Anxious Audrey Part 16

Oh how she longed for one of the exquisitely neat Dutch kitchens so often seen in pictures.

"Mary!" she called in impatiently, "wherever are you? Do you know what has become of the children?"

Mary heard at last, and hurrying forward to reply, spread the door as hospitably wide as it would go, and stood outlined against a background of dirty pots and pans, a table piled with unwashed dishes, and a litter of torn paper everywhere. She had been so busy packing the baskets for tea that her own work had got more behind than usual.

"I saw them going out of the garden carrying a basket each," she said slowly, eyeing the while with the keenest interest the visitors whom she now saw for the first time. "I thought you had sent them on ahead, perhaps, Miss Audrey."

Mr. Carlyle counted again the baskets on the table. "There are four here.

Isn't that the lot?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." Mary looked puzzled. "Then I don't know what they were carrying. I didn't pay much heed, but I'm sure they were carrying some, and heavy ones too."

"Some nonsense or other that they have thought of, I suppose," sighed Audrey wearily, and hurried away. Mary would not close that door as long as they stood there, so the only thing to do was to take the guests away.

"I expect they have gone on to try and find a specially nice spot to have tea in," suggested Faith. "They are always busy about something and they love to give us surprises. Don't you think we had better follow them?"

Mr. Carlyle laughed. "As likely as not they have taken up a load of their toys to help to make a pleasant afternoon for us. Now, can you young people carry two of these baskets between you, if I carry the other two?"

"I can take both," cried Keith eagerly, "it is easier to carry two than one." But the girls would listen to no such argument.

"Oh no, no," laughed Faith, "we have some strong sticks on purpose to sling them on, then two of us will carry a basket between us. I have been longing to try it, it seems such an easy way."

But Keith, though longing to help, was not inclined for a _tete-a-tete_ with one of his own sisters, and was shy of facing one with one of these strangers. "I know," he cried, with sudden inspiration, "I'll walk in the middle with the end of a stick in either hand and you four can take it in turns to carry the other ends." No one having anything to say against this plan they proceeded, Faith grasping one stick and Irene the other, while the baskets swung between in a fas.h.i.+on that would have turned the milk to b.u.t.ter had there been any in them to turn. Behind the trio walked Audrey and Daphne, dainty and decorous enough to give an air to any party.

Upon the moor, meanwhile, Debby and Tom sat triumphant but exhausted.

"Won't they be s'prised!" panted Debby. "Won't it be fun. Oh, Tom, I must take them out, they are crying so." The first only of her remarks applied to her family. She untied the lid of her basket and, lifting the cover, peeped in. "Oh, Tom," her voice growing shrill with alarm, "Snowdrop is stepping on n.i.g.g.e.r's head, and--oh! Rudolph looks as though he is quite dead!" Her voice had risen to a cry of horror.

"Haul them out then," cried Tom brusquely. "What are you waiting for!"

He was nearly as alarmed as Debby, but not for worlds would he have shown it. "I expect he is only asleep or shamming."

With shaking hands Debby, awed into silence for the moment, lifted out first a tiny black kitten, then a white one, and last of all a black and white one, and laid them on the short warm gra.s.s beside her. n.i.g.g.e.r and Snowdrop began to sprawl about at once, revelling in their freedom.

The black and white Rudolph opened a pair of watery blue eyes, gazed sleepily about him, and fell asleep again with every sign of satisfaction.

"He's all right," cried Tom, relieved, yet annoyed at having been for a moment alarmed. "He's a greedy little pig; he can't keep awake because he eats so much. Now, look out, I am going to let out Nibbler."

"Oh!" gasped Debby, still busy with her pets, "won't they love it!

Wait a sec., Tom, till I'm looking. Snowdrop you shall all go back into the basket this minute if you don't stop yelling! You are only doing it to annoy. Now I am ready. Don't lift him; just open the cover and let him hop out by himself. We'll see what he does. Oh-h-h, he won't eat my kittens, will he?"

"Nibbler isn't a cannibal, he's a rabbit," declared Nibbler's owner indignantly. "Now, look out!" He opened the lid slowly, and Nibbler sniffed the air rapturously.

"Oh, doesn't he love it! Look at his dear little nose wriggling with joy.

Oh Tom! do look at him waggling his ears!" Debby's voice grew shrill again with excitement. Nibbler hopped out of the basket and her joy became intense.

For a moment, as though bewildered by the s.p.a.ce, the suns.h.i.+ne, and the breeze, the great rabbit sat and stared about him; then suddenly old instincts came crowding back upon his rabbit brain, He saw furze and bracken, and rabbits' burrows all about him, he felt the turf under his feet, and life calling to him--and he followed the call!

