Kitabı oku: «Patty's Perversities»

CHAPTER I
MORNING

"There is one thing sure," mused Patty Sanford, newly awakened by the sun's rays which streamed through her honeysuckle-draped casement; "there is one thing sure, – I shall go to the picnic with whom I like: else why should I go at all? To-day they will come to invite me. Burleigh will come, of course; but it is easy to get rid of him. Then Clarence Toxteth is sure to ask me. How it piques the girls to see me behind his span! Clarence's span is so nice! It is a pity he isn't – I mean I wish I liked him better. But he isn't always saying horrid things, like Tom Putnam. I wonder if Tom will ask me. I do so hope he will, so I can snub him. I'm sure," she continued to herself, in her energy raising herself upon her dimpled elbow, – "I'm sure I don't know anybody who needs snubbing more than he. If he only would come after Clarence has invited me, that would be fun. He'd manage to come out superior, though, in some way. He always does; and that's the worst of him – or the best, I'm not quite certain which. There! Will would say I was 'moonier than the moon.' – Flossy, Floss!"

"Yes," answered a sleepy voice from the next chamber.

"Are you awake?"

"Well," the voice replied with great deliberation, "not as much as some."

"You'd better be, then. There are oceans of things to see to to-day."

At that moment was heard from below the voice of Mrs. Sanford, calling her daughter; and Patty hastily began her toilet for the early breakfast, already being prepared below by Bathalina Clemens, the maid of all work.

The company assembled around the breakfast-table consisted, in addition to Patty, of her father and mother, her brother Will, and a cousin rejoicing in the euphonious title of Flossy Plant.

Dr. Sanford was a tall, thin-faced gentleman, with deep, kindly eyes, and slightly-stooping shoulders. He would have been hen-pecked, but for the fact that he was so fully aware of his wife's peculiarities as to be able to guard himself against them. He smiled at her vagaries and gallinaceous ways with a quiet, inward sense of humor.

"Your aunt is a very amusing woman," he once said to Flossy Plant; and, indeed, it was sometimes difficult for the whole family not to regard Mrs. Sanford as a species of private Punch and Judy intended for their especial entertainment.

This morning the worthy lady was discussing the church picnic, to take place the following day.

"I think," she said impressively, "that picnics are chiefly bugs and critters; but I suppose it is a duty folks owe to religion to go."

"And to ride there with the gentlemen," put in Flossy, seeing the twinkle in her uncle's eye.

"But the buggies are so terrible narrow nowadays," Mrs. Sanford continued, the breadth of her figure giving point to the remark, "that one is squeezed to death. The last time I rode in one I dreamed, the next night, that I was a postage-stamp on a letter; and, of course, that couldn't be a lucky dream."

"Oh, the narrow buggies are the beauty of it!" Flossy retorted: "it brings you and the gentlemen so close and cosey, you know."

"Flossy Plant!" exclaimed Bathalina Clemens, who was bringing in a fresh supply of griddle-cakes, and felt called upon, as she frequently did, to "bear testimony." "Flossy Plant, that is positively indelicate."

"Bathalina Clemens," returned Flossy serenely, "you don't know the very first principles of indelicacy."

In the general laugh that greeted this sally Mrs. Sanford did not join.

"I don't know what you mean," she said; "but I'm sure it isn't proper. Besides," she continued, "I have a foreboding in my mind. I put my left shoe on my right foot this morning, and I doubt something will happen: besides, I know strangers are coming, for my nose itches; and Bathalina dropped the dish-cloth last night; and a fork stuck up straight in the floor this morning."

"I am glad of that," Patty said lightly. "The more people that come to-day, the better Floss and I shall be pleased, if they come to invite us to the picnic."

"Flossy," interrupted Mrs. Sanford, "you have spilled your salt. Throw a pinch over your left shoulder quick. It is strange how careless folks can be; just the day before a picnic too. – And then," she rambled on, "there's the cooking. Patty, you'll have to make the cake, and do all the millinery of the cooking: you ought to have picked over the raisins before breakfast."

"If I do any thing before breakfast," Flossy said, "I have to have my breakfast first."

"So do I," Patty laughed; "but I can make up for lost time afterward."

CHAPTER II
"A BIRD IN THE BUSH."

