Earlythat afternoon, after her mother had left the Trellis House, Rose went upstairs to her own room. She had been working very hard all that morning, helping to give some last touches of prettiness and comfort to the fine, airy rooms at “Robey’s,” which had now been transformed into Sir Jacques Robey’s Red Cross Hospital. As a matter of fact, everything had been ready for the wounded who, after having been awaited with anxious impatience for weeks, were now announced as being due to arrive to-morrow.
Meanwhile Anna, her hands idle for once, sat at her kitchen table. She was wearing her best black silk apron, and open in front of her was herGesangbuch, or hymnbook.
Thus was Anna celebrating the anniversary of her husband’s death. Gustav Bauer had been a very unsatisfactory helpmeet, but his widow only chose to remember now the little in him that had been good.
Calmly she began reading the contents of her hymnbook to herself. All the verses were printed as if in prose, which of course made it easier as well as pleasanter to read.
As she spoke the words to herself, her eyes filled with tears, and she longed, with an intense, wordless longing, to be in the Fatherland, especially now, during this strange and terrible time. She keenly resented not being able to write to her niece, Minna, in Berlin.Since her happy visit there three years before, that little household had been very near her heart, nearer far than that of her own daughter, Louisa. But Louisa was now to all intents and purposes an Englishwoman.
It was too true that the many years she had been in England had not made good old Anna think better of English people, and, as was natural, her prejudices had lately become much intensified. She lived in a chronic state of wonder over the laziness, the thriftlessness, and the dirt of Englishwomen. She had described those among whom she dwelt to her niece Minna in the following words: “They wash themselves from head to foot each day, but more never. Their houses are dreadful, and linen have they not!”
Those words had represented her exact opinion three years ago, and she had had no reason to change it since.
On this dull, sad, November afternoon she suddenly remembered the delightfulAusflug, or “fly out,” as it is so happily called, when she had accompanied Willi and his Minna to Wannsee, on the blue Havel.
How happy they had all been that day! The little party had brought their own coffee and sugar, but they had had many a delicious glass of beer as well. All had been joy and merriment.
It was bitter to know that some people heard from Germany even now. There was little doubt in her mind that Manfred Hegner, or rather Alfred Head, as she was learning to call him at his very particular request, was in communication with the Fatherland. He had as good as said so the last time she had seen him; adding the unnecessary warning that she mustbe careful not to tell any one so in Witanbury, as it might do him harm.
Anna was naturally a prudent woman, and she had become quite proud of Alfred Head’s friendship and confidence. She much enjoyed the evenings she now so often spent in the stuffy little parlour behind the large, airy shop. Somehow she always left there feeling happy and cheerful. The news that he gave her of the Fatherland, and of what was happening on the various fighting fronts, was invariably glorious and comforting. He smiled with good-natured contempt at the “Kitcheners” who were beginning to flood the old cathedral city with an ever-growing tide of khaki, and who brought him and all his fellow-tradesmen in Witanbury such increased prosperity.
“Fine cannon-fodder!” Mr. Head would exclaim, of course in German. “But no good without the rifles, the ammunition, and above all the guns, which I hear they have not!”
Every one was still very kind to Anna, and her ladies’ friends made no difference in their manner—in fact they were perhaps a shade more cordial and kindly. Nevertheless the old woman realised that feeling towards Germany and the Germans had undergone a surprising change during the last few weeks. No, it was not the War—not even the fact that so many Englishmen had already been killed by German guns and shells. The change was owing—amazing and almost incredible fact—to the behaviour of the German Army in Belgium!
Anna hated Belgium and the Belgians. She could not forget how unhappy and ill-used she had been in Ostend; and yet now English people of all classeshailed the Belgians as heroes, and were treating them as honoured guests! She, Anna, knew that the women of Belgium had put out the eyes of wounded German soldiers; she had read the fact in one of the German newspapers Mr. Head had managed to smuggle through. The paper had said, very truly, as she thought, that no punishment for such conduct could be too severe.
And as she sat there, on this melancholy anniversary afternoon, thinking sad, bitter thoughts, her dear young lady opened the door.
“I had a letter from Mr. Blake this morning, and I think you’ll like to read it, Anna! He speaks in it so kindly of some German soldiers who gave themselves up. I haven’t time to stop and read it to you now. But I think you can read it, for he writes very, very clearly. This is where it begins——” she pointed half-way down the first sheet. “I shan’t be back till eight o’clock. There’s a great deal to do if, as Sir Jacques believes, some wounded are really likely to arrive to-morrow.” Her face shadowed, and that of the old woman looking fondly up at her, softened.
“There’s a little piece of beautiful cold mutton,” exclaimed Anna in German. “Would my darling child like that for her supper—with a nice little potato salad as well?”
But Rose shook her head. “No, I don’t feel as if I want any meat. I’ll have anything else there is, and some fruit.”
A moment later she was gone, and Anna turned to the closely-written sheets of paper with great interest. She read English writing with difficulty, but, as her beloved young lady had said truly, Mr. Blake’s handwriting was very clear. And this is what she spelled out:
“A great big motor lorry came up, full of prisoners, and our fellows soon crowded round it. They were fine, upstanding, fair men, and looked very tired and depressed—as well they might, for we hear they’ve had hardly anything to eat this last week! I offered one of them, who had his arm bound up, a cigarette. He took it rather eagerly. I thought I’d smoke one too, to put him at his ease, but I had no matches, so the poor chap hooked out some from his pocket and offered me one. 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. One of them looked so rosy and sunburnt, soEnglish, that we mentioned it to the interpreter. He translated it to the man, and I couldn’t help being amused to see that he looked rather sick at being told he looked like an Englishman. Another man, who I’m bound to say did not look English at all, had actually lived sixteen years in London, and he talked in quite a Cockney way.”
Anna read on:
“I have at last got into a very comfortable billet. As a matter of fact it’s a pill factory belonging to an eccentric old man called Puteau. All over the house, inside and out, he has had painted two huge P’s, signifyingPilules Puteau. For a long time no use was made of the building, as it was thought too good a mark. But for some reason or other the Boches have left it alone. Be that as it may, one of our fellows discovered a very easy way of reaching it from the back, and now no one could tell the place is occupied, in fact packed, with our fellows. The best point about it is that there is a huge sink, as large as a bath. You can imagine what a comfort——”
And then the letter broke off. Rose had only left that part of it she thought would interest her old nurse. The beginning and the end were not there.
