plaintively. She had been watching us with impatience, and seemed
perturbed. The moment we got near enough she informed us that the
tourists were such that no decent woman could stand it. 'Ambrose has
gone off with one of them,' she said,--'a most terrible old man--to look
at some view over there. Would you believe it, while we were quietly
sitting here not harming anybody, this person came up the hill and
immediately began to talk to us as if we knew each other? He actually
had the audacity to ask if he might sit with us at this table, as there
was no room elsewhere. He was _most_ objectionable. Of course I refused.
The most pushing person I have met at all.'
'But there is ample room,' said Charlotte, to whom everything the
bishop's wife said and did appeared bad.
'But, my dear Frau Nieberlein, a complete stranger! And such an
unpleasantly jocular old man. And I think it so very ill-bred to be
jocular in the wrong places.'
'I always think it a pity to cold-shoulder people,' said Charlotte
sternly. She was not, it seemed, going to stand any nonsense from the
bishop's wife.
'You must be dying for some tea,' I interposed, pouring it out as one
who should pour oil on troubled waters.
'And you should consider,' continued Charlotte, 'that in fifty years we
shall all be dead, and our opportunities for being kind will be over.'
'My dear Frau Nieberlein!' ejaculated the astonished bishop's wife.
'Why, it isn't certain,' I said. 'You'll only be eighty then, Charlotte,
and what is eighty? When I am eighty I hope to be a gay granddame
skilled in gestic lore, frisking beneath the burthen of fourscore.'
But the bishop's wife did not like being told she would be dead in fifty
years, and no artless quotations of mine could make her like it; so she
drank her tea with an offended face. 'Perhaps, then,' she remarked, 'you
will tell me I ought to have accepted the proposal one of the other
tourists, a woman, made me a moment ago. She suggested that I should
drive back to Sassnitz with her and her party, and halve the expense of
the fly.'
'Well, and why should you not?' said Charlotte.
'Why should I not? There were two excellent reasons why I should not.
First, because it was an impertinence; and secondly, because I am going
back in the boat.'
'The second reason is good, but you must pardon my seeing no excellence
whatever in the first.'
'Your son's tea will be undrinkable,' I said, feebly interrupting. I can
never see two people contradicting each other without feeling wretched.
Why contradict? Why argue at all? Only one's Best-Beloved, one's Closest
and Most Understanding should be contradicted and argued with. How
simple to keep quiet with all the rest and agree to everything they say.
Charlotte up to this had kept very quiet in the presence of Mrs.
Harvey-Browne, had said yes in the right places, and had only been
listless and bored. Now, after reading her own explosive pamphlet for an
hour, stirred besides by the widow's base behaviour and by the failure
of her effort to induce penitence in Hedwig by means of punishment, she
was in the strenuous mood again, and inclined to see all manner of
horrid truths and fates hovering round the harmless tea-table, where
denser eyes like mine, and no doubt Mrs. Harvey-Browne's, only saw a
pleasant flicker of beech leaves over cups and saucers, and bland
strawberries in a nest of green.
'If women did not regard each other's advances with so much suspicion,'
Charlotte proceeded emphatically, 'if they did not look upon every one
of a slightly different class as an impossible person to be avoided,
they would make a much better show in the fight for independent
existence. The value of co-operation is so gigantic----'
'Ah yes, I fancy I remember your saying something like this at that
lecture in Oxford last winter,' interrupted Mrs. Harvey-Browne with an
immense plaintiveness.
'It cannot be said too often.'
'Oh yes dear Frau Nieberlein, believe me it can. What, for instance, has
it to do with my being asked to drive back to Sassnitz with a strange
family in a fly?'
'Why, with that it has very much to do,' I interposed, smiling
pleasantly on them both. 'You would have paid half. And what is
co-operation if it is not paying half? Indeed, I've been told by people
who have done it that it sometimes even means paying all. In which case
you don't see its point.'
'What I mean, of course,' said Charlotte, 'is moral co-operation. A
ceaseless working together of its members for the welfare of the sex. No
opportunity should ever be lost. One should always be ready to talk to,
to get to know, to encourage. One must cultivate a large love for
humanity to whatever class it belongs, and however individually
objectionable it is. You, no doubt,' she continued, waving her teaspoon
at the staring bishop's wife, 'curtly refused the very innocent
invitation of your fellow-creature because she was badly dressed and had
manners of a type with which you are not acquainted. You considered it
an impertinence--nay, more than an impertinence, an insult, to be
approached in such a manner. Now, how can you tell'--(here she leaned
across the table, and in her earnestness pointed the teaspoon straight
at Mrs. Harvey-Browne, who stared harder than ever)--'how will you ever
know that the woman did not happen to be full, full to the brim, of that
good soil in which the seed of a few encouraging words dropped during
your drive would have produced a splendid harvest of energy and
freedom?'
