Good Old Anna Part 21

And then, when at the end of the service Mrs. Otway and Rose were pa.s.sing through the porch, Mrs. Otway felt herself touched on the arm.

She turned round quickly to find Mrs. Haworth close to her.

"I've been wondering if Rose would come back with me and see Edith? I'm sorry to say the poor child isn't at all well to-day. And so we persuaded her to stay in bed. You see"--she lowered her voice, and that though there was no one listening to them--"you see, we hear privately that the cavalry were very heavily engaged last Wednesday, and that the casualties have been terribly heavy. My poor child says very little, but it's evident that she's so miserably anxious that she can think of nothing else. Her father thinks she's fretting because we would not allow--or perhaps I ought to say we discouraged the idea of--a hasty marriage. I feel sure it would do Edith good to see some one, especially a dear little friend like Rose, who has no connection with the Army, and who can look at things in a sensible, normal manner."

And so mother and daughter, for an hour, went their different ways, and Mrs. Otway, as she walked home alone, told herself that anxiety became Mrs. Haworth, that it rendered the Dean's wife less brusque, and made her pleasanter and kindlier in manner. Poor Edith was her ewe lamb, the prettiest of the daughters whom she had started so successfully out into the world, and the one who was going to make, from a worldly point of view, the best marriage. Yes, it would indeed be a dreadful thing if anything happened to Sir Hugh Severn.

Casualties? What an odd, sinister word! One with which it was difficult to become familiar. But it was evidently the official word. Not for the first time she reminded herself of the exact words the Prime Minister in the House of Commons had used. They had been "Our casualties are very heavy, though the exact numbers are not yet known." Mrs. Otway wondered uneasily when they would become known--how soon, that is, a mother, a sister, a lover, and yes, a friend, would learn that the man who was beloved, cherished, or close and dear as a friend may be, had become--what was the horrible word?--a casualty.

She walked through into her peaceful, pretty house. Unless the household were all out, the front door was never locked, for there was nothing to steal, and no secrets to pry out, in the Trellis House. And then, on the hall table, she saw the belated evening paper which she had missed this morning, and two or three letters. Taking up the paper and the letters, she went straight through into the garden. It would be pleasanter to read out there than indoors.

With a restful feeling that no one was likely to come in and disturb her yet awhile, she sat down in the basket-chair which had already been put out by her thoughtful old Anna. And then, quite suddenly, she caught sight of the middle letter of the three she had gathered up in such careless haste. It was an odd-looking envelope, of thin, common paper covered with pale blue lines; but it bore her address written in Major Guthrie's clear, small, familiar handwriting, and on the right-hand corner was the usual familiar penny stamp. That stamp was, of course, a positive proof that he was home again.

For quite a minute she simply held the envelope in her hand. She felt so relieved, and yes, so ridiculously happy, that after the first moment of heartfelt joy there came a pang of compunction. It was wrong, it was unnatural, that the safety of _one_ human being should so affect her.

She was glad that this curious revulsion of feeling, this pa.s.sing from gloom and despondency to unreasoning peace and joy, should have taken place when she was by herself. She would have been ashamed that Rose should have witnessed it.

And then, with a certain deliberation, she opened the envelope, and drew out the oddly-shaped piece of paper it contained.

This is what she read:

"FRANCE,

"_Wednesday morning._

"Every letter sent by the usual channel is read and, very properly, censored. I do not choose that this letter should be seen by any eyes but mine and yours. I have therefore asked, and received, permission to send this by an old friend who is leaving for England with despatches.

"The work has been rather heavy. I have had very little sleep since Sunday, so you must forgive any confusion of thought or unsuitable expressions used by me to you. Unfortunately I have lost my kit, but the old woman in whose cottage I am resting for an hour has good-naturedly provided me with paper and envelopes. Luckily I managed to keep my fountain-pen.

