Good Old Anna: Historical Thriller. Marie Belloc Lowndes
Robey had had twin sons, who, unlike most twins, were very different. The elder, whom some of the oldest inhabitants remembered as an ugly, eccentric little boy, with a taste for cutting up dead animals, had insisted on becoming a surgeon. To the surprise of his father’s old friends, he had made a considerable reputation, which had been, so to speak, officially certified with a knighthood. The professional life of a great surgeon is limited, and Sir Jacques Robey, though not much over fifty and still a bachelor, had now retired.
The younger twin, Orlando, was the Army coach. He had been, even as a little boy, a great contrast to his brother, being both good looking and anything but eccentric. The brothers were only alike in the success they had achieved in their several professions, but they had for one another in full measure that curiously understanding sympathy and affection which seem to be the special privilege of twins.
Mr. Robey was popular and respected, and those dwellers in the Close who had daughters were pleased with the life and animation which the presence of so many young men gave to the place. The more thoughtful were also glad to think that the shadow of their beloved cathedral rested benignantly over the temporary home of those future officers and administrators of the Empire. And of all those who had been coached at “Robey’s” during the last two years, there was none better liked, though there had been many more popular, than the young man who now stood smiling at old Anna.
During the first three months of his sojourn in the Close, Jervis Blake had counted very little, for it had naturally been supposed that he would soon go off to Sandhurst or Woolwich. Then he had failed to pass the Army Entrance Examination, not once, as so many did, but again and again, and the good folk of Witanbury, both gentle and simple, had grown accustomed to see him coming and going in their midst.
Unfortunately for Jervis Blake, his father, though a distinguished soldier, was a very peculiar man, one who had owed nothing in his hard laborious youth to influence; and he had early determined that his only son should tread the path he had himself trod.
And now poor young Blake had reached the age limit, and failed for the last time. Every one had been sorry, but no one had been surprised in Witanbury Close, when the result of the May Army Exam. had been published in July.
One person, Mr. Robey himself, had been deeply concerned. Indeed, the famous coach muttered to one or two of his old friends, “It’s a pity, you know! Although I make my living by it, I often think there’s a good deal to be said against a system which passes in—well, some boys whose names I could give you, and which keeps out of the Army a lad like Jervis Blake! He’d make a splendid company officer—conscientious, honest, unselfish, keen about his work, and brave—well, brave as only a man——”
And one of those to whom he said it, seeing him hesitate, had broken in, with a slight smile, “Brave as only a man totally lacking in imagination can be, eh, Robey?”
“No, no, I won’t have you say that! Even an idiot has enough imagination to be afraid of danger! There’s something fine about poor Jervis.”
They’d gradually all got to call young Blake “Jervis” in that household. Perhaps Mrs. Robey alone of them all knew how much they would miss him. He was such a thoroughly good fellow, he was so useful to her husband in keeping order among the wilder spirits, and that without having about him a touch of the prig!
Rose looked up and smiled as the tall young man came forward and shook hands with her, saying as he did so, “I hope I’m not too early? The truth is, I’ve a good many calls to pay this afternoon. I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you weren’t going away till Saturday.” Rose really did feel sorry—in fact, she was herself surprised at her rather keen sensation of regret. She had always liked Jervis Blake very much—liked him from the first day she had seen him. He had a certain claim on the kindness of the ladies of the Trellis House, for his mother had been a girl friend of Mrs. Otway’s.
Most people, as Rose was well aware, found his conversation boring. But it always interested her. In fact Rose Otway was the one person in Witanbury who listened with real pleasure to what Jervis Blake had to say. Oddly enough, his talk almost always ran on military matters. Most soldiers—and Rose knew a good many officers, for Witanbury is a garrison town—would discuss, before the Great War, every kind of topic except those connected with what they would have described as “shop.” But Jervis Blake, who, owing to his bad luck, seemed fated never to be a soldier, thought and talked of nothing else. It was thanks to him that Rose knew so much about the great Napoleonic campaigns, and was so well “up” in the Indian Mutiny.
And now, on this 4th of August, 1914, Jervis Blake sat down by Rose Otway, and began tracing imaginary patterns on the grass with his stick.
“I’m not going to tell any one else, but there’s something I want to tell you.” He spoke in a rather hard, set voice, and he did not look up, as he spoke, at the girl by his side.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Jervis? What is it?” There was something very kind, truly sympathetic, in her accents.
“I’m going to enlist.”
Rose Otway was startled—startled and sorry.
“Oh, no, you mustn’t do that!”
“I’ve always thought I should like to do it, if—if I failed this last time. But of course I knew it was out of the question—because of my father. But now—everything’s different! Even father will see that I have no other course open to me.”
“I—I don’t understand what you mean,” she answered, and to her surprise there came a queer lump in her throat. “Why is everything different now?”
He looked round at her with an air of genuine surprise, and, yes, of indignation, in his steady grey eyes. And under that surprised and indignant look, so unlike anything there had ever been before from him to her, the colour flushed all over her face.
“You mean,” she faltered, “you mean because—because England is at war?”
He nodded.
“But I thought—of course I don’t know anything about it, Jervis, and I daresay you’ll think me very ignorant—but from what the Dean said this morning I thought that only our fleet is to fight the Germans.”
“The Dean is an old——” and then they both laughed. Jervis Blake went on: “If we don’t go to the help of the French and the Belgians, then England’s disgraced. But of course we’re going to fight!”
Rose Otway was thinking—thinking hard. She knew a good deal about Jervis, and his relations with the father he both loved and feared.
“Look here,” she said earnestly. “We’ve always been friends, you and I, haven’t we, Jervis?”
And again he simply nodded in answer to the question.
“Well, I want you to promise me something!”
“I can’t promise you I won’t enlist.”
“I don’t want you to promise me that. I only want you to promise me to wait just a few days—say a week. Of course I don’t know anything about how one becomes a soldier, but you’d be rather sold, wouldn’t you, if you enlisted and then if your regiment took no part in the fighting—if there’s really going to be fighting?”
Rose Otway stopped short. She felt a most curious sensation of fatigue; it was as though she had been speaking an hour instead of a few moments. But she had put her whole heart, her whole soul, into those few simple words.
There was a long, long pause, and her eyes filled with tears. Those who knew her would have told you that Rose Otway was quite singularly self-possessed and unemotional. In fact she could not remember when she had cried last, it was so long ago. But now there came over her a childish, irresistible desire to have her way—to save poor, poor Jervis from himself. And suddenly the face of the young man looking at her became transfigured.
“Rose,” he cried—“Rose,