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 on any 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 "sc.r.a.ps," 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 Major Guthrie 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 Emba.s.sy 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 on _The News of the World_ or on _Reynolds"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!" s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 tell _you_ that!"
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 embarra.s.sed 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 cried good-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.
CHAPTER XX
October and 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. Ridd.i.c.k, 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?"