"I don"t want anything--look Fay! wouldn"t Mary like a pair of those?"
Her eyes were riveted on a boxful of cotton gloves, bright yellow, black, and white, marked fourpence three-farthings.
"She"d love a pair," said Faith with conviction. "She would like a yellow pair to wear with her new brown frock." She wished it was as easy to find something for all the others.
"Joan would like a ball, and mother--oh, why not get mother some oranges.
She is so fond of fruit."
Debby was gazing enraptured at a shelf of china with a view on each piece.
"Oh, Fay, I would like to give daddy a cup and saucer, may I?"
"Of course, darling, if you have money enough; he would like it ever so much." But the cups and saucers cost eightpence, and Debby"s means would not run to that.
Tom came to her rescue, "I know, we will get it for daddy between us, that"ll be fourpence each, you shall give him the cup if you like, Deb."
"No, I shan"t," said Debby decisively, "we"ll give half a cup and half a saucer each. Let me see, fourpence and fourpence three-farthings is nearly ninepence, a penny for Joan"s ball, that only leaves twopence-farthing for mummy. Do you think she will feel hurt?" turning a grave face to Faith.
"Hurt! of course not!"
"I know," shouted Tom, "I"ll save on Mary. I"ll get her two sticks of peppermint rock, she loves it--then I"ll be able to get a mug for mother, then if you give her oranges, and father doesn"t have anything but his cup and saucer, that"ll be about fair."
"I know what we"ll do," said Debby, after long and deep thinking.
"We"ll put our things together, shall we, Tom? and not say which is from which."
Coming out of the shop nearly an hour later, with their arms full of parcels, they ran almost into the arms of a tall grey-haired gentleman.
Debby gave a shout of delight. "Dr. Gray, oh, Dr. Gray," she cried excitedly, "I"ve spent a whole shilling, but look what a lot of things I"ve got." In her efforts to try and hug them and him too, she dropped some of them.
"I see you have bought a ball for someone," he laughed, rescuing it from the gutter. "Is that for me?"
"For you!" Debby chuckled hilariously at first, then her face grew suddenly serious. She had not bought anything for this lifelong friend, and she felt mean. "Would you like one," she asked anxiously, ""cause you shall have it, if you would!"
"Bless the child!" cried the doctor, picking her up unceremoniously and kissing her. "I haven"t time for play. You give it to the lucky person you bought it for."
"That"s Joan."
"Very well. When I want a game and have time, I will come up and play with Joan. What else have you got there?"
"Oranges for mother--oranges and a ball aren"t easy to carry together, and I"ve got gloves for Mary, and a cup for daddy--at least, _we_ have, me and Tom."
"My eye! you have been making Miss Babbs" fortune this morning! Where is the cup? In the crown of your hat?"
"No, forchinately Faith is carrying that, or it would have been broken."
"That is fortunate indeed." At the mention of Faith, the doctor turned to the elder sisters. "Ah, Miss Audrey," he cried, clasping her hand warmly, "it is nice to see you home again! I began to think you had deserted us for good. But you have come back at last to look after them all!
Well they needed an elder sister"s help; it was time you came."
Audrey smiled and blushed prettily. "I want to be useful," she said, and genuinely meant it. "When I have been here a little while I shall know better what I can do."
She mistook the doctor"s meaning. She did not realise that he meant that her mother needed companionship and care; and Faith some help with the heavy burden which weighed down her young shoulders. She thought he referred to the house and the garden, and the muddle which reigned in both. And she walked home with her head held high. People should soon see that she, at any rate, knew how things should be done.
"Debby," she said sharply, as they pa.s.sed through the garden on their way home. "When you have taken in your parcels do come out and pick up that old hat, and those dreadful old dolls, and carry them all up to your own room. They make the garden look dreadfully untidy."
Debby stood still in the path, her oranges dropping one by one, unheeded, through the bottom of the bag. Those dreadful old dolls! She could scarcely believe her ears. Her precious babies, her Dorothy, and Gladys and Dinah Isabella, called "dreadful old dolls." The colour mounted in her cheeks, and the tears in her eyes.