Anna looked at the sheets of closely-written paper in front of her consideringly. There was not a word about food or kit—not a word, that is, which by any stretch of the imagination could be of any use to a man like Mr. Head in his business. On the other hand, there was not a word in the letter which Miss Rose could dislike any one reading. The old woman was shrewd enough to know that. She would like Mr. Head to see that letter, for it would prove to him that her ladies did receive letters from officers. And the next one might after all contain something useful.
She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was now four o’clock. And then a sudden thought made up good old Anna’s mind for her.
Miss Rose had said she did not want any meat forher supper; but she was fond of macaroni cheese. Anna would never have thought of making that dish with any cheese but Parmesan, and she had no Parmesan left in the house. That fact gave her an excellent excuse for going off now to the Stores, and taking Mr. Blake’s letter with her. If she got an opportunity of showing it, it would make clear to Mr. Head what a good fellow was Miss Rose’s betrothed, and what a kind heart he had.
And so, but for Rose’s remark as to her distaste for meat, Jervis Blake’s letter would not have been taken by old Anna out of the Trellis House, for it was the lack of Parmesan cheese in the store cupboard which finally decided the matter.
After putting on her green velvet bonnet and her thick, warm brown jacket, she folded up the sheets of French notepaper and put them in an inside pocket.
The fact that it was early closing day did not disturb Anna, for though most of the Witanbury tradespeople were so ungracious that when their shops were shut they would never put themselves out to oblige an old customer, the owner of the Stores, if he was in—and he nearly always did stay indoors on early closing day—was always willing to go into the closed shop and get anything that was wanted. He was not one to turn good custom away.
The back door was opened by Alfred Head himself. “Ah, Frau Bauer! Come into the passage.” He spoke in German, but in spite of his cordial words she felt the lack of welcome in his voice. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” she said.“I want half a pound of Parmesan cheese, and you might also give me a pound of butter.”
“Oh, certainly. Come through into the shop.” He turned on the light. “I do not ask you into the parlour, for the simple reason that I have some one there who has come to see me on business—it is business about one of my little mortgages. Polly is out, up at the Deanery. Her sister is not going to stay on there; she has found some excuse to go away. It makes her so sad and mopish to be always with Miss Haworth. Even now, after all this time, the young lady will hardly speak at all. She does not glory in her loss, as a German betrothed would do!”
“Poor thing!” said old Anna feelingly. “Women are not like men, Herr Hegner. They have tender hearts. She thinks of her dead lover as her beloved one—not as a hero. For my part, my heart aches for the dear young lady, when I see her walking about, all dressed in black.”
They were now standing in the big empty shop. Alfred Head turned to the right and took off a generous half-pound from the Parmesan cheese which, as Anna knew well, was of a very much better quality, if of rather higher price, than were any of the other Parmesan cheeses sold in Witanbury. But she was rather shocked to note that the butter had not been put away in the refrigerator. That, of course, was Mrs. Head’s fault. A German housewife would have seen to that. There the butter lay, ready for the next morning’s sale, put up in half-pounds and pounds. Mr. Head took up one of the pounds, and deftly began making a neat parcel of the cheese and of the butter. She felt that he was in a hurry to get rid of her, and yet she was burning to show him young Mr. Blake’s letter.
She coughed, and then, a little nervously, she observed: “You were saying some days ago that you would like to see some officers’ letters from the Front. That being so, I have brought part of a letter from Mr. Jervis Blake to show you. There is nothing in it concerning food or kit, but still it is very long, and shows that the young man is a good fellow. If you are busy, however, it may not be worth your while to look at it now.”
Alfred Head stopped in what he was doing. “Could you leave it with me?” he asked.
Anna shook her head. “No, that I cannot do. My young lady left it for me to read, and though she said she would not be back till eight, she might run in any moment, for she is only over at Robey’s, helping with the hospital. They are expecting some wounded to-morrow. They have waited long enough, poor ladies!”
The old woman was standing just under the electric light; there was an anxious, embarrassed look on her face.
The man opposite to her hesitated a moment, then he said quickly, “Very well, show it me! It will not take a moment. I will tell you at once if it is of any use. Perhaps it will be.”
She fumbled a moment in her inside pocket, and brought out Jervis Blake’s letter.
He took up the sheets, and put them close to his prominent eyes. Quickly he glanced through the account of the German prisoners, and then he began to read more slowly. “Wait you here one moment,” he said at last.“I will go and tell my visitor that I am engaged for another minute or two. Then I will come back to you, and read the letter through properly, though the writer is but a silly fellow!”
Still holding the letter in his hand, he hurried away.
Anna was in no hurry. But even so, she began to grow a little fidgety when the moment of which he had spoken grew into something like five minutes. She felt sorry she had brought her dear child’s letter.—“Dummer Kerl”indeed! Mr. Jervis Blake was nothing of the sort—he was a very kind, sensible young fellow! She was glad when at last she heard Mr. Head’s quick, active steps coming down the short passage.
“Here!” he exclaimed, coming towards her. “Here is the letter, Frau Bauer! And though it is true that there is nothing in it of any value to me, yet I recognise your good intention. The next time there may be something excellent. I therefore give you a florin, with best thanks for having brought it. Instead of all that gossip concerning our poor prisoners, it would have been better if he had said what it was that he liked to eat as a relish to the bully beef on which, it seems, the British are universally fed.”
Anna’s point of view changed with lightning quickness. What a good thing she had brought the letter! Two shillings was two shillings, after all.
“Thanks many,” she said gratefully, as he hurried her along the passage and unlocked the back door. But, as so often happens, it was a case of more haste less speed—the door slammed-to before the visitor could slip out, and at the same moment that of the parlour opened, and Anna, to her great surprise, heard the words, uttered in German, “Look here, Hegner! I really can’t stay any longer. You forget that I’ve a long way to go.” She could not see the speaker,though she did her best to do so, as her host thrust her, with small ceremony, out of the now reopened door.
Anna felt consumed with curiosity. She crossed over the little street, and hid herself in the shadow of a passage leading to a mews. There she waited, determined to see Alfred Head’s mysterious visitor.
She had not time to feel cold before the door through which she had lately been pushed so quickly opened again, letting out a short, thin man, dressed in a comfortable motoring coat. She heard very plainly the good-nights exchanged in a low voice.
As soon as the door shut behind him, the prosperous-looking stranger began walking quickly along. Anna, at a safe distance, followed him. He turned down a side street, where, drawn up before a house inscribed “to let,” stood a small, low motor-car. In it sat a Boy Scout. She knew he was a Boy Scout by his hat, for the lad’s uniform was covered by a big cape.
