Good Old Anna. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ by the unusual appellation, answered, “Yes, yes—it is, Herr Fröhling.”

      “With you a talk I should like to have,” said the friendly familiar voice. “Could I this afternoon you see?”

      “Not this afternoon,” answered Anna, “but this evening, I think yes. My mistress will I ask if I an evening free have can.”

      “Is it necessary her to ask?” The question was put doubtfully.

      “Yes, yes! But mind she will not. To me she is goodness itself—never more good than this morning she was,” shouted back Anna loyally.

      “Fortunate you are,” the voice became rather sharp and dry. “I notice already have to quit—told I must skip.”

      “Never!” cried Anna indignantly. “Who has that you told?”

      “The police.”

      “A bad business,” wailed Anna. She was shocked at what her old acquaintance told her. “I will Mrs. Otway ask you to help,” she shouted back.

      He muttered a word or two and then, “Unless before eight you communicate, Jane and I expect you this evening.”

      “Certainly, Herr Fröhling.”

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      As Mrs. Otway left the cathedral, certain remarks made to her by members of the little congregation jarred on her, and made her feel, almost for the first time in her life, thoroughly out of touch with her friends and neighbours.

      Some one whom Mrs. Otway really liked and respected came up to her and exclaimed, “I couldn’t help feeling sorry the Dean did not mention France and the French! Any one listening to him just now would have thought that only Germany and ourselves and Belgium were involved in this awful business.” And then the speaker, seeing that her words were not very acceptable, added quietly, “But of course the Dean, with so many German friends, is in a difficult position just now.” In fact, almost every one said something that hurt and annoyed her, and that though it was often only a word of satisfaction that at last England had gone in, as more than one of them put it, “on the right side.”

      Passing through the arch of the square gateway which separates the town from the Close, Mrs. Otway hurried down the pretty, quiet street which leads in a rather roundabout way, and past one of the most beautiful grey stone crosses in England, into the great market square which is one of the glories of the famous cathedral city. Once there, she crossed the wide space, part cobbled, part paved, and made her way into a large building of stucco and red brick which bore above its plate-glass windows the inscription in huge gilt letters, “The Witanbury Stores.”

      The Monday Bank Holiday had been prolonged, and so the Stores were only, so to speak, half open. But as Mrs. Otway stepped through into the shadowed shop, the owner of the Stores, Manfred Hegner by name, came forward to take her orders himself.

      Manfred Hegner was quite a considerable person in Witanbury. Not only was he the biggest retail tradesman in the place, and an active member of the Witanbury City Council, but he was known to have all sorts of profitable irons in the fire. A man to keep in with, obviously, and one who was always willing to meet one half-way. Because of his German birth—he had been naturalised some years ago—and even more because of certain facial and hirsute peculiarities, he went by the nickname of “The Kaiser.”

      Mrs. Otway took out of her bag a piece of paper on which she had written down, at her old Anna’s dictation, a list of groceries and other things needed at the Trellis House. And then she looked round, instinctively, towards the corner of the large shop where all that remained of what had once been the mainstay of Manfred Hegner’s business was always temptingly set forth. This was a counter of Delicatessen. Glancing at the familiar corner, Mr. Hegner’s customer told herself that her eyes must be playing her false. In the place of the familiar sausages, herrings, the pretty coloured basins of sauerkraut, and other savoury dainties, there now stood nothing but a row of large uninteresting Dutch cheeses!

      The man who was waiting attentively by her side, a pencil and block of paper in his hand, saw the surprised, regretful look on his valued customer’s face.

      “I have had to put away all my nice, fresh Delicatessen,” he said in a low voice. “It seemed wiser to do so, gracious lady.” He spoke in German, and it was in German that she answered.

      “Did you really think it necessary to do such a thing? I think you are unfair on your adopted country, Mr. Hegner! English people are not so unreasonable as that.”

      He was about to answer, when an odd-looking man, rather like a sailor, came in, and Mr. Hegner, with a hurried “Please excuse me one minute, ma’am,” in English, went off to attend to the new comer.

      As Mr. Hegner went across his shop, Mrs. Otway was struck by his curious resemblance to the German Emperor; in spite of the fact that he was wearing a long white apron, he had quite a martial air. He certainly deserved his nickname. There were the same piercing, rather prominent eyes, the same look of energy and decision in his face; also the same peculiar turned-up moustache. But whereas the resemblance last week would have brought a smile, now it brought a furrow of pain to the English lady’s kindly face.

      Poor Manfred Hegner! What must he and thousands of others like him—excellent, industrious, civil-spoken Germans—feel all through England to-day? Mrs. Otway, who had always liked the man, and who enjoyed her little chats with him, knew perhaps rather more about this prosperous tradesman than most of the Witanbury people knew. She was aware that he had been something of a rolling stone; he had, for instance, been for quite a long time in America, and it was there that he had shed most of his Germanisms of language. He was older than he looked, and his son by a first marriage lived in Germany—where, however, the young man was buyer for a group of English firms who did a great deal of business in cheap German-made goods.

      His conversation with the odd-looking stranger over, Mr. Hegner hurried back to where his valued customer was standing. “Every one on the City Council is being most kind,” he said suavely. “And last night I had the honour of meeting the Dean. At his suggestion I am calling a little meeting this evening, here in my Stores, of the non-naturalised Germans of this town. There are a good many in Witanbury.”

      And then Mrs. Otway suddenly remembered that the man now standing opposite to her was a member of the City Council. She remembered that some time ago, three or four years back at least, some disagreeable person had expressed indignation that an ex-German, one only just naturalised, should be elected to such a body. She had thought the speaker narrow-minded and ill-natured. An infusion of German thoroughness and thrift would do the City Council good, and perhaps keep down the rates!

      “But you, Mr. Hegner, have been naturalised quite a long time,” she said sympathetically.

      “Yes, indeed, gracious lady!” Mr. Hegner seemed surprised, perhaps a thought disturbed, by her natural remark. “I took out my certificate before I built the Stores, and just after I had married my excellent little English wife. Glad indeed am I now that I did so!”

      “I am very glad too,” said Mrs. Otway. And yet—and yet she felt a slight quiver of discomfort. The man standing there was so very German after all—German not only in his appearance, but in all his little ways! If nothing else had proved it, his rather absurd СКАЧАТЬ