It was while Patty was engaged in doing "the millinery of the cooking," that her first swain arrived. Social etiquette in Montfield was not rigid, and Patty was not at all surprised when the shadow of Burleigh Blood's broad shoulders fell upon the kitchen-floor, and that enamoured youth entered without the formality of knocking.

"Good-morning, Burleigh," she said, her eyes bright with the spark of merriment which always kindled when Mr. Blood appeared. "Can't shake hands with you without getting you all covered with flour."

"I shouldn't mind that much," he answered awkwardly.

"Sit down, please," she said. "I'm just done with these puffs. Isn't it a lovely day?"

"It is good growing weather for the corn."

"And for you," she laughed. "You get bigger and bigger every day."

"Do I?" he said disconsolately, looking from his big hand to the one she was wiping on the long snowy roller. "I am too big now."

"Nonsense – not for a man! I like to see a man big and strong."

"Do you, though, really," he said, a glow of delight spreading over his honest features. "I – I'm glad of it."

"Come into the other room," Patty said, leading the way: "it's cooler there. – Bathalina, don't let those puffs burn."

The windows of the sitting-room were open, and the blinds unclosed; but so thickly was the piazza overhung with honeysuckle and woodbine, that a cool shade filled the apartment. It was unoccupied, save by Pettitoes, the cat, who had curled himself up luxuriously in Mrs. Sanford's work-basket. Mr. Blood stumbled over a chair or two before he found his way safely into a seat, and then sat, flushed and uncomfortable, trying to make up his mind to do the errand upon which he had come. Patty, who knew perfectly well the state of her guest's mind, played carelessly with Pettitoes, making casual remarks, to which Burleigh replied in monosyllables.

"I hope it will be as good weather as this for the picnic," she said at length. "Of course, you are going?"

"Yes, I thought I should; that is, I may."

"Oh, you must! We are sure to have a splendid time. Everybody is going. I wouldn't miss it for any thing."

"Then you are going?" he asked.

"Of course. I am always ready for a lark," she answered. "And I know you'll go."

"It depends," said he, "whether I can get any one to go with me."

"Of course you can. There are lots of girls would be delighted. There's Emily Purdy, or Dessie Farnum. You know you can get some one."

"But I mean one particular one," he said, blushing at his own temerity.

"Oh! you mean Flossy," Patty exclaimed, her eyes dancing. "I'm sure she'll be delighted. I'll ask her myself for you this minute. You are so bashful, Burleigh, that you'd never get along in this world, if I didn't help you."

"Wait, Patty," the unfortunate Burleigh began; but his voice stuck in his throat. For days he had been summoning his courage to invite Miss Sanford to ride with him to the picnic; and now it failed him in his extremity. To add to his confusion, his eye at that moment caught sight of a rival advancing from the front-gate towards the cottage in the person of Clarence Toxteth, only child of the richest man in Montfield. A sudden burning sensation seized young Blood at the sight. He was ready to pour out his heart and his passion in the moment that remained to him. But what is love in the heart, albeit never so burning, when the tongue refuses its office? A flippant rogue without a soul may defeat the most deeply loyal silent one, and never a word could Burleigh utter. He was conscious, as if in a dream, that the bell rang, and that Mr. Toxteth, in all the glory of a light summer suit and kid gloves, was ushered into the room. He unconsciously glowered at the new-comer in a way that made it difficult for Patty to preserve her gravity. The entrance of Mrs. Sanford restored him to himself somewhat. He always felt more comfortable for her bustling, homely presence.

"How do you do, Burleigh?" the worthy lady said. "How do you do, Mr. Toxteth? I knew we should see strangers to-day. You remember, Patty, I said so at breakfast. Bathalina dropped the dish-cloth, and then a fork that stood up in the floor, and I never knew either of those signs to fail. You must be the dish-cloth, Burleigh, and you are the fork, Mr. Toxteth. I always think the dish-cloth don't mean as much of a stranger as the fork does."

Mrs. Sanford had a never-ending procession of signs and omens. "The wisest aunt" could scarcely have extracted more mystical lore from everyday occurrences to other observers the most commonplace. Every thing with her was lucky or unlucky, related to the past, or foretold the future; and the wisdom she extracted from dreams was little less than miraculous.