She walked quietly on, and so passed the car. As she went by, she heard Hegner’s friend say in a kindly voice, and in excellent English, albeit there was a twang in it, “I hope you’ve not been cold, my boy. My business took a little longer than I thought it would.” And the shrill, piping answer, “Oh no, sir! I have been quite all right, sir!” And then the motor gave a kind of snort, and off they went, at a sharp pace, towards the Southampton road.
Anna smiled to herself. Manfred Hegner was a very secretive person—she had always known that. But why tell her such a silly lie? Hegner was getting quite a big business man; he had many irons in thefire—some one had once observed to Anna that he would probably end by becoming a millionaire. It is always well to be in with such lucky folk.
As she opened the gate of the Trellis House, she saw that her mistress’s sitting-room was lit up, and before she could put the key in the lock of the front door, it opened, and Rose exclaimed in an anxious tone, “Oh, Anna! Where have you been? Where is my letter? I looked all over the kitchen, but I couldn’t find it.”
Old Anna smilingly drew it out from the inside pocket of her jacket. “There, there!” she said soothingly. “Here it is, dearest child. I thought it safer to take it along with me than to leave it in the house.”
“Oh, thank you—yes, that was quite right!” the girl looked greatly relieved. “Mr. Robey said he would very much like to read it, so I came back for it. And Anna?”
“Yes, my gracious miss.”
“I am going to stay there to supper after all. Mr. and Mrs. Robey, and even Sir Jacques, seem anxious that I should do so.”
“And I have gone out and got you such a nice supper,” said the old woman regretfully.
“I’ll have it for lunch to-morrow!” Rose looked very happy and excited. There was a bright colour in her cheeks. “Mr. Robey thinks that Mr. Blake will soon be getting ninety hours’ leave.” Her heart was so full of joy she felt she must tell the delightful news.
“That is good—very good!” said Anna cordially.“And then, my darling little one, there will be a proper betrothal, will there not?”
Rose nodded. “Yes, I suppose there will,” she said in German.
“And perhaps a war wedding,” went on Anna, her face beaming. “There are many such just now in Witanbury. In my country they began the first day of the War.”
“I know.” Rose smiled. “One of the Kaiser’s sons was married in that way. Don’t you remember my bringing you an account of it, Anna?” She did not wait for an answer. “Well, I must hurry back now.”
The old woman went off into her kitchen, and so through the scullery into her cosy bedroom.
The walls of that quaint, low-roofed apartment were gay with oleographs, several being scenes fromFaust, and one, which Anna had had given to her nearly forty years ago, showed the immortal Charlotte, still cutting bread and butter.
On the dressing-table, one at each end, were a pair of white china busts of Bismarck and von Moltke. Anna had brought these back from Berlin three years before. Of late she had sometimes wondered whether it would be well to put them away in one of the three large, roomy cupboards built into the wall behind her bed. One of these cupboards already contained several securely packed parcels which, as had been particularly impressed on Anna, must on no account be disturbed, but there was plenty of room in the two others. Still, no one ever came into her oddly situated bedroom, and so she left her heroes where they were.
After taking off her things, she extracted the two-shilling piece out of the pocket where it had lainloosely, and added it to the growing store of silver in the old-fashioned tin box where she kept her money. Then she put on her apron and hurried out, with the cheese and the butter in her hands, to the beautifully arranged, exquisitely clean meat safe, which had been cleverly fixed to one of the windows of the scullery soon after her arrival at the Trellis House.
The next morning Mrs. Otway came home, and within an hour of her arrival the mother and daughter had told one another their respective secrets. The revelation came about as such things have a way of coming about when two people, while caring deeply for one another, are yet for the moment out of touch with each other’s deepest feelings. It came about, that is to say, by a chance word uttered in entire ignorance of the real state of the case.
Rose, on hearing of her mother’s expedition to Arlington Street, had shown surprise, even a little vexation: “You’ve gone and tired yourself out for nothing—a letter would have done quite as well!”
And, as her mother made no answer, the girl, seeing as if for the first time how sad, how worn, that same dear mother’s face now looked, came close up to her and whispered,“I think, mother—forgive me if I’m wrong—that you care for Major Guthrie as I care for Jervis Blake.”
Thedays that followed Mrs. Otway’s journey to London, the easy earning by good old Anna of a florin for Alfred Head’s brief sight of Jervis Blake’s letter, and the exchange of confidences between the mother and daughter, were comparatively happy, peaceful days at the Trellis House.
Her visit to 20, Arlington Street, had greatly soothed and comforted Mrs. Otway. She felt sure somehow that those kind, capable people, and especially the unknown woman who had been so very good and—and so very understanding, would soon send her the tidings for which she longed. 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!
Jervis and the girl were both still so very young—though Rose was in a sense much the older of the two, or so the mother thought. She was secretly glad that there could be no talk of marriage till the end of the War. Even then they would probably have to wait two or three years. True, General Blake was awealthy man, but Jervis was entirely dependent on his father, and his father might not like him to marry yet.
The fact that Rose had told her mother of her engagement had had another happy effect. It had restored, in a measure, the good relations between Mrs. Otway and her faithful old servant, Anna Bauer. Anna kept to herself the fact that she had guessed the great news long before it had become known to the mother, and so she and her mistress rejoiced together in the beloved child’s happiness.
And Rose was happy too—far happier than she had yet been since the beginning of the War. Twice in recent letters to her Jervis had written, “I wish you would allow me to tell my people—you know what!” and now she was very, very glad to release him from secrecy. She was too modest to suppose that General and Lady Blake would be pleased with the news of their only son’s engagement. But she felt it their due that they should know how matters stood betwixt her and Jervis. If they did not wish him to marry soon, she and Jervis, so she assured herself, would be quite content to wait.
Towards the end of that peaceful week there came quite an affectionate telegram from Lady Blake, explaining that the great news had been sent to her and to her husband by their son. The telegram was followed by a long loving letter from the mother, inviting Rose to stay with them.
Mrs. Otway would not acknowledge even to herself how relieved she felt. She had been afraid that General Blake would regard his son’s engagement as absurd, and she was surprised, knowing him slightlyand not much liking what little she knew of him, at the kindness and warmth with which he wrote to her.
“Under ordinary circumstances I should not have approved of my son’s making so early a marriage, but everything is now changed. And though I suppose it would not be reasonable to expect such a thing, I should be, for my part, quite content were they to be married during the leave to which I understand he will shortly be entitled.”
But on reading these words, Mrs. Otway had shaken her head very decidedly. What an odd,veryodd, man General Blake must be! She felt sure that neither Jervis nor Rose would think of doing such a thing. It was, however, quite natural that Jervis’s parents should wish to have Rose on a visit; and of course Rose must go soon, and try to make good friends with them both—not an over-easy matter, for they were very different and, as Mrs. Otway knew, not on really happy terms the one with the other.
