Good Old Anna | Page 6

towards the cathedral.
She was glad to know that the Dean was going to give a little address
this morning. It was sure to be kindly, wise, benignant--for he was
himself all these three things. Many delightful German thinkers,
theologians and professors, came and went to the Deanery, and Mrs.
Otway was always asked to meet these distinguished folk, partly
because of her excellent knowledge of German, and also because the
Dean knew that, like himself, she loved Germany.
And now she turned sick at heart, as she suddenly realised that for a
time, at any rate, these pleasant meetings would take place no more.
But soon--or so she hoped with all her soul--this strange unnatural war
would be over. Even now the bubble of Prussian militarism was
pricked, for the German Army was not doing well at Liége. During the
last two or three days she had read the news with increasing amazement
and--but she hardly admitted it to herself--with dismay. She did not like
to think of Germans breaking and running away! It had hurt her, made
her angry, to hear the exultation with which some of her neighbours
had spoken of the news. It was all very well to praise the gallant little
Belgians, but why should that be done at the expense of the Germans?
Mrs. Otway suddenly told herself that she hoped Major Guthrie would
not be at the cathedral this morning. Considering that they disagreed
about almost everything, it was odd what friends he and she were! But
about Germany they had never agreed, and that was the more strange
inasmuch as Major Guthrie had spent quite a long time in Stuttgart. He

thought the Germans of to-day entirely unlike the Germans of the past.
He honestly believed them to be unprincipled, untrustworthy, and
unscrupulous; and, strangest thing of all--or so Mrs. Otway had thought
till within the last few days--he had long been convinced that they
intended to conquer Europe by force of arms! So strong was this
conviction of his that he had given time, and yes, money too, to the
propaganda carried on by Lord Roberts in favour of National Service.
It was odd that a man whose suspicions of the country which was to her
so dear almost amounted to a monomania, should have become her
friend. But so it was. In fact, Major Guthrie was her only man friend.
He advised her about all the things concerning which men are supposed
to know more than women--such as investments, for instance. Of
course she did not always take his advice, but it was often a comfort to
talk things out with him, and she had come instinctively to turn to him
when in any little trouble. Few days passed without Major Guthrie's
calling, either by chance or in response to a special invitation, at the
Trellis House.
Unfortunately, or was it fortunately? the handsome old mother, for
whose sake Major Guthrie had left the Army three years ago, didn't
care for clerical society. She only liked country people and Londoners.
As far as Mrs. Otway could dislike any one, she disliked Mrs. Guthrie;
but the two ladies seldom had occasion to meet--the Guthries lived in a
pretty old house in Dorycote, a village two miles from Witanbury. Also
Mrs. Guthrie was more or less chair-ridden, and Mrs. Otway had no
carriage.
* * * * *
The bells of the cathedral suddenly broke across her troublesome,
disconnected thoughts. Mrs. Otway never heard those chimes without a
wave of remembrance, sometimes very slight, sometimes like to-day
quite strong and insistent, of past joys and sorrows. Those bells were
interwoven with the whole of her wifehood, motherhood, and
widowhood; they had rung for her wedding, they had mustered the tiny
congregation who had been present at Rose's christening; the great bell
had tolled the day her husband had died, and again to bid the kindly

folk of Witanbury to his simple funeral. Some day, perhaps, the bells
would ring a joyful peal in honour of Rose's wedding.
As she walked up the path which leads from the road encircling the
Close to the cathedral, she tried to compose and attune her mind to
solemn, peaceful thoughts.
There was a small congregation, perhaps thirty in all, gathered together
in the choir, but the atmosphere of that tiny gathering of people was
slightly electric and charged with emotion. The wife of the Dean, a
short, bustling lady, who had never been so popular in Witanbury and
its neighbourhood as was her husband, came forward and beckoned to
Mrs. Otway. "If no one else comes in," she whispered, "I think we
might all come up a little nearer. The Dean is going to say a few words
about the war."
And though a few more people did