While Mrs. Otway had been thinking over the now rather painful problem
of her good old Anna, the subject of her meditations, that is Anna
herself, from behind the pretty muslin curtain which hid her kitchen
from the passers-by, was peeping out anxiously on the lawn-like stretch
of green grass, bordered on two sides by high elms, which is so pleasant
a feature of Witanbury Close.
Her knitting was in her hands, for Anna's fingers were never idle, but
just now the needles were still.
When your kitchen happens to be one of the best rooms on the ground
floor, and one commanding not only the gate of your domain but the road
beyond, it becomes important that it should not be quite like other
people's kitchens. It was Mrs. Otway's pride, as well as Anna's, that at
any moment of the day a visitor who, after walking into the hall, opened
by mistake the kitchen door, would have found everything there in
exquisite order. The shelves, indeed, were worth going some way to see,
for each shelf was edged with a beautiful "Kante" or border of
crochet-work almost as fine as point lace. In fact, the kitchen of the
Trellis House was more like a stage kitchen than a kitchen in an
ordinary house, and the way in which it was kept was the more
meritorious inasmuch as Anna, even now, when she had become an old
woman, would have nothing of what is in England called "help." She had
no wish to see a charwoman in _her_ kitchen. Fortunately for her, there
lay, just off and behind the kitchen, a roomy scullery, where most of
the dirty, and what may be called the smelly, work connected with
cooking was done.
To the left of the low-ceilinged, spacious, rather dark scullery was
Anna's own bedroom. Both the scullery and the servant's room were much
older than the rest of the house, for the picturesque gabled bit of
brown and red brick building which projected into the garden, at the
back of the Trellis House, belonged to Tudor days, to those spacious
times when the great cathedral just across the green was a new pride and
joy to the good folk of Witanbury.
As Anna stood at one of the kitchen windows, peeping out at the quiet
scene outside, but not drawing aside the curtain--for that she knew was
forbidden to her, and Anna very seldom consciously did anything she knew
to be forbidden--she felt far more unhappy and far more disturbed than
did Mrs. Otway herself.
This morning's news had stirred poor old Anna--stirred her more
profoundly than even her kind mistress guessed. Mrs. Otway would have
been surprised indeed had it been revealed to her that ever since
breakfast Anna had spent a very anxious time thinking over her own
immediate future, wondering with painful indecision as to whether it
were not her duty to go back to Germany. But whereas Mrs. Otway had the
inestimable advantage of being quite sure that she knew what it was best
for Anna to do, the old German woman herself was cruelly torn between
what was due to her mistress, to her married daughter, and, yes, to
herself.
How unutterably amazed Mrs. Otway would have been this morning had she
known that more than a month ago Anna had received a word of warning
from Berlin. But so it was: her niece had written to her, "It is
believed that war this summer there is to be. Willi has been warned that
something shortly will happen."
And now, as Anna stood there anxiously peeping out at the figure of her
mistress pacing up and down under the avenue of high elms across the
green, she did not give more than a glancing thought to England's part
in the conflict, for her whole heart was absorbed in the dread knowledge
that Germany was at war with terrible, barbarous Russia, and with
prosperous, perfidious France.
England, so Anna firmly believed, had no army to speak of--no _real_
army. She remembered the day when France had declared war on Germany in
1870. How at once every street of the little town in which she had lived
had become full of soldiers--splendid, lion-hearted soldiers going off
to fight for their beloved Fatherland. Nothing of the sort had taken
place here, though Witanbury was a garrison town. The usual tradesmen,
strong, lusty young men, had called for orders that morning. They had
laughed and joked as usual. Not one of them seemed aware his country was
at war. The old German woman's lip curled disdainfully.
For the British, as a people, Anna Bauer cherished a tolerant affection
and kindly contempt. It was true that, all unknowing to herself, she
also had a great belief in British generosity and British justice. The
idea that this war, or rather the joining in of England with France
against Germany, could affect her own position or condition in England
would have seemed to her absurd.
