Anxious Audrey Part 1

Anxious Audrey.

by Mabel Quiller-Couch.

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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 appet.i.te. 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.