Kitty was
astonished
at my boisterousness.
Kipling - Poems
" she asked.
"I can't
see them anywhere. "
Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself
directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to
utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider
passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air.
"What's the matter? " cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly,
Jack? If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. There
was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I
can't ride--
"--There! "
Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a
hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as
she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the
matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla
was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round.
The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near
the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.
"Jack! Jack, darling! " (There was no mistake about the words this time:
they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear. ) "It's
some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, jack, and let's be
friends again. "
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily
for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief
in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.
How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by
my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the
horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and
dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There
two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing
the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me
just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged
into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested
with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and
drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and,
evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably
endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I
refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a child
rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark.
I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an
eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring for
me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly
upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face
stopped her.
"Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has happened?
Are you ill? " Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had
been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a
cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my
mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover
it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of
doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have
forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to
my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.
In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter.
Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in
the year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in
terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had
been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could
not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs.
Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more
utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was
broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you,
in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's
ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that
some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and
the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round
this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and
in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had
originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her
to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the
'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in
itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see
ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The
whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man! "
Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook
my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very
wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency
born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked
with sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. This
eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out
that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.
Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still
unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion,
suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anything
rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I
yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out
together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and,
according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent
to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched
horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we
neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington
all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our
oldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it
aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over
the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.
As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies'
Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight--only
the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and
the golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had left
them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that
Kitty must see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in all
things. Her next words undeceived me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along,
Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings! " Her wiry little
Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this
order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty
yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The
'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab
passed through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack dear! Please forgive
me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:--"It's a
mistake, a hideous mistake! "
I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at
the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still
waiting--patiently waiting--under the grey hillside, and the wind
brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered
me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had
been talking up till then wildly and at random.
To save my life I could not speak afterward naturally, and from
Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue.
I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to
canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men
talking together in the dusk. --"It's a curious thing," said one, "how
completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely
fond of the woman ('never could see anything in her myself), and wanted
me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for
love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do what
the Memsahib tells me.
"Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four
of the men--they were brothers--died of cholera on the way to Hardwar,
poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself.
'Told me he never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw. 'Spoiled his luck. '
Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any
one's luck except her own! " I laughed aloud at this point; and my laugh
jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after
all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs.
Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?
And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing
blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short
cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and
checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to
a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my
horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington
"Good evening. " Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened
to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should
be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil
stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim
recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to
the Thing in front of me.
"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come
home. "
Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard
me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They
were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered
that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away
to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes
late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by
Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.
The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I
was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware
that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was
describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that
evening.
A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half
an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as
professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed.
There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered
something to the effect that he had "forgotten the rest," thereby
sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built
up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart,
and--went on with my fish.
In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine
regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my
own existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The
red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh,
of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay
together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and,
in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp.
The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed
he bad been thinking over it all dinner time.
"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on
the Elysium road? " The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer
from me before I was aware.
"That! " said I, pointing to It.
"That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don't
liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothing
whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling
with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's Eyes.
And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm
on the Blessington lower road. "
To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept
about twenty yards ahead--and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or
cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion
almost as much as I have told you here.
"Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to,"
said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through.
Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you,
young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and
indigestible food till the day of your death. "
The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed
to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
"Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these
three is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach,
and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest
follows. And all that's French for a liver pill.
"I'll take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you're too
interesting a phenomenon to be passed over. "
By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road
and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging
shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh
rapped out an oath.
"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside
for the sake of a stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion--Lord, ha' mercy!
What's that? "
There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front
of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the
cliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below,
completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a
moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their
fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and
sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had
subsided, my companion muttered:--"Man, if we'd gone forward we should
have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more things
in heaven and earth. . . ' Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg
badly. "
We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week
I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I
bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best
and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable.
Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with
Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain, and
stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a
fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be
recovered before she had time to regret my absence.
Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver
pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at
early dawn--for, as he sagely observed:--"A man with a sprained
ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be
wondering if she saw you. "
At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and
strict injunction' as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed
me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting
benediction:--"Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as
much as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your
traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss
Kitty. "
I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me
short.
"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved
like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you re a phenomenon,
and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No! "--checking me
a second time--"not a rupee please. Go out and see if you can find the
eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each
time you see it. "
Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with
Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the
fore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous
presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a
ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.
Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was
delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in
her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings'
house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla
road as of old.
