Kitabı oku: «One Maid's Mischief», sayfa 14
Volume Two – Chapter Three.
In the Middle of the Night
All Mrs Bolter’s dislike to Helen vanished now that there was trouble on the way; and dressing hastily, she ran across the little bamboo landing to knock at her brother’s door, but without receiving any answer, and knocking again sharply, she ran back to her own room to continue dressing.
She threw open the window to admit a few breaths of fresher air, and in the silence of the night she could hear the receding steps of their late visitors. Then turning sharply she found Dr Bolter yawning fearfully.
“Don’t be so unfeeling, Henry!” she cried; “who knows what may have happened?”
“Unfeeling be hanged!” he said, tetchily. “I only yawned.”
“And very rudely, Henry. You did not place your hand before your mouth.”
“A yawn, Mrs Bolter,” he said didactically, “is the natural effort made for ridding the system – ”
“Of the effects of too much smoking and drinking,” said Mrs Doctor, quickly. “There, do make haste and dress, and then call Arthur again. He does not seem to be moving. How soundly he sleeps. He did not hear us when we came home or he would have spoken.”
“Oh, dear!” yawned the doctor. “I was just in my beauty sleep, and this calling me up is the heigh – hey – ho – ha – hum! Oh! dear me! I beg your pardon, my dear.”
“Are you nearly ready, Henry?” said the lady, who would not notice the last most portentous yawn.
“Where the – ”
“Henry!”
“I mean where are my studs? Oh! all right.”
“Go and see if Arthur is awake, and tell him to get up directly.”
The doctor went slowly and sleepily out of the door, fumbling with his studs the while; and without pausing to knock, walked straight into his brother-in-law’s room.
“Here, Arthur, old man, rouse up!” he cried. “We’re going on to – hullo! Here, Mary, he hasn’t been to bed!” he shouted.
“Not been to bed!” cried the little lady. “Why, Arthur, you foolish – ”
“He isn’t here, my dear,” said the doctor.
“But – but he was here when we came back, was he not?” said Mrs Bolter.
“I don’t know; I only knocked at his door. I was too sleepy to speak, my dear.”
“Oh! Henry,” exclaimed Mrs Bolter, excitedly, “something must have happened, or dear Arthur would not have stopped away like this.”
“I – I hope not,” said the doctor. “There, be calm, my dear; we know nothing yet.”
“Yes – yes, I will be calm,” said the little lady, fighting hard to master her excitement; “but, Henry, if we have brought my poor brother over here to be the victim of some terrible accident, I shall never forgive myself.”
“Oh, stuff – stuff!” cried the doctor, as they looked round the room to find that the bed had not been touched. “Don’t jump at conclusions. What did Harley say?”
“That Arthur was seen last with Helen Perowne – in the garden, I suppose.”
“What? Our Arthur was seen with her last? She missing – he missing – why, by jingo, Mary, that handsome puss has run away with him!”
The doctor burst into a hearty, chuckling laugh.
“Is this a time for jesting, Henry?” said Mrs Bolter, angrily.
“Not at all, my dear,” replied the doctor, “only it looks as if Arthur had made up his mind to do something startling.”
“Arthur – something startling! What do you mean?”
“That he seems to have bolted with Helen Perowne!”
“Henry!”
“Well, my dear, they were seen together last, and they are now missing. What is one to say?”
“If you cannot say words of greater wisdom than that, Henry, pray be silent.”
“All right, my dear – come along.”
But if the doctor was disposed to be silent, so was not his lady, who began to find out cause after cause for her brother’s absence.
“Someone is ill, I’m sure, Henry, and Arthur has been summoned to the bedside.”
“Nonsense! If anyone were ill,” said the doctor, testily, “I should be sent for; and there is no one ill now, though we shall have half a dozen poorly to-morrow after that supper of Perowne’s.”
“Then some terrible accident has happened,” said Mrs Bolter. “Arthur would never have stopped away like this without some special reason.”
“Well, we shall see,” said the doctor.
“Henry,” said the lady, suddenly; and she came to a full stop.
“Yes, my dear.”
“Do you think it likely that Helen Perowne – poor foolish girl – would do such a thing?”
“What, as to run off with Arthur?” chuckled the little doctor.
“For shame, Henry! I say do you think she is likely to have walked down to the river-side because it is cool and slipped in? There is not the slightest protection.”
