Anxious Audrey Part 22

"No, that is just why I am going to give you one. I want you to keep your hand up, at any rate for an hour or two, to prevent its beginning to bleed again. There, I am sure that looks like a First-Aid professional sling.

Now, when I have washed, I want you to tell me what you were going to cook for dinner to-day."

"There's a round of beef to roast, miss, and fruit to stew, and a milk pudding to make."

"That is easy enough, I feel I would like something more difficult.

I daresay, though, I shall find it enough, by the time I have done!

Do you have a suet pudding with the beef?"

"No-o, miss, we--we haven't had one lately. I believe they used to, but-- well, I don't seem able to make them proper, so I never tries now."

"Well, I daresay everyone would like one--the children will, for certain.

I'll show you how I have made them at home, then you will be able to do it another time. My mother taught me."

"n.o.body never taught me," said Mary, apologetically, "I just had to pick things up as I could."

"Don't they teach you at school?"

"Oh no, miss. I learnt a lot about hygiene, and how to draw an apple, but I was never no good with a pencil--and what good would it do me if I could draw apples? Mother said, 'better fit they taught me how to peel one properly.'"

Irene laughed. "Well, it does seem that it would have done you more good to have learnt how to grow them, or how to cook them! Now, to begin!

First of all I am going to wash the breakfast things, or we shall have no room to move."

Mary looked really shocked. "Oh no, miss! You mustn't. Just think about your 'ands."

"I am thinking about my hands," said Irene cheerfully. "Did you ever hear about the Thanksgiving of the Hands, Mary?"

Mary, looking puzzled, shook her head.

"Well, if you feel very, very glad and grateful for something, you can show your grat.i.tude and your gladness through your hands."

"Oh, music!" said Mary, with sudden inspiration.

"No, it is something that everyone's hands can do. It is just making them do some little service as a thanksgiving. I am very, very glad, Mary, that your accident is no worse than it is, and I am very, very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle and all of them, and to you too, Mary, for being so kind to me, but most of all I am grateful to G.o.d for sparing my life that day, and for sending Mr. Carlyle to me that day, and giving me such kind friends when I needed them so badly, and I feel I can never give thanks enough--except through my hands. So, the more I have to do the better I am pleased. Do you understand, Mary?"

"Yes, miss," said Mary huskily, and to Irene's surprise there were tears in her eyes. "I--I've often felt like that, miss, but I--never could say it, and I--I never met anyone else who did. But what about me, miss?

I am sure I ought to be grateful for having you come to help me like this, yet I don't seem to be doing anything."

"But you will--you are always doing something, Mary. Now you can tell me where the things are kept--the soap and the dish-pan, and the dishcloth."

"And I can put the things away in their places," said Mary, somewhat comforted.

Audrey, after being banished from the kitchen, sat with her mother for a little while, but her thoughts were so pre-occupied, and she sat so long gazing abstractedly out of window, evidently hearing nothing that was said, that presently Mrs. Carlyle gave up trying to talk to her, and gradually fell asleep. Recalled to herself by the sound of the deep, regular breathing, Audrey rose, and tiptoeing softly from the room made her way swiftly to her beloved attic.

Faith, after a busy half-hour spent in mopping up water from the floor, and changing Joan's wet clothes, popped that young person into her cot to take her long-delayed nap, and laid her own weary body on her own little bed beside her.

"I _must_ rest for just a few minutes," she sighed, "and then I will go down and see how Mary's hand is getting on." She picked up from the table beside the bed, the alluring book she was in the middle of.

It certainly was a very jolly story, perfectly fascinating, but somehow she could not get on with it. She read a few lines, and then the next thing she knew, she was finis.h.i.+ng it off in her own brain. She tried again and the same thing happened, then at last when she was trying to read the end of the paragraph she had begun so many times, her eyelids dropped before she could even find it, the book slipped from her hand and fell forward on her face, and she had not the strength to hold it up again.

The clang of the dinner-bell was the next thing she was conscious of, and then the savoury smell of cooking. Then she opened her eyes and saw Joan sitting up in her cot, playing with the book she herself had dropped.

