Page 2 SHORT STORY
THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, AUGUST 16, 1940
INDIAN MIRAGE
By
Princess Paul Troubetzkoy
M
All the same, Edna wouldn't let Queer you should have said you Not long ago, at the London he was glad of company, other] As I did so, and while he was, home of an old friend, I ran into than his own, He said he was still surprised and shaken, I said, me speak to her father. Seemed were an author, after local colour, nervous about it, and spid it in my holidays I had done just an acquaintance of my Indian just thinking of camping for the quickly:
I say! I beg your par- would come better from her. She that, wandering about disguised days. He told me a strange story night, and I asked him if he cared
could manage him better, she said as a native to collect local colour for a book. I intended to write, of a husband and wife-the type to share my fire. I had a motive don.
At last I persuaded her to tackle and I had learned some of the of story that only India can pro-in this, for I thought I might pos- Then he seemed to bite off his duce. Here it is:
sibly obtain some information. words, and sat there staring up at the old man, and I'll admit that I languages.
me, while I stared down at him. didn't sleep much that night We How old are you?" I asked Then he laughed:
were to meet the next evening; He smiled a twisted smile. "Well, I'm damned!" said he Edna and I. So there are two of us!" ·
а
As soon as I saw. her
him.
face
I
"How old would you think?” "Well, about .... I tried to be
1 encountered Chalmers last We pooled our rations, and year, when I was up in the hills made a good meal. While we ate, of Afghanistan, not hundred
we talked in a casual, desultory miles from the Khyber Pass, said sort of manner, but already, a
"It looks like it!" I answered, knew things had gone wrong. It kind to him. Bity?
I was thirty-one last month!" my friend.
I am in the intelli-germ of suspicion had formed in
jand sat down again.
was quite clear to me that she'd
"Great Scott!" I gasped. gence, and the job I was on at
She told me that my mind, and as we talked it
He smiled that twisted, smile He gave me a quick glance, been crying. the time doesn't matter.
grew, until I was almost as cer- which seemed to me to be half her father had gone right off the again:
deep-end. He hated commercial "I told you it was hell!" he said, of my own Let it suffice then that I was injtain of it as I was
men anyway (its queer, you know, quietly. the hills, and that I was disguised identity.
as a native. I had settled down And it was a matter of identity, to camp for the night when
I too!
I was almost certain that heard footsteps approaching. My this old Afridi was not an Afridi ear is keen, and the rocky ground is a good carrier of sound to the at all, but a white man, and an trained ear.
Englishman at that!
was I thought it over. If he were a
scared, half-defiant.
"That was a trick?"
but some people do!) and he had "And now?" I asked. "Or,
It was an assertion, rather than gone on to point out that I had rather, when the five years are
hardly a penny to bless myself-up...?" a question.
"Frankly, yes!" I told him.
"You-suspected me?"
"My name is Chalmers!"
which, unfortunately, was true, "I am going to put on civilised But the worst of it all was that, clothes once more and go to find
he while I had been keeping mum, Edna. I shall try to explain said, quickly. "Does that mean Baker had spoken to the old man. everything to her, and ask her if
Baker was well off, and of good there is any hope for me." anything to you at all?"
"If she has not married again!" Again his intonation was queer, family and, to make a long story The person approaching taking no pains to disguise his white man, what was his game? and I seemed to detect fear in his short, the old man was determin-I suggested.
ed that Edna should marry him! "Yes," he agreed, quietly, "If voice. progress, so I gathered it could
"You can take a horse to water, she has not married again!" If an Englishman, he would prob- "Not a thing!" I answered. hardly be a foe. Still, one never
Edna, as it turned out, had not knows up in those hills, and I was ably be a friend-but if belonging "I'm afraid I've never heard of but you can't make him drink!" 1
told Edna, comfortingly.
married again. ready for anything.
to some other European nation, he you in my life!"
"No," she answered. "But you Before we parted, after that might well be the reverse. It He laughed again, without
can make his life a misery until strange meeting, he asked me if that I mirth. When the stranger
in seemed to me essential came
!he does!"