There was some little discussion as to who in Witanbury should be told of Rose’s engagement. It seemed hopeless to keep the affair a secret. For one thing, the officials at the Post Office knew—they had almost shown it by their funny, smiling manner when Rose had gone in to send her answer to Lady Blake’s telegram. But the first to be informed officially, so to speak, must of course be the Dean and the Robeys.
Dr. Haworth had aged sadly during the last few weeks. Edith was going to nurse in a French hospital, and she and her mother had gone away for a little change first. And so, as was natural, the Dean came very often to the Trellis House; and though, when he was told of Rose’s engagement, he sighedwearily, still he was most kind and sympathetic—though he could not help saying, in an aside to Mrs. Otway, “I should never have thought Rose would become the heroine of a Romeo and Juliet affair! They both seem to me so very young. Luckily there’s no hurry. It looks as if this war was going to be a long, long war——” and he had shaken his head very mournfully.
Poor Dr. Haworth! An imprudent passage uttered in the first sermon he had delivered after the declaration of war had been dragged out of its context, and had figured, weeks later, in the London papers. As a result he had had many cruel anonymous letters, and, what had been harder to bear, reproaches from old and tried friends.
But what was far, far worse to the Dean than these mosquito bites was the fact that his own darling child, Edith, could not forgive him for having had so many German friends in the old days. Her great loss, which in theory should have softened her, had had just the opposite effect. It had made her bitter, bitter; and during the weeks which had followed the receipt of the fatal news she had hardly spoken to her father. This was the more unreasonable—nay, the more cruel—of her inasmuch as it had been her mother, to whom she now clung, who had so decidedly set her face against the hasty marriage which poor Edith was now always regretting had not taken place.
But if the Dean’s congratulations were saddened by his own melancholy situation, those of the Robeys were clear and sunshiny. They knew Jervis Blake, and they regarded Rose as a very lucky girl. Theyalso knew Rose, and they regarded Jervis Blake as a very lucky man.
True, Mrs. Robey, when alone with her husband after first hearing the news, had said, rather nervously, “I hope more than evernowthat nothing will happen to dear Jervis!” And he had turned on her almost with ferocity: “Happen to Jervis? Of course nothing will happen to Jervis! As I’ve often told you, it’s the impulsive, reckless boys who get killed—not born soldiers, like Jervis. He knows that his life is now valuable to his country, and you may be sure that he takes all reasonable precautions to preserve it.”
And as she did not answer at once, he had gone on hurriedly: “Of course one can’t tell; we may see his name in the list of casualties to-morrow morning! But if I were you, my dear, I should not build a bridge to meet trouble!”
As a matter of fact Mrs. Robey had no time to waste on such an unprofitable occupation. Her brother-in-law, the great surgeon, Sir Jacques Robey, and all his best nurses had been now waiting for quite a long time for wounded who never came; and it required a good deal of diplomacy and tact on Mrs. Robey’s part to keep them all in a good humour, and on fairly pleasant terms with her own original household.
Rose’s engagement was now ten days old, and she was about to start for her visit to her future parents-in-law, when early one afternoon the Dean, who had been lunching with Mr. and Mrs. Robey, rang the bell of the Trellis House.
“Die Herrschaft ist nicht zu Hause”(“The family are not at home.”). Anna was smiling in the friendliest way at the Dean. He had always been in a very special sense kind to her, and never kinder than during the last fourteen weeks.
“Do you expect them back soon? It is very urgent,” he exclaimed, of course speaking German; and the smile on Anna’s face faded, so sad did he look, and so concerned.
“Oh, most reverend Doctor!” she cried, joining her hands together, “do not say that anything has happened to the Betrothed of my young lady?”
“Yes,” he said sadly. “Something has happened, Anna, but it might be much worse. The Betrothed of your young lady has been severely wounded. But reflect on the wonderful organisation of our Red Cross! Mr. Blake was wounded, I believe, yesterday afternoon, and it is expected that he will be here, in Sir Jacques Robey’s care, in a few hours from now!”
Even as he was speaking, a telegraph boy hurried up to the door.
“This is evidently to tell your ladies that which I had hoped to be able to break to them. So I will not stop now.” And as Anna stared at him with woe-begone eyes, he said kindly:
“It might have been, as I said just now, infinitely worse. I am told that there is a great difference between the wordsseverelyanddangerously. Had he been dangerously wounded, he could not possibly have been moved to England. And consider what a comfort it will be to the poor girl to have him here, within a stone’s throw. Why, she will be able to be with him all the time. Yes, yes, it might be worse—a great deal worse!” He added feelingly, “It is a very sad time that we areallliving through.”
He held out his hand and grasped the old woman’s hard, work-worn fingers very warmly in his. Dr. Haworth, as the good people of Witanbury were fond of reminding one another—generally in a commendatory, though sometimes in a complaining, tone—was a real gentleman.
There followed hours of that merciful rush and bustle which at such moments go a long way to deaden suspense and pain. General and Lady Blake were arriving this evening, and the spare room of the Trellis House had to be got ready for them, and Rose’s room—a lengthier matter this—transformed into a dressing-room.
But at last everything was ready, and then Rose went off, alone, to the station, to meet the London express.
The train was very late, and as she paced up and down the long platform she began wondering, with a kind of weary, confused wonder, whether there had been an accident, for now everything startling and dreadful seemed within the bounds of possibility. Yesterday with what eagerness would she have bought two or three evening papers—but now the thought of doing so did not even occur to her.
Yesterday—nay, to-day, up to three hours ago—she had been so happy, lacking even that latent anxiety which had been with her for so long, for she had supposed Jervis to be out of the trenches, resting. In fact, for the first time she had not been thinkingmuch of Jervis, for her mind had been filled with her coming visit to London.
She was but very slightly acquainted with Sir John Blake, and she felt rather frightened of him—of the father whom Jervis loved and feared. True, he had written her a very kind, if a very short, note; but she had been afraid that she would not please him—that he would not approve of Jervis’s choice....
At last the train came in. There was a great crowd of people, and her eyes sought in vain for the tall, still active figure she vaguely remembered. Then suddenly she saw Lady Blake—Lady Blake looking about her with an anxious, bewildered face, which changed to eager relief when the girl grasped her hand.
