Smith, slightly known to you, whom you just met, and who was in too great a hurry to catch her train to come into the Post Office."
Anna took a large purse out of her capacious pocket. In it she put the telegram and the money. "I will send it off to-morrow morning," she exclaimed. "You may count on me."
"Frau Bauer?"
She turned back.
"Only to wish you again a cordial good-night, and to say I hope you will come again soon!"
"Indeed, that I will," she called out gratefully.
As he was shutting the back door, he saw his wife hurrying along across the quiet little back street.
"Hullo, Polly!" he cried, and she came quickly across. "They are in great trouble at the Deanery," she observed, "at least, Miss Edith is in great trouble. She has been crying all to-day. They say her face is all swelled out--that she looks an awful sight! Her lover is going away to fight, and some one has told her that Lord Kitchener says none of the lot now going out will ever come back! There is even talk of their being married before he starts. But as her trousseau is not ready, my sister thinks it would be a very stupid thing to do."
"Did the Dean get my letter?" he asked abruptly.
"Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that. I gave it to Mr. Dunstan, the butler. He says that the Dean opened it and read it. And then what d"you think the silly old thing said, Manfred?"
"You will have to get into the way of calling me Alfred," he said calmly.
"Oh, bother!"
"Well, what did the reverend gentleman say?"
"Mr. Dunstan says that he just exclaimed, "I"m sorry the good fellow thinks it necessary to do that." So you needn"t have troubled after all.
All the way to the Deanery I was saying to myself, "Mrs. Head--Polly Head. Polly Head--Mrs. Head." And no, it"s no good pretending that I like it, for I just don"t!"
"Then you"ll just have to do the other thing," he said roughly. Still, though he spoke so disagreeably, he was yet in high good-humour. Two hours ago this information concerning Miss Haworth"s lover would have been of the utmost interest to him, and even now it was of value, as corroborating what Anna had already told him. Frau Bauer was going to be very useful to him. Alfred Head, for already he was thinking of himself by that name, felt that he had had a well-spent, as well as a pleasant, evening.
CHAPTER XIV
Had it not been for the contents of the envelope which she kept in the right-hand drawer of her writing-table, and which she sometimes took out surrept.i.tiously, when neither her daughter nor old Anna were about, Mrs.
Otway, as those early August days slipped by, might well have thought her farewell interview with Major Guthrie a dream.
For one thing there was nothing, positively nothing, in any of the daily papers over which she wasted so much time each morning, concerning the despatch of an Expeditionary Force to the Continent! Could Major Guthrie have been mistaken?
Once, when with the Dean, she got very near the subject. In fact, she ventured to say a word expressive of her belief that British troops _were_ to be sent to France. But he snubbed her with a sharpness very unlike his urbane self. "Nonsense!" he cried. "There isn"t the slightest thought of such a thing. Any small force we could send to the Continent would be useless--in fact, only in the way!"
"Then why does Lord Kitchener ask for a hundred thousand men?"
"For home defence," said the Dean quickly, "only for home defence, Mrs.
Otway. The War Office is said to regard it as within the bounds of possibility that England may be invaded. But I fancy the Kaiser is far too truly attached to his mother"s country to think of doing anything _really_ to injure us! I am sure that so intelligent and enlightened a sovereign understands our point of view--I mean about Belgium. The Kaiser, without doubt, was overruled by the military party. As to our sending our Army abroad--why, millions are already being engaged in this war! So where would be the good of our small army?"
That had been on Sunday, only two days after Major Guthrie had gone. And now, it being Wednesday, Mrs. Otway bethought herself that she ought to fulfil her promise with regard to his mother. Somehow she had a curious feeling that she now owed a duty to the old lady, and also--though that perhaps was rather absurd--that she would be quite glad to see any one who would remind her of her kind friend--the friend whom she missed more than she was willing to admit to herself.
But of course her friend"s surprising kindness and thought for her had made a difference to her point of view, and had brought them, in a sense, very much nearer the one to the other. In fact Mrs. Otway was surprised, and even a little hurt, that Major Guthrie had not written to her once since he went away. It was the more odd as he very often _had_ written to her during former visits of his to London. Sometimes they had been quite amusing letters.
She put on a cool, dark-grey linen coat and skirt, and a shady hat, and then she started off for the mile walk to Dorycote.
It was a very warm afternoon. Old Mrs. Guthrie, after she had had her pleasant little after-luncheon nap, established herself, with the help of her maid, under a great beech tree in the beautiful garden which had been one of the princ.i.p.al reasons why Major Guthrie had chosen this house at Dorycote for his mother. The old lady was wearing a pale lavender satin gown, with a lace scarf wound about her white hair and framing her still pretty pink and white face.
During the last few days the people who composed Mrs. Guthrie"s little circle had been too busy and too excited to come and see her. But she thought it likely that to-day some one would drop in to tea. Any one would be welcome, for she was feeling a little mopish.
No, it was not this surprising, utterly unexpected, War that troubled her. Mrs. Guthrie belonged by birth to the fighting caste; her father had been a soldier in his time, and so had her husband.
As for her only son, he had made the Army his profession, and she knew that he had hoped to live and die in it. He had been through the Boer War, and was wounded at Spion Kop, so he had done his duty by his country; this being so, she could not help being glad now that Alick had retired when he had. But she had wisely kept that gladness to herself as long as he was with her. To Mrs. Guthrie"s thinking, this War was France"s war, and Russia"s war; only in an incidental sense England"s quarrel too.
Russia? Mrs. Guthrie had always been taught to mistrust Russia, and to believe that the Tsar had his eye on India. She could remember, too, and that with even now painful vividness, the Crimean War, for a man whom she had cared for as a girl, whom indeed she had hoped to marry, had been killed at the storming of the Redan. To her it seemed strange that England and Russia were now allies.
