practice on you. So many people have been to that house and seen the
ghost that I came to think the story acted on their imaginations, and
I wished to make a better test. So I invented for their benefit another
story, with the idea that if you did see anything I could be sure it was
not due merely to an excited imagination.'
"'Then what you told me about a woman having been murdered, and all
that, was not the true story of the haunting?'
"'It was not. The true story is that a cousin of mine went mad in that
house, and killed himself in a fit of morbid terror following upon years
of miserable hypochondriasis. It is his figure that investigators see.'
"'That explains, then,' I gasped----
"'Explains what?'
"I thought of that poor struggling soul, longing all these years for
escape, and determined to keep my story for the present to myself.
"'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,'
I concluded.
"'Precisely,' said Sir Henry, 'and why, if you had seen anything, it
would have had value, inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the
imagination working upon a story you already knew.'"
FOOTNOTE:
[I] Taken by permission from "The Listener and Other Stories,"--E.P.
Dutton & Co.
THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
"May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
Nor Powers of Darkness me molest."
--_Evening Hymn._
One of the few advantages that India has over England is a certain great
Knowability. 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 castes. 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.
Globe-trotters 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 Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon, 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 bed-room. Polder behaves as
though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and
yearly sends the little Ricketts 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.
Heatherlegh, 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 tale of bricks is a
fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work
overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as
mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.
Heatherlegh 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 Pansay 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
Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh,
"after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have
behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that
the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he
took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & 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. Overwork 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 Pansay sometimes when
Heatherlegh 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 afterwards 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-ridden. I secured
his manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair,
dated 1885:--
* * * * *
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. Mrs. Wessington
had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my
own lips, in August, 1882, 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. Mrs. 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
1882 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 maintain
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 1884 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 Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand;
and, when 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" _jhampanies_ at
the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped
to tell Mrs. 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 Mrs. 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
_jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. 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 bypath near the Sanjowlie
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 Mrs. 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, 1885, I was at
Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and was deep in lover's 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 pronounce 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 mortals
circumstanced as 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 15th of April, 1885.
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's 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 Peliti's shop.
While my Waler 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 Peliti'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 solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have
been some singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye
was arrested by the sight of four _jhampanies_ in black and white
livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my
mind flew back to the previous season and Mrs. 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 re-appearing 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 _jhampanies'_ 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 presence evoked.
"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's _jhampanies_ turned
up again! I wonder who has them now?"
Kitty had known Mrs. 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 willful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a
hand-gallop in the direction of the Band-stand; 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 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 daily pray
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
groom taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. 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 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 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 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 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 a 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 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 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
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 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
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 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 afterwards naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely
held my tongue.