One Maid's Mischief

Mrs Doctor Bolter had been, to use her own expression, “on pins and needles” for quite two hours, trying to get the doctor home; but to every fresh appeal he had something to say by way of excuse. This one had to be seen – that one had said he wished to have a few words with him – it was impossible to go at present.

“Helen Perowne will think it rude of you, my dear,” he said, reproachfully. “Go and have a chat with her again.”

Mrs Bolter tightened her lips, and made up her mind, as she subsided, to talk to the doctor next day; but at last she was driven to extremity, and captured her husband after a long hunt – in every minute of which she had made more and more sure that he was flirting with some lady in one or other of the shady walks. She found him at last under a tree, seated upon one bamboo chair with his legs on another, in company with Grey Stuart’s father, who was in a precisely similar attitude. A bamboo table was between them, upon which was a homely looking bottle and a great glass jug of cold water to help them in the mixings that took place occasionally as they sat and smoked.

“Oh, here you are, Dr Bolter,” said the lady, with some asperity.

“Yes, my dear, here I am,” he replied: “arn’t you nearly ready to go?”

Mrs Doctor Bolter gasped, for the effrontery of this remark was staggering after she had been spending the last two hours in trying to get him away.

“Ready to go!” she exclaimed, angrily. “I think it is disgracefully late; and I can’t think how Mr Stuart can sit there so patiently, knowing all the while, as he does, that his child ought to be taken home.”

Mr Stuart chuckled.

“Bolter, old fellow,” he said, “you’d better go. That’s just how my wife used to talk to me.”

“Mr Stuart, I’m surprised at you,” said Mrs Doctor, in her most impressive manner.

“Yes, it was very rude,” he said drily. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking Grey home with you? I don’t think I shall come just yet.”

“Certainly, I will take the dear child home,” replied Mrs Bolter. “I don’t think it is proper for her to be here so late.”

“Humph! Who’s she with?” said the old merchant.

“The Princess,” was the reply.

“Oh, she’s all right then. Good-night, Bolter, if you must go. Won’t you have just one wee drappie mair?”

The doctor shook his head with Spartan fortitude, and buttoned up his coat, but only to unbutton it directly.

“Good-night, Stuart; we’ll take your little lass home.”

“Thankye; do,” was the reply, and the dry old Scot sat back in his chair chuckling, as he saw the doctor marched off.

“Seen Helen about, Stuart?” said Mr Perowne, coming up five minutes later.

“No; not for an hour.”

“If you see her, tell her I’m up by the drawing-room window. People keep going, and she’s not here.”

“All right.”

“By the way, when can I see you to-morrow?” said Mr Perowne, eagerly. “I want to chat over that matter with you.”

“I shall be in my office all day if you like to call.”

“Yes; to be sure – of course. I’ll call in,” said the merchant, hastily, as if the business was unpleasant to him; and he went away muttering.

“Hah!” grunted the old merchant, “pride must have a fall, they say; and when pride does fall, it always bumps itself pretty hard upon the stones.”

The remarks made by Mrs Bolter to her husband, as they left the old Scotch merchant, were of rather a forcible nature; but there was this excuse for her: that she was very hot and extremely tired after the long evening in the enervating climate; and this had no doubt acidified her temper. But no matter what she said, the amiable little doctor took it all in good part.

He was a naturalist and student of the human frame, and it was quite natural, he told himself, that his wife should be cross now that she was weary.

“Babies are always fretful when they are tired,” he said to himself; “and a woman is only a grownup baby. Poor little soul! she will be all right in the morning.”

“Why are we going in this direction, Dr Bolter?” said the little lady. “This is not the nearest way to the gate.”

“Must go and say good-night to Perowne and Madam Helen,” he replied.

“They would not miss us,” said Mrs Doctor, tartly. “I daresay we should only be interrupting some pleasant flirtation.”

“Oh – oh – oh! I say,” said the doctor, jocularly. “For shame, my dear, for shame! I’ll tell Perowne what you say about his flirtations.”

“Don’t be foolish, Bolter,” said his wife, sharply. “You know what I mean.”

“What, about Perowne flirting with the ladies?” he said, with a smothered chuckle.

“About Helen Perowne,” she said, shortly. “Well, here we are upon the lawn, and of course there’s no host here and no hostess.”

“But there’s little Grey,” said the doctor. “By jingo, I’d about forgotten her.”

“No wonder, sir, when you have been drinking with her father to such an extent.”

“Fine thing in this climate, my dear,” said the doctor. “Where’s Arthur?”

“Tired of all this frivolity, I suppose, and gone home like a sensible man. He does not drink whiskey.”

“Oh, dear,” said the doctor, “I’ll never take another drop if you talk to me like this, but poison myself with liquor-ammoniae instead.”

“Liquor what, sir?”

“Ammonias, my dear, sal-volatile as you call it when you require a stimulus. Well, Grey, my child, we are to take you home.”

“So soon, Dr Bolter?” said the Inche Maida, by whose side Grey was seated.

“I think it quite late enough, Princess,” said Mrs Bolter, austerely. “Have you seen my brother?”

“Yes, I saw him following Miss Perowne down the walk,” said the Princess, quietly enjoying Mrs Bolter’s start. “I suppose it is pleasanter and cooler in the dark parts of the garden.”

“My brother is fond of meditation,” said Mrs Bolter, quietly; and she looked very fixedly in the Princess’s eyes.

“Yes, I suppose so; and night is so pleasant a time for thought,” retorted the Princess. “You must come with your brother and the doctor, and stay with me, Mrs Bolter.”

“Thank you, madam,” replied the little lady. “Never, if I know it,” she said to herself.

“I suppose it is late to English views?” said the Princess, smiling. “Good-bye, then, dear Miss Stuart. I will try and persuade papa to bring you to stay with me in my savage home. You really would come if he consented?”