I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my
assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too
slow to my impatient mind.
Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness.
"Why, Jack! " she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child. What are
you doing? "
We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making
my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop
of my riding-whip.
"Doing? " I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing
nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I. "
"'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, Joying to feel yourself
alive; Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, Lord of the senses
five. '"
My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner
above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to
Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white
liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington.
I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said
something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on
the road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.
"Has it gone, child? " I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
"Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a
mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake. " Her last words brought me
to my feet--mad--raving for the time being.
"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere," I repeated, "a hideous mistake.
Come and look at It. "
I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the
road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to
It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could
break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the
same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the
'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from
a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told
Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen
intently with white face and blazing eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Syce ghora
lao. "
The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of
the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the
cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word
or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and
judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side
of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the
riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect.
Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a
distance, cantered up.
"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's
signature to my order of dismissal and--I'll thank you for that lakh as
soon as convenient. "
Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.
"I'll stake my professional reputation"--he began.
"Don't be a fool," I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd
better take me home. "
As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was
passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a
cloud and fall in upon me.
Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I
was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh
was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table.
His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much
moved by them.
"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good
deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and
a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the
liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with
you. "
"And Kitty? " I asked, dully.
"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token
you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just
before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as
you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for
his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it
too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road
turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again. "
I groaned and turned over to the other side.
"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken
off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken
through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better
exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll
tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies'
Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it. "
During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the
lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on
earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering
through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair.
I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which
dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering
in a voice that I hardly recognized, "--They're confoundedly particular
about morality in these parts. Give 'em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love.
Now let me sleep a bit longer. "
Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven
I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past
month.
"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in
Simla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to
pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did
her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd
never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left
alone--left alone and happy? "
It was high noon when I first awoke, and the sun was low in the sky
before I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too
worn to feel further pain.
Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning
that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to
his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had
traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all
sides much pitied.
"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded, pleasantly,
"though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill.
Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon. "
I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already,
old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further. "
In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
burden that had been laid upon me.
With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no
better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another
world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone
should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in
time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were
the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that
Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all
ghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised
to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for
seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the
bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and
was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs
of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as
expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent
alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I
found nothing.
On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the
morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I
found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in
clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized
that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my
fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on
the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered
aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to
the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs.
Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since
I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw
and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to
the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any
sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay
me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had
served for an excuse.
So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept
round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines
dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of
fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself
almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--at Simla! Everyday,
ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that. " Then I
would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the
prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to
the workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was
not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have
prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level
road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left
alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your
hood and tell me what it all means? " The hood dropped noiselessly, and
I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing
the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny
handkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (A
woman eight months dead with a cardcase! ) I had to pin myself down to
the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of
the road, to assure myself that that at least was real.
"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means. " Mrs.
Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used
to know so well, and spoke.
If my story had not already so madly overleaped the hounds of all human
belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not
even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of
my conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and
I walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the
Commander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any living
woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting
of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the
Prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts. "
There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's, and we two
joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed
that they were the shadows--impalpable, fantastic shadows--that divided
for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during
the course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I dare not--tell.
Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I
had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera. " It was a ghastly and
yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be
possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the
woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?
I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows.
If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their
order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would Be
exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly
'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went
there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company
to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd of
yelling jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of
whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and
in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the
'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and
iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning
some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have
walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the
unspeakable amazement of the passers-by.
Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the "fit" theory
had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my
mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had
a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I
hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I
felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly
companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods
from the 15th of May up to today.
The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind
fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave
Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover,
that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only
anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately
I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations
with my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amused
interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I
wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven
to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these
varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen
and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one
poor soul to its grave.
* * * * *
August 27. --Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on me;
and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for
sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A request
that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts
and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh's proposition
moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await
the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off.
Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can say; and I
torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of
my death.
Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die;
or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to
take its place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm?
Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall
I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity?
Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time?
As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living
flesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and
more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with
scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more
awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable
terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I know you
will never believe what I have written here Yet as surely as ever a man
was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man.
In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by
man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is
ever now upon me.
* * * * *
MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY
As I came through the Desert thus it was--
As I came through the Desert.
--The City of Dreadful Night.
Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and
plays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their
lives in building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories
about the real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant.
But he will insist upon treating his ghosts--he has published half
a workshopful of them--with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talk
familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms.
You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, with
levity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularly
an Indian one.
There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby
corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes.
