August 23, 1914! A date which will be imprinted on the heart, and on the
tablets of memory, of every Englishman and Englishwoman of our
generation. To the majority of thinking folk, that was the last Sunday
we any of us spent in the old, prosperous, happy, confiding England--the
England who considered that might as a matter of course follows
right--the England whose grand old motto was "Victory as Usual," and to
whom the word defeat was without significance.
Almost the whole population of Witanbury seemed to have felt a common
impulse to attend the evening service in the cathedral. They streamed in
until the stately black-gowned vergers were quite worried to find seats
for the late comers. In that great congregation there was already a
certain leaven of anxious hearts--not over-anxious, you understand, but
naturally uneasy because those near and dear to them had gone away to a
foreign country, to fight an unknown foe.
It was known that the minor canon who was on the rota to preach this
evening had gracefully yielded the privilege to the Dean, and this
accounted, in part at least, for the crowds who filled the great
building.
When Dr. Haworth mounted the pulpit and prepared to begin his sermon,
which he had striven to make worthy of the occasion, he felt a thrill of
satisfaction as his eyes suddenly lighted on the man whom he still
instinctively thought of by his old name of "Manfred Hegner."
Yes, there they were, Hegner and his wife, at the end of a row of
chairs, a long way down; she looking very pretty and graceful,
instinctively well-dressed in her grey muslin Sunday gown and wide
floppy hat--looking, indeed, "quite the lady," as more than one of her
envious neighbours had said to themselves when seeing her go by on her
husband's arm.
Because of the presence of this man who, though German-born, had elected
to become an Englishman, and devote his very considerable
intelligence--the Dean prided himself on his knowledge of human nature,
and on his quickness in detecting humble talent--to the service of his
adopted country, the sermon was perhaps a thought more fair, even
cordial, to Britain's formidable enemy, than it would otherwise have
been.
The messages of the King and of Lord Kitchener to the Expeditionary
Force gave the Dean a fine text for his discourse, and he paid a very
moving and eloquent tribute to the Silence of the People. He reminded
his hearers that even if they, in quiet Witanbury, knew nothing of the
great and stirring things which were happening elsewhere, there must
have been thousands--it might truly be said tens of thousands--of men
and women who had known that our soldiers were leaving their country for
France. And yet not a word had been said, not a hint conveyed, either
privately or in the press. He himself had one who was very dear and near
to his own dearest and nearest, in that Expeditionary Force, and yet not
a word had been breathed, even to him.
Then he went on to a sadder and yet in its way an even more glorious
theme--the loss of His Majesty's good ship _Amphion_. He described the
splendid discipline of the men, the magnificent courage of the captain,
who, when recovering from a shock which had stretched him insensible,
had rushed to stop the engines. He told with what composure the men had
fallen in, and how everything had been done, without hurry or confusion,
in the good old British sea way; and how, thanks to that, twenty minutes
after the _Amphion_ had struck a mine, men, officers, and captain had
left the ship.
And after he had finished his address--he kept it quite short, for Dr.
Haworth was one of those rare and wise men who never preach a long
sermon--the whole congregation rose to their feet and sang "God Save the
King."
* * * * *
This golden feeling of security, of happy belief that all was, and must
be, well, lasted till the following afternoon. And the first of the
dwellers in Witanbury Close to have that comfortable feeling
shattered--shattered for ever--was Mrs. Otway.
She was about to pay a late call on Mrs. Robey, who, after all, had not
taken her children to the seaside. Rather to the amusement of his
neighbours, Mr. Robey, who was moving heaven and earth to get some kind
of War Office job, had bluntly declared that, however much people might
believe in "business as usual," he was not going to practice "pleasure
as usual" while his country was at war.
Mrs. Otway stepped out of her gate, and before turning to the right she
looked to the left, as people will. The Dean was at the corner,
apparently on his way back from the town. He held an open paper in his
hand, and though that was not in itself a strange thing, there suddenly
came over the woman who stood looking at him a curious feeling of
unreasoning fear, a queer prevision of evil. She began walking towards
him, and he, after hesitating for a moment, came forward to meet her.
"There's serious news!" he cried. "Namur has fallen!"
