One Maid's Mischief

These thoughts ran through the brains of each of the spectators of the little scene within the drawing-room in turn, but only one of the dinner-party spoke aloud, and that was in a low voice in another’s ear.

It was the little Scotchman, Grey Stuart’s father, who spoke, as he laid his hand upon his host’s shoulder.

“Perowne, mahn,” he whispered, “ye’ll have a care there, and speak to your lass, for there’ll be the deil’s own mischief, and murder too, if she leads that fellow on.”

Volume One – Chapter Eighteen.
Helen Perowne at Home

Sultan Murad, who, from the aspect of affairs in Mr Perowne’s drawing-room, seemed to be the last captive to the bow of Helen’s lips and the arrows of her eyes, was one of the rajahs of the Malay peninsula, living upon friendly terms with the English, paying allegiance to the government, and accepting the friendly services of a Political Resident, in the shape of Mr Harley, whose duties were to advise him in his rule, to help him in any plans for civilising and opening out his country; and in exchange for his alliance and friendly offices with neighbouring chiefs, who viewed the coming of the English with jealous eyes, the rajah was promised the help of the English arms in time of need. As an earnest of this promise, a couple of companies of an English foot regiment were permanently stationed upon a little island in the river, just opposite to Sindang, the principal native town of Jullah, over which territory Sultan Murad reigned.

But the Prince only adopted such of the English customs as suited his tastes. He had no objection, though a follower of Mahomet, to the wines that were introduced, showing a great preference for champagne. Our dress he took to at once, making a point of always appearing in indigo-blue silk stockings and patent-leather shoes. The widest-fronted shirts were spread over his broad breast, and the tail-coat found so much favour that he had to exercise a good deal of self-denial to keep himself from appearing all day long in full evening-dress.

But he had good advisers to help his natural shrewdness, and finding that his adoption of our costume found favour with his English allies, he adhered to it rigorously, as far as his position as sultan or rajah would allow. For there was and is one part of the native dress that no Malay will set aside, and that is the sarong, a tartan scarf sewn together at the ends and worn in folds around the body, so as to form a kilt.

This article of dress, always a check or plaid of some showy-coloured pattern, is worn by every Malay, in silk or cotton, according to his station, and in the sash-like folds he always carries his kris, a dangerous-looking dagger, that falsely bears the reputation of being smeared along its wavy blade with poison.

A silken kilt and a dagger are rather outré objects for an English drawing-room, and looked barbaric and strange as worn by the young rajah, whose evening-dress was otherwise in faultless English style, being in fact the production of a certain tailor, of Savile Row, an artist who had been largely patronised by Murad for shooting and morning gear, and also for his especial pride, a couple of gorgeous uniforms, something between that of a hussar and a field-marshal bound to a review.

The bad name given to a dog dies hard, and in spite of steam and electricity, the idea still lingers in our midst that the Malay is as evil as his kris, and that he is a brutal savage, accustomed to put forth from his campong in a long row-boat, or prahu, to make a piratical attack upon some becalmed vessel. After this it is supposed to be his custom to put the crew to death, plunder the ship, and set it on fire as a finish to his task.

Such deeds have been done, for there are roughs amongst the Malays, even as there are in civilised England. In bygone days, too, such acts were doubtless as common as among our border chieftains; but, as a rule, the Malays are an educated body of eastern people, professing the Mahommedan religion, with an excellent code of laws, punctilious in etiquette, and though exceedingly simple in their habits, far from wanting in refinement.

Sultan Murad was unmistakably a prince, handsome in person, and naturally of a grave and dignified mien, while since his alliance with the English he had become so thoroughly imbued with our habits and the ordinary ways of a gentleman as to make him a visitor well worthy of Helen’s attention for the time.

