Anxious Audrey Part 30

"I--don't know," said Audrey, doubtingly. "It seems that if ever I want a thing very much it is taken away, or I am not allowed----"

"Audrey, darling, do not say such things. Do not let yourself ever think it. Do you honestly believe that the great G.o.d above demeans Himself and His Majesty and Might to annoy one of His children? That He plans to torment you? My dear, dear child, don't get into that bitter, wicked way of talking. It is so wrong--so insulting to your Heavenly Father.

It is so ruining to your own character, and your happiness. The mistake that we make, Audrey, is that we want to choose our own way, and follow it--not His. That we think we can see better than He what is for the best, and what our future should be.

"Now, let no imaginary cloud in the future overshadow the suns.h.i.+ne of to-day. Enjoy the happiness that is sent to you, and, if the call to duty elsewhere comes, obey it as all good soldiers of Christ should."

Audrey was on her knees by her mother's side, her face buried in her lap.

"Oh, mother, mother!" she cried remorsefully, "I am not a good soldier--I am a coward. I never want to obey--unless--it pleases me to."

"You did not want to come here when the summons came, did you, dear?"

Audrey shook her head. "No, mummy," she admitted reluctantly. "When I came I counted the days until I could go back again."

"But you are happy here? You are glad now?"

"Oh, yes, yes," cried poor Audrey.

"You would not be happy, though, if you stayed on here, refusing to go to granny. You would be in the place you want to be, you would be near your friends, and be doing the things you want to do; but you would not be happy. You would enjoy nothing."

"Is one only happy if one does one's duty?" queried Audrey faintly.

"Yes, little soldier. That is why you have been so happy here since----"

"Since Irene showed me what my duty was," said Audrey softly. She rose to her feet, kissed her mother fondly, and for a moment stood by her side silent, and very still.

"I--I will try," she said at last, "I will try, but--but----" Her voice broke.

Mrs. Carlyle put her arm about her, and held her very close. "That will do, darling. That is all G.o.d asks of any of us--just to try and shoulder bravely the duties He lays on us."

It was just three days later that Audrey heard the news so longed for, yet so dreaded. By the early post that morning there came several letters, and one of them for her.

When she opened it, and unfolded the sheet of paper it held, a cheque dropped out and into her lap. A cheque for three guineas!

For a moment Audrey held it, staring at it incredulously. Then she had won a prize! The first prize, too! Her play had not been utter rubbish, but the best! The best!!

The blood rushed over her face and neck, dyeing both scarlet; her hands trembled, her heart beat suffocatingly. She turned to the letter, but for a moment she could see nothing. Then gradually her sight cleared, and she read: "The Editor of _The Girl's World_ has much pleasure in informing Miss Audrey Carlyle that her play has been adjudged the best of all those sent in; and encloses a cheque for three guineas. The Editor would be glad to have a copy of Miss Carlyle's latest photograph, to print in our next number."

Audrey read no more. With her face glowing with happiness, her red mane flying behind her, she rushed up the stairs to her mother's room. At last she could tell her secret.

Sure of her mother's interest and sympathy she burst into the room with only the faintest apology of a tap at the door. Her father was there too, standing by the bed with a letter in his hand.

"Oh, mother! What do you think!" Audrey's voice broke off suddenly, for her mother's eyes when she looked at her were full of tears.

"Oh, what has happened? Father--mother--what has happened? Not--an accident?"

Her thoughts flew at once to her brothers and sisters. "Not----!"

She could not finish the awful question. She turned so white and faint that her father stepped across the room, and taking her in his arms, guided her to a chair by the open window. "No, no, dear, not, thank G.o.d, as bad as that. A letter has come from Dr. Norman to say that yesterday granny fainted, and was unconscious a long time. She recovered, but--he wants me to come as soon as possible, he is afraid--her condition may be serious."

"I am never to be allowed any great happiness," said Audrey in her heart.

"If something good comes my way, something bad comes with it."

Even through her anxiety the thought would come, adding bitterness to her trouble. The letter and cheque she held slipped from her fingers to the floor. She would not even tell her news, she thought bitterly.

Perhaps if she showed that she did not care, Fate would find no pleasure in being so cruel to her.

"Do you want me to go too?" she asked. She knew that her voice was hard and unsympathetic, but she felt, at that moment, as though she could not help it.

