"But surely the fleet"s there to prevent that!" said Mrs. Otway. She was surprised that so sensible a man as Major Guthrie--her opinion of him had gone up very much this last week--should imagine such a thing as that a landing by the Germans on the English coast was possible.
"Oh, but he says there are at least a dozen schemes of English invasion pigeonholed in the German War Office, and by now they"ve doubtless had them all out and examined them. He has always said there is a very good landing-place within twenty miles of here--a place Napoleon selected!"
A pleasant interlude was provided by tea, and as Mrs. Guthrie, her old hand shaking a little, poured out a delicious cup for her visitor, and pressed on her a specially nice home-made cake, Mrs. Otway began to think that in the past she had perhaps misjudged Major Guthrie"s agreeable, lively mother.
Suddenly Mrs. Guthrie fixed on her visitor the penetrating blue eyes which were so like those of her son, and which were indeed the only feature of her very handsome face she had transmitted to her only child.
"I think you know my son very well?" she observed suavely.
Rather to her own surprise, Mrs. Otway grew a little pink. "Yes," she said. "Major Guthrie and I are very good friends. He has sometimes been most kind in giving me advice about my money matters."
"Ah, well, he does that to a good many people. You"d be amused to know how often he"s asked to be trustee to a marriage settlement, and so on.
But I"ve lately supposed, Mrs. Otway, that Alick has made a kind of--well, what shall I say?--a kind of sister of you. He seems so fond of your girl, too; he always _has_ liked young people."
"Yes, that"s very true," said Mrs. Otway eagerly. "Major Guthrie has always been most kind to Rose." And then she smiled happily, and added, as if to herself, "Most people are."
Somehow this irritated the old lady. "I don"t want to pry into anybody"s secrets," she said--"least of all, my son"s. But I _should_ like to be so far frank with you as to ask you if Alick has ever talked to you of the Trepells?"
"The Trepells?" repeated Mrs. Otway slowly. "No, I don"t think so. But wait a moment--are they the people with whom he sometimes goes and stays in Suss.e.x?"
"Yes; he stayed with them just after Christmas. Then he _has_ talked to you of them?"
"I don"t think he"s ever exactly talked of them," answered Mrs. Otway.
She was trying to remember what it was that Major Guthrie had said.
Wasn"t it something implying that he was going there to please his mother--that he would far rather stay at home? But she naturally did not put into words this vague recollection of what he had said about these--yes, these Trepells. "It"s an odd name, and yet it seems familiar to me," she said hesitatingly.
"It"s familiar to you because they are the owners of the celebrated "Trepell"s Polish,"" said the old lady rather sharply. "But they"re exceedingly nice people. And it"s my impression that Alick is thinking very seriously of the elder daughter. There are only two daughters--nice, old-fashioned girls, brought up by a nice, old-fashioned mother. The mother was the younger daughter of Lord Dunsmuir, and the Dunsmuirs were friends of the Guthries--I mean of my husband"s people--since the year one. Their London house is in Grosvenor Square. When I call Maisie Trepell a girl, I do not mean that she is so very much younger than my son as to make the thought of such a marriage absurd. She is nearer thirty than twenty, and he is forty-six."
"Is she the young lady who came to stay with you some time ago?" asked Mrs. Otway.
She was so much surprised, in a sense so much disturbed, by this unexpected confidence that she really hardly knew what she was saying.
She had never thought of Major Guthrie as a marrying man. For one thing, she had frequently had occasion to see him, not only with her own daughter, but with other girls, and he had certainly never paid them any special attention. But now she did remember vividly the fact that a young lady had come and paid quite a long visit here before Easter. But she remembered also that Major Guthrie had been away at the time.
"Yes, Maisie came for ten days. Unfortunately, Alick had to go away before she left, for he had taken an early spring fishing with a friend.
But I thought--in fact, I rather hoped at the time--that he was very much disappointed."
"Yes, he naturally must have been, if what you say is----" and then she stopped short, for she did not like to say "if what you say is true," so "if what you say is likely to come to pa.s.s," she ended vaguely.
"I hope it will come to pa.s.s." Mrs. Guthrie spoke very seriously, and once more she fixed her deep blue eyes on her visitor"s face. "I"m seventy-one, not very old as people count age nowadays, but still I"ve never been a strong woman, and I have a weak heart. I should not like to leave my son to a lonely life and to a lonely old age. He"s very reserved--he hasn"t made many friends in his long life. And I thought it possible he might have confided to you rather than to me."
"No, he never spoke of the matter to me at all; in fact, we have never even discussed the idea of his marrying," said Mrs. Otway slowly.
"Well, forget what I"ve said!"
But Mrs. Guthrie"s visitor went on, a little breathlessly and impulsively: "I quite understand how you feel about Major Guthrie, and I daresay he would be happier married. Most people are, I think."
She got up; it was nearly six--time for her to be starting on her walk back to Witanbury.
Obeying a sudden impulse, she bent down and kissed the old lady good-bye. There was no guile, no taint of suspiciousness, in Mary Otway"s nature.
