Good Old Anna: Historical Thriller. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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 nickname was clear proof that so he was even now regarded in Witanbury.
“And how about your son, Mr. Hegner?” she asked. “I suppose he is in Germany now? You must feel rather anxious about him.”
He hesitated oddly, and looked round him before he spoke. Then, vanquished, maybe, by the obvious sincerity and kindness of the speaker, he answered, in German, and almost in a whisper. “He is, I fear, by now on his way to the frontier. But may I ask a favour of the gracious lady? Do not speak of my son to the people of Witanbury.”
“Then he was never naturalised?” Mrs. Otway also spoke in a low voice—a voice full of pity and concern.
“No, no,” said Mr. Hegner hastily. “There was no necessity for him to be. His work was mostly, you see, over there.”
“Still he was educated here, surely?”
“That is so, gracious lady. He talks English better even than I do. He and I did consider the question of his taking out a certificate. Then we decided that, as he would be so much in Germany, it was better he should remain German. But his wife is an English girl.”
“How sorry you must be now that he did not naturalise!” she exclaimed.
An odd look came over Manfred Hegner’s face. “Yes, it is very regretful—the more so that it would do me harm if it were known in the town that I had a son in the German Army. But he will not fight against the English,” he added hastily. “No one will do that but the German sailors—is not that so, madam?”
“I really don’t know.”
“If at any time the gracious lady should hear anything of the sort, I should be grateful—nay, far more than grateful if she will let me know it!” He had lapsed back into German, and Mrs. Otway smiled very kindly at him.
“Yes, I will certainly let you know anything I hear. I know how very anxious you must be about this sad state of things.”
Mrs. Otway had left the shop, and she was already some way back across the Market Place, when there came the rather raucous sound of an urgent voice in her ear. Startled, she turned round. The owner of the Witanbury Stores stood by her side.
“Pardon, pardon!” he said breathlessly. “But would you, gracious lady, ask your servant” (he used the German word “Stütze”) “if she could make it convenient to join our gathering this evening at nine o’clock? Frau Anna Bauer is so very highly respected among the Germans here that we should like her to be present.”
“Certainly I will arrange for Anna to come,” answered Mrs. Otway. “But you may not be aware, Mr. Hegner, that my cook has become to all intents and purposes quite English—without, of course,” she hastily corrected herself, “giving up her love for the Fatherland. She has only one relation left in Germany, a married niece in Berlin. Her own daughter is the wife of an Englishman, a tradesman in London.”
“That makes no difference,” said Manfred Hegner; “she will be welcome, most heartily welcome, to-night! This is the moment, as the Reverend Mr. Dean so well put it to me, when all Germans should stick together, and consult as to the wisest and best thing to do in their own interests.”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Hegner. I quite agree with the Dean. But do not do anything to upset my poor old Anna. She really is not involved in the question at all. She has lived with me nearly twenty years, and my daughter and I regard her far more as a friend than as a servant. The fact that she is German is an accident—the merest accident! Nothing in her life, thank God, will be changed for the worse. And, Mr. Hegner? I should like to say one more thing.” She looked earnestly into his face, but even she could see that his eyes were wandering, and that there was a slight look of apprehension in the prominent eyes now fixed on a group of farmers who stood a few yards off staring at him and at Mrs. Otway.
“Yes,