Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ For the first time, too, since she had received Major Guthrie’s letter she forgot herself, and in a measure even the man she loved, in thought for another. Rose’s confession had moved her greatly, stirred all that was maternal in her heart. But she was far more surprised than she would have cared to admit, for she had always thought that Rose, if she married at all, would marry a man considerably older than herself. With a smile and a sigh, she told herself that the child must be in love with love! ”

“ Otway knew well, did she despise the average Englishwoman for being able to talk without a crochet-hook or a pair of knitting-needles in her hands.
Something—not much, but just a little—of what her mistress was feeling with regard to Major Guthrie gradually reached Anna’s perceptions, and made her feel at once uncomfortable, scornful, and angry.
Anna felt the deepest sympathy for her darling nursling, Miss Rose; for it was natural, warming-to-the-heart, that a young girl should feel miserable about a young man. ”

“ This is a funny world, Rose! Fancy those thirteen German prisoners in that motor lorry, and that they were once—in fact only an hour or so ago—doing their best to kill us, while now we are doing our best to cheer them up. Then to-morrow we shall go out and have a good try at killing their comrades. Mind you, they look quite ordinary people. Not one of them has a terrible or a brutal face. They look just like our men—in fact rather less soldierly than our men; the sort of chaps you might see walking along a street in Witanbury any day. ”

“ For it was Wednesday, the 5th of August, 1914. England had just declared war on Germany, and Anna was Mrs. Otway’s faithful, highly valued German servant.
Miss Forsyth was one of those rare people who always require an answer to a question, and who also (which is rarer still) seldom speak without having first thought out what they are about to say. It was this quality of mind, far more than the fact that she had been born, sixty years ago, in the Palace at Witanbury, which gave her the position she held in the society of the cathedral town. ”

“ To the left of the low-ceilinged, spacious, rather dark scullery was Anna’s own bedroom. Both the scullery and the servant’s room were much older than the rest of the house, for the picturesque gabled bit of brown and red brick building which projected into the garden, at the back of the Trellis House, belonged to Tudor days, to those spacious times when the great cathedral just across the green was a new pride and joy to the good folk of Witanbury. ”

“ Her knitting was in her hands, for Anna’s fingers were never idle, but just now the needles were still.
When your kitchen happens to be one of the best rooms on the ground floor, and one commanding not only the gate of your domain but the road beyond, it becomes important that it should not be quite like other people’s kitchens. It was Mrs. Otway’s pride, as well as Anna’s, that at any moment of the day a visitor who, after walking into the hall, opened by mistake the kitchen door, would have found everything there in exquisite order. ”

“ Guthrie spoke very seriously, and once more she fixed her deep blue eyes on her visitor’s face. “I’m seventy-one, not very old as people count age nowadays, but still I’ve never been a strong woman, and I have a weak heart. I should not like to leave my son to a lonely life and to a lonely old age. He’s very reserved—he hasn’t made many friends in his long life. And I thought it possible he might have confided to you rather than to me.”
“No, he never spoke of the matter to me at all; in fact, we have never even discussed the idea of his marrying,” said Mrs. Otway slowly. ”

“ And as they stood there together, Rose suddenly became aware that Anna, at the kitchen window, was looking out at them both with a rather peculiar expression on her emotional German face.
A feeling of annoyance swept over the girl; she knew that to her old nurse every young man who ever came to the Trellis House was a potential lover. But even Anna might have left Jervis Blake out of the category. There was nothing silly or—or sentimental, in the real, deep friendship they two felt for one another. ”

“ Work did not make life sweet, or she, Mary Otway, would now be happier than ever, for she had never worked as hard as she was now working—working to destroy thought—working to dull the dreadful aching at her heart, throwing herself, with a feverish eagerness which surprised those about her, into the various war activities which were now, largely owing to the intelligence and thoroughness of Miss Forsyth, being organised in Witanbury. ”

“ With the exception of a married niece with whom she went and stayed in Berlin three autumns ago, my poor old Anna hasn’t a relation left in Germany. Her whole life is centred in me—or perhaps I ought to say in Rose. She was the only nurse Rose ever had.”
“And yet she has remained typically German,” observed Miss Forsyth irrelevantly.
“Of course she has!” cried Mrs. Otway quickly. “And that is why we are both so much attached to her. Anna has all the virtues of the German woman; she is faithful, kindly, industrious, and thrifty.” ”

“ England, so Anna firmly believed, had no army to speak of—no real army. She remembered the day when France had declared war on Germany in 1870. How at once every street of the little town in which she had lived had become full of soldiers—splendid, lion-hearted soldiers going off to fight for their beloved Fatherland. Nothing of the sort had taken place here, though Witanbury was a garrison town. The usual tradesmen, strong, lusty young men, had called for orders that morning. ”

