Chapter IV: Dance at Rembakut

It was towards nine o’clock when Vera Battiscombe, immersed in the contents of a paper-covered volume, heard a horseman come flying across the night-shrouded clearing and slither to a standstill immediately under the verandah.

She glanced up sharply, wondering if it could be Dick Moberly, anxious to discover what had prevented her paying her intended visit.

A cheery voice from the blackness swiftly disillusioned her.

“Hello, there! Anybody alive?”

She went to the rail.

“Is that you, Mr. Armourer? Yes, I’m very much alive, thanks; but Jim’s in Jesselton. Won’t you come up?”

He handed his pony over to one of Battiscombe’s men and came up the steps three at a time.

Michael Armourer was one of the few men with whom she had never been able to make headway, and probably for that reason more than any other she unconsciously sharpened every weapon in her armoury at his approach. He was handsome, broad-shouldered and essentially virile, but invariably left her with the impression that he liked her very much and found her excellent company, but that, according to his notions on life, the fact that she was Jim Battiscombe’s lawful wife presented an impenetrable barrier to anything that savoured of intimacy.

He came into the radius of the lamplight and extended a large hand.

“How are you, Mrs. Battiscombe. Sorry Jim’s away. I should like to have seen him. As a matter of fact I’ve come over on rather a delicate mission. I was going to dispatch an orderly on the job, but got it into my head he might muck it up. I should never have forgiven myself if he’d rolled up with a pair of Jim’s pyjamas instead of a _nightie_!”

Vera wagged an admonishing finger.

“I know what it is, Mr. Armourer; you’ve been drinking.”

The magistrate shook his head.

“Not unduly. I did open a bottle of _bubbly_ for the professor, but he mopped up most of it himself.”

“Then what on earth are you talking about?”

“This,” said Armourer, and thrust a sealed envelope into her hand. “I’ve visitors at my place. They got tied up in a trolly accident and hadn’t brought any _barang_. I managed to fix up the old man; but the lady presented difficulties. I haven’t the remotest idea what’s in that note, and I am given to understand that the parcel is to be duly secured and sealed before it’s handed over to me.”

Mrs. Battiscombe perused the contents of the letter with an amused smile.

“Shall I read it out to you?”

He retreated across the floor, waving his hands in front of him.

“Heaven forbid! Have pity on my youth and innocence, please!”

Vera laughed.

“But, my dear man, what on earth could a woman require for a single night that an average man shouldn’t hear about?”

“I don’t know,” returned Armourer, “I haven’t even bothered to think. In any case, I don’t suppose it amounts to anything much, but the fact that I am conveying the confounded paraphernalia from one woman acquaintance to another makes me prefer to remain in a state of blissful ignorance.”

She flashed a sidelong glance at him.

“Is she pretty?”

Armourer pretended to reflect on a subject upon which he had long made up his mind.

“As a matter of fact, I suppose she is.”

“Fair or dark?”

“Dark, I suppose you’d say.”

“Well, she must be one or the other, mustn’t she?”

“Certainly--unless she happens to be something in between.” He bent forward earnestly. “Does your husband allow people to drink on his verandah when he’s away? I mean when people happen to have ridden rather a long way and swallowed a fair amount of dust?”

“My poor man. I’m so sorry!”

She touched the bell.

“Hoon-Kit,” she said to the servant who shuffled in, “the _Tuan-Hakim_ of Jelandang is thirsty. Bring in the decanter and a glass.”

“Why not in the plural?” demanded Armourer.

Vera smiled.

“Because I don’t care for whisky--and my husband doesn’t like me to drink with strange men--even if they have ridden a long way and swallowed a lot of dust!”

She accompanied the latter half of the remark with a grimace.

Armourer looked at the ceiling.

“It really is refreshing,” he retorted, “to discover a woman who is actuated solely by her husband’s desires. Er--does Jim know about this?”

“I don’t think I altogether like you,” declared Mrs. Battiscombe.

The _boy_ brought in the decanter and Armourer helped himself.

“Did Jim go down by the train?” he asked suddenly.

Vera nodded.

“Then the Lord only knows what time he arrived in town. She was an hour and a half behind time when she passed my place.”

“You don’t mean that?”

“I’m afraid I do. That seems to indicate he’ll be late back.”

She shuddered.

“I loathe sitting up here all alone,” she said. “Isn’t it just too annoying! I haven’t spoken to a soul except Hoon-Kit since tea. Be a Christian and sit down and talk for a bit.”

He shook his head.

“Sorry, Mrs. Battiscombe, but I’ve got to get back to my guests. Besides, you’re forgetting the parcel!”

She came right up to him, putting every ounce of pleading she knew how into her eyes.

“Half an hour!”

He picked up his hat.

“Can’t be done. You see, Miss Standen’s probably tired and waiting for her kit, and----”

“You’re just itching to get back to her!” she concluded for him.

He held his glass to the light.