Then they drop upon his neck and remain.
see them anywhere. "
Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself
directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to
utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider
passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air.
"What's the matter? " cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly,
Jack? If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. There
was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I
can't ride--
"--There! "
Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a
hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as
she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the
matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla
was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round.
The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near
the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.
"Jack! Jack, darling! " (There was no mistake about the words this time:
they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear. ) "It's
some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, jack, and let's be
friends again. "
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily
for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief
in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.
How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by
my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the
horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and
dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There
two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing
the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me
just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged
into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested
with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and
drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and,
evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably
endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I
refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a child
rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark.
I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an
eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring for
me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly
upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face
stopped her.
"Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has happened?
Are you ill? " Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had
been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a
cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my
mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover
it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of
doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have
forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to
my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.
In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter.
Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in
the year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in
terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had
been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could
not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs.
Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more
utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was
broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you,
in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's
ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that
some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and
the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round
this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and
in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had
originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her
to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the
'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in
itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see
ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The
whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man! "
Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook
my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very
wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency
born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked
with sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. This
eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out
that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.
Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still
unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion,
suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anything
rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I
yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out
together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and,
according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent
to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched
horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we
neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington
all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our
oldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it
aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over
the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.
As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies'
Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight--only
the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and
the golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had left
them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that
Kitty must see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in all
things. Her next words undeceived me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along,
Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings! " Her wiry little
Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this
order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty
yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The
'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab
passed through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack dear! Please forgive
me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:--"It's a
mistake, a hideous mistake! "
I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at
the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still
waiting--patiently waiting--under the grey hillside, and the wind
brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered
me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had
been talking up till then wildly and at random.
To save my life I could not speak afterward naturally, and from
Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue.
I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to
canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men
talking together in the dusk. --"It's a curious thing," said one, "how
completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely
fond of the woman ('never could see anything in her myself), and wanted
me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for
love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do what
the Memsahib tells me.
"Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four
of the men--they were brothers--died of cholera on the way to Hardwar,
poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself.
'Told me he never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw. 'Spoiled his luck. '
Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any
one's luck except her own! " I laughed aloud at this point; and my laugh
jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after
all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs.
Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?
And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing
blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short
cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and
checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to
a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my
horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington
"Good evening. " Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened
to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should
be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil
stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim
recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to
the Thing in front of me.
"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come
home. "
Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard
me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They
were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered
that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away
to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes
late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by
Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.
The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I
was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware
that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was
describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that
evening.
A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half
an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as
professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed.
There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered
something to the effect that he had "forgotten the rest," thereby
sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built
up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart,
and--went on with my fish.
In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine
regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my
own existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The
red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh,
of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay
together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and,
in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp.
The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed
he bad been thinking over it all dinner time.
"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on
the Elysium road? " The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer
from me before I was aware.
"That! " said I, pointing to It.
"That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don't
liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothing
whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling
with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's Eyes.
And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm
on the Blessington lower road. "
To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept
about twenty yards ahead--and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or
cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion
almost as much as I have told you here.
"Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to,"
said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through.
Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you,
young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and
indigestible food till the day of your death. "
The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed
to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
"Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these
three is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach,
and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest
follows. And all that's French for a liver pill.
"I'll take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you're too
interesting a phenomenon to be passed over. "
By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road
and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging
shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh
rapped out an oath.
"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside
for the sake of a stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion--Lord, ha' mercy!
What's that? "
There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front
of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the
cliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below,
completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a
moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their
fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and
sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had
subsided, my companion muttered:--"Man, if we'd gone forward we should
have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more things
in heaven and earth. . . ' Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg
badly. "
We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week
I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I
bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best
and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable.
Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with
Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain, and
stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a
fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be
recovered before she had time to regret my absence.
Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver
pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at
early dawn--for, as he sagely observed:--"A man with a sprained
ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be
wondering if she saw you. "
At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and
strict injunction' as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed
me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting
benediction:--"Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as
much as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your
traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss
Kitty. "
I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me
short.
"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved
like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you re a phenomenon,
and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No! "--checking me
a second time--"not a rupee please. Go out and see if you can find the
eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each
time you see it. "
Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with
Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the
fore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous
presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a
ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.
Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was
delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in
her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings'
house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla
road as of old.
I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my
assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too
slow to my impatient mind.
Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness.