“No, my dear, I do not think anything of the sort,” replied the doctor, angrily. “She is a deal more likely to be courting some coxcomb or another in a shady walk, and they have forgotten all about the time.”
“Absurd!” exclaimed Mrs Bolter. “Absurd, eh? Why, that’s what she is always thinking about. How many fellows has she been flirting with since we knew her?”
“I am waiting for you, Dr Bolter,” said the lady, austerely, “and I must say that I think your words are very unfeeling indeed.”
“I’ll bleed her if she has fainted!” said the doctor, grimly. “I should like to bleed that girl, old-fashioned as the notion is! If I don’t, I’ll give her such a dosing as she shan’t forget in a hurry – calling a fellow up like this!”
They hurried out into the star-lit night, with everything seeming hushed and strange. The trees whispered low from time to time; then came a sullen splash from the river, as if some huge creature had just plunged in. Once or twice came a peculiar, weird-sounding cry from the jungle – one which made Mrs Doctor forget her annoyance with her husband and creep close to his side. Just then they heard hurried footsteps. “Did you bring your pistols with you, dear?” whispered Mrs Bolter.
“No,” he said, sharply; “I’ve got a rhubarb draught, a bottle of chlorodyne, the sal-volatile, and a lancet. That will be enough. Think I meant to shoot the girl?”
“Don’t be absurd, dear! Take care, there is someone coming.”
“Another call for me!” grumbled the doctor, sleepily. “That’s the effect of giving parties in a hot climate. Hullo!”
“Yes, doctor,” said a familiar voice.
“Oh! it’s you two. Well have you found her all right?”
“We’ve been to Stuart’s,” said the Resident, sharply.
“Well, what news?”
“They have not seen or heard of either of them,” replied the Resident.
“Do you know that my – ”
“Oh, hush!” whispered Mrs Doctor, excitedly, “you had better not – ”
“Why, they must know it, my dear,” he whispered back. “It is of no use to hide anything.”
“I did not understand you, doctor,” said the Resident.
“I say that my brother-in-law, Rosebury, has not been home.”
“The chaplain!” cried Mr Harley, and he stopped short upon the path.
“Hasn’t been home,” continued the doctor. “They’ve all gone in somewhere. Who else is away?”
“Hilton and Chumbley.”
“Oh, it’s all right. They’re somewhere; but it’s very foolish of them to frighten some people and rouse others up like this,” said the doctor.
“I hope we shall find a pleasant solution of what is at present a mystery,” said the Resident. “Mrs Bolter, it is very kind of you to come,” he added, warmly.
“Yes; I thank you too,” said Perowne, in a dreamy, absent way. “It is very strange; but where is Miss Stuart?”
“Stuart said she was asleep,” said the Resident.
“Oh, to be sure. Yes; I remember,” said Mr Perowne.
“We took her safely home,” said Mrs Bolter, quickly.
They had not far to go to the gates of the merchant’s grounds, but it seemed to all to be a long and dreary walk past the various dark houses of the European and native merchants, not one of which gave any token of the life within.
The gates were open, and they walked over the gritting gravel to where the door stood, like the windows of the bungalow, still open, and a lamp or two were yet burning in the grounds, one of which paper lanterns, as they approached, caught fire, and blazed up for a moment and then hung, a few shreds of tinder, from a verdant arch.
It was a mere trifle, but it seemed like a presage of some trouble to the house, seen as it was by those who approached, three of the party being in that unreal, uncomfortable state suffered by all who are roused from their sleep to hear that there is “something wrong.”
The servants looked soared as they entered, and announced that they had been looking, as they expressed it, “everywhere” without success.
Lanterns were lit and a thorough exploration of the grounds followed, the only result being that a glove was found – plainly enough one that had been dropped by someone walking near the river.
That was all, and the night passed with the searchers awaking everyone they knew in turn, but to obtain not the slightest information; and daybreak found the father looking older and greyer by ten years as he stood in his office facing the Resident, the doctor, and Mrs Bolter, and asking what they should do next.
“We must have a thorough daylight search,” said Mr Harley. “Then the boatmen must all be examined. It hardly appears probable, but Hilton and Chumbley may have proposed a water trip. It seems to us now, cool and thoughtful, a mad proposal, but still it is possible.”