'But my dear Frau Nieberlein,' said the bishop's wife, much taken aback
by this striking image, 'I do not think she was full of anything of the
kind. She did not look so, anyhow. And I myself, to pursue your
metaphor, am hardly fitted for the office of an agricultural implement.
I believe all these things are done nowadays by machinery, are they
not?' she asked, turning to me in a well-meant effort to get away from
the subject. 'The old-fashioned and picturesque sower has been quite
superseded, has he not?'
'Why are you talking about farming?' asked Ambrose, who came up at this
moment.
'We are talking of the farming of souls,' replied Charlotte.
'Oh,' said Ambrose, in his turn taken aback. He pretended to be so busy
sitting down that he couldn't say more than just Oh. We watched him in
silence fussing into his chair. 'How pleasant it is here,' he went on
when he was settled. 'No, I don't mind cold tea a bit, really. Mother,
why wouldn't you let the old man sit with us? He's a frightfully good
sort.'
'Because there are certain limits beyond which I decline to go,' replied
his mother, visibly annoyed that he should thus unconsciously side with
Charlotte.
'Oh but it was rough on him--don't you think so, Frau Nieberlein? We
have the biggest table and only half-fill it, and there isn't another
place to be had. It is so characteristically British for us to sit here
and keep other people out. He'll have to wait heaven knows how long for
his coffee, and he has walked miles.'
'I think,' said Charlotte slowly, loudly, and weightily, 'that he might
very well have joined us.'
'But you did not see him,' protested Mrs. Harvey-Browne. 'I assure you
he really was impossible. _Much_ worse than the woman we were talking
about.'
'I can only say,' said Charlotte, even slower, louder, and more
weightily, 'that one should, before all things, be human, and that one
has no right whatever to turn one's back on the smallest request of a
fellow-creature.'
Hardly had she said it, hardly had the bishop's wife had time to open
her mouth and stare in stoniest astonishment, hardly had I had time to
follow her petrified gaze, than an old man in a long waterproof garment
with a green felt hat set askew on his venerable head, came nimbly up
behind Charlotte, and bending down to her unsuspecting ear shouted into
it the amazing monosyllable 'Bo!'
THE SEVENTH DAY--_Continued_
AT STUBBENKAMMER
I believe I have somewhere remarked that Charlotte was not the kind of
person one could ever tickle. She was also the last person in the world
to whom most people would want to say Bo. The effect on her of this Bo
was alarming. She started up as though she had been struck, and then
stood as one turned to stone.
Brosy jumped up as if to protect her.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked really frightened, and gasped 'It is the old
man again--an escaped lunatic--how very unpleasant!'
'No, no,' I hurriedly explained, 'it is the Professor.'
'_The Professor?_ What, never the _Professor?_ What, _the_ Professor?
Brosy--Brosy'--she leaned over and seized his coat in an agony of
haste--'never breathe it's the old man I've been talking about--never
breathe it--it's Professor Nieberlein himself!'
'_What?_' exclaimed Brosy, flushing all over his face.
But the Professor took no notice of any of us, for he was diligently
kissing Charlotte. He kissed her first on one cheek, then he kissed her
on the other cheek, then he pulled her ears, then he tickled her under
the chin, and he beamed upon her all the while with such an
uninterrupted radiance that the coldest heart must have glowed only to
see it.
'So here I meet thee, little treasure?' he cried. 'Here once more thy
twitter falls upon my ears? I knew at once thy little chirp. I heard it
above all the drinking noises. "Come, come," I said to myself, "if that
is not the little Lot!" And chirping the self-same tune I know of old,
in the beautiful English tongue: Turn not your back on a creature, turn
not your back. Only on the old husband one turns the pretty back--what?
Fie, fie, the naughty little Lot!'
I protest I never saw a stranger sight than this of Charlotte being
toyed with. And the rigidity of her!
