Patty's Success

CHAPTER XVI

AN INVITATION DECLINED

Philip Van Reypen went away, and his aunt never knew that he had been to her house on that occasion.

“I’m glad that boy has sense enough to keep away when I tell him to,” she remarked at luncheon, and Patty hastily took a sip of water to hide her uncontrollable smile.

“Yes, he seems to obey you,” she said, by way of being agreeable.

“He does. He’s a good boy, but too impressionable. He’s captivated by every girl he meets, so I warn you again, Miss Fairfield, not to notice his pretended interest in you.”

Patty tossed her head a little haughtily.

“Do not be alarmed, Mrs. Van Reypen,” she said, “I have no interest whatever in your nephew.”

She was a little annoyed at the absurd speeches of the old lady, and determined to put a stop to them.

“I should hope not,” was the reply. “A person in your position should not aspire to association with young gentlemen like my nephew.”

Patty was really angry at this, but her common sense came to her aid. If she elected to play the part of a dependent, she must accept the consequences. But she allowed herself a pointed rejoinder.

“Perhaps not,” she said. “Yet I suppose a companion of Mrs. Van Reypen’s would meet only the best people.”

“That, of course. But you cannot meet them as an equal.”

“No,” agreed Patty, meekly. Then to herself she said: “Only a week of this! Only six days now.”

That afternoon they went to the dressmaker’s.

Patty put on a smart tailored costume, and almost regretted that she had left her white furs at home. But she and Nan had agreed that they were too elaborate for her use as a companion, so she wore a small neckpiece and muff of chinchilla. But it suited well her dark-blue cloth suit and plain but chic black velvet hat.

The dressmaker, an ultra-fashionable modiste, looked at Patty with interest, recognising in her costume the work of adept hands.

Moreover, Patty’s praise and criticism of Mrs. Van Reypen’s new gowns showed her to be a young woman of taste and knowledge in such matters.

Both the modiste and her aristocratic patron were a little puzzled at Patty’s attitude, which, though modest and deferential, was yet sure and true in its judgments and opinions.

At last, when Mrs. Van Reypen was undergoing some tedious fitting, Patty had an inspiration.

“May I be excused long enough to telephone?” she asked.

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Van Reypen, who was in high good humour, because of her new finery. “Take all the time you like.”

Patty had noticed a telephone booth in the hall, and, shutting herself in it, she called up Nan.

By good fortune Nan was at home, and answered at once.

“Oh!” began Patty, giggling, “I’ve so much to tell you, and it’s all so funny, I can’t say a word. We’re at the dressmaker’s now, and I took this chance to call you up, because I won’t be overheard. Oh, Nan, it’s great fun!”

“Tell me the principal facts, Patty. And stop giggling. Is she kind to you? Is she patronising? Have you a pleasant room? Do you want to come home? Are you happy there?”

“Oh, Nan, wait a minute, for goodness’ sake! Yes, she’s patronising—she won’t let me speak to her grand nephew. Oh—I don’t mean her grand nephew! I mean her grand, gorgeous, extraordinary nephew. But I don’t care; I’ve no desire to speak to him.”

“Does he live there?”

“No; and never mind about him, anyway. How are you all? Is father well? Oh, Nan, it seems as if I’d been away from home a year! And what do you think? I have to dance for her to amuse her!”

“Patty! Not really? Well, you can do that all right.”

“Sure I can! Oh, she’s a peach! Don’t reprove my slang, Nan; I have to be so precise when I’m on duty. Well, I must say good-by now. I’ll write you a long letter as soon as I get a chance. To-night we’re going to see Mlle. Thingamajig dance, and to-morrow night, to the opera. So you see I’m not dull.”

“Oh, Patty, I wish you’d drop it all and come home! I don’t like it, and Fred doesn’t either.”

“Tra-la-la! ’Twill all be over soon! Only six days more. Expect me home next Thursday afternoon. Love to all. Good-by. Patty!”

Patty hung up the receiver, for she knew if she talked any longer she’d get homesick. The sound of Nan’s familiar voice made her long for her home and her people. But Patty was plucky, and, also, she was doggedly determined to succeed this time.

So she went back to Mrs. Van Reypen with a placid countenance, and sat for an hour or more complimenting and admiring the costumes in process of construction.

Somehow the afternoon dragged itself away, and the evening, at the theatre, passed pleasantly enough.

But the succeeding days went slowly.

Mrs. Van Reypen was difficult to please. She was fretty, irritable, inconsequent, and unjust.

What suited her one day displeased her highly the next.

So long as Patty praised, complimented, and flattered her all went fairly well.

But if Patty inadvertently disagreed with her, or expressed a contrary opinion, there was a scene.

