To her pleased surprise, he had pressed half a crown on her; and after a little persuasion she had accepted it. After all, she had a right, under their old agreement, to a percentage on any profit she brought him! 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.
Sunday,the 30th of August. But oh, what a different Sunday from that of a week ago! The morning congregation in Witanbury Cathedral was larger than it had ever been before, and over every man and woman there hung an awful pall of suspense, and yes, of fear, as to what the morrow might bring forth.
Both the post and the Sunday papers were late. They had not even been delivered by church time, and that added greatly, with some of those who were gathered there, to the general feeling of anxiety and unease.
In the sermon that he preached that day the Dean struck a stern and feeling note. He told his hearers that now not only their beloved country, but each man and woman before him, must have a heart for every fate. He, the speaker, would not claim any special knowledge, but they all knew that the situation was very serious. Even so, it would be a great mistake, and a great wrong, to give way to despair. He would go further, and say that even despondency was out of place.
Only a day or two ago he had been offered, and he had purchased, the diary of a citizen of Witanbury written over a hundred years ago, and from a feeling of natural curiosity he had looked up the entries in the August of that year. Moved and interested indeed had he been to find that Witanbury just then had beenexpecting a descent on the town by the French, and on one night it was rumoured that a strong force had actually landed, and was marching on the city! Yet the writer of that diary—he was only a humble blacksmith—had put in simple and yet very noble language his conviction that old England would never go down,if only she remained true to herself.
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.
A few of those who listened with uplifted hearts to the really inspiriting discourse, noted with satisfaction that, for the first time since the declaration of war, Dr. Haworth paid no tribute to the enemy. The word “Germany” did not even pass his lips.
And then, when at the end of the service Mrs. Otway and Rose were passing through the porch, Mrs. Otway felt herself touched on the arm. She turned round quickly to find Mrs. Haworth close to her.
“I’ve been wondering if Rose would come back with me and see Edith? I’m sorry to say the poor child isn’t at all well to-day. And so we persuaded her to stay in bed. You see”—she lowered her voice, and that though there was no one listening to them—“you see, we hear privately that the cavalry were very heavily engaged last Wednesday, and that the casualties have been terribly heavy. My poor child says very little, but it’s evident that she’s so miserably anxious that she can think of nothing else. Her father thinks she’s fretting because we would not allow—or perhaps I ought to say we discouraged the idea of—a hasty marriage. I feel sure it would do Edith good to see some one, especially a dear little friend like Rose, who has no connection with the Army, and who can look at things in a sensible, normal manner.”
And so mother and daughter, for an hour, went their different ways, and Mrs. Otway, as she walked home alone, told herself that anxiety became Mrs. Haworth, that it rendered the Dean’s wife less brusque, and made her pleasanter and kindlier in manner. Poor Edith was her ewe lamb, the prettiest of the daughters whom she had started so successfully out into the world, and the one who was going to make, from a worldly point of view, the best marriage. Yes, it would indeed be a dreadful thing if anything happened to Sir Hugh Severn.
Casualties? What an odd, sinister word! One with which it was difficult to become familiar. But it was evidently the official word. Not for the first time she reminded herself of the exact words the Prime Minister in the House of Commons had used. They had been “Our casualties are very heavy, though the exact numbers are not yet known.” Mrs. Otway wondered uneasily when they would become known—how soon, that is, a mother, a sister, a lover, and yes, a friend, would learn that the man who was beloved, cherished, or close and dear as a friend may be, had become—what was the horrible word?—a casualty.
She walked through into her peaceful, pretty house. Unless the household were all out, the front door was never locked, for there was nothing to steal, and nosecrets to pry out, in the Trellis House. And then, on the hall table, she saw the belated evening paper which she had missed this morning, and two or three letters. Taking up the paper and the letters, she went straight through into the garden. It would be pleasanter to read out there than indoors.
With a restful feeling that no one was likely to come in and disturb her yet awhile, she sat down in the basket-chair which had already been put out by her thoughtful old Anna. And then, quite suddenly, she caught sight of the middle letter of the three she had gathered up in such careless haste. It was an odd-looking envelope, of thin, common paper covered with pale blue lines; but it bore her address written in Major Guthrie’s clear, small, familiar handwriting, and on the right-hand corner was the usual familiar penny stamp. That stamp was, of course, a positive proof that he was home again.
For quite a minute she simply held the envelope in her hand. She felt so relieved, and yes, so ridiculously happy, that after the first moment of heartfelt joy there came a pang of compunction. It was wrong, it was unnatural, that the safety ofonehuman being should so affect her. She was glad that this curious revulsion of feeling, this passing from gloom and despondency to unreasoning peace and joy, should have taken place when she was by herself. She would have been ashamed that Rose should have witnessed it.
And then, with a certain deliberation, she opened the envelope, and drew out the oddly-shaped piece of paper it contained.
This is what she read:
“France, ”Wednesday morning.
“Every letter sent by the usual channel is read and, very properly, censored. I do not choose that this letter should be seen by any eyes but mine and yours. I have therefore asked, and received, permission to send this by an old friend who is leaving for England with despatches.
“The work has been rather heavy. I have had very little sleep since Sunday, so you must forgive any confusion of thought or unsuitable expressions used by me to you. Unfortunately I have lost my kit, but the old woman in whose cottage I am resting for an hour has good-naturedly provided me with paper and envelopes. Luckily I managed to keep my fountain-pen.
“I wish to tell you now what I have long desired to tell you—that I love you—that it has long been my greatest, nay, my only wish, that you should become my wife. Sometimes, lately, I have thought that I might persuade you to let me love you.
“In so thinking I may have been a presumptuous fool. Be that as it may, I want to tell you that our friendship has meant a very great deal to me; that without it I should have been, during the last four years, a most unhappy man.
“And now I must close this hurriedly written and poorly expressed letter. It does not say a tenth—nay, it does not say a thousandth part of what I would fain say. But let me, for the first, and perhaps for the last time, call you my dearest.”
Then followed his initials “A. G.,” and a postscript:“As to what has been happening here, I will only quote to you Napier’s grand words: ‘Then was seen with what majesty the British soldier fights.’”
