“Perhaps Mrs. Guthrie was not quite as well as she seemed to be, ma’am, for she wouldn’t take any dessert, and after she had finished her dinner she didn’t seem to want to sit up for a while, as she sometimes did. When she became so infirm, a matter of two years ago, the Major arranged that his study should be turned into a bedroom for her, ma’am, so we wheeled her in there after dinner.”
After a pause, he went on with an added touch of gloom: “She gazed her last upon the dining-room, and on this ’ere little room, which was, so to speak, ma’am, her favourite sitting-room. Isn’t that so, Ponting?” The maid nodded, and Howse said sadly: “Ponting will now tell you what happened after that, ma’am.”
Ponting waited a moment, and then began: “My mistress didn’t seem inclined to go to bed at once, so I settled her down nicely and comfortably with her reading-lamp and a copy of The World newspaper. She found the papers very dull lately, poor old lady, for you see, ma’am, there was nothing in them but things about the war, and she didn’t much care for that. But she can’t have been reading more than five minutes when there came the telegram.”
Howse held up his hand, for it was here that he again came on the scene.
“The minute the messenger boy handed me the envelope,” he exclaimed, “I says to myself, ‘That’s bad news—bad news of the Major!’ I sorely felt tempted to open it. But there! I knew if I did so it would anger Mrs. Guthrie. She was a lady, ma’am, who always knew her own mind. It wasn’t even addressed ‘Guthrie,’ you see, but ‘Mrs. Guthrie,’ as plain as plain could be. The boy ’ad brought it to the front door, and as we was having our supper I didn’t want to disturb Ponting. So I just walked along to Mrs. Guthrie’s bedroom, and knocked. She calls out, ‘Come in!’ And I answers, ‘There’s a telegram for you, ma’am. Would you like me to send Ponting in with it?’ And she calls out, ‘No, Howse. Bring it in yourself.’
“I shall never forget seeing her open it, poor old lady. She did it quite deliberate-like; then, after just reading it over, she looked up straight at me. ‘I know you’ll be sorry to hear, Howse, as how Major Guthrie is wounded and missing,’ she said, and then, ‘I need not tell you, who are an old soldier, Howse, that such are the fortunes of war.’ Those, ma’am, were her exact words. Of course I explained how sorry I was, and I did my very best to hide from her how bad I took the news to be. ‘I think I would like to be alone now, Howse,’ she says, ‘just for a little while.’ And then, ‘We must hope for better news in the morning.’ I asked her, ‘Would you like me to send Ponting up to you, ma’am?’ But she shook her head: ‘No, Howse, I would rather be by myself. I will ring when I require Ponting. I do not feel as if I should care to go to bed just yet,’ she says quite firmly.
“Well, ma’am, we had of course to obey her orders, but we all felt very uncomfortable. And as a matter of fact in about half an hour Ponting did make an excuse to go into the room”—he looked at the woman by his side. “You just tell Mrs. Otway what happened,” he said, in a tone of command.
Ponting meekly obeyed.
“I just opened the door very quietly, and Mrs. Guthrie did not turn round. Without being at all deaf, my mistress had got a little hard of hearing, lately. I went a step forward, and then I saw that she was reading the Bible. I was very much surprised, madam, for it was the first time I had ever seen her do such a thing—though of course there was always a Bible and a Prayer Book close to her hand. She was wheeled into church each Sunday—when it was fine, that is. The Major saw to that.... I couldn’t help feeling sorry she hadn’t rung and asked me to move the Book for her, for it is a big Bible, with very clear print. She was following the words with her finger, and that was a thing I had never seen her do before with any book. As she did not turn round, I said to myself that it was better not to disturb her. So I just backed very quietly out of the door again. I shall always be glad,” she said, in a lower tone, “that I saw her like that.”
“And then,” interposed Howse, “quite a long time went on, ma’am, and we all got to feel very uneasy. We none of us liked to go up—not one of us. But at last three of us went up together—Cook, me, and Ponting—and listened at the door. But try our hardest, as we did, we could hear nothing. It was the stillness of death!”