Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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The Tertium Quid stood at the head of the grave, and stared
without answering for a space. Then
he said, dropping a pebble down, "It is nas'y~and cold; horribly
cold. I don't think I shail come to
the Cemetery any more. I don't think grave-digging is cheerful."

The two talked and agreed that th~

204
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIFLI~G

Cemetery was depressing. They also arranged for a ride next day
out from the Cemetery through
the Mashobra Tunnel up to Fagoo and back, because all the world
was going to a garden-party at
Viceregal Lodge, and all the people of Mashobra would go too.

Corning up the Cemetery road, the Tertium Quid's horse tried to
bolt u~ hill, being tired with
standing so long, and managed to strain a hack sinew.

"I shall have to take the mare totriorrow," said the Tertium Quid,
"and she will stand nothing
heavier than a snaffie."

They made their arrangements to meet in the Cemetery, after
allowing all the Mashobra people
time to pass into Simla. That night it rained heavily, and next day,
when the Tertium Quid came
to the trysting-place, he saw that the new grave had a foot of water
in it, the ground being a
tough and sour clay.

"'Jove! That looks beastly," said the Tertiurn Quid. "Fancy being
boarded up and dropped into
that well!"

They then started off to Fagoo, the mare playing with the snaffle
and picking her way as though
she were shod with satin, and the sun shining divinely. The road
below Mashobra to Fagoo is
officially styled the Himalayan-Thibet Road; but in spite of its
name it is not much more than six
feet wide in most places, and the drop into the valley below must
be anything between one and
two thousand feet.

"Now we're going to Thibet," said the Man's Wife merrily, as the
horses drew near to Fagoo. She
was riding on the cliff-side.

"Into Thihet," said the Tertium Quid,
"ever so far from people who say horrid things, and hubbies who
write stupid letters. With
you-to the end of the world!"

A coolie carrying a log of wood came round a corner, and the mare
went wide to avoid
him-forefeet in and haunches out, as a sensible mare should go.

"To the world's end," said the Man's Wife, and looked unspeakable
things over her near shoulder
at the Tertium Quid.

He was smiling, but, while she looked, the smfle froze stiff as it
were on his face, and changed to
a nervous grin-the sort of grin men wear when they are not quite
easy in their saddles. The mare
seemed to be sinking by the stem, and her nostrils cracked while
she was trying to realize what
was happening. The rain of the night before had rotted the
drop-side of the Himalayan-Thibet
Road, and it was giving way under hen "What are you doing?" said
the Man's Wife. The Tertium
Quid gave no answen He grinned nervously and set his spurs into
the mare, who rapped with her
forefeet on the road, and the struggle began. The Man's Wife
screamed, "Oh, Frank, get off!"

But the Tertium Quid was glued to the saddle-his face blue and
white-and he looked into the
Man's Wife's eyes. Then the Man's Wife clutched at the mare's
head and caught her by the nose
instead of the bridle. The brute threw up her head and went down
with a scream, the Tertium
Quid upon her, and the nervous grin still set on his face.

The Man's Wife heard the tinkle-tinMe of little stones and loose
earth falling off the roadway,
and the sliding roar
A WAYSIDE COMEDY

205

of the man and horse going down. Then everything was quiet, and
she called on Frank to leave
his mare and walk up. But Frank did not answer. He was
underneath the mare, nine hundred feet
below, spoiling a patch of Indian corn.

As the revellers came hack from Viceregal Lodge in the mists of
the evening, they met a
temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse, swinging
round the corners, with her
eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the head of the
Medusa. She was
stopped by a man at the risk of his life, and taken out of the saddle,
a limp heap, and put on the
bank to explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, and then she
was sent home in a lady's
'rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her hands picking at her
riding-gloves.

She was in bed through the following three days, which were
rainy; so she missed attending the
funeral of the Tertium Quid, who was lowered into eighteen inches
of water, instead of the
twelve to which he had first objected.



A Waysicte Comedy

Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the
misery

of man is great upon him.-
-Eccies. viii. 6.


FATE and the Government of India have turned the Station of
Kashima into a prison; and,
because there is no help for the poor souls who are now lying there
in torment, I write this story,
praying that the Government of India may be moved to scatter the
European population to the
four winds.

Kashima is bound on all sides by the rock-tipped circle of the
Dosehri hills. In Spring, it is
ablaze with roses in Summer, the roses die and the hot winds blow
from the hills; in Autumn, the
white mists from the ihils cover the place as with water, and in
Winter the frosts nip everything
young and tender to earth-level. There is but one view in
Kashima-a stretch of perfectly flat
pasture and plough-land, running up to the grey-blue scrub of the
Dosebri hills.