"I wish to tell you now what I have long desired to tell you--that I love you--that it has long been my greatest, nay, my only wish, that you should become my wife. Sometimes, lately, I have thought that I might persuade you to let me love you.

"In so thinking I may have been a presumptuous fool. Be that as it may, I want to tell you that our friendship has meant a very great deal to me; that without it I should have been, during the last four years, a most unhappy man.

"And now I must close this hurriedly written and poorly expressed letter. It does not say a tenth--nay, it does not say a thousandth part of what I would fain say. But let me, for the first, and perhaps for the last time, call you my dearest."

Then followed his initials "A. G.," and a postscript: "As to what has been happening here, I will only quote to you Napier's grand words: 'Then was seen with what majesty the British soldier fights.'"

Mrs. Otway read the letter right through twice. Then, slowly, deliberately, she folded it up and put it back in its envelope.

Uncertainly she looked at her little silk handbag. No, she could not put it there, where she kept her purse, her engagement book, her handkerchief. For the moment, at any rate, it would be safest elsewhere.

With a quick furtive movement she thrust it into her bodice, close to her beating heart.

Mrs. Otway looked up to a sudden sight of Rose--of Rose unusually agitated.

"Oh, mother," she cried, "such a strange, dreadful, extraordinary thing has happened! Old Mrs. Guthrie is dead. The butler telephoned to the Deanery, and he seems in a dreadful state of mind. Mrs. Haworth says she can't possibly go out there this morning, and they were wondering whether you would mind going. The Dean says he was out there only yesterday, and that Mrs. Guthrie spoke as if you were one of her dearest friends. Wasn't that strange?"

Rose looked very much shocked and distressed--curiously so, considering how little she had known Mrs. Guthrie. But there is something awe-inspiring to a young girl in the sudden death of even an old person.

Only three days ago Mrs. Guthrie had entertained Rose with an amusing account of her first ball--a ball given at the Irish Viceregal Court in the days when, as the speaker had significantly put it, it really _was_ a Court in Dublin. And when Rose and her mother had said good-bye, she had pressed them to come again soon; while to the girl: "I don't often see anything so fresh and pretty as you are, my dear!" she had exclaimed.

Mrs. Otway heard Rose's news with no sense of surprise. She felt as if she were living in a dream--a dream which was at once poignantly sad and yet exquisitely, unbelievably happy. "I have been there several times lately," she said, in a low voice, "and I had grown quite fond of her.

Of course I'll go. Will you telephone for a fly? I'd rather be alone there, my dear."

Rose lingered on in the garden for a moment. Then she said slowly, reluctantly: "And mother? I'm afraid there's rather bad news of Major Guthrie. It came last night, before Mrs. Guthrie went to bed. The butler says she took it very bravely and quietly, but I suppose it was that which--which brought about her death."

"What _is_ the news?"

Mrs. Otway's dream-impression vanished. She got up from the basket-chair in which she had been sitting, and her voice to herself sounded strangely loud and unregulated.

"What is it, Rose? Why don't you tell me? Has he been killed?"

"Oh, no--it's not as bad as that! Oh! mother, don't look so unhappy--it's only that he's 'wounded and missing.'"

CHAPTER XVIII

"No, ma'am, there was nothing, ma'am, to act, so to speak, in the nature of a warning. Mrs. Guthrie had much enjoyed your visit, and, if I may say so, ma'am, the visit of your young lady, last Thursday. Yesterday she was more cheerful-like than usual, talking a good bit about the Russians. She said that their coming to our help just now in the way they had done had quite reconciled her to them."

Howse, Major Guthrie's butler, his one-time soldier-servant, was speaking. By his side was Mrs. Guthrie's elderly maid, Ponting. Mrs.

Otway was standing opposite to them, and they were all three in the middle of the pretty, cheerful morning-room, where it seemed but a few hours ago since she and her daughter had sat with the old lady.

