Yes, life went on quite curiously as usual during the second week of the Great War, and to many of the more well-to-do people of Witanbury, only brought in its wake a series of agreeable "thrills" and mild excitements.
Of course this was not quite the case with the inmates of the Trellis House. Poor old Anna, for instance, very much disliked the process of Registration. Still, it was made as easy and pleasant to her as possible, and Mrs. Otway and Rose both accompanied her to the police station. There, nothing could have been more kindly than the manner of the police inspector who handed Anna Bauer her "permit." He went to some trouble in order to explain to her exactly what it was she might and might not do.
As Anna seldom had any occasion to travel as far as five miles from Witanbury Close, her registration brought with it no hardship at all.
Still, she was surprised and hurt to find herself described as "an enemy alien." She could a.s.sure herself, even now, that she had no bad feelings against England--no, none at all!
Though neither her good faithful servant nor her daughter guessed the fact, Mrs. Otway was the one inmate of the Trellis House to whom the War, so far, brought real unease. She felt jarred and upset--anxious, too, as she had never yet been, about her money matters.
More and more she missed Major Guthrie, and yet the thought of him brought discomfort, almost pain, in its train. With every allowance made, he was surely treating her in a very cavalier manner. How odd of him not to have written! Whenever he had been away before, he had always written to her, generally more than once; and now, when she felt that their friendship had suddenly come closer, he left her without a line.
Her only comfort, during those strange days of restless waiting for news which never came, were her daily talks with the Dean. Their mutual love and knowledge of Germany had always been a strong link between them, and it was stronger now than ever.
Alone of all the people she saw, Dr. Haworth managed to make her feel at charity with Germany while yet quite confident with regard to her country"s part in the War. He did not say so in so many words, but it became increasingly clear to his old friend and neighbour, that the Dean believed that the Germans would soon be conquered, on land by Russia and by France, while the British, following their good old rule, would defeat them at sea.
Many a time, during those early days of war, Mrs. Otway felt a thrill of genuine pity for Germany. True, the Militarist Party there deserved the swift defeat that was coming on them; they deserved it now, just as the French Empire had deserved it in 1870, though Mrs. Otway could not believe that modern Germany was as arrogant and confident as had been the France of the Second Empire.
Much as she missed Major Guthrie, she was sometimes glad that he was not there to--no, not to crow over her, he was incapable of doing that, but to be proved right.
There was a great deal of talk of the mysterious pa.s.sage of Russians through the country. Some said there were twenty thousand, some a hundred thousand, and the stories concerning this secret army of avengers grew more and more circ.u.mstantial. They reached Witanbury Close from every quarter. And though for a long time the Dean held out, he at last had to admit that, yes, he did believe that a Russian army was being swiftly, secretly transferred, _via_ Archangel and Scotland, to the Continent! More than one person declared that they had actually _seen_ Cossacks peeping out of the windows of the trains which, with blinds down, were certainly rushing through Witanbury station, one every ten minutes, through each short summer night.
All the people the Otways knew took great glory and comfort in these rumours, but Mrs. Otway heard the news with very mixed feelings. It seemed to her scarcely fair that a Russian army should come, as it were, on the sly, to attack the Germans in France--and she did not like to feel that England would for ever and for aye have to be grateful to Russia for having sent an army to her help.
It was the morning of the 18th of August--exactly a fortnight, that is, since England"s declaration of war on Germany. Coming down to breakfast, Mrs. Otway suddenly realised what a very, very long fortnight this had been--the longest fortnight in her life as a grown-up woman. She felt what she very seldom was, depressed, and as she went into the dining-room she was sorry to see that there was a sullen look on old Anna"s face.
"Good morning!" she said genially in German. And in reply the old servant, after a muttered "Good morning, gracious lady," went on, in a tone of suppressed anger, "Did you not tell me that the English were not going to fight my people? That it was all a mistake?"
Mrs. Otway looked surprised. "Yes, I feel sure that no soldiers are going abroad," she said quietly. "The Dean says that our Army is to be kept at home, to defend our sh.o.r.es, Anna."
She spoke rather coldly; there was a growing impression in Witanbury that the Germans might try to invade England, and behave here as they were behaving in Belgium. Though Mrs. Otway and Rose tried to believe that the horrible stories of burning and murder then taking place in Flanders were exaggerated, still some of them were very circ.u.mstantial and, in fact, obviously true.
Languidly, for there never seemed any real news nowadays, she opened wide her newspaper. And then her heart gave a leap! Printed right across the page, in huge black letters, ran the words:
"BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN FRANCE."
And underneath, in smaller type:
"LANDED AT BOULOGNE WITHOUT A SINGLE CASUALTY."
Then Major Guthrie had been right and the Dean wrong? And this was why Anna had spoken as she had done just now, in that rather rude and injured tone?
Later in the morning, when she met the Dean, he showed himself, as might have been expected, very frank and genial about the matter.
"I have to admit that I was wrong," he observed; "quite wrong. I certainly thought it impossible that any British troops could cross the Channel till a decisive fleet action had been fought. And, well--I don"t mind saying to _you_, Mrs. Otway, I still think it a pity that we have sent our Army abroad."
Three days later Rose and her mother each received a quaint-looking postcard from "Somewhere in France." There was neither postmark nor date. The first four words were printed, but what was really _very_ strange was the fact that the sentences written in were almost similar in each case. But whereas Jervis Blake wrote his few words in English, Major Guthrie"s few words were written in French.
