Good Old Anna

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

They both, in their very different ways, felt exquisitely at peace. To his proud, reticent nature, the last few days had proved disagreeable—sometimes acutely unpleasant. He had felt grateful for, but he had not enjoyed, the marks of sympathy which had been so freely lavished on him and on his companions in Holland, on the boat, and since his landing in England.

In those old days which now seemed to have belonged to another existence, Major Guthrie had thought his friend, Mrs. Otway, if wonderfully kind, not always very tactful. It is a mistake to think that love is blind as to those matters. But of all the kind women he had seen since he had left Germany, she was the only one who had not spoken to him of his blindness, who had made no allusion to it, and who had not pressed on him painful, unsought sympathy. From the moment they had been left alone for a little while in that unknown London house, where he had first been taken, she had made him feel that he was indeed the natural protector and helper of the woman he loved; and of the things she had said to him, in those first moments of emotion, what had touched and pleased him most was her artless cry, “Oh, you don’t know how I have missed you! Even quite at first I felt so miserable without you!”

It was Rose who had suggested an immediate marriage; Rose who had—well, yes, there was no other word for it—coaxed them both into realizing that it was the only thing to do.

Even now, on this their wedding day, they felt awkward, and yes, very shy the one with the other. And as he sat there by her side, wearing a rough grey suit he had often worn last winter when calling on her in the Trellis House, her cheeks grew hot when she remembered the letter she had written to him. Perhaps he had thought it an absurdly sentimental letter for a woman of her age to write.

The only thing that reassured her was the fact that once, at luncheon, he had clasped her hand under the table; but the door had opened, and quickly he had taken his hand away, and even moved his chair a little farther off. It was true that Howse had put the chairs very close together.

Now she was telling him of all that had happened since he had gone away, and he was listening with the eager sympathy and interest he had always shown her, that no one else had ever shown her in the same degree, in those days that now seemed so long ago, before the War.

So she went on, pouring it all out to him, till she came to the amazing story of her daughter Rose, and of Jervis Blake. She described the strange, moving little marriage ceremony; and the man sitting by her side sought and found the soft hand which was very close to his, and said feelingly, “That must have been very trying for you.”

Yes, it had been trying for her, though no one had seemed to think so at the time. But he, the speaker of these kind understanding words, had always known how she felt, and sympathised with her.

She wished he would call her “Mary”—if only he would begin, she would soon find it quite easy to call him “Alick....”

Suddenly there came on his sightless face a slight change. He had heard something which her duller ears had failed to hear.