Mrs. Otway read the letter right through twice. Then, slowly, deliberately, she folded it up and put it back in its envelope. Uncertainly she looked at her little silk handbag. No, she could not put it there, where she kept her purse, her engagement book, her handkerchief. For the moment, at any rate, it would be safest elsewhere. With a quick furtive movement she thrust it into her bodice, close to her beating heart.
Mrs. Otway looked up to a sudden sight of Rose—of Rose unusually agitated.
“Oh, mother,” she cried, “such a strange, dreadful, extraordinary thing has happened! Old Mrs. Guthrie is dead. The butler telephoned to the Deanery, and he seems in a dreadful state of mind. Mrs. Haworth says she can’t possibly go out there this morning, and they were wondering whether you would mind going. The Dean says he was out there only yesterday, and that Mrs. Guthrie spoke as if you were one of her dearest friends. Wasn’t that strange?”
Rose looked very much shocked and distressed—curiously so, considering how little she had known Mrs. Guthrie. But there is something awe-inspiring to a young girl in the sudden death of even an old person. Only three days ago Mrs. Guthrie had entertained Rose with an amusing account of her first ball—a ball given at the Irish Viceregal Court in the days when, as the speaker had significantly put it, it reallywasa Court in Dublin. And when Rose and her mother had said good-bye, she had pressed them to come again soon; while to the girl:“I don’t often see anything so fresh and pretty as you are, my dear!” she had exclaimed.
Mrs. Otway heard Rose’s news with no sense of surprise. She felt as if she were living in a dream—a dream which was at once poignantly sad and yet exquisitely, unbelievably happy. “I have been there several times lately,” she said, in a low voice, “and I had grown quite fond of her. Of course I’ll go. Will you telephone for a fly? I’d rather be alone there, my dear.”
Rose lingered on in the garden for a moment. Then she said slowly, reluctantly: “And mother? I’m afraid there’s rather bad news of Major Guthrie. It came last night, before Mrs. Guthrie went to bed. The butler says she took it very bravely and quietly, but I suppose it was that which—which brought about her death.”
“Whatisthe news?”
Mrs. Otway’s dream-impression vanished. She got up from the basket-chair in which she had been sitting, and her voice to herself sounded strangely loud and unregulated.
“What is it, Rose? Why don’t you tell me? Has he been killed?”
“Oh, no—it’s not as bad as that! Oh! mother, don’t look so unhappy—it’s only that he’s ‘wounded and missing.’”
“No,ma’am, there was nothing, ma’am, to act, so to speak, in the nature of a warning. Mrs. Guthrie had much enjoyed your visit, and, if I may say so, ma’am, the visit of your young lady, last Thursday. Yesterday she was more cheerful-like than usual, talking a good bit about the Russians. She said that their coming to our help just now in the way they had done had quite reconciled her to them.”
Howse, Major Guthrie’s butler, his one-time soldier-servant, was speaking. By his side was Mrs. Guthrie’s elderly maid, Ponting. Mrs. Otway was standing opposite to them, and they were all three in the middle of the pretty, cheerful morning-room, where it seemed but a few hours ago since she and her daughter had sat with the old lady.
With the mingled pomp, enjoyment, and grief which the presence of death creates in a certain type of mind, Howse went on speaking: “She made quite a hearty tea for her—two bits of bread and butter, and a little piece of tea-cake. And then for her supper she had a sweetbread—a sweetbread and bacon. It’s a comfort to Cook now, ma’am, to remember as how Mrs. Guthrie sent her a message, saying how nicely she thought the bacon had been done. Mrs. Guthrie always liked the bacon to be very dry and curly, ma’am.”
He stopped for a moment, and Mrs. Otway’s eyes filled with tears for the first time.
On entering the house, she had at once been shownthe War Office telegram stating that Major Guthrie was wounded and missing, and she had glanced over it with shuddering distress and pain, while her brain kept repeating “wounded and missing—wounded and missing.” What exactly did those sinister words signify? How, if he was missing, could they know he was wounded? How, if he had been wounded, could he be missing?
But soon she had been forced to command her thoughts, and to listen, with an outward air of calmness and interest, to this detailed account of the poor old lady’s last hours.
With unconscious gusto, Howse again took up the sad tale, while the maid stood by, with reddened eyelids, ready to echo and to supplement his narrative.
“Perhaps Mrs. Guthrie was not quite as well as she seemed to be, ma’am, for she wouldn’t take any dessert, and after she had finished her dinner she didn’t seem to want to sit up for a while, as she sometimes did. When she became so infirm, a matter of two years ago, the Major arranged that his study should be turned into a bedroom for her, ma’am, so we wheeled her in there after dinner.”
After a pause, he went on with an added touch of gloom: “She gazed her last upon the dining-room, and on this ’ere little room, which was, so to speak, ma’am, her favourite sitting-room. Isn’t that so, Ponting?” The maid nodded, and Howse said sadly: “Ponting will now tell you what happened after that, ma’am.”
Ponting waited a moment, and then began:“My mistress didn’t seem inclined to go to bed at once, so I settled her down nicely and comfortably with her reading-lamp and a copy ofThe Worldnewspaper. She found the papers very dull lately, poor old lady, for you see, ma’am, there was nothing in them but things about the war, and she didn’t much care for that. But she can’t have been reading more than five minutes when there came the telegram.”
Howse held up his hand, for it was here that he again came on the scene.
“The minute the messenger boy handed me the envelope,” he exclaimed, “I says to myself, ‘That’s bad news—bad news of the Major!’ I sorely felt tempted to open it. But there! I knew if I did so it would anger Mrs. Guthrie. She was a lady, ma’am, who always knew her own mind. It wasn’t even addressed ‘Guthrie,’ you see, but ‘Mrs. Guthrie,’ as plain as plain could be. The boy ’ad brought it to the front door, and as we was having our supper I didn’t want to disturb Ponting. So I just walked along to Mrs. Guthrie’s bedroom, and knocked. She calls out, ‘Come in!’ And I answers, ‘There’s a telegram for you, ma’am. Would you like me to send Ponting in with it?’ And she calls out, ‘No, Howse. Bring it in yourself.’
