Speaker 1: Section nine of the Best Ghost Stories. This is a
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Read by Winnifred Assman The Best Ghost Stories The Phantom
Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling. May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
nor powers of darkness me molested evening hymn. One of
the few advantages that India has over England is a
certain great no ability. After five years service, a man
is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three
hundred civilians in his province, all the messes of ten
or twelve regiments and batteries, and some fifteen hundred other
people of the non official carets. In ten years his
knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty
he knows or knows something about almost every Englishman in
the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying
hotel bills. Globetrotters who expect entertainment as a right have
even within my memory, blunted this open heartedness, But none
the less to day, if you belong to the inner
circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep.
All houses are open to you, and our small world
is very kind and helpful. Rickett of Camartha stayed with
Polder of cumaeon some fifteen years ago. He meant to
stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic
fever and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work,
and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though
he had been placed under eternal obligation by ricket It,
and yearly sends the little Rickets a box of presents
and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who
do not take the trouble to conceal from you their
opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women
who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will
work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you
fall sick or into serious trouble. Heatherly, the doctor kept,
in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his
private account, an arrangement of loose boxes for incurables. His
friends called it, but it was really a sort of
fitting up shed for craft that had been damaged by
stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry,
and since the tail of bricks is a fixed quantity
and the only liberty allowed is permission to work over
time and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and
become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence. Heatherly
is the nicest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
prescription to all his patients is lie low, go slow,
and keep cool. He says that more men are killed
by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He
maintains that overwork slew Pansee, who died under his hands
about three years ago. He has, of course the right
to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that
there was a crack in Pansy's head and a little
bit of the dark world came through and pressed him
to death. Panse went off the handle, says Heatherly, after
the stimulus of long leave at home. He may or
he may not have behaved like a blackguard to missus
Keith Wessington. My notion is that the work of the
Katabundi's settlement ran him off his legs, and that he
took to brooding and making much of an ordinary p
and O flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering,
and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took
a feverish chill, and all that nonsense about ghosts developed itself.
Over work started his illness, kept it alight and killed him.
Poor devil. Write him off to the system. One man
to do the work of two and a half men.
I do not believe this. I used to sit up
with Panze sometimes when Heatherly was called out to visit patients,
and I happened to be within claim. The man would
make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even
voice the procession of men, women, children and devils that
was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He
had a sick man's command of language. When he recovered,
I suggested that he should write out the whole affair,
from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him
to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a
new bad word, they are never happy till they have
chalked it up on a door, And this also is literature.
He was in a high fever while he was writing,
and the Blood and Thunder magazine style he adopted did
not calm him. Two months afterward, he was reported fit
for duty, but in spite of the fact that he
was urgently needed to help an undermanned commission stagger through
a deficit, he preferred to die, vowing at the last
that he was hag written. I secured his manuscript before
he died, and this is his version of the affair,
dated eighteen eighty five. My doctor tells me that I
need rest and change of air. It is not improbable
that I shall get both ere long rest that neither
the red coated orderly nor the mid day gun can break,
and change of air far beyond that which any homeward
bound steamer can give me. In the meantime, I am
resolved to stay where I am, and, in flat defiance
of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into
my confidence. You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature
of my malady, and shall too judge for yourselves whether
any man born of woman on this weary earth was
ever so tormented as I speaking now as a condemned
criminal might speak. Ere the drop bolts are drawn. My story,
wild and hideously improbable, as it may appear, demands at
least attention that it will ever receive credence. I utterly disbelieve.
Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or
drunk the man who had dared tell me the like.
Two months ago, I was the happiest man in India
to day, from Peshawar to the sea. There is no
one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only
two who know this. His explanation is that my brain, digestion,
and eyesight are all slightly affected, giving rise to my
frequent and persistent delusions. Delusions. Indeed, I call him a fool,
but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile,
the same bland, professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers,
till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful,
evil tempered invalid. But you shall judge for yourselves. Three
years ago, it was my fortune, my great misfortune, to
sail from Gravesend to Bombay on return from long leave,
with one Agnes Keith Wessington, wife of an officer on
the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern
you to know what manner of woman she was. Be
content with the knowledge that ere the voyage had ended.
