As she opened the door the room felt close and musty, but a flood of sunshine poured in through the closed window, to welcome her. "Oh, how jolly! I must have this! I must! I must! I could make a splendid room of it."
She went over and threw up the window wide, then faced about and examined the place more closely. "There is heaps of room, and I am sure I could make it ever so nice. The bed could stand there, and the chest of drawers facing the window, and--oh, I could have a real writing table by the window. I could do real work if I had this all nice and quiet to myself, with my things about--and this view to look out at! I shall go and ask mother this very minute!" and with cheeks pink with excitement she tore down the bare stairs and along the corridor as though she was afraid she would lose her chance if she waited a moment.
But at her mother"s door she found her father standing, talking to Dr.
Gray. The doctor looked round at her with a little frown on his brow, and put up his finger for silence. "Your mother is trying to sleep,"
he said rather sharply. "She had a bad night. Will you try and keep the house as quiet as possible, Miss Audrey, please?"
Audrey"s face clouded. She was disappointed at not being able to put her request to her mother, and she was annoyed at being reproved.
Audrey never could endure reproof.
"I will try," she answered glumly; "but it is almost impossible to get quiet here. The children are so noisy, and they never do what they are told."
Mr. Carlyle sighed. Dr. Gray"s eyebrows lifted a little. "They are very imitative," he said. "If you explain to them how necessary it is, for their mother"s sake, and set them the example, I will answer for it that they will be good."
But Audrey only tossed her head, and retired to her bedroom.
Presently, after what seemed a long time, Faith came up, carrying Joan, asleep in her arms. She looked tired and hot. "She has dropped off at last," she panted, "I am going to put her in her cot. I think it is the warm weather that makes her so restless. She hasn"t slept for hours."
Audrey did not reply. She sat on the chair beside her bed, and watched her sister lay the sleeping child carefully on her pillow, without disturbing her; then draw the blanket carefully over her.
That done to her satisfaction, Faith flung herself on her own bed with a sigh of content. "Oh!" she sighed, "how lovely it is to lie down.
I am so tired, and my head aches so--and my feet."
The warm days had come in suddenly; though it was only April they seemed to have stepped from winter right into summer, and everyone felt it.
Audrey looked at her sister with disapproving eyes. "A nice sight your bed will be, when you get off it, and look at mine. Joan did that.
With that great slop on the floor, too, the room isn"t fit to look at."
"I should think this heat would soon dry up anything," said Faith placidly, "no floor could stay wet long, even if one wanted it to."
She turned over, and stretched her aching limbs contentedly. "If my bed is untidy, I must tidy it again--that is all. I am so dead tired I must lie down somewhere. Where have you been? In with mother?"
"No. I was here part of the time, trying to write to granny, and--and then I went up to the attics. Faith, I do want to have that west attic for my very own. It would make a jolly bedroom. I am going to ask mother if I may. I should think she would let me when she knows how much I want it."
"Do you?" Faith opened her tired eyes, and looked at her sister wistfully.
"You don"t care for being here with me?"
Audrey looked somewhat embarra.s.sed. "It--it isn"t that--but I do want a room to myself, where--where the children won"t be always bursting in and banging the place about. You see, I have been accustomed to having my own room, and my things about, all the time I was with granny. It--it seems senseless, too, doesn"t it? for three of us to sleep in one room, and leave that one up there standing empty."
"But Joan only sleeps here because mother mustn"t be disturbed at night."
"I know, but she makes three sleeping here. Do you think mother and father would mind my having the attic?"
"Oh, no--not if you want it so much. It makes more work for the servant to have another room to clean, and one so high up too."
"Oh, I will keep it clean, and--and all that sort of thing. I wonder when mother will be awake? I want to go and ask her."
"I don"t know. Not for a long while yet, I hope, for Dr. Gray gave her a sleeping draught. But you need not bother mother about it, ask father, it will be just the same. He is in his study."
