Never in their lives before had Debby and Tom been thrown into such a state of such rapturous joy and excitement as when they heard of the invitation which had been accepted for them, and never, never had they been called upon to face so bitter a disappointment as that which befell them before the week was out, when news came to the Vicarage that the visit must be postponed indefinitely, for measles had broken out at 'The Orchard.' One maid was down with it, and Daphne was, they feared, sickening. And if Daphne developed it, Keith was almost certain to follow suit.
"It is almost too dreadful to be borne!" cried Debby tragically, meaning the disappointment, not the measles. "Don't you think it is only a bad dream, and we'll wake up presently?"
Tom shook his head gloomily. "I'm awake right enough," he said, "so are you."
"I wish I wasn't; I'd never been asked away before, in all my life, and there would have been the train, and the donkey cart when we got there, and a s-s-swing in the orchard. Oh, Faith, isn't it dreadful, that such things can happen, and all because of measles—as if measles are anything to make a fuss about."
"Some people make such a fuss about a little thing," scoffed Tom, "I wouldn't have minded going and catching them. I've got to have them some time, I s'pose, so I might as well have had them there as at home— better, too!"
"I doubt if Mrs. Vivian would have thought so," said Faith. "Cheer up, both of you, and try not to mind. Perhaps Mrs. Vivian will ask you again some day, and you see you can't go, neither can Irene, so we shall have her here for a long time yet—and won't that be jolly!"
When Audrey had first heard the news she had breathed a sigh of relief and sympathy. Relief, when she thought of the scanty, shabby little outfits which were all they had to take with them. Sympathy with their disappointment. She knew what it was to feel the latter.
Irene was frankly dismayed. To land oneself suddenly on new friends for a day or two was bad enough, but to be told that you must not return home for some weeks—indeed, for no one knew how long—was most embarrassing.
"I am so sorry," she said apologetically to Mrs. Carlyle, "I expect mother will arrange for me to go somewhere as soon as possible, I—I hope it won't be very inconvenient my staying here until I hear."
Mrs. Carlyle smiled at her affectionately. "Inconvenient! Irene, dear, how could it be. We should simply rejoice to have you as long as you can stay—that is, of course, if you would like to. The Vicar wrote to your mother at once to know if we might keep you during the time, and we are waiting to hear."
"Like to! Oh, Mrs. Carlyle, how good you are to me! I would like it better than anything," she cried enthusiastically, bending down to give the invalid a warm kiss. Then, turning swiftly, she caught up Baby Joan and danced with her round the room. "Oh, isn't it perfectly lovely, Joan darling. I am going to stay with you, Joany Carlyle, for weeks, instead of going to strangers. If you were only half as pleased as I am you would clap your hands and sing."
"She would if she understood," laughed Mrs. Carlyle. "I would too, if I could."
Irene stood still suddenly in the middle of her pirouetting. "Would you? Would you, really?" she exclaimed; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone. "Are you really sure I shall not be a bother?"
"Indeed, indeed, I love to have you here, darling." There was no mistaking the meaning in Mrs. Carlyle's voice. "It is like letting sunshine into the house. We all love having you—and it is so good for the girls. They have no real companions here."
When, a few minutes later, Irene went downstairs and into the garden, her face was grave, but her eyes still glowed. "Sunshine!" Mrs. Carlyle had called her. She was like sunshine in the house. What a glorious thing to have said of one—and she had done nothing to deserve it either. Well, here was her chance. She had not been in the Vicarage those few days without learning that there was a lot to be done, and few to do it. Here was her opportunity!
Faith was in the garden looking at the flower bed. "I can't understand it," she said, in a puzzled voice, as Irene drew dear, "there seem to be seedlings, or something, coming up all over it. They look like real flowers, don't they? Or do you think they are weeds? If they are, they ought to be pulled up, but I don't like to until I know."
"Oh no, let them stay. I am sure they aren't weeds, Faith. Look at those, they are sweet peas, I am certain they are, and this is young mignonette."
Faith's face was as puzzled as her voice. "It is a most extraordinary thing about this bed," she said soberly, "I made it, and then Audrey didn't like it because we hadn't any nice bedding plants for it, so I put in a few things that I had given me, phloxes and sunflowers, and wallflowers, and—oh, I forget quite what, but I forgot all about watering them, and I thought they were dead, but they aren't. They pulled through somehow; I never planted any seeds, though, I am quite sure. Yet the bed is getting to look quite full! I think the fairies must have come at night, and sown them!"
