Good Old Anna Part 32

It would be doing Anna a great injustice to suppose that her sad thoughts were all of herself on this mournful New Year's Day of 1915.

Her sentimental heart was pierced with pain every time she looked into the face of her beloved nursling. Not that she often had an opportunity of looking into Rose's face, for Mrs. Jervis Blake (never would Anna get used to that name!) only came home to sleep. She almost always stayed and had supper with the Robeys, then she would rush home for the night, and after an early breakfast--during which, to Anna's thinking, she did not eat nearly enough--be off again to spend with her bridegroom whatever time she was not devoting to war work under Miss Forsyth.

Anna had been curious to know how soon Mr. Blake would be able to walk, but in answer to a very simple, affectionate question, the bride, who had just then been looking so happy--as radiant, indeed, as a German bride looks within a month of her marriage day--had burst into tears, and said hurriedly, "Oh, it won't be very long now, dear Anna, but I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

Yet another thing added to Anna's deep depression. It seemed to her that Alfred Head no longer enjoyed her company as he used to do. He had ordained that they must always speak English, even when alone; and to her mingled anger and surprise he had told her plainly that, in spite of his solemn a.s.surance, he neither could nor would pay her the fifty s.h.i.+llings which was now owing to her in connection with that little secret matter arranged between herself and Willi three years ago.

About this question of the fifty s.h.i.+llings Mr. Head had behaved very strangely and rudely indeed. He had actually tried to persuade her _that he knew nothing of it_--that it was not he but someone else who had given her the five half-sovereigns on that evening of the 4th of August!

Then when she, righteously indignant, had forced the reluctant memory upon him, he had explained that everything was now different, and that the pa.s.sing of this money from him to her might involve them both in serious trouble.

Anna had never heard so flimsy an excuse. She felt sure that he was keeping her out of the money due to her because business was not quite so flouris.h.i.+ng now as it had been.

CHAPTER XXVII

The days went on, and to Mrs. Otway's surprise and bitter disappointment, there came no answer to the letter she had written to the German surgeon. She had felt so sure that he would write again very soon--if not exactly by return, then within a week or ten days.

The only people she told were Major Guthrie's solicitor, Robert Allen, and her daughter. But though both, in their different ways, sympathised with her deeply, neither of them could do anything to help her. Rather against her will, Mr. Allen wrote and informed his client of Mrs.

Guthrie's death, asking for instructions concerning certain urgent business matters. But even that letter did not draw any answer from the Field Lazarette.

As for Rose, she soon gave up asking if another letter had come, and to Mrs. Otway's sore heart it was as if the girl, increasingly absorbed in her own not always easy problem of keeping Jervis happy under the painful handicap of his present invalid condition, had no time to spare for that of anyone else. Poor Rose often felt that she would give, as runs the old saying, anything in the world to have her man to herself, as a cottage wife would have had hers by now--with no nurses, no friends, no doctor even, save perhaps for a very occasional visit.

But Mrs. Otway was not fair to Rose; in never mentioning Major Guthrie and the terrible misfortune which had befallen him, she was treating her mother as she herself would have wished to be treated in a like case.

A great trouble overshadows all little troubles. One disagreeable incident which, had life been normal with her then, would have much irritated and annoyed the mistress of the Trellis House, was the arrival of a curt notice stating that her telephone was to be disconnected, owing to the fact that there resided in her house an enemy alien in the person of one Anna Bauer.

Now the telephone had never been as necessary to Mrs. Otway as it was to many of her acquaintances, but lately, since her life had become so lonely, she had fallen into the way of talking over it each morning with Miss Forsyth.

Miss Forsyth, whom the people of Witanbury thought so absurdly old-fas.h.i.+oned, had been one of the very first telephone subscribers in Witanbury. But she had sternly set her face against its frivolous and extravagant use. This being so, it was a little strange that she so willingly spent five minutes or more of her morning work-time in talking over it to Mrs. Otway. But Miss Forsyth had become aware that all was not well with her friend, and this seemed the only way she was able to help in a trouble or state of mental distress to which she had no clue--though sometimes a suspicion which touched on the fringe of the truth came into her mind.

