Produced by Lionel Sear
ANXIOUS AUDREY.
By
MABEL QUILLER-COUCH.
Author of 'A Waif and a Welcome,' 'Troublesome Ursula,' 'Zach and Debby,'
'In Cornwall's Wonderland,' Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY HELEN JACOBS.
LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
BRIGHTON: 129, North Street.
[Illustration: When, though, it came to carrying up the chest of drawers,
they all had to give a hand.]
CHAPTER I.
"Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,
The field-mouse has gone to her nest;
The daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes,
And the birds and the bees are at rest."
Mr. Carlyle, standing outside the nursery door, stayed a moment until the
sweet low voice had reached the end of the verse, then, turning the handle
very gently, entered the room on tiptoe.
Faith looked up with a smile, but with a warning finger held out, while in
a lower and more crooning voice she began the next verse:
"Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,
The glow-worm is lighting her lamp----"
"Oh, dear!" as two round blue eyes looked up at her, full of sleepy
wickedness, "She is as wide awake when I began! Baby, you are not a nice
little girl and I shan't be able to go on loving you if you don't go to
sleep soon."
The blue eyes, wandering from Faith's reproving face, fell on her father,
and with a croon of delight a pair of plump dimpled arms was held out
pleadingly. "Dad! Dad!" cooed the baby voice coaxingly, and the arms were
not held out in vain.
Faith handed over her heavy, lovable burden with a mingled sigh of relief
and hopelessness. "This is all wrong, you know, father," with a weary
little laugh, "a well brought up baby should be sound asleep by this
time--but how is one to make her sleep if she absolutely refuses to?"
Mr. Carlyle looked down at his little daughter snuggling so happily in his
arms. "I don't know, dear," he said helplessly. "I suppose we aren't
very good nurses. Perhaps we are not stern enough. I am sorry I came in
just then, she might have gone off if I hadn't, but I wanted to speak to
you particularly; there is a great deal I want to discuss. How is your
mother? I haven't been in to see her. I saw that her room was dark,
so I thought she was probably asleep."
"I expect she is. She seemed very sleepy when I gave her her cornflour at
seven. I haven't been able to go to her since, baby has been so
restless."
"Isn't she well?"
"Oh, yes, she is well, but while I was down making the cornflour I had to
leave her with Tom and Debby, and they got playing, of course, and excited
her so much she can't go to sleep."
"Couldn't Mary have made the cornflour or have looked after baby for the
time?"
"No, she was ironing, and she doesn't know yet just how mother likes it."
"Oh! but can't you come down, dear, until this minx is slumbering?"
Faith looked at the grate where a few cinders only lay grey and lifeless
at the bottom; then she looked at her father with a mischievous twinkle in
her pretty brown eyes. "I can't unless we take baby too," she said.
"Of course it is very wrong and a real nurse would faint at such
behaviour, but, shall we, daddy? It is cold up here, and lonely--and,
oh! I am so hungry and quite hoarse with singing lullabies."
"Poor child! Come downstairs and we will not think about what real nurses
would say. This little person is really so sleepy she will hardly realise
what has happened."
Faith's eyes sparkled. "We mustn't let Tom and Debby know, or they will
be down too. If we go very softly perhaps they won't hear, they were
nearly asleep when I looked in at them just now. I hope baby won't give a
yell on the stairs."
"I will try to prevent her. Now then, come along."
Baby Joan, as though she understood all about it, and what was expected of
her, smiled up at them knowingly, but she did not make a sound, not even
when they paused at her mother's bedroom door and looked in.
The firelight shining on the invalid's face showed that she was sleeping
peacefully, so they tiptoed away again and reached the hall without having
disturbed anyone. In the dining-room the lamp was lighted, but so badly
that it smelt horribly; the fire was out and the room was cold and
cheerless.
"Oh dear," sighed Faith, "no coal here, either," and dashed away to the
kitchen in search of some. "Mary doesn't seem able to remember that fires
go out if there is nothing to put on them," she laughed, as she struggled
back panting under the weight of a scuttle of coal and an armful of logs.