When, a little later, the rest of the party arrived, they found three forlorn kittens tumbling helplessly over each other, and squealing loudly with fright, while in the distance two little blue-clad figures dashed desperately from one clump of bracken to another, and with tears running down their faces, shouting frantically "Nibbler, Nibbler, oh darling, do come here, you will be killed if you stay out here all night; Nibbler, Nibbler!"

It did not take the family long to grasp what had happened. "They will break their hearts if they lose him," cried Faith, almost as distracted as the children. "We shall never get them to go home and leave him behind.

They will stay all night searching for him."

"I will go and help them," said Keith at once. "What colour is he?"

"White and tan, nothing uncommon, but we all love him."

Audrey felt very cross. "One can always count on those children to spoil every plan we make," she muttered to herself vexedly; "they deserve to be whipped and sent home to bed, tiresome little torments!"

All of the party but herself had hurried away to join in the search, and she was left standing alone by the baskets.

"Well, there is no need for me to go f.a.gging round too, and someone ought to stay by the things, or they might be stolen. One never knows if there are tramps about."

She seated herself comfortably on the gra.s.s with her back against a basket and waited. It never occurred to her to unpack the baskets and begin to arrange the tea-table, nor to take up the frightened kittens and try to stop their cries. She just sat there revelling in the suns.h.i.+ne and the breeze, and the scent of the furze-blossom. It was so beautiful that she almost forgot everything unpleasant or worrying. In the distance she caught sight of a man on horseback galloping across the moor, and began to weave a story of bearers of secret tidings, plots and enemies, in which the distant horseman was the hero and she the heroine, and she had just reached, in her own mind, a village wedding and little girls strewing in the path of a n.o.ble one-armed hero and a bride, white as a lily save for her crown of burnished hair, when Irene returned, and with a little sigh of weariness dropped on the ground beside her.

"We can't find him," she sighed, "and those poor babies are breaking their hearts. What can we do?" Irene was really distressed, but Audrey, with her eyes fixed on the horseman, and her thoughts on the story she might write, had none left for sympathy with two children and a lost rabbit.

"Oh, he is quite old," she cried involuntarily. The rider was near enough now for her to see that his hair was grey and--oh, horror, that he had a beard!

Irene looked up in surprise. "Who?" she inquired, "Nibbler?" Then her eyes followed Audrey's, and with a cry of delight and surprise she sprang to her feet. "Why, it's grandfather!" and ran forward to meet him.

Audrey was glad that she did so--she was glad to be alone for one moment, in which to recover herself. Oh how thankful she was that no one could read her thoughts, how thankful that no one knew what she had been thinking. She saw the rider dismount and greet Irene, she saw Irene tuck her arm contentedly through his arm and lead him forward; and she had scarcely recovered from her confusion when Irene brought him up to her saying, "This is my grandfather, Audrey."

"Grandfather, you have heard us talk of Audrey, the girl we travelled down with the day we came to you. Mr. Carlyle and all the rest are looking for the children's rabbit. The poor dears brought him out to share the picnic and he has hopped off on his own account. Now you must stay here and talk to Audrey while I go and look for him just over there. I think we haven't looked in that clump of ferns yet."

Mr. Vivian slipped the rein from off his arm and left his horse free to crop the gra.s.s. "He will be safe," he said rea.s.suringly, "he will not go far from me. Peter is more dependable than the rabbit Irene was speaking of."

Peter moved away a few paces, and his master seated himself on the gra.s.s near Audrey and the baskets and the kittens. "What sort of a rabbit is it?" he asked, "and which way did he go?"

"I don't know which way he went," said Audrey, "he was gone when we reached here. The children were very naughty, they started off by themselves, unknown to anyone, with a basket of kittens and a rabbit.

There are the kittens. They have been making that dreadful noise ever since we came."

"Poor little creatures! they are frightened, they want to be taken up and held."

"They would spoil my clean frock," said Audrey hesitating.

Mr. Vivian picked up the three little squealing things and held them in his own arms. Their cries soon changed to a contented note. "They can't hurt my old coat," he remarked with a smile, "not that I'd mind much if they did, poor little beggars."

Audrey felt vexed and ashamed and could think of no reply to make.

For a moment silence fell, broken only by the singing of the birds all around them.

Close to them and to Peter was a large clump of bracken on which Mr.

Vivian's eyes rested lazily. Suddenly he deposited his three little charges on the ground again, "What was the colour of your rabbit?" he asked in a lowered tone.

"White and light brown," said Audrey, "quite a common kind. It wasn't a valuable one, but the children----"

"If you get up very gently and go round to that side of the clump of ferns," Mr. Vivian broke in hastily, "I think we shall get the gentleman.

I feel pretty sure he is in there. I saw something big move when Peter stepped close. Now then, stoop down on that side and grab him if he runs out, and I will be on the look out for him here."

There was no need though for Audrey to grab, for the poor frightened creature only stared up bewildered when Mr. Vivian opened the ferns above its head, and with one sure grasp lifted it up and into his arm.