"Or the brownies," suggested Irene. "We won't watch for them, then perhaps they will plant some more. They stop working if they are watched!" she laughed.
"Well, it's brownies, or something, and I want to thank them," said Faith gratefully, if ungrammatically. "I want to dreadfully. What are you smiling at, Irene?"
"Was I smiling? Oh Fay, I can't help it, I am so happy. Your father and mother have asked my mother to let me stay here with you until the measles have gone. Isn't it lovely of them!"
"Have they? Have they really?" Faith's face was a picture of glad surprise. "Oh, Irene, how lovely! how jolly! They hadn't said a word to us. I expect they knew how disappointed we should be, if your mother said 'no.' But she mustn't say 'no '! Shemustlet you stay. It will be perfectly lovely having you here." And she threw her arms round Irene's waist and hugged her. "Oh, I am so glad," she sighed, "I don't know what to do!"
"Keith and Daphne will be wild with envy," said Irene, returning the hug. "Poor dears, they will have a dull time, I am afraid."
"We will write them letters, to cheer them up, shall we? and send them all sorts of things—for fun."
Audrey came out and joined them, "Mother has told me," she said. "Oh, Irene, I am so delighted." Her pleasure shone in her face, and her speaking eyes. Irene already knew the worst there was to know of the shabbiness of the home, and Audrey's heart was at rest. "I think, though, you ought to come in now, and lie down, you know you are not really well yet."
"You must give me something to do then, sewing, or darning, or something. I simply could not lie still doing nothing. I am too excited. Haven't you some stockings that need mending? We always have a basketful at home."
"I took the basket up to mother a day or two ago," said Audrey. "We didn't get them done, somehow, so mother said she would try what she could do. But don't bother about work, Irene. Lie down and read, I am going up to my room to work for a little while."
"And I must put Joan in her cot for her morning nap," said Faith, taking that little person from Irene's arms.
Audrey strolled away to her beloved attic, Faith to her bedroom, and Irene was left alone to go to her bedroom, or the dining-room, as she pleased. For a few seconds she lay on the sofa in the dining-room, thinking; then suddenly she got up, and went softly up the stairs to Mrs. Carlyle's room.
"Come in," said the gentle voice, in answer to her knock. "Oh, Irene, is that you. Are you come up to sit with me? How nice?" The invalid's face brightened perceptibly.
"I came for the stocking basket," said Irene. "I am ordered to keep still, but I simply can't while I am so excited. I feel I want to be doing something to work it off me. Would you mind if I sat here with you for a little while, Mrs. Carlyle, and did some darning?"
"It would be the greatest pleasure to me, dear. I was longing for someone to talk to. I tried to mend some of the stockings myself, but I only managed to do one pair for Debby to put on. My eyes ached so. One seems to twist them if one tries to do fine work when lying down."
"Of course one does. Mrs. Carlyle," eagerly, "will you let the stocking basket be my charge while I am here? I love to have a big pile of work to do, and make my way through it. Would it bother you if I worked up here sometimes?"
"Not in the least, dear child. There is nothing I should enjoy more. I often long for company, but ours is a busy household. With only one servant, it takes the girls all their time to keep the house in order."
Irene stooped low over the stocking-basket, lest her face should reveal anything.
"Of course it is too much for them," Mrs. Carlyle went on anxiously, "and we shall have to have in extra help when the holidays are over, and their new governess comes. They can't possibly do their lessons and the housework as well. Next year I hope to be about again, and able to take some of the load off their shoulders, but," with a little sigh, "next year is a long way off."
"I wish I could help," said Irene. "I love housework, and keeping things nice. I am longing for the time when we shall have a house again. Mrs. Carlyle, have you any dark blue darning wool that I can mend Tom's stockings with?"
"No, dear, I have not, I have taken up that pair ever so many times and put them down again because I had no wool to mend them with."
Irene thrust her hand in, "Um!" Someone had not been so particular, she thought, as her eye fell on a brown darn on the heel, and a black one at the back of the leg.
"Irene, don't you think you could drop the formal name, and call me 'Aunt Kitty'? I wish you would, dear. I have no nieces or nephews of my own, and I have always longed to be 'aunt' to someone."
"Why, of course I will, I should love to, Aunt Kitty—don't you have a glass of milk about this time? Shall I ask for it for you?"