There are no amusements, except snipe and tiger shooting; but the
tigers have been long since
hunted from their lairs in the rock-caves, and the snipe only come
once a year. Narkarra-one
hundred and forty-three miles by road-is the nearest station to
Kashima. But Kashima never goes
to Narkarra, where there are at least twelve English people. It
stays within the circle of the
Dosebri hills.

All Kasbima acquits Mrs. Vansuythen of any intention to do harm;
but all Kashima knows that
she, and she alone, brought about their pain.

Boulte, the Engineer, Mrs. Boulte, and Captain Kurrell know this.
They are the English
population of Kashima, if we except Major Vansuythen, who is of
no importance whatever, and
Mrs. Vansuythen, who is the most important of all.

You must remember, though you will not understand, that all laws
weaken

200
WORK~ OF RUDYARD KIPLING

in a small and hidden community where there is no public opinion.
When a man is absolutely
alone in a Station he runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways.
The risk is multiplied by every
addition to th~ population up to twelve
-the Jury-number. After that, fear and consequent restraint begin,
and human action becomes
less grotesquely jerky.

There was deep peace in Kashima till Mrs. Vansuythen arrived.
She was a charming woman,
every one said so everywhere; and she charmed every one. In spite
of this, or, perhaps, because
of this, since Fate is so perverse, she cared only for one man, and
he was Major Vansuythen. Had
she been plain or stupid, this matter would have been intelligible
to Kashima. But she was a fair
woman, with very still grey eyes, the color of a lake just before the
light of the sun touches it.
No man who had seen those eyes, could, later on, explain what
fashion of woman she was to
look upon. The eyes dazzled him. Her own sex said that she was
"not had looking, but spoiled
by pretending to be so grave." And yet her gravity was natural It
was not her habit to smile.
She merely went through life, looking at those who passed; and the
~omen objected while the
men fell down and worshipped.

She knows and is deeply sorry for the evil she has done to
Kashima; but Major Vansuythen
cannot understand why Mrs. Boulte does not drop in to afternoon
tea at least three times a week.
"When there are only two women in one Station, they ought to see
a great deal of each other,"
says Major Vansuythen.

Long and long before ever Mrs. Vansuythen came out of those
far-away places where there is
society and amusement, Kurrell had discovered that Mrs. Boulte
was the one woman in the
world for him and-you dare not blame them. Kashima was as
out of the world as Heaven or
the Other Place, and the Dosehri hills kept their secret well.
Boulte had no concern in the
matter. He was in camp for a fortnight at a time. He was a hard,
heavy man, and neither Mrs.
Boulte nor Kurrell pitied him. They had all Kashima and each
other for their very, very own;
and Kashima was the Garden of Eden in those days. When Boulte
returned from his wanderings
he would slap Kurrell between the shoulders and call him "old
fellow," and the three would dine
together. Kashima was happy then when the judgment of God
seemed almost as distant as
Narkarra or the railway that ran down to the sea. But the
Government sent Major Vansuythen to
Kashima, and with him came his wife.

The etiquette of Kashima is much the same as that of a desert
island. When a stranger is cast
away there, all hands go down to the shore to make him welcome.
Kashima assembled at the
masonry platform close to the Narkarra Road, and spread tea for
the Vansuythcns. That
ceremony was reckoned a formal call, and made them free of the
Station, its rights and
privileges. When the Vansuythens were settled down, they gave a
tiny housewarming to all
Kashima; and that made Kashima free of their house, according to
the immemorial usage of the
Station.

Then the Rains came, when no one

A WAYSIDE COMEDY
207

could go into camp, and the Narkarra
Road was washed away by the Kasun
River, and in the cup-like pastures of
Kashima the cattle waded knee-deep.
The clouds dropped down from the
Dosehri hills and covered everything.

At the end of the Rains, Boulte's manner toward his wife changed
and became demonstratively
affectionate. They had been married twelve years, and the change
startled Mrs. Boulte, who
hated her husband with the hate of a woman who has met with
nothing but kindness from her
mate, and, in the teeth of this kindness, had done him a great
wrong. Moreover, she had her awn
trouble to fight with-her watch 0 keep over her own property,
Kurrell. For two months the Rains
had hidden the Dosebri hills and many other things besides; but
when they lifted, they showed
Mrs. Boulte that her man among men, her Ted-for she called him
Ted in the old days when
Boulte was out of earshot-was slipping the links of the allegiance.