“I shall never forget seeing her open it, poor old lady. She did it quite deliberate-like; then, after just reading it over, she looked up straight at me. ‘I know you’ll be sorry to hear, Howse, as how Major Guthrie is wounded and missing,’ she said, and then, ‘I need not tell you, who are an old soldier, Howse, that such are the fortunes of war.’ Those, ma’am, were her exact words. Of course I explained how sorry I was, and I did my very best to hide from her how bad I took the news to be. ‘I think I would like to be alone now, Howse,’ she says, ‘just for a little while.’ Andthen, ‘We must hope for better news in the morning.’ I asked her, ‘Would you like me to send Ponting up to you, ma’am?’ But she shook her head: ‘No, Howse, I would rather be by myself. I will ring when I require Ponting. I do not feel as if I should care to go to bed just yet,’ she says quite firmly.
“Well, ma’am, we had of course to obey her orders, but we all felt very uncomfortable. And as a matter of fact in about half an hour Ponting did make an excuse to go into the room”—he looked at the woman by his side. “You just tell Mrs. Otway what happened,” he said, in a tone of command.
Ponting meekly obeyed.
“I just opened the door very quietly, and Mrs. Guthrie did not turn round. Without being at all deaf, my mistress had got a little hard of hearing, lately. I went a step forward, and then I saw that she was reading the Bible. I was very much surprised, madam, for it was the first time I had ever seen her do such a thing—though of course there was always a Bible and a Prayer Book close to her hand. She was wheeled into church each Sunday—when it was fine, that is. The Major saw to that.... I couldn’t help feeling sorry she hadn’t rung and asked me to move the Book for her, for it is a big Bible, with very clear print. She was following the words with her finger, and that was a thing I had never seen her do before with any book. As she did not turn round, I said to myself that it was better not to disturb her. So I just backed very quietly out of the door again. I shall always be glad,” she said, in a lower tone, “that I saw her like that.”
“And then,” interposed Howse,“quite a long time went on, ma’am, and we all got to feel very uneasy. We none of us liked to go up—not one of us. But at last three of us went up together—Cook, me, and Ponting—and listened at the door. But try our hardest, as we did, we could hear nothing. It was the stillness of death!”
“Yes,” said Ponting, her voice sinking to a whisper, “that’s what it was. For when at last I opened the door, there lay my poor mistress all huddled up in the chair, just as she had fallen back. We sent for the doctor at once, but he said there was nothing to be done—that her heart had just stopped. He said it might have happened any time in the last two years, or she might have lived on for quite a long time, if all had gone on quiet and serene.”
“We’ve left the Bible just as it was,” said Howse slowly. “It’s just covered over, so that the Major, if ever heshouldcome home again, though I fear that’s very unlikely”—he dolefully shook his head—“may see what it was her eyes last rested on. Major Guthrie, if you would excuse me for saying so, ma’am, has always been a far more religious gentleman than his mother was a religious lady. I feel sure it would comfort him to know that just before her end she was reading the Book.”
“It was open at the twenty-second Psalm,” added Ponting, “and when I came in that time and saw her without her seeing me, she must have been just reading the verse about the dog.”
“The dog?” said Mrs. Otway, surprised.
“Yes, madam. ‘Deliver my soul from the sword: my darling from the power of the dog.’”
Howse here chimed in,“Her darling, that’s the Major, and the dog is the enemy, ma’am.”
He paused, and then went on, in a brisker, more cheerful tone:
“I telegraphed the very first thing to Mr. Allen—that’s Major Guthrie’s lawyer, ma’am. The Major told me I was to do that, if anything awkward happened. Then it just occurred to me that I would telephone to the Deanery. The Dean was out here yesterday afternoon, ma’am, and Mrs. Guthrie liked him very much. Long ago, when she lived in London, she used to know the parents of the young gentleman to whom Miss Haworth is engaged to be married. They had quite a long pleasant talk about it all. I had meant, ma’am, if you’ll excuse my telling you, to telephone to you next, and then I heard as how you were coming here. The Major did tell me the morning he went away that if Mrs. Guthrie seemed really ailing, I was to ask you to be kind enough to come and see her. Of course I knew where he was going, and that he’d be away for a long time, though he didn’t say anything to me about it. But he knew that I knew, right enough!”
“Had Mrs. Guthrie no near relation at all—no sister, no nieces?” asked Mrs. Otway, in a low voice. Again she felt she was living in a dreamland of secret, poignant emotions shadowed by a great suspense and fear.
“No. Nothing of the kind,” said Howse confidently.“And on Major Guthrie’s side there was only distant cousins. It’s a peculiar kind of situation altogether, ma’am, if I may say so. Quite a long time may pass before we know whether the Major is alive or dead. ‘Wounded and missing’? We all knows as how there is only one thing worse that could be than that—don’t we, ma’am?”
“I don’t quite know what you mean, Howse.”
“Why, the finding and identifying of the Major’s body, ma’am.”
Through the still, silent house there came a loud, long, insistent ringing—that produced by an old-fashioned front door bell.
“I expect it’s Mr. Allen,” exclaimed Howse. “He wired as how he’d be down by two o’clock.” And a few moments later a tall, dark, clean-shaven man was shaking hands, with the words, “I think you must be Mrs. Otway?”
There was little business doing just then among London solicitors, and so Mr. Allen had come down himself. He had a very friendly regard for his wounded and missing client, and his recollection of the interview which had taken place on the day before Major Guthrie had sailed with the First Division of the Expeditionary Force was still very vivid in his mind.
His client had surprised him very much. He had thought he knew everything about Major Guthrie and Major Guthrie’s business, but before receiving the latter’s instructions about his new will he had never heard of Mrs. Otway and her daughter. Yet, if Major Guthrie outlived his mother, as it was of course reasonable, even under the circumstances, to suppose that he would do, a considerable sum of money was to pass under his will to Mrs. Otway, and, failing her, to her only child, Rose Otway.
Strange confidences are very often made to lawyers, quite as often as to doctors. But Major Guthrie, whenhe came to sign his will, the will for which he had sent such precise and detailed instructions a few days before, made no confidences at all.