"Thank you—I think they must have forgotten it." She did not add that five days out of every seven the glass of milk was forgotten either entirely, or until it was so close on dinner-time that she could not take it.
"I won't bother Mary to bring it, I will go and get it, if you don't mind my going into the kitchen?"
Mrs. Carlyle was of the same happy, easy-going nature as Faith, and minded nothing of that sort. Even if she had known the state of muddle the kitchen was in, she would not have been troubled by Irene's going into it.
But though the muddle was there, as usual, and worse than usual, Irene did not see it. The shock she received when she opened the kitchen door, drove everything else from her thoughts, and it was not until some time later that she had eyes for the kitchen itself.
In the middle of the floor sat Mary, propped against the table leg, while on either side of her knelt Audrey and Faith, trying to staunch the blood which flowed freely from Mary's hand. Mary's face was as white as chalk, her eyes nearly popping out of her head with alarm. Audrey and Faith looked almost as frightened.
When Irene appeared on the scene they turned their faces to her in evident relief. "Oh, Irene, Mary has cut her poor hand fearfully, and—and it will not stop bleeding, and we don't know what to do, we have been here ever so long, and it isn't stopping a bit. Do you think we ought to send for Doctor Gray?"
"I shouldn't think so," said Irene reassuringly, "not if it is an ordinary cut. Let me see it, may I?"
"Oh, no, you mustn't look at it. You will faint!"
"I don't faint from that kind of thing, I am used to it. We are always damaging ourselves, and I doctor them all. Anyhow, I know that Mary ought not to hold her hand down like that,"—gently raising it to check the flow—"it will bleed for hours if she does. Have you any soft rag?"
"Plenty, I should think," Audrey replied sarcastically, "but I don't know where to find any." Irene, looking at her closely for the first time, saw that she was white to the lips, and trembling.
"Look here," she said quickly, "I came down for a glass of milk for your mother, and some biscuits, will you take them up to her? She will be waiting, and wondering what has become of me. Then you stay with her and talk to her. Don't tell her what has happened—simply say that I am busy. Don't come down again, Audrey, you will be fainting if you stay here, and we can manage by ourselves. Don't cry, Mary, it will be all right. I am sure it will."
"I—I believe I've taken a bit of my finger right off," sobbed Mary. "I am sure I have, p'raps it's gone. Do look, miss."
"Oh no, it isn't gone. Don't scream so, Mary, you will frighten Mrs. Carlyle and make her very ill. Now just be as plucky as ever you can while I dress it. Faith, where can I find some rag?"
"Oh, I don't know," groaned Faith. "Irene, do you think a piece of her finger has really come off?"
"No!" Irene, who had been examining the wound, spoke almost impatiently. "The cut is a deep one, but it will be all right in a few days. Do try and find some rag or bandage, Faith. I want to bind it up as tightly as possible to stop the bleeding. If you haven't any I will get one of my handkerchiefs."
Faith, much relieved in her mind, ran off hurriedly. Mary's sobs became quieter, but as she grew less frightened about herself, she grew more worried about her work.
"Whatever shall I do!" she wailed, "there's the dinner to get, and I've got to make cake to-day! Oh, what can I do! We'll have to have in a woman, and see what that costs!"
Poor Mary's innocent words brought Irene's wandering thoughts to a standstill. Mary's concern for her master's purse touched her, and filled her with a deep respect for the simple, loyal, country girl.
"Oh, but we need not do that, Mary," she said kindly, "you will be able to use your other hand quite well, and this one too, for some things. Of course, you can't make cake, but I can. I often made it at home; and I can cook the dinner too, if you will tell me what you want."
"Oh! but Miss Irene, I couldn't let you!" Mary was so taken aback she forgot all about the cut hand, and let Irene bathe it without once wincing. "Oh, miss! I—I couldn't. The master wouldn't like it, and— and——"
"The master need not know anything about it, at least, not until it is done, then I will ask him if he approves of his new cook. I expect he will say he prefers his old one! Now Mary—you are not to say anything about it. I love cooking, and I want to practise, and I think it will be the greatest fun."
Faith came dashing in with an old pillow-case in her hand. "You will have to use some of this, I am afraid. I know there is a heap of real rag somewhere, but I can't stay to look any further. Joan has pulled over the water-jug and drenched herself to the skin. I must fly!"
