Venus in India

‘Oh! Charlie! Help me to my bathroom!’

But I ran and got her a chillumchee [brass basin] and brought it to her, and she, poor creature, was deadly sick. I held her burning forehead in my hands and did all I could to comfort her, and to assist, and at last, completely exhausted, she sank back and her whole appearance alarmed me. When I came home she was fairly cool, but now she was the colour of a penny, and her skin was hot, parched and burning. I guessed she had a fever and the suddenness of the attack alarmed me. All that night I tended her, keeping her well covered up to induce perspiration, and from time to time gave her water to drink for which she moaned. Nobody who has not watched a sickbed under circumstances somewhat similar can tell how tedious, how weary, such a watch is, especially when, as in my case, the watcher is ignorant of what he ought to do, and has to go by instinct, as it were. At length, just as the morning began to break, Lizzie seemed to fall into a sound sleep. Her breathing was more regular and easy, her colour was more natural, and — blessed be heaven — her skin was again cool and moist. It was evident that the strength of the attack had passed.

Satisfied that Lizzie was really in a healthful sleep, I got myself a cool peg, and then going back to the bedside I sat down in my chair, leaned my head against her pillow and fell into a sound sleep myself. How long I slept I do not know but I was at length awakened by Soubratie, who touched me and murmured that sickening: ‘Sa—hib! S—a—a—hib!’ in my ear with which your native servant always rouses you.

‘What is it?’ said I, raising my heavy head.

‘Major Stone, sahib! Outside on verandah! Wanting see master!’ replied Soubratie who spoke English like a native.

‘Major Stone! Oh! yes! all right! Tell him I will be with him in a moment, Soubratie.’

‘Yes, sahib!’

I felt desperately tired and not in a pleasant humour at having my much needed rest broken. However, after a yawn or two, and an anxious glance at poor Lizzie, who seemed to have quite regained her ordinary appearance and to be having a really sound and refreshing sleep, I tightened the strings of my pyjamas, and went on to the verandah, where I heard the footsteps of my friend the major as he moved about somewhat impatiently. Seeing me come from Lizzie’s room in sleeping costume, he put up his hands in mock deprecation and said, sotto voce: ‘Oh! Oh—h—h! Captain Devereaux! Oh—h—h!’ and he put on such a comical look I could not help smiling.

‘Not so fast, major, please! Appearances may be against me, but I think I can give a satisfactory explanation. The lady who lives in that room was most dreadfully ill last night and I, out of pure charity, have been nursing her!’

‘In your nightshirt and pyjamas, exactly! I expect she required a little cordial administered by an enema, only in front instead of behind, and required your services and elixir! Oh! Devereaux! it won’t do, my boy, but Jack Stone is not the man to preach; still he would like his friends to be frank with him, so, Devereaux, you may as well tell the truth and confess that, full of my description of Mrs Searle, and the splendid night I had between her plump white thighs, you came home and spent, I hope, as good a night with the fair lady in there! Confess now!’

‘Quite wrong, major, I can assure you! I plead guilty to having been much moved and stirred by your voluptuous narrative, and as human nature is frail, I dare say might have spent such a night as you believe, only that the lady was, as I said, fearfully ill, and all owing to that blackguardly brute Searle, too!’

‘Ah!’ said the major, ‘that is just what I have come to enquire about. Look here, Devereaux, there is a devil of a row on. Searle was brought home last night between seven and eight o’clock, whilst we were at mess, with five or six ribs broken, his right leg broken above the ankle, his nose smashed flat, his front teeth driven down his throat, and battered, cut and bruised all over. In fact, the doctor hardly expects him to pull through, he is so fearfully weak, and so completely smashed to bits. The corporal of the picket reports that hearing a disturbance going on in the dak bungalow, he doubled his men down and caught sight of two men of the 130th running away, and hearing loud voices in the bungalow compound, he found a crowd of natives and two civilians, Europeans, standing round the brigade major, who was lying on the ground, all doubled up, and from what he could gather there was a woman at the bottom of it, but he could give no clear account of what had happened, or how it had happened, or anything. Well, the colonel is, of course, much put about. We none of us love Searle, who is a sulky brute, if a good officer, but a brigade major can’t be half killed without a row being made about it, so he has sent me to try and find out all about it and as I guessed you would very likely have heard something, I came first to you.’

I then gave the gallant major a succinct account of the whole business, as told me by Lizzie. I had to undergo some unmerciful chaffing from Stone about her, and found it impossible to hide from him the truth about my relations with her. But he promised to be mum, and, as he said, there was no need for my name to be mentioned at all in the business, at all events at present, and perhaps not at all, as I was not at the bungalow when Searle was there but at the mess, luckily for me!

Armed with his news, and quite interested how it was that Lizzie should have had such violent ill usage, and should have passed through such a terrible scene, he returned to make his report to his colonel, and about four o’clock he sent me a note, or chit as it is called in India, to say that the colonel had agreed to hush the whole matter up, and simply report Major Searle on the sick list, and him — Jack Stone — acting station staff officer. He went on by saying that the sooner the parties were out of Nowshera the better, and he advised me to prepare Lizzie for a start; he would order a dak gharry