'But she has disgraced her own, too, Captain Devereaux! Fancy what the natives must think when they see a lady – for she is a lady by birth and education and all – sell her charms to anyone who can afford to pay five hundred rupees for the possession of them – there is only one name for such a woman, and it is not prostitute, but one more vigorous and of course Saxon.'
I soon became a welcome guest at the colonel's house. The family was what we would call 'homely'.
During our married life Louie and I had lived very quietly. It was in bed that we lived a stormy life if anywhere! Fanny Selwyn, though not to be compared in character with my Louie, did in many ways remind me of her so that I found a charm at the colonel's house which made an invitation to tea always agreeable. On one of those early occasions on which I dined with them, our conversation fell on the advantages of education, and Fanny said, with an accent of great yearning, 'I know I do so wish I had a governess! I shall never be able to teach myself from books without help, and as for teaching a child anything more than their multiplication table and ABC, it is the blind leading the blind.'
'What is your special difficulty, Miss Selwyn?' asked I.
'Oh! everything! But perhaps anything harder than arithmetic beyond the rule of three!'
After dinner I asked her to show me what sums they were she found so difficult, and after a little pressure she brought one of simple fractions. I showed her how simple it was, did one after another for her, and finally pressed her to try her hand at one herself. She did, and though being afraid to express her ignorance, as she said, to her infinite delight she got the right answer, One would have thought I was a perfect god to see the delight of Fanny at what she said was all my doing, and I was so pleased at having been able to give her so much real and innocent pleasure, that the spirit moved me to propose that, as I had so much leisure, I could not do better than come for an hour or so every morning to assist at the lessons if Colonel and Mrs Selwyn had no objection. Mrs Selwyn jumped at the offer, but the colonel hung back a little. Whether this was because he might have thought of Fanny's growing bubbies and consequent approach to an age when desire, easily raised by close and constant communication with a young and lively male, might seize upon her youthful cunnie, even though the young man was married, or rather because he fancied I was generously rushing in on a task of which I should soon grow uneasy and repent having undertaken it, I don't know. But I at any rate stuck to my offer and it was accepted.
At first I had a tremendous amount of chaffing to undergo from my brother officers, who could not understand my motives; some hardly hid their suspicions that I aimed at seducing Fanny and Amy, others looked upon me as a lunatic who did not know how to appreciate the charms of perfect idleness, but I did not mind.
But as for Fanny! She afterwards told me that in those Cherat days she looked upon me as the most wonderful man in the whole world, for I knew everything. Poor little Fanny. The truth was she knew nothing, and my acquirements in the educational line were to her prodigious. It was not marvellous, therefore, that I obtained over her a degree of power which although hardly perceptible to her, existed like the steel hand in the velvet glove. My word of praise or commendation made her joyously happy, a tear would spring in her eyes if I forgot myself and hinted that she really should have done better. It was an association of real and true happiness, undisturbed by the flames of passion but full of affection on either side the communion, as it were, of beloved brother and dear sister.
The effect on me was very 'purifying'. Little by little I thought more of Fanny and Amy and less of Lizzie Wilson, more of the extraction of the square and cube root than of the matchless cunt of that superbly beautiful Venus; although at times one or the other of my charming pupils, leaning over my shoulder, may have had her rosy cheek, blooming with health and youth, touching mine, her fresh sweet breath mingling with mine, and a rising breast making itself felt against my shoulder, yet, as though fast asleep, my prick remained perfectly quiescent, for his master never once thought of the two blooming little cunts to which he could even then have easily found a way had he been inclined to take advantage of the dear girls' ignorance and inexperience.
Soon the most complete trust was reposed in me by Colonel and Mrs Selwyn, and after hearing 'lessons' I often was permitted to take the girls for a ramble down the wild and beautiful Chapin Gaant, or wherever our fancy led us to stray.
One evening Drs Jardine and Lavie were invited with myself to dinner at the colonel's. Jardine, at that time, as I afterwards learned, was looking forward to asking for Fanny's hand in marriage. I certainly had no idea of it, judging from his demeanour and Fanny's apparent indifference to him that evening as on other occasions. As usual, towards the close of the party, she had come and sat beside me and chatted in her ordinary lively manner. Her mind was fast opening up and receiving new ideas, and a month's tuition had had a great effect upon her. I little knew that Jardine was watching all this with jealous eyes, but on our way home he said: 'You seemed to be all there, Devereaux, this evening.'
'How do you mean, doctor?' said I.
'Why, the little girl seemed to have neither eyes not ears for anybody but yourself. And you seemed to have her hands comfortably squeezed between your own. Ha! Ha! Ha!' and he gave one of those disagreeable guttural laughs which I so much disliked.
'Look here, Jardine!' said I, rather nettled, 'I can assure you I don't like the way you speak. Miss Selwyn is nothing to me but an amiable little girl to whom I give some lessons which amuse me and I hope instruct her. She is quick and clever and very intent to learn, and it is only natural that she should like to talk about her work to me, when her whole heart is set upon learning.'
'Ah! if you don't teach her any other lessons besides, my boy! What had you to do squeezing her hands, eh?'
'I deny it!' answered I hotly, 'your eyes must have deceived you!'
'Well!' he said, 'perhaps so! But at any rate, Devereaux, you should remember you have a wife of your own and should remember you should not take up too much of the young ladies' attention but leave some chance to us poor bachelors.'
I did not reply. I felt angry and vexed that my innocent attentions should be found fault with by a man who professed to see nothing desirable in a woman above her pelvis.
We were now approaching a row of huts in which lived a number of married women of other regiments who had been sent up from Peshawar out of harm's way until their husband's regiments had got back from Afghanistan. Mrs Selwyn, woman-like, had insisted on these married quarters being securely guarded by sentries, whose duties were not only to prevent any 'unauthorised person' from visiting them, but to prevent any woman leaving her hut after dark. This was a source of great irritation to all concerned. The officers wanted the women to fuck, and the women would have been only too glad to be fucked; they had had great times at Peshawar, where they scarcely went a day or a night without experiencing that delight of delights, and where they harvested bags of rupees from their innumerable and ever changing adorers, but here at Cherat they were, as it were, in a nunnery, and they pined for the longed-for prick, and the accompanying rupees.
It was a very dark night, and a kind of drizzle was falling, a most unusual thing. The first sentry, challenged and being answered, allowed us to pass. As we went along the front of the low enclosures before each hut, Jardine said, in a fairly loud voice, 'To think of all these lovely women here, and not a chance of having one of them! I believe they are all bursting with randiness, and would give rupees, instead of asking for them, to be well fucked!'