“Yes, and Helen would not go without my brother to take care of her,” said Mrs Bolter, triumphantly, for she had been longing for some explanation of her brother’s absence, and this was the first that offered.
“Oh, no, Mary,” said the doctor, crushing her hopes as he shook his head.
“No, Mrs Bolter,” said the Resident, slowly; and he seemed to be speaking and thinking deeply the while. “I am sure Miss Perowne could not be guilty of so imprudent an act.”
“No,” said her father, speaking now more boldly and without reserve. “You are right, Harley. Helen loves admiration, but she would not have compromised herself in such a way, neither would Mr Rosebury have given such an act his countenance.”
The Resident raised his head as if to speak, and then remained silent.
“What are you thinking, Harley,” said the doctor.
“Yes, pray speak out,” cried Mrs Bolter. “I am sure we are all only too anxious to find some comfort.”
“I was thinking of what could have happened to them, for depend upon it they are all together.”
“Yes,” said Mr Perowne; “but you were thinking more than that.”
“I must think,” said the Resident. “I cannot say anything definite now.”
“Then I know what it is,” cried Mrs Bolter.
“Will you kindly speak out, madam?” said the old merchant, harshly.
“I should be sorry to accuse falsely,” said Mrs Bolter, excitedly; “but I was warned of this, and I can’t help thinking that someone else is at the bottom of this night’s work.”
“And who’s that?” said the doctor, quickly.
Mrs Bolter was silent.
“Rajah Murad, you mean,” said the doctor, quickly; “and he has been waiting his time.”
“And now strikes at us like a serpent in the dark!” cried Mr Perowne, angrily. “It is the Malay character all over. Heaven help me! My poor girl!”
Volume Two – Chapter Four.
Mrs Barlow
Mr Perowne’s house was literally besieged the next morning, for the news of the disappearance ran through the little community like wildfire. British and native communities were equally excited; and after snatching an hour’s rest at the imperative command of his wife, the doctor was hastily swallowing some breakfast previous to going back to Mr Perowne’s, but could hardly get on for interruptions.
“I am not alarmed, Henry,” said the little lady, in a quiet, decided way; “and I insist upon your being properly fortified before unduly exerting yourself. I could not bear for you to be ill.”
The words were said very quietly, but in such a tone that Dr Bolter set down his cup, and rising, left his place, and tenderly embraced the earnest little woman he had made his wife.
“I will take all the care I can, my dear Mary,” he said.
“I know you will, Henry,” said the little lady, whose lip quivered slightly as she spoke; “but now go and finish your breakfast, and then start. Don’t be uneasy about me, dear, but go and do what you think best under the circumstances.”
“I will, my love – I will,” said Dr Bolter, with his mouth full of toast.
“It all sounds very alarming, dear, but I cannot help thinking that it will be explained in a very simple manner.”
“I hope so.”
“You see there are four of them; and as Arthur is one, I think we may feel assured.”
“Well, my dear these are business times,” said the doctor, “and we must speak in business ways. Arthur is the best old fellow in the world; but I am sorry to say that he is a terrible old woman.”
“Henry!” said the lady, reproachfully.
“Well, my dear, he is. Now, would you have much confidence in him if it were a case of emergency?”
“I – I think I would sooner trust to you, Henry,” said the little lady, softly; “but do make haste and get a good breakfast. If you want me, send a message, and I will come directly.”
“All right,” said the doctor, rising once more. “Now I’m off.”
“But one moment, Henry,” said the little lady, whose feelings now got the upper hand. “Tell me, dear – do you think anything dreadful has happened?”
“What do you call dreadful, my dear?” said the doctor, cheerily.
“That the crocodiles – ”
She did not finish, but looked imploringly at her lord.
“Bah! – stuff! – nonsense! No, Mary, I don’t.”
“Then that this dreadful Rajah has carried them off?”
“If it had only been Madam Helen, I should have felt suspicious; but what could he want with Hilton and Chumbley, or with our Arthur?”
“To marry them,” suggested Mrs Bolter.
“Stuff! my dear, not he. If Murad had carried her off, he would not have bothered about a parson.”
“But Arthur was waiting about her all the evening.”
“So he was, my dear.”
“And he may have killed Hilton and poor Mr Chumbley, while they were defending her.”