"No, not now, dear." The gentleness of her mother's voice brought a lump to Audrey's throat. "Your father will go first, and see how things are.

They may need a trained nurse, or--well, we don't know; but, oh, Audrey, Audrey, the bitter part is that we haven't the money to take him there.

We dare not draw any more from the Bank until some has been paid in, and that cannot be for a few days yet. What can we do? There is no one we can appeal to, no one we can confide in. If Mr. Vivian were only here----"

But Audrey, instead of answering, was groping on the floor. Tears were in her eyes, shame and remorse again filled her heart. After all, G.o.d was giving her a greater opportunity, a more perfect way, of using her money, than any she had dreamed of.

"Father," she said shyly, "I have just had this," holding out the two slips of paper. "I came up to tell you and mother, but--but----"

The varying emotions of the morning, the joyful surprise, the excitement, the shock which had turned her faint, the drop from the height of her happiness to the depths of bitterness and sorrow, proved too much for Audrey, and, dropping on her knees beside her mother's bed, she burst into tears.

She felt her mother's gentle hand on her head, she felt her father raise her in his arms. She heard her father, as he kissed her forehead, murmur, "My blessed child, my G.o.d-send." She heard her mother say, with a catch in her voice, "My Audrey, what should we do without you!"

But all Audrey could do was to sob brokenly. "No, no, no, I don't deserve it, don't, please don't. You don't know----"

"I do know," whispered her father kindly, as he held her. "You felt aggrieved, hurt; you came up in the full flush of your happiness, and found us filled with selfish sorrow, wrapped in our own cares.

You thought all your pleasure in your success was spoilt. I thought only of my trouble. Really, G.o.d was giving us both our opportunity.

Doubling your happiness, and teaching me a lesson in Faith."

"And me," said Mrs. Carlyle softly, "that under us are always His supporting arms."

That afternoon Mr. Carlyle left for Farbridge, but Audrey's summons did not come for a while yet.

Granny Carlyle rallied considerably, and they all began to hope that she might be spared to them yet. But it was only a temporary rally; and Faith and the little ones had been home but a few days when a telegram came from Farbridge, asking that Audrey might come at once, and, instead of starting for Ilfracombe for a week or two's stay before the Vivians left there too, Audrey went on a very, very different visit, one that none knew the end of, for old Mrs. Carlyle was in that state that she might live for years, or for only a few weeks or days.

Never, in all her life after, did Audrey forget that journey on that hot August day. The sun poured in at the window on her, the s.m.u.ts came in in showers, the compartment felt like an oven, and the hot air was heavy with the mingled odours of blistering paint, coal smoke, and tar. At every station at which they stopped the engine panted like an exhausted thing.

The sight of beds of scarlet geraniums glowing in the sun ever after brought back to Audrey the sights, sounds, and sensations of that hot summer afternoon.

But at last the journey was over, and Audrey, feeling almost as though she was walking in a dream, crossed the well-remembered park--where the only change was that the gra.s.s was now burnt brown, and summer flowers took the place of the tulips and daffodils she had left behind her--and entered once more the orderly, roomy house which was so little changed that she might have gone out from it only the day before, except that now the moving spirit was gone, and the silence was not restful, as of old, but oppressive.

Phipps met her, with tears in her eyes. "Perhaps you would like to go to your room first, Miss Audrey. Are you very hot and tired, miss?"

"I think I am," said Audrey wearily, "but that is nothing. How is granny now, Phipps?"

But Phipps only shook her head, and the tears brimmed over. "I can't say she is any better, Miss Audrey, and--and I won't say she is worse, I can't bring myself to," and Phipps began to sob aloud.

"Poor Phipps!" said Audrey in a choky voice. "Is she as bad as that!"

She knew what it all meant for Phipps. If Granny Carlyle died, her home of forty years was gone from her. For the first time in her life Audrey realised what we all come to realise as we grow older--that the sorrowfulness of death is not with those who go, but with those who are left behind.

"I shall lose everything," sobbed Phipps, "everything I care for.

My dear mistress, my home--everything, and I shall never be happy in another."

"Oh, poor Phipps!" cried Audrey, genuinely troubled. What could one do or say to comfort such sorrow! But her sympathy comforted Phipps a little, and she cheered up somewhat.

"If you will come down when you are ready, miss, I will have tea waiting for you," she said as she left the room, "and after tea the mistress would like to see you."