Faith sprang off her bed, lifted Joan out of hers, and, untidy as she was, hurried down the stairs. Suddenly the remembrance of Mary's injured hand and the scene in the kitchen came back to her. "I suppose it is all right, as she has got the dinner ready. Oh, Irene!"

Irene came running up the stairs, looking flushed and hurried, but very well pleased. She had a big ap.r.o.n on over her cotton frock, and as she came along she was turning down her sleeves.

"I've got to wash my hands and tidy my hair, and I mustn't keep you waiting," she said as she whisked past. "I won't be more than a moment."

Audrey, descending from her attic, joined the little group. Her head was full of what she had been writing, and it took her a second or two to realise things.

"Oh, Irene, I hope you haven't been dull. I never meant to leave you alone so long, but I was working, and--and forgot. How hot you look.

What have you been doing?"

"I am rather. I have been cooking. Oh, I have had a lovely time. Do run down and look at my pudding--but I must fly, or everything will be cold!"

and Irene whisked away and into her bedroom.

Audrey and Faith did not rush down at once to look at Irene's pudding.

They looked at each other instead, and in the eyes of each dawned a look of shame and remorse.

"I quite forgot," gasped Faith. "I never remembered," gasped Audrey, "was Mary--couldn't Mary?"

But Faith had flown, leaving Joan to toddle after her. In the hall she met Mary hurrying to the dining-room with a big dish. Her hand was bound up, but was out of the sling, and she looked quite gay and cheerful.

"Oh, Mary!" she said, following her into the room, "I never thought about your not being able to manage, I _am_ so sorry. It is not much use to be sorry now, though, is it?"

"No," said Mary, laughing, "it isn't, Miss Faith--but it's all right, Miss Irene helped me. Oh, she is a clever young lady, Miss Faith, and so nice, she--she will wash dishes, and make cake, and sweep the kitchen, or--or anything, and be a lady all the time!"

"Cook! Can Miss Irene cook?"

"I should think she can, miss. It's a long time since we had a dinner so nice, or--or my kitchen either," added Mary honestly, as she hurried out to it again. "You come and look, Miss Faith. She's washed away all the dishes and has made the place look like a little palace."

"Washed the dishes!" Audrey groaned in bitterness of spirit, as she and Faith followed Mary out. In spite of dinner having just been cooked there, Audrey saw at a glance that this was the kitchen of her dreams--the neat, clean kitchen she had longed for, but had never attempted to create.

Mary looked at them both, her face glowing. Irene's interest and encouragement had quite inspired her; and her practical help had shown her the way. Every one of her few chance words, too, had gone home.

"'I can't bear to see a kitchen littered with dirty dishes, can you, Mary?' she said to me. I hadn't thought about it before, but when it was put to me like that I felt all of a sudden that I couldn't bear to see it either. 'And the longer they are left the nastier they are, aren't they?'

she said, and that's true too, Miss Faith. 'The kettle is boiling, and we can have some nice hot soapy water. We will see how soon we can get everything cleared away,' she says, and up she turns her sleeves, and-- well, she washed all those things as well as I could myself, and better.

Look at the s.h.i.+ne on them, Miss Faith."

"I am looking," said Faith; but it was something else that she saw the s.h.i.+ning of. The s.h.i.+ning of a brave spirit, and a warm heart--of an example that she never forgot.

"Miss Irene wouldn't let me do more than put the things back in their places, 'cause of my hand."

Without another word Audrey turned and walked away. The shame in her heart burned in her cheeks, and in her eyes. "And I--I talk, and do nothing. I tell other people what they ought to do--Irene helps them do it." And through her mind pa.s.sed the thought; "What kind of dinner would they all have had, if they had to rely on her? What would the kitchen have been like at that moment, if it had been left to her?"

Debby came rus.h.i.+ng out of the dining-room tempestuously. "Have you made yourself ready for dinner?" asked Audrey, laying a detaining hand on her.

"Yes, yes, ever so long ago. We are waiting for you. There is the nicest pudding for dinner that we have had for ever so long, but daddy says we mustn't begin it till you all come. Oh, _do_ make haste."

Irene came flying down the stairs. "I am so sorry to be so long," she cried apologetically, "the string of my ap.r.o.n got into a knot, and I really began to think I should have to wear it at dinner."