Anxious Audrey Part 28

"Are you awfully tired with what is called 'Gay'?

Weary, discouraged, and sick, I'll tell you the loveliest game in the world-- Do something for somebody quick!

Do something for somebody quick!"

She sang blithely and felt in her heart that there was nothing like it for lifting a load off one's spirits.

"Mother dear," she said, when her mother had eaten her omelette, and laid aside her knife and fork, "I have been talking to Mary about her holiday.

I thought she ought to have it while the house is so empty, but she does not want to go. She only wants one day for the Sunday School treat and one to spend by the sea."

"Yes, dear, of course she can. She must, she so thoroughly deserves it.

And Audrey, I have another plan that I want to talk to you about.

Don't you think it would be nice to ask granny to come and stay with us while the house is quiet?"

"Granny!" For a moment Audrey's heart leaped with pleasure, then it sank.

Even with all the improvements they had wrought in the house, and the meals, and the way they were served, everything seemed very different from what granny was accustomed to at home. What would she do without her comforts! Audrey's mental eye ran over the carpets, the bed and table linen; even the best was as shabby as that which granny, at home, condemned and put aside.

"Are you ashamed for her to see our poverty?" asked Mrs. Carlyle in her patient, gentle voice, and Audrey coloured at finding her thoughts thus read.

"Darling, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Granny knows what our means are, and she must realise what heavy expenses we have to meet, so she should not expect us to be anything but shabby. She would understand that with five children things need replacing more often, and that there is less to replace them with."

"Oh, I know, mother, I know. But granny had only one little boy, and a very well behaved one, and I think she couldn't realise how five of us knock the things about."

"But don't you think she would be so glad to see her one little boy, that she would overlook that?"

Audrey still looked doubtful.

"Think of it in this way, dear. Suppose we missed this opportunity, and suppose dear granny died before we invited her here. Do you think we should ever cease to feel remorseful? And don't you think she would rather be asked to come, and made to feel that we wanted her, than remain unasked because our home is shabby? Try by all means in one's power to have things as neat and nice and comfortable as possible, but don't let us put outward show before kind feeling."

Audrey listened eagerly. She had learnt one great lesson--not to trust entirely to her own opinion and she was very, very anxious to learn what was right, and to do it.

Mrs. Carlyle looked at her smiling. "Don't you think it is often a help to ask oneself, 'what would I like others to do to me? What would I myself prefer?'" But Audrey coloured painfully, as the thought of her own return home came back to her. How entirely she had lost sight of the love and the welcome in her care about external appearances. She was silent so long that her mother looked at her anxiously more than once.

"I think you are very tired, aren't you, dear?"

"Oh no, mother."

"Perhaps you need a holiday. Would you like to go back with granny to Farbridge for a week or two?"

"Oh no, mother, no I don't want any holiday. I don't want anything to do but stay here. Oh, mother." Her secret hovered on the tip of her tongue, her longing to confide in her mother almost overcame all her other feelings, but she checked herself. "Oh mother," she added lamely, "I want to do so much but--but----"

A voice came calling up the stairs, "Audrey, Audrey, are you coming to give me my dinner, or am I to dine alone?" Mr. Carlyle put his head in round the door. "Don't you think the remnant of the crew should cling together?" Then kissing his wife and lifting away her tray, he drew Audrey's hand through his arm and made for the door.

"Audrey will tell you of the plans we have been hatching," Mrs. Carlyle called after them. "Come up here when you have finished your dinner and tell me what you think about them."

"Mother thought that now would be a good time to ask granny here to stay,"

said Audrey.

"Did she!" Mr. Carlyle looked up with almost boyish pleasure on his face.

Audrey was surprised. She had not dreamed that he would care so much.

"That really looks as though your mother felt a little stronger.

Don't you think so?" he added, and looked at her with such eager questioning eyes, she had not the heart to say that mother never thought of herself when she was planning happiness for others. She really was better though, and stronger. She herself said so, and the doctor said so.

She could do several little things now that she could not have done a few months ago.

"I am sorry granny will not see the children," her father was saying when her thoughts came back to him again. "She has never seen Joan yet.

But your mother and she will have a more quiet time for talks together than they have ever had, and I am glad of that. We must try and make her as comfortable as we can, Audrey."