Irene looked at Mary, and Mary looked at the pillowcase. "Seems a pity to tear that up," she said anxiously, "it wants a bit of mending, but it is one of the best. If you will wait a minute, miss, I think I know where I can put my hand on a piece," and Mary scrambled to her feet, forgetful of her faintness.
"Law me! 'tisn't nothing to have made such a fuss about, after all," she remarked shamefacedly, as Irene bathed the cut in clean cold water, "I thought for certain the top of my finger was lying round on the floor somewhere, and the thought of it made me feel that ill."
"Well, don't think about it any more," laughed Irene, as she deftly tore up strips of linen, "it is too horrid. Tell me now if I am binding your finger too tightly. There! Isn't that neat! I daresay a doctor or a nurse would laugh at it, but if it answers the purpose, that is all that really matters, isn't it? Now I am going to make you a sling."
"But I can't use it if it is in a sling, miss."
"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."
"Nobody 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 gratitude 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 God 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.
"Imustrest 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 finishing 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 apron 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, Iamso 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 shine on them, Miss Faith."
"I am looking," said Faith; but it was something else that she saw the shining of. The shining 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 passed 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 rushing 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,domake haste."
Irene came flying down the stairs. "I am so sorry to be so long," she cried apologetically, "the string of my apron got into a knot, and I really began to think I should have to wear it at dinner."
"I am late, and have no excuse," thought Audrey dejectedly. "I never have one."
"I shall be glad to see anyone, no matter what they are wearing," said Mr. Carlyle, coming to the door. "Who is that talking of kitchen aprons?"
Irene looked at him with merry eyes laughing above her flushed cheeks. "Please, sir, it's the new cook," she said, dropping him a curtsey.
"Ugh! how horrid they feel! I think that is the very worst part of dish-washing, don't you, Irene?"
Audrey sat in a kitchen chair with her hands held out stiffly before her. She had just washed all the beautiful things, and Irene had wiped them. Now, after wiping out the dish-pan, and spreading the dish-cloth to dry, she had sat down while she dried her hands on the runner. She was tired, and her feet ached; the weather was hot, and she had been busy ever since she had got up.
For more than a fortnight now, she and Irene had inaugurated a new state of affairs at the Vicarage, and, to her surprise, she found that she was growing to enjoy the work. She certainly enjoyed the results, and felt proud of them. And, oh, how proud and happy she was when her father remarked on the improvement.
There were disagreeables too; there was no denying the fact. And one of them was the uncomfortable roughness of her hands.
"Rub them with salt," advised Irene, briskly, as she hung the shining jugs and cups on their hooks on the dressers. "Then rub some cold cream or glycerine into them."
"But I don't keep a chemist's shop," laughed Audrey. "I have only a little glycerine."
"Well, that is splendid if it suits you. Rub some into your hands while they are wet, and then rinse it off again. When I have my own little house I shall have a shelf put up close to where I wash my dishes, and vases, and things——"
"Close by the tap, and the sink, and the draining-board," interrupted Audrey, eyeing their own.
"Yes, close by, and I shall keep on it a bottle of glycerine, a cake of pumice soap, some lemon and glycerine mixed, and—oh, one or two other things that I shall think of presently. And every time I wash my hands I shall rub in a little glycerine—then my skin will keep quite nice. Of course, I shall have a whole array of gloves to put on when I do dirty work. I shall have silver-cleaning gloves, black-leading gloves, dusting gloves, and gardening gloves."
"How will you get them? Buy them?"
"Oh, no. I shall use my own old ones, and I shall beg some of grandfather. One can easily get old gloves. I have begun to collect some already."
"I can't, they are almost as hard to get as new ones. You see, we wear ours, just every-day wear, until they are past being good for anything. And father never wears any, except woolly ones in very cold weather, and they are too thick and clumsy for housework."
"Um, yes. I will send you some of grandfather's. He uses a lot, he rides so much. When I have my house——"
Audrey laughed. "That wonderful house of yours! How perfect it will be!"
"It will be a perfect dear; but I don't want it to be perfect in any other way—not at first, I mean. I want to make it so. Well, as I was saying when you rudely interrupted me by scoffing—when I have a house of my own, you shall come to stay with me, and you shall have breakfast in bed every morning; and you shall not touch a duster, or wash a dish, or make a bed. Oh, Audrey! it is going to be such a dear little gem of a place, with large sunny windows opening on to the garden, and a balcony outside each bedroom."
