One Maid's Mischief. George Manville Fenn
“That’s the thing to do nowadays, like our host has done. Perowne is very rich, and if papa Stuart had done as well, we should be having plenty of offers for that busy little hand. Yes, a score at your feet.”
“Where they would not be wanted,” said the girl, quietly.
“Eh? Not wanted?” said the Resident. “What, would you not like to be worshipped, and hold a court like our fair Helen yonder?”
The girl’s eyes flashed as she glanced in the direction of the ottoman, where Captain Hilton was talking in a low, earnest voice to Helen Perowne; and then, with a slightly-heightened colour, she went on with her work, shaking her head the while.
“I don’t think I shall believe that,” said the Resident, banteringly; but as he spoke she looked up at him so searchingly that even he, the middle-aged man of the world, felt disconcerted, and rather welcomed the coming of the little rosy-faced doctor, who advanced on tiptoe, and with a look of mock horror in his face, as he said, softly:
“Let me come here, my dear. Spread one of your dove-wings over me to ensure peace. Madam is wroth with her slave, and I dare not go near her.”
“Why, what have you been doing now, doctor?” said Grey, with mock severity.
“Heaven knows, my dear. My name is Nor—I mean Henry—but it ought to have been Benjamin, for I have always got a mess on hand, lots of times as big as anyone else’s mess. I’m a miserable man.”
Meanwhile the conversation had been continued between the doctor’s lady and Chumbley, till the former began to fidget about, to the great amusement of the latter, who, knowing the lady’s weakness, lay back with half-closed eyes, watching her uneasy glances as they followed the doctor, till after a chat here and a chat there, he made his way to the couch by Grey Stuart, and began to speak to her, evidently in a most earnest way.
“She’s as jealous as a Turk,” said Chumbley to himself; and he tightened his lips to keep from indulging in a smile.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr. Chumbley,” said Mrs. Bolter at last.
“No trouble, Mrs. Bolter,” he replied, slowly, though his tone indicated that it would be a trouble for him to move.
“Thank you. I’ll bear in mind what you said about Helen Perowne.”
“And that nigger fellow? Ah, do!” said Chumbley, suppressing a yawn.
“Would you mind telling Dr. Bolter I want to speak to him for a moment—just a moment?”
“Certainly not,” said Chumbley; and he rose slowly, as if a good deal of caution was required in getting his big body perpendicular; after which he crossed to where the doctor was chatting to Grey Stuart.
“Here, doctor, get up,” he said. “Your colonel says you are to go to her directly. There’s such a row brewing!”
“No, no! Gammon!” said the little man, uneasily. “Mrs. Bolter didn’t send you, did she?”
“Yes. Honour bright! and if I were you I’d go at once and throw myself on her mercy. You’ll get off more easily.”
“No, but Chumbley, what is it? ’Pon my word I don’t think I’ve done anything to upset her to-day.”
“I don’t know. There; she’s looking this way! ’Pon my honour, doctor, you’d better go!”
Dr. Bolter rose with a sigh, and crossed to his lady, while Chumbley took his place, and threw himself back, laughing softly the while.
“If that was a trick, Mr. Chumbley,” said Grey, gazing at him keenly, “it is very cruel of you!”
“But it wasn’t a trick, Miss Stuart. She sent me to fetch him. The poor little woman was getting miserable because the doctor was so attentive to you.”
“Oh, Mr. Chumbley, what nonsense,” said Grey, colouring. “It is too absurd!”
“So it is,” he replied; “but that isn’t.” She followed the direction of his eyes as he fixed them on Captain Hilton and Helen Perowne, and then, with the flush dying out of her cheeks, she looked at him inquiringly.
“I say, Miss Stuart,” he drawled, “don’t call me a mischief-maker, please.”
“Certainly not. Why should I?”
“Because I get chattering to people about Miss Perowne. I wish she’d marry somebody. I say, hasn’t she hooked Bertie Hilton?”
There was no reply, and Chumbley went on: “I mean to tell him he’s an idiot when he gets back to quarters to-night. I don’t believe Helen Perowne cares a sou for him. She keeps leading him on till the poor fellow doesn’t know whether he stands on his head or his heels, and by-and-by she’ll pitch him over.”
Grey bent her head a little lower, for there seemed to be a knot in the work upon which she was engaged, but she did not speak.
“I say, Miss Stuart, look at our coffee-coloured friend. Just you watch his eyes. I’ll be hanged if I don’t think there’ll be a row between him and Hilton. He looks quite dangerous!”
“Oh, Mr. Chumbley!” cried Grey, gazing at him as if horrified at his words.
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder,” he continued. “Helen Perowne has been leading him on, and now he has been cut to make room for Hilton. These Malay chaps don’t understand this sort of thing, especially as they all seem born with the idea that we are a set of common white people, and that one Malay is worth a dozen of us.”
“Do—do you think there is danger?” said Grey hoarsely.
“Well, no, perhaps not danger,” replied Chumbley, coolly; “but things might turn ugly if they went on. And it’s my belief that, if my lady there does not take care, she’ll find herself in a mess.”
A more general mingling of the occupants of the drawing-room put an end to the various tête-à-têtes, and Grey Stuart’s present anxiety was somewhat abated; but she did not feel any the more at rest upon seeing that the young rajah had softly approached Hilton, and was smiling at him in an innocently bland way, bending towards him as he spoke, and keeping very close to his side for the rest of the evening.
At last “good-byes” were said, and the party separated, the two young officers walking slowly down towards the landing-stage, to enter a native boat and be rowed to their quarters on the Residency island.
The heat was very great, and but little was said for some minutes, during which Hilton was rapturously thinking of the beauty of Helen’s eyes.
“I say, Chum,” he said suddenly. “Murad has invited me to go on a hunting-trip with him in the interior. Would you go?”
“Certainly—if—” drawled Chumbley, yawning.
“If? If what!”
“I wanted a kris in my back, and to supply food to the crocodiles.”
Volume One—Chapter Twenty.
A Proposal.
Mr. Perowne’s home at Sindang was kept up in almost princely style, and he was regarded as the principal inhabitant of the place. Both English and Chinese merchants consulted him, and the native dealers and rajahs made him the first offers of tin slabs, rice, gambier, gutta-percha, and other products of the country, while a large proportion of the English and French imports that found favour with the Malays were consigned to the house of Perowne and Company.
People said that he must be immensely rich, and he never denied the impeachment,