must confess the reality far surpassed my expectations.
Figurez-vous, as our lively neighbours would put it, a sweet smiling Juno with an oval face, coloured prettily by nature's own palette, and a pair of finely arched eyebrows surrounding eyes so dazzling in their lustrous black that I fell a victim to the very first glance.
Poor De Vaux seemed half in doubt, half dread, for this was the first time he had seen her since the fiasco. She, however, stretched out her hand and welcomed him cordially.
We had a fine, old-fashioned country dinner, and then Mrs. Leveson proposed a stroll around the grounds. She took great pride in the garden and orchard, and the exquisite fascination of her manner as she described lucidly all the various differences between plants, shrubs, greenery, exotics, and all the thousand and one trifles that interest a botanical student showed me that she was no ordinary woman.
Again I was compelled to silent admiration when we walked through the stables, which Caligula's could scarcely have excelled for cleanliness, and as she patted the horses in their boxes I envied them, for they neighed and whinnied with delight at her very touch.
I was glad when she and her husband had gone into the house, and left De Vaux and me to finish our smoke alone.
'Well,' he said, 'what do you think of her?'
'Think of her,' I muttered, 'I'd rather not think of her, she has excited me to such an extent that if I don't get into something in the house I shall really have to go into the village and seek out an ordinary 'pross'.' 'Well, my dear boy, then you'd better do that at once, for unless some of the chambermaids are amenable, I'm perfectly certain that you've no time to lose. You might as well dream of fucking the moon as Mrs. Leveson. She's quite as chaste and just as unattainable.'
'That be damned,' I said. De Vaux's constant reiteration of this Dulcinea's chastity was gall and wormwood to me.
We were the only guests who had arrived for the 12th, and as grouse shooting meant getting up at dawn, we had one rubber at whist, and retired to bed early.
On the first floor of this large old mansion there were at least a dozen rooms. My own bedroom door immediately faced our host and hostess's; De Vaux slept in the next room to mine.
'How frightfully hot it is,' said Leveson. 'I should say we're bound to have some rain.'
'I hope not,' I said, 'for it will spoil our morning, though this temperature is simply insufferable.' I had been all around the world in my father's yacht, and had spent a considerable time in the tropics, but never remembered such an intense dry heat.
Taking with me to bed a French novel I had picked out of the library shelves, and getting the servant to bring in a large glass of lemonade, I was soon asleep, in spite of the heat, though I had to forgo sheets, blanket and counterpane, and simply slept in my nightshirt.
In the grey of the morning I was aroused, and could scarcely believe my eyes. There was a young woman standing by the side of the bed, and I recognised her as the shapely lass who had taken my portmanteau upstairs the previous evening.
I have always had an unpleasant habit in my sleep of twisting and turning until my shirt tucks up under my armpits. Thus it appeared that, as this hot night had proved no exception to the rule, Hannah, for such was the filly's name, had knocked at the door to awaken me, but receiving no response, and fearing she should get into trouble if I overslept myself, had opened the door, and the sight of my magnificent prick had simply transfixed her so that she stood there like one bewitched.
I rubbed my eyes once more, then sprang up, and before the girl could, like a frightened fawn, reach the door, I had gently but firmly closed it, and set my back against it.
'Oh! Mr. Clinton, missis would be so angry if she heard me in here.'
'Has your mistress been called yet?'
'No sir.'
'Have you aroused Mr. De Vaux?'
'Not yet.'
'Who knows then of your being here?'
'The cook, sir, and she's a spiteful old thing as hates gentlemen, because they don't never look at her.'
'Hannah,' I said, 'didn't I hear you called by that name last night?'
'Yes sir; please let me go downstairs.'
'Hannah, is there light enough for you to see this?' and I quietly raised my nightshirt.
'Oh, Mr. Clinton, how can you be so rude!'
'Now, look here, Hannah, we needn't mince words. Your mistress doesn't know of your being here, but if you cry out she's bound to know it, and of course you'll get sacked for being found in a gentleman's bedroom. I shan't be blamed for trying to get into a girl who actually comes to ask me for it.'
'But, my God, I haven't sir.'
'No, but don't you see that is what I should be obliged to say if any awkward questions were put to me.'
'Oh! please sir, I'll never come into your bedroom again, sir, indeed I won't.'
'My dear Hannah,' I said, 'I hope you will every night of my stay, but I must have my first taste now.'
With a sudden movement I caught her in my arms and threw her down on the bed.
The silly stupid fool struggled with the strength of a giantess, and I saw that it was going to be a fair fight for it.
This is what I enjoy, provided the struggle is not too exhausting, and in this case it was fortunately only of sufficient duration to give the proper zest, for no sooner in the course of her efforts to keep my hand away from her fanny had her own touched the top of my splitting jock, than she was powerless as a kitten.
I will not dilate upon my fuck with Hannah, for she was in too frightened a state to give me much pleasure at that time.
I have, however, under more favourable conditions, since amused myself with her during a spare half-hour, and although her cunt has not got that tenacity of grip which distinguished Lady Fanny, for example, yet there was that general spunkiness about her final throw-off which places her in the front rank for one of her station of life.
Again to quote dear old Sam: 'A man's imagination is not so inflamed with a chambermaid as a countess,' and besides, Hannah was not a maid, the coachman having settled her hash about six months before.
CHAPTER 15
After our bout, Hannah kissed me and bolted off, and I drank a tumbler of water with a few drops of balsam in it and, feeling none the worse for my affaire par basard, at once joined the shooting party.
I did a fair share of bagging, though the birds were scarcely wild enough to suit my taste.
I hate the fashionable battue business of today, but do not mean to imply that it was anything like that, for I am speaking of more than twenty years ago, but still Leveson's keepers had fed them too well, and they scarcely rose to the tramp of a foot near their cover.
We returned to the hall for lunch, and Mrs. Leveson enquired as to the results of our morning's work. We told her it had been fair, but I half hinted at my preference for seeing a bit of the country, as I was a fickle sportsman, and one morning's shooting was enough for me. She, without a moment's hesitation, offered to become my cicerone and, procuring two horses from the stable, we sallied forth together.
'Now, you must be my mentor in everything, please, Mrs. Leveson,' I told her. 'I must admit to being dreadfully ignorant of country matters.'
We rode fully fifteen miles, and although I felt my way cautiously, I began to see there was an iron barrier between us which would probably prove impassable.
The instant there was the slightest hint or suggestion which implied a double entente her cheek flushed, and she looked fully in my face with her sparkling eyes, and a gaze of steady searching frankness as if to say, 'Do my
