Patty's Perversities

CHAPTER XXII

A MISUNDERSTANDING

In this way it came about that Patty started alone for the afternoon rehearsal. The rain was still falling, although less heavily than in the earlier part of the day. The wet leaves which the wind had torn from the trees lay thick upon the walks, crushing soddenly under her feet. The dreariness of autumn seemed suddenly to have fallen upon the land, and nature to have yielded to it without a struggle. The weeds by the roadside were beaten down and broken; the streets were full of pools of turbid water, which reflected dismally the dark sky. The bright glow of the autumnal foliage had been apparently washed away by the torrents of rain, leaving the landscape gray and drear.

Patty was out of sorts, and even the walk in the rain failed to restore her spirits. She did not at all understand the way in which Tom Putnam kept himself aloof. That a man should make a declaration of love, and then treat its object with quiet neglect, was incomprehensible enough. She recalled that night when he had found her on the doorstep, and contrasted it with his manner on Sunday afternoon in the Castle in the Air. She was unable to understand how Tom, if indeed he loved her, could meet her with calmness; and it was but a step further to conclude that she did not possess his heart. She secretly resolved to meet the lawyer with an indifference to which his should be as nothing; to be colder than ice, as unconcerned as a statue, and as firm as the Pyramids. Raising her eyes at this point of her revery, she saw her lover coming towards her down the village street. She felt a glow of pleasure in spite of herself. With a girl like Patty, no method of wooing could have been more effectual than that which circumstances had forced upon the lawyer, although he had felt keenly the loss of her society.

"I am so glad I have met you!" he said. "I was going to your house, but now I will walk on with you."

Patty was steadying her nerves, and sending back the rebellious blood, which would bound at sight of his tall figure, as he turned and walked at her side.

"I have been so occupied!" he continued. "The executors of Mrs. Sutcliff's estate have been at me night and day. First it is a telegram, and then a letter; and, as I've had Judge Hopcroft's business on my hands since he has been ill, it has kept me very much occupied. I am glad it is about done with. I think I have earned all the money I shall get twice over."

"You are very grateful," Patty said, with an exasperating desire to say something disagreeable.

"Grateful! Of course, I am; but I do not like to be kept always away from you."

"Indeed! You have always yourself for company; and, being a man, according to your theory that ought to suffice."

"But I pity you," he returned lightly. "The other half of my theory is, that you need company."

"Thank you, I've had all I wanted."

He made no reply. He perceived easily that something vexed her, but he could not understand her annoyance. He had been desirous of being near Patty, but, deeply occupied, had not been unhappy away from her. Desire and hope will make a man happy, though separated from the object of his passion, where a woman will pine painfully for his presence. A man may be, for a time, content with love; while woman is happy only with the lover.

Tom Putnam did not doubt that Patty loved him; and he was unable to understand why the knowledge of his love did not make her content, as this assurance did him. He was too old and too stable to follow the changes of her mental atmosphere, or to appreciate the hungry longing which made her desire to annihilate her being in his, to have him utterly her own. His love was as yet half impersonal, almost dormant from the effect of long years of self-repression. A man, too, must learn those secrets of affection which the other sex know by instinct; and, if the knowledge be not gained before the flush of youth is passed, even a passionate nature may prove a slow pupil.

The two friends walked on without speaking for several moments, until, for Patty, the silence became intolerable.

"You have been too much taken up with your own affairs, I suppose," she said, "to trouble yourself about grandmother's pension."

"No," he answered. "I was coming to see about that this afternoon."

"Then it wasn't to see me at all," she returned.

"Come," he said, smiling. "That is better. You really do care, then, whether I come to see you, or not."

"I do not care a straw," she retorted, vexed more and more, both with herself and him. "Only I do not like to have people sail under false colors."

"I don't see the application."

"No matter. What is it about the pension?"

"There is a little trouble."

"Of course. I knew you'd be too much taken up with your own affairs. The money's a trifle; but grandmother is an old lady, and will be so disappointed."

"I think the matter may be arranged," he said gravely, ignoring her taunt. "I am very sorry for the delay."