“Is this Rose? 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 they left the station, Rose was able to ask the questions she was longing to ask. But Lady Blake knew nothing.“No, we have had no details at all. Only just the telegram telling us that he has been severely wounded—severely, you know, is much less serious than dangerously—and that he was being sent to Sir Jacques Robey’s hospital at Witanbury. It seems so strange that Jervis should be cominghere—so strange, but, my dear, so very happy too! My husband says that they probably show the wounded officers a list of hospitals, and perhaps give them a certain measure of choice.”
They did not say much during the short drive to the Close; they simply held each other’s hands. And Rose’s feeling of indignation against Jervis’s father grew and grew. How could he be impatient, still less unkind, to this sweet, gentle woman?
There followed a time of anxious waiting at the Trellis House, and, reluctantly, Rose began to understand why Sir John Blake was impatient with his wife. Lady Blake could not sit still; and she made no effort to command her nerves. In her gentle voice she suggested every painful possibility, from the torpedoing of the hospital ship in the Channel to a bad break down, or even a worse accident, to the motor ambulances which were to convey Jervis and four other wounded officers to Witanbury.
But at last, when even Sir Jacques himself had quite given them up for that night, three motor ambulances drove into the Close, and round to the temporary hospital.
And then such a curious, pathetic scene took place in the courtyard of “Robey’s.” Improvised flares and two electric reading-lamps, brought hurriedly through the windows of the drawing-room, shone on the group of waiting people—nurses ready to step forward when wanted; Sir Jacques Robey and a young surgeon who had come up from the Witanbury Cottage Hospital; Lady Blake trembling with cold and excitement close to Mrs. Otway and Rose; and a number of others who had less reason and excuse for being there.
From a seat by one of the drivers there jumped down Sir John Blake. He looked round him with a keen glance, and then made his way straight to where his wife was standing. Taking no notice of her, he addressed the girl standing by her side. “Is this Rose,” he said—“Rose Otway?” and taking her hand gripped it hard. “He’s borne the journey very well,” he said quickly, reassuringly; and then, at last, he looked at his wife. She was gazing at him with imploring, anxious eyes. “Well,” he said impatiently, “well, my dear, what is it you want to say to me?”
She murmured something nervously, and Rose hurriedly said, “Lady Blake wants to know where Jervis was wounded.”
“A fragment of shell struck his left arm—but the real mischief was done to his right leg. When the building in which he and his company were resting was shelled, a beam fell on it. I should have thought myself that it would have been better to have kept him, for at any rate a while, at Boulogne. But they now think it wiser, if it be in any way possible, to bring them straight back.”
Rose hardly heard what he said. She was absorbed in wondering which of the stretchers now being brought out of the ambulances bore the form of Jervis Blake; but she accepted, with a quiet submission which increased the great surgeon’s already good opinion of her, his decree that no one excepting himself and his nurses was to see or speak to any of the wounded that night.
“Timeand the weather run through the roughest day.” It may be doubted if Rose Otway knew that consoling old proverb, but with her time, even in the shape of a very few days, and perhaps, too, the weather, which was remarkably fine and mild for the time of year, soon wrought a wonderful change.
And as she sat by Jervis Blake’s bedside, on a bright, sunny day in late November, it seemed to her as if she had nothing left to wish for. The two nurses who attended on him so kindly and so skilfully told her that he was going on well—far better, in fact, than they could have expected. And though Sir Jacques Robey did not say much, she had no reason to suppose him other than satisfied. True, Jervis’s face looked strained and thin, and there was a cradle over his right foot, showing where the worst injury had been. But the wound in his shoulder was healing nicely, and once or twice he had spoken of when he would be able to go back; but now he had left off doing that, for he saw that it troubled her.
Yesterday something very pleasant had happened, and something which, to Jervis Blake himself, was quite unexpected. He had been Mentioned in Despatches, in connection with a little affair, as he described it, which had happened weeks ago, on the Aisne! One of the other two men concerned in it had received the Victoria Cross, and Rose was secretly rather hurt, as was also Lady Blake, that Jervis hadnot been equally honoured. But that thought did not occur to either his father or himself.
Just now Rose was enjoying half an hour of pleasant solitude with her lover, after what had been a trying morning for him. Sir Jacques Robey had asked down an old friend of his own, a surgeon too, to see Jervis, and they had spent quite a long time pulling the injured foot about.
Sir John Blake had also come down to spend the day at Witanbury. He had been able to get away for a few hours from his work at the War Office to tell his boy how very, very pleased he was at that mention in Sir John French’s Despatches. Indeed, all the morning telegraph boys had been bringing to “Robey’s” the congratulations of friends and even acquaintances.
Jervis was very tired now—tired because the two surgeons, skilful and careful though they were, had not been able to help hurting him quite a good bit. It was fortunate that Rose Otway, dearly as she loved him, knew little or nothing of pain. She had been sent away during that hour, right out of the house, to take a walk with Mr. Robey. She had been told quite plainly by Sir Jacques that they would rather she were not there while the examination was taking place. It was important that the house should be kept as far as possible absolutely quiet.
Jervis did not talk very much, but there was no need for him to do so. He and Rose would have plenty of time to say everything they wanted to one another, for Sir Jacques had told her, only yesterday night, that a very long time must go by before Jervis would be fit to go back.“Any injury to the foot,” he had said casually, “is bound to be a long and a ticklish business.” The words had given her a rush of joy of which she felt ashamed.
There came a knock at the door, and then the younger of Jervis’s nurses came quietly into the room. “They’re asking for you downstairs, Miss Otway,” she said quietly. “And I think that perhaps Mr. Blake might now get a little sleep. He’s had a rather tiring, exciting morning, you know. Perhaps you could come up and have tea with him about five o’clock? He’s sure to be awake by then.”
And then the young nurse did a rather odd thing. Instead of going on into the room and up to the bedside, she went out of the door for a moment, and Rose, during that moment, bent down and laid her soft cheek against Jervis’s face. “Good-bye, my darling Jervis. I shan’t be away long.” And then she straightened herself, and went out of the room.
Of course she was happy—happy, and with a heart at rest as it had not been for months and months. But still it would be a great comfort when Jervis was up. She hated to see him lying there, helpless, given over to ministrations other than her own.
As she went through the door, the nurse stopped her and said, “Would you go into Mr. Robey’s study, Miss Otway? I think Sir John Blake wants to see you before he goes back to town. Mr. Jenkinson has already gone; he had to be there for a consultation at six.”
Rose looked at her, a little surprised. It was as if the kind little nurse was speaking for the sake of speaking.
She went down the quiet house, past the door ofthe large ward where the four other wounded officers now lay, all going on, she was glad to know, very well, and all having had a visit from Mr. Jenkinson, the London specialist.