“Yes, he might, certainly,” said the doctor, drily; “but how the – ”
“Henry!”
“I only meant dickens. I say how the dickens he was going to carry her off when he was at the party all the time I can’t see.”
“But was he?”
“To the very last. Oh! it will all settle itself into nothing, unless Arthur has taken Helen off into the jungle and married her himself, with Hilton and Chumbley for witnesses.”
“Is this a time for joking, Henry?” said the little lady, reproachfully.
“Really, my dear, it would be no joke if Arthur had his own way.”
“I’m afraid,” sighed little Mrs Bolter, “that Helen Perowne had a good deal to with my brother accepting the chaplaincy.”
“I’m sure she had,” chuckled the doctor.
“If I had thought so I would never have consented to come,” said the lady with asperity.
“Wouldn’t you, Mary? Wouldn’t you?” said the little doctor, taking her in his arms; and the lady withdrew her words just as a step was heard outside.
“Here’s another stoppage,” cried the doctor, impatiently. “Why, it’s Mrs Barlow. What does she want?”
Mrs Barlow was a widow lady of about forty, the relict of a well-to-do merchant of the station, who, after her widowhood, preferred to stay and keep her brother’s house to going back to England; at any rate, as she expressed it, for a few years.
She was one of the set who visited at Mr Perowne’s, and had also been at the trip up the river to the Inche Maida’s home; but being a decidedly neutral-tinted lady, in spite of her black attire, she was so little prominent that mention of her has not been necessary until now.
“Stop a minute;” she exclaimed, excitedly, as she arrested the doctor on his step.
“Not ill, are you, Mrs Barlow?” queried the doctor.
“Not bodily, doctor,” she began, “but – ”
“My wife is inside, my dear madam,” cried the doctor, “and I must be off.”
“Stop!” exclaimed Mrs Barlow, authoritatively; and she took the little doctor’s arm, and led him back into the breakfast-room. “You are his brother, Dr Bolter. Mrs Bolter, you are his sister, ma’am. I can speak freely to you both.”
“Of course, madam, of course,” said the doctor; and then to himself, “Has the woman been taking very strong tea?”
“I have only just learned the terrible news, Dr Bolter – Mrs Bolter,” cried the lady, “and I came on to you.”
“Very kind of you I am sure, ma’am.”
“What do you think, doctor? You have some idea.”
“Not the least at present, ma’am. I was just off to see.”
“That is good of you; but tell me first,” cried the widow, half hysterically. “You do not – you cannot think – that that dreadful woman – ”
“What, the Inche Maida, ma’am?”
“No, no! I mean Helen Perowne – has deluded him into following her away to some other settlement.”
“Whom, ma’am, Hilton or Chumbley?”
“Oh, dear me, no, doctor; I mean dear Mr Rosebury.”
“Oh, you mean dear Mr Rosebury, do you?” said the doctor.
“Yes, Dr Bolter; oh, yes. Tell me; do you think that dreadful girl has deluded him away?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t,” cried the doctor, stoutly. “Hang it all, no! I’d give her the credit of a good deal, but not of that. Hang it, no.”
“Thank you, doctor,” said the lady hysterically. “Of course I should have forgiven it, and set it all down to her; but you do me good, doctor, by assuring me that my surmise is impossible. What do you think then?”
“That it’s all a mystery for us to find out, and I was going to hunt it up when you stopped me, ma’am.”
“Excuse me, Mrs Barlow,” said little Mrs Bolter, who had been fidgeting about, and waiting for an opportunity to speak, “but will you kindly explain what you mean by your very particular allusions to my brother?”
“Must I?” said the lady, with a martyred look.
“If you please, ma’am,” said Mrs Bolter, sternly; and the little lady looked as if she were ready to apply the moral thumbscrews and the rack itself to the visitor if she did not make a clean breast.
“Do you not know?” whispered Mrs Barlow, with a pathetic look, and a timidly bashful casting down of the eyes.
“No, ma’am, I do not,” said little Mrs Bolter, haughtily.
“I thought you must have known,” sighed the lady. “But under these circumstances, when he may be in terrible peril, perhaps crying aloud, ‘Rosina, come to my aid,’ why should I shrink from this avowal? I am not ashamed to own it. Ah, Dr Bolter – oh, Mrs Bolter – I have loved him from his first sermon, when he looked down at me and seemed to address me with that soft, impressive voice which thrilled the very fibres of my heart, and now he is gone – he is gone! What does it mean! What shall we do?”