As a matter of fact, the one moment of excitement the War had brought her was in connection with Russia. An old gentleman she knew, a tiresome neighbour whose calls usually bored rather than pleased her, had hobbled in yesterday and told her, as a tremendous secret, that Russia was sending a big army to Flanders _via_ England, through a place called Archangel of which she had vaguely heard. He had had the news from Scotland, where a nephew of his had actually seen and spoken to some Russian officers, the advance guard, as it were, of these legions!
Mrs. Guthrie was glad this war had come after the London season was over. Her great pleasure each day was reading the _Morning Post_, and during this last week that paper had been a great deal too full of war news. It had annoyed her, too, to learn that the Cowes Week had been given up. Of course no German yachts could have competed, but apart from that, why should not the regatta have gone on just the same? It looked as if the King (G.o.d bless him!) was taking this war too seriously. Queen Victoria and King Edward would have had a better sense of proportion.
The old lady kept these thoughts to herself, but they were there, all the same.
Yes, it was a great pity Cowes had been given up. Mrs. Guthrie missed the lists of names--names which in the majority of cases, unless of course they were those of Americans and of uninteresting _nouveaux riches_, recalled pleasant a.s.sociations, and that even if the people actually mentioned were only the children or the grandchildren of those whom she had known in the delightful days when she had kept house for her widower brother in Mayfair.
As she turned her old head stiffly round, and saw how charming her well-kept lawn and belt of high trees beyond looked to-day, she felt sorry that she had not written one or two little notes and bidden some of her Witanbury Close acquaintances come out and have tea. The Dean, for instance, might have come. Even Mrs. Otway, Alick"s friend, would have been better than n.o.body!
Considering that she did not like her, it was curious that Mrs. Guthrie was one of the very few women in that neighbourhood who realised that the mistress of the Trellis House was an exceptionally attractive person. More than once--in fact almost always after chance had brought the two ladies in contact, Mrs. Guthrie would observe briskly to her son, "It"s rather odd that your Mrs. Otway has never married again!" And it always amused her to notice that it irritated Alick to hear her say this. It was the Scotch bit of him which made Alick at once so shy and so sentimental where women were concerned.
Mrs. Guthrie had no idea how very often her son went to the Trellis House, but even had she known it she would only have smiled satirically.
She had but little sympathy with platonic friendships, and she recognised, with that shrewd mother-sense so many women acquire late in life, that Mrs. Otway was a most undesigning widow.
Not that it would have _really_ mattered if she had been the other sort.
Major Guthrie"s own private means were small. It was true that after his mother"s death he would be quite well off, but Mrs. Guthrie, even if she had a weak heart, did not think herself likely to die for a long, long time.... And yet, as time went on, and as the old lady became, perhaps, a thought less selfish, she began to wish that her son would fancy some girl with money, and marrying, settle down. If that could come to pa.s.s, then she, Mrs. Guthrie, would be content to live on by herself, in the house which she had made so pretty, and where she had gathered about her quite a pleasant circle of admiring and appreciative, if rather dull, country friends.
But when she had said a word in that sense to Alick, he had tried to turn the suggestion off as a joke. And as she had persisted in talking about it, he had shown annoyance, even anger. At last, one day, he had exclaimed, "I"m too old to marry a girl, mother! Somehow--I don"t know how it is--I don"t seem to care very much for girls."
"There are plenty of widows you could marry," she said quickly. "A widow is more likely to have money than a girl." He had answered, "But you see I don"t care for money." And then she had observed, "I don"t see how you could marry without money, Alick." And he had said quietly, "I quite agree. I don"t think I could." And it may be doubted if in his loyal heart there had even followed the unspoken thought, "So long as you are alive, mother."
Yes, Alick was a very good son, and Mrs. Guthrie did not grudge him his curious friendship with Mrs. Otway.
And then, just as she was saying this to herself, not for the first time, she heard the sound of doors opening and closing, and she saw, advancing towards her over the bright green lawn, the woman of whom she had just been thinking with condescending good-nature.
Mrs. Otway looked hot and a little tired--not quite as attractive as usual. This perhaps made Mrs. Guthrie all the more glad to see her.
"How kind of you to come!" exclaimed the old lady. "But I"m sorry you find me alone. I rather hoped my son might be back to-day. He had to go up to London unexpectedly last Friday. He has an old friend in the War Office, and I think it very likely that this man may have wanted to consult him. I don"t know if you are aware that Alick once spent a long leave in Germany. Although I miss him, I should be glad to think he is doing something useful just now. But of course I shouldn"t at all have liked the thought of his beginning again to fight--and at his time of life!"
"I suppose a soldier is never too old to want to fight,"--but even while she spoke, Mrs. Otway felt as if she were saying something rather trite and foolish. She was a little bit afraid of the old lady, and as she sat down her cheeks grew even hotter than the walking had made them, for she suddenly remembered Major Guthrie"s legacy.
"Yes, that"s true, of course! And for the first two or three days of last week I could see that Alick was very much upset, in fact horribly depressed, by this War. But I pretended to take no notice of it--it"s always better to do that with a man! It"s never the slightest use being sympathetic--it only makes people more miserable. However, last Friday, after getting a telegram, he became quite cheerful and like his old self again. He wouldn"t admit, even to me, that he had heard from the War Office. But I put two and two together! Of course, as he is in the Reserve, he may find himself employed on some form of home defence. I could see that Alick thinks that the Germans will probably try and land in England--invade it, in fact, as the Normans did." The old lady smiled. "It"s an amusing idea, isn"t it?"