With the mingled pomp, enjoyment, and grief which the presence of death creates in a certain type of mind, Howse went on speaking: "She made quite a hearty tea for her--two bits of bread and b.u.t.ter, and a little piece of tea-cake. And then for her supper she had a sweetbread--a sweetbread and bacon. It's a comfort to Cook now, ma'am, to remember as how Mrs. Guthrie sent her a message, saying how nicely she thought the bacon had been done. Mrs. Guthrie always liked the bacon to be very dry and curly, ma'am."

He stopped for a moment, and Mrs. Otway's eyes filled with tears for the first time.

On entering the house, she had at once been shown the War Office telegram stating that Major Guthrie was wounded and missing, and she had glanced over it with shuddering distress and pain, while her brain kept repeating "wounded and missing--wounded and missing." What exactly did those sinister words signify? How, if he was missing, could they know he was wounded? How, if he had been wounded, could he be missing?

But soon she had been forced to command her thoughts, and to listen, with an outward air of calmness and interest, to this detailed account of the poor old lady's last hours.

With unconscious gusto, Howse again took up the sad tale, while the maid stood by, with reddened eyelids, ready to echo and to supplement his narrative.

"Perhaps Mrs. Guthrie was not quite as well as she seemed to be, ma'am, for she wouldn't take any dessert, and after she had finished her dinner she didn't seem to want to sit up for a while, as she sometimes did.

When she became so infirm, a matter of two years ago, the Major arranged that his study should be turned into a bedroom for her, ma'am, so we wheeled her in there after dinner."

After a pause, he went on with an added touch of gloom: "She gazed her last upon the dining-room, and on this 'ere little room, which was, so to speak, ma'am, her favourite sitting-room. Isn't that so, Ponting?"

The maid nodded, and Howse said sadly: "Ponting will now tell you what happened after that, ma'am."

Ponting waited a moment, and then began: "My mistress didn't seem inclined to go to bed at once, so I settled her down nicely and comfortably with her reading-lamp and a copy of _The World_ newspaper.

She found the papers very dull lately, poor old lady, for you see, ma'am, there was nothing in them but things about the war, and she didn't much care for that. But she can't have been reading more than five minutes when there came the telegram."

Howse held up his hand, for it was here that he again came on the scene.

"The minute the messenger boy handed me the envelope," he exclaimed, "I says to myself, 'That's bad news--bad news of the Major!' I sorely felt tempted to open it. But there! I knew if I did so it would anger Mrs.

Guthrie. She was a lady, ma'am, who always knew her own mind. It wasn't even addressed 'Guthrie,' you see, but 'Mrs. Guthrie,' as plain as plain could be. The boy 'ad brought it to the front door, and as we was having our supper I didn't want to disturb Ponting. So I just walked along to Mrs. Guthrie's bedroom, and knocked. She calls out, 'Come in!' And I answers, 'There's a telegram for you, ma'am. Would you like me to send Ponting in with it?' And she calls out, 'No, Howse. Bring it in yourself.'

"I shall never forget seeing her open it, poor old lady. She did it quite deliberate-like; then, after just reading it over, she looked up straight at me. 'I know you'll be sorry to hear, Howse, as how Major Guthrie is wounded and missing,' she said, and then, 'I need not tell you, who are an old soldier, Howse, that such are the fortunes of war.'

Those, ma'am, were her exact words. Of course I explained how sorry I was, and I did my very best to hide from her how bad I took the news to be. 'I think I would like to be alone now, Howse,' she says, 'just for a little while.' And then, 'We must hope for better news in the morning.'

I asked her, 'Would you like me to send Ponting up to you, ma'am?' But she shook her head: 'No, Howse, I would rather be by myself. I will ring when I require Ponting. I do not feel as if I should care to go to bed just yet,' she says quite firmly.

"Well, ma'am, we had of course to obey her orders, but we all felt very uncomfortable. And as a matter of fact in about half an hour Ponting did make an excuse to go into the room"--he looked at the woman by his side.