Audrey was on her feet in a moment. "Shall I? Do you think he will understand as well as mother would? You see, I really need a quiet place where I can work in peace. Do you think father would let me have the attic?"
"Oh, yes, father will let you have it." Faith turned her head on her pillow with a weary sigh. "Audrey, will you draw down the blind?
My head is simply splitting."
"All right. I will go down to father this very minute, then I must see about getting it cleaned out, and--oh, I wonder if I could possibly get it ready to sleep there to-night!"
"To-night!" In spite of her pain, Faith opened her eyes wide with surprise. "But there is no furniture there, no--no anything. What a hurry you are in, Audrey." She felt a little hurt, and the hurt sounded in her voice; but Audrey did not hear, she was already on her way to the study.
Faith got off the bed, drew down the blind herself, then clambered on to her bed again; but there was no pleasure in the rest now.
She was conscious all the time that she was crushing the pillows and the quilt and spoiling the look of everything. "I wish I had a rug and a cushion, that I could lie on the floor. It seems wrong to be lying here."
However, as she was there, she thought she might as well stay, and presently she dozed, until Audrey"s return woke her.
"Father says I may have the attic," she announced bluntly, but she was not as exuberant about it as Faith had expected her to be. Without saying anything more, she went to a drawer and took out a large ap.r.o.n.
"Are you going to begin at once?" asked Faith, sitting erect in her excitement.
"I may as well. What is the use of waiting?"
"I was only thinking of the heat--and the noise. We shall have to be so awfully careful not to disturb mother. What did daddy say, Audrey?"
"Oh," he said: ""Yes, certainly,"" a pause.
"Was that all?"
"No, he--he seemed to think I was going to take Debby with me--as you had Joan; but I might as well stay here as do that! Better, in fact.
If Debby thought the attic was as much hers as mine, I should have no peace in my life. I should never be able to keep her out."
Faith got slowly off the bed. "I don"t suppose Debby would care to go, either," she said quietly. "I will have her in here with me. There will be plenty of room, and I shall be able to keep an eye on her."
"Yes--that"s a capital idea," Audrey"s face brightened. "She will love being here with you and Joan. Now I am going down to get a brush and some dusters. I shall first of all sweep out the attic. I am going to have it as nice and clean and pretty as ever I can get it."
"I will come and help you," said Faith with as much energy as she could muster. She was very hot and tired still, and her head ached as badly as ever.
When Mary heard what Audrey wanted the brushes for, she came too, to lend a hand. She even washed the floor, to take up any loose dust, and "make it sweet," as she said. "It dries as fast as I wash it," she added, "it is that hot up here to-day, and such a breeze blows in."
Good-tempered Mary also cleaned the window, and put up a pair of holland curtains--the best that could be found.
"They will do for the time," said Audrey, somewhat scornfully. "I shall make myself a pretty pair as soon as I can, and embroider roses on them.
I think I will write to granny, and ask her to send me the materials.
Granny has some sweet ones. She cuts out great sprays of flowers from cretonne, and applique"s them on to Bolton sheeting. You have no idea how sweet they look."
"I wish we had some for the drawing-room," sighed Faith, "the curtains there are too shabby for words."
Debby and Joan had drifted up by this time, and were allowed to help, and Joan sat on the floor contentedly playing with the hammer. When she had put up the curtains, Mary helped Faith to unscrew the bed and carry it up, and screw it together again, the mattress she carried in her strong arms as easily as though it were Joan; while Tom and Deborah staggered up with the pillows, sheets, and blankets.
When, though, it came to carrying up the chest of drawers, they all had to give a hand. It was so clumsy, and slipped through their hands so persistently that more than once they all sat down suddenly on the stairs with the chest on top of them. By that time they had all begun to giggle, and that made matters worse, for it took away all the strength they had.
Audrey"s new room was growing quite ship-shape, but every other duty in the house was at a standstill, everything else was forgotten, and time was lost count of.
"Audrey! Faith! Mary! Where are you all? Do you know that it is half-past one?"