Germany and England? A contrast indeed! In Germany her son-in-law, that
idle scamp George Pollit, would by now be marching on his way to the
French or Russian frontier. But George, being English, was quite
safe--unfortunately. The only difference the war would make to him would
be that it would provide him with an excuse for trying to get at some of
Anna's carefully-hoarded savings.
If good old Anna had a fault--and curiously enough it was one of which
her mistress was quite unaware, though Rose had sometimes uncomfortably
suspected the fact--it was a love of money.
Anna, in spite of her low wages, had saved far more than an English
servant earning twice as much would have done. Her low wage? Yes, still
low, though she had been raised four pounds a year when her mistress had
come into a better income. Before then Anna had been content with
sixteen pounds a year. She now received twenty pounds, but she was
ruefully aware that she was worth half as much again. In fact thirty
pounds a year had actually been offered to her, in a roundabout way, by
a lady who had come as a visitor to a house in the Close. But the lady,
like Anna herself, was a German; and, apart altogether from every other
consideration, including Anna's passionate love of Miss Rose, nothing
would have made her take service with a mistress of her own nationality.
"This Mrs. Hirsch me to save her money wants. Her kind I know," she
observed to the emissary who had been sent to sound her. "You can say
that Anna Bauer a good mistress has, and knows when she well suited is."
She had said nothing of the matter to Mrs. Otway, but even so she
sometimes thought of that offer, and she often felt a little sore when
she reflected on the wages some of the easy-going servants who formed
part of the larger households in the Close received from their
employers.
Yet, in this all-important matter of money a stroke of extraordinary
good luck had befallen Anna--one of those things that very seldom come
to pass in our work-a-day world. It had happened, or perhaps it would be
truer to say it had begun--for, unlike most pieces of good fortune, it
was continuous--just three years ago, in the autumn of 1911, shortly
after her return from that glorious holiday at Berlin. This secret
stroke of luck, for she kept it jealously to herself, though there was
nothing about it at all to her discredit, had now lasted for over thirty
months, and it had had the agreeable effect of greatly increasing her
powers of saving. Of saving, that is, against the day when she would go
back to Germany, and live with her niece.
Mrs. Otway would have been surprised indeed had she known that Anna not
only meant to leave the Trellis House, but that, in a quiet, reflective
kind of way, she actually looked forward to doing so. Miss Rose would
surely marry, for a good many pleasant-mannered gentlemen came and went
to the Trellis House (though none of them were as rich as Anna would
have liked one of them to be), and she herself would get past her work.
When that had come to pass she would go and live with her niece in
Berlin. She had not told her daughter of this arrangement, and it had
been spoken of by Willi and her niece more as a joke than anything else;
still, Anna generally managed to carry through what she had made up her
mind to accomplish.
But on this August morning, standing there by the kitchen window of the
Trellis House, the future was far from good old Anna's mind. Her mind
was fixed on the present. How tiresome, how foolish of England to have
mixed up with a quarrel which did not concern her! How strange that she,
Anna Bauer, in spite of that word of warning from Berlin, had suspected
nothing!
As a matter of fact Mrs. Otway had said something to her about Servia
and Austria--something, too, more in sorrow than in anger, of Germany
"rattling her sword." But she, Anna, had only heard with half an ear.
Politics were out of woman's province. But there! English ladies were
like that.
Many a time had Anna laughed aloud over the antics of the Suffragettes.
About a month ago the boy who brought the meat had given her a long
account of a riot--it had been a very little one--provoked by one such
lady madwoman in the market-place of Witanbury itself. In wise masculine
Germany the lady's relatives (for, strange to say, the Suffragette in
question had been a high-born lady) would have put her in the only
proper place for her, an idiot asylum.
Anna had been genuinely shocked and distressed on learning that her
beloved nursling, Miss Rose, secretly rather sympathised with this mad
female wish for a vote. Why, in Germany only some of the _men_ had
votes, and yet Germany was the most glorious, prosperous, and
much-to-be-feared nation in the world. "Church, Kitchen, and
Children"--that should be, and in the Fatherland still was, every true
woman's motto and province.
