George Fenn - One Maid's Mischief

“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.”

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, but went on in a quiet, bland way, accepting their hints, polite to all, whether trading or non-trading, while his table was magnificently kept up, and to it the occupants of the station were always made welcome.

When fate places people in the tropics, they make a point of rising early. Helen Perowne was up with the sun, and dressed in a charming French muslin costume, had a delightful drive, which she called upon Grey Stuart to share, before she met her father at breakfast – a meal discussed almost in silence, for Mr Perowne would give a good deal of his attention to business matters over his meals, a habit against which Dr Bolter warned him, but without avail.

The repast was nearly finished, when a servant entered and announced that the Sultan Murad was coming down the river in his dragon-boat, and evidently meant to land at the stage at the bottom of the garden.

“What does he want?” said the merchant, absently. “Been collecting tribute, I suppose, and wants to sell. Go and see if he lands,” he said aloud, “and then come back.”

“This is the way we have to make our money, my dear,” said Perowne, smiling, but without seeing the increased colour in his child’s face.

“The Sultan is here, sir,” said the man, returning.

“Where?” asked Mr Perowne.

“In the drawing-room, sir. Shall I bring in fresh breakfast?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ring. I’ve done, Helen. I say, young lady, what a colour you have got! You stopped out too long in the sun this morning.”

“Oh, no, papa, I think not,” she replied; “but it is hot.”

“You’ll soon get used to that, my dear. I don’t mind the heat at all. Party went off very well last night, I think.”

The merchant was by this time at the door, wondering what proposal the Rajah had to make to him, for all these petty princes stoop to doing a little trading upon their own account, raising rice in large quantities by means of their slaves; but, man of the world as the merchant was, he did not find himself prepared for the proposition that ensued.