"Yes, daddy, we will," she said, but not very hopefully.

The meal ended, she got up from the table and strolled over to the window.

As her eyes fell on the herb bed once more she remembered all her plans for making it a pleasant sight for her mother to look out on. She thought of her other plans too. Of all the writing she had meant to do while the work in the house was slacker, and here were all her plans upset, and a fresh load laid upon her shoulders.

Across her thoughts came Irene's voice, and a fragment of their merry talks. "I know I shall never paint a big picture, nor write any great books, nor be a pioneer of any kind; but I know I can help to make a few people happier, and it is grand to feel that there is something one _can_ do. Something that is of use. I always feel as though people were my little children, and I've got to mother them."

With her eyes fixed on the herb bed, Audrey first felt the responsibility of controlling her own words and temper. "I know I can help to make a few people happier." It rested with her to make or mar the pleasure of her grandmother's visit. By letting her feelings have their own way she could spoil everyone's pleasure. By putting her own feelings aside, and thinking only of others, she could, to a large extent, make their pleasure.

"How odd things are," she sighed aloud. "No one is of very great importance, yet everyone matters to someone----"

"To lots of someones as a rule," said her father, rising and joining her at the window. "And that is one of the most serious and most blessed facts of life. I think that almost the saddest thing human beings can feel is that no one is the better or the happier for their existence."

"But can we help it, father? If I had no relations, nor anyone belonging to me----"

"You would still have all the world to 'mother,' Audrey. There is always someone, close at hand too, needing help and sympathy. Always bear that in mind, my child wherever you may be. Now I am going up to talk to your mother. I think we had better ask granny to come next week."

"Next week!" thought Audrey. "At any rate then I shall have no time to worry about my play or anything else before granny comes, whatever I may do after."

"Oh Mary," she sighed as she took a turn at the ironing while she told her the news, and Mary washed the dinner things, "I am dreadfully nervous.

I wish we had a cook and a parlourmaid, and I wish we were able to buy all the best things that can be got. Granny does so like to have nice food and nice everything. She has always been accustomed to it."

But Mary, never having seen her master's mother, much less lived with her, was not so filled with fears as was Audrey herself.

"Well, miss, we'll do our best--and we can't do more. And after all, people don't come to stay with you for what you can give them, but because they want to see you."

And with that thought Audrey tried to allay her nervous fears, and face the coming visit with only happy antic.i.p.ations.

Old Mrs. Carlyle tried to face the coming visit with happy antic.i.p.ations only; but, with a lively recollection of her last visit to her son's home still impressed on her mind, she could not help it if her feelings this time were a little mixed. Her longing though to see her son and his wife, and her favourite grand-daughter, overcame every other; and the warmly affectionate terms in which they invited her, sent a glow to her lonely old heart.

"There is something better than comfort," she thought to herself, "and some things that means cannot buy. I wish Audrey had her dear father's affectionate nature," she added wistfully, for she had never forgotten the lack of feeling Audrey had shown when the summons came which was to break up their happy life together.

Granny Carlyle came, and though her visit was but a short one, she learnt many things while it lasted. One was that her son's home was more comfortable but more shabby than she had thought. Another was that poverty and the need to work had developed in Audrey a stronger character and a sweeter nature than comfort and plenty could ever have done.

The grandmother noticed the change in her almost as soon as she alighted at Moor End station.

Audrey had not only grown in inches, but, though older-looking, she was yet younger. She was less self-conscious, but more self-reliant; less concerned for herself, and more for others. When they reached the Vicarage, and the luggage had been deposited in the hall, Audrey picked out the special cap-basket and ran up at once with it to her granny's room.

"I knew you would want this, the first thing," she said cheerfully, "and Mary has put hot water ready for you; the can is under the bath towel. And tea will be ready when you are, granny. It will be in mother's room, we thought you would like it there."

And as Mrs. Carlyle came out of her bedroom to go to her daughter-in-law's room she met Audrey flying up the stairs with a rack of dry toast on a tray. "I remembered that you used to eat toast always for tea, granny, so I thought you might still. Oh, granny, it is so nice to see you in your pretty caps again, it seems so--so natural."

It also seemed to her, though, that granny had grown to look much older in the last three months, and thinner, or was it only that she had been away from her, and amongst younger people.