"What is the trouble?"

"I find it hard to prove your grandmother's marriage."

"What!" she cried.

"I have not been able to find proof of your grandmother's marriage."

"Tom Putnam!"

"I have examined the town-records in vain," he continued; "and she told me in the first place that she had no certificate."

"And you dare to think she was never married!"

"Who said I thought that?" he returned, smiling at her vehemence. "I have to look at things in a legal light; and for this business she is to be considered single until there's proof of her marriage produced."

"You insult her and all the family," Patty said hotly, all her Sanford blood rising in wrath. "I had, at least, believed you a gentleman."

They had reached the Shanklands's gate; and she left him without a word further, entering the house with her head carried like that of an offended goddess. As she came into the parlor, she encountered a perfect whirlwind of voices in question, exclamation, and remonstrance.

"Where have you been?"

"What made you so late?"

"O Patty! do you think we ought to have green lights for the death-scene? It makes everybody look so horridly ghastly."

"We've been waiting an age for you."

"There, there!" exclaimed Patty. "Please don't all speak at once. I'm as cross as an Arab," she added, forcing a smile; "and my name is a misnomer."

"I hope you haven't been quarrelling with Mr. Putnam," Miss Sturtevant said maliciously from her seat by the window. "I thought you left him rather unceremoniously."

"At least I've not been prying into other people's affairs," Patty retorted sweetly. "Come, let's begin."

Every thing went wrong that afternoon. Patty could not prevent her mind's dwelling on her interview with the lawyer, instead of upon the work in hand. The direction of the rehearsals had been put into her care as a matter of course; and her experience in amateur theatricals was large enough to enable her to get through her work half mechanically. She was usually very careful; but to-day every one felt that her mind was elsewhere, and each did what was right in his own eyes.

They rehearsed first "The Faithful Jewess," a remarkable tragedy selected by Miss Sturtevant, who played in it the part of a weird prophetess, and got herself up to look like the Witch of Endor. In choosing the play, Miss Flora had had in mind the including of Mr. Putnam in the cast, – a hope which had been doomed to disappointment. That Miss Flora has been absent so long from these pages results from no want of activity upon the part of that energetic young lady. She had waged constant warfare against the heart of Tom Putnam; but so entirely fruitless had thus far been her efforts, that they scarcely seemed worth chronicling. The lawyer was too entirely engrossed by his passion for Patty Sanford to amuse himself, even had he been given to gallant trifling; and never was sweetness more utterly wasted than that which Flora lavished upon the unresponsive bachelor.

Nor had she been more successful in her attempts to obtain possession of the papers which both Jacob Wentworth and Frank Breck desired. She had indeed made some efforts in that direction, being fully alive to the advantages of herself holding so valuable documents, and thus being in a position to dictate terms, or dispose of her booty to the highest bidder. On the whole, her unscrupulousness, her quick wit and practised skill, had brought her nothing in her summer's campaign but the now valuable bonds of the Samoset and Brookfield Railroad.

CHAPTER XXIII

NOTES AND SOUVENIRS

"I took cold leaving off my apron," Mrs. Sanford remarked. "I always do."

"That is a slight cause, daughter Britann," said grandmother. "Do'st thee feel sure there was no other?"

"I suppose I know when I take cold," she retorted. "I always take cold if I leave off my apron; and, if I go to a tea-party, I always wear my apron under my dress."

"I declare!" exclaimed Patty, rushing in like a whirlwind. "I'll never speak to that horrid Tom Putnam again to the longest day I live!"

"Softly, softly," said the old lady. "Thee do'st not wish to make promises and break them. What disturbs thee?"

"It's about you, grandmother. He dared to say you were not married."

"Not married?"

"Not married!" echoed Mrs. Sanford. "And your family always held out to be so much better than ours, and so leading me to marry into it, and help bear the disgrace!"

"Hush, mother!" Patty said impatiently. "There isn't any disgrace. It is only a blunder of Mr. Putnam's."

"Then, your father ought to sue him for libel. I always told you I didn't approve of your dawdling about with that lawyer, with Clarence Toxteth at your beck and call. But you always would have your own way, and disgrace us all by keeping company with the man that slanders your family."