There was something delightful to her vanity in the eastern term “sultan,” a title associated in her mind with barbaric splendour, showers of diamonds and pearls, cloth of gold, elephants with silver howdahs, attended by troops of slaves bearing peacock fans, chowries, and palm-leaf punkahs. She saw herself in imagination mounted upon some monstrous beast, with a veil of gossamer texture covering her face; a troop of beautiful slaves in attendance, and guards with flashing weapons jealously watching on every side the approach of those who would dare to sun themselves in her beauty.

Her thoughts were so pleasant, that in place of the languid air of repose in her dark, shaded eyes, they would flash out as she listened with a gratified smile to Murad’s eastern compliments and the soft deference in his voice.

He was a real sultan, who, when with the English, adopted their customs; while with his people no doubt he would assume his barbaric splendour; and to Helen, fresh as it were from school, and, revelling in the joys of her new-born power, there was something delicious in finding that she had a real eastern potentate among her slaves.

The Rajah had been talking to her in his soft, pleasant English for some time before the gentlemen left the dining-room. Now Neil Harley separated himself from the rest, sauntered across, nodded to the Rajah, who drew back, and made a flash dart from the young Malay’s eyes as he saw the Resident seat himself in a careless, quite-at-home fashion beside the young hostess.

“Well, Mad’moiselle Helen,” he whispered in a half-contemptuous tone, “how many more conquests this week?”

“I do not understand you, Mr Harley,” she said, coldly; but he noticed that she could hardly manage to contain the annoyance she felt at his cavalier manner.

“Don’t you?” he said, smiling and half closing his eyes. “As you please, most chilling and proud of beauties. What lucky men those are who find themselves allowed to bask in the sunshine of your smiles! There, that is the proper, youthful way of expressing it poetically, is it not?”

“If you wish to insult me, pray say so, Mr Harley, and I will at once leave the room,” said Helen, in a low voice, as if wishful that the Rajah should not hear her words, but making the Malay’s countenance lower as he saw the familiar way in which she was addressed.

“Insult you? All the saints and good people past and to come forbid! It is you who, after making me your slave, turn from me, the elderly beau, to listen to the voice of our dusky charmer. I don’t mind. I am going to chat and listen to little Grey Stuart. I shall be patient, because I know that some day you will return to me cloyed with conquests, and say, ‘Neil Harley, I am yours!’”

“I do not understand you,” she cried, quickly.

“Let me be explicit then,” he said, mockingly. “Some day the fair Helen will come to me and say, with her pretty hands joined together, ‘Neil Harley, I am tired of slaying men. I have been very wicked, and cruel, and coquettish. I have wounded our chaplain; I have slain red-coated officers; I have trampled a Malayan sultan beneath my feet; but I know that you have loved me through it all. Forgive me and take me; I am humble now – I am yours!’”

“Mr Harley!” she exclaimed, indignantly. “How dare you speak to me like this in my father’s house.”

As she spoke her eyes seemed to flash with anger, and he ought to have quailed before her; but he met her gaze with a calm, mastering look, and said slowly:

“Yes, you are very beautiful, and I do not wonder at your triumph in your power; but it is not love, Helen, and some day you will, as I tell you, be weary of all this adulation, and think of what I have said. I am in no hurry; and of course all this will be when you have had your reign as the most beautiful coquette in the East.”

“Mr Harley, if you were not my father’s old friend – ”

“Exactly, my dear child; old friend, who has your father’s wishes for my success with his daughter – old friend, who has known you by report since a child. I have been waiting for you, my dear, and you see I behave with all the familiarity accorded to a man of middle age.”

“Mr Harley, your words are insufferable!” said Helen, still in a low voice.

“You think so now, my dear child. But there: I have done. Don’t look so cross and indignant, or our friend the Rajah will be using his kris upon me as I go home. I can see his hand playing with it now, although he has it enveloped in the folds of his silken sarong in token of peace.”

“I beg you will go,” said Helen, contemptuously; “you are keeping the Rajah away.”

“Which would be a pity,” said the Resident, smiling. “He is a very handsome fellow, our friend Murad.”

