Of all the injunctions people are apt to give one another, perhaps the most cruel and the most futile is that of not to worry. Mrs. Otway had really meant to be kind, but her message gave Anna Bauer a most unhappy day. The old German woman had long ago made up her mind that when it suited herself she would leave the Trellis House, but never, never had it occurred to her that anything could happen which might compel her to do so.
At last, when evening fell, she felt she could no longer bear her loneliness and depression. Also she longed to tell her surprising news to sympathetic ears.
All through that long day Anna Bauer had been making up her mind to go back to Germany. She knew that there would be no difficulty about it, for something Mrs. Otway had told her a few weeks ago showed that many German women were going home, helped thereto by the British Government. As for Willi and Minna, however bitterly they might feel towards England, they would certainly welcome her when they realised how much money, all her savings, she was bringing with her.
As she walked quickly along—getting very puffy, for she was stout and short of breath—it seemed to her as if the kindly old city, where she had lived in happiness and amity for so many years, had changed in character. She felt as if the windows of the houses were frowning down at her, and as if cruel pitfalls yawned in her way.
Her depression was increased by her first sight of the building for which she was bound, for, as she walked across the Market Place, she saw the boarded up shop-front of the Stores. “Mr. Head hoped to get the plate-glass to-morrow”—so the boy who had brought the butter and eggs that morning had exclaimed—“but just now there was a great shortage of that particular kind of shop-front glass, as it was mostly made in Belgium.”
Meanwhile the Witanbury Stores presented a very sorry appearance—the more so that some evilly disposed person had gone in the dark, after the boarding had been put up, and splashed across the boards a quantity of horrid black stuff!
Anna hurried round to the back door. In answer to her ring, the door was opened at last a little way, and Polly’s pretty, anxious face looked out cautiously. But when she saw who it was, she smiled pleasantly.
“Oh, come in, Mrs. Bauer! I’m glad to see you. You’ll help me cheer poor Alfred up a bit. Not but what he ought to be happy now—for what d’you think happened at three o’clock to-day? Why, the Dean himself came along and left a beautiful letter with us—an Address, he called it.” She was walking down the passage as she spoke, and when she opened the parlour door she called out cheerfully, “Here’s Mrs. Bauer come to see us! I tell her she’ll have to help cheer you up a bit.”
And truth to tell Alfred Head did look both ill and haggard—but no, not unhappy. Even Anna noticed that there was a gleam of triumph in his eyes. “Very pleased to see you, I’m sure!” he exclaimed cordially. “Yes, it is as Polly says—out of evil good has come to us. See here, my dear friend!”
Anna came forward. She already felt better, less despondent, but it was to Polly she addressed her condolences. “What wicked folk in this city there are!” she exclaimed. “Even Mr. Robey to me says, ‘Dastardly conduct!’”