Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Three.
The Return to Sindang.
For a time no one spoke in the doctor’s cottage; but old Stuart took a very large and a very loud pinch of snuff, which seemed as if he had been loading his nose with powder, for it went off directly after with a report-like sneeze that made the jalousies rattle.
“Is—is this—these words—are they true?” said Mrs Bolter, at last, with unnatural calmness.
“Yes, yes, my dear, quite true!” cried Mrs Barlow, excitedly.
“Did—did you hear anything of this, Mr Stuart?” said Mrs Bolter, in a low, constrained voice.
“Well, I did hear—am I to tell you?”
“Yes—everything,” replied Mrs Bolter, now perfectly cool and calm.
“I heard that the doctor had been found up the river somewhere with a black lady in his boat; but I didn’t hear it was the Inche Maida.”
“But my heart told me it was,” muttered poor little Mrs Bolter, whose good resolutions were all swept away by her agonising feeling of jealousy. Then aloud, with a fierce look of anger, but speaking in quite a hoarse whisper, “Go!” she said, pointing to the door. “You wicked woman, go! You have taken delight in coming to tell me this!”
“No, no!” cried Mrs Barlow, bursting into tears; “it was from friendship—from the sisterly love I have for you! It was for your brother’s sake!”
“If—if ever my brother returns, he shall never speak to you—bad, weak, wicked woman that you are! Leave my house!”
“But, Mrs Bolter—dear Mrs Bolter—”
“Leave my house!” continued the little woman in the same low, excited whisper; and she seemed to advance so menacingly upon the merchant’s widow, that she backed to the door in alarm, and regularly fled.
“Dear Mrs Bolter—” began Grey.
“Don’t speak to me, my dear,” said the little lady. “I’m not at all angry. I’m perfectly calm. There, you see how quiet I am. Not the least bit in a passion.”
Certainly she was speaking in a low, passionless voice, but there was a peculiar whiteness in the generally rather florid face.
“But the news may not be true,” pleaded Grey; “and even if it is, what then? Oh, Mrs Bolter, pray think!”
“Yes, my dear,” said the little lady, “I have thought, and I’m quite calm. I shall suffer it, though, no more. I shall wait till my dear brother is found, and then I shall go straight back to England. I shall go by the first boat. I will pack up my things at once, and get ready. You see I am quite calm. Mr Stuart, you have always been very kind to me.”
“Well, I don’t know, not verra,” said the old Scot; “but ye’ve been verra good to Grey here.”
“I’m going to ask a favour of you, Mr Stuart.”
“Annything I can do for ye, Mrs Bolter, I will.”
“Then will you give me shelter with Grey here for a few weeks?”
“Or a few months or years if ye like,” said the old man, taking a liberal pinch of snuff; “but ye needn’t fash yourself. You won’t leave Harry Bolter.”
“Not leave him?” said the little lady, with forced calmness.
“Not you, for I don’t believe there’s aught wrong. It’s a bit patient he’s found up the river, and if it isn’t, it’s somebody else; and even if it wasn’t, ye’d just give him a bit o’ your mind, and then you’d forgive him.”
“Forgive him?” said Mrs Bolter; “I was always suspicious of these expeditions.”
“Always,” assented old Stuart. “He has told me so a score of times.”
“Then more shame for him!” cried Mrs Bolter; “How dare he! No, Mr Stuart, I am not angry, and I shall not say a word; but I shall wait till my poor brother is found, and then go back to England.”
She sat down very quietly, and sat gazing through the window; while old Stuart went on taking snuff in a very liberal manner, glancing from time to time at the irate little lady, to whom Grey kept whispering and striving to bring her to reason.
This went on for a good hour, till Grey was in despair; when suddenly Mrs Bolter sprang to her feet, red now with excitement, as she pointed through the window.
“Am I to bear this?” she said, in the same whisper. “Look, Grey! Look, Mr Stuart! You see! He is coming home, and he is bringing this woman with him!”
Grey started, for there indeed was the doctor, leading a closely-veiled Malay lady, apparently walking slowly and leaning heavily upon his arm.
Old Stuart took another pinch of snuff, and made a good deal of noise over it, as a cynical smile began to dawn upon his face; and he watched little Mrs Bolter, who drew herself up and stood with one hand resting upon the back of a chair.
“What can I say to her?” murmured Grey to herself. Then softly to Mrs Bolter:
“Pray listen to him: it is only some mistake.”
“Yes, my dear, I will listen,” said Mrs Bolter, calmly; and then she drew a long catching breath, and her eyes half-closed.
Just then the doctor threw open the door, and carefully led in his companion.
“Ah, Grey, you here!” he cried. “Back again. Mary, my love! I’ve brought you a surprise.”
He dropped his companion’s hand, and she stood there veiled and swaying slightly, while he made as if to embrace his wife.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, as she shrank away.
“Don’t—don’t touch me,” she cried, in a low, angry voice, “never again, Bolter; I could not bear it!”
“Why, what the—Oh, I see! Of course! Ha, ha, ha!”