“I have hardly heeded his looks,” said Helen, weakly; and then she flushed crimson as she saw Mr Harley’s mocking smile.

“Doosid strange, those fellows can’t come into a gentleman’s drawing-room without their skewers,” said Chumbley, coming up and overhearing the last words. “I say, Miss Perowne, you ought to have stayed and heard the doctor give us a lecture on Ophir and Solomon’s ships. Capital, wasn’t it, Hilton?”

“Really I hardly heard it,” replied the young officer, approaching Helen with a smile; and the Resident met the lady’s eye, and gave her a mocking look, as he rose and made place for the new-comer, who was welcomed warmly. “I was thinking about our hostess, and wondering how long it would be before we were to be emancipated from old customs and allowed to enter the drawing-room.”

“Yes, it is strange how we English cling to our customs, and bring them out even to such places as this,” said the lady, letting her eyes rest softly upon those of the young officer, and there allowing them to stop; but giving a quick glance the next moment at the Rajah, who, with a fixed smile upon his face, was sending lowering looks from one to the other of those who seemed to have ousted him and monopolised the lady’s attention.

“I never felt our customs so tedious as they were to-night,” said Captain Hilton, earnestly; and bending down, he began to talk in a subdued voice, while the gentlemen proceeded to discuss mercantile matters, the probability of the neighbouring Malay princess – the Inche Maida – taking to herself a lord; the latest move made by the governor; and other matters more or less interesting to the younger men.

At last Chumbley, seeing that Harley was chatting with Grey Stuart, crossed over to the doctor’s little lady, who had rather a troubled, uneasy look in her pleasant face as she watched her brother, the chaplain, hanging about as if to catch a word let drop by Helen now and then.

Volume One – Chapter Nineteen.
Signs of the Times

“Well, Mrs Bolter,” drawled Chumbley, “who’s going to carry off the prize?”

“What prize?” cried the little lady, sharply.

“The fair Helen,” said the young man, with a smile.

“You, I should say,” said Mrs Bolter, with more asperity in her tone.

“Chaff!” said Chumbley; and he went on, slowly, “Won’t do, Mrs Doctor; I’m too slow for her. She had me in silken strings for a week like a pet poodle; but I soon got tired and jealous of seeing her pet other puppies instead of me, and I was not allowed to bite them, so – ”

“Well?” said the doctor’s wife, for he had stopped.

“I snapped the string and ran away, and she has never forgiven me.”

“Harry Chumbley,” said the doctor’s wife, shaking her finger at him, “don’t you ever try to make me believe again that you are stupid, because, sir, it will not do.”

“I never pretend to be,” said the young man, with a sluggish laugh, “I’m just as I was made – good, bad and indifferent. I don’t think I’m more stupid than most men. I’m awfully lazy though – too lazy to play the idiot or the lover, or to put up with a flirting young lady’s whims; but I say, Mrs Doctor.”

“Well?” said the lady.

“I don’t want to be meddlesome, but really if I were you, being the regular methodical lady of the station, I should speak seriously to Helen Perowne about flirting with that nigger.”

“Has she been flirting with him to-night?” said the lady eagerly.

“Awfully,” said Chumbley – “hot and strong. We fellows can stand it, you know, and if we get led on and then snubbed, why it makes us a bit sore, and we growl and try to lick the place, and – there’s an end of it.”

“Yes – yes – exactly,” said the lady, thoughtfully.

“But it’s my belief,” continued Chumbley, spreading his words out so as to cover a good deal of space, while he made himself comfortable by stretching out his long legs, lowering himself back, and placing his hands under his head – a very ungraceful position, which displayed a gap between his vest and the top of his trousers – “it’s my belief, I say, that if Beauty there goes on playing with the Beast in his plaid sarong, and making his opal eyeballs roll into the idea that she cares for him, which she doesn’t a single pip – ”

“Go on, I’m listening,” said the doctor’s lady.