Now, only that morning Mrs. Otway had read in a leading article the
words, "Namur is impregnable, or, if not impregnable, will certainly
hold out for months. That this is so is fortunate, for we cannot
disguise from ourselves that Namur is the key to France."
"Are you sure that the news is true?" she asked quietly, and, disturbed
as he was himself, the Dean was surprised to see the change which had
come over his neighbour's face; it suddenly looked aged and grey.
"Yes, I'm afraid it's true--in fact, it's official. Still, I don't know
that the falling of a fortress should really affect our Expeditionary
Force."
Mary Otway did not pay her proposed call on Mrs. Robey. Instead, she
retraced her steps into the Trellis House, and looked eagerly through
the papers of the last few days. She no longer trusted the Dean and his
easy-going optimism. The fall of Namur without effect on the
Expeditionary Force? As she read on, even she saw that it was bound to
have--perhaps it had already had--an overwhelming effect on the fortunes
of the little British Army.
From that hour onwards a heavy cloud of suspense and of fear hung over
Witanbury Close: over the Deanery, where the cherished youngest
daughter tried in vain to be "brave," and to conceal her miserable state
of suspense from her father and mother; over "Robey's," all of whose
young men were in the Expeditionary Force; and very loweringly over the
Trellis House.
What was now happening over there, in France, or in Flanders? People
asked each other the question with growing uneasiness.
The next day, that is, on the Tuesday, sinister rumours swept over
Witanbury--rumours that the British had suffered a terrible defeat at a
place called Mons.
In her restlessness and eager longing for news, Mrs. Otway after tea
went into the town. She had an excuse, an order to give in at the
Stores, and there the newly-named Alfred Head came forward, and attended
on her, as usual, himself.
"There seems to be serious news," he said respectfully. "I am told that
the English Army has been encircled, much as was the French Army at
Sedan in 1870."
As he spoke, fixing his prominent eyes on her face, Mr. Head's customer
now suddenly felt an inexplicable shrinking from this smooth-tongued
German-born man.
"Oh, we must hope it is not as bad as that," she exclaimed hastily.
"Have you any real reason for believing such a thing to be true, Mr.
Heg--I mean, Mr. Head?"
And he answered regretfully, "One of my customers has just told me so,
ma'am. He said the news had come from London--that is my only reason
for believing it. We will hope it is a mistake."
* * * * *
After leaving the Stores, Mrs. Otway, following a sudden impulse, began
walking rather quickly down the long street which led out of Witanbury
towards the village where the Guthries lived. Why should she not go out
and pay a late call on the old lady? If any of these dreadful rumours
had reached Dorycote House, Mrs. Guthrie must surely be very much upset.
Her kind thought was rewarded by a sight of the letter Major Guthrie had
left to be posted to his mother on the 18th of August, that is, on the
day when was to be published the news that the Expeditionary Force had
landed safely in France.
The letter was, like its writer, kind, thoughtful, considerate; and as
she read it Mrs. Otway felt a little pang of jealous pain. She wished
that he had written _her_ a letter like that, instead of a rather
ridiculous postcard. Still, as she read the measured, reassuring
sentences, she felt soothed and comforted. She knew that she was not
reasonable, yet--yet it seemed impossible that the man who had written
that letter, and the many like him who were out there, could allow
themselves to be surrounded and captured--by Germans!
"He has also sent me a rather absurd postcard," observed the old lady
casually. "I say absurd because it is not dated, and because he also
forgot to put the name of the place where he wrote it. It simply says
that he is quite well, and that I shall hear from him as soon as he can
find time to write a proper letter."
She waited a few moments, and then went on: "Of course I felt a little
upset when I realised that Alick had really gone on active service. But
I know how he would have felt being left behind."
Then, rather to her visitor's discomfiture, Mrs. Guthrie turned the
subject away from her son, and from what was going on in France. She
talked determinedly of quite other things--though even then she could
not help going very near the subject.
"I understand," she exclaimed, "that Lady Bethune is giving up her
garden-party to-morrow! I'm told she feels that it would be wrong to be
merrymaking while some of our men and officers may be fighting and
dying. But I quite disagree, and I'm sure, my dear, that you do too. Of
course it is the duty of the women of England, at such a time as this,
to carry on their social duties exactly as usual."