Mrs Bolter stared at him fiercely, then at his companion, as in a curious, hasty way, she tore away her veil with trembling hands, revealing the swarthy skin and blackened and filed teeth, seen between her parted lips; her hair dark as that of the Inche Maida, and fastened up roughly in the Malay style. She was trying to speak, for her bosom was heaving, her hands working; and at last she darted an agonising glance at Grey Stuart, who was trembling in wonderment and fear.
The next moment the stranger had thrown herself at Mrs Bolter’s feet, and was clinging to her dress, as she cried hysterically:
“Mrs Bolter—Grey—have pity on me! You do not know?”
“Helen!” cried Grey; and she filing her arms round her schoolfellow, as Mrs Bolter uttered that most commonplace of common expressions—
“Oh! my goodness, gracious me!”
“Yes, Helen Perowne it is, my dears,” said the little doctor, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. “I think I found Solomon’s Ophir this time, eh?”
“Henry!—Henry!” panted Mrs Bolter; “what does this mean?”
“Mean? That you haven’t given me a kiss, my dear! Never mind the company. That’s better,” he cried, as he took the kiss—audibly.
“But you don’t explain, Henry.”
“Explain, my dear,” said the doctor, softly, as he pointed to where Helen lay with her face buried in Grey Stuart’s breast. “Nothing to explain; only that I was up one of the rivers and found the lost one here before the expedition came. But didn’t I say so, Stuart, old fellow? It was Murad, after all.”
A low moan from Helen made Mrs Bolter dart towards her.
“Oh! my child, my child! and to come back to us like this!” cried Mrs Bolter, helping Grey to place Helen upon the couch, the tears running down her cheeks the while; and all dislike to the station beauty seeming to have passed away as she took the swarthy head to her bosom, and knelt there, rocking herself softly to and fro.
“Can we do anything to help, doctor?” said old Stuart, in a whisper.
“No: let ’em all have a good cry together. Nature’s safety valve, old fellow,” said the doctor, coolly.
“Then I propose that we just go and leave ’em. What do you say to a pipe in the surgery?”
“And a cool draught of my own dispensing, eh?” said the doctor, with his eyes twinkling. “One moment, and we will.”
“But where’s Perowne?”
“Upset! Lying down on board the naga, and too ill to come. I brought her on to the women as soon as I could.”
He trotted across to his wife. “That’s right, little woman!” he said, squeezing Mrs Bolter’s arm. “You’ll be a better doctor now than I. She’s very weak and low and—” He whispered something in her ear.
Poor little Mrs Bolter turned up her face towards him with a look full of such horror, misery and contrition that he was startled; but setting it down to anxiety on Helen’s behalf he whispered to her that all would soon be well.
“Take her up to the spare room, dear,” he said, in a whisper. “You must not think of sending her home. You’ll do your best, eh?”
“Oh! yes, Henry,” she said, as she looked at him again so piteously that he forgot Grey’s presence, and bent down and kissed her.
“That’s my own little woman, I knew you would,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll want me; but if you do, I’m in the surgery. Well, little Grey, what do you want—news?”
Grey’s lips said “yes” without a sound.
“Well, everybody’s all right except a few scratches, and I’m choked with thirst.”
Five minutes after he was compounding draughts for himself and the old merchant from a large stone bottle and aqua distil., as the druggists call it; while soon after, over what he called a quiet pipe, he told his adventures to his friend.
It was just about the time when, as Helen’s swarthy head lay upon the cool white pillow in the bungalow spare room, Mrs Bolter poured some cool clear water into a basin, and then dropped in it a goodly portion of aromatic vinegar, which with a sponge she softly applied to Helen’s fevered brow.
Grey held the basin and a white towel, while Mrs Bolter applied the sponge once—twice—thrice—and the weary, half-fainting girl uttered a low moan.
Again Mrs Bolter applied the cool soft sponge to the aching temples, and then, as there was no result but another restful sigh, interrupted this time by a sob, she applied the sponge again after a careful wringing out, still with no effect but to bring forth a sigh.
This time poor Mrs Bolter, who had learned nothing from her lord, took the towel, for she could not resist the temptation, and softly drew it across Helen’s brow, as the poor girl lay there with closed eyes.
The towel was raised from the swarthy forehead, and Mrs Bolter looked at it, to see that it was white as it was before.
This time she exchanged a look of horror with Grey, down whose cheeks the tears flowed fast, as she leant forward and kissed Helen’s lips.
“No, no, don’t touch me,” she moaned, but Grey held her more tightly.
The sobs came fast now as two dark arms were flung round Grey’s white neck, and Mrs Bolter’s eyes grew wet as well, as she drew a long breath, and then sat down by the bedside, saying, softly:
“Oh! my poor girl!—my poor girl!”
Helen heard it as she felt Grey’s kisses on her lips; and as she realised that there was no longer cause for dread as to the reception she would receive, her tears and sobs increased for a time, but gradually to subside, till at last she lay there sleeping peacefully—the first sleep of full repose that she had slept since the eventful night of the fête.
It was not to last, though, for when, an hour later the doctor came softly up, and laid a finger upon one throbbing wrist, his brow contracted, and he shook his head.
“Is there danger, doctor?” whispered Grey, softly, startled as she was by his manner.
“I fear so,” he whispered; “she has gone through terrible trials; fever is developing fast, and in her condition I tremble for what may be the end.”