“All right – give me time, Mrs Bolter; but that’s about all I was going to say, only that I think if she leads him on as she is doing now there will not be an end of it. That’s all.”

“Well, busy little Grey,” said the Resident, merrily, as he seated himself beside the earnest-eyed Scottish maiden, “what is the new piece of needlework now?”

“Only a bit of embroidery, Mr Harley,” she replied, giving him a quick, animated glance, and the look of trouble upon her face passing away.

“Ha!” he said, taking up the piece of work and examining it intently, “what a strange thing it is that out in these hot places, while we men grow lazier, you ladies become more industrious. Look at Chumbley for instance, he’s growing fatter and slower every day.”

“Oh, but he’s very nice, and frank, and natural,” said Grey with animation.

“Yes,” said the Resident, “he’s a good fellow. I like Chumbley. But look at the work in that embroidery now – thousands and thousands of stitches. Why what idiots our young fellows are!”

“Why, Mr Harley?” said the girl, wonderingly.

“Why, my child? Because one or the other of them does not make a swoop down and persuade you to let him carry you off.”

“Are you all so tired of me already?” said Grey, smiling.

“Tired of you? Oh, no, little one, but it seems to me that you are such a quiet little mouse that they all forget your very existence.”

“I am happy enough with my father, and very glad to join him once more, Mr Harley.”

“Happy? Of course you are; that seems to be your nature. I never saw a girl so sweet, and happy, and contented.”

“Indeed!” said Grey, blushing. “How can I help being happy when everyone is so kind?”

“Kind? Why, of course. Why, let me see,” said the Resident, “how time goes; what a number of years it seems since I took you to England and played papa to you?”

“Yes, it does seem a long time ago,” said Grey, musingly.

“I never thought that the little girl I petted would ever grow into such a beautiful young lady. Perhaps that is why papa Stuart did not ask me to bring you back.”

“Mr Harley!” exclaimed Grey, and a look of pain crossed her face.

“Why, what have I done?” he said.

“Hurt me,” she said, simply. “I like so to talk to you that it troubles me when you adopt that complimentary style.”

“Then I won’t do it again,” he said, earnestly. “We won’t spoil our old friendship with folly.”

“How well you remember, Mr Harley,” said the girl, smiling again.

“Remember? Of course I do, my dear. Don’t you recollect what jolly feeds of preserved ginger and mango you and I used to have? Ah, it was too bad of you to grow up into a little woman!”

“I don’t think we are any the less good friends, Mr Harley,” said the girl, looking trustingly up in his face.

“Not a bit,” he said. “Do you know, my dear, I think more and more every day that I am going to grow into a staid old bachelor; and if I do I shall have to adopt you as daughter or niece.”

“Indeed, Mr Harley.”

“Yes, indeed, my dear. Nineteen, eh? and I am forty-four. Heigho! how time goes!”

“I had begun to think, Mr Harley – ” said Grey, softly. “May I go on?”

“Go on? Of course, my dear. What had you begun to think?”

“That you would marry Helen.”

“Ye-es, several people thought so on shipboard,” he said, dreamily. “Nineteen – twenty-one – forty-four. I’m getting quite an old man now, my dear. Hah!” he said, starting, “I daresay Mademoiselle Helen will have plenty of offers.”

“Yes,” said Grey; “but she should meet with someone firm and strong as well as kind.”

“Like your humble servant?” he said, smiling.

“Yes,” said Grey, looking ingenuously in his face. “Helen is very sweet and affectionate at heart, only she is so fond of being admired.”

“A weakness she will outgrow,” said the Resident, calmly. “I like to hear you talk like that, Grey. You are not jealous, then, of the court that is paid to her?”

“I, jealous?” said Grey, smiling. “Do I look so?”

“Not at all,” said the Resident; “not at all. Beauty and fortune, they are great attractions for men, my dear, and Helen has both. But, my clever little woman, you ought to teach papa to make a fortune.”

Grey shook her head.

“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.”