'How _charming_ the simple German ways are,' cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne in
a great flutter to me while the toying was going on. She was so torn by
horror at what she had said and by rapture at meeting the Professor,
that she hardly knew what she was doing. 'It really does one good to be
given a peep at genuine family emotions. Delightful Professor. You heard
what he said to the Duke after he had gone all the way to Bonn on
purpose to see him? And my dear Frau X., _such_ a Duke!' And she
whispered the name in my ear as though it were altogether too great to
be said aloud.
I conceded by a nod that he was a very superior duke; but what the
Professor said to him I never heard, for at that moment Charlotte
dropped back into her chair and the Professor immediately scrambled (I
fear there is no other word, he did scramble) into the next one to her,
which was Brosy's.
'Will you kindly present me?' said Brosy to Charlotte, standing
reverential and bare-headed before the great man.
'Ah, I know you, my young friend, already,' said the Professor genially.
'We have just been admiring Nature together.'
At this the bishop's wife blushed, deeply, thoroughly, a thing I suppose
she had not done for years, and cast a supplicating look at Charlotte,
who sat rigid with her eyes on her plate. Brosy blushed too and bowed
profoundly. 'I cannot tell you, sir, how greatly honoured I feel at
being allowed to make your acquaintance,' he said.
'Tut, tut,' said the Professor. 'Lottchen, present me to these ladies.'
What, he did not remember me? What, after the memorable evening in
Berlin? I know of few things more wholly grievous than to have a
celebrated connection who forgets he has ever seen you.
'I must apologise to you, madam,' he said to the bishop's wife, for
taking a seat at your table after all.'
'Oh, Professor----' murmured Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
'But you will perhaps forgive my joining a party of which my wife is a
member.'
'Oh, Professor, do pray believe----'
'I know a Brown,' he continued; 'in England there is a Brown I know. He
is of a great skill in card-tricks. Hold--I know another Brown--nay, I
know several. Relations, no doubt, of yours, madam?'
'No, sir, our name is _Harvey_-Browne.'
'_Ach so_. I understood Brown. So it is Harvey. Yes, yes; Harvey made
the excellent sauce. I eat it daily with my fish. Madam, a public
benefactor.'
'Sir, we are not related. We are the Harvey-Brownes.'
'What, you are both Harveys and Browns, and yet not related to either
Browns or Harveys? Nay, but that is a problem to split the head.'
'My husband is the Bishop of Babbacombe. Perhaps you have heard of him.
Professor. He too is literary. He annotates.'
'In any case, madam, his wife speaks admirable German,' said the
Professor, with a little bow. 'And this lady?' he asked, turning to me.
'Why, I am Charlotte's cousin,' I said, no longer able to hide my
affliction at the rapid way in which he had forgotten me, 'and
accordingly yours. Do you not remember I met you last winter in Berlin
at a party at the Hofmeyers?'
'Of course--of course. That is to say, I fear, of course not. I have no
memory at all for things of importance. But one can never have too many
little cousins, can one, young man? Sit thee down next to me--then shall
I be indeed a happy man, with my little wife on one side and my little
cousin on the other. So--now we are comfortable; and when my coffee
comes I shall ask for nothing more. Young man, when you marry, see to it
that your wife has many nice little cousins. It is very important. As
for my not remembering thee,' he went on, putting one arm round the back
of my chair, while the other was round the back of Charlotte's, 'be not
offended, for I tell thee that the day after I married my Lot here, I
fell into so great an abstraction that I started for a walking tour in
the Alps with some friends I met, and for an entire week she passed from
my mind. It was at Lucerne. So completely did she pass from it that I
omitted to tell her I was going or bid her farewell. I went. Dost thou
remember, Lottchen? I came to myself on the top of Pilatus a week after
our wedding day. "What ails thee, man?" said my comrades, for I was
disturbed. "I must go down at once," I cried; "I have forgotten
something." "Bah! you do not need your umbrella up here," they said, for
they knew I forget it much. "It is not my umbrella that I have left
behind," I cried, "it is my wife." They were surprised, for I had
forgotten to tell them I had a wife. And when I got down to Lucerne,
there was the poor Lot quite offended.' And he pulled her nearest ear
and laughed till his spectacles grew dim.
'Delightful,' whispered Mrs. Harvey-Browne to her son. 'So natural.'
Her son never took his eyes off the Professor, ready to pounce on the
first word of wisdom and assimilate it, as a hungry cat might sit ready
for the mouse that unaccountably delays.
