and that he had a right to treat me as he liked; but I tried to get out of his clutches, and I implored the young men to save me, and I said that Searle was not my husband and was trying to rape me. The young men then ordered him off my bed, and as he did not obey, one of them pulled him off. Then Searle went for him, for he was blind mad with rage and passion, but the young man was pretty cool, and he gave Searle a most dreadful blow in the face with his fist — oh! I was so delighted to hear it — it made him stagger and the blood spurt from his nose. But Searle seemed really like a lunatic. He rushed again at the young man, and hit him several nasty blows, so that the second one came to his friend’s assistance. I urged the two on and Searle got a thrashing, I can tell you! Still he would not quit. By this time the khansama, the principal coolies, your servant Soubratie and everyone belonging to the bungalow had come. I could not help continuing to scream. Everybody went for Searle, and at last he was turned out of the house yelling and fighting like a wild beast. Some soldiers came running off the road, and at first, seeing who Searle was, wanted to help him, but the young men told them what he had done, and apparently they don’t love Searle at the barracks, for these men joined in beating him, and upon my word I began to get frightened. I thought they would kill him between them all. Oh! the row was tremendous. Presently down came the picket from the barracks; the soldiers seeing them ran away. Searle was lying on the ground, a crowd around him; some men had torches alight, and the khansama had got a lantern, and you never saw such a group as they formed. The young men who had helped to save me from being ravished explained the whole matter to the NCO of the picket, and as Searle’s trousers were open, and his prick showing, though no longer stiff and standing, he understood the whole thing. Searle, though hardly able to breathe, wanted them to take the young men prisoner, but the NCO begged them to go away, and persuaded him to let himself be carried home, for he could not walk. Oh! Charlie! it made me so sick and ill! I don’t know how I have been able to tell you so much — my head is splitting, and I feel all pounded to death by that brute.’
I leave my readers to appreciate the state of anger and disgust towards Searle which this vivid narrative of poor Lizzie’s produced. Oh! I had come home hoping for such a sweet night of delightful fucking, but it was plain that that was out of the question, and indeed, all desire, other than for vengeance on Searle, had gone out of