Anxious Audrey Part 5

CHAPTER IV.

Audrey had already unpacked a book for her father, a soft down cus.h.i.+on for her mother, and a pretty pinafore for Baby Joan.

"This is for--oh no, this is a pair of shoes for Debby--oh Debby, Debby, how dare you!" Audrey's face and voice and manner changed in a flash from sweet graciousness to hot anger. "Just look at the mess you have made, and your heel is on the brim of my best hat. Oh, how clumsy you are!"

Deborah was sitting right in the middle of Audrey's bed, and Tom on Faith's. Faith herself sat on the floor, gazing entranced at her sister's pretty belongings. In one hand she held a smart new patent leather shoe, in the other a pretty bedroom slipper. "What is Debby doing?" she asked absently. "Oh, Audrey, you have three--no, four pairs of house shoes!

How----"

But Audrey was not in the mood to listen to a recital of her own blessings. "Deborah couldn't sit on a chair, or the floor, but must actually clamber on to my bed, with her boots on too! Just look at the mess she has made my white quilt in! It--it looks as though it had been slept on by--by a muddy dog."

Faith, roused by the wrath in her sister's voice, put aside the shoes, and looked up. "Debby," she said reprovingly, "you shouldn't. You know Audrey wants the bed to put her things on. Why couldn't you sit on the floor beside me?"

"I couldn't see all the things when I was down so low," explained Deborah, in an aggrieved voice.

"I have a good mind not to give you your presents at all," stormed Audrey.

"I am sure granny wouldn't wish me to, if she knew how naughty you were."

"I don't want your old presents, you can keep them yourself," retorted Debby hotly, scrambling off the bed hurriedly, and dragging off a collection of gloves and laces with her. Her face was red and angry too, but tears were very near the surface.

Faith held out her arm, "Come and sit beside me, dear, and we will put on your new shoes, to see if they fit."

"I don't care if they fit or not, I don't want them! I wouldn't wear them if they did. Audrey had better keep them for herself--disagreeable old thing," and Debby, mortified and indignant, marched out of the room, banging the door behind her.

Faith's face grew troubled. The child had been so happy a moment before.

"She did not know," she murmured apologetically. "She didn't know she was doing wrong, they always sit on my bed. Tom, you had better come off, my quilt is a clean one too."

In the silence that followed, Audrey grew uncomfortable. They had all been so excited and happy a moment before, and now the room was full of gloom. No one took any further interest in her box and what it contained.

She knew that she had been only right and Debby very naughty, that children with dusty boots should not sit in the middle of clean white quilts; but perhaps she could have spoken more gently. The children did not know they were doing wrong.

Tom swung himself off the bed, and marched towards the door.

Audrey looked at his stormy face nervously. "This is for you," she said, holding a tempting-looking parcel towards him.

For a moment he hesitated, evidently unwilling to accept it from her, but his better instincts prevailed. "Thank you," he said, but coldly, and laying it down without looking at it, he turned to Faith. "I am going to look for Debby," he said, and went out of the room.

"What dreadful tempers!" Audrey, mortified by Tom's snub, grew angry again. "They ought to be sent away to school, to a very strict school.

They would be taught, then, how to behave themselves!"

"They aren't really bad," pleaded Faith wistfully. "I think they were hurt, you see Debby didn't know she was naughty, and--and they hardly know you yet. They would not mind so much if they did."

"Well, I think their tempers are dreadful, and their manners too."

In her annoyance Audrey could not help speaking out the hard thoughts that were in her heart.

"All red-haired people have hot tempers, they say," quoted Faith quietly, "I know I have."

"Oh, well, I am glad I haven't."

"You! oh!" Faith glanced up at her sister with a comical little smile, but she said no more.

"This is yours," said Audrey glumly, dragging a large parcel from her box.

"It is a blue coat like mine. Granny thought you might want one."

"Want one! I should think I did!" Faith sprang to her feet in a tumult of excitement. "Oh, Audrey, I haven't had a new coat for three years, and mine is so shabby and so small for me. How kind of granny to send me such a beautiful present. I wish she was here now. I do so want to thank her!"

Audrey stared at her sister, wide-eyed with astonishment. Not had a new coat for three years! Why, that was nearly as long as she herself had been away, and she had had one every winter and summer. Poor Faith!

no wonder she looked so shabby. It was not entirely from her own carelessness then.