He was in a queer mood that night, a state of mind that had obsessed him ever since that look he had exchanged in the brief twilight with a girl he had known but a handful of minutes. The thought flashed across him that the professor and his daughter were only awaiting his return to go to bed and that, even if they stopped up with him for a while, it was highly improbable that Joyce and he would be permitted to remain alone for a second time. And here was a superlatively attractive woman begging him to perform a common act of charity.

“All right,” he said; “I’ll stop. One of Jim’s men can take the stuff.”

“It’s awfully good of you. Just a minute and I’ll get the things. Do you want to send any message?”

Armourer rubbed his chin.

“Better tell the professor I’m delayed here on business, but hope to be across in an hour or so. He needn’t trouble to wait up unless he wants to. Shall I write it down?”

“Oh, no. I’ll see that Corporal Kuraman sends somebody with intelligence.”

As she passed the long mirror she looked into it and smiled.

She found Armourer presently, leaning over the rail, smoking.

“Give me a cigarette, please.”

He held out his case.

“What are we going to do?” he inquired.

“What do you want to do?”

She insisted on lighting her cigarette from the glowing end of his cigar, a process that brought them into such close proximity that he found it embarrassing.

He had always pretended to himself that he despised Mrs. Battiscombe for the flagrancy with which she conducted her amours, but, under present conditions, he caught himself in the act of reconsidering this opinion. It was only a step from this to tacitly admit that Jimmie Battiscombe was rather a stodgy companion for an endless succession of breakfasts, dinners and teas, and it was scarcely to be wondered at if a girl with some _go_ in her should seek to relieve the tedium of tropical loneliness with an occasional flirtation.

Vera had somehow succeeded in infusing into his veins a pleasurable feeling of comfort and self-satisfaction, combined with a dash of recklessness.

“I don’t know,” he laughed. “What is there to do?”

She possessed herself of an arm and led him towards the gramophone.

“Let’s dance. Let’s pretend we’re in a really smart restaurant in a really big town and that we’ve had a really nice dinner!”

Armourer grinned.

“Anything else?”

“And that you’re dancing with a really nice girl--that you really like!”

He fell into the trap.

“I shan’t need to pretend that,” he said.

She pounced on this first rash admission and used it for all she was worth.

“Won’t you?”

He hedged.

“Won’t I what?”

“You know what you said.”

“What did I say?”

“_I_ haven’t forgotten,” said Mrs. Battiscombe, contriving to blush.

She delved into a pile of discs.

“Let’s have a fox-trot. _Eastern Stars_ is good.”

She poised the needle carefully on the record, gave it a little sideways tap with her finger and closed the lid.

For the first time he noticed her frock. It was a greeny-blue clinging affair, and it dawned on him that she had slipped it on while making up the parcel for Joyce.

As she stood there, waiting for him to take her, the devilry of all the witches of mythology danced in her eyes.

“Are you ready?” she whispered.

He passed a moist hand over his forehead.

“I suppose so,” he stammered, and awoke to discover that they were dancing.

From that moment his enthusiasm grew until they raced back to the machine at the conclusion of each tune and the records overflowed on to the table and the floor as they were played and discarded.

A sudden thought made him glance at his watch. They were in the middle of a one-step, and she held his wrist, trying to stop him looking. He succeeded at length and his face fell.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Quarter past eleven.”

“It can’t be.”

“It is, by Jove!”

He held it so that she could see for herself.

“Just one more,” she pleaded.

He hesitated.

“Right-ho! The very last, mind.”

They ran to the gramophone and his fingers sought the handle a second only after hers. In the excitement of the moment he allowed them to remain longer than he had intended.

“Michael!”

He was aware of the sensation of something cold trickling down his spine. He turned to find her upturned face so close to him that he felt her warm breath on his cheeks. Those lips of hers were the very devil!

He hadn’t the remotest idea why he did it. Never in his wildest imaginings had he ever intended to supplant Dick Moberly. He could have sworn that, without any effort on his part, those lips came closer--until they touched his.…

A voice came from the stairway:

“Hello, you two! What on earth are you up to?”

Armourer brought his head up with a jerk and turned awkwardly to greet James Battiscombe.

Vera was coolness itself.

“Hullo, Jim! Back at last? I didn’t go over to Bukit-Serang after all. I just stopped here on my own, until Mr. Armourer rode over for some clothes for a girl who’d got stranded with her father. He told me the train was late and I made him stop. We’ve been dancing.”

Her husband stood in the centre of the floor, his topee at the back of his head, swinging his monocle on its string.

“So I see,” he remarked, in a tone that was entirely new to her. He nodded to Armourer.

“Well, Michael! Playing the good Samaritan?”

The younger man felt uncomfortable.

“I had to decide,” he managed to say, “between my unexpected guests and Mrs. Battiscombe.”

“You had no difficulty, I take it, in coming to a decision?”

Vera frowned.

“I persuaded him to stay.”

He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked at her.

“I’ll wager you did! Well, good-night, Michael. I’ll try and drop over and see you one of these days. I hope you’re not too tired, Vera, because I’ve quite a lot I want to say to you.”