Chapter 14: From Wiek to Hiddensee

The island to which Charlotte had retired was the island of Hiddensee, a narrow strip of sand to the west of Rügen. Generally so wordy, the guide-book merely mentions it as a place to which it is possible for Rügen tourists to make excursions, and proffers with a certain timidity the information that pleasure may be had there in observing the life and habits of sea-birds.

To this place of sea-birds Charlotte had gone, as she wrote in a letter left with the landlady for me, because during the night she spent at Wiek a panic had seized her lest the Harvey-Brownes should by some chance appear there in their wanderings before I did. ‘I daresay they will not dream of coming round this way at all,’ she continued, ‘but you never know.’

You certainly never know, I agreed, Mrs. Harvey-Browne being at that very moment in the room Charlotte had had the panic in; and I lay awake elaborating a most beautiful plan by which I intended at one stroke to reunite Charlotte and her husband and free myself of both of them.

This plan came into my head during the evening while sitting sadly listening to something extremely like a scolding from the Professor. It seemed to me that I had done all in my power short of inhumanity to the horses to help him, and it was surely not my fault that Charlotte had not happened to stay anywhere long enough for us to catch her up. My intentions were so good. Far preferring to drive alone and stop where and when I pleased—at Vitt for instance, among the walnut trees—I had yet given up all my preferences so that I might help bring man and wife together. If anything, did not this conduct incline towards the noble?

‘Your extreme simplicity amazes me,’ remarked the wise relative when, arrived at this part of my story on my return home, I plaintively asked the above question. ‘Under no circumstances is the meddler ever thanked.’

‘Meddler? Helper, you mean. Apparently you would call every person who helps a meddler.’

‘Armes Kind, proceed with the story.’

Well, the Professor, who had suffered much in the hood between Arkona and Wiek, and was more irritated by his disappointment on getting to Wiek than seemed consistent with the supposed serenity of the truly wise, was telling me for the tenth time that if I had brought him on at once from Glowe as he begged me to do we would not only have escaped the Harvey-Brownes but would have caught his Charlotte by now, seeing that she had not left Wiek for Hiddensee till eight o’clock of this Saturday we had now got to, and I was drooping more and more under these reproaches when, with the suddenness of inspiration, the beautiful plan flooded my dejected brain with such a cheerful light that I lifted my head and laughed in the Professor’s face.

‘Now pray tell me,’ he exclaimed, stopping short in his strides about the room, ‘what thou seest to laugh at in my present condition?’

‘Nothing in your present condition. It’s the glories of your future one that made me laugh.’

‘Surely that is not a subject on which one laughs. Nor will I discuss it with a woman. Nor is this the place or the moment. I refer thee’—and he swept round his arm as though to sweep me altogether out of sight, —’I refer thee to thy pastor.’

‘Dearest Professor, don’t be so dreadfully cross. The future state I was thinking of isn’t further off than to-morrow. Sometimes there’s a cunning about a woman’s wit that you great artists in profundity don’t possess. You can’t, of course, because you are so busy being wise on a large scale. But it’s quite useful to have some cunning when you have to work out petty schemes. And I tell you solemnly that at this moment I am full of it.’

He stopped again in his striding. The good landlady and her one handmaiden were laying the table for supper. Mrs. Harvey-Browne had gone upstairs to put on those evening robes in which, it appeared, she had nightly astonished the ignorant tourists of Rügen. Brosy had not been seen at all since our arrival.

‘What thou art full of is nothing but poking of fun at me, I fear,’ said the Professor; but his kind old face began to smooth out a little.

‘I’m not. I’m only full of artfulness, and anxious to put it all at your disposal. But you mustn’t be quite so cross. Pray, am I no longer then your little and dear cousin?’

‘When thou art good, yes.’

‘Whom to pat is pleasant?’

‘Yes, yes, it is pleasant, but if unreasonableness develops——’

‘And with whom to sit under one umbrella is a joy?’

‘Surely, surely—but thou hast been of a great obstinacy——’

‘Well, come and sit here and let us be happy. We’re very comfortable here, aren’t we? Don’t let us think any more about the wet, horrid, obstinate, disappointing day we’ve had. And as for to-morrow, I’ve got a plan.’

The Professor, who had begun to calm, sat down beside me on the sofa. The landlord, deft and noiseless, was giving a finishing touch of roses and fruit and candles to the supper table. He had been a butler in a good family, and was of the most beautiful dignity and solemnity. We were sitting in a very queer old room, used in past years for balls to which the quality drove in from their distant estates and danced through winter nights. There was a gallery for the fiddlers, and the chairs and benches ranged round the walls were still covered with a festive-looking faded red stuff. In the middle of this room the landlord had put a table for us to sup at, and had arranged it in a way I had not seen since leaving home. No one else was in the house but ourselves. No one, hardly, of the tourist class comes to Wiek; and yet, or because of it, this inn of all the inns I had stayed at was in every way quite excellent.

‘Tell me then thy plan, little one,’ said the Professor, settling himself comfortably into the sofa corner.

‘Oh, it’s quite simple. You and I to-morrow morning will go to Hiddensee.’

‘Go! Yes, but how? It is Sunday, and even if it were not, no steamers seem to go to what appears to be a spot of great desolation.’

‘We’ll hire a fishing-smack.’