"How lovely!" sighed Audrey. "I wish you had it now. I'd love to be sitting in one of your balconies, looking down at your flowers. Of course, you would have crowds of flowers?"
"Oh, crowds—and apple-blossom, and honeysuckle, and pear and cherry trees."
"I would sit there and read, and write and write. Oh, Irene, I think I should go crazy with delight."
"No, you would not," laughed Irene. "When I saw you getting so I would come and put a wet dishcloth in your hands, and bang a wash-bowl behind you. That would bring you down to sober earth again."
Audrey groaned, and laughed. "I wonder when, or if ever, you will have your little paradise," she questioned wistfully.
"Oh, I shall have it, but not for rather a long time yet. At least, I am afraid it will be a long time. You see, I have to work for it first, and I don't leave off lessons for another year yet. Then I am going to study Domestic Science, and then I shall begin to earn money. You see, I have got to earn enough to buy my cottage, before I can have it."
Audrey groaned again. "Why, you will be ninety, and I shall be eighty-nine—far too old to sit on a balcony—it will be too risky. And if you are still energetic enough to bang your wash-bowl, I shall be too deaf to hear it."
"Indeed, I shall not be ninety. I am going to try hard to be a lecturer, and I shall get quite a lot of money, and grandfather says he will sell me the cottage—he has gotthe very oneI want—for a hundred pounds, as soon as I am twenty-one. Won't it be lovely, Audrey?"
"Lovely!" sighed Audrey. "Oh, Irene, how splendid to have something like that to work for."
"It is. Why don't you do the same? It makes life seem so splendid, so interesting and beautiful. You try it too, Audrey."
"Oh, but I couldn't," said Audrey, wistfully, "there is so much to do here——"
"But at the end of the twelve months, when you go back to your grandmother?"
"Granny would not hear of it. She can't bear the idea of girls—women— working like that, lecturing, I mean. She doesn't mind their being governesses, if they have to, but they must not be anything else." Audrey paused for a moment. "I am not going back to granny, though," she added softly.
"What?" Irene really gasped with astonishment. "I thought—oh, Audrey, won't you be very unhappy? You loved it so. I thought you were counting the days."
"So I was, but I am not now. I am going to stay here. Mother needs me more—and there is so much to do. And I know it will be better for mother not to have hard work to do, even when she is quite well again; and if Faith and I take care of the house and the children, mother will be able to go on with her writing. She loves it, and it is such a help."
Irene stood leaning against the kitchen table, gazing thoughtfully before her. "I think it is fine of you, Audrey," she said earnestly. "You are right; but it is fine of you."
Audrey coloured hotly with pleasure, but: "No it is not," was all she said, "it is only what you would do."
"But I love the work, you don't. I do not want to do any other—you long to, I know."
Audrey groaned. "Oh, Irene, I simply ache with longing to write. I have stories and stories in my brain, and I feel sometimes as though my head will burst if I don't write them down. I would sit up all night, or get up very, very early in the morning to write them, but I am always so sleepy, I can't keep my eyes open. I tried once or twice, but I found I was only putting down nonsense."
"There is one thing," said Irene comfortingly, "you are very young—there is plenty of time. Perhaps when Mrs. Carlyle is better, and you have done with schooling, you will be able to have more time."
"But it is now—now, that I want it," cried Audrey, springing to her feet. "Oh, I must tell you, Irene. Do you remember those magazines granny bought me, and I lent to you in the train that day?" Irene nodded. "Well, in one—The Girl's World—there was a prize of three guineas offered for the best original Christmas play for children to act." Audrey hesitated a moment, and coloured again beneath Irene's now eager eyes.
"Yes, yes," said Irene.
"Well,"—Audrey in her nervousness was twisting the kitchen 'runner' into cables, and binding her arms up with it—"I began to write one for it. I—I longed to so—I had to. I wanted to write the play, and I wanted to earn the money. Oh, I wanted it ever so badly—to help father."
"Well?" Irene gasped breathlessly, "are you doing it?"
"I began it—but I have had to drop it. I wrote the first scene—I had just finished it that day Mary cut her finger, and you cooked the dinner. But I have scarcely touched it since. One wants a good long time at it; five minutes now and then are no good. But there has been so much else to do, and now I feel—I feel quite guilty if I try to get more."
