He was a fine, well-set-up young fellow, looking like a lifeguardsman picked from among a selection of fair, curly-haired Saxons, and, evidently flattered by the lady’s notice, he was doing his best to make himself agreeable.
“You may call it what you like,” said Mrs Doctor. “I call it scandalous! Here’s the very last arrival in the ship.”
“Regularly subjugated,” laughed the doctor.
“It is nothing to laugh at,” said the lady, indignantly. “I declare I have a good mind to go and interfere.”
“No, no, don’t,” said the doctor earnestly. “She means no harm, and you may only make a breach between you.”
“I don’t care, Henry; it is for the girl’s sake that I should interfere; and as to the breach, she utterly detests me as it is for what I have said. I think she hates me as much as I do her.”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense, Mary, you could not hate anyone; and as to Helen Perowne’s foolish coquetry, it will all settle down into the love of some stout brave fellow.”
“Such as that of Lieutenant Chumbley.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Well I hope so, I’m sure. One ought to have a big strong man to keep all the others away, for if ever there was a heartless coquette it is she; and the sooner we can place her in her father’s hands the happier I shall be.”
“Would you mind whisking a fly off now and then with your handkerchief, Mary,” said the little doctor, drowsily, as he settled himself for his nap.
“I know there’ll be some mischief come out of it all,” said the little lady, as she drove a couple of flies from her husband’s nose.
“Only – few days – old Perowne – sure to meet us, and – ”
The handkerchief was kept busily whisking about, for the flies were tiresome, and the doctor was fast asleep, only turning restlessly now and then, when in her eagerness to watch Helen Perowne and Lieutenant Chumbley – the young officer coming out to join the regiment into which he had exchanged with the hope of getting variety and sport – Mrs Doctor forgot to act as guardian against the flies.
Volume One – Chapter Sixteen.
A Dangerous Creature
At last Mrs Bolter’s troubles were, as she said, at an end, for the great steamer had transferred a portion of her passengers to the station gunboat at the mouth of the Darak river. There had been a quick run up between the low shores dense with their growth of mangrove and nipah palm. The station had been reached, and the ladies transferred to the arms of their fathers, both waiting anxiously for the coming boat upon the Resident’s island, where in close connection with the fort Mr Harley’s handsome bungalow had been built.
For the first few days all was excitement at Sindang, for the report of the beauty of “Old Stuart’s” daughter, and above all that of the child of the principal merchant in the place, created quite a furore among the officers of the two companies of foot stationed at the fort, and the young merchants and civil officers of the place.
“It is really a very, very great relief, Henry,” said Mrs Doctor. “I can sleep as easily again now those girls are off my hands. I mean that girl; but really I don’t feel so satisfied as I should like, for though I know Helen Perowne to be safe in her father’s charge, I am not at all sure that my responsibility has ceased.”
“Ah, you must do what you can for the motherless girls, my dear. Eh, Arthur? what do you say?”
“I quite agree with you, Harry,” said the new chaplain, quietly; “but the change to here is – is rather confusing at first.”
“Oh, you’ll soon settle down, old fellow; and I say, Mary, my dear, it is a beautiful place, is it not?”
“Very, very beautiful indeed,” replied the little lady; “but it is very hot.”
“Well, say warmish,” said the doctor, chuckling; “but I did not deceive you about that. You’ll soon get used to it, and you won’t be so ready to bustle about; you must take it coolly.”
“As you do?” said Mrs Doctor, smiling.
“As I do? Oh, I’m the doctor, and here is every one getting his or her liver out of order during my absence! My hands are terribly full just now; but we shall soon settle down. How is the church getting on, Arthur?”
“Slowly, my dear Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur, in his quiet way. “They are making the improvements I suggested. Mr Perowne subscribed handsomely, and Mr Harley is supplying more labour; but I’m afraid I was rather negligent this morning, for I strolled away towards the woods.”
“Jungle, my dear fellow, jungle! but don’t go again without me; I’m more at home here than you.”
“But the woods – I mean jungle – looked so beautiful; surely there is nothing to fear.”
“Not much – with care,” replied the doctor, “but still there are dangers – fever, sunstroke, tigers, crocodiles, poisonous serpents, venomous insects and leeches.”
“Goodness gracious!” ejaculated Mrs Doctor. “Arthur, you are on no account to go again!”
“But, my dear Mary – ” said the chaplain, meekly.
“Now, don’t argue, Arthur. I say you are on no account to go again!”
“But really, my dear Mary – ”
“I will listen to no excuse, Arthur. Unless Henry, who understands the place, accompanies you, I forbid your going again. I hope you have not been into any other dangerous place.”
“Oh, no, my dear Mary; I only went and called upon Mr Perowne.” Mrs Bolter started, and the doctor burst into a roar of laughter.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he cried. “Why, my dear boy, that’s a far more dangerous place than the jungle.”
“I – I do not understand you, Henry,” said the chaplain, with a faint flush in his cheek.
“Not understand me, my dear fellow! Why, Perowne keeps a most ferocious creature there, and it’s loose too.”
“Loose?” cried Mrs Doctor, excitedly.
“Oh, yes: I’ve seen it about the grounds, parading up and down on the lawn by the river, and in the house as well.”
“Gracious me, Henry, the man must be mad! What is it?” cried Mrs Bolter.
“Regular tigress – man-eater,” said the doctor.
“And you allowed your brother-in-law to go there without warning, Henry? Really, I am surprised at you!”
“Oh! pooh, pooh!” ejaculated the doctor. “Arthur can take care of himself.”
“And here have I accepted an invitation for all of us to go there the week after next to dinner! I won’t go. I certainly will not go.”
“Nonsense, my dear Mary – nonsense!” said the doctor, with his eyes twinkling. “We must go. Perowne would be horribly put out if we did not.”
“Now look here, Henry, when I was a maiden lady I never even kept a cat or a dog, because I said to myself that live animals about a house might be unpleasant to one’s friends. So how do you suppose that when I have become a married lady I am going to sanction the presence of dangerous monsters in a house?”
“Oh, but it won’t hurt you,” said the doctor. “I tell you it’s a man-eater. We must go, Mary.”
“I certainly must beg of you not to ask me,” said the little lady. “My dear Harry, it gives me great pain to go against your wishes, but I could not – I really could not go.”
“Not if I assured you it was perfectly safe?”
“If