'Ah yes,' sighed the Professor, stretching out his legs under the table
and stirring the coffee the waiter had set before him, 'never forget,
young man, that the only truly important thing in life is women. Little
round, soft women. Little purring pussy-cats. Eh, Lot? Some of them will
not always purr, will they, little Lot? Some of them mew much, some of
them scratch, some of them have days when they will only wave their
naughty little tails in anger. But all are soft and pleasant, and add
much grace to the fireside.'
'How true,' murmured Mrs. Harvey-Browne in a rapture, 'how very, very
true. So, so different from Nietzsche.'
'What, thou art silent, little treasure?' he continued, pinching
Charlotte's cheek.' Thou lovest not the image of the little cats?'
'No,' said Charlotte; and the word was jerked up red-hot from an
interior manifestly molten.
'Well, then, pass me those strawberries that blink so pleasantly from
their bed of green, and while I eat pour out of thy dear heart all that
it contains concerning pussies, which interest thee greatly as I well
know, and all else that it contains and has contained since last I saw
thee. For it is long since I heard thy voice, and I have missed thee
much. Art thou not my dearest wife?'
Clearly it was time for me to get up and remove the Harvey-Brownes out
of earshot. I prepared to do so, but at the first movement the arm along
the back of the chair slid down and gripped hold of me.
'Not so restless, not so restless, little cousin,' said the Professor,
smiling rosily. 'Did I not tell thee I am happy so? And wilt thou mar
the happiness of a good old man?'
'But you have Charlotte, and you must wish to talk to her----'
'Certainly do I wish it. But talking to Charlotte excludeth not the
encircling of Elizabeth. And have I not two arms?'
'I want to go and show Mrs. Harvey-Browne the view from the cliff,' I
said, appalled at the thought of what Charlotte, when she did begin to
speak, would probably say.
'Tut, tut,' said the Professor, gripping me tighter, 'we are very well
so. The contemplation of virtuous happiness is at least as edifying for
this lady as the contemplation of water from a cliff.'
'Delightful originality,' murmured Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
'Madam, you flatter me,' said the Professor, whose ears were quick.
'Oh no. Professor, indeed, it is not flattery.'
'Madam, I am the more obliged.'
'We have so long wished we could meet you. My son spent the whole of
last summer in Bonn trying to do so----'
'Waste of time, waste of time, madam.'
'--and all in vain. And this year we were both there before coming up
here and did all we could, but also unfortunately in vain. It really
seems as if Providence had expressly led us to this place to-day.'
'Providence, madam, is continually leading people to places, and then
leading them away again. I, for instance, am to be led away again from
this one with great rapidity, for I am on foot and must reach a bed by
nightfall. Here there is nothing to be had.'
'Oh you must come back to Binz with us,' cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne. 'The
steamer leaves in an hour, and I am sure room could be found for you in
our hotel. My son would gladly give you his, if necessary; he would feel
only too proud if you would take it, would you not, Brosy?'
'Madam, I am overwhelmed by your amiability. You will, however,
understand that I cannot leave my wife. Where I go she comes too--is it
not so, little treasure? I am only waiting to hear her plans to arrange
mine accordingly. I have no luggage. I am very movable. My night attire
is on my person, beneath the attire appropriate to the day. In one
pocket of my mantle I carry an extra pair of socks. In another my
handkerchiefs, of which there are two. And my sponge, damp and cool, is
embedded in the crown of my hat. Thus, madam, I am of a remarkable
independence. Its one restriction is the necessity of finding a shelter
daily before dark. Tell me, little Lot, is there no room for the old
husband here with thee?' And there was something so sweet in his smile
as he turned to her that I think if she had seen it she must have
followed him wherever he went.
But she did not raise her eyes. 'I go to Berlin this evening,' she said.
'I have important engagements, and must leave at once.'
'My dear Frau Nieberlein,' exclaimed the bishop's wife, 'is not this
very sudden?'
Brosy, who had been looking uncomfortable for some minutes quite apart
from not having got his mouse, pulled out his watch and stood up. 'If we
are to catch that steamer, mother, I think it would be wise to start,'
he said.
'Nonsense, Brosy, it doesn't go for an hour,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne,
revolted at the notion of being torn from her celebrity in the very
moment of finding him.
'I am afraid we must,' insisted Brosy. 'It takes much longer to get down
the cliff than one would suppose. And it is slippery--I want to take you
down an easier and rather longer way.'