"Poor Audrey!" Irene murmured sympathetically. "I am sure you oughtn't to feel guilty. If one feels as strongly about any kind of work as you do, I think it shows that one is meant to do it. Don't you?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Audrey, with a little puzzled, weary sigh. She rose to her feet, hung up the 'runner,' and drew towards her a big basket of peas that Job Toms had brought in from the garden. "I think this is what I am meant to do, and, after all, it is—well, I daresay it helps just as much as the prize-money would, even if I were lucky enough to get it."
Irene did not answer, but began shelling peas too. She worked in an abstracted manner though, and was evidently lost in thought.
"Audrey," she said at last, "I am sure you ought to compete for that prize, and I can't see why you can't have a nice long quiet afternoon every day of the week."
"I do then! On Fridays I have to prepare my Sunday School lesson——"
"Well, every other day then."
"I take the children out while Faith sits with mother, or I sit with mother."
"Well, I will take the children out, or play with them indoors. I would love to; and you can have a clear two or three hours every afternoon. Do take them, Audrey, for your writing. When I have gone home it may not be so easy. Oh, Audrey, how grand it sounds. And some day, when it is finished, we will all act it—wouldn't that be perfectly splendid?"
Audrey's face was alight with excitement; her grey eyes glowed.
"But," she objected, "but——" She hesitated again. "It will probably be no good—a poor, silly thing——"
"You can't possibly tell until you have written it," said Irene, silencing her nervous doubts. "There—there are nine peas in a pod for you, for luck."
"There is no luck in that sort of thing."
"There is for the person who buys them; nine nice fat round peas, instead of three and a dwarf!"
Mary came in with her bucket and kneeler. "Those steps do pay for a bit of extra doing," she remarked, complacently. "Since I've been able to give more time to them, they've improved ever so. You've no idea, Miss Irene."
"Oh, yes I have," laughed Irene. "We have more than an idea, haven't we, Audrey? The steps catch our eye every time we pass, they have improved so. Why, there are Faith and the children back from their walk. Oh, my, how we have been gossiping."
Faith and the children came strolling in at the back door.
"We came through the kitchen garden," said Faith, "and I have been talking to Jobey Toms, and whatdoyou think? He has actually remembered at last that there is another garden, and 'it ain't no credit to nobody.' I told him that everyone had noticed that for a long time past, and hurt his feelings dreadfully. At least, he said I had. Anyhow, he is going to keep the grass cut and the bushes trimmed, and he is actually going to make a flower bed on the other side of the path."
"Whatever is the meaning of it?" gasped Audrey, looking almost alarmed.
Faith laughed. "I think someone has been twitting him about the way he keeps it, or rather, doesn't keep it. He began to me about it directly he saw me. 'I can't put up with that there front garden no longer,' he said, 'a one-eyed thing. I am going to make it look more fitty by the time the missus is able to come out and see it, or—or I dunno what she'll think of me for 'lowing it to go on looking such a sight. I'm going to cut a bed t'other side of the path, Miss Faith, and make a 'erbashus border.' I nearly tumbled down in the path, I had such a shock."
"I did not know Jobey knew what a herbaceous border is," said Audrey.
Faith chuckled. "He doesn't. He thinks it is another name for a herb-bed. He has got hold of the idea from someone, poor old man. He told me he had been talking to John Parkins, 'what's come 'ome from Sir Samuel Smithers's place, where he's 'ead gardener, and John 'e don't seem able to talk of nothin' but his 'erbashus borders, just as if we 'adn't never 'eard of 'em before. Why, I 'ad a 'erb-bed before ever 'e was born, and for 'im to be telling me what mould to use! I never! I soon let 'im see I wasn't goin' to be taught by no youngsters, even if they did grow their 'erbs by the 'alf mile.'" Faith imitated the old man's speech and indignation to the life. "''Alf a mile of 'erbashus border, 'e said 'e'd laid out—and expected me to believe 'im, I s'pose! I says to un, says I: 'I s'pose your Sir Samuel's a bit of a market gardener,' says I. He pretended to laugh, but I could see 'e didn't like it, and I stopped his bragging, anyway. These fellows, they go away for a bit, and they come back talking that big there's no 'olding with 'em. But, any'ow, we can do with a bit more 'erb, and we're goin' to 'ave it, Miss Faith, and when he comes 'ome next time I warrant I'll show 'im a bed of parsley as'll take the consate out of 'un!'"