Anna's mind came back with a sudden jerk to this morning's surprising,
almost incredible news. Since her two ladies had gone out, she had
opened the newspapers on her kitchen table and read the words for
herself--"England Declares War on Germany." But how could England do
such a thing, when England had no Army? True, she had ships--but then so
now had Germany!
During that blissful holiday in Berlin, Anna had been persuaded to join
the German Navy League. She had not meant to keep up her subscription,
small though it was, after her return to England, but rather to her
disgust she had found that one of the few Germans she knew in Witanbury
represented the League, and that her name had been sent to him as that
of a new member. Twice he had called at the tradesmen's entrance to the
Trellis House, and had demanded the sum of one shilling from her.
To-day Anna remembered with satisfaction those payments she had grudged.
Thanks to her patriotism, and that of millions like her, Germany had now
a splendid fleet with which to withstand her enemies. She wondered if
that fleet (for which she had helped to pay) would ensure the safe
delivery of parcels and letters. Probably yes.
With a relieved look on her face, the old woman dropped the curtains,
and went back to the table and to her knitting.
* * * * *
Suddenly, with what seemed uncanny suddenness, the telephone bell rang
in the hall.
Now Anna had never got used to the telephone. She had not opposed its
introduction into the Trellis House, because it had been done by Miss
Rose's wish, but once it was installed, Anna had bitterly regretted its
being there. It was the one part of her work that she carried out badly,
and she knew that this was so. Not only did she find it most difficult
to understand what was said through the horrible instrument, but her
mistress's friends found even more difficulty in hearing her, Anna.
Sometimes--but she was very much ashamed of this--she actually allowed
the telephone bell to go on ringing, and never answered it at all! She
only did this, however, when her two ladies were away from Witanbury,
and when, therefore, the message, whatever it might happen to be, could
not possibly be delivered.
She waited now, hoping that the instrument would grow weary, and leave
off ringing. But no; on it went, ping, ping, ping, ping--so at last very
reluctantly Anna opened the kitchen door and went out into the hall.
Taking up the receiver, she said in a grumpy tone, "Ach! What is it?
Yes?" And then her face cleared, and she even smiled into the telephone
receiver.
To her great surprise--but the things that had happened to-day were so
extraordinary that there was no real reason why she should be surprised
at anything now--she had heard the voice of the one German in
Witanbury--and there were a good many Germans in Witanbury--with whom
she was on really friendly terms.
This was a certain Fritz Fröhling, a pleasant elderly man who, like
herself, had been in England a long time--in fact in his case nearer
forty than twenty years. He was a barber and hairdresser, and did a very
flourishing business with the military gentlemen of the garrison. So
Anglicised had he and his wife become that their son was in the British
Army, where he had got on very well, and had been promoted to sergeant.
Even among themselves, when Anna spent an evening with them, the
Fröhlings generally talked English. Still, Fröhling was a German of the
good old sort; that is, he had never become naturalised. But he was a
Socialist; he did not share Anna's enthusiasm for the Kaiser, the
Kaiserine, and their stalwart sons.
This was the first time he had ever telephoned to her. "Is it Frau Bauer
that I am addressing?"
And Anna, slightly thrilled by the unusual appellation, answered, "Yes,
yes--it is, Herr Fröhling."
"With you a talk I should like to have," said the friendly familiar
voice. "Could I this afternoon you see?"
"Not this afternoon," answered Anna, "but this evening, I think yes. My
mistress will I ask if I an evening free have can."
"Is it necessary her to ask?" The question was put doubtfully.
"Yes, yes! But mind she will not. To me she is goodness itself--never
more good than this morning she was," shouted back Anna loyally.
"Fortunate you are," the voice became rather sharp and dry. "I notice
already have to quit--told I must skip."
"Never!" cried Anna indignantly. "Who has that you told?"
"The police."
"A bad business," wailed Anna. She was shocked at what her old
acquaintance told her. "I will Mrs. Otway ask you to help," she shouted
back.
He muttered a word or two and then, "Unless before eight you
communicate, Jane and I expect you this evening."
"Certainly, Herr Fröhling."