The might look me up when he sight I saw that he was an Afridi, should make sure which he was,{ "I was afraid you might have and no youngster, either. His hair but I could see no way of doing done!" he told me.
Then he ask-sensible enough to run away...!"
"Yes!" I agreed. "Unless he's came back to civilisation.
"You see," he explained, "I have and beard were quite white, and that without giving myself away.ed: "I don't want to be over- And that was our solution. I been dead now for five years! I his shoulders were a little bowed. And that might be very danger-curious. But are you in the
persuaded Edna at last to agree to have no friends left, and it would But they were powerful shoulders, ous.
police?"
We made all our be nice to have just one fellow to and the man had the look of a
"No!" I answered him, also with elope with me.
cut and talk, or even to write to." powerful fellow. I put him down However, as there was no other a laugh. "As a matter of fact I'm plans got everything
That struck me as being very immediately as a man who had way, I decided to take a chance-an author-out looking for a spot dried, down to the last detail, But
on the day we were to go off to-pathetic, and I gave him the been badly bent, but not broken, one has to do that sometimes. of local colour for a book I'm
gether I felt very ill and feverish. address of my club. I never saw by some great sorrow. Later I
So 1 waited my opportunity, planning!"
I thought it was just the excite-him again, but about six months congratulated myself on my in-|
"I see!" he said drily-and I then rose and turned away from
He went
ment, and kept going until it was later I picked up a letter there. sight.
And a It had been waiting for me for a the fire, with a muttered excuse knew that he did see.
hundred yards away Then I pretended to on: "I expect that means Intelli-time to go and meet her.
from my month, and it was from John 1 greeted him in his own lan-in Afridi.
In it said: guage, and he replied with a sug-slip on a stone, twist my ankle, gence, but it's no business of mine, own place I just, collapsed in the Chaimers.
All the same, I'm
I have just seen her. gestion of warmth that told me and stumbled heavily against him thank God!
glad I've met you. To begin with, street, and was taken off to hos-
pital.
of It proved to be typhoid, She looks older-some her it's like heaven to hear an Eng and poor little Edna waited in beauty has faded. And no won- lish voice again I have not
I saw her walking be- spoken to one of my own kind for vain for me that night.
Of course, when I came to, and side one of those long, invalid five years, nearly!"
knew what had happened, I was carriage things. A native servant "Great Scott!" I said, and swal-in the devil of a state! I wrote to was pushing it, and inside lay lowed the monosyllabic question Edna as soon as I could hold a stretched the form of the man I that was on the tip of my tongue. pencil, but I got no reply. I ask-have called Baker. She
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He seemed to sense that.
der
never
over
"You don't ask why," he saided for news of her, but all they saw me, she was bending
told me was that she was still in him to speak as they passed. But slowly, his eyes staring into the! the district. Plainly, I would saw-and now I know what I lfire. "But if it won't bore you, have to go and see her, as soon have done!
I'd like to tell you. I'd like to as I could crawl.
I guessed "I thought I was merely a mur- get it off my mind, if you under-somebody might have stopped that derer and never thought it could stand me?"
"I think I understand!" I told letter-in fact I was sure of it! be worse than that. But it is! For Out at last, and off to see Edna, I have condemned them both- him. "Go ahead!"
Ready to beard her father in his the man I hated to the living It was nearly five years ago when all this happened (he be- den, for all that I was just a mass death of being helplessly depen gan). I have already told you with the aid of a stick.
of skin and bone, staggering along dent upon others, and the woman I loved to be tied to a log she that my name is Chalmers. To the When I got to the house I found does not love for the rest of her other two parties I will give ficti-it in an uproar and I soon learn--or his life. * [tious names for obvious reasoned the reason, At that very mo- "This isit must be the end I will call her Edna, and I will ment Edna was being married for me. I can no longer, bear the call him Baker.
gullt that is mine even the It was Darjeeling where it hap-to Baker. pened. I was a journalist, attach- I think I want mad then! I've letter to you is my last contact Thought of what I have done. This jed to Commercial Agency. just a hazy recollection of hurry with civilised people. And now I Baker was a fairly high official ing round to the church despite am going to ask you; if you will, in the Civil Service there: Edna my weakness, and of seeing to do one thing for me. At the was the daughter of a soldier a through a sort of blood-red mist, bottom of this sheet I have writ-
Edna coming out on the aim of ten Edna's real name.
