Good Old Anna

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

“But, Major Guthrie—it isn’t true! How could you say such a thing?”

She felt confused, unhappy, surprised, awkward, grateful. Of course she couldn’t take this man’s money! He was a friend, in some ways a very close friend of hers, but she hadn’t known him more than four years. If she should run short of money, why there must be a dozen people or more on whose friendship she had a greater claim, and who could, and would, help her.

And then Mary Otway suddenly ran over in secret review her large circle of old friends and acquaintances, and she realised, with a shock of pain and astonishment, that there was not one of them to whom she would wish to go for help in that kind of trouble. Of her wide circle—and like most people of her class she had a very wide circle—there was only one person, and that was the man who was now sitting looking at her with so much concern in his eyes, to whom it would even have occurred to her to confess that her income had failed through her foolish belief in the stability, and the peaceful intentions, of Germany.

Far, far quicker than it would have taken for her to utter her thoughts aloud, these painful thoughts and realisations flashed through her brain. If she had been content to put into this Hamburg Loan only the amount of the legacy she had inherited three years ago! But she had done more than that—she had sold out sound English railway stock after that interview she had had with a pleasant-speaking German business man in the big London Hamburg Loan office. He had said to her, “Madam, this is the opportunity of a lifetime!” And she had believed him. The kind German friend who had written to her about the matter had certainly acted in good faith. Of that she could rest assured. But this was very small consolation now.

“So you see, Mrs. Otway, that it’s all settled—been settled over your head, as it were. And you’ll oblige me, you’ll make me feel that you’re really treating me as a friend, if you say nothing more about it.”

And then, as she still remained silent, and as Major Guthrie could see by the expression of her face that she meant to refuse what he so generously and delicately offered her, he went on:

“I feel now that I ought to tell you something which I had meant to keep to myself.” He cleared his throat—and hum’d and hum’d a little. “I’m sure you’ll understand that every sensible man, when going on active service, makes a fresh will. I’ve already written out my instructions to my solicitor, and he will prepare a will for me to sign to-morrow.” He waited a moment, and then added, as lightly as he could: “I’ve left you a thousand pounds, which I’ve arranged you should receive immediately on my death. You see, I’m a lonely man, and all my relations are well off. I think you know, without my telling out, that I’ve become very much attached to you—to you and to Miss Rose.”

And still Mrs. Otway was too much surprised, and yes, too much moved, to speak. Major Guthrie was indeed proving himself a true friend.

“Under ordinary circumstances,” he went on slowly, “this clause in my will would be of very little practical interest to you, for I am a healthy man. But we’re up against a very big thing, Mrs. Otway——” He did not like to add that it was quite possible she would receive his legacy before she had had time to dip very far into the money he was leaving with her.

She looked at him with a troubled look. And yet? And yet, though it was not perhaps very reasonable that it should be so, somehow she did feel that the fact that Major Guthrie was leaving her—and Rose—the legacy of which he spoke, made a difference. It would make it easier, that is, to accept the money that lay there on her table. Though Major Guthrie was not, in the technical sense, a clever man, he had a far more intimate knowledge of human character than had his friend.