That Which Resembles the Grave— But Isn't

My Dear Tom,

I think I should like to call you dear . Since the day you came to India with your hat in your hand, you have been closer than a brother to me. What else can you call a man with whom you have dined every night for two years? But perhaps you are not so dear— we have talked of little except business— and such dreadful business at that. That’s not the kind of thing that brothers do, merely business partners, and if I had not loved you like a brother, and merely kept my head on my shoulders and thought of you as a man with whom I aspired to make a profit, things would have all been different. I would have walked away long before now, and it might have been the better for both of us.

I could have walked away, I think, if I had not wanted to be in it with you. I’m not a man who has ever been good at suffering things I don’t enjoy. If I did not like talking to you about business, I wouldn’t have. There was always such an excitement in your eyes, it made even the most dry figures pleasant to look at, or at least to hear you describe. And you should know that I don’t suffer things easily— I’m such a flighty man. These days when I’ve come to your hospital room and looked at the piles of letters and record books that you have delivered to you, all I’ve wanted to do is sit at the foot of your bed and talk about pleasant things instead of the work you’ve resigned yourself to, even through your illness.

Maybe you did enjoy hearing me talk about my Little Missus, describing all of the things I’d like to do with her when this whole dreadful affair is finished. We would go out to the park, I’d rent a rowboat on such a pleasant spring day (of the kind that only comes in England— not in a place like this), with the sun just warm over the tops of the trees, and the swans making their stately ways across the water. I’d sit my girl up in the prow of the rowboat, wearing some fine white dress, and I’d sing some silly song that would make her laugh. She’s too solemn sometimes— rather like you, I suppose. Perhaps that is why I liked you so, and why you always liked me. 

Even now, when it’s far too late to cheer you any longer, I’m still doing it. I’m imagining again, instead of resigning myself to the work. The dreadful work. And if I had resigned myself to it before now, If I could have taken up a pen myself and sorted all of the trouble out— perhaps—

Tom, I do believe I’ve killed you with my unwillingness to bear our shared burden.

I’ve never been good at facts and figures, money and mines, and if I was given a diamond I couldn’t tell it from glass. You know this about me! When we were at Eaton playing cricket— what a dream, a million years ago— you knew I couldn’t tabulate a batting average if my life depended on it. 

You tell me that it was your venture all along, and I shouldn’t trouble myself with it— and I was stupid enough to obey you, because I wanted to. It wasn’t stupid of me to ignore it because the money’s gone now— I don’t care— or I tell myself that I don’t care— let us render unto Caesar—! But because you shouldered the burden alone, while also being burdened with me: a useless, flighty, delicate man who would rather imagine beautiful things than sit down and square with my debtors.

I went to the hospital to see you this morning. That’s another thing I’ve been resisting— resigning myself to that place, even though I should. I kept telling myself that you were sicker than I was, and so while I could still walk and carry myself about, and think with a clear head during the day, there was no need to leave the house I’ve loved. But I am only pretending , as my girl would say, that the jungle fever has not struck me down just the same as it has you. 

I know it’s so damned hot here— in a better day I would complain of it— but now all I want is to lay on a rug before the fire, shivering and sweating in equal measure. I like to do it in that house, rather than the hospital, because there I can pretend that when I hear the laughter of my little girl, or see her white frocks turning the corner in the hall ahead of me, that it’s me thinking of pleasanter things on purpose, rather than being afflicted with this disease that makes me see things and hear things that aren’t there, that are only the things I desire most in the world, thousands of miles away. 

If I took myself to the hospital like you did, I think I would be able to imagine far less pleasant things. And you didn’t even have the comfort of my Little Missus to think of—! If she were here, she’d lay her head on your knee, that charming, simple, kindly way of hers that only a child has— “Poor Tom! How you’ve suffered! And how much you’ve borne for my dear papa!” she’d say. And she wouldn’t care about the money either.

I might have been angry when I went to see you this morning. I had gotten a letter about money— someone hunting me down— and I was angry and wanted to pass the damned thing off to you, as I always have. But I came to the hospital, and there was nothing there in your room but the linens pulled tight over the bed. I was told that you were gone and that your solicitor had collected all your remaining papers and things. Gone! Dead of brain fever, I suppose.

I wish— I wish so many things. What I wish most of all is that you were here with me, and I swear if you were, I would try to work things out together, or I would say damn the money, forget about it. But you’re not here, and you never will be again. And I wish that I could have been a comfort and a help to you, and not just a man who came to your bedside to tell you stories of a girl you’ve never met, halfway across the world.

Now I have nothing to do but write a letter to a dead man, as if he could reply to me. I’m begging for forgiveness, I suppose. I still have the letter I was angry about this morning. Damn the money! Damn it all! I’ll toss it into the fire, and this one too.

Tom— it feels to me like learning you have gone from this Earth has taken the last of my strength and cheer with it. I thought I should faint on the way back from the hospital, in the heat and the sun— it all felt so far away, like there was darkness closing in around the corners of my eyes. And now here at home, I see you sitting at the table where we dined together nightly, I hear my Little Missus saying something in the hallway— one of her imaginings, I suppose, though I can’t make out the words. 

My head feels quite heavy. It’s for the best that you shan’t receive this letter— can’t— because my hand is so hard to move. I’ve spilled so much ink on it that it’s more illegible than not. I should go to bed— I should consign myself to the hospital— though I won’t, as it did so little good for you and your brain fever.

When I am well enough again to travel, Tom— though I am a flighty man who should know better than to make promises, I will promise this— I will give up on all this business of mines, and I’ll give up India altogether. I’ll take my hat in hand as you once did, and I shall make my way back home to London, and I will find my little girl, and I will say to her something very silly that will make her smile— and perhaps it will feel like you are cheered, too, my serious old friend. 

If you were here, I would stick it out for you— fellows at Eaton losing a game of cricket, it’s all good fun if we did it together. But now that you’re gone, there’s nothing here for me at all. I’ll return to England in disgrace, to be sure, but at least there it would be my Little Missus and me against the world. I wish— perhaps I should have told us both to quit and go home at the first sign of trouble. I would have liked for you to meet my girl— she would have found you tremendous, absolutely splendid, and you would have been charmed by her in the way that every good soul is. But you are not a man who gives up on things, and you kept at the miserable business of figures and debts until it killed you.

My God, Tom— I only learned you were gone this morning, and it feels like the whole rest of my life will be filled with the awfulness of it. I’m weeping over this paper— perhaps it will be too wet to even burn in the fire. My Little Missus would tell me not to cry, as soldiers can’t cry over their fallen comrades— but that isn’t true, that has never been true— that’s just a story that little girls tell themselves, when their papas are going so far away, to catch brain fever and be the loneliest men in the world.

How I miss you, Tom. That is all I find myself able to say. 

Your Dear Friend,

Ralph