"It"s in Arlington Street--No. 20, I think."
Mrs. Otway hastened on, her heart filled with a new, eager hope. Oh, if she could only go up now, this evening, to London! Then she might be at 20, Arlington Street, the first thing in the morning.
Alas, she knew that this was not possible; every hour of the next morning was filled up.
There was no one to whom she could delegate her morning round among those soldiers" mothers and wives with whom she now felt in such close touch and sympathy. But she might possibly escape the afternoon committee meeting, at which she was due, if Miss Forsyth would only let her off. The ladies of Witanbury were very much under the bondage of Miss Forsyth, and subject to her will; none more so than the good-tempered, yielding Mary Otway.
Unluckily one of those absurd little difficulties which are always cropping up at committees was on the agenda for to-morrow afternoon, and Miss Forsyth was counting on her help to quell a certain troublesome person. Still, she might go now, on her way home, and see if Miss Forsyth would relent.
Miss Forsyth lived in a beautiful old house which, though its approach was in a narrow street, yet directly overlooked at the back the great green lawns surrounding the cathedral.
The house had been left to her many years ago, but she had never done anything to it. Unaffected by the many artistic and other crazes which had swept over the country since then, it remained a strange mixture of beauty and ugliness. Miss Forsyth loved the beauty of her house, and she put up with what ugliness there was because of the major part of her income, which was not very large, had to be spent, according to her theory of life, on those less fortunate than herself.
At the present moment all her best rooms, those rooms which overlooked her beloved cathedral, had been given up by her to a rather fretful-natured and very dissatisfied Belgian family, and so she had taken up her quarters on the darker and colder side of her house, that which overlooked the street.
It was there, in a severe-looking study on the ground floor, that Mrs.
Otway found her this evening.
As her visitor was ushered in by the cross-looking old servant who was popularly supposed to be the only person of whom Miss Forsyth stood in fear, she got up and came forward, a very kindly, welcoming look on her plain face.
"Well, Mary," she said, "what"s the matter now? Mrs. Purlock drunk again, eh?"
"Well, yes--as a matter of fact the poor woman was quite drunk this morning! But I"ve really come to know if you can spare me to-morrow afternoon. I want to go to London on business. I was also wondering if you know of any nice quiet hotel or lodging near Piccadilly--I should prefer a lodging--where I could spent two nights?"
"Near Piccadilly? Yes, of course I do--in Half-Moon Street. I"ll engage two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can"t you go up by that nice early morning train, my dear?"
Mrs. Otway shook her head. "No, I can"t possibly get away before the afternoon. You see I must look after Mrs. Purlock. She got into rather bad trouble this morning. And oh, Miss Forsyth, I"m so _sorry_ for her!
She believes her two boys are being starved to death in Germany.
Unfortunately she knows that woman whose husband signed his letter "Your loving Jack Starving." It"s thoroughly upset Mrs. Purlock, and if, as they all say, drink drowns thought and makes one feel happy, can we wonder at all the drinking that goes on just now? But I"m going to try to-morrow morning to arrange for her to go away to a sister--a very sensible, nice woman she seems, who certainly won"t let her do anything of the sort."
"Surely you"re rather inconsistent?" said Miss Forsyth briskly. "You spoke only a minute ago as if you almost approved of drunkenness," but there was an intelligent twinkle in her eye.
Mrs. Otway smiled, but it was a very sad smile. "You know quite well, dear Miss Forsyth, that I didn"t mean _that_! Of course I don"t approve, I only meant that--that I understand." She waited a moment, and then added, quietly, and with a little sigh, "So you see I can"t go up to town to-morrow morning. What I want to do there will wait quite well till the afternoon."
Miss Forsyth accompanied her visitor into the hall--the old eighteenth-century hall which was so exquisitely proportioned, but the walls of which were covered with the monstrously ugly mid-Victorian marble paper she much disliked, but never felt she could afford to change as long as it still looked so irritatingly "good" and clean. She opened the front door on to the empty, darkened street; and then, to Mrs. Otway"s great surprise, she suddenly bent forward and kissed her warmly.
"Well, my dear," she exclaimed, "I"m glad to have seen you even for a moment, and I hope your business, whatever it be, will be successful. I want to tell you something, here and now, which I"ve never said to you yet, long as we"ve known one another!"
"Yes, Miss Forsyth?" Mrs. Otway looked up surprised--perhaps a little apprehensive as to what was coming.
"I want to tell you, Mary, that to my mind you belong to the very small number of people, of my acquaintance at any rate, who shall see G.o.d."
Mrs. Otway was startled and touched by the other"s words, and yet, "I don"t quite know what you mean?" she faltered--and she really didn"t.
"Don"t you?" said Miss Forsyth drily. "Well, I think Mrs. Purlock, and a good many other unhappy women in Witanbury, could tell you."
Late in the next afternoon, after leaving the little luggage she had brought with her at the old-fashioned lodgings where she found that Miss Forsyth had made careful arrangements for her comfort, even to ordering what she should have for dinner, Mrs. Otway made her way, on foot, into Piccadilly, and thence into quiet Arlington Street.