What Dr. Sanford was accustomed to term "the religious ceremonies of a call," – the remarks upon health and the weather, – having been duly accomplished, Mr. Toxteth proceeded directly to the point.

"I called," he said, while Mrs. Sanford was asking his rival about the prospects of the crops, "to beg the honor of your company to-morrow at the picnic."

"How kind of you!" Patty answered with an appearance of sweet frankness; the inward struggle which had been going on ever since his entrance being suddenly decided against him. "I am very sorry, if you will be disappointed; but, you see, Burleigh came before you."

She spoke so softly that her mother did not hear; yet the words reached the ears of her earlier caller, and filled him with triumphant joy. For Patty herself, she was not quite able to understand her own act. She had beforehand fully determined to accept the invitation to ride behind the Toxteth span, should she be favored with it; and she certainly had even now no intention of going with Burleigh Blood. It was partly due, no doubt, to the fact that the dandified air of the young fop offended her honest taste; but she was uncomfortably conscious that there was a stronger reason underlying all others. She had said to herself that it would be charming to reject an invitation from Mr. Putnam after having promised to accompany Clarence Toxteth. Now she had refused the latter upon the mere chance that the former would come. She would gladly have recalled the words, and given a different answer to the rich young swell, with his elegant clothes, and a turnout which was the admiration of all the girls in Montfield. But there was now no help for it; and with a sigh she saw the form of her rich suitor disappear down the walk, and turned to the task in hand. She knew Burleigh had overheard her refusal to Clarence; and, as soon as the latter was gone, she said lightly, "I knew you wouldn't mind my making you an excuse to put him off; and, besides, mother was here, and wouldn't have liked it if I had refused him outright. Here comes Flossy. It is very kind of you to ask her; for she really knows so few people here."

Flossy Plant was a little maiden much afflicted by dyspepsia, and given to making odd remarks. Her father was a Boston merchant, noted for his dinners; and Flossy always maintained that his high living caused her ill-health.

"I am like that text of Scripture," she declared: "'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, – or drank their juice, – and the child's stomach is set on edge.' I don't mind the dyspepsia so much, but oh! think of the good things father has eaten to give it to me."

Her physician had ordered the constant use of pop-corn; and Flossy was accustomed to wander about the house at all times of day and night with a large blue bowl of that dry and aggravating edible tucked comfortably under her arm. Her hair, fine and flaxen, was generally in a state aptly enough described by her name; so that it was not without reason that Will Sanford compared her to a thistle-puff.

"I thought I would wait," Flossy said, as she came into the sitting-room, "until Clarence Toxteth went away. He always looks so soft and juicy that I want to eat him, and it makes me dreadfully hungry to look at him."

Burleigh laughed; but this little pale creature was a mystery to him, and her dryly-uttered drolleries not wholly devoid of a sibylline character, it being a profound wonder to him how one could have such thoughts.

"I don't think he'd be good to eat," he said grimly; "but I guess he'd be soft enough."

"Did he come to invite you to the picnic, Patty?" Flossy asked, munching at her pop-corn.

"What would you give to know?" laughed her cousin. "But Mr. Blood has come to invite you, at least: so you are provided for."

In such a situation what was a bashful man to do, particularly if, like Burleigh, he was not sure that he was offended at the turn affairs had taken? Patty was an old friend, indeed, in Montfield parlance a "flame" of the young man's; yet certainly the stranger cousin exercised over him a peculiar fascination. He left the house as the promised escort of Miss Plant, and went home, wondering whether Patty did not know he came to invite her, and whether he were glad or sorry things had turned out as they had.

The long sunny day wore on, and no third invitation came for Patty. She kept her own counsel so completely that the family thought she had accepted young Toxteth's escort, – an impression which she took pains not to dissipate. But, although outwardly gay, she grew more and more heavy-hearted as the day passed with no sign of Mr. Putnam.

CHAPTER III
"A BIRD IN THE HAND."

The day of the picnic dawned as fair and sweet as if made for a pure girl's wedding, or a children's holiday.

The gathering was to take place at Mackerel Cove, a little bay jutting inward, amid lovely groves of beech-trees, from a larger inlet of the Atlantic. A drive of a dozen miles stretched between the cove and Montfield; the picnickers taking their own time for starting, and speed in going, the rendezvous being at the hour fixed for dinner.

