Chapter 11: 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.’