"But we shall be all right soon," she added as she knelt before the grate
and began building up a fire. "I do love wood and a pair of bellows,
don't you, daddy!" blowing away hard at hot embers. But Mr. Carlyle did
not answer her. Instead he asked with rather an anxious note in his
voice, "Does Mary find she has too much to do?"
Faith sat back on her heels and eyed the kindling sticks with a well
pleased air. "No-o, I don't think so, daddy. There might be too much--if
she did it," with a little laugh, "but she says she likes being where
there are no other servants, and plenty of life. In her last place there
were three or four servants and only an old lady to look after, and Mary
says the quietness was awful. Nothing ever happened but the quarrels of
the servants amongst themselves."
"I suppose they were so occupied with their quarrels that Mary had not
time to learn how to do things--nicely?" Mr. Carlyle's eyes glanced sadly
about the untidy room and then at the ill-laid supper table.
Faith looked up at him in mild surprise; it had never occurred to her that
there was anything lacking in the care of the house. Her glance followed
his and rested on the supper table too.
"Oh, daddy, I believe you have had nothing since dinner. You must be
frightfully hungry, I know you must, and the dinner was so badly cooked--
oh, poor daddy! Why didn't you come home to tea?"
"I had barely finished my round of calls in time to keep an appointment
Dr. Gray had made with me. He wanted," he added more slowly, his face
growing grave and troubled, "to talk to me about your mother."
Faith looked up quickly at him, her large eyes full of anxiety, her heart
throbbing heavily. Then there was more trouble in store, more anxiety!
She had felt it for days in her inmost heart, but had not had the courage
to put her fears into words. "Is mother--worse?" her voice faltered and
broke.
Mr. Carlyle, gazing, absorbed and troubled, into the fire, did not see her
blanched cheeks and the dread that filled her eyes. He had no suspicion
of the awful fear which had haunted her every waking moment, and even
her dreams, or he would not have kept her in suspense while his thoughts
ran on to plans for the future.
"No, dear," he said at last, "no dear, she is not worse, but the doctor
says it will be a long time before she is well again--well enough to walk
about and take up her old life. For a year, poor dear, she must lie on a
sofa, and live the life of an invalid. If she does, he says, she will
become her old strong self again in a year or two, but if she----"
"Oh, but she will, of course she will, that will be easy enough."
In the intensity of her relief, Faith spoke so gaily that her father
looked up at her in surprise, her tone and words sounded almost heartless.
"Easy! It will be a long and trying ordeal for her. Faith--just think of
it, a whole year in one room! You don't realise."
"Oh yes I do, daddy, but we will manage beautifully. I will look after
the house and the children, and--and see that mother isn't worried at all,
and she can read and write, and--and oh, father, father, I am so glad--I
don't know what to do!" and without any warning Faith broke down and began
to sob.
"Glad!" For a moment Mr. Carlyle looked at his little daughter as though
he feared she must be mad instead of glad. She spoke as though his news
had come as a relief. Relief from what? Then quite suddenly the truth
broke upon him.
"Oh, you poor little woman! What have you been thinking? What have you
been fearing, Faith dear--tell me. Did you think----?"
Faith nodded. "Yes--yes--I thought," but she could not put her dread into
words.
"You feared we might be going to lose her altogether. Oh, you poor child.
My poor little girl. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't, daddy."
Mr. Carlyle drew her to him. "No wonder my news came to you as a relief,"
he said softly, "instead of as the shock I feared. Why, Faith, how you
are trembling. You look ready to faint too. Look here, I believe you are
tired and famished. Come and have some supper. What have we got?
Something tempting?"
With either arm encircling a daughter, the vicar turned to survey the
supper table, but at sight of it his face fell a little. Neither the
food, nor the way in which it was placed before them would have tempted
any but the most healthy, even ravenous appetite. Mary, the only maid
they could afford to keep, was more willing than able. The china and
silver had certainly been washed, but they were smeared and unpolished,
the cloth was wrinkled and all askew, the food was dumped down anyhow.
Fortunately for her own comfort, but unfortunately for the good of the
house, Faith was not troubled by appearances. Her eyes did not notice
details, the details which mean so much, for her home had always been in
more or less of a muddle. There were so many of them, Audrey, Faith, Tom,
Deborah and baby Joan. Five of them ransacking and romping all over the
house, until granny had come and taken Audrey away to live with her.