"The Vansuythen Woman has taken him," Mrs. Boulte said to
herself; and when Boulte was
away, wept over her belief, in the face of the over-vehement
blandishments of Ted. Sorrow in
Kashima is as fortunate as Love, because there is nothing to
weaken it save the flight of Time.
Mrs. Boulte had never breathed her suspicion to Kurrell because
she was not certain; and her
nature led her to be very certain before she took steps in any
direction. That is why she behaved
as she did.

Boulte came into the house one evening, and leaned against the
door-posts of the drawing-room,
chewing his moustache. Mrs. Boulte was putting some
flowers into a vase. There is a pretence of civilization even in
Kashima.

"Little woman," said Boulte, quietly, "do you care for me?"

"Immensely," said she, with a laugh. "Can you ask ~?"

"But I'm serious," said Boulte. "Do you care for me?"

Mrs. Boulte dropped the flowers, and turned round quickly. "Do
you want an honest answer?"

"Ye-es, I've asked for it."

Mrs. Boulte spoke in a low, eve~ voice for five minutes, very
distinctly, that there might be no
misunderstanding her meaning. When Samson broke the pillars of
Gaza, he did a little thing,
and one not to be compared to the deliberate pulling down of a
woman 5 homestead about
her own ears. There was no Wise female friend to advise Mrs.
Boulte, the singularly cautious
wife, to hold her hand. She struck at Boulte's heart, because her
own was sick with suspicion of
Kurrell, and worn out with the long strain of watching alone
through the Rains. There was no
plan or purpose in her speaking. The sentences made themselves;
and Boulte listened leaning
against the door-post with his hands in his pockets. When all was
over, and Mrs. Boulte began
to breathe through her nose before breaking out into tears, he
laughed and stared straight in front
of him at the Dosebri hills.

"Is that all?" be said. "Thanks, I only wanted to know, you know."

"What are you going to do?" said the woman, between her sobs.

"Do! Nothing. What should I do? Kill Kurrell or send you Home,
or apply for leave to get a
divorce? It'~

20a
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

two days' dok into Narkarra." He laughed again and went on: "I'll
tell you what you can do.
You can ask Kurrell to dinner to-morrow-no, on Thursday, that
will allow you time to
pack~and you can holt with him. I give you my word I won't
follow."

He took up his helmet and went out of the room, and Mrs. Boulte
sat till the moonlight streaked
the floor, thinking and thinking and thinking. She had done her
best upon the spur of the
moment to pull the house down; but it would not fall. Moreover,
she could not understand her
husband, and she was afraid. Then the folly of her useless
truthfulness struck her, and she was
ashamed to write to Kurrell, say]ng: "I have gone mad and told
everything. My husband says that
I am free to elope with you. Get a ddk for Thursday, and we will
fly after dinner." There was a
cold-bloodedness about that procedure which did not appeal to
her. So she sat still in her own
house and thought.

At dinner-time Boulte came back from his walk, white and worn
and haggard, and the woman
was touched at his distress. As the evening wore on, she muttered
some expression of sorrow,
something approaching to contrition. Boulte came out of a brown
study and said, "Oh, that! I
wasn't thinking about that. By the way, what does Kurrell say to
the elopement?"

"I haven't seen him," said Mrs. Boulte. "Good God! is that all?"

But Boulte was not listening, and her sentence ended in a gulp.

The next day brought no comfort to Mrs. Boulte, for Kurrell did
not appear, and the new life that
she, in the
five minutes' madness of the previous evening, had hoped to build
out of the ruins of the old,
seemed to be no nearer.

Boulte ate his breakfast, advised her to see her Arab pony fed in
the veranda, and went out. The
morning wore through, and at midday the tension became
unendurable. Mrs. Boulte could not
cry. She had finished her crying in the night, and now she did not
want to be left alone. Perhaps
the Vansoythen woman would talk to her; and, since talking opens
the heart, perhaps there might
be some comfort to be found in her company. She was the only
other woman in the Station.

In Kasbima there are no regular calling-hours. Every one can drop
in upon every one else at
pleasure. Mrs. Boulte put on a big terai hat, and walked across to
the Vansoythen's house to
borrow ]ast week's Queen. The two compounds touched, and
in-stead of going up the drive, she
crossed through the gap in the cactus-hedge, entering the house
from the back. As she passed
through the dining-room, she heard, behind the purdah that
cloaked the drawing-room door, her
husband's voice, saying-"But on my Honor! On my Soul
and Honor, I tell you she doesn't care for me. She told me so last
night. I would have told you
then if Vansuythen hadn't been with you. If it is for her sake that
you'll have nothing to say to
me, you can make your mind easy. It's Kurrell'

"What?" said Mrs. Vansoythen, with an hysterical little laugh.
"Kurrell! Oh, it can't be. You two
must have made some horrible mistake. Perhaps you-you lost your
temper, or misun
A WAYSIDE COMEDY

209
derstood, or something. Things can't be as wrong as you say."

Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defence to avoid the man's
pleading, and was desperately trying
to keep him to a side-issue.

"There must be some mistake," she insisted, "and it can be all put
right again."

Boulte laughed grimly.

"It can't be Captain Kurrell! He told me that he had never taken
the least-the least interest in
your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! He said he had not. He
swore he had not," said Mrs.
Vansuythen.

The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a
little, thin woman with big
rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuytben stood up with a gasp.

"What was that you said?" asked Mrs. Boulte. "Never mind that
man. What did Ted say to you?
What did he say to you? What did he say to you?"

Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, overborne by the
trouble of her questioner.

"He said-I can't remember exactly what he said-but I understood
him to say-that is-But, really,
Mrs. Boulte, isn't it rather a strange question?"

"Will you tell me what he said?" repeated Mrs. Boulte. Even a
tiger will fly before a bear robbed
of her whelps, and Mrs. Vansuythen was only an ordinarily good
woman. She began in a sort of
desperation: "Well, he said that he never cared for you at all, and,
of course, there was not the
least reason why he should have, and-and-that was all."

"You said he swore he had not cared for me. Was that true?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Vansuythen, very softly.

Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where she stood, and then fell
forward fainting.

"What did I tell you?" said Boulte, as though the conversation had
been unbroken. "You can see
for yourself She cares for him." The light began to break into his
dull mind, and he went
on-"And h~what was he saying to you?"

But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for explanations or
impassioned protestations, was
kneeling over Mrs. Boulte.

"Oh, you brute!" she cried. "Are all men like this? Help me to get
her into my room-and her face
is cut against the table. Oh, will you be quiet, and help me to carry
her? I hate you, and I hate
Captain Kurrell. Lift her up carefully and now-go! Go away!"

Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuythen's bedroom and
departed before the storm of that
lady's wrath and disgust, impenitent and burning with jealousy.
Kurrell had been making love to
Mrs. Vansuythen-would do Vansuytben as great a wrong as he had
done Boulte, who caught
himself considering whether Mrs. Vansuythen would faint if she
discovered that the man she
loved had foresworn her.

In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell came cantering along
the road and pulled up with a
cheery, "Goodmornin'. 'Been mashing Mrs. Vansuythen as usual,
eh? Bad thing for a sober,
married man, that. What will Mr~ Boulte say?"

210
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING


Boulte raised his head and said, slowly, "Oh, you liar!" Kurrell's
face changed. "What's that?"
he asked, quickly.

"Nothing much," said Boulte. "Has my wife told you that you two
are free to go off whenever
you please? She has been good enough to explain the situation to
me. You've been a true friend
to me, Kurrell-old man-haven't you?"

Kurrell groaned, and tried to frame some sort of idiotic sentence
about being willing to give
"satisfaction." But his interest in the woman was dead, had died
out in the Rains, and, mentally,
he was abusing her for her amazing indiscretion. It would have
been so easy to have broken off
the thing gently and by degrees, and now he was saddled
with-Boulte '5 voice recalled him.

"'I don't think I should get any satisfaction from killing you, and
I'm pretty sure you'd get none
from killing me."

Then in a querulous tone, ludicrously disproportioned to his
wrongs, Boulte added-"'Seems
rather a pity that you haven't the decency to keep to the woman,
now you've got her. You've
been a true friend to her too, haven't you?"

Kurrell stared long and gravely. The situation was getting beyond
him.

"What do you mean?" he said.

Boulte answered, more to himself than the questioner: 'My wife
came over to Mrs. Vansuythen's
just now; and it seems you'd been telling Mrs. Vansuythen that
you'd never cared for Emma. I
suppose you lied, as usual. What had Mrs. Vansuytben to do with
you, or you with her? Try to speak the truth for once in a way."

Kurrell took the double insult without wincing, and replied by
another question: "Go on.
What happened?"

"Emma fainted," said Boulte, simply.

"But, look here, what had you been saying to Mrs. Vansuythen?"

Kurrell laughed. Mrs. Boulte had, with unbridled tongue, made
havoc of his plans; and he could
at least retaliate by hurting the man in whose eyes he was
humiliated and shown dishonorable.

"Said to her? What does a man tell a lie like that for? I suppose I
said pretty much what you've
said, unless I'm a good deal mistaken."

"I spoke the truth," said Boulte, again more to himself than
Kurrell. "Emma told me she hated
me. She has no right in me."