Even so, the solicitor, putting two and two together, had very little doubt as to the relations of his client and of the lady whom he had made his residuary legatee. He felt sure that there was an understanding between them that either after the war, or after Mrs. Guthrie’s death—he could not of course tell which—they intended to make one of those middle-aged marriages which often, strange to say, turn out more happily than earlier marriages are sometimes apt to do.
The lawyer naturally kept his views to himself during the afternoon he spent at Dorycote House, and he simply treated Mrs. Otway as though she had been a near relation of the deceased lady. What, however, increased his belief that his original theory was correct, was the fact that there was no mention of Mrs. Otway’s name in Mrs. Guthrie’s will. The old lady, like so many women, had preferred to keep her will in her own possession. It had been made many years before, and in it she had left everything to her son, with the exception of a few trinkets which were to be distributed among certain old friends and acquaintances, fully half of whom, it was found on reference to Ponting, had predeceased the testator.
As the hours went on, Mr. Allen could not help wondering if Mrs. Otway was aware of the contents of Major Guthrie’s will. He watched her with considerable curiosity. She was certainly attractive, and yes, quite intelligent; but she hardly spoke at all, and there was a kind of numbness in her manner which he found rather trying. She did not once mention Major Guthrie of her own accord. She always left such mention to him. He told himself that doubtless it was this quietude of manner which had attracted his reserved client.
“I suppose,” he said at last, “that we must presume that Major Guthrie is alive till we have an official statement to the contrary?” And then he was startled to see the vivid expression of pain, almost of anguish, which quivered over her eyes and mouth. Then she did care, after all.
“Howse tells me,” she said slowly, “that Major Guthrie is probably a prisoner. He says, he says——” and then she stopped abruptly—it was as if she could not go on with her sentence, and Mr. Allen exclaimed, “I heard what he said, Mrs. Otway. Of course he is right in stating that an effort is always made to find and bring in the bodies of dead officers. But I fear that this war is not at all like the only war of which Howse has had any first-hand knowledge. This last week has been a very bad business. Still, I quite agree that we must not give up hope. I have been wondering whether you would like me to make inquiries at the War Office, or whether you have any better and quicker—I mean of course by that any private—means of procuring information?”
“No,” she said hopelessly; “I have no way of finding out anything. And I should be very grateful indeed, Mr. Allen, if you would do what you can.” For the first time she spoke as if she had a direct interest in Major Guthrie’s fate. “Perhaps”—she fixed her eyes on him appealingly, and he saw them slowly fill up and brim over with tears—“Perhaps if youshouldhear anything, you would not mind telegraphing to me direct? I think you have my address.”
And then, bursting into bitter sobs, she suddenly got up and ran out of the room.
So she did know about Major Guthrie’s will. In what other way could he, the man to whom she was speaking, know her address? Mr. Allen also told himself, with some surprise, that he had been mistaken—that Mrs. Otway, after all, was not the quiet, passionless woman he had supposed her to be.
When she reached the Trellis House late that Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Otway was met at the door by Rose, and the girl, with face full of mingled awe and pain, told her that the blow on the Deanery had fallen. Edith Haworth had received the news that Sir Hugh Severn was dead—killed at the head of his men in a great cavalry charge.
Thereare times in life when everything is out of focus, when events take on the measure, not of what they really are, but of the mental state of the people affected by them. Such a time had now come to the mistress of the Trellis House. For a while Mrs. 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 was the sudden, dramatic withdrawal of Major Guthrie from her life which first made the woman he had dumbly loved realise all that his constant, helpful presence had meant to her. And then his worldly old mother’s confidences had added just that touch of jealousy which often sharpens love. Lastly, his letter, so simple, so direct, and yet, to one who knew his quiet, reserved nature, so deeply charged with feeling, had brought the first small seed to a blossoming which quickened every pulse of her nature into ardent, sentient life. This woman, who had always been singularly selfless, far more interested in the lives of those about her than in her own, suddenly became self-absorbed.
She looked back with a kind of wonder to her old happy, satisfied, and yes, unawakened life. She had believed herself to be a woman of many friends, and yet there was now not one human being to whom she felt even tempted to tell her wonderful secret.
Busily occupied with the hundred and one trifles, and the eager, generally successful little excursions into philanthropy—for she was an exceptionally kind, warm-hearted woman—which had filled her placid widowhood, she had yet never made any real intimate. The only exception had been Major Guthrie; it was he who had drawn her into what had seemed for so long their pleasant, quiet garden of friendship.
And now she realised that were she to tell any of the people about her of the marvellous change which had taken place in her heart, they would regard her with great surprise, and yes, even with amusement. All the world loves a young lover, but there is not much sympathy to spare in the kind of world to which Mary Otway belonged by birth, position, and long association, for the love which appears, and sometimes only attains full fruition, later in life.
As the days went on, each bringing its tale of exciting and momentous events, there came over Mrs. Otway a curious apathy with regard to the war, for to her the one figure which had counted in the awful drama now being enacted in France and Flanders had disappeared from the vast stage where, as she now recognised, she had seen only him. True, she glanced over a paper each day, but she only sufficiently mastered its contents to be able to reply intelligently to those with whom her daily round brought her in contact.
And soon, to her surprise, and ever-growing discomfort, Anna Bauer—her good, faithful old Anna, for whom she had always had such feelings of affection, and yes, of gratitude—began to get on her nerves. It was not that she associated Anna with the War, and with all that the War had brought to her personally of joy and of grief. Rather was it the sudden perception that her own secret ideals of life and those of the woman near whom she had lived for close on eighteen years, were utterly different, and, in a deep sense, irreconcilable.
Mrs. Otway grew to dislike, with a nervous, sharp distaste, the very sight of Anna’s favourite motto, “Arbeit macht das Leben süss, und die Welt zum Paradies” (“Work makes life sweet and the world a paradise”). Was it possible that in the old days she had admired that lying sentiment? Lying? Yes, indeed! Work didnotmake 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.
