Good Old Anna

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

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-pricks 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 amusement. Then, suddenly, she made up her mind to show it to Miss Forsyth before burning it.