My Secret Life

About a month after this, I received a letter from a lawyer in London saying he wished to see me. I went, and found that he was instructed to bring an action against me for seducing Mrs. Pender. I denied all, but it was of no use. I at once went to my solicitor, who after a time feared the case could be proved against me. The action would be brought for damages (there was no divorce possible then), and there would be the scandal, the annoyance to my aunt, and the horror of my mother. The only chance of getting a word with Mrs. P. was way-laying her in the laurel-walk. When I saw her she looked the picture of misery, her husband had refused to sleep in the same bed with her. At about five o'clock one evening, it being quite dark, she had given me a signal during the day, I went to the privy. There I fucked her, she said how utterly miserable she was, and asked me to take her away. Uprighters were never to my taste, and now her big belly made it far from pleasurable. I got worried, and at length after much legal annoyance, agreed to give five hundred pounds, on condition that I had a letter from Pender saying that he was very sorry for what he had done, that he was convinced he had made a mistake, and was then sure of his wife's fidelity, or some-thing to that effect. Before this was quite settled, Mr. Pender got leave of absence, and went away somewhere. My solicitor asked me whether I had any reason to suspect that Mrs. P. had told her husband. Immediately I became savagely suspicious, went to the cottage under pretense of asking for Pender himself, although I knew he was away, and insisted she should meet me at the town. I thought of nothing until we met, but how I should entrap her into a confession, and worked myself up into a belief that the couple were making a market of me.

She undressed, I caressed her, with hand on her cunt, looked at her and said, “Your husband means to make a fortune out of me.” “What he, — ho, ho, ho”, she cried, “the wretch,—oh ! I shall be exposed, -ho, ho”, and was as white as a sheet. When she got better, I told her all, she knew nothing about what her husband had done, and begged I would pay nothing, — she would drown herself. — and I left, convinced that the poor woman was true to me.

Pender gave notice to leave, and forfeiting wages left his place, and went to the North of England. Months afterwards I received a scrawl saying that the child was exactly like me, that P. was not unkind, but she was unhappy, would like to see me; and if I wished it she would run away, and be as good as a wife to me. There was no name or address to it, and I never heard of her afterwards.

I thought all settled, and that no one would know about it; but for all that it leaked out. Months after-wards being at my aunts, I got into one of her servants, and after giving her a good fucking one night, and telling her after a fuck not to wash, she said, “I don't want you to get me in the family way like Mrs. Pen- der.” She had heard that. How the devil did it leak out?

After Christmas Fred and I went to see our women, he wanted more than I did. I had some harlotting; not being at all faithful to Mabel, I had fits of great incontinence, and as many as three different women on the same day, at times.

Exceedingly nice women were then to be met in the Quadrant from eleven to one in the morning, and three till five in the afternoon. I would have one before luncheon, get another after luncheon, dine, and have a third women. I would at other times go under the Opera colonade, where they used to assemble in the summer evenings with low dresses showing shoulders and breasts; to see them, even if I did not want a fuck. I had an insatiable desire to look at their nudity, would strip them, make them piss, feel them all over, leave, and in an hour perhaps have another. I had no leches for fancy postures. To see their thighs and cunts in free but graceful attitudes was sufficient pleasure. During this time the following occurred.

An intimate friend of Fred's was Lord A.... he lived with a lady who was called Lady A.... I don't think she had been gay, and in that respect resembled Laura and Mabel. The three women were much to-gether. We often saw Lord A and all became friends. Lord A.... was not very true to his lady. He lived in B . t . n street, where he had at that time the whole of a handsomely furnished house, but only could half occupy it. His indoor servants were a middle-aged woman who cooked, a maid who was her niece, and his valet, who waited at table as well. A woman who did not sleep in the house came daily. He had grooms and a coachman, but not in the house. Lord A.... had quarrelled with his father. He had been in the Guards, and drank very freely.