Mrs. Otway also began to hate the other German mottoes which Anna had put all about the Trellis House, especially in those rooms which might be regarded as her own domain—the kitchen, the old nursery, and Rose’s bedroom. There was something of the kind embroidered on every single article which would take aSpruch, and Anna’s mistress sometimesfelt as if she would like to make a bonfire of them all!
Every time she went into her kitchen she also longed to tear down, with violent hands, the borders of fine crochet work, theKante, with which each wooden shelf was edged, and of which she had been almost as proud as had been Anna. This crochet work seemed to haunt her, for wherever it could be utilised, Anna, during those long years of willing service, had sewn it proudly on, in narrow edgings and in broad bands.
Not only were all Mrs. Otway’s and Rose’s under-clothing trimmed with it, but it served as insertion for curtains, ran along the valance of each bed, and edged each pillow and cushion. Anna had worked miles of it since she first came to the Trellis House, for there were balls of crochet work rolled up in all her drawers, and when she was not occupied in doing some form of housework she was either knitting or crocheting. The old German woman never stirred without her little bag, itself gaily embroidered, to hold herHand Arbeit; and very heartily, as Mrs. 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. In fact, Rose’s lack of interest in marriage and in the domesticities had disturbed and puzzled good old Anna, and to her mind had been a woeful lack in the girl.
So she had welcomed, with great sympathy, the sudden and surprising change. Anna shrewdly suspected the truth, namely, that Rose was Jervis Blake’s secret betrothed. She felt sure that something had happened on the morning young Mr. Blake had gone away, during the long half-hour the two young people had spent together. On that morning, immediately after her return home, Rose had gone up to her room, declaring that she had had breakfast—though she, Anna, knew well that the child had only had an early cup of tea....
But if Anna sympathised with and understood the feelings of the younger of her two ladies, she had but scant toleration for Mrs. Otway’s restless, ill-concealed unhappiness. Even in the old days Anna had disapproved of Major Guthrie, and she had thought it very strange indeed that he came so often to the Trellis House. To her mind such conduct was unfitting. What on earth could a middle-aged man have to say to the mother of a grown-up daughter?
Of course Anna knew that marriages between such people are sometimes arranged; but to her mind they are always marriages of convenience, and in this case such a marriage would be very inconvenient to everybody, and would thoroughly upset all her, Anna’s, pleasant, easy way of life. A widower with children has naturally to find a woman to look after his house; and a poor widow is as a rule only too pleased to meet with some one who will marry her, especially if the some one be better off than herself. But onany betrayal of sentiment between two people past early youth Anna had very scant mercy.
She had also noticed lately, with mingled regret and contempt, that Mrs. Otway now had a few grey threads in her fair, curling hair. If the gracious lady were not careful, she would look quite old and ugly by the time Major Guthrie came back!
At intervals, indeed every few days, Rose received a short, and of course read-by-the-censor letter from Jervis Blake. He had missed the first onrush of the German Army and the Great Retreat, for he had been what they called “in reserve,” kept for nearly three full weeks close to the French port where he had landed. Then there came a long, trying silence, till a letter written by his mother to Mrs. Otway revealed the fact that he was at last in the fighting-line, on the river Aisne.
“You have always been so kind to my dear boy that I know you will be interested to learn that lately he has been in one or two very dangerous ‘scraps,’ as they seem to be called. They are not supposed to tell one anything in their letters, and Jervis as a matter of fact no longer even writes postcards. But my husband knows exactly where he is, and we can but hope and pray, from day to day, that he is safe.”
It was on the very day that Mrs. Otway read to Rose this letter from Lady Blake that there arrived at the Trellis House a telegram signed Robert Allen: “Have ascertained that Major Guthrie is alive and prisoner in Germany. Letter follows.”
But when the letter came it told tantalisingly little, for it merely conveyed the fact that the name of MajorGuthrie had come through in a list of wounded prisoners supplied to the Geneva Red Cross. There was no clue as to where he was, or as to his condition, and Mr. Allen ended with the words: “I am trying to get in touch with the American Embassy in Berlin. I am told that it is the best, in fact the only, medium for getting authentic news of wounded prisoners.”
“The gracious lady sees that I was right. 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. She could remember the generous way in which the French prisoners, or at least some of them, had been treated in 1870. Why, the then Crown Princess—she who was later known as “the Englishwoman”—had always visited those wards containing the French prisoners first, before she went and saw the German wounded. Anna could remember very clearly the angry remarks which had been provoked by that royal lady’s action, as also by her strange notion that the wounded required plenty of fresh air.
Some time ago Anna had seen in an English paper, in fact it had been pointed out to her by Mrs. Otway herself, that the German Government had had to restrain the daughters and wives of the Fatherland from over-kindness to the French.
Still, when all was said and done, good old Anna was genuinely glad that Major Guthrie was safe. It would make her gracious lady more cheerful, and it also provided herself with a little bit of gossip wherewith to secure a warmer welcome from Alfred Head when she went along to supper with him and his Polly this very evening.
“That sort of letter may be very valuable in our business—I know best its worth to me.”
The owner of the Witanbury Stores was speaking English, and addressing his pretty wife.
Anna, just arrived, had at once become aware that the atmosphere was electric, that something very like a quarrel was going on between Alfred Head and Polly. Mrs. Head looked very angry, and there was a red spot on each of her delicately tinted cheeks.
Only half the table had been laid for supper under the bright pendant lamp; on the other half were spread out some dirty-looking letters. In each letter a number of lines had been heavily blacked out—on one indeed there was very little left of the original writing.
“It’s such rubbish!” Polly said crossly. “Why, by spending a penny each Sunday onThe News of the Worldor onReynolds’s, you’d see a lot more letters than you’ve got there, and all nicely printed, too!”