And again, if Patty seemed especially meek and mild Mrs. Van Reypen would say:

“Don’t sit there and assent to everything I say! Do have some mind of your own! Express an honest opinion, even though it may differ from mine.”

Then, if Patty did this, it would bring down vials of wrath on her inoffensive head. Often she was at her wits’ end to know what to say. But her sense of humour never deserted her, and if she said something, feeling sure she was going to get sorely berated for saying it, she was able to smile inwardly when the scathing retort was uttered.

Sunday was an especially hard day. It was stormy, so they could not go out.

So Mrs. Van Reypen bade Patty read sermons to her.

When Patty did so she either fell asleep and then, waking suddenly, declared that Patty had been skipping, or else she argued contrary to the doctrines expressed in the sermons and expected Patty to combat her arguments.

“I’m tired of hearing you read,” she said, at last. “You do read abominably. First you go along in staccato jerks, then you drone in a monotone. Philip is a fine reader. I love to hear Philip read. I wish he’d come in to-day. I wonder why he doesn’t? Probably because you’re here. He must have taken a violent dislike to you, Miss Fairfield.”

“Do you think so?” said Patty, almost choking with suppressed laughter at this version of Philip’s attitude toward her.

“Yes, I’m sure he did. For usually he likes my companions—especially if they’re pretty. And you’re pretty, Miss Fairfield. Not the type I admire myself,—I prefer brunettes,—but still you are pretty in your own way.”

“Thank you,” said Patty, meekly.

“And you’re especially pretty when you dance. I wish you could dance for me now; but, of course, I wouldn’t let you dance on Sunday. That’s the worst of Sundays. There’s so little one can do.”

“Shall I sing hymns to you?” inquired Patty, gently, for she really felt sorry for the discontented old lady.

“Yes, if you like,” was the not very gracious rejoinder, and, without accompaniment, Patty sang the old, well-known hymns in her true, sweet voice.

The twilight was falling, and, as Patty’s soothing music continued, Mrs. Van Reypen fell asleep in her chair.

Exhausted by a really difficult day Patty also dropped into a doze, and the two slept peacefully in their chairs in front of the dying embers of the wood fire.

It was thus that Philip Van Reypen found them as he came softly in at five o’clock.

“Well, I’ll be excused,” he said, to himself, “if I ever saw anything to beat that!”

His gaze had wandered from his sleeping aunt to Patty, now sound asleep in a big armchair.

The crimson velvet made a perfect background for her golden curls, a bit tumbled by her afternoon exertions at being entertaining.

Her posture was one of graceful relaxation, and pretty Patty had never looked prettier than she did then, asleep in the faint firelight.

“By Jove!” exclaimed the young man, but not aloud, “if that isn’t the prettiest sight ever. I believe there’s a tradition that one may kiss a lady whom one finds asleep in her chair, but I won’t. She’s a dear little girl, and she shan’t be teased.”

Then Mr. Philip Van Reypen deliberately, and noiselessly, lifted another large armchair and, carefully disposing his own goodly proportioned frame within it, proceeded to fall asleep himself—or if not really asleep, he gave an exceedingly good imitation of it.

Patty woke first. As she slowly opened her eyes she saw Philip dimly through the now rapidly gathering dusk.

Quick as a flash she took in the situation, and shut her eyes again, though not until Philip had seen her from beneath his own quivering lids.

After a time she peeped again.

“Why play hide-and-seek?” he whispered.

“What about your promise?” she returned, also under her breath.

“Had to come. Aunty telephoned for me.”

“Oh!”

Then Mrs. Van Reypen awoke.

“Who’s here?” she cried out. “Oh, Philip, you!”

She heartily kissed her nephew, and then rang for lights and tea.

“Miss Fairfield,” she said, not untimidly, but with decision, “you are weary and I’m not surprised at it. Go to your room and rest until dinner time! I will send your tea to you there.”

“Yes, Mrs. Van Reypen,” said Patty, demurely, and, with a slight impersonal bow to Philip, she left the room.

“Oh, I say! Aunty Van!” exclaimed the young man, as Patty disappeared, “don’t send her away.”

“Be quiet, Philip,” said his aunt. “You know you don’t like her, and she needs a rest.”

“Don’t like her!” echoed Philip. “Does a cat like cream? Aunty Van, what’s the matter with you, anyway? Who is she?”

“She’s my companion,” was the stern response, “my hired companion, and I do not wish you to treat her as an equal.”

“Equal! She’s superior to anything I’ve ever seen yet.”

“Oh, you rogue! You say that, or its equivalent, about every girl you meet.”

“Pooh! Nonsense! But I say, aunty, she’ll come down to dinner, won’t she?”

