“That will be regularly splendid!” said Elise, “and you’d better ask him at once, Patty, so as to give him as much time as possible.”
“No, I won’t ask him quite yet,” said Patty, laughing. “I think I’ll wait until the play is written, first. I don’t believe it’s customary to engage a scene painter before a play is scarcely begun.”
“Well, then, let’s get at it,” said Hilda, who was practical.
So to work they went, and really wrote the actual lines of a good part of the first act.
“Now, that’s something like,” said Patty, as, when the clock struck noon, she looked with satisfaction on a dozen or more pages, neatly written in Hilda’s pretty penmanship. “If we keep on like that, we can get this thing done in five or six Saturday mornings, and then I’ll ask Mr. Hepworth about the scenery. Then we can begin to rehearse, and we’ll just about be ready for commencement day.”
While Patty was with the girls, her interest and enthusiasm were so great that the play seemed the only thing to be thought of. But when she reached home and saw the pile of untouched schoolbooks and remembered that she would be away all the afternoon, she felt many misgivings.
However, she had promised to go, so off she went to the matinée, and had a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable time. Mrs. Morse invited her to go home to dinner with Clementine, saying that she would send her home safely afterward.
Clementine added her plea that this invitation might be accepted, but Patty said no. Although she wanted very much to go with the Morses, yet she knew that duty called her home. So she regretfully declined, giving her reason, and went home, determined to work hard at her themes and her lessons. But after her merry day with her young friends, she was not only tired physically, but found great difficulty in concentrating her thoughts on more prosaic subjects. But Patty had pretty strong will-power, and she forced herself to go at her work in earnest. Grandma Elliott watched her, as she pored over one book after another, or hastily scribbled her themes. A little pucker formed itself between her brows, and a crimson flush appeared on her cheeks.
At ten o’clock Mrs. Elliott asserted her authority.
“Patty,” she said, “you must go to bed. You’ll make yourself ill if you work so hard.”
Patty pushed back her books. “I believe I’ll have to, grandma,” she said. “My head’s all in a whirl, and the letters are dancing jigs before my eyes.”
Exhausted, Patty crept into bed, and though she slept late next morning, Grandma Elliott imagined that her face still bore traces of worry and hard work.
“Nonsense, grandma,” said Patty, laughing. “I guess my robust constitution can stand a little extra exertion once in a while. I’ll try to take it easier this week, and I believe I’ll give up my gymnasium work. That will give me more time, and won’t interfere with getting my diploma.”
But though Patty gained a few extra half hours by omitting the gymnasium class, she missed the daily exercise more than she would admit even to herself.
“You’re getting round-shouldered, Patty,” said Lorraine, one day; “and I believe it’s because you work so hard over those old lessons.”
“It isn’t the work, Lorraine,” said Patty, laughing. “It’s the play. I had to rewrite the whole of that garden scene last night, after I finished my lessons.”
“Why, what was the matter with it?”
“It was all wrong. We didn’t think of it at the time, but in one place Elise has to go off at one side of the stage, and, immediately after, come on at the other side, in different dress. Now, of course, that won’t do; it has to be arranged so that she will have time to change her costume. So I had to write in some lines for the others. And there were several little things like that to be looked after, so I had to do over pretty nearly the whole scene.”
“It’s a shame, Patty! We make you do all the hardest of the work.”
“Not a bit of it. I love to do it; and when we all work together and chatter so, of course we don’t think it out carefully enough, and so these mistakes creep in. Don’t say anything about it, Lorraine. The girls will never notice my little changes and corrections, and I don’t want to pose as a poor, pale martyr, growing round-shouldered in her efforts to help her fellow-sisters!”
“You’re a brick, Patty, but I will tell them, all the same. If we’re all going to write this play together, we’re going to do it all, and not have you doing our work for us.”
Lorraine’s loyalty to Patty was unbounded, and as she had, moreover, a trace of stubbornness in her character, Patty knew that no amount of argument would move her from her determination to straighten matters out. So she gave up the discussion, only saying, “You won’t do a bit of good, Lorraine; and anyway, somebody ought to revise the thing, and if I don’t do it, who will?”
Patty said this without a trace of egotism, for she and Lorraine both knew that none of the other girls had enough constructive talent or dramatic capability to put the finishing touches on the lines of the play. That was Patty’s special forte, just as Clementine Morse was the one best fitted to plan the scenic effects, and Elise Farrington to design the costumes.