She hurried on, smiling a little as she did so. She was no longer afraid of Sir John Blake. In fact she was becoming very fond of him, though it hurt her always to hear how sharply and irritably he spoke to his gentle, yielding wife. Of course Lady Blake was very unreasonable sometimes—but she was so helpless, so clinging, and so fond of Jervis.
And then, as she turned a corner—for “Robey’s” consisted of three houses, through each of which an intercommunication had been made—there fell on Rose Otway’s ear a very dreadful sound, that of some one crying in wild, unbridled grief. The sound came from Mrs. Robey’s little sitting-room, and suddenly Rose heard her own mother’s voice raised in expostulation. She was evidently trying to comfort and calm the poor stranger—doubtless the mother or wife of one of the four officers upstairs. Two days ago one of these visitors had had something very like a fit of hysterics after seeing her wounded husband. Rose shrank from the memory. But this was worse—far worse. She hurried on into Mr. Robey’s study.
The study, which was a very agreeable room, overlooked the Close. It was panelled with dark old oak, and lined on one side with books, and opposite the centre window hung Mr. Robey’s greatest treasure, a watercolour by Turner of Witanbury Cathedral, painted from the meadows behind the town.
To-day Mr. Robey himself was not there, but his brother and Sir John Blake were both waiting for her.Eagerly she walked forward into the room, and as she did so she made a delightful picture—or so those two men, so very different the one from the other, thought—of youth, of happiness, and yes, of young love satisfied.
Sir Jacques took a step forward. The General did not move at all. He was standing with his back to the further window, his face in shadow.
“Now, Miss Rose, I want you to listen very carefully to me for a few minutes.”
She looked at him gravely. “Yes?” she said questioningly.
“I have asked you to come,” went on the great surgeon, “because I want to impress upon your mind the fact that how you behave at this juncture of his life may make a very great, I might almost say all the difference, to your future husband, to Mr. Jervis Blake.”
Rose’s senses started up, like sentinels, to attention.
“You will have need of all your courage, and also of all your good sense, to help him along a very rough bit of road,” he went on feelingly.
Rose felt a thrill of sudden, unreasonable terror. “What is it?” she exclaimed. “What is going to happen to him? Is he going to die? I don’t mind what it is, if only you will tell me!” She instinctively moved over to Sir John Blake’s side, and he, as instinctively, put his arm round her shoulder.
“Mr. Jenkinson agrees with me,” said Sir Jacques, slowly and deliberately, “that his foot, the foot that was crushed, will have to come off. There is no danger—no reasonable danger, that is—of the operation costing him his life.” He waited a moment, and asshe said nothing, he went on: “But though there is no danger of his losing his life, there is a very great danger, Miss Otway, of his losing what to such a man as Jervis Blake counts, I think, for more than life—his courage. By that of course I do not mean physical bravery, but that courage, or strength of mind, which enables many men far more afflicted than he will ever be, to retain their normal outlook on life.” Speaking more to himself, he added, “I have formed a very good opinion of this young man, and personally I think he will accept this great misfortune with resignation and fortitude. But one can never tell, and it is always best to prepare for the worst.”
And then, for the first time, Rose spoke. “I understand what you mean,” she said quietly. “And I thank you very much, Sir Jacques, for having spoken to me as you have done.”
“And now,” he said, “one word more. Sir John Blake does not know what I am going to say, and perhaps my suggestion will not meet with his approval. It had been settled during the last few days, had it not, that you and Jervis were to be married before he went back to the Front? Well, I suggest that you be married now, before the operation takes place. I am of course thinking of the matter solely from his point of view—and from my point of view as his surgeon.”
Her heartfelt “Thank you” had hardly reached his ear before Sir John Blake spoke with a kind of harsh directness.
“I don’t think anything of the sort can be thought of now. In fact I would not give my consent to an immediate marriage. I feel certain that my son, too, would refuse to take advantage of his position to suggest it.”
“I think,” said Sir Jacques quietly, “that the suggestion in any case would have to come from Miss Rose.”
And then, for the first time, Rose lost control of herself. She became agitated, tearful—in her eagerness she put her hand on Sir John’s breast, and looking piteously up into his face, “Of course I want to marry him at once!” she said brokenly. “Every time I have had to leave him in the last few days I have felt miserable. You see, Ifeelmarried to him already, and if you feel married, it’s so very strange not tobemarried.”
She began to laugh helplessly, and the more, shocked at what she was doing, she tried to stop, the more she laughed.
Sir Jacques came quickly forward. “Come, come!” he said sharply, and taking her by the arm he shook her violently. “This won’t do at all——” he gave a warning look at the other man. “Of course Miss Rose will do exactly what she wishes to do! She’s quite right in saying that she’s as good as married to him already, Sir John. And it’s our business—yours, hers, and mine—to think of Jervis, and of Jervis only just now. But she won’t be able to do that if she allows herself to be upset!”
“I’m so sorry—please forgive me!” Rose, to her own measureless relief, had stopped laughing, but she felt oddly faint and queer. Sir Jacques poured out a very small wineglassful of brandy, and made her drink it. How odd to have a bottle of brandy here, in Mr. Robey’s study! Mr. Robey was a teetotaller.
“Would you like me to go up to Jervis now?” asked Sir John slowly.
Sir Jacques looked into the speaker’s face. It was generally a clear, healthy tan colour; now it had gone quite grey. “No,” he said. “Not now. If you will forgive me for making a suggestion, I should advise that you and Miss Rose take Lady Blake out somewhere for an hour’s walk. There’s nothing like open air and a high road for calming the nerves.”
“I would rather not see my wife just now,” muttered Sir John frowning.
But Sir Jacques answered sternly, “I’m afraid I must ask you to do so; and once you’ve got her out of doors for an hour, I’ll give her a sleeping draught. She’ll be all right to-morrow morning. I don’t want any tears round my patient.”
It was Rose Otway who led Sir John Blake by the hand down the passage. The dreadful sounds coming from Mrs. Robey’s sitting-room had died down a little, but they still pierced one listener’s heart.
“Do be kind to her,” whispered the girl. “Think what she must be going through. She was so happy about him this morning——”
“Yes, yes! You’re quite right,” he said hastily. “I’ve been a brute—I know that. I promise you to do my best. And Rose?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What that man said is right—quite right. What we’ve got to do now is to start the boy on the right way—nothing else matters.”
She nodded.
“You and I can do it.”
“Yes, I know we can—and will,” said Rose; andthen she opened the door of Mrs. Robey’s sitting-room.
At the sight of her husband, Lady Blake’s sobs died down in long, convulsive sighs.
“Come, my dear,” he said, in rather cold, measured tones. “This will not do. You must try for our boy’s sake to pull yourself together. After all, it might have been much worse. He might have been killed.”