Major.
a
She is liv-
I don't know whether she was her husband. And he had a self-ing in Bombay-it will be easy. [beautiful. Actually, I suppose not complacent smile on his fat face
Will But she was certainly a very fas-that put the last touch to my mad-enough to find her there. cinating girl. There was a won-ness. I stepped out of the crowd you go to her, tell her all that. I derful charm about her, and she and I hit him over the head with have told you, and beg her for certainly fascinated me. That, 1 my stick-two smashing blows, giveness for me. This is the last
[request of. 1 suppose, is the only excuse I can and it was a heavy stick, too offer for what happened.",
Then, in a flash, sanity came It's all a very old, old story, I back to me. Instinctively I bent suppose, really-but it was all over him. He never moved. very new to me, then. I met felt for his heart, and couldn't feel Edna at a dance, and our steps it. And then I knew that I was should say the irony-of it. Atted just as though we'd been a murderer
At the first opportunity I went made for each other. She was aj I felt an iron grip on my arm, to Bombay, where I had a friend
enthusiast-what they and then a voice said:
.:!
John Chalmers." It all seemed very tragic to me, not knowing that I didn't know half the tragedy or perhaps I
an old school-friend who was
dancing call a "fan" in these days, I be "You damned scoundrel! But now a very clever doctor practis- lieve. I had never been really we can't have this scandal-you ing there. I went straight to him, forld of dancing-until I met her. must get out while you're safe! thinking he would likely know
"Edna's" address. He did! Then I became as big a fan as she Come along with me... "
"Indeed?
à
How was that"
"Well, between ourselves, they
was. Baker was another. dancing It was her father. He dragged "Queer you should come to me," fan, and I heard him say one night me through the crowd as though he said, in answer to my query: "I that her step fitted his just as was his prisoner, and nobody know them quite well-in fact, I though they were two parts of a tried to stop us. Then he called am in charge of his case."
"A bad business, eh?” jig-saw puzzle. From that moment a gharri, and pushed me into it-
"Bad enough--but it might have- I hated Baker with a very bitter and then I collapsed.. hatred indeed!
When I knew anything. again 1been a lot worse! In fact, in However, I won-or I seemed was in an up-country bungalow, way, its been a blessing in dis- to. There came.a night when we with a couple of natives looking guise." sat out in a garden under the after me. I was very ill for some moon, and all the air was scented time. When I got better one of asited, curiously. with a thousand perfumes, and I the servants gave me a letter and told her that I loved her. And some money. The letter fold me weren't, very happy. together at she admitted that she loved me.. to make myself scarce as soon as first, but now, since his trouble, For a fortnight we kept our I was well enough-and if I want-they seem to have drawn together secret, and were gloriously happy, ed more money to call on him in the most wonderful manner- But then I got impatient, I want (Edna's. father for it. but never and to-day they're as devoted
The couple as you could wish to meet. ed things to be on a proper foot-to come near them again, ing. I wanted to be officially en-one thing the man seemed scared When he recovers.
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "Do gaged, so that all the world (and of was scandal. Balser in particular) should know He needn't have, worried. As you really mean he is going to re♣
.7 that: Edna was my property, and soon as I could walk I cleared cover after all these years... |nobody else's.
out--and without his money. He looked at me in surprise. Iwanted to talk to her father, either. Well, I had had plenty of Years...? What are you but she wouldn't hear of it. Itime to think things out, and to talking about? It's only six months know that mostly the world realise that I was a murderer. Isince that car hit him as he was foesn't bother, in such circum-would have given myself up. to crossing a road. And in another stances, about talking to fathers the police, but that, I realised, six he'll be playing tennis again -but we're a bit old-fashioned would only make things worse for with the best of them but here, and Edna had been Edna. So I tried myself, and sen- I had a queer notion that, some- rought up in the old-fashioned tenced myself to five years in where or other, Fate was laugh-
Hell!
Xinga: way.