“That’s so,” said Lorraine, with a little sigh, “and I suppose, Patty, you’ll just go on in your mad career, and do exactly as you please.”
“I suppose I shall,” said Patty, laughing at Lorraine’s hopeless expression; “but I do want this play to be a success, and I mean to help all I can, in any way I can.”
“It’s bound to be a success,” said Lorraine with enthusiasm, “because the girls are all so interested, and I think we’re all working hard in our different ways. Of course I don’t have anything to do except to look after the incidental music, but I do hope that will turn out all right.”
“Of course it will, Lorraine,” said Patty. “Your selections are perfect so far; and you do look after more than that. Those two little songs you wrote are gems, and they fit into the second act just exactly right. I think you’re a real poet, Lorraine, and after the play is over I wish you’d get those little songs published. I’m sure they’re worth it.”
“I wish I could,” said Lorraine, “and I do mean to try.”
CHAPTER V
A NEW HOME
Great was the rejoicing and celebration when Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield returned from their wedding trip. They came to the apartment to remain there for a few days before moving to the new house.
Patty welcomed Nan with open arms, and it was harder than ever for her to attend to her studies when there was so much going on in the family.
The furnishing of the new house was almost completed, but there remained several finishing touches to be attended to. As Patty’s time was so much occupied, she was not allowed to have any hand in this work. Mrs. Allen had come on from Philadelphia to help her daughter, and Grandma Elliott assisted in dismantling the apartment, preparatory to giving it up.
So when Patty started to school one Friday morning, and was told that when the session was over she was to go to her new home to stay, she felt as if she were going to an unexplored country.
It was with joyful anticipations that she put on her hat and coat, after school, and started home.
Her father had given her a latch-key, and as she stepped in at the front door, Nan, in a pretty house dress, stood ready to welcome her.
“My dear child,” she said, “welcome home. How do you like the prospect?”
“It’s lovely,” said Patty, gazing around at as much as she could see of the beautiful house and its well-furnished rooms. “What a lot of new things there are, and I recognise a good many of the old ones, too. Oh, Nan, won’t we be happy all here together?”
“Indeed we will,” said Nan. “I think it’s the loveliest house in the world, and mother and Fred have fixed it up so prettily. Come up and see your room, Patty.”
A large, pleasant front room on the third floor had been assigned to Patty’s use, and all her own special and favourite belongings had been placed there.
“How dear of you, Nan, to arrange this all for me, and put it all to rights. I really couldn’t have taken the time to do it myself, but it’s just the way I want it.”
“And this,” said Nan, opening a door into a small room adjoining, “is your own little study, where you can be quiet and undisturbed, while you’re studying those terrific lessons of yours.”
Patty gave a little squeal of delight at the dainty library, furnished in green, and with her own desk and bookcases already in place.
“But don’t think,” Nan went on, “that we shall let you stay here and grub away at those books much of the time. An hour a day is all we intend to allow you to be absent from our family circle while you’re in the house.”
“An hour a day to study!” exclaimed Patty. “It’s more likely that an hour a day is all I can give you of my valuable society.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Nan, wagging her head wisely. “You see I have some authority now, and I intend to exercise it.”
“Ha,” said Patty, dramatically, “I see it will be war to the knife!”
“To the knife!” declared Nan, as she ran away laughing.
Patty looked about her two lovely rooms with genuine pleasure. She was like a cat in her love of comfortable chairs and luxurious cushions, and she fully appreciated the special and individual care with which Nan and her father had considered her tastes. Had she not been so busy she would have preferred to have a hand in the arranging of her rooms herself, but as it was, she was thankful that someone else had done it for her.
Hastily throwing off her hat and coat, she flung herself into a comfortable easy chair by her library table, and was soon deep in her French lesson.
A couple of hours later Nan came up and found her there.
“Patty Fairfield!” she exclaimed. “You are the worst I ever saw! Get right up and dress for dinner! Your father will be home in a few minutes, and I want you to help me receive properly the master of the house.”
Patty rubbed her eyes and blinked, as Nan pulled the book away from her, and said, “Why, what time is it?”
“Time for you to stop studying, and come out of your shell and mingle with the world. Wake up!” and Nan gave Patty a little shake.
Patty came to herself and jumped up, saying, “Indeed, I’m glad enough to leave my horrid books, and I’m hungry enough to eat any dinner you may set before me. What shall I wear, Nan?”
“Put on that pretty light blue thing of yours, with the lace yoke. This is rather a festival night, and we’re going to celebrate the first dinner in our new home.”