“ She waited a moment, and then went on, deliberately: “I suppose you are quite sure of your old Anna, my dear? Used she not to be in very close touch with Berlin? Has she broken all that off since the War began?”
“Indeed she has!” cried Mrs. Otway eagerly. She was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. Was it conceivable that Miss Forsyth must be numbered henceforth among the spy maniacs of whom she knew there were a good many in Witanbury? ”

“ Otway saw everything, heard everything, read everything, through a mist of aching pain and of that worst misery of all—the misery of suspense.
The passion of love, so hedged about with curious and unreal conventions, is a strangely protean thing. The dear old proverb, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is far truer than those who believe its many cynical counterparts would have us think, and especially is this true of an impulsive and imaginative nature. ”

“ It had been a bitter disappointment to her not to see her gracious lady married to Major Guthrie.
Letting the curtain fall, she went quickly upstairs into what had been Miss Rose’s bedroom. From there she knew she could get a better view.
Yes, there they all were—streaming out of the great porch. She could now see the bride and bridegroom, arm-in-arm, walking down the path. They were walking more slowly than most newly married couples walked after a wedding. As a rule, wedding parties hurried rather quickly across the open space leading from the porch to the gate. ”

“ He had felt grateful for, but he had not enjoyed, the marks of sympathy which had been so freely lavished on him and on his companions in Holland, on the boat, and since his landing in England.
In those old days which now seemed to have belonged to another existence, Major Guthrie had thought his friend, Mrs. Otway, if wonderfully kind, not always very tactful. It is a mistake to think that love is blind as to those matters. ”

“ Never did I believe the Major to be dead! Officers are always behind their soldiers. They are in the safe place.” Such were the words, uttered of course in German, with which Anna greeted the great news.
As Mrs. Otway turned away, and silently left the kitchen, the old woman shook her head with an impatient gesture. Why make all that fuss over the fact that Major Guthrie was a prisoner in Germany? Anna could imagine no happier fate just now than that of being in the Fatherland—even as a prisoner. ”

“ When he reached the place where the other two were standing, waiting for him, he looked round as if to make sure that there was no one within earshot.
“Rose,” he said huskily—and he also was consciously glad of the darkness, for he had just gone through what had been, to one of his highly civilised and fastidious temperament, a most trying ordeal—“Rose, I’m sorry to bring you bad news. Anna Bauer is dead. The poor old woman has hanged herself. As a matter of fact, it was I—I and the inspector of police—who found her. ”

“ He was so big and strong—it made her turn sick to think of it. But her good mistress, Mrs. Otway, had of course told the truth. The War would be over long before Mr. Jervis Blake and his kind would be fit to fight.
Fighting, as old Anna knew well, though most of the people about her were ignorant of the fact, requires a certain apprenticeship, an apprenticeship of which these pleasant-spoken, strong, straight-limbed young Englishmen knew nothing. The splendidly trained soldiers of the Fatherland would have fought and conquered long before peaceful, sleepy England knew what war really meant. ”

“ Reynolds,” cried Mrs. Guthrie suddenly, “you won’t let them be too unkind to my poor old Anna, will you?”
“Indeed, no one will be unkind to her,” he said. “She’s only been a tool after all—poor old woman. No doubt there will be a deportation order, and she will be sent back to Germany.”
“Remember that you are to draw on me if any money is required on her behalf,” cried out Major Guthrie, fixing his sightless eyes on the place where he supposed the other man to be.
“Yes, yes—I quite understand that! But we’ve found out that the old woman has plenty of money. ”

“ Dear little Rose! I am alone, dear child. I have not brought a maid. My husband went down to Southampton early this morning to wait for the hospital ship. I was so grateful for your mother’s kind telegram. It will be an infinite comfort to stay with you both. But I think Sir John may find it more convenient to stay at an hotel.” She grew a little pink, and Rose Otway, whose perceptions as to a great deal that is sad or strange in human nature, had grown of late, felt a little rush of anger against Sir John Blake. ”

“ As Mr. Reynolds remained silent, she added, with a touch of defiance, “And I am quite, quite sure that she told me the truth!”
Her eyes instinctively sought the Dean’s face. Yes, there she found sympathy,—sympathy and belief. It was impossible to tell what her husband was thinking. His face was not altered—it was set in stern lines of discomfort and endurance. The Government official looked sceptical.
“I have no doubt that the woman has told you a good deal of the truth, Mrs. Guthrie, but I do not think she has told you all the truth, or the most important part of it. ”