“Yes—I suppose so. But mind now, Philip, you’re not to talk to her as if she were of your own class.”

“No’m; I won’t.”

Reassured by the knowledge that he should see her again, Philip was most affable and agreeable, and chatted with his aunt in a happy frame of mind.

Patty, exiled to her own room, decided to write to Nan.

She filled several sheets with accounts of her doings at Mrs. Van Reypen’s, and gloated over the fact that there were now but four days of her week left.

“I shall win this time,” she wrote, “and, though life here is not a bed of roses, yet it is not so very bad, and when the week is over I shall look back at it with lots of funny thoughts. Oh, Nan, prepare a fatted calf for Thursday night, for I shall come home a veritable Prodigal Son! Of course, I don’t mean this literally; we have lovely things to eat here, but it’s ‘hame, hame, fain wad I be.’ I won’t write again, I’ll probably get no chance, but send Miller for me at four o’clock on Thursday afternoon.”

After writing the letter Patty felt less homesick. It seemed, somehow, to bring Thursday nearer, to write about it. She began to dress for dinner, and, in a spirit of mischief, she took pains to make a most fetching toilette.

Her frock was of white mousseline de soie that twinkled into foolish little ruffles all round the hem.

More tiny frills gambolled around the low-cut circular neck and nestled against Patty’s soft, round arms.

Her curly hair was parted, and massed low at the back of her neck, and behind one ear she tucked a half-blown pink rosebud.

The long, dreamy day had roused in Patty a contrary wilfulness, and she was quite ready for fun if any came her way.

At dinner Mrs. Van Reypen monopolised the conversation. She talked mostly to Philip, but occasionally addressed a remark to Patty. She was exceedingly polite to her, but made her feel that her share of the conversation must be formal and conventional. Then she would chatter to her nephew about matters unknown to Patty, and then perhaps again throw an observation about the weather at her “companion.”

Patty accepted all this willingly enough, but Philip didn’t.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off Patty, who was looking her very prettiest, and whose own eyes, when she raised them, were full of smiles.

But in vain he endeavoured to make her talk to him.

Patty remembered Mrs. Van Reypen’s injunctions, and, though her bewitching personality made such effort useless, she tried to be absolutely and uninterestingly silent.

“Aunty Van,” said Philip, at last, giving up his attempts to make Patty converse, “let’s have a little theatre party to-morrow night. Shall us? I’ll get a box, and if you and Miss Fairfield will go, I’ll be delighted.”

“I’ll go, with pleasure,” replied his aunt, “but Miss Fairfield will be obliged to decline. She has been out late too often since she has been here, and she needs rest. So invite the Delafields instead, and that will make a pleasant quartette.”

For an instant Patty was furiously angry at this summary disposal of herself, but when she saw Philip’s face she almost screamed with laughter.

Crestfallen faintly expressed his appearance. He was crushed, and looked absolutely stunned.

“How he is under his aunt’s thumb!” thought Patty, secretly disgusted at his lack of self-assertion, but she suddenly changed her mind.

“Thank you, Aunty Van,” she heard him saying, in a cool, determined voice, “but I prefer to choose my own guests. I do not care to ask the Delafields—unless you especially desire it. I am sorry Miss Fairfield cannot go, but I trust you will honour me with your presence.” Philip had scored.

Mrs. Van Reypen well knew if she went alone with her nephew, under such conditions, he would be sulky all the evening. Nor could she insist on having the Delafields asked after the way he had put it.

She then nobly endeavoured to undo the mischief she had wrought.

“No, Philip, I don’t care especially about the Delafields. And if Miss Fairfield thinks it will not tire her too much I shall be glad to have her accept your kindness.”

His kindness, indeed! Patty felt like saying, “Do you know I am Patricia Fairfield, and it is I who confer an honour when I accept an invitation?”

It wasn’t exactly pride, but Patty had been brought up in an atmosphere of somewhat old-fashioned chivalry, and it jarred on her sense of the fitness of things to have Philip’s invitation to her referred to as a “kindness.”

So she decided to take a stand herself.

“I thank you for your kindness, Mr. Van Reypen,” she said, with just the slightest emphasis on kindness, “but I cannot accept it. I quite agree with Mrs. Van Reypen that I need rest.”

The speech was absurd on the face of it, for Patty’s rosy, dimpled cheeks and sparkling eyes betokened no weariness or lassitude.

But Mrs. Van Reypen accepted this evidence of the girl’s obedience to her wishes, and said:

“You are right, Miss Fairfield, and my nephew will excuse you from his party.”

Philip sent her a reproachful glance, and Patty dropped her eyes again, wishing dinner was over.

