“Yes, that’s easily said; but you must have been leading the fellow on.”
“He was your guest, papa, and I was civil to him,” said Helen, coldly.
“A deal too civil, I’ll be bound! I’m sick of your civilities, Nell, and their consequences! Why can’t you get engaged like any other girl? I wish to goodness you were married and settled!”
“Thank you, papa,” she replied in the same cold, indifferent manner.
“Yes, but this fellow’s waiting to see you. What am I to say.”
“What are you to say, papa? Really you ought to know!”
“But it’s impossible for you to accept him, though he is very rich.”
“Quite impossible, papa!”
“Then he’ll be offended.”
“Well, papa, that is not of much consequence.”
“But it is of consequence – of great consequence! Don’t I tell you it will cause me serious loss; and besides that, it is dangerous to affront a fellow like this. He is only a nigger, of course, but he is a reigning prince, and has great power. He’s as proud as Lucifer; and if he considers that he is affronted, there’s no knowing what may be the consequences.”
“He may carry me off perhaps, papa,” said Helen, showing her white teeth.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that he might not attempt it!”
“Like a baron of old,” said the girl scornfully. “Papa, I am not a child! How can you be so absurd?”
“You can call it what you like,” he said angrily; “but your folly has got us into a pretty mess. Well, you must go in and see him.”
“I? Go in and see him?” cried Helen, flushing. “Impossible, papa!”
“But it is not impossible. I told him I didn’t know what to say till I had seen you, and, what was the perfect truth, that I was quite taken by surprise. Now the best thing will be for you to go in and see him and temporise with him. Don’t refuse him out and out, but try and ease him off, as one may say. Gain time, and the fellow will forget all about it in a month or two.”
“Papa!”
“Ah, you may say —papa; but you have got me into a terrible muddle, and now you must help to get me out of it. I must not have this fellow offended. Confound the insolent scoundrel! Just like the savage. He learns to wear English clothes, and then thinks he is a gentleman, and insults us with this proposal.”
“Yes; insults us papa: that is the word!” cried Helen, with spirit.
“Well, time’s flying, and he is waiting, so go and see him at once, and get it over.”
“But I tell you, papa, I cannot. It is impossible!”
“Why, you were talking to him for long enough last night in the drawing-room. Now, come, Helen, don’t be ridiculous, but go and do as I tell you; and the sooner it is done the better.”
Helen Perowne pressed her lips tightly together, and a look came into her face that betokened obstinate determination of the straightest kind.
“Papa, you make matters worse,” she cried, “by proposing such a degrading task to me. This man is, as you say, little better than a savage. His proposal is an insult, and yet you wish me to go and see him. It is impossible!”
“Don’t I tell you that I have business arrangements with the fellow, and that I can’t afford to lose his custom? And don’t I tell you that, situated as we are here amongst these people, it is not wise to make them our enemies. I don’t want you to snub him. It is only for prudential reasons. Now, come; get it over.”
“I cannot see him! I will not see him!” cried Helen, passionately; and she turned pale now at the idea of encountering the passionate young Malay. For the moment she bitterly regretted her folly, though the chances are that if circumstances tended in that direction she would have behaved again in precisely the same way.
“Now look here, Nelly,” said Mr Perowne, “you must see him!”
For answer she paused for a moment, and then walked straight to the door.
“That’s right,” he said. “Temporise with him a bit, my dear, and let him down gently.”
Helen stood with the door in her hand, and darted at him an imperious look; then she passed through, and the door swung to behind her.
“Confound him! What insolence!” muttered Mr Perowne, as he stood listening. “Eh? No; she wouldn’t dare! Why, confound the girl, she has gone up to her room and locked herself in! What a temper she has got to be sure!”
He gave his head a vicious rub, and then, evidently under the impression that it was in vain to appeal again to his child, he snapped his teeth together sharply, and walked firmly into the drawing-room, where the Rajah stood impatiently waiting his return.
The young eastern prince was most carefully dressed; his morning coat and trousers being from a West-end tailor, and his hands were covered with the tightest of lemon-coloured gloves. In one hand was a grey tall hat, in the other the thinnest of umbrellas. Altogether his appearance was unexceptionable, if he had dispensed with the gaudy silken sarong ablaze with a plaid of green, yellow, and scarlet.
His thick lips were wreathed in a pleasant smile, and his dark, full eyes were half closed; but they opened widely for an instant, and seemed to emit anger in one flash, as he saw that Mr Perowne came back alone.
“Where – is – miss?” he said, in a slow, thick tone.
“Well, the fact is, Rajah,” said Mr Perowne, giving a laugh to clear his throat, “I have seen my daughter, and she asked me to tell you that she is suffering from a bad headache. You understand me?”
The young Rajah nodded, his eyes seeming to contract the while.
“She is of course very much flattered by your proposal – one which she says she will think over most carefully; but she is so surprised, that she can only ask you to give her time. I see you understand me?”
The Rajah nodded again in a quick, eager way.
“English girls do not say yea all at once to a proposal like yours; and if you will wait a few months – of course being good friends all the time – we shall be able to speak more about the subject.”
Mr Perowne, merchant, and man of the world, meant to say all this in a quick, matter-of-fact, frank way, but he stumbled, and spoke in a halting, lame fashion, growing more and more unsatisfactory as the young Malay prince came closer to him.
“I – I think you understand me,” he said, feeling called upon to say something, as the Malay glared at him as if about to spring.
“Yes – yes!” hissed the Malay. “Lies – all lies! I came for friend. You mock – you laugh in my face – but you do not know. I say I came for friend – I go away – enemy!”
He went on speaking rapidly in the Malay tongue, his rage seeming to be the more concentrated from the cold, cutting tone he adopted. Then, nearly closing his eyes, and giving his peculiar type of features a crafty, cat-like aspect, he gazed furiously at the merchant for a few minutes, and then turned, and seemed to creep from the house in a way that was as feline as his looks.
Volume One – Chapter Twenty One.
Taking Alarm
Mr Perowne drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the dew from his forehead.
“Good Heavens!” he ejaculated, “they assassinated poor Rodrick, and here is that girl only home for a few weeks, and a shock like this to come upon me! Surely I’ve troubles enough on hand without a worry like this!”
He walked to the window and saw the Malay prince entering his boat by the landing-place, where it