“ Why, already, on the very first day, every German barber is suspected.” The speaker gave a short, unpleasant laugh.
“I am not suspected. So!” exclaimed Fröhling heatedly. “Not one single person has spoken as if he suspected me in this town! On the contrary, England is not harsh, Mr. Hegner. English people are too sensible and broad-minded to suspect harm where there is none. Indeed, they are not suspecting enough.” ”

“ Otway was the one inmate of the Trellis House to whom the War, so far, brought real unease. She felt jarred and upset—anxious, too, as she had never yet been, about her money matters.
More and more she missed Major Guthrie, and yet the thought of him brought discomfort, almost pain, in its train. With every allowance made, he was surely treating her in a very cavalier manner. How odd of him not to have written! Whenever he had been away before, he had always written to her, generally more than once ”

“ And had any of these officers who came and called on your two ladies reason to suppose that the war was coming?”
Anna stared at him, surprised. “No, indeed!” she cried. “English officers never talk of warlike subjects. I have never even seen one of them wearing his uniform.”
“It looks to me as if I shall have to add a new line of officers’ kit to the Stores,” said Mr. Hegner thoughtfully. “And any information you give me about officers just now might be very useful in my business. I know, Frau Bauer, that you were annoyed, disappointed about that little matter of the commission being halved.” ”

“ But her protest had only brought a formal acknowledgment, and that very day her telephone had been disconnected.
She would have been astonished, even now, had she known with what ever-swelling suspicion some of her neighbours and acquaintances regarded her.
The great rolling uplands round the city were now covered with vast camps, and Witanbury every day was full of soldiers; there was not a family in the Close, and scarce a family in the town, but had more than one near and dear son, husband, brother, lover, in the New Armies, if not yet—as in very many cases—already out at the Front. ”

“ There are plenty of people in Witanbury who would be only too glad to have such an excellent help as you are, Frau Bauer.”
“I shall not be compelled to look out for a new situation,” she said quickly. “My young lady would never allow that—neither would Mrs. Otway!”
But even so, poor Anna felt disturbed—disturbed and terribly disheartened. The money she had saved was her own money! She could not understand by what right the British Government could prevent her taking it with her. It was this money alone that would ensure a welcome from the Warshauers. ”

“ An old gentleman she knew, a tiresome neighbour whose calls usually bored rather than pleased her, had hobbled in yesterday and told her, as a tremendous secret, that Russia was sending a big army to Flanders via England, through a place called Archangel of which she had vaguely heard. He had had the news from Scotland, where a nephew of his had actually seen and spoken to some Russian officers, the advance guard, as it were, of these legions!
Mrs. Guthrie was glad this war had come after the London season was over. ”

“ It was this fine message from the past which the Dean brought to the people of Witanbury that day. What had been true when we had been fighting a far greater man than any of those we were fighting to-day—he meant of course Napoleon—was even truer now than then. All would be, must be, ultimately well, if England to herself would stay but true. ”

“ That news about Major Guthrie had thus procured a very easily earned half-crown, even more easily earned than the money she had received for sending off the telegram to Spain. Anna hoped that similar opportunities of doing Mr. Hegner a good turn would often come her way. But still, she hated this war, and with the whole of her warm, sentimental German heart she hoped that Mr. Jervis Blake would soon be back home safe and sound. He was a rich, generous young gentleman, the very bridegroom for her beloved Miss Rose. ”

“ And suddenly the face of the young man looking at her became transfigured.
“Rose,” he cried—“Rose, do you really care, a little, what happens to me? Oh, if you only knew what a difference that would make!”
And then she pulled herself together. Jervis mustn’t become what she in her own mind called “silly.” Young men, ay, and older men too, had a way of becoming “silly” about Rose Otway. And up to now she had disliked it very much. But this afternoon she was touched rather than displeased. ”

“ Guthrie had no idea how very often her son went to the Trellis House, but even had she known it she would only have smiled satirically. She had but little sympathy with platonic friendships, and she recognised, with that shrewd mother-sense so many women acquire late in life, that Mrs. Otway was a most undesigning widow. ”

“ Anna has been very tiresome sometimes; and, as you know, her daughter, to whom I was really attached, and whom I regarded more or less as Rose’s foster-sister, made that unfortunate marriage to a worthless London tradesman. That’s the black spot in Anna’s life—I don’t mind telling you that it’s been a blacker spot in mine than I’ve ever cared to admit, even to myself. The man’s always getting into scrapes, and having to be got out of them! Why, you once helped me about him, didn’t you? and since then James Hayley actually had to go to the police about the man. ”