Good Old Anna | Page 5

the older woman's shoulder.
"I have something sad to tell you," she said gently. "England, my poor
Anna, is at war! England has declared war on Germany! But I have
come to tell you, also, that the fact that our countries are at war will
make no difference to you and to me, Anna--will it?"
Anna had looked up, and for a moment she had seemed bewildered,
stunned by the news. Then all the colour had receded from her round
face; it became discomposed, covered with red streaks. She broke into
convulsive sobs as, shaking her head violently, she exclaimed, "Nein!
Nein!"
If only poor old Anna had left it there! But she had gone on, amid her
sobs, to speak wildly, disconnectedly, and yes--yes, rather arrogantly
too, of the old war with France in 1870--of her father, and of her
long-dead brother; how both of them had fought, how gloriously they
had conquered!
Mrs. Otway had begun by listening in silence to this uncalled-for
outburst. But at last, with a touch of impatience, she broke across these
ill-timed reminiscences with the words, "But now, Anna? Now there is
surely no one belonging to your family likely to fight? No one, I mean,
likely to fight against England?"
The old woman stared at her stupidly, as if scarcely understanding the
sense of what was being said to her; and Mrs. Otway, with a touch of
decision in her voice, had gone on--"How fortunate it is that your
Louisa married an Englishman!"
But on that Anna had again shaken her head violently. "No, no!" she
cried. "Would that a German married she had--an honest, heart-good
German, not a man like that bad, worthless George!"
To this surely unnecessary remark Mrs. Otway had made no answer. It
was unluckily true that Anna's English son-in-law lacked every virtue
dear to a German heart. He was lazy, pleasure-loving, dishonest in

small petty ways, and contemptuous of his thrifty wife's anxious efforts
to save money. Still, though it was not perhaps wise to say so just now,
it would certainly have been a terrible complication if "little Louisa," as
they called her in that household, had married a German--a German
who would have had to go back to the Fatherland to take up arms,
perhaps, against his adopted country! Anna ought surely to see the truth
of that to-day, however unpalatable that truth might be.
But, sad to say, good old Anna had been strangely lacking in her usual
good sense, and sturdy good-humour, this morning. Not content with
that uncalled-for remark concerning her English son-in-law, she had
wailed out something about "Willi"--for so she always called Wilhelm
Warshauer--the nephew by marriage to whom she had become
devotedly attached during the pleasant holiday she had spent in
Germany three years ago.
"I do not think Willi is in the least likely to go to the war and be killed,"
said Mrs. Otway at last, a little sharply. "Why, he is in the police--a
sub-inspector! They would never dream of sending him away. And
then---- Anna? I wish you would listen to me quietly for a moment----"
Anna fixed her glazed, china-blue eyes anxiously on her mistress.
"If you go on in this way you will make yourself quite ill; and that
wouldn't do at all! I am quite sure that you will soon hear from your
niece that Willi is quite safe, that he is remaining on in Berlin. England
and Germany are civilised nations after all! There need not be any
unreasonable bitterness between them. Only the soldiers and sailors,
not our two nations, will be at war, Anna."
* * * * *
Yes, the recollection of what had happened this morning left an
aftermath of bitterness in Mrs. Otway's kind heart. It was only too true
that it would sometimes be awkward; in saying so downright Miss
Forsyth had been right! She told herself, however, that after a few days
they surely would all get accustomed to this strange, unpleasant, new
state of things. Why, during the long Napoleonic wars Witanbury had

always been on the qui vive, expecting a French landing on the
coast--that beautiful coast which was as lonely now as it had been then,
and which, thanks to motors and splendid roads, seemed much nearer
now than then. England had gone on much as usual a hundred years
ago. Mrs. Otway even reminded herself that Jane Austen, during those
years of stress and danger, had been writing her delightful, her
humorous, her placid studies of life as though there were no war!
And then, perhaps because of her invocation of that dear, shrewd
mistress of the average British human heart, Mrs. Otway, feeling far
more comfortable than she had yet felt since her talk with Miss Forsyth,
began retracing her steps