During these morning talks they would sometimes discuss the War. Mrs.

Otway never spoke of the War to anyone else, for even now she could not bring herself to share the growing horror and, yes, contempt, all those about her felt for Germany. Miss Forsyth was an intelligent woman, and, as her friend knew, had sources of information denied to the amateur strategists and gossips of Witanbury Close. So it was that the forced discontinuance of the little morning talk, which so often brought comfort to Mrs. Otway's sore heart, was a real pain and loss.

She had made a spirited protest, pointing out that all her neighbours had the telephone, and that by merely asking any of them to allow her servant to send a message, she could circ.u.mvent this, to her, absurd and unnecessary rule. But her protest had only brought a formal acknowledgment, and that very day her telephone had been disconnected.

She would have been astonished, even now, had she known with what ever-swelling suspicion some of her neighbours and acquaintances regarded her.

The great rolling uplands round the city were now covered with vast camps, and Witanbury every day was full of soldiers; there was not a family in the Close, and scarce a family in the town, but had more than one near and dear son, husband, brother, lover, in the New Armies, if not yet--as in very many cases--already out at the Front.

In spite of what was still described as Rose Otway's "romantic marriage," Mrs. Otway was regarded as having no connection with the Army, and her old affection for Germany and the Germans was resented, as also the outstanding fact that she still retained in her service an enemy alien.

And, as is almost always the case, there was some ground for this feeling, for it was true that the mistress of the Trellis House took very little interest in the course of the great struggle which was going on in France and in Flanders. She glanced over the paper each morning, and often a name seen in the casualty lists brought her the painful task of writing a letter of condolence to some old friend or acquaintance. But she did not care, as did all the people around her, to talk about the War. It had brought to her, personally, too much hidden pain. How surprised her critics would have been had an angel, or some equally credible witness informed them that of all the women of their acquaintance there was no one whose life had been more altered or affected by the War than Mary Otway's!

She was too unhappy to care much what those about her thought of her.

Even so, it did hurt her when she came, slowly, to realise that the Robeys and Mrs. Haworth, who were after all the most intimate of her neighbours in the Close, regarded with surprise, and yes, indignation, what they imagined to be an unpatriotic disinclination on her part to follow intelligently the march of events.

It took her longer to find out that the continued presence of her good old Anna at the Trellis House was rousing a certain amount of disagreeable comment. At first no one had thought it in the least strange that Anna stayed on with her, but now, occasionally, someone said a word indicative of surprise that there should be a German woman living in Witanbury Close.

But what were these foolish, ignorant criticisms but tiny pin-p.r.i.c.ks compared with the hidden wound in her heart? The news for which she craved was not news of victory from the Front, but news that at last the negotiations now in progress for the exchange of disabled prisoners of war had been successful. That news, however, seemed as if it would never come.

In one thing Mrs. Otway was fortunate. There was plenty of hard work to do that winter in Witanbury, and, in spite of her supposed lack of interest in the War, Mrs. Otway had a wonderful way with soldiers' wives and mothers, so much so that in time all the more difficult cases were handed over to her.

"This is to warn you that you are being watched. A friend of England is keeping an eye on you, not ostentatiously, but none the less very closely. Dismiss the German woman who has already been too long in your employment. England can take no risks."

Mrs. Otway had come home, after a long afternoon of visiting, and found this anonymous letter waiting for her. On the envelope her name and address were inscribed in large capitals.

She stared down at the dictatorial message--written of course in a disguised hand--with mingled disgust and amus.e.m.e.nt. Then, suddenly, she made up her mind to show it to Miss Forsyth before burning it.

Tired though she was, she left the house again, and slowly walked round to see her old friend.

Miss Forsyth smiled over it, but she also frowned, and she frowned more than she smiled when Mrs. Otway exclaimed, "Did you ever see such an extraordinary thing?"