"They are not old!" she cried indignantly, "and they are not--not dreadful--they are lovely, they are darlings, and they have _got_ to stay out of doors, they have been ill."
"Rubbish!" snapped Audrey irritably. "You don"t care in the least how untidy you make the place look. I wonder you aren"t ashamed for anyone to come here." She did not see, nor would she have cared if she had seen, the quivering of Debby"s lips, the hurt feeling in her eyes.
Faith was torn two ways; full of pity for her little sister she yet felt she must uphold the authority of the eldest one. "Debby dear," she said, "your old hat, at any rate, oughtn"t to be lying here, and just think how horrid it will be if slugs and snails get into it. It is time your dolls came in and had a bath, isn"t it? They have been out all night.
Tom, pick up that paper, will you, dear? You know daddy dislikes to see paper lying about."
"I forgot," said Tom, "we were playing shops when daddy called out and asked if we would like to go to the station."
"But that was yesterday," said Audrey coldly, "I saw it lying there when I came, it looked dreadful, it caught my eye at once. There has been plenty of time to pick it up since, and you should have done it."
The look of sullen rebellion came again to Tom"s face. "Daddy didn"t tell me to, or Faith. I suppose Audrey thinks she can boss us as much as she likes," he whispered angrily to Debby, ""cause she is the eldest.
I wish she had stayed at granny"s for ever and ever."
Faith walked on at her sister"s side, looking grave and troubled.
From time to time she glanced with anxious eyes at Audrey"s face.
She could see that she was annoyed, and irritated.
"I--I expect we seem rather untidy to you, after granny"s," she remarked at last. She spoke apologetically, yet she was longing for a word of understanding sympathy. "With mother"s illness, and--and little children, and no nurse to look after them, it has been so difficult to keep it all nice."
But Audrey only gave a snort of contempt. She had no sympathy to offer.
"Nice!" she said sarcastically; "from the look of the place I shouldn"t have thought anyone had tried. It is more like a pigsty than anything else. And the children haven"t any manners at all," she added, quite losing sight of her own, and longing only to hurt someone.
CHAPTER V.
Audrey had been at home two weeks, but, she wrote to her granny, "it seems like two months, and such long ones. Mother seems to be going on very well, but nothing else does. Everything else seems all wrong.
The house is so shabby and untidy, and no one seems to try to keep it neat. I am _always_ telling them about it, and then they turn round and say I am nagging. Oh, granny, I shall be so glad when next year comes, and I can come back to you. I miss you dreadfully."
What she really missed was her comfort, and the little luxuries her grandmother had surrounded her with as a matter of course. "I am going to try to have a room to myself, I simply can"t bear things as they are.
With love, your affectionate grandchild, Audrey."
Having sealed and directed her letter, Audrey rose, crept softly out of the bedroom, and up the steep stairs to the attics. She really was going to see about getting one for herself. If the empty one was at all suitable she was going straight to her mother to ask if she might have it.
If it was not suitable! She did not let her mind dwell on such a possibility, it would be too dreadful to bear--after all the hopes she had built up.
She had shared the room with Faith and Joan for a fortnight, and she simply could not stand it any longer. The children seemed to forget that it was not their nursery still, and spent half their time there.
She had never been able to put out her writing-case and work-basket, or her books and ornaments, for there was no room. Nor would she have done so if there had been, for the children would have been always handling them, and spoiling them all.
And now, even while she was writing, Debby had upset the water-jug all over the floor, and Joan had danced all over the beds; and really it was more than Audrey could endure any longer.
"I can"t be expected to," she said to herself, as she mounted the attic stairs, "anything would be better than that muddle."
The attic on the extreme left was a box-room, she knew, and the one in the middle was the servant"s room, so she opened the third door. The box-room faced the east; the servant"s room looked out over the front garden and the road; the third one--Audrey"s--looked out to the west, and down over the village and the church, to where the hill wound up and up to the heather-clad moor.