They had always been in a muddle, but they had always been happy, and they
loved their home so dearly that, whatever it was like, it was right in
their eyes--excepting, perhaps, in Audrey's. And even if their clothes
were shabby--well, shabby clothes were much less of a worry than smart
ones; and if their food was plain, and not very daintily served, there was
always enough, and there was plenty of fun and laughter as sauce for it.
Mr. Carlyle, who had grown up in a well-ordered home where everything was
as neat and well-cared-for as things could be, did realise that there was
much that was lacking in his own home; but whatever he may have suffered
from the disorder, he never complained. His mother had had means, three
good servants, and only one child to make the home untidy; whereas his
young wife, who had been brought up in an Orphan School, had never known
real home life until her marriage, had only small means, several young
babies, and only one ignorant servant to help her.
Audrey and Faith, as they grew out of babyhood, helped to dust the rooms,
run errands, and look after the younger children, but they had only the
vaguest notions as to how homes should be kept, or meals served, or the
hundred and one other little things which make all the difference between
a well-kept house and an ill-kept one, and they were quite content with
things as they were.
At least Faith was. Audrey often had misgivings that all was not as it
should be, and yearned for something more orderly, dainty, and neat; for
prettier clothes and prettier manners. And then Granny Carlyle had come
on a visit, and had offered to take one of her many grandchildren to live
with her--for a time, at any rate. And, to the joy of Audrey, and the
relief of the others, she was chosen and they were not; and, with all her
few possessions packed in her mother's old portmanteau, she had gone off
to enjoy all the things that she considered best worth having--a large
comfortable home in a town, new clothes, school, tempting food, daintily
cooked meals, and peace and quiet in which she could read and write
undisturbed. For though Audrey resembled her father's mother in many
ways, she had also inherited her mother's taste for writing and reading.
That was four years ago, when Audrey was eleven and Faith ten, and Deborah
and Tom five and four respectively. Baby Joan, aged eighteen months,
Audrey had not yet seen.
Thoughts of his eldest daughter were uppermost in Mr. Carlyle's mind as he
glanced from the unappetising remains of a joint lying on a dish on which
it had already appeared twice, to the scrap of dry cheese and the
unpolished knife lying beside it.
"I--I am afraid that is all there is, father. Won't it do?" Faith looked
at him with troubled eyes. "Shall I tell Mary to cook you some eggs?"
"No, no. What is here will do very well for me, but you--wouldn't you
prefer eggs--or----"
"Oh no, thank you, I am so hungry I can eat anything," said Faith
cheerfully. "Father, Joan is asleep, can't we tuck her up snugly on the
sofa while we are having our supper? She would be certain to wake up if I
took her upstairs to her cot."
"Of course she would. If you will make her a nice little nest on the sofa
I will pop her into it so gently she will not know she has been moved.
There now, wasn't that clever!"
Faith again held up a warning finger, but Joan only stretched her limbs a
little in her new nest, and forthwith dropped asleep again.
With a smile of triumph at each other the two nurses turned away to the
supper-table, and Mr. Carlyle said grace, and with her deep relief at the
news about her mother still glowing in her heart, Faith joined in with a
deeper sense of real gratitude than she had known before.
"Daddy," she said presently, "you said you wanted to talk to me.
Was it about mother?"
"Yes, dear, and--and other things too. I have been thinking matters over
since I left the doctor, and I have come to the conclusion that I must
send and have Audrey home."
"Audrey home! Oh, how jolly!" Faith's eyes lighted with pleasure.
"That will be lovely. But," with sudden misgiving, "why must she come
home, daddy?"
"Well, for one thing, your mother will need companionship--more than you
can give her with the children taking up so much of your time.
And, for another, it will be a relief to your mother to know that Audrey
is here looking after things. We don't want a stranger, and, indeed,
I can't afford to have anyone extra in just now. We have had so much
illness and such heavy expenses. After four years with your grandmother,
Audrey should be quite capable. She always had a sensible head on her
shoulders and for certain granny has given her a good training."
"Ye-es," said Faith musingly, "I--I wonder how she will like coming away.
I believe she will not like it at all." But Faith kept that last thought
to herself.