Both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love
with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the
admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of
this sort, there is always one who gives and another
who accepts. From the first day of our ill omened attachment,
I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a
more dominant, and, if I may use the expression, a
purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then,
I do not know. Afterwards, it was bitterly plain to
both of us. Arrived at Bombay in the spring of
the year, we went our respective ways to meet no
more for the next three or four months, when my
leave and her love took us both to Simla. There
we spent the season together, and there my fire of
straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end. With the
closing year. I attempt no excuse, I make no apology.
Missus Wessington had given up much for my sake, and
was prepared to give up all from my own lips.
In August eighteen eighty two, she learnt that I was
sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary
of the sound of her voice. Ninety nine women out
of a hundred would have wearied of me as I
wearied of them. Seventy five of that number would have
promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men.
Missus Wessington was the hundredth on her. Neither my openly
expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished
our interviews had the least effect. Jack Darling was her
one eternal cuckoo cry. I'm sure it's all a mistake,
a hideous mistake, and we'll be good friends again some day.
Please forgive me, Jack Dear. I was the offender, and
I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into passive endurance,
and eventually into blind hate, the same instinct I suppose
which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider
he has but half killed. And with this hate in
my bosom, the season of eighteen eighty two came to
an end. Next year, we met again at Simla, she
with her monotonous face and timid attempts at reconciliation, and
I with loathing of her in every fiber of my frame.
Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone, and
on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still
the unreasoning wail that it was all a mistake, and
still the hope of eventually making friends. I might have seen,
had I cared to look, that that hope only was
keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month
by month. You will agree with me at least that
such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It
was uncalled for, childish, unwomanly. I maintained that she was
much to blame. And again, sometimes in the black, fever
stricken night watches, I have begun to think that I
might have been a little kinder to her, But that
really is a delusion. I could not have continued pretending
to love her when I didn't, could I. It would
have been unfair to us both. Last year we met
again on the same terms as before, the same weary
appeals and the same curt answers from my lips. At
least I would make her see how wholly wrong and
hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old relationship. As
the season wore on, we fell apart. That is to
say she found it difficult to meet me, for I
had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When
I think it over quietly in my sick room, the
season of eighteen eighty four seems a confused nightmare, wherein
light and shade were fantastically intermingled my courtship of little
Kitty Mannering, my hopes, doubts and fears, our long rides together,
my trembling avowal of attachment, her reply, and now and
again a vision of a white face flitting by in
the rickshaw with the black and white liveries. I once
watched for so earnestly the wave of Missus Wessington's gloved hand,
and when she she met me alone, which was but
seldom the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering, honestly,
heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew
my hatred for Agnes. In August, Kitty and I were engaged.
The next day, I met those accursed magpie Jampanese at
the back of Jackal, and, moved by some passing sentiment
of pity, stopped to tell Missus Wessington everything she knew
it already, so I hear you're engaged, Jack, Dear, Then,
without a moment's pause, I'm sure it's all a mistake,
a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack,
as we ever were. My answer might have made even
a man WinCE. It cut the dying woman before me
like the blow of a whip. Please forgive me, Jack,
I didn't mean to make you angry, but it's true.
It's true, and Missus Wessington broke down completely. I turned
away and left her to finish her journey in peace,
feeling but only for a moment or two, that I
had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back and
saw that she had turned her rickshaw with the idea
I suppose of overtaking me. The scene and its surroundings
were photographed on my memory. The rain swept sky we
were at the end of the wet weather, The sodden
dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder riven
cliffs formed a gloomy background, against which the black and
white liveries of the Japanese, the yellow paneled rickshaw, and
Missus Wessington's down bowed golden head stood out clearly. She
was holding her handkerchief in her left hand and was
leaning back, exhausted against the rickshaw cushions. I turned my
horse up a by path near the Sanjowli Reservoir and
literally ran away. Once I fancied, I heard a faint
call of Jack. This may have been imagination. I never
stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across
Kitty on horseback, and in the delight of a long
ride with her, forgot all about the interview. A week later,
Missus Wessington died and the inexpressible burden of her existence
was removed from my life. I went plainsward, perfectly happy.
