'Miss Mollie, where am I to find the teapot?' called out a voice belonging to some invisible body--a voice with the unmistakable brogue.

'There's the mistress just dying for a cup of tea, and how will I be giving it to her without the teapot? and it may be in any of those dozen hampers--bad luck to it!'

'I am coming, Biddy,' sighed the girl wearily, and the flush of annoyance deepened in her cheek.

Somehow, that tired young face, burdened with some secret care, appealed to Audrey's quick sympathies. She put out her hand and gave her a light push as she stood blocking up the entry.

'My dear, I will help you look for the teapot,' she said in the kindest voice possible. 'You are just tired to death, and of course it is natural that your mother should want her tea. If we cannot find it, I will run round and borrow one from the Wrights. Everyone knows what moving is--one has to undergo all sorts of discomforts. Let me put down my sunshade and lace scarf, and then you will see how useful I can be'; and Audrey walked into the house, leaving Mollie tongue-tied with astonishment, and marched into the dining-room, which certainly looked a chaos--with dusty chairs, tables, half-emptied hampers, books, pictures, all jumbled up together with no sort of arrangement, just as the men had deposited them from the vans. Here, however, she paused, slightly taken aback by the sight of another dark head, which raised itself over the sofa-cushions, while another pair of brown eyes regarded her with equal astonishment.

'It is only Kester,' whispered Mollie. 'I think he was asleep. Kester, Miss Ross kindly wishes to help us a little--but--did you ever see such a place?' speaking in a tone of disgust and shrugging her shoulders.

'Mollie can't be everywhere,' rejoined the boy, trying to drag himself off the sofa as he spoke, and then Audrey saw he was a cripple.

He looked about fifteen, but his long, melancholy face had nothing boyish about it. The poor lad was evidently a chronic sufferer; there was a permanent look of ill-health stamped on his features, and the beautiful dark eyes had a plaintive look in them.

'Mollie does her best,' he went on almost irritably; 'but she and Cyril have been busy upstairs getting up the beds and that sort of thing, so they could not turn their hand to all this lumber,' kicking over some books as he spoke.

'Mollie is very young,' returned Audrey, feeling she must take them under her protection at once, and, as usual, acting on her impulse. 'Is your name Kester? What an uncommon name! but I like it somehow. I am so sorry to see you are an invalid, but you can get about a little on crutches?'

'Sometimes, not always, when my hip is bad,' was the brief response.

'Has it always been so?' in a pitying voice.

'Well, ever since I was a little chap, and Cyril dropped me. I don't know how it happened; he was not very big, either. It is so long ago that I never remember feeling like other fellows'; and Kester sighed impatiently and kicked over some more books. 'There I go, upsetting everything; but there is no room to move. We had our dinner, such as it was, in the kitchen--not that I could eat it, eh, Mollie?'

Mollie shook her head sadly.

'You have not eaten a bit to-day. Cyril promised to bring in some buns for tea; but I daresay he will forget all about it.'

A sudden thought struck Audrey: these two poor children did look so disconsolate. Mollie's tired face was quite dust-begrimed; she had been crying, too, probably with worry and over-fatigue, for the reddened eyelids betrayed her.

'I have a bright idea,' she said in her pleasant, friendly way, 'why should you not have tea in the garden? You have a nice little lawn, and it will not be too sunny near the house. If Biddy will only be good enough to boil the kettle I will run and fetch a teapot. It is no use hunting in those hampers, you are far too tired, Mollie. We will just lift out this little table. I see it has flaps, so it will be large enough; and if you can find a few teacups and plates, I will be back in a quarter of an hour with the other things.'

Audrey did not specify what other things she meant; she left that a pleasing mystery, to be unravelled by and by; she only waited to lift out the table, and then started off on her quest.

The Wrights could not give her half she wanted; but Audrey in her own erratic fashion was a woman of resources: she made her way quickly to Woodcote, and entering it through the back premises, just as her sister was walking leisurely up to the front door, she went straight to the kitchen to make her raid.

Cooper was evidently accustomed to her young mistress's eccentric demands. She fetched one article after another, as Audrey named them: a teapot, a clean cloth, a quarter of a pound of the best tea, a little tin of cream from the dairy, half a dozen new-laid eggs, a freshly-baked loaf hot from the oven, and some crisp, delicious-looking cakes, finally a pat of firm yellow b.u.t.ter; and with this last article Audrey p.r.o.nounced herself satisfied.

'You had better let Joe carry some of the things, Miss Audrey,'

suggested Cooper, as she packed a large basket; 'he is round about somewhere.' And Audrey a.s.sented to this.

Geraldine was just beginning her Blake story, and Mrs. Ross was listening to her with a troubled face, as Audrey, armed with the teapot, and followed by Joe with the basket, turned in again at the green gate of the Gray Cottage.

CHAPTER III

THE BLAKE FAMILY AT HOME

'Her manner was warm, and even ardent; her sensibility seemed const.i.tutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impa.s.sioned intellect apparently burnt within her.'--DE QUINCEY.

There was certainly a tinge of Bohemianism in Audrey's nature. She delighted in any short-cut that took her out of the beaten track. A sudden and unexpected pleasure was far more welcome to her than any festivity to which she was bidden beforehand.