"It is not so extraordinary as you think, Mary! I must honestly tell you that in my opinion the writer of this anonymous letter is right in believing that there is a good deal of spying and of conveying valuable information to the enemy."

She waited a moment, and then went on, deliberately: "I suppose you are quite sure of your old Anna, my dear? Used she not to be in very close touch with Berlin? Has she broken all that off since the War began?"

"Indeed she has!" cried Mrs. Otway eagerly. She was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. Was it conceivable that Miss Forsyth must be numbered henceforth among the spy maniacs of whom she knew there were a good many in Witanbury? "She made every kind of effort early in the War--for the matter of that I did what I could to help her--to get into touch with her relations there, for she was very anxious and miserable about them. But she failed--absolutely failed!"

"And how about her German friends in England? I suppose she has German friends?"

"To the best of my belief, she hasn't a single German acquaintance!"

exclaimed Anna's mistress confidently. "She used to know those unfortunate Frohlings rather well, but, as I daresay you know, they left Witanbury quite early in the War--in fact during the first week of war.

And she certainly hasn't heard from them. I asked her if she had, some time ago. Dear Miss Forsyth, do believe me when I say that, apart from her very German appearance, and her funny way of talking, my poor old Anna is to all intents and purposes an Englishwoman. Why, she has lived in England twenty-two years!"

There came a very curious, dubious, hesitating expression on Miss Forsyth's face. "I daresay that what you say is true," she said at last.

"But even so, if I were you, Mary, I should show her that letter. She may be in touch with some of her own people--I mean in all innocence. It would be very disagreeable for you if such turned out to be the case. I happen to know that Witanbury is believed to be--well, what shall I call it?--a spy centre for this part of England. I don't know that it's so much the city, as the neighbourhood. You see, we're not so very far away from one of the beaches which it is thought the Germans, if they did try a landing, would choose as a good place."

Mrs. Otway's extreme astonishment showed in her face.

"You know I never gossip, Mary, so you may take what I say as being true. But I beg you to keep it to yourself. Don't even tell Rose, or the Dean. My information does not come from anyone here, in Witanbury. It comes from London."

Straws show the way the wind is blowing. The anonymous letter sent to the Trellis House was one straw; another was the revelation made to Mrs.

Otway by Miss Forsyth.

The wind indicated by these two small straws suddenly developed, on the 25th of March, into a hurricane. Luckily it was not a hurricane which affected Mrs. Otway or her good old Anna at all directly, but it upset them both, in their several ways, very much indeed, for it took the extraordinary shape of a violent attack by a mob armed with pickaxes and crowbars on certain so-called Germans--for they were all naturalised--and their property.

A very successful recruiting meeting had been held in the Market Place.

At this meeting the local worthies had been present in force. Thus, on the platform which had been erected in front of the Council House, the Lord Lieutenant of the County, supported by many religious dignitaries, headed by the Dean, had made an excellent speech, followed by other short, stirring addresses, each a trumpet call to the patriotism of Witanbury. Not one of these speeches incited to violence in any form, but reference had naturally been made to some of the terrible things that the Germans had done in Belgium, and one speaker had made it very plain that should a German invasion take place on the British coast, the civilian population must expect that the fate of Belgium would be theirs.

The meeting had come to a peaceful end, and then, an hour later, as soon as the great personages had all gone and night had begun to fall, rioting had suddenly broken out, the rioters being led by two women, both Irish-women, whose husbands were believed to have been cruelly ill-treated when on their way to a prison camp in Germany.

The story had been published in the local paper, on the testimony of a medical orderly who had come back to England after many strange adventures. True, an allusion had been made to the matter in one of the recruiting speeches, but the speaker had not made very much of it; and though what he had said had drawn groans from his large audience, and though the words he had used undoubtedly made it more easy for the magistrate, when he came to deal with the case of these two women, to dismiss them with only a caution, yet no one could reasonably suppose that it was this which led to the riot.