The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen Part 13

A number was given to the man in spectacles.

'And my number?' I inquired politely.

'Surely one suffices?' said the guide, eyeing me with disapproval; for taking me for the wife of the man in spectacles he regarded my desire to have a number all to myself as only one more instance of the lengths to which the modern woman in her struggle for emanc.i.p.ation will go.

The stick and sunshade were accordingly tied together.

'Do you wish to ascend the tower?' he asked my companion, showing us the open-work iron staircase winding round and round inside the tower up to the top.

'Gott Du Allmachtiger, nein,' was the hasty reply after a glance and a shudder.

Taking for granted that without my husband I would not want to go up towers he did not ask me, but at once led the way through a very charming hall decorated with what are known as trophies of the chase, to a locked door, before which stood a row of enormous grey felt slippers.

'The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,' said the guide as though he were quoting.

'All of them?' I asked, faintly facetious.

Again he eyed me, but this time in silence.

The man in spectacles thrust his feet into the nearest pair. They were generously roomy even for him, and he was a big man with boots to match.

I looked down the row hoping to see something smaller, and perhaps newer, but they were all the same size, and all had been worn repeatedly by other tourists.

'The next time I come to the Jagdschloss,' I observed thoughtfully, as I saw my feet disappear into the gaping mouths of two of these woolly monsters, 'I shall bring my own slippers. This arrangement may be useful, but no one could call it select.'

Neither of my companions took the least notice of me. The guide looked disgusted. Judging from his face, though he still thought me a worm he now suspected me of belonging to that highly objectionable cla.s.s known as turned.

Having seen us safely into our slippers he was about to unlock the door when the bell rang. He left us standing mute before the shut door, and leaning over the bal.u.s.trade--for, Reader, as Charlotte Bronte would say, he had come upstairs--he called down to the Fraulein who had taken our stick and sunshade to let in the visitors. She did so; and as she flung open the door I saw, through the pillars of the bal.u.s.trade, Brosy on the threshold, and at the bottom of the steps, leaning against one of the copper wolves, her arm, indeed, flung over its valuable shoulder, the bishop's wife gasping.

At this sight the custodian rushed downstairs. The man in spectacles and myself, mute, meek, and motionless in our felt slippers, held our breaths.

'The public is requested not to touch the objects of art!' shouted the custodian as he rushed.

'Is he speaking to me, dear?' asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, looking up at her son.

'I think he is, mother,' said Ambrose. 'I don't think you may lean on that wolf.'

'Wolf?' said his mother in surprise, standing upright and examining the animal through her eyegla.s.ses with interest. 'So it is. I thought they were Prussian eagles.'

'Anyhow you mustn't touch it, mother,' said Ambrose, a slight impatience in his voice. 'He says the public are not to touch things.'

'Does he really call me the public? Do you think he is a rude person, dear?'

'Does the lady intend to see the Schloss or not?' interrupted the custodian. 'I have another party inside waiting.'

'Come on, mother--you want to, don't you?'

'Yes--but not if he's a rude man, dear,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, slowly ascending the steps. 'Perhaps you had better tell him who father is.'

'I don't think it would impress him much,' said Brosy, smiling. 'Parsons come here too often for that.'

'Parsons! Yes; but not bishops,' said his mother, coming into the echoing hall, through whose emptiness her last words rang like a trumpet.

'He wouldn't know what a bishop is. They don't have them.'

'No bishops?' exclaimed his mother, stopping short and staring at her son with a face of concern.

'_Bitte um die Eintrittskarten_,' interrupted the custodian, slamming the door; and he pulled the tickets out of Brosy's hand.

'No bishops?' continued Mrs. Harvey-Browne, 'and no Early Fathers, as that smashed-looking person, that cousin of Frau Nieberlein's, told us last night? My dear Brosy, what a very strange state of things.'

'I don't think she quite said that, did she? They have Early Fathers right enough. She didn't understand what you meant.'

'Stick and umbrella, please,' interrupted the custodian, s.n.a.t.c.hing them out of their pa.s.sive hands. 'Take the number, please. Now this way, please.'

He hurried, or tried to hurry, them under the tower, but the bishop's wife had not hurried for years, and would not have dreamed of doing so; and when he had got them under it he asked if they wished to make the ascent. They looked up, shuddered, and declined.

'Then we will at once join the other party,' said the custodian, bustling on.

'The other party?' exclaimed Mrs. Harvey-Browne in German. 'Oh, I hope no objectionable tourists? I quite thought coming so early we would avoid them.'

'Only two,' said the custodian: 'a respectable gentleman and his wife.'

The man in spectacles and I, up to then mute, meek, and motionless in our grey slippers, started simultaneously. I looked at him cautiously out of the corners of my eyes, and found to my confusion that he was looking at me cautiously out of the corners of his. In another moment the Harvey-Brownes stood before us.

After one slight look of faintest surprise at my companion the pleasant Ambrose greeted me as though I were an old friend; and then bowing with a politeness acquired during his long stay in the Fatherland to the person he supposed was my husband, introduced himself in German fas.h.i.+on by mentioning his name, and observed that he was exceedingly pleased to make his acquaintance. _'Es freut mich sehr Ihre Bekanntschaft zu machen,'_ said the pleasant Ambrose.

_'Gleichfalls, gleichfalls,'_ murmured the man in spectacles, bowing repeatedly, and obviously astonished. To the bishop's wife he also made rapid and bewildered bows until he saw she was gazing over his head, and then he stopped. She had recognised my presence by the merest shadow of a nod, which I returned with an indifference that was icy; but, oddly enough, what offended me more than her nod was the glance she had bestowed on the man in spectacles before she began to gaze over his head. He certainly did not belong to me, and yet I was offended. This seemed to me so subtle that it set me off pondering.

'The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,' said the custodian.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked at him critically. 'He has a very crude way of expressing himself, hasn't he, dear?' she remarked to Ambrose.

'He is only quoting official regulations. He must, you know, mother. And we are undoubtedly the public.'

Ambrose looked at my feet, then at the feet of my companion, and then without more ado got into a pair of slippers. He wore knickerbockers and stockings, and his legs had a cla.s.sic refinement that erred, if at all, on the side of over-slenderness. The effect of the enormous grey slippers at the end of these Attic legs made me, for one awful moment, feel as though I were going to shriek with laughter. An immense effort strangled the shriek and left me unnaturally solemn.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne had now caught sight of the row of slippers. She put up her eyegla.s.ses and examined them carefully. 'How very German,' she remarked.

'Put them on, mother,' said Ambrose; 'we are all waiting for you.'

'Are they new, Brosy?' she asked, hesitating.

'The lady must put on the slippers, or she cannot enter the princely apartments,' said the custodian severely.

'Must I really, Brosy?' she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. 'I am so terribly afraid of infection, or--or other things. Do they think we shall spoil their carpets?'

'The floors are polished, I imagine,' said Ambrose, 'and the owner is probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves.'

'Really quite nice and considerate of him--if only they were new.'