At last the ladies left the table, and Philip rose and held aside the portière while his aunt passed through.

As Patty followed, he detained her a moment, and whispered:

“It is cruel of you to punish me for my aunt’s unkindness.”

“I can’t help it,” said Patty, and as her troubled eyes met his angry ones they both smiled, and peace was restored.

“After Friday,” whispered Patty, as she went through the doorway.

“After Friday,” he repeated, puzzled by her words, but reassured by her smiles.

And then Mrs. Van Reypen sent Patty to her room for the night, and when Philip came to the drawing-room he found he was destined to be entertained by his aunt alone.

“Of course,” said Patty, to her own reflection in her mirror, “a companion can’t expect to sit with ‘the quality,’ but it does seem a shame to dress up pretty like this and then be sent to bed at nine o’clock! Never mind, only three evenings more in this house, and then victory for Patty Fairfield!”

CHAPTER XVII

THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

Patty adhered to her resolution not to go to the theatre on Monday night, but when she saw Mrs. Van Reypen and Philip start off she secretly regretted her decision.

She loved fun and gaiety, and it suddenly seemed to her that she had been foolishly sensitive about Mrs. Van Reypen’s attitude toward her.

However, it couldn’t be helped now, so she prepared to spend the evening reading in the library.

She would have liked to hold a long telephone conversation with Nan and her father, but she thought she had better not, for there were so many house servants on duty that a maid or a footman would be likely to overhear her.

She played the piano and sang a little, then she wandered about the large and lonely rooms. Patty was a sociable creature, and had never before spent an evening entirely alone, unless when engaged in some important and engrossing work.

But after a while the telephone rang, and when the parlour-maid told her the call was for her she flew to the instrument with glad anticipation.

“Hello!” she cried, and “Hello!” returned a familiar voice.

“Oh, Ken! of all people. How did you know I was here?”

“Oh, I found it out! How are you? May I come to see you?”

“No, indeed! I’m a companion. I’m not expected to have callers. But I’m glad to talk to you this way. I’m alone in the house, except for the servants.”

“Alone! Then let me come up for a few minutes, and chat.”

“No; Mrs. Van Reypen wouldn’t like it, I’m sure. But, oh, Ken, I’m making good this time! On Thursday the week will be up, and I’ll get my fifteen dollars. Isn’t that gay?”

“You’re a plucky girl, Patty, and I congratulate you. Is it very horrid?”

“No, it isn’t exactly horrid, but I’m fearfully homesick. But it’s only three more days now, and won’t I be glad to get home!”

“And we’ll be glad to have you. The goldfish are dull and moping, and we all want our Patty back again.”

“That’s nice of you. But, Ken, how did you know where to find me? I made Nan and father promise not to tell.”

“Well, I may as well confess: I basely worried it out of Miller. I asked him where he took you to last Thursday afternoon.”

“Oh! I meant to tell him not to tell, but I forgot it. Well, it doesn’t matter much, as you chanced to strike a time when I’m alone. But don’t call me up again. I’m not supposed to have any social acquaintances.”

“Good for you, Patty! If you play the game, play it well. I expect you’re a prim, demure companion as ever was.”

“Of course I am. And if the lady didn’t have such a fishy nephew I’d get along beautifully.”

“Oho! A nephew, eh? And he’s smitten with your charms, as they always are in novels.”

“Yes,” said Patty, in a simpering tone.

“Oh, yes! I can’t see you, but I know you have your finger in your mouth and your eyes shyly cast down.”

“You’re so clever!” murmured Patty, giggling. “But now you may go, Ken, for I don’t want to talk to you any more. Come round Thursday night, can’t you, and welcome me home?”

“Pooh, you’re late with your invitation. Mrs. Fairfield has already invited me to dinner that very evening.”

“Good! Well, good-by for now. I have reasons for wishing to discontinue this conversation.”

“And I have reasons for wishing to keep on. If you’re tired talking, sing to me.”

“‘Thou art so near and yet so far,’” hummed Patty, in her clear, sweet voice.

“No, don’t sing. Central will think you’re a concert. Well, good-by till Thursday.”

“Good-by,” said Patty, and hung up the receiver.

But she felt much more cheerful at having talked with Kenneth, and the coming days seemed easier to bear.

They proved, however, to be quite hard enough.

The very next day, when Patty went down to the breakfast room, determined to do her best to please Mrs. Van Reypen, she found that lady suffering from an attack of neuralgia.

Though not a serious one, it seriously affected her temper, and she was cross and irritable to a degree that Patty had never seen equalled.

She snapped at the servants; she was short of speech to Patty; she found fault with everything, from the coffee to the cat.