But Faith, blissfully unconscious of the thoughts pa.s.sing through her sister's mind, had torn off the wrapper from the parcel, and was already slipping her arm into her new treasure. "Doesn't it look nice," she cried, pirouetting before the gla.s.s. "I must go and show it to mother and father, and the children," and she danced away to her mother's room, and even to the kitchen to show Mary.

Audrey remained where she was, gazing thoughtfully down into her trunk.

She suddenly felt ashamed that she should possess so much, while Faith, who worked so hard, possessed so little. She thought of all the dresses lying in her box at that moment, the soft grey cashmere, the dark blue serge, the green tweed, the new blue muslin, and the cotton ones, white, blue, and green.

"I wish my dresses would fit Faith. I would give her one--unless she has enough already--and I don't suppose she has." She was still standing in the same spot, and still thinking, when Faith danced into the room again.

"Oh, Audrey, they all think it beautiful, and daddy says he hopes I will be able to have a new hat this summer." Then catching sight of her sister's grave face. "How are you getting on? Can you find room for all your things? You can have all my pegs but one--one will be enough for me."

"Haven't you many frocks?" asked Audrey. She spoke a little gruffly, but it was from shyness, and the thought of what she was about to do.

"I have this one," said Faith cheerfully, "this is my best--and an old one I wear in the mornings. I was to have had a new one, but the roof had to be mended, and it cost an awful lot. I wish this skirt was blue instead of brown, it would look so nice with my new blue coat, wouldn't it?"

"I have a blue skirt that you can have. I have two, a blue serge and a blue cloth. You shall have the blue cloth, it is rather short for me, so it ought to do nicely for you."

Faith could hardly believe her ears. "Oh, Audrey!" she gasped, "do you really mean it; but why should you give up your things? You may want them, and I don't mind being shabbier than you are. I don't really.

You see the eldest is always the best-dressed."

"But I mind," cried Audrey. "I can't go about nicely dressed, and you in--in rags almost."

She did not mean to speak ungraciously, she did not mean exactly what her words conveyed, she was embarra.s.sed by Faith's overwhelming grat.i.tude, and her exaggerated idea of her--Audrey's--generosity. Something made her feel mean and petty. "You can wear your own blouses with it, so there will be no trouble about the fit."

"I shall be able to have a new blouse soon," said Faith blithely.

"I am saving up to get some muslin. Miss Babbs has got some new in.

Oh, it is so pretty, and only sixpence a yard. It will only take three yards, and when I have got it, Miss Babbs says she will cut it out for me, and help me make it. Isn't it kind of her! I have a s.h.i.+lling towards it."

"Oh!" Audrey made a dart at the bed where her bag, and a host of other things, lay in the utmost confusion. "I had quite forgotten," she said, diving in the bag for her purse, "granny sent half-a-crown to you, and a s.h.i.+lling each to Debby and Tom."

Faith's eyes grew rounder than ever. "I never knew such a lovely day as this. Why, it is like a very nice birthday!" she cried, overwhelmed with happiness. "Oh, Audrey, I can get my muslin now, and--and perhaps I can make my blouse by Sunday! Will you come to Miss Babbs' with me to-morrow to choose it?"

Miss Babbs' shop was of the useful kind so often met with in villages.

The kind of shop where you seem able to buy everything that is needed, and many that are pretty, such as the blouse muslin on which Faith had set her heart. She was so afraid that it would be gone before she could get some of it, that she rushed off as soon as breakfast was over, carrying the greater part of her family with her.

"I would have liked that white one with the blue spots," she said, eyeing that particular roll wistfully, "but it would always be needing was.h.i.+ng."

"Why don't you have this," suggested Audrey, pointing to a dark blue with a spot on it of the same colour, "with little white cuffs and a collar; it would look awfully well with your blue coat and skirt."

"Oh, so it would," cried Faith eagerly, "please give me three yards of that, Miss Babbs. What good taste you have, Audrey! Other people always choose prettier things for me than I should choose for myself."

Deborah pulled at her sleeve anxiously. "Fay--Fay, I want to get something for mother," she whispered in a tone that could be heard all over the shop, "and I want to get something for daddy, and Joan, and Mary."

"Oh!" said Faith, and forgot all about her own purchases. "You must get something for yourself too, darling."