"Slanders our family!" Patty returned, her eyes blazing. "Who said he slandered the family? If he isn't disgraced by my company, I'm sure I am not by his. I shouldn't be ashamed to sweep the streets for him to walk on!"

"You'd demean yourself, I dare say, when you might have the streets swept for you."

"I" – began her daughter.

"Daughter Patience," interposed her grandmother, laying her hand upon the girl's arm, "thee had best not say it."

By a strong effort Patty repressed the retort which had sprung to her lips.

"What does it mean, grandmother?" she asked, when a moment's silence had given her more composure. "Tom Putnam says he can find no proof of your marriage."

"I told thy father to tell him to go to the town-records."

"He says he has, and it is not there."

"Then, the man that married us neglected his duty," the old lady said with gentle severity. "He was a Methodist preacher at Quinnebasset; for we had only one preacher here, and he was away; and that, as thee knows, was before I received light to become a Friend."

"But didn't you have a certificate?" asked Mrs. Sanford.

"No. The man promised us one; but, though he was a man of God, he kept his word no better than one of the world's people, and we never got it."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Flossy, entering. "I told Will I didn't think this play would be very intelligible to the audience; and he said they would have the advantage of the actors, if it were. Was that what you were talking about?"

"Flossy," her aunt said disdainfully, "don't be so silly!"

"Thank you, aunt Britann. I prefer to be silly." So saying, she made her aunt a graceful courtesy, and then sat down. "What were you talking about?"

Patty explained; and her cousin flourished her bowl of pop-corn wildly about with excitement.

"Yes, of course," Flossy burst out. "I knew there was something sure to come of it when I ran away; and there it was in the binding of this book, and the pew was so hard I thought I should die. This cover, you know, is almost torn off, and there's where Linda Thaxter married William French; I mean Edward French, no, Edward Sanford – at least you know what I mean."

Flossy always became less and less intelligible as she became excited; and Patty, knowing this by frequent experience, seized her by both shoulders.

"Wait!" she said. "Stop short there. Now, what are you trying to say?"

By degrees they elicited from her the story of the psalmody in the Presbyterian Church at Samoset; and Dr. Sanford, when he came home, declared that this might prove a decisive piece of evidence. He laughed at Patty's anger, and requested her to write a note to the lawyer, informing him of Flossy's story.

It amused him to see his daughter nibbling her pen over the epistle she had vainly tried to avoid writing.

She wrote and tore up a dozen notes before she would send one. There sat the doctor in his easy-chair, apparently reading, but with his peculiar faint smile curling the corners of his lips sufficiently to show that he appreciated her difficulty. The note when completed read as follows: —

Tuesday Evening.

Flossy saw in the binding of a hymn-book at Samoset a notice of grandmother's wedding. She will tell you about it, if you will call on her.

P.S. – I have to beg your pardon for my rudeness this afternoon.

The effect of this note was to bring the lawyer to the cottage the next morning. As mischievous fortune chose to have it, Patty was on the piazza, selecting for pressing the brightest of the scarlet and russet woodbine-leaves which had been spared by the storm. She knew his step upon the walk; and, although she would not turn, she was prepared to meet him with a kindness which should atone for yesterday's harshness. But she defeated her own intention. Meaning to be gracious, she yet was not willing to give the first sign of abandoning hostilities, expecting her lover to know instinctively the state of her mind, and to approach her in a corresponding temper.

The lover's eyes shone with a wistful tenderness as he regarded the slender figure upon which the bright leaves fell in showers of gold and green and scarlet. His relations with Patty troubled him, and yet he knew not how they might be improved. He knew women from books rather than from nature, and his knowledge profited him little in his own dilemma. The sudden changes in Patty were incomprehensible to him. He had accepted her apology as a necessary consequence of the fact that she was a lady: what it had cost her, or how she had passed from anger to tenderness, he did not suspect.