She turned to the visitor: “Alfred can’t spare me half a sovereign for something I want really badly, but he can give seven-and-sixpence to a dirty old woman for a sight of all that muck!” Snatching one of the letters off the table, she began reading aloud:“My dear Mum, I hope that this finds you as well as it does me. We are giving it to the Allemans, as they call them out here, right in the neck.” She waved the sheet she was reading and exclaimed, “And then comes four lines so scrubbed about that even the Old Gentleman himself couldn’t read them! Still, it’s for that Alfred here is willing to pay——”
Her husband interrupted her furiously: “Put that down at once! D’you hear, Polly? I’m the best judge of what a thing’s worth to me in my business. If I give Mrs. Tippins seven-and-sixpence for her letters, they’re worth seven-and-sixpence to me and a bit over. See? I shouldn’t ’a thought it was necessary to tellyouthat!”
He turned to Anna, and said rapidly in German: “The man who wrote these letters is a sergeant. He’s a very intelligent fellow. As you see, he writes quite long letters, and there are a lot of little things that I find it well worth my while to make a note of. In fact, as I told you before, Frau Bauer, I am willing to pay for the sight of any good long letter from the British Front. I should much like to see some from officers, and I prefer those that are censored—I mean blacked out like these. The military censors so far are simple folk.” He laughed, and Anna laughed too, without quite knowing why. “I should have expected that Major whose mother died just after the war broke out, to be writing to your ladies. Has he not done so yet?”
“The news has just come this very day, that he is a prisoner; but they do not yet know where he is imprisoned,” said Anna eagerly.
“That is good news,” observed her host genially.“In spite of all my efforts, I could never obtain that dratted Major’s custom. But do not any of the younger officers write to your young lady, in that strange English way?” and he fixed his prominent eyes on her face, as if he would fain look Anna through and through. “I had hoped that we should be able to do so much business together,” he said.
“I have told you of the postcards——” She spoke in an embarrassed tone.
“Ach! Yes. And I did pay you a trifle for a sight of them. But that was really politeness, for, as you know, there was nothing in the postcards of the slightest use to me.”
Anna remained silent. She was of course well aware that her young lady often received letters, short, censored letters, from Mr. Jervis Blake. But Rose kept them in some secret place; also nothing would have tempted good old Anna to show one of her darling nursling’s love-letters to unsympathetic eyes.
Alfred Head turned to his wife. “Now, Polly,” he said conciliatingly, “you asked me for what I am paying.” He took up the longest of the letters off the table. “See here, my dear. This man gives a list of what he would like his mother to send him every ten days. As a matter of fact that is how I first knew Mrs. Tippins had these letters. She brought one along to show me, to see if I could get her something special. Part of the letter has been blacked out, but of course I found it very easy to take that blacking out,” he chuckled. “And what had been blacked out was as a matter of fact very useful to me!”
Seeing that his wife still looked very angry and lowering, he took a big five-shilling piece out of his pocket and threw it across at her. “There!” he criedgood-naturedly—“catch! Perhaps I will make it up to the ten shillings in a day or two—if, thanks to these letters, I am able to do a good stroke of business!”
Anna looked at him with fascinated eyes. The man seemed made of money. He was always jingling silver in his pocket. Gold was rather scarce just then in Witanbury, but whenever Anna saw a half-sovereign, she always managed somehow to get hold of it. In fact she kept a store of silver and of paper money for that purpose, for she knew that Mr. Head, as he was now universally called, would give her threepence over its face value if it was ten shillings, and fivepence if it was a sovereign. She had already made several shillings in this very easy way.
As she walked home, after having enjoyed a frugal supper, she told herself that it was indeed unfortunate that Major Guthrie was wounded and missing. Had he still been with his regiment, he would certainly have written to Mrs. Otway frequently. Anna, in the past, had occasionally found long letters from him torn up in the waste-paper basket, and she had also seen, in the days that now seemed so long ago, letters in the same hand lying about on Mrs. Otway’s writing-table.
Octoberand November wore themselves away, and the days went by, the one very like the other. Mrs. Otway, after her long hours of work, or of official visiting among the soldiers’ and sailors’ wives and mothers, fell into the way of going out late in the afternoon for a walk by herself. She had grown to dread with a nervous dislike the constant meeting with acquaintances and neighbours, the usual rather futile exchange of remarks about the War, or about the local forms of war and charitable work in which she and they were now all engaged. The stillness and the solitariness of the evening walk soothed her sore and burdened heart.
Often she would walk to Dorycote and back, feeling that the darkened streets—for Witanbury had followed the example of London—and, even more, the country roads beyond, were haunted, in a peaceful sense, by the presence of the man who had so often taken that same way from his house to hers.
It was during one of these evening walks that there came to her a gleam of hope and light, and from a source from which she would never have expected it to come.
She was walking swiftly along on her way home, going across the edge of the Market Square, when she heard herself eagerly hailed with “Is it Mrs. Otway?” She stopped, and answered, not very graciously,“Yes, I’m Mrs. Otway—who is it?”
There came a bubble of laughter, and she knew that this was a very old acquaintance indeed, a Mrs. Riddick, whom she had not seen for some time.
“I don’t wonder you didn’t know me! It’s impossible to see anything by this light. I’ve been having such an adventure! I only came back from Holland yesterday. I went to meet a young niece of mine there—you know, the girl who was in Germany so long.”
“In Germany?” Mrs. Otway turned round eagerly. “Is she with you now? How I should like to see her!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that. She’s gone to Scotland. I sent her off there last night. Her parents have been nearly frantic about her!”
“Did she see—did she hear anything of the English prisoners while she was in Germany?” Mrs. Otway’s voice sounded strangely pleading in the darkness, and the other felt a little surprised.
“Oh, no! She was virtually a prisoner herself. But I hear a good deal of information is coming through—I mean unofficial information about our prisoners. My sister—you know, Mrs. Vereker—is working at that place they’ve opened in London to help people whose friends are prisoners in Germany. She says they sometimes obtain wonderful results. They work in with the Geneva Red Cross, and from what I can make out, it’s really better to go there than to write to the Foreign Office. I went and saw my sister yesterday, when I was coming through London. I was really most interested in all she told me—such pathetic, strange stories, such heart-breaking episodes, and then now and again something so splendid and happy! A girl came to them a fortnight ago in dreadful trouble, every one round her saying her lover had been killed at Mons, though she herself hoped against hope. Well, only yesterday morning they were able to wire to her that he was safe and well, being kindly treated too, in a fortress, far away, close to the borders of Prussia and Poland! Wasn’t that splendid?”