“I would much rather he had been killed,” she exclaimed vehemently. “Oh, John, you don’t know, you don’t understand, what this will mean to him!”
“Don’t I?” he asked. He set his teeth. And then, “You’re acting very wrongly!” he said sternly. “We’ve got to face this thing out. Remember what Sir Jacques said to you.” He waited a moment, then, in a gentler, kinder tone, “Rose and I are going out for a walk, and we want you to come too.”
“Oh, I don’t think I could do that.” She spoke uncertainly, and yet even he could see that she was startled, surprised, and yes, pleased.
“Oh, yes, you can!” Rose came forward with the poor lady’s hat and black lace cloak. Very gently, but with the husband’s strong arm gripping the wife’s rather tightly, they between them led her out of the front door into the Close.
“I think,” said Sir John mildly, “that you had better run back and get your hat, Rose.”
She left them, and Sir John Blake, letting go of his wife’s arm looked down into her poor blurred face for a moment. “That girl,” he said hoarsely, “sets us both an example, Janey.”
“That’s true,” she whispered, “But John?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you sometimes feel dreadfullyjealousof her?”
“I? God bless my soul,no!” But a very sweet smile, a smile she had not seen shed on her for many, many years, lit up his face. “We’ll have to think more of one another, and less of the boy—eh, my dear?”
Lady Blake was too surprised to speak—and so, for once doing the wise thing, she remained silent.
Rose, hurrying out a moment later, saw that the open air had already done them both good.
“You’vegot to make him believe that you wish for the marriage to take place now, for your own sake, not for his.”
It was with those words, uttered by Sir Jacques Robey, still sounding in her ears, that Rose Otway walked up to the door of the room where Jervis Blake, having just seen his father, was now waiting to see her.
Sir John Blake’s brief “He has taken it very well. He has a far greater sense of discipline than I had at his age,” had been belied, discounted, by the speaker’s own look of suffering and of revolt.
Rose waited outside the door for a few moments. She was torn with conflicting fears and emotions. A strange feeling of oppression and shyness had come over her. It had seemed so easy to say that she would be married at once, to-morrow, to Jervis. But she had not known that she would have to ask Jervis’s consent. She had supposed, foolishly, that it would all be settled for her by Sir Jacques....
At last she turned the handle of the door, and walked through into the room. And then, to her unutterable relief, she saw that Jervis looked exactly as usual, except that his face, instead of being pale, as it had been the last few days, was rather flushed.
Words which had been spoken to him less than five minutes ago were also echoing in Jervis’s brain, pushing everything else into the background. He had said,“I suppose you think that I ought to offer to release Rose?” and his father had answered slowly: “All I can say is that I should do so—if I were in your place.”
But now, when he saw her coming towards him, looking as she always looked, save that something of the light and brightness which had always been in her dear face had faded out of it, he knew that he could say nothing of the sort. This great trouble which had come on him was her trouble as well as his, and he knew she was going to take it and to bear it, as he meant to take it and to bear it.
But Jervis Blake did make up his mind to one thing. There should be no hurrying of Rose into a hasty marriage—the kind of marriage they had planned—the marriage which was to have taken place a week before he went back to the Front. It must be his business to battle through this grim thing alone. It would be time enough to think of marriage when he was up and about again, and when he had taught himself, as much as might be possible, to hide or triumph over his infirmity.
As she came and sat down quietly by the side of his bed, on the chair which his father had just left, he put out his hand and took hers.
“I want to tell you,” he said slowly, “that what my father has just told me was not altogether a surprise. I’ve felt rather—well, rather afraid of it, since Sir Jacques first examined me. There was something in the nurses’ manner too—but of course I knew I might be wrong. I’m sorry now that I didn’t tell you.”
She still said nothing—only gripped his hand more and more tightly.
“And Rose? One thing father said is being such a comfort to me. Father thinks that I shall still be able to be of use—I mean in the way I should like to be, especially if the war goes on a long time. I wonder if he showed you this?” He picked up off his bed a little piece of paper and held it out to her.
Through her bitter tears she read the words: “German thoroughness”—and then a paragraph which explained how the German military authorities were using their disabled officers in the training of recruits.
“Father thinks that in time they’ll do something of the sort here—not yet, perhaps, but in some months from now.”
And then, as she still did not speak, he grew uneasy. “Come a little nearer,” he whispered. “I feel as if you were so far away. We needn’t be afraid of any one coming in. Father has promised that no one shall disturb us till you ring.”
She did as he asked, and putting his uninjured arm right round her, he held her closely to him.
It was the first time since that strange home-coming of his that Jervis had felt secure against the sudden irruption into the room of some well-meaning person. Of the two it was Jervis who had been silently determined to give the talkative, sentimental nurses no excuse for even the mildest, the kindliest comment.
But now everything was merged in this great ordeal of love and grief they were battling through together—secure from the unwanted presence of others as they had not been since he had last felt her heart fluttering beneath his, in the porch of the cathedral.
“Oh, Rose,” he whispered at last,“you don’t know what a difference having you makes to me! If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know how I could face it.”
For a moment she clung a little closer to him. He felt her trembling with a wave of emotion to which he had no present clue. “Oh, Jervis—dear Jervis, is that true?” she asked piteously.
“Do you doubt it?” he whispered.
“Then there’s something I want you to do for me.”
“You know that there isn’t anything in the world you could ask me to do that I wouldn’t do, Rose.”
“I want you to marry me to-morrow,” she said. And then, as for a moment he remained silent, she began to cry. “Oh, Jervis, do say yes—unless you very, very much want to say no!”
During the next forty-eight hours Sir Jacques Robey settled what was to be done, when it should be done, and how it was to be done.
Of the people concerned, it was perhaps Lady Blake who seemed the most under his influence. She submitted without a word to his accompanying her into her son’s bedroom, and it was in response to his insistent command—for it was no less—that instead of alluding to the tragic thing which filled all her thoughts, she only spoke of the morrow’s wedding, and of her happiness in the daughter her son was giving her.
It was Sir Jacques, too, who persuaded Mrs. Otway to agree that an immediate marriage was the best of all possible solutions for Rose as well as for Jervis; and it was he, also, who suggested that Sir John Blake should go over to the Deanery and make all the necessary arrangements with Dr. Haworth.But perhaps the most striking example of Sir Jacques’s good sense and thoroughness occurred after Sir John had been to the Deanery.