Patty saw the family depart one by one. First Will went to call for Ease Apthorpe, the lady-elect of his heart or fancy; then Dr. Sanford drove off with his wife, intending to visit certain patients on the way; and, last of all, Flossy was swung lightly up into his buggy by the mighty arms of Burleigh Blood.

"Don't you mean to go at all?" the latter asked of Patty, who came running after them with Flossy's bowl of pop-corn.

"I never tell my plans," she laughed gayly. "Mother went off predicting that something dreadful was sure to happen. How do you know but I am afraid to go?"

"Pooh! She's going with Clarence Toxteth," Flossy said.

"But" – began her escort.

"There! Drive on, and don't bother about me," said Patty. "I have usually been thought able to take care of my own affairs. A pleasant ride to you."

She turned back toward the lonely house. Bathalina Clemens was at work somewhere in the chambers, counteracting any tendency to too great cheerfulness which the beauty of the day might develop in her mind, by singing the most doleful of minors: —

 
"'Hearken, ye sprightly, and attend, ye vain ones;
Pause in your mirth, adversity consider;
Learn from a friend's pen sentimental, painful
Death-bed reflections,'"
 

she sang, with fearful inflections and quavers. Patty's face fell. A feeling of angry disappointment came over her. This picnic was an event in Montfield. What to the belle of the season would be the loss of its most brilliant ball was this privation to Patty. This is a relative world, wherein the magnitude of an object depends upon the position of the eye which observes it; and for the time being the picnic filled the whole field of mental vision of the young people of the village. Nor did it tend to lessen the girl's annoyance that the fault was her own, although she resolutely persisted in thinking that she thought herself not at all responsible, but had transferred the entire blame upon the shoulders of the cavalier who should have invited her, and had not. She wandered restlessly through the house and garden, at last seating herself upon the piazza with a book, upon which she vainly attempted to fix her attention. From above came the voice of Bathalina chanting, —

 
"'Shun my example!'"
 

"'Shun your example!'" muttered Patty to herself. "I shall shun my own hereafter. I might have known that poky old Tom Putnam wouldn't ask me. It is too mean that I should have to stay at home! He might at least have given me a chance to refuse him, and then I should have known what to count on. He is so intensely aggravating. I don't doubt he took Flora Sturtevant. I've no patience with a man that will let himself be trapped by a flirt like her."

And at that moment, raising her eyes, she saw the object of her animadversions – a tall, slender man of two or three and thirty – coming up the walk. He seemed surprised to find her at home.

"Good-morning," Mr. Putnam said, in a voice which few persons heard with indifference, so rich and pleasing it was. "I supposed you had gone to the picnic."

"You see I haven't."

It required no great penetration to see that Patty was out of spirits. The new-comer looked at her keenly.

"Thank you, I will sit down for a moment," he said, as if she had invited him to do so. "These steps are very comfortable. Don't trouble to get me a chair."

"I had not the faintest intention of doing so," she returned.

"Why have you not gone?" he asked, looking up at her curiously from his seat upon the piazza-steps.

"I chose to stay at home," she answered shortly.

"Conclusive, but impossible. A better reason, please?"

"I do not know that it can make any difference to you why I stay at home."

"But it does, however ignorant you may be on that point."

"Why should it?"

"You have not answered me," he said; "but I will be generous, and tell you why. I was coming yesterday to invite you myself, and heard that you were going with Burleigh Blood."

"Did you?" she asked, brightening visibly. "That was a lie I told, or rather a lie I didn't tell. How did you hear of it?"

"I heard Clarence Toxteth say so. Is your list of questions much longer?"

"If Bathalina doesn't stop singing such hymns," Patty said irrelevantly, "I know I shall murder her sooner or later."

"I would," he answered, looking at his watch. "I came for a book of your father's; but it is no matter to-day. I will have the horse at the gate in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready so soon?"

"Who said I'd go?" she laughed, springing up.

"Who asked you to?" he retorted.

"But I will, if only to plague you," she said.

"Don't feel obliged to," he replied, starting down the walk. "It really won't annoy me enough to make it worth your trouble."

Patty darted into the house, and up to her chamber, like a swallow. Unconsciously she caught up Bathalina's strain.

 
"'Sudden and awful, from the height of pleasure,