"No! I suppose not. You're only her husband, y'know. And what
did Mrs. Vansuythen say after
you had laid your disengaged heart at her feet?"

Kurrell felt almost virtuous as he put the question.

"I don't think that matters," Boulte replied; "and it doesn't concern
you."

"But it does! I tell you it does" began Kurrell, shamelessly.

The sentence was cut by a roar of laughter from Boulte's lips.
Kurrell was silent for an instant,
and then he, too, laughed-laughed long and loudly, rocking in his
saddle. It was an unpleasant
sound-the mirthless mirth of these men on the long, white line of
the Narkarra Road. There
were no strangers in Kashima, or they might have thought that
captivity within the

A WAYSIDE COMEDY
211

Dosehri hills had driven half the European population mad. The
laughter ~nded abruptly, and
Kurrell was the first to speak.

"Well, what are you going to do?"

Boulte looked up the road, and at the hills. "Nothing," said he,
quietly; "what's the use? It's too
ghastly for anything. We must let the old life go
on.
I can only call you a hound and a liar, and I can't go on calling you
names forever. Besides
which, I don't feel that I'm much better. We can't get out of this
place. What is there to do?"

Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima and made no reply.
The injured husband took up the
wondrous tale.

"Ride on, and speak to Emma if you want to. God knows I don't
care what you do."

He walked forward and left Kurrell gazing blankly after him.
Kurrell did not ride on either to
see Mrs. Boulte or Mrs. Vansuythen. He sat in his saddle and
thought, while his pony grazed by
the roadside.

The whir of approaching wheels roused him. Mrs. Vansuythen
was driving home Mrs. Boulte,
white and wan, with a cut on her forehead.

"Stop, please," said Mrs. Boulte "I want to speak to Ted."

Mrs. Vansuythen obeyed, but as Mrs. Boulte leaned forward,
putting her hand upon the
splash-hoard of the dog-cart, Kurrel] spoke.

"I've seen your husband, Mrs. Boulte.

There was no necessity for any further explanation. The man's
eyes were fixed, not upon Mrs.
Boulte, but
her companion. Mrs. Boulte saw the look.

"Speak to him!" she pleaded, turning to the woman at her side.
"Oh, speak to him! Tell him
what you told me just now. Tell him you hate him. Tell him you
hate him!"

She bent forward and wept bitterly, while the sais, impassive, went
forward to hold the horse.
Mrs. Vansuythen turned scarlet and dropped the reins. She wished
to be no party to such unholy
explanations.

"I've nothing to do with it," she began, coldly; but Mrs. Boulte's
sobs overcame her, and she
addressed herself to the man. "I don't know what I am to say,
Captain Kurrell. I don't know what
I can call you. I think you've-you've behaved abominably, and she
has cut her forehead terribly
against the table."

"It doesn't hurt. It isn't anything," said Mrs. Boulte feebly. "That
doesn't matter. Tell him what
you told me. Say you don't care for him. Oh, Ted, ~von't you
believe her?"

"Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that you were-that you were
fond of her once upon a
time," went on Mrs. Vansuythen.

"Well!" said Kurrell brutally. "It seems to me that Mrs. Boulte had
better be fond of her own
husband first."

"Stop!" said Mrs. Vansuythen. "Hear me first. I don't care-I don't
want to know anything about
you and Mrs. Boulte; but I want you to know that I hate you, that I
think you are a cur, and that
I'll never, never speak to you again. Oh, I don't dare to say what I
think of you, you-man!"

~24
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

~outhl I ordered the Hawley Boy, as 'ae valued my patronage, not
to call. The first person I
stumble over-literally stumble over-in her poky, dark, jittle
drawing-room is, of course, the
flawley Boy. She kept us waiting ten rninutes, and then emerged
as though ~he had been tipped
out of the dirtyrIothes basket. You know my way, dear, when I am
all put out. I was Superior,
crrrushingly Superior! 'Lifted my eyes to Heaven, and had heard of
nothing-'dropped my eyes on
the carpet and 'really didn't know'-'played witn my cardcase and
'supposed so.' The Hawley Boy
giggled like a girl, and I had to freeze him with scowls between the
sentences."

"And she?"

"She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, and managed to convey
the impression that she was
suffering from stomach-ache, at the very least. It was all I could do
not to ask after her
symptoms. When I rose she grunted just ~ke a buffalo in the
water-too lazy to move."

"Are you certain?'-"Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer
l.~iness, nothing else-or her garments were only constructed for
sitting down
in.
I stayed for a quarter of an hour trying to penetrate the gloom, to
guess what her surroundings
were like, while she stuck out her tongue."

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