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 or
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 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 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.