A White Rajah’s Heir

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17786, 10 August 1929, Page 14 (Supplement)

A White Rajah’s Heir

There is an interesting sequel to the recent anouncement that Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, the white Rajah of Sarawak, had found it necessary to take steps to put an end to rumours with regard to himself and his country. The rapah took this action through his brother and heir, the Tuan Muda, who acts as the Special Commissioner for Sarawak in London. The Tuan Muda confessed that so l'ar as he was concerned the position was somewhat complicated, because lie thought the rumours of which the rajah complained had originated in an interview which his -wife, the Dayang Muda had given to an American paper. He added that he had not seen his wife for some time, as she lived on the Continent. There has now been published, under the title of “Relations and Complications,” a very frank, intimate, and somewhat indiscreet, autobiography of the Dayang Muda, who is the daughter of the late Sir Walter Palmer, of Reading. ’ ■ , . She tells of her life as a ohild and how in girlhood she met in her father’s house such famous people as Oscar Wilde, Meredith and John Ruskin.

Sudden Courtship. Then she tells how she met the Tuan Muda and discusses with astonishing frankness her personal relationship with him. First of all, she makes reference to her oourtship, and describes how he proposed. She says—“ln the library—at Greyfriars, South Ascot, the home of the then Ranee of Sarawak —I found Tuan Muda, and we sat down and talked for a few moments in the large old-fashioned fire-seat. Suddenly he turned to me and said, with no warning at all, Will you marry me?'

“With a blush I said,‘Yes.’ “Two days later my fiance left for Paris and no more personal conversation had taken place between us than the first one in which he asked me so abruptly to be his wife." From the first this love story in a ruling house seems , to have gone amiss, for the Dayang Muda. confesses that although she was making preparations for her wedding “I was still hoping that Lucien —Lucien Daudet—would come by some miracle like a gallant knight in drama.” The wedding, despite differences of opinion before marriage, took place; and then, writing of happenings during and after the war, the Dayang Muda tells of the absence of, her husband on military duty or in connection with his heritage in Sarawak.

Breach with Rajah’a Heir. What was presumably a definite breach between herself and the rajah’s heir she describes in this manner— "Tuan Muda’s letters became fewer and colder. . . . One afternoon I . . . was sitting smoking by the open window when the maid an- j nounoed the Tuan Muda of Sarawak, j He walked rigidly across the room, I and, bowing formally, extended his [ hand to me with a casual ‘How-do-you-do?’ I was unable to say a word. He sat down very leisurely opposite my chair and eyed the photographs on j the piano and along the wall. They i were photographs of the children, of {

Frank Stories by His Wife. Sequel to Rumours.

mother and father, of Ellen Terry and Meredith and the Empress Eugenie, and a Press photo of Austin Carnegie. Tuan Muda went over to the piano and surveyed the photographs of the children; then he saw Austen Carnegie. He looted closely into his face for sonm minutes. At last he turned round to me and spoke—- “ ‘This is, I persume, the man who has made all the trouble?’ “Suddenly he turned to me again and said he must go and see his mother. . . . We set out together to call on the Ranee Margaret. . . . My husband’s attitude was keeping me in an anguish of suspense. . . . At last I drew the Ranee Margaret aside. “ ‘Why is Tuan Muda acting in this impossible manner?’ I asked. “She took out her handkerchief to hide the tears that stood in her eyes, and said—- “ ‘You must remember my family have never made their money in trade. Any departure from this tradition is strange to us.’ ” On a voyage out to Sarawak the Dayang Muda met a German, Herr Blough. “He told us he was the inventor of the eau-de-Cologne ‘4711. I asked him why he had chosen a number for a name. “I have four sons and seven daughters," he said gravely, “and added together these make eleven."

The Dayang Muda’s reminiscences will provide many peiple with a taste for frankness hours of entertainment.