'I am very unlike Gage,' she said once to her usual confidant, Captain Burnett. 'No one would take us for sisters; even in our cradles we were dissimilar. Gage was a pattern baby, never cried for anything, and delighted everyone with her pretty ways; and I was always grabbing at father's spectacles with my podgy little fingers, and screaming for the carving-knife or any such incongruous thing. Do you know my first babyish name for father?'

'I believe it was Daddy Gla.s.s-Eyes, was it not?' was the ready response, for somehow this young man had a strangely retentive memory, and seldom forgot anything that interested him.

Audrey laughed.

'I had no idea you would have remembered that. How I loved to s.n.a.t.c.h off those spectacles! "You can't see me now, Daddy Gla.s.s-Eyes," I can hear myself saying that; "daddy can't see with only two eyes."'

'You were a queer little being even then,' he returned, somewhat dryly.

'But I believe, as usual, we are wandering from our subject. You are a most erratic talker, Audrey. What made you burst out just now into this sisterly tirade?'

'Ah, to be sure! I was contrasting myself with Gage; it always amuses me to do that. It only proceeded from a speech the Countess made this afternoon'; for in certain naughty moods Audrey would term her elder sister the Countess. 'She declared half the pleasure of a thing consisted in preparation and antic.i.p.ation; but I disagree with her entirely. I like all my pleasures served up to me hot and spiced--without any flavour reaching me beforehand. That is why I am so charmed with the idea of surprise parties and impromptu picnics, and all that kind of thing.'

Audrey felt as though she were a.s.sisting at some such surprise party as she turned in at the green gate, and relieved Joe of the basket. Mollie came running round the side of the house to meet her. She had washed her face, and brushed out her tangled hair and tied it afresh.

'Oh, what have you there?' she asked in some little excitement. 'Miss Ross, have you really carried all these things? The kettle is boiling, and I have some clean cups and saucers. Kester has been helping me. I think mamma is awake, for I heard her open her window just now.'

'What a nice, intelligent face she has!' thought Audrey, as she unpacked her basket and displayed the hidden dainties before the girl's delighted eyes. 'I am sure I shall like Mollie. She is not a bit pretty--I daresay Gage and Michael would call her plain; but she has an honest look in her brown eyes.' 'Mollie,' speaking aloud, 'if your mother has awakened from her nap, she will be quite ready for her tea. May I go into the kitchen a moment? I want Biddy to boil these eggs--they are new-laid; and perhaps you could find me a plate for the b.u.t.ter'; and as Mollie ran off Audrey turned coolly into the kitchen--a pleasant apartment, overlooking the street--where she found a little old woman, with a wrinkled face and dark, hawk-like eyes, standing by the hearth watching the boiling kettle.

The kitchen was in the same state of chaos as the dining-room--the table covered with unwashed dishes, and crates half unpacked littering the floor. It was evident Biddy was no manager. As she stood there in her dirty cotton gown, with her thin gray hair twisted into a rough knot, and a black handkerchief tied loosely over her head, she was the image of Fairy Disorder; her bent little figure and the blackened poker in her hand carried out the resemblance, as she looked up with her bright, peering eyes at the tall young lady who confronted her.

'Do you think I could find a saucepan, Biddy?'

'I suppose there is one about somewhere,' was the encouraging answer.

'Perhaps Miss Mollie will be knowing; she boiled some potatoes for dinner.'

'Do you mean this?' regarding the article with some disfavour. 'Would it trouble you very much to wash it while I make the tea? I have some nice fresh eggs, which I think they will all enjoy.'

But Biddy only returned a snapping answer that was somewhat unintelligible, and carried out the saucepan with rather a sour face.

'Disagreeable old thing!' thought Audrey, as she made the tea, but she afterwards retracted this hasty judgment.

Biddy was a bad manager, certainly, but she was not without her virtues.

She was faithful, and would slave herself to death for those she loved; but she was old for work, and the 'ache,' as she called it, had got into her bones. She had slept on the floor for two nights, and her poor old back was tired, and her head muddled with the confusion and her mistress's fretful fussiness. Biddy could have worked well if any one had told her exactly what to do, but between one order and another--between Mr. Cyril's impatience and Miss Mollie's incapable, youthful zeal--she was just 'moithered,' as she would have said herself.

She brought back the saucepan after a minute, and Audrey boiled the eggs. As she looked down at the hissing, bubbling water, an amused smile stole over her features.

'If only Gage could see me now!' she thought; and then Mollie came in and rummaged in a big basket for teaspoons.

Audrey carried out her teapot in triumph. Mollie had done her work well and tastefully: the snowy cloth was on the table; there were cups and saucers and plates; the b.u.t.ter was ornamented with green leaves, the cakes were in a china basket. Kester was dusting some chairs.

'Doesn't it look nice!' exclaimed Mollie, quite forgetting her shyness.

'How I wish Cyril would come in! He does so love things to be nice--he and Kester are so particular. Mamma!' glancing up at a window above them, 'won't you please to hurry down? May I sit there, Miss Ross? I always pour out the tea, because mamma does not like the trouble, and Kester always sits next to me.'