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 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 even now upon me.