“What is the address of the place,” asked Mrs. Otway in a low tone, “where Mrs. Vereker works?”
“It’s in Arlington Street—No. 20, I think.”
Mrs. Otway hastened on, her heart filled with a new, eager hope. Oh, if she could only go up now, this evening, to London! Then she might be at 20, Arlington Street, the first thing in the morning.
Alas, she knew that this was not possible; every hour of the next morning was filled up.
There was no one to whom she could delegate her morning round among those soldiers’ mothers and wives with whom she now felt in such close touch and sympathy. But she might possibly escape the afternoon committee meeting, at which she was due, if Miss Forsyth would only let her off. The ladies of Witanbury were very much under the bondage of Miss Forsyth, and subject to her will; none more so than the good-tempered, yielding Mary Otway.
Unluckily one of those absurd little difficulties which are always cropping up at committees was on the agenda for to-morrow afternoon, and Miss Forsyth was counting on her help to quell a certain troublesome person. Still, she might go now, on her way home, and see if Miss Forsyth would relent.
Miss Forsyth lived in a beautiful old house which, though its approach was in a narrow street, yet directly overlooked at the back the great green lawns surrounding the cathedral.
The house had been left to her many years ago, but she had never done anything to it. Unaffected by the many artistic and other crazes which had swept over the country since then, it remained a strange mixture of beauty and ugliness. Miss Forsyth loved the beauty of her house, and she put up with what ugliness there was because of the major part of her income, which was not very large, had to be spent, according to her theory of life, on those less fortunate than herself.
At the present moment all her best rooms, those rooms which overlooked her beloved cathedral, had been given up by her to a rather fretful-natured and very dissatisfied Belgian family, and so she had taken up her quarters on the darker and colder side of her house, that which overlooked the street.
It was there, in a severe-looking study on the ground floor, that Mrs. Otway found her this evening.
As her visitor was ushered in by the cross-looking old servant who was popularly supposed to be the only person of whom Miss Forsyth stood in fear, she got up and came forward, a very kindly, welcoming look on her plain face.
“Well, Mary,” she said, “what’s the matter now? Mrs. Purlock drunk again, eh?”
“Well, yes—as a matter of fact the poor woman was quite drunk this morning! But I’ve really come to know if you can spare me to-morrow afternoon. I want to go to London on business. I was also wondering if you know of any nice quiet hotel or lodging near Piccadilly—I should prefer a lodging—where I could spent two nights?”
“Near Piccadilly? Yes, of course I do—in Half-Moon Street. I’ll engage two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can’t you go up by that nice early morning train, my dear?”
Mrs. Otway shook her head. “No, I can’t possibly get away before the afternoon. You see I must look after Mrs. Purlock. She got into rather bad trouble this morning. And oh, Miss Forsyth, I’m sosorryfor her! She believes her two boys are being starved to death in Germany. Unfortunately she knows that woman whose husband signed his letter ‘Your loving Jack Starving.’ It’s thoroughly upset Mrs. Purlock, and if, as they all say, drink drowns thought and makes one feel happy, can we wonder at all the drinking that goes on just now? But I’m going to try to-morrow morning to arrange for her to go away to a sister—a very sensible, nice woman she seems, who certainly won’t let her do anything of the sort.”
“Surely you’re rather inconsistent?” said Miss Forsyth briskly. “You spoke only a minute ago as if you almost approved of drunkenness,” but there was an intelligent twinkle in her eye.
Mrs. Otway smiled, but it was a very sad smile. “You know quite well, dear Miss Forsyth, that I didn’t meanthat! Of course I don’t approve, I only meant that—that I understand.” She waited a moment, and then added, quietly, and with a little sigh,“So you see I can’t go up to town to-morrow morning. What I want to do there will wait quite well till the afternoon.”
Miss Forsyth accompanied her visitor into the hall—the old eighteenth-century hall which was so exquisitely proportioned, but the walls of which were covered with the monstrously ugly mid-Victorian marble paper she much disliked, but never felt she could afford to change as long as it still looked so irritatingly “good” and clean. She opened the front door on to the empty, darkened street; and then, to Mrs. Otway’s great surprise, she suddenly bent forward and kissed her warmly.
“Well, my dear,” she exclaimed, “I’m glad to have seen you even for a moment, and I hope your business, whatever it be, will be successful. I want to tell you something, here and now, which I’ve never said to you yet, long as we’ve known one another!”
“Yes, Miss Forsyth?” Mrs. Otway looked up surprised—perhaps a little apprehensive as to what was coming.
“I want to tell you, Mary, that to my mind you belong to the very small number of people, of my acquaintance at any rate, who shall see God.”
Mrs. Otway was startled and touched by the other’s words, and yet, “I don’t quite know what you mean?” she faltered—and she really didn’t.
“Don’t you?” said Miss Forsyth drily. “Well, I think Mrs. Purlock, and a good many other unhappy women in Witanbury, could tell you.”
Late in the next afternoon, after leaving the little luggage she had brought with her at the old-fashioned lodgings where she found that Miss Forsyth had madecareful arrangements for her comfort, even to ordering what she should have for dinner, Mrs. Otway made her way, on foot, into Piccadilly, and thence into quiet Arlington Street.
There it was very dark—too dark to see the numbers on the doors of the great houses which loomed up to her right.
Bewildered and oppressed, she touched a passer-by on the arm. “Could you tell me,” she said, “which is No. 20?” And he, with the curious inability of the average Londoner to tell the truth or to acknowledge ignorance in such a case, at once promptly answered, “Yes, miss. It’s that big house standing back here, in the courtyard.”
She walked through the gate nearest to her, and so up to a portico. Then, after waiting for a moment, she rang the bell.
The moments slipped by. She waited full five minutes, and then rang again. At last the door opened.
“Is this the place,” she said falteringly, “where one can make inquiries as to the prisoners of war in Germany?” And the person who opened the door replied curtly, “No, it’s next door to the right. A lot of people makes that mistake. Luckily the family are away just now—or it would be even a greater botheration than it is!”