“Mary, you’d better administer a little sal-volatile, my dear,” said the doctor. “You know the strength; I’m off.”
The doctor backed out of the room, leaving Mrs Barlow sobbing on the sofa, and hurried off in the direction of the Residency, talking to himself on the way.
“This is something fresh!” he muttered; “and it isn’t leap-year either. Rum creatures women! I wonder what Mary is saying to her now! Here, paddle me across,” he said to one of the natives who was cleaning out his sampan ready for any passengers who might want to be put across to the island.
As he neared the landing-stage, he found Mr Harley anxiously busy despatching boat after boat up and down stream, each boat being paddled by a couple of friendly natives, and containing a noncommissioned officer and private selected for their intelligence.
“Ah! that’s right, Harley!” said the doctor, rubbing his hands after a friendly salute, and the information given and taken that there was not the slightest news of the missing people. “But don’t you think we ought to take some steps ashore?”
“Wait a moment; let me ease my mind by getting these fellows off,” said the Resident hoarsely; and he gave the men the strictest injunctions to carefully search the banks of the river, and also to closely question every Malay they met as to whether anything of the missing party had been seen. Eight boats had been sent off upon this mission, the men accepting the task readily enough, irrespective of the promise of reward; and hardly had the last been despatched, when the Resident proposed that they should go across to Mr Perowne’s.
“It is only fair to consult him as to our next proceedings,” said the Resident, gloomily; and almost in silence they were paddled across to the mainland, and went up to the scene of last night’s festivities, where everything looked dismal and in confusion. Half-burnt lanterns hung amidst the trees, tables and chairs were piled up anyhow in the grounds, and the lawn was strewn with the débris of the feast yet uncleared away, the attention of the servants having been so much occupied with their search.
The two new-comers found Mr Perowne quite prostrate with this terrible anxiety, and Mr Stuart trying, with his daughter, to administer some little consolation in the way of hope.
“Cheer up, mon!” the old Scot was saying. “I daresay she’ll turn up all right yet.”
Mr Perowne looked at him so reproachfully that the old Scot paused and then turned uneasily away.
“Poor wretch!” he muttered; “he has trouble eneuch – enough I mean.”
“Ah! Harley, what news?” cried Mr Perowne.
“None as yet,” was the reply.
“Have you sent out boats?”
“Yes, eight; and let us hope that they will discover something.”
“But you do not think they will?”
The Resident was silent.
“Harley here thinks that the Rajah is at the bottom of it all,” said the doctor.
“Impossible!” cried the unhappy father. “He was here when she was missed, or I might have suspected him. I fear it is something worse than even that.”
“I cannot help my suspicions,” said the Resident, quietly. “Perhaps I wrong him.”
“I think ye do, Harley,” said the old Scot. “I saw him here long after Miss Helen must have been gone. I’m thinking she and the young officers have taken a boat and gone down the river for a wee bit of game, seeing the night was fine.”
“Oh! papa,” cried Grey, “I am sure Helen would not have been so imprudent.”
“I’m sure it’s very kind of ye to think so well o’ your schoolfellow, but I’m no’ so sure. Trust me, the Rajah had no hand in the matter.”
“He has plenty of servants who would work his will,” said the Resident, thoughtfully; “but this charge of mine must not go forth to Murad’s ears. If I am wronging an innocent man, we shall have made a fresh enemy; and Heaven knows we have enough without that!”
“You may be right,” said the doctor, “but I have my doubts.”
“He’s wrong,” said old Stuart. “He’s not the man with the spirit in him to do so stirring a thing.”
“And he would never take off those two young fellows and my brother-in-law.”
“I begin to think he has,” said Perowne, snatching at the solution once more, after holding the opinion and casting it off a dozen times. “He has never forgiven her for her refusal. Are we to sit still under his insult, Harley? You have plenty of men under your command.”
“True,” said the Resident; “but should I be justified in calling them out and making a descent on Murad’s town upon the barest suspicion?”
Suggestion after suggestion was offered, as the reason of the Resident’s remark was fully realised; but as time went on the little knot of English people more fully than ever realised how helpless they were in the midst of the Malays, whose good offices they were compelled to enlist.