There it was very dark--too dark to see the numbers on the doors of the great houses which loomed up to her right.
Bewildered and oppressed, she touched a pa.s.ser-by on the arm. "Could you tell me," she said, "which is No. 20?" And he, with the curious inability of the average Londoner to tell the truth or to acknowledge ignorance in such a case, at once promptly answered, "Yes, miss. It"s that big house standing back here, in the courtyard."
She walked through the gate nearest to her, and so up to a portico.
Then, after waiting for a moment, she rang the bell.
The moments slipped by. She waited full five minutes, and then rang again. At last the door opened.
"Is this the place," she said falteringly, "where one can make inquiries as to the prisoners of war in Germany?" And the person who opened the door replied curtly, "No, it"s next door to the right. A lot of people makes that mistake. Luckily the family are away just now--or it would be even a greater botheration than it is!"
Sick at heart, she turned and walked around the paved courtyard till she reached the street. Then she turned to her right. A door flush on the street was hospitably open, throwing out bright shafts of light into the darkness. Could it be--she hoped it was--here?
For a moment she stood hesitating in the threshold. The large hall was brilliantly lit up, and at a table there sat a happy-faced, busy-looking little Boy Scout. He, surely, would not repulse her? Gathering courage she walked up to him.
"Is this the place," she asked, "where one makes inquiries about prisoners of war?"
He jumped up and saluted. "Yes, madam," he said civilly. "You"ve only got to go up those stairs and then round the top, straight along. There are plenty of ladies up there to show you the way."
As she walked towards the great staircase, and as her eyes fell on a large panoramic oil painting of a review held in a historic English park a hundred years before, she remembered that it was here, in this very house, that she had come to a great political reception more than twenty years ago--in fact just after her return from Germany. She had been taken to it by James Hayley"s parents, and she, the happy, eager girl, had enjoyed every moment of what she had heard with indignant surprise some one describe as a boring function.
As she began walking up the staircase, there rose before her a vision of what had been to her so delightful and brilliant a scene--the women in evening dress and splendid jewels; the men, many of them in uniform or court dress; all talking and smiling to one another as they slowly made their way up the wide, easy steps.
She remembered with what curiosity and admiration she had looked at the figure of her host. There he had stood, a commanding, powerful, slightly stooping figure, welcoming his guests. For a moment she had looked up into his bearded face, and met his heavy-lidded eyes resting on her bright young face, with a half-smile of indulgent amus.e.m.e.nt at her look of radiant interest and happiness.
This vivid recollection of that long-forgotten Victorian "crush" had a good effect on Mary Otway. It calmed her nervous tremor, and made her feel, in a curious sense, at home in that great London house.
Running round the top of the staircase was a narrow way where girls sitting at typewriters were busily working. But they had all kind, intelligent faces, and they all seemed anxious to help and speed her on her way.
"Mrs. Vereker? Oh yes, you"ll find her at once if you go along that gallery and open the door at the end."
She walked through into a vast room where a domed and painted ceiling now looked down on a very curious scene. With the exception of some large straight settees, all the furniture which had once been in this great reception-room had been cleared away. In its place were large office tables, plain wooden chairs, and wire baskets piled high with letters and memoranda. The dozen or so people there were all intent on work of some sort, and though now and again some one got up and walked across to ask a question of a colleague, there was very little coming or going. Personal inquirers generally came early in the day.
As she stood just inside the door, Mary Otway knew that it was here, twenty years ago, that she had seen the princ.i.p.al guests gathered together. She recalled the intense interest, the awe, the sympathy with which she had looked at one figure in that vanished throng. It had been the figure of a woman dressed in the deep mourning of a German widow, the severity of the costume lightened only by the beautiful Orders pinned on the breast.
At the time she, the girl of that far-off day, had only just come back from Germany, and the Imperial tragedy, which had as central figure one so n.o.ble and so selfless, had moved her eager young heart very deeply.
She remembered how hurt she had felt at hearing her cousin mutter to his wife, "I"m sorry she is here. She oughtn"t to have come to this kind of thing. Royalties, especially foreign Royalties, should have no politics." And with what satisfaction she had heard Mrs. Hayley"s spirited rejoinder: "What nonsense! She hasn"t come because it"s political, but because it"s English. She loves England, and everything to do with England!"
The vision faded, and she walked forward into the strangely changed room.
"Can I speak to Mrs. Vereker?" she asked, timidly addressing one of the ladies nearest the door. Yet it was with unacknowledged relief that she received the answer: "I"m so sorry, but Mrs. Vereker isn"t here. She left early this afternoon. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want to make inquiries about a prisoner?"
And then, as Mrs. Otway said, "Yes," the speaker went on quickly, "I think I shall do just as well if you will kindly give me the particulars. Let us come over here and sit down; then we shan"t be disturbed."
Mrs. Otway looked up gratefully into the kind face of the woman speaking to her. It was a comfort to know that she was going to tell her private concerns to a stranger, and not to the sister of an acquaintance living at Witanbury.