Sick at heart, she turned and walked around the paved courtyard till she reached the street. Then she turned to her right. A door flush on the street was hospitably open, throwing out bright shafts of light into the darkness. Could it be—she hoped it was—here?
For a moment she stood hesitating in the threshold. The large hall was brilliantly lit up, and at a table there sat a happy-faced, busy-looking little Boy Scout. He, surely, would not repulse her? Gathering courage she walked up to him.
“Is this the place,” she asked, “where one makes inquiries about prisoners of war?”
He jumped up and saluted. “Yes, madam,” he said civilly. “You’ve only got to go up those stairs and then round the top, straight along. There are plenty of ladies up there to show you the way.”
As she walked towards the great staircase, and as her eyes fell on a large panoramic oil painting of a review held in a historic English park a hundred years before, she remembered that it was here, in this very house, that she had come to a great political reception more than twenty years ago—in fact just after her return from Germany. She had been taken to it by James Hayley’s parents, and she, the happy, eager girl, had enjoyed every moment of what she had heard with indignant surprise some one describe as a boring function.
As she began walking up the staircase, there rose before her a vision of what had been to her so delightful and brilliant a scene—the women in evening dress and splendid jewels; the men, many of them in uniform or court dress; all talking and smiling to one another as they slowly made their way up the wide, easy steps.
She remembered with what curiosity and admiration she had looked at the figure of her host. There he had stood, a commanding, powerful, slightly stooping figure, welcoming his guests. For a moment shehad looked up into his bearded face, and met his heavy-lidded eyes resting on her bright young face, with a half-smile of indulgent amusement at her look of radiant interest and happiness.
This vivid recollection of that long-forgotten Victorian “crush” had a good effect on Mary Otway. It calmed her nervous tremor, and made her feel, in a curious sense, at home in that great London house.
Running round the top of the staircase was a narrow way where girls sitting at typewriters were busily working. But they had all kind, intelligent faces, and they all seemed anxious to help and speed her on her way.
“Mrs. Vereker? Oh yes, you’ll find her at once if you go along that gallery and open the door at the end.”
She walked through into a vast room where a domed and painted ceiling now looked down on a very curious scene. With the exception of some large straight settees, all the furniture which had once been in this great reception-room had been cleared away. In its place were large office tables, plain wooden chairs, and wire baskets piled high with letters and memoranda. The dozen or so people there were all intent on work of some sort, and though now and again some one got up and walked across to ask a question of a colleague, there was very little coming or going. Personal inquirers generally came early in the day.
As she stood just inside the door, Mary Otway knew that it was here, twenty years ago, that she had seen the principal guests gathered together. She recalled the intense interest, the awe, the sympathy withwhich she had looked at one figure in that vanished throng. It had been the figure of a woman dressed in the deep mourning of a German widow, the severity of the costume lightened only by the beautiful Orders pinned on the breast.
At the time she, the girl of that far-off day, had only just come back from Germany, and the Imperial tragedy, which had as central figure one so noble and so selfless, had moved her eager young heart very deeply. She remembered how hurt she had felt at hearing her cousin mutter to his wife, “I’m sorry she is here. She oughtn’t to have come to this kind of thing. Royalties, especially foreign Royalties, should have no politics.” And with what satisfaction she had heard Mrs. Hayley’s spirited rejoinder: “What nonsense! She hasn’t come because it’s political, but because it’s English. She loves England, and everything to do with England!”
The vision faded, and she walked forward into the strangely changed room.
“Can I speak to Mrs. Vereker?” she asked, timidly addressing one of the ladies nearest the door. Yet it was with unacknowledged relief that she received the answer: “I’m so sorry, but Mrs. Vereker isn’t here. She left early this afternoon. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want to make inquiries about a prisoner?”
And then, as Mrs. Otway said, “Yes,” the speaker went on quickly, “I think I shall do just as well if you will kindly give me the particulars. Let us come over here and sit down; then we shan’t be disturbed.”
Mrs. Otway looked up gratefully into the kind face of the woman speaking to her. It was a comfort toknow that she was going to tell her private concerns to a stranger, and not to the sister of an acquaintance living at Witanbury.
The few meagre facts were soon told, and then she gave her own name and address as the person to whom the particulars, if any came through, were to be forwarded.
“I’ll see that the inquiries are sent on to Geneva to-night. But you mustn’t be disappointed if you get no news for a while. Sometimes news is a very long time coming through, especially if the prisoner was wounded, and is still in hospital.” The stranger added, with real sympathy in her voice, “I’m afraid you’re very anxious, Mrs. Otway. I suppose Major Guthrie is your brother?”
And then the other answered quietly, “No, he’s not my brother. Major Guthrie and I are engaged to be married.”
The kind, sweet face, itself a sad and anxious face, changed a little—it became even fuller of sympathy than it had been before. “You must try and keep up courage,” she exclaimed. “And remember one thing—if Major Guthrie was really severely wounded, he’s probably being very well looked after.” She waited a moment, and then went on, “In any case, you haven’t the anguish of knowing that he’s in perpetual danger; my boy is out there, so I know what it feels like to realize that.”
There was a moment of silence, and then, “I wonder,” said Mrs. Otway, “if you would mind having the inquiries telegraphed to-night?” She opened her bag. “I brought a five-pound note——”
But the other shook her head.“Oh, no. You needn’t pay anything,” she said. “We’re always quite willing to telegraph if there’s any good reason for doing so. But you know it’s very important that the name should be correctly spelt, and the particulars rightly transmitted. That’s why it’s really better to write. But of course I’ll ask them to telegraph to you at once if they get any news here on a day or at a time I happen to be away.”
Together they walked to the door of the great room, and the woman whose name she was not to know for a long time, and who was the first human being to whom she had told her secret, pressed her hand warmly.
Quietly Mrs. Otway walked through into the gallery, and then she burst out crying like a child. It was with her handkerchief pressed to her face that she walked down the gallery, and so round to the great staircase. No one looked at her as she passed so woefully by; they were all only too well used to such sights. But before she reached the front door she managed to pull herself together, and was able to give the jolly little Boy Scout a friendly farewell nod.