"I can't quite make up my mind about that," replied her visitor slowly.
When Mrs. Otway rose to go, the old lady suddenly softened. "You'll come
again soon, won't you?" she said eagerly. "Though I never saw two people
more unlike, still, in a curious kind of way, you remind me of Alick!
That must be because you and he are such friends. I suppose he wrote to
you before leaving England?" She looked rather sharply out of her still
bright blue eyes at the woman now standing before her.
Mrs. Otway shook her head. "No, Major Guthrie did not write to me before
leaving England."
"Ah, well, he was very busy, and my son's the sort of man who always
chooses to do his duty before he takes his pleasure. He can write quite
a good letter when he takes the trouble."
"Yes, indeed he can," said Mrs. Otway simply, and Mrs. Guthrie smiled.
As she walked home, Mary Otway pondered a little over the last words of
her talk with Mrs. Guthrie. It was true, truer than Mrs. Guthrie knew,
that she and Major Guthrie were friends. A man does not press an
unsolicited loan of a hundred pounds on a woman unless he has a kindly
feeling for her; still less does he leave her a legacy in his will.
And then there swept a feeling of pain over her burdened heart. That
legacy, which she had only considered as a token of the testator's
present friendly feeling, had become in the last few hours an ominous
possibility. She suddenly realised that Major Guthrie, before leaving
England, had made what Jervis Blake had once called "a steeplechase
will."
* * * * *
Rumours soon grew into certainties. It was only too true that the
British Army was now falling back, back, back, fighting a series of what
were called by the unfamiliar name of rearguard actions; and at last
there came the official statement, "Our casualties have been very heavy,
but the exact numbers are not yet known."
After that, as the days went on, Rose Otway began to wear a most
ungirlish look of strain and of suspense; but no one, to her secret
relief, perceived that she looked any different--all the sympathy of the
Close was concentrated on Edith Haworth, for it was known that the
cavalry had been terribly cut up. Still, towards the end of that
dreadful week, Rose's mother suddenly woke up to the fact that Rose had
fallen into the way of walking to the station in order to get the
evening paper from London half an hour before it could reach the Close.
It was their good old Anna who consoled and sustained the girl during
those first days of strain and of suspense. Anna was never tired of
repeating in her comfortable, cosy, easy-going way, that after all very
few soldiers _really_ get killed in battle. She, Anna, had had a
brother, and many of her relations, fighting in 1870, and only one of
them all had been killed.
The old woman kept her own personal feelings entirely to herself--and
indeed those feelings were very mixed. Of course she did not share the
now universal suspense, surprise, and grief, for to her mind it was
quite right and natural that the Germans should beat the English. What
would have been really most disturbing and unnatural would have been if
the English had beaten the Germans!
But even so she was taken aback by the secret, fierce exultation which
Manfred Hegner--she could not yet bring herself to call him Alfred
Head--displayed, when he and she were left for three or four minutes
alone by his wife, Polly.
Since that pleasant evening they had spent together--it now seemed a
long time ago, yet it was barely a fortnight--Anna had fallen into the
way of going to the Stores twice, and even three times, a week, to
supper. Her host flattered her greatly by pointing out that the
information she had given him concerning Major Guthrie and the
Expeditionary Force, as it was oddly called, had been sound. Frankly he
had exclaimed, "As the days went on and nothing was known, I thought you
must have been mistaken, Frau Bauer. But you did me a good turn, and one
I shall not forget! I have already sold some of the goods ordered with
a view to soldier customers, for they were goods which can be useful
abroad, and I hear a great many parcels will soon be sent out. For that
I shall open a special department!"
To her pleased surprise, he had pressed half a crown on her; and after a
little persuasion she had accepted it. After all, she had a right, under
their old agreement, to a percentage on any profit she brought him! That
news about Major Guthrie had thus procured a very easily earned
half-crown, even more easily earned than the money she had received for
sending off the telegram to Spain. Anna hoped that similar opportunities
of doing Mr. Hegner a good turn would often come her way. But still, she
hated this war, and with the whole of her warm, sentimental German heart
she hoped that Mr. Jervis Blake would soon be back home safe and sound.
He was a rich, generous young gentleman, the very bridegroom for her
beloved Miss Rose.