Dr. Haworth had fallen in with every suggestion with the most eager, ready sympathy; and Sir John, who before coming to Witanbury had regarded him as a pacifist and pro-German, had come really to like and respect him. So it was that now, as he came back from the Deanery, and up to the gate of the Trellis House, he was in a softer, more yielding mood than usual.
Sir Jacques hurried out to meet him. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes—everything’s settled. But it’s your responsibility, not mine!”
“I’ve been wondering, Sir John, whether the Dean reminded you that we shall require a wedding ring?”
“No, he did not.” Sir John Blake looked rather taken aback. “I wonder what I’d better do?” he muttered helplessly.
“You and Lady Blake had better go into the town and buy one,” said Sir Jacques. “I don’t feel that we can putthatjob on poor little Rose. She’s had quite enough to do as it is—and gallantly she’s done it!”
And as Sir John began to look cross and undecided, the other said with a touch of sharpness, “Of course if you’d rather not do it, I’ll buy the ring myself. But I’ve been neglecting my work this morning.”
Ashamed of his ungraciousness, as the other had meant him to be, Sir John said hastily,“Of course I’ll get it! I was only wondering whether I hadn’t better go alone.”
“Lady Blake would be of great use in choosing it, and for the matter of that, in trying it on. If you wait here a moment I’ll go and fetch her. She’s got her hat on, I know.”
So it happened that, in three or four minutes, just long enough for Sir John to begin to feel impatient, Jervis’s mother came out of the Trellis House. She was smiling up into the great surgeon’s face, and her husband told himself that it was an extraordinary thing how this wedding had turned their minds—all their minds—away from Jervis’s coming ordeal.
“I wonder if Rose would like a broad or narrow wedding ring?” said Lady Blake thoughtfully. “I’m afraid there won’t be very much choice in a place like Witanbury.”
Sir Jacques looked after the couple for a few moments, then he turned and went into the Trellis House, and so into the drawing-room.
“Bachelors,” he said meditatively, “sometimes have a way of playing the very mischief between married couples—eh, Mrs. Otway? So it’s only fair that now and again a bachelor should do something towards bringing a couple together again.”
She looked at him, surprised. What odd—and yes, rather improper things—Sir Jacques sometimes said! But—but he was averykind man. Mrs. Otway was a simple woman, though she would have felt a good deal nettled had anyone told her so.
“I rather wonder,” she said impulsively, “whyyounever married. You seem to approve of marriage, Sir Jacques?” She was looking into his face with an eager, kindly look.
“If you look at me long enough,” he said slowly,“I think you’ll be able to answer that question for yourself. The women I wanted—there were three of them——” and then, as he saw that she again looked slightly shocked, he added, “Not altogether, but consecutively, you understand—well, not one of them would have me! The women who might have put up with me—well, I didn’t seem to want them! But I should like to say one thing to you, Mrs. Otway. This particular affair in which you and I are interested does seem to me, if you’ll allow me to say so, ‘a marriage of true minds——’” He stopped abruptly, and to her great surprise left the room without finishing his sentence.
Such trifling, and at the time such seemingly unimportant, little happenings are often those which long afterwards leap out from the past, bringing with them poignant memories of joy, of sorrow, of pain, and of happiness.
Rose Blake will always remember that it was her poor old German nurse, Anna Bauer, who, on her wedding day, made her wear a white dress and a veil. She had meant to be married, in so far as she had given any thought to the matter at all, in her ordinary blue serge skirt and a clean blouse.
Those about her might be able to forget, for a few merciful hours, what lay before Jervis; but she, Rose Otway, could not forget it. She knew that she was marrying him now, not in order that she might be even closer to him than she felt herself to be—that seemed to her impossible—but in order that others might think so. She would have preferred the ceremony to take place only in the presence of his parentsand of her mother. But as to that she had been given no say; Sir Jacques and Mr. and Mrs. Robey had announced as a matter of course that they would be present, and so she had assented to her mother’s suggestion that Miss Forsyth should be asked. If Mr. and Mrs. Robey and Sir Jacques were to be there, then she did not mind Miss Forsyth, her kind old friend, being there too.
Anna had protested with tearful vehemence against the blue serge skirt and the pretty blouse—nay, more, she had already taken the white gown she intended that her beloved nursling should wear, out of the bag which she, Anna, had made for it last year. It was a very charming frock, a fine exquisitely embroidered India muslin, the only really beautiful day-dress Rose had ever had in her young life. And oddly enough it had been a present from Miss Forsyth.
Miss Forsyth—it was nearly eighteen months ago—had invited Rose to come up to London with her for a day’s shopping, and then she had suddenly presented her young friend with this attractive, and yes, expensive gown. There had been a blue sash, but this had now been taken off by Anna, and a bluey-white satin band substituted. As to that Rose now rebelled. “If Iamto wear this dress to-day, I should like the blue sash put back,” she said quickly. “Blue is supposed to bring luck to brides, Anna.”
What had really turned the scale in Rose’s mind had been Anna’s tears, and the fact that Miss Forsyth would be pleased to see her married in that gown.
But over the lace veil there had been something like a tug of war. And this time it was Mrs. Otway who had won the day.“If you wear that muslin dress, then I cannot see why you should not wear your grandmother’s wedding veil,” she had exclaimed—and again Rose had given in.
Poor old Anna! It was a day of days for her—far more a day of days than had been the marriage of her own daughter. Yet Louisa Bauer’s wedding had been a great festival. And the old woman remembered what pains Mrs. Otway had taken to make that marriage of five years ago, as far as was possible in such a very English place as Witanbury, a German bridal. In those days they had none of them guessed what an unsatisfactory fellow George Pollit was going to turn out; and Louisa had gone to her new home with quite a German trousseau—that is, with what would have appeared to English eyes stacks of under-clothing, each article beautifully embroidered with a monogram and lavishly trimmed with fine crochet; each set tied up with a washing band orWaschebander, a strip of canvas elaborately embroidered in cross-stitch.
It seemed strangely sad and unnatural that Anna’s gracious young lady should have no trousseau at all! But that doubtless would come afterwards, and she, Anna, felt sure that she would be allowed to have a hand in choosing it. This thought was full of consolation, as was also her secret supposition that the future trousseau would be paid for by the bridegroom.
There was certainly cause for satisfaction in that thought, for Anna had become conscious of late that her dear mistress felt anxious about money. Prices were going up, but thanks to her, Anna’s, zealous care, the housekeeping bills at the Trellis House were still kept wonderfully low. It was unfortunate thatMrs. Otway, being the kind of gracious lady she was, scarcely gave Anna sufficient credit for this. It was not that she was ungrateful, it was simply that she did not think anything about it—she only remembered that she was short of money when the household books were there, open in front of her.