She, on her side, interpreted him no better. His self-restraint she called coldness; and, when he failed to respond to a softened mood, she felt that her affection found no response in his heart. This morning she was unconsciously in a frame of mind which would render her dissatisfied, whatever his attitude: had he divined her relenting, she would have thought him presuming, as now she called him cold. The only comfort Tom might extract from such a situation was the fact, hardly likely to occur to him, that she was a thousand times more displeased with herself than with him.

"Good-morning," the gentleman said, stepping upon the piazza.

"Good-morning," she returned, keeping her face from him.

"It is a right royal day after the storm," he said, rather for the sake of saying something than from any active interest in the weather.

"Yes," she assented laconically.

"How do your theatricals come on?" asked he.

"'As the man went to be hung, – very slowly,' to use Will's slang, or figure of speech as Flossy calls it."

"This world," the lawyer said rather irrelevantly, "is chiefly figures of speech."

"What does that signify?"

"It signifies that you think of our talk yesterday hyperbolically."

Patty felt herself growing flushed and perturbed. Their conversation hid completely the sentiments underlying it. Her tenderness was met by apparent indifference. What was this talk of figures of speech, when he should have said simply "I love you."

"On the contrary," she replied, "I do not think of our conversation yesterday at all."

"Then, why do you so resolutely keep your face from me?"

"Certainly not because I said any thing yesterday that I am ashamed of."

Putnam took from his pocket her note, and read aloud the postscript.

"It is very generous in you to fling that in my face," she exclaimed, turning suddenly.

"It was abominable," he laughed; "but it made you show your face, and that's worth sinning for."

"Why did you keep my note?" she asked, as he carefully replaced it in his pocket-book. "You told me once you never kept any letters but business ones."

"Oh! I always preserve yours. Every rule has its exception."

"I am flattered," she said, softening a little.

"You've no reason to be," he retorted saucily. "I only keep them because I suppose you are sure to demand them some time; and, if I couldn't return them, you'd say I kept them."

"Then, I demand them now."

"You shall have them when you give me mine."

"You may have them this minute," she exclaimed.

"Ah!" retorted he, laughing. "I have discovered what I wanted to know. You have cared enough for them to keep them."

"You are the most hateful man on the face of the earth!" she said angrily, running into the house, and up to her own chamber.

She gathered all his notes together, with the trifles she had treasured, even before she confessed to herself that she cared for him, – this odd stone from Mackerel Cove, that Chinese coin he took from his watch-guard one day as a reward for a joke she made, a dry and musty cracker upon which he drew at a picnic a clever caricature of Mrs. Brown's frowsy head, a few dried flowers, and a pencil-sketch or two. She gathered them together, meaning to make a packet of them to put into Tom's hands before he left the house. Then she began to read over the notes, simple things that said little, and from another would have had no especial meaning or value. Here he asked her if he might drive her to a picnic at Wilk's Run; this was to say that he was going to Boston, and would be glad to execute any commissions for her, – trifling things, but written by his hand. She turned over his gifts, keepsakes which any friend might give to another. She recalled, while making up her packet, the circumstances in which each came to her. Memories exhale from mementos as odors from faded roses laid long away among our treasures. Patty ended by a brief shower of tears, and by replacing the souvenirs in the box whence they came. Her tears cleared her mental atmosphere as a thunder-shower may the air of a sultry day. Ten minutes later she flashed down stairs, bright, trenchant, and gay as a dragon-fly. She comforted herself with the illogical conclusion, "After all, I love him so deeply, he must love me."

Meanwhile the lawyer had questioned Flossy. She described so bewilderingly the situation of "this pew, you know," that it was quite impossible to form the slightest idea of its position. He therefore concluded to take the young lady herself to Samoset; and, just as Patty descended from her chamber, the two drove away. The psalmody was found without trouble; and the printed slip in the binding was eventually traced to the newspaper from which it was cut, furnishing the link which had before been missing in the evidence needed to secure the long-talked-of pension.

CHAPTER XXIV

MRS. SANFORD SPEAKS

"There's nobody else," said Will Sanford; "and if Tom Putnam won't take the part, the 'Faithful Jewess' may go to the 'demnition bowwows' but her sorrows will never afflict a Montfield audience."

