CHAPTER XII.

"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 got the very one I 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 what do you 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. "What can we 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 we must keep 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.