Mrs. Guthrie had the grace to feel a little ashamed.
"I hope you"ll come again soon, my dear." She was surprised to feel how smooth and how young was the texture of Mrs. Otway"s soft, generously-lipped mouth and rounded cheek.
There rose a feeling of real regret in her cynical old heart. "She likes him better than she knows, and far better than I thought she did!" she said to herself, as she watched the still light, still singularly graceful-looking figure hurrying away towards the house.
As for Mrs. Otway, she felt oppressed, and yes, a little pained, by the old lady"s confidence. That what she had just been told might not be true did not occur to her. What more natural than that Major Guthrie should like a nice girl--one, too, who was, it seemed, half Scotch? The Trepells were probably in London even now--she had seen it mentioned in a paper that every one was still staying on in town. If so, Major Guthrie was doubtless constantly in their company; and the letter she had so--well, not exactly longed for, but certainly expected, might even now be lying on the table in the hall of the Trellis House, informing her of his engagement!
She remembered now what she had heard of the Trepells. It concerned the great, the almost limitless, wealth brought in by their wonderful polish. She found it difficult to think of Major Guthrie as a very rich man. Of course, he would always remain, what he was now, a quiet, una.s.suming gentleman; but all the same, she, Mary Otway, did feel that somehow this piece of news made it impossible for her to accept the loan he had so kindly and so delicately forced on her.
Mrs. Otway had a lively, a too lively, imagination, and it seemed to her as if it was Miss Trepell"s money which lay in the envelope now locked away in her writing-table drawer. Indeed, had she known exactly where Major Guthrie was just now, she would have returned it to him. But supposing he had already started for France, and the registered letter came back and was opened by his mother--how dreadful that would be!
When she reached home, and walked through into her cool, quiet house, Mrs. Otway was quite surprised to find that there was no letter from Major Guthrie lying for her on the hall table.
CHAPTER XV
Rose Otway ran up to her room and locked the door. She had fled there to read her first love-letter.
"MY DARLING ROSE,--This is only to tell you that I love you. I have been writing letters to you in my heart ever since I went away. But this is the first moment I have been able to put one down on paper. Father and mother never leave me--that sounds absurd, but it"s true. If father isn"t there, then mother is.
Mother comes into my room after I am in bed, and tucks me up, just as she used to do when I was a little boy.
"It"s a great rush, for what I have so longed for is going to happen, so you must not be surprised if you do not have another letter from me for some time. But you will know, my darling love, that I am thinking of you all the time. I am so happy, Rose--I feel as if G.o.d has given me everything I ever wanted all at once.
"Your own devoted
"JERVIS."
And then there was a funny little postscript, which made her smile through her tears: "You will think this letter all my--"I." But that doesn"t really matter now, as you and I are one!"
Rose soon learnt her first love-letter by heart. She made a little silk envelope for it, and wore it on her heart. It was like a bit of Jervis himself--direct, simple, telling her all she wanted to know, yet leaving much unsaid. Rose had once been shown a love-letter in which the word "kiss" occurred thirty-four times. She was glad that there was nothing of that sort in Jervis"s letter, and yet she longed with a piteous, aching longing to feel once more his arms clasping her close, his lips trembling on hers....
At last her mother asked her casually, "Has Jervis Blake written to you, my darling?" And she said, "Yes, mother; once. I think he"s busy, getting his outfit."
"Ah, well, they won"t think of sending out a boy as young as that, even if Major Guthrie was right in thinking our Army is going to France." And Rose to that had made no answer. She was convinced that Jervis was going on active service. There was one sentence in his letter which could mean nothing else.
Life in Witanbury, after that first week of war, settled down much as before. There was a general impression that everything was going very well. The brave little Belgians were defending their country with skill and tenacity, and the German Army was being "held up."
The Close was full of mild amateur strategists, headed by the Dean himself. Great as had been, and was still, his admiration for Germany, Dr. Haworth was of course an Englishman first; and every day, when opening his morning paper, he expected to learn that there had been another Trafalgar. He felt certain that the German Fleet was sure to make, as he expressed it, "a dash for it." Germany was too gallant a nation, and the Germans were too proud of their fleet, to keep their fighting ships in harbour. The Dean of Witanbury, like the vast majority of his countrymen and countrywomen, still regarded War as a great game governed by certain well-known rules which both sides, as a matter of course, would follow and abide by.
The famous cathedral city was doing "quite nicely" in the matter of recruiting. And the largest local employer of labour, a man who owned a group of ladies" high-grade boot and shoe factories, generously decided that he would permit ten per cent. of those of his men who were of military age to enlist; he actually promised as well to keep their places open, and to give their wives, or their mothers, as the case might be, half wages for the first six months of war.
A good many people felt aggrieved when it became known that Lady Bethune was not going to give her usual August garden party. She evidently did not hold with the excellent suggestion that England should now take as her motto "Business as Usual." True, a garden-party is not exactly business--still, it is one of those pleasures which the great ladies of a country neighbourhood find it hard to distinguish from duties.