Audrey's laughter changed to a cry of dismay. "Whatcanwe do? We don't want a herb-bed from the front door to the gate. It is useful, perhaps, but it is not pretty, and as sure as fate, Jobey would plant chibbles and spring onions too. He calls them ''erbs,' and loves the taste of them himself above all others."
"We can't explain to him that herbaceous borders and herb-beds are not the same," said Faith. "For one thing, he would not believe that we knew anything about it; but if he did believe it, he would be so mortified he would never get over it."
"Perhaps," suggested Irene, "we could lead him on from lamb-mint to lemon-thyme, and from lemon-thyme to rosemary and lavender—tell him rosemary is good for the hair."
"Job cares nothing about hair," said Audrey hopelessly, "it is so long since he had any he has forgotten what it is like not to be bald. I think it is too bad that after neglecting the garden all these years he should go and do a thing like that. I have always longed for a bed full of bright flowers; so has mother."
Debby and Tom exchanged glances. "Don't you worry, Audrey. Let Jobey make his bed, perhaps the Brownies will come along at night, and fill it with seeds."
"He would only pull them up, as soon as they showed above ground."
"Oh, no, he wouldn't, he'd think they were young herbs—until it was too late. Then we'd get father to let them stay." Debby was quite hopeful.
"No," burst in Tom eagerly, "I know what we'll do. We'll tell him to leave them 'cause mother likes them. He'd do anything for mother."
Audrey went to the cupboard, and took down a tumbler. "I am going to take up mother's glass of milk now," she said. There was a new note in her voice, a new light in her eye. Irene's encouragement had filled her heart and brain again with the joy of creating something with her own hand and pen; with the hope of helping others in the way in which help was so greatly needed—and by her own work too. But what added most of all to her new pleasure in her work—though she was not yet old enough to realise it—was the zest of contrast, and the happy, satisfying feeling that the time and the opportunity were her own, and not being taken at the expense of others.
"Audrey, I will take up the milk to mother. You look tired already."
"I am rather," sighed Audrey, "and I haven't half done yet. Irene and I are going to make cakes."
Faith seized the tray with the tumbler on it, and, anxious to help, dashed upstairs with it. By the time she reached her mother's room a considerable quantity of the milk was spilled over the nice clean tray-cloth.
"Oh, bother!" she cried impatiently, as, in opening the door, she upset a lot more, "it is such nonsense having tray-cloths and all those faddy things. If I had brought it in my hand, without any tray at all, it wouldn't have mattered."
"Would it not? What do you think I drink milk for, Faith?"
"Why for nourishment, of course. To make you strong."
"Well then, does it not matter if you deprive me of a third of my nourishment, of my strength?"
"Oh, mother!" Faith looked shocked, "of course it does."
"And, apart from that, if you had brought it in your hand, and spilled it, you would have ruined the stair carpets, and you know how very, very hard it would be to get new ones."
"Oh! I hadn't thought of that. I suppose that is why one uses trays. The cloth doesn't matter—that will wash—but I am very sorry I wasted the milk, mother."
"But, darling, the cloth does matter. Everything matters in some way. Someone will have to wash, and starch, and iron it—all extra work—and someone will have to pay for the soap, and the starch, and the fire for heating the water, and the irons. Don't you see, dear, what big consequences our tiniest actions often have?"
Faith sighed. "I wonder if I shall ever learn to be careful," she said, hopelessly.
"Not until you really want to, dear."
"I do want to, mummy. I do! I do!"
"You think you do. Well, to realise that you are not so, is a step forward," and with a soft laugh Mrs. Carlyle put her arm around her little daughter, and drew her to her. "Dear, each of us has a hill to climb, and there has to be a first step; but if we do not quickly take another step forward, we are very apt to slip to the bottom again. If we want to reach the top wemustkeep on going."
"Mother, I shall bring you your glass of milk every day, and I shall try to bring it more nicely each time. Then, perhaps, I shall remember to take the next step. Now I must run away to look for Joan."
Once again Mrs. Carlyle drew her closer. "My good little Faith," she said softly, "Joan's little second mother. What would she or I have done, darling, without you to take care of us?" And her eyes were misty with tears as she lay back on her cushions.
Faith's eyes were dim, too, as she went softly on her way. "But second mothers have to be always setting good examples, just as real mothers have," she thought. And, by way of beginning, she set about making her bedroom as neat as a new pin.