"Nobody would be more heartily rejoiced, I'm sure, than I should," his sister answered, "if she would take a journey in that direction: only there isn't time to learn another play. So you'll have to ask him."

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Will said. "It's your place."

"I'll never ask him to do any thing. He's too stubborn to live, and he treats me abominably."

"Then, you should heap coals of fire on his head by inviting him to take this part, that nobody but Sol Shankland would have anyway."

"When I heap coals of fire," she returned vigorously, "I want them to burn: I want at least to be able to smell the scorched hair."

"I think you will have that satisfaction," her brother replied, "if you'll walk into his office this afternoon, and tell him there is no one in the three towns can act as well as he can, and ask will he please be that drivelling idiot of a patriarch."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. Besides, I'm going to ride with Clarence Toxteth this afternoon."

"He's always dangling round you nowadays, it seems to me."

"Well, I can't help that, can I?"

"You could if you wanted to. If you married anybody for his money, Patty, I'd never speak to you again."

"Pooh! You'd speak to me if I married a boa-constrictor."

"No. I'd send you a card on which you'd find nothing but the awful words, —

'Boa-constrictoress, farewell!'"

"Nonsense! You'd come over to be constricted, and the long and lovely bridegroom could make his supper of you. You know you adore me, Will, and so you'll see Tom Putnam. Tell him Sol is sick, or lame, or dead, or whatever it is, and we can't do without him."

"I'm always put upon," her brother said with mock despair: "in fact, I'm but a lovely, timorous flower that has been snubbed in the bud. I suppose I'll have to do it."

"That's a duck. You're an awful nice brother! But then who wouldn't be with such a surpassingly lovely sister!"

Half an hour later, Will encountered the lawyer in the street.

"I was going to see you," he said. "You presented yourself in the nick of time."

"People who present themselves in the nick of time," Putnam answered good-humoredly, "generally find themselves in a tight place. What did you want of me?"

"I wanted to tell you that you are to take the part of the patriarch in the sensational, melodramatic madness entitled 'The Faithful Jewess,' to be performed for the benefit of the church on the 23d of this blessed month of October."

"You are sure that you are not misinformed?"

"Quite sure."

"But I have already declined to take part in those theatricals."

"My informant was very positive," Will said.

"May I ask the name of your informant?"

"Patty Sanford."

"Did she say I was to act?"

"Certainly," Will answered, distorting the truth with perfect recklessness.

"Um! The part must have been given to some one before this."

"Yes. When you refused, there was nobody left to take it but Sol Shankland."

"What has become of him?" asked the lawyer.

"General inanity, I suspect, though he says, 'neümonyer,' as he calls it."

"In that case," Putnam said, laughing, "he might furnish the funds."

"But you'll come to rehearsal to-morrow night?" Sanford asked, fumbling in his pocket for a play-book. "It's at our house at half-past seven."

"If your sister has issued her commands, I suppose I've nothing to do but to obey."

The fact was, that the lawyer repented his former refusal, since it shut him out of the rehearsals at which Patty necessarily spent most of her evenings; and he was glad circumstances had put it into his power to retrieve his error. He found himself daily longing more and more to be near her, and yet shut more completely from her presence. He walked on towards his office with a brisker step, and neglected his business to commit the senseless lines of the part assigned to him.

About the time that Will was so unscrupulously using his sister's name to insnare the lawyer, that young lady was having a somewhat spicy interview with her mother. From the day when young Toxteth had confided to Mrs. Sanford his intentions in regard to Patty, the shallow woman had gone about with the secret locked in her bosom like a vase of perfume, whose subtile odors pervaded every corner of her brain-chambers. Her head unconsciously took a new elevation, and her step a fresh dignity. The Sanfords were independent and comfortable. Dr. Sanford's practice was good, and rather more lucrative than is usual in country-towns. With Will's education, however, and Patty's books and music-teachers to provide for, the surplus at the end of the year was small; and Mrs. Sanford never ceased to sigh for the time when, the son being established in his profession, and the daughter married, her husband could begin to accumulate property.