"Why, Jack! " she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child. What are
you doing? "
We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making
my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop
of my riding-whip.
"Doing? " I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing
nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I. "
"'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, Joying to feel yourself
alive; Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, Lord of the senses
five. '"
My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner
above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to
Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white
liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington.
I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said
something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on
the road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.
"Has it gone, child? " I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
"Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a
mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake. " Her last words brought me
to my feet--mad--raving for the time being.
"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere," I repeated, "a hideous mistake.
Come and look at It. "
I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the
road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to
It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could
break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the
same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the
'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from
a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told
Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen
intently with white face and blazing eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Syce ghora
lao. "
The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of
the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the
cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word
or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and
judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side
of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the
riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect.
Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a
distance, cantered up.
"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's
signature to my order of dismissal and--I'll thank you for that lakh as
soon as convenient. "
Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.
"I'll stake my professional reputation"--he began.
"Don't be a fool," I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd
better take me home. "
As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was
passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a
cloud and fall in upon me.
Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I
was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh
was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table.
His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much
moved by them.
"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good
deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and
a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the
liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with
you. "
"And Kitty? " I asked, dully.
"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token
you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just
before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as
you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for
his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it
too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road
turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again. "
I groaned and turned over to the other side.
"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken
off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken
through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better
exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll
tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies'
Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it. "
During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the
lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on
earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering
through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair.
I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which
dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering
in a voice that I hardly recognized, "--They're confoundedly particular
about morality in these parts. Give 'em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love.
Now let me sleep a bit longer. "
Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven
I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past
month.
"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in
Simla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to
pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did
her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd
never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left
alone--left alone and happy? "
It was high noon when I first awoke, and the sun was low in the sky
before I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too
worn to feel further pain.
Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning
that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to
his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had
traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all
sides much pitied.
"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded, pleasantly,
"though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill.
Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon. "
I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already,
old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further. "
In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
burden that had been laid upon me.
With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no
better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another
world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone
should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in
time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were
the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that
Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all
ghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised
to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for
seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the
bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and
was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs
of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as
expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent
alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I
found nothing.
On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the
morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I
found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in
clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized
that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my
fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on
the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered
aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to
the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs.
Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since
I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw
and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to
the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any
sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay
me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had
served for an excuse.
So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept
round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines
dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of
fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself
almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--at Simla! Everyday,
ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that. " Then I
would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the
prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to
the workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was
not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have
prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level
road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left
alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your
hood and tell me what it all means? " The hood dropped noiselessly, and
I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing
the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny
handkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (A
woman eight months dead with a cardcase! ) I had to pin myself down to
the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of
the road, to assure myself that that at least was real.
"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means. " Mrs.
Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used
to know so well, and spoke.
If my story had not already so madly overleaped the hounds of all human
belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not
even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of
my conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and
I walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the
Commander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any living
woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting
of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the
Prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts. "
There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's, and we two
joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed
that they were the shadows--impalpable, fantastic shadows--that divided
for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during
the course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I dare not--tell.
Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I
had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera. " It was a ghastly and
yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be
possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the
woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?
I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows.
If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their
order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would Be
exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly
'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went
there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company
to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd of
yelling jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of
whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and
in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the
'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and
iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning
some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have
walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the
unspeakable amazement of the passers-by.
Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the "fit" theory
had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my
mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had
a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I
hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I
felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly
companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods
from the 15th of May up to today.
The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind
fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave
Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover,
that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only
anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately
I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations
with my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amused
interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I
wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven
to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these
varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen
and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one
poor soul to its grave.
* * * * *
August 27. --Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on me;
and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for
sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A request
that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts
and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh's proposition
moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await
the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off.
Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can say; and I
torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of
my death.
Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die;
or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to
take its place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm?
Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall
I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity?
Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time?
As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living
flesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and
more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with
scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more
awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable
terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I know you
will never believe what I have written here Yet as surely as ever a man
was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man.
In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by
man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is
ever now upon me.
* * * * *
MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY
As I came through the Desert thus it was--
As I came through the Desert.
--The City of Dreadful Night.
Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and
plays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their
lives in building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories
about the real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant.
But he will insist upon treating his ghosts--he has published half
a workshopful of them--with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talk
familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms.
You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, with
levity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularly
an Indian one.
There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby
corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes.
Then they drop upon his neck and remain.