Jervis Blake"s postcard ran:
"I AM QUITE WELL and very happy. This is a glorious country. I will write a letter soon." And then "J. B."
That of Major Guthrie:
"I AM QUITE WELL." Then, in queer archaic French, "and all goes well with me. I trust it is the same with thee. Will write soon."
But he, mindful of the fact that it was an open postcard, with your Scotchman"s true caution, had not even added his initials.
Mrs. Otway"s only comment on hearing that Jervis Blake had written Rose a postcard from France, had been the words, said feelingly, and with a sigh, "Ah, well! So he has gone out too? He is very young to see something of real war. But I expect that it will make a man of him, poor boy."
For a moment Rose had longed to throw herself in her mother"s arms and tell her the truth; then she had reminded herself that to do so would not be fair to Jervis. Jervis would have told his people of their engagement if she had allowed him to do so. It was she who had prevented it. And then--and then--Rose also knew, deep in her heart, that if anything happened to Jervis, she would far rather bear the agony alone.
She loved her mother dearly, but she told herself, with the curious egoism of youth, that her mother would not understand.
Rose had been four years old when her father died; she thought she could remember him, but it was a very dim, shadowy memory. She did not realise, even now, that her mother had once loved, once lost, once suffered. She did not believe that her mother knew anything of love--of real love, of true love, of such love as now bound herself to Jervis Blake.
Her mother no doubt supposed Rose"s friendship with Jervis Blake to be like her own friendship with Major Guthrie--a cold, sensible, placid affair. In fact, she had said, with a smile, "It"s rather amusing, isn"t it, that Jervis should write to you, and Major Guthrie to me, by the same post?"
But neither mother nor daughter had offered to show her postcard to the other. There was so little on them that it had not seemed necessary. Of the two, it was Mrs. Otway who felt a little shy. The wording of Major Guthrie"s postcard was so peculiar! Of course he did not know French well, or he would have put what he wanted to say differently. He would have said "you" instead of "thee." She was rather glad that her dear little Rose had not asked to see it. Still, its arrival mollified her sore, hurt feeling that he might have written before. Instead of tearing it up, as she had always done the letters Major Guthrie had written to her in the old days that now seemed so very long ago, she slipped that curious war postcard inside the envelope in which were placed his bank-notes.
CHAPTER XVI
August 23, 1914! A date which will be imprinted on the heart, and on the tablets of memory, of every Englishman and Englishwoman of our generation. To the majority of thinking folk, that was the last Sunday we any of us spent in the old, prosperous, happy, confiding England--the England who considered that might as a matter of course follows right--the England whose grand old motto was "Victory as Usual," and to whom the word defeat was without significance.
Almost the whole population of Witanbury seemed to have felt a common impulse to attend the evening service in the cathedral. They streamed in until the stately black-gowned vergers were quite worried to find seats for the late comers. In that great congregation there was already a certain leaven of anxious hearts--not over-anxious, you understand, but naturally uneasy because those near and dear to them had gone away to a foreign country, to fight an unknown foe.
It was known that the minor canon who was on the rota to preach this evening had gracefully yielded the privilege to the Dean, and this accounted, in part at least, for the crowds who filled the great building.
When Dr. Haworth mounted the pulpit and prepared to begin his sermon, which he had striven to make worthy of the occasion, he felt a thrill of satisfaction as his eyes suddenly lighted on the man whom he still instinctively thought of by his old name of "Manfred Hegner."
Yes, there they were, Hegner and his wife, at the end of a row of chairs, a long way down; she looking very pretty and graceful, instinctively well-dressed in her grey muslin Sunday gown and wide floppy hat--looking, indeed, "quite the lady," as more than one of her envious neighbours had said to themselves when seeing her go by on her husband"s arm.
Because of the presence of this man who, though German-born, had elected to become an Englishman, and devote his very considerable intelligence--the Dean prided himself on his knowledge of human nature, and on his quickness in detecting humble talent--to the service of his adopted country, the sermon was perhaps a thought more fair, even cordial, to Britain"s formidable enemy, than it would otherwise have been.
The messages of the King and of Lord Kitchener to the Expeditionary Force gave the Dean a fine text for his discourse, and he paid a very moving and eloquent tribute to the Silence of the People. He reminded his hearers that even if they, in quiet Witanbury, knew nothing of the great and stirring things which were happening elsewhere, there must have been thousands--it might truly be said tens of thousands--of men and women who had known that our soldiers were leaving their country for France. And yet not a word had been said, not a hint conveyed, either privately or in the press. He himself had one who was very dear and near to his own dearest and nearest, in that Expeditionary Force, and yet not a word had been breathed, even to him.
Then he went on to a sadder and yet in its way an even more glorious theme--the loss of His Majesty"s good ship _Amphion_. He described the splendid discipline of the men, the magnificent courage of the captain, who, when recovering from a shock which had stretched him insensible, had rushed to stop the engines. He told with what composure the men had fallen in, and how everything had been done, without hurry or confusion, in the good old British sea way; and how, thanks to that, twenty minutes after the _Amphion_ had struck a mine, men, officers, and captain had left the ship.
And after he had finished his address--he kept it quite short, for Dr.
Haworth was one of those rare and wise men who never preach a long sermon--the whole congregation rose to their feet and sang "G.o.d Save the King."
This golden feeling of security, of happy belief that all was, and must be, well, lasted till the following afternoon. And the first of the dwellers in Witanbury Close to have that comfortable feeling shattered--shattered for ever--was Mrs. Otway.