So Patty brushed her curly hair and tied on a white ribbon bow of such exceeding size and freshness that she looked almost as if wings were sprouting from her shoulders. Then she donned her light blue frock, and went dancing downstairs, to find that her father had already arrived.
“Well, Pattikins,” he said, “can you feel at home in this big house, after living so long in our apartment?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Patty, “any place is home where you and Nan are.”
The dinner passed off gaily enough. Only the three were present, as Nan did not want any guests the first night.
Although the dining-room appointments were those that had furnished the Fairfields’Vernondale home, yet they were so augmented by numerous wedding gifts of Nan’s that Patty felt as if she were at a dinner party of unusual splendour.
“It’s lovely to live in a house with a bride,” she said, “because there are such beautiful silver and glass things on the table, and on the sideboard.”
“Yes,” said Nan, glancing around her with satisfaction. “I intend to use all my things. I think it’s perfectly silly to pack them away in a safe, and never have any good of them.”
“But suppose burglars break in and steal them,” said Patty.
“Well, even so,” said Nan, placidly, “they would be gone, but it wouldn’t be much different from having them stored away in a safe deposit company.”
“Nan’s principle is right,” said Mr. Fairfield. “Now, here’s the way I look at it: what you can’t afford to lose, you can’t afford to buy. Remember that, Patty, and if ever you are tempted to invest a large sum of money in a diamond or silver or any portable property, look upon that money as gone forever. True, you might realise on your possession in case of need, but more likely you could not, and, too, there is always the chance of losing it by carelessness or theft. So remember that you can’t afford to buy what you can’t afford to lose.”
“That’s a new idea to me, papa,” said Patty, “but I see what you mean and I know you are right. However, there’s little chance of my investing in silver at present, for I can just as well use Nan’s.”
“Of course you can,” said Nan, heartily; “and whenever you want to have company, or a party of any kind, you’ve only to mention it, and not only my silver, but my servants and my own best efforts are at your disposal.”
“That’s lovely,” said Patty, “and I would love to have parties and invite the schoolgirls and some of the boys, but I can’t take the time now. Why, I couldn’t spare an evening from my studies to entertain the crowned heads of Europe.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Fairfield, “you mustn’t work so hard, Puss; and anyway you’ll have to spare this evening, for I asked Hepworth to drop in, and I think two or three others may come, and we’ll have a little informal housewarming.”
“Yes,” said Patty, dubiously, “and Kenneth said he would call this evening, and Elise and Roger may come in. So, as it’s Friday evening, I’ll see them, of course; but after this I must study every evening except Fridays.”
A little later on, when a number of guests had assembled in the Fairfields’ drawing-room, Patty looked like anything but a bookworm, or a pale-faced student. Her eyes danced, and the colour glowed in her pretty face, for she was very fond of merry society, and always looked her prettiest when thus animated.
She and Elise entertained the others by quoting some bits from the school play, Nan sang for them, and Kenneth gave some of his clever and funny impersonations.
Mr. Hepworth declared that he had no parlour tricks, but Patty asserted that he had, and she ran laughing from the room, to return with several large sheets of paper and a stick of drawing charcoal. Then she decreed that Mr. Hepworth should draw caricature portraits of all those present. After a little demurring, the artist consented, and shrieks of laughter arose as his clever pencil swiftly sketched a humorous portrait of each one.
“It’s right down jolly,” said Kenneth to Patty, “your having a big house of your own like this. Mayn’t I come often to see you? Mrs. Nan is so kind, she always has a welcome for me.”
“You may come and accept her welcome whenever you like,” said Patty, “but I can’t promise to see you, Ken, except Friday evenings. Honestly, I don’t have one minute to myself. You see, we rehearse the play afternoons, and evenings I have to study, and Saturday is crammed jam full.”
“But she will see you, Kenneth,” said Nan, who had heard these remarks. “We’re not going to let her retire from the world in any such fashion as she proposes; so you come to see us whenever you like, and my word for it, Patty will be at home to you.”
Nan passed on, laughing, and Patty turned to Kenneth with an appealing glance.
“You know how it is, don’t you, Ken? I just have to stick to my work like everything, or I won’t pass those fearful examinations, and now that I’ve made up my mind to try for them, I do want to succeed.”
“Yes, I know, Patty, and I fully sympathise with your ambitions. Stick to it, and you’ll come out all right yet; and if I should call sometimes when you’re studying, just say you’re too busy to see me, and it will be all right.”
“What an old trump you are, Ken. You always seem to understand.”