A spectre at my door,
I shall but love you more,
Who from Death's house returning, give me still
One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.
Shadow Houses.
This tale may be explained by those who know how souls are made, and where the bounds of the Possible are put down. I have lived long enough in this country to know that it is best to know nothing, and can only write the story as it happened.
Dumoise was our Civil Surgeon at Meridki, and we called him “Dormouse,” because he was a round little, sleepy little man. He was a good Doctor and never quarrelled with any one, not even with our Deputy Commissioner3, who had the manners of a bargee and the tact4 of a horse. He married a girl as round and as sleepy-looking as himself. She was a Miss Hillardyce, daughter of “Squash” Hillardyce of the Berars, who married his Chief's daughter by mistake. But that is another story.
A honeymoon5 in India is seldom more than a week long; but there is nothing to hinder a couple from extending it over two or three years. This is a delightful6 country for married folk who are wrapped up in one another. They can live absolutely alone and without interruption—just as the Dormice did. These two little people retired7 from the world after their marriage, and were very happy. They were forced, of course, to give occasional dinners, but they made no friends hereby, and the Station went its own way and forgot them; only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was the best of good fellows, though dull. A Civil Surgeon who never quarrels is a rarity, appreciated as such.
Few people can afford to play Robinson Crusoe anywhere—least of all in India, where we are few in the land, and very much dependent on each other's kind offices. Dumoise was wrong in shutting himself from the world for a year, and he discovered his mistake when an epidemic8 of typhoid broke out in the Station in the heart of the cold weather, and his wife went down. He was a shy little man, and five days were wasted before he realized that Mrs. Dumoise was burning with something worse than simple fever, and three days more passed before he ventured to call on Mrs. Shute, the Engineer's wife, and timidly speak about his trouble. Nearly every household in India knows that Doctors are very helpless in typhoid. The battle must be fought out between Death and the Nurses, minute by minute and degree by degree. Mrs. Shute almost boxed Dumoise's ears for what she called his “criminal delay,” and went off at once to look after the poor girl. We had seven cases of typhoid in the Station that winter and, as the average of death is about one in every five cases, we felt certain that we should have to lose somebody. But all did their best. The women sat up nursing the women, and the men turned to and tended the bachelors who were down, and we wrestled9 with those typhoid cases for fifty-six days, and brought them through the Valley of the Shadow in triumph. But, just when we thought all was over, and were going to give a dance to celebrate the victory, little Mrs. Dumoise got a relapse and died in a week and the Station went to the funeral. Dumoise broke down utterly10 at the brink11 of the grave, and had to be taken away.
After the death, Dumoise crept into his own house and refused to be comforted. He did his duties perfectly12, but we all felt that he should go on leave, and the other men of his own Service told him so. Dumoise was very thankful for the suggestion—he was thankful for anything in those days—and went to Chini on a walking-tour. Chini is some twenty marches from Simla, in the heart of the Hills, and the scenery is good if you are in trouble. You pass through big, still deodar-forests, and under big, still cliffs, and over big, still grass-downs swelling13 like a woman's breasts; and the wind across the grass, and the rain among the deodars says:—“Hush—hush—hush.” So little Dumoise was packed off to Chini, to wear down his grief with a full-plate camera, and a rifle. He took also a useless bearer, because the man had been his wife's favorite servant. He was idle and a thief, but Dumoise trusted everything to him.
On his way back from Chini, Dumoise turned aside to Bagi, through the Forest Reserve which is on the spur of Mount Huttoo. Some men who have travelled more than a little say that the march from Kotegarh to Bagi is one of the finest in creation. It runs through dark wet forest, and ends suddenly in bleak14, nipped hill-side and black rocks. Bagi dak-bungalow is open to all the winds and is bitterly cold. Few people go to Bagi. Perhaps that was the reason why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the evening, and his bearer went down the hill-side to the village to engage coolies for the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of the verandah, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as hard as he could up the face of the hill.
But there was no bear to account for his terror. He raced to the verandah and fell down, the blood spurting15 from his nose and his face iron-gray. Then he gurgled:—“I have seen the Memsahib! I have seen the Memsahib!”
“Where?” said Dumoise.
“Down there, walking on the road to the village. She was in a blue dress, and she lifted the veil of her bonnet16 and said:—'Ram17 Dass, give my salaams18 to the Sahib, and tell him that I shall meet him next month at Nuddea.' Then I ran away, because I was afraid.”
What Dumoise said or did I do not know. Ram Dass declares that he said nothing, but walked up and down the verandah all the cold night, waiting for the Memsahib to come up the hill and stretching out his arms into the dark like a madman. But no Memsahib came, and, next day, he went on to Simla cross-questioning the bearer every hour.
Ram Dass could only say that he had met Mrs. Dumoise and that she had lifted up her veil and given him the message which he had faithfully repeated to Dumoise. To this statement Ram Dass adhered. He did not know where Nuddea was, had no friends at Nuddea, and would most certainly never go to Nuddea; even though his pay were doubled.
Nuddea is in Bengal, and has nothing whatever to do with a doctor serving in the Punjab. It must be more than twelve hundred miles from Meridki.
Dumoise went through Simla without halting, and returned to Meridki there to take over charge from the man who had been officiating for him during his tour. There were some Dispensary accounts to be explained, and some recent orders of the Surgeon-General to be noted19, and, altogether, the taking-over was a full day's work. In the evening, Dumoise told his locum tenens, who was an old friend of his bachelor days, what had happened at Bagi; and the man said that Ram Dass might as well have chosen Tuticorin while he was about it.
At that moment a telegraph-peon came in with a telegram from Simla, ordering Dumoise not to take over charge at Meridki, but to go at once to Nuddea on special duty. There was a nasty outbreak of cholera20 at Nuddea, and the Bengal Government, being shorthanded, as usual, had borrowed a Surgeon from the Punjab.
Dumoise threw the telegram across the table and said:—“Well?”
The other Doctor said nothing. It was all that he could say.
Then he remembered that Dumoise had passed through Simla on his way from Bagi; and thus might, possibly, have heard the first news of the impending21 transfer.
He tried to put the question, and the implied suspicion into words, but Dumoise stopped him with:—“If I had desired THAT, I should never have come back from Chini. I was shooting there. I wish to live, for I have things to do.... but I shall not be sorry.”
The other man bowed his head, and helped, in the twilight22, to pack up Dumoise's just opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the lamps.
“Where is the Sahib going?” he asked.
“To Nuddea,” said Dumoise, softly.
Ram Dass clawed Dumoise's knees and boots and begged him not to go. Ram Dass wept and howled till he was turned out of the room. Then he wrapped up all his belongings23 and came back to ask for a character. He was not going to Nuddea to see his Sahib die, and, perhaps to die himself.
So Dumoise gave the man his wages and went down to Nuddea alone; the other Doctor bidding him good-bye as one under sentence of death.
Eleven days later, he had joined his Memsahib; and the Bengal Government had to borrow a fresh Doctor to cope with that epidemic at Nuddea. The first importation lay dead in Chooadanga Dak-Bungalow.
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1
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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2
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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3
commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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4
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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5
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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6
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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7
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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8
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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9
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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10
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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11
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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12
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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13
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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14
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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15
spurting
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| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射 | |
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16
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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17
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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18
salaams
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| （穆斯林的）额手礼，问安，敬礼( salaam的名词复数 ) | |
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19
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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20
cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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21
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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22
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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23
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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