And he carried her off, ruthlessly cutting short her parting entreaties
that the Professor would come too, come to-morrow, then, come without
fail the next day, then, to Binz; and he took her, as I observed,
straight in the direction of the Hertha See as a beginning of the easy
descent, and the Hertha See, as everybody knows, is in the exactly
contrary direction to the one he ought to have gone; but no doubt he
filled up the hour instructively with stories of the ancient heathen
rites performed on those mystic shores, and so left Charlotte free to
behave to her husband as she chose.
How she did behave I can easily guess, for hurrying off into the
pavilion, desirous of nothing except to get out of the way, I had hardly
had time to marvel that she should be able to dislike such an old dear,
when she burst in. 'Quick, quick--help me to get my things!' she cried,
flying up and down the slit of a room and pouncing on the bags stowed
away by Gertrud in corners. 'I can just catch the night train at
Sassnitz--I'm off to Berlin--I'll write to you from there. Why, if that
fool Gertrud hasn't emptied everything out! What a terrible fate yours
is, always at the mercy of an overfed underling--a person who empties
bags without being asked. Give me those brushes--and the papers. Well,
you've seen me dragged down into the depths to-day, haven't you?' And
she straightened herself from bending over the bag, a brush in each
hand, and looking at me with a most bitter and defiant smile
incontinently began to cry.
'Don't cry, Charlotte,' I said, who had been dumbly staring, 'don't cry,
my dear. I didn't see any depths. I only saw nice things. Don't go to
Berlin--stay here and let us be happy together.'
'Stay here? Never!' And she feverishly crammed things into her bag, and
the bag must have been at least as full of tears as of other things, for
she cried bitterly the whole time.
Well, women have always been a source of wonderment to me, myself
included, who am for ever hurled in the direction of foolishness, for
ever unable to stop; and never are they so mysterious, so wholly
unaccountable, as in their relations to their husbands. But who shall
judge them? The paths of fate are all so narrow that two people bound
together, forced to walk abreast, cannot, except they keep perfect step,
but push each other against the rocks on either side. So that it behoves
the weaker and the lighter, if he would remain unbruised, to be very
attentive, very adaptable, very deft.
I saw Charlotte off in one of the waiting waggonettes that was to take
her to Sassnitz where the railway begins. 'I'll let you know where I
am,' she called out as she was rattled away down the hill; and with a
wave of the hand she turned the corner and vanished from my sight, gone
once more into those frozen regions where noble and forlorn persons
pursue ideals.
Walking back slowly through the trees towards the cliffs I met the
Professor looking everywhere for his wife. 'What time does Lot leave?'
he cried when he saw me. 'Must she really go?'
'She is gone.'
'No! How long since?'
'About ten minutes.'
'Then I too take that train.'
And he hurried off, clambering with the nimbleness that was all his own
into a second waggonette, and disappeared in his turn down the hill.
'Dearest little cousin,' he shouted just before being whisked round the
corner, 'permit me to bid thee farewell and wish thee good luck. I shall
seriously endeavour to remember thee this time.'
'Do,' I called back, smiling; but he could not have heard.
Once again I slowly walked through the trees to the cliffs. The highest
of these cliffs, the Königsstuhl, jutting out into the sea forms a
plateau where a few trees that have weathered the winter storms of many
years stand in little groups. For a long while I sat on the knotted
roots of one of them, listening to the slow wash of the waves on the
shingle far below. I saw the ribbon of smoke left by the Harvey-Browne's
steamer get thinner and disappear. I watched the sunset-red fade out of
the sky and sea, and all the world grow grey and full of secrets. Once,
after I had sat there a very long time, I thought I heard the faint
departing whistle of a far-distant train, and my heart leapt up with
exultation. Oh the gloriousness of freedom and silence, of being alone
with my own soul once more! I drew a long, long breath, and stood up and
stretched myself in the supreme comfort of complete relaxation.
'You look very happy,' said a rather grudging voice close to me.
It belonged to a Fräulein of uncertain age, come up to the plateau in
galoshes to commune in her turn with night and Nature; and I suppose I
must have been smiling foolishly all over my face, after the manner of
those whose thoughts are pleasant.
A Harvey-Browne impulse seized me to stare at her and turn my back, but
I strangled it. 'Do you know why I look happy?' I inquired instead; and
my voice was as the voice of turtle-doves.
'No--why?' was the eagerly inquisitive answer.
'Because I am.'
And nodding sweetly I walked away.
THE EIGHTH DAY
FROM STUBBENKAMMER TO GLOWE