Before three months were over, I had forgotten all about her,
except that at times the discovery of some of her
old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By
January I had disinterred what was left of our correspondence
from among my scattered belongings and had burnt it. At
the beginning of April of this year, eighteen eighty five,
I was at Simla, semi deserted Cymbla once more, and
was deep in lovers talks and walks with Kitty it
was decided that we should be married at the end
of June. You will understand therefore that loving Kitty as
I did, I am not saying too much when I
pronounced myself to have been at the time the happiest
man in India. Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I
noticed their flight. Then, aroused to the sense of what
was proper among mortal's circumstances we were, I pointed out
to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward and
visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl, and
that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured
for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word,
we had completely forgotten so trivial a matter to Hamilton's.
We accordingly went on the fifteenth of April eighteen eighty five.
Remember that, whatever my doctor may say to the contrary,
I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well balanced
mind and an absolutely tranquil spirit. Kitty and I entered
Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless of the order of affairs,
I measured kitty finger for the ring in the presence
of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with
two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that
leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peleeti's shop. While my
whaler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale,
and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side. While
all simla, that is to say, as much of it
as had then come from the plains, was grouped round
the reading room and Peleidi's veranda, I was aware that
some one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me
by my Christian name. It struck me that I had
heard the voice before, but when and where I could
not at once determine. In the short space it took
to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's Shop
and the first plank of the Combermere Bridge, I had
thought over half a dozen people who might have committed
such a solicism, and had eventually decided that it must
have been some singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Pelete's shop,
my eye was arrested by the sight of four Japanese
in black and white livery pulling a yellow panel cheap
bizarre rickshaw. In a moment, my mind flew back to
the previous season and Missus Wessington with a sense of
irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman
was dead and done with without her black and white
servitors reappearing to spoil the day's happiness? Whoever employed them? Now?
I thought I would call upon and ask, as a
personal favor, to change her Japanese livery. I would hire
the men myself, and if necessary, buy their coats from
off their backs. It is impossible to say here what
a flood of undesirable memories their presents evoked, Kitty, I cried,
there are poor Missus Wessings Japanese turned up again. I
wonder who has them now? Kitty had known Missus Wessington
slightly last season and had always been interested in the
sickly woman. What where, 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 afterwards
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 to 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 daily pray for
the death I dread by night sat missus 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 groom, taking the whaler's bridle
and asking whether I was ill. I tumbled off my
horse and dashed, half fainting into Palid'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 endeavored 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 a 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 dear 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 eighteen eighty five, 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
Missus Wessington. When Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop, nothing
was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Pelides.
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 Missus 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 a sudden palpation 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 Jacko. With my
nerves still unstrung from the previous night, I feebly protested
against the notion, suggesting observatory hill Jutah, the Bwoalogungs Road,
anything rather than the jackal round. Kitty was angry and
a little hurt, so I yielded, from fear of provoking
further misunderstanding, and we set out together towards 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
San Jali 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 fully of
missus Wessington all the afternoon, and every inch of the
Jackal Road bore a witness to our old time walks
and talks. The boulders 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 called the Ladies Mile,
the horror was awaiting me. No other rickshaw was in sight,
only the four black and white Jampanese, 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 whaler 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
whaler 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 all 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 gray
hill side, 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 afterwards naturally, and from san Jowli 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
mem Sahib 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 hard work, poor devils. And the rickshaw has
been broken up by the man himself told me he
never used a dead mem Sahib's rickshaw spoilt his luck.
Queer notion, wasn't it fancy, poor little missus 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
Missus Wessington give her men? What were there 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 traveled 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 Missus 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 is a hatter, poor devil or drunk Max try
and get him to come home. Surely that was not
missus 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 unloverlike 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 fullness 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 Heatherley 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 them all, 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 had been thinking over it
all dinner time. I say, Pansy, 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 its 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 spoilt 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
steadily in front and my red whiskered friend seemed to
derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts,
eyes pansy 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. Catch you 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 overhanging
shale cliff. Instinctively I halted, too, giving my reason heatherly
wrapped out an oath. Now, if you think I'm going
to spend a cold night on the hill side for
the sake of a stomach, comebrain, come eye, illusion, Lord,
have 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, Pansey, and thank God, I want
to drink badly. We retraced our way over the Church Ridge,
and I arrived at doctor Heatherley's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts towards 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 Heatherly'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. Heatherly'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 injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherly
dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me.
Here is his parting benediction. Man, I 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 Kit. 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 blagguard all through, but
all the same you're a phenomena, and as queer a
phenomenon as you are a blagguard. Now go out and
see if you can find the eyes, brain and stomach
business again. I'll give you a lack for each time
you see it. Half an hour later I was in
the Mannering's drawing room with Kitty, drunk with the intoxication
of present happiness and the foreknowledge that I should never
more be troubled with its hideous presence. Strong in the
sense of my newfound security, I proposed a ride at once,
and by preference a canter round Jacko. Never have I
felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
spirits as I did on the afternoon of the thirtieth
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 Mannering's house together, laughing
and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road. As
of old, I was in haste to reach the Sanjowli 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 whaler plunge in curve
it 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
a cross to San Jowley. In the center of the
level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow
paneled rickshaw, and missus 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 Missus Wessington, for I
saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes.
Thank you, mister Pansy, she said, that's quite enough. Bring
my horse. The grooms, 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 ay, 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 wheel on it. I had
no self respect. Just then Heatherly, 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 lack as soon as convenient. Heatherly's face, even in
my abject misery, moved me to laugh. 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 Jackal
seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud,
and fall in upon me. Seven days later, on the
seventh of May. That is to say, I was aware
that I was lying in Heatherly's room as weak as
a little child. Heatherly was watching me intently from behind
the papers on his writing table. His first words were
not very 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 missus. Wessington ought to kill himself
out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot
headed little viago. You're a mash. We'll have it too
that you were suffering from d T. When that row
on the Jackal Road turned up, says she'll die before
she ever speaks to you again. I groaned and turned
over on 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 Lady's 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 has 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 Heatherly in his chair
might have wondered, what dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently
I heard myself answering in a voice I hardly recognized.
They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give em fits,
Heatherly 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 Pansy 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, Heatherly told me in
the morning that he had received an answer from mister Mannering,
and that thanks to his Heatherly'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 will cure you yet 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 Heatherlely 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 Kiddy was a ghost, that mannering Heatherly and all
the other men and women I knew were all ghosts,
and the great Gray Hills themselves, but vain shadows devised
to torture me. From mood to mood. I tossed backwards
and forwards for seven weary days, my body growing daily
stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking glass told me
that I had returned to every day 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 fifteenth of May, I left Heatherley'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 Heatherly, 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 bandstand. The Black and White liveries joined me,
and I heard missus Wessington's old appeal at my side.
I had been expecting this ever since I came out,
and was only so at her delay. The phantom rickshaw
and I went side by side along the Chota Simla
road in silence. Close to the bazaar, 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 jackal 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 Pansey, on leave at Simla,
at Simla, every day, 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 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 Missus 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 Missus 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 card case in
her left a woman eight months dead with a card case.
I had to pin myself down to the multiplication, 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.
Missus Wessington leant 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 over leaped
the bounds 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. Missus Wessington spoke, and I walked with her
from the san Jowly 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 Chiefs,
and we too 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 Missus Wessington's
rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the course
of that weird interview I cannot, indeed I dare not
tell Heatherlely'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 theater. I found them amid the crowd
of yelling Jampanese 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
them all deep in conversation with Missus 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 discard 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 fifteenth of May up to to day.
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 flirtation 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 missus 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 scene and the unseen should mingle
so strangely on this earth, to hound one poor soul
to its grave. August twenty seventh Heatherly 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. Heatherly's proposition moved me to almost hysterical life.
After 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 knightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner
of my death. Shall I die in my bed decently
and as an English gentleman would 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 phanfasm 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 too 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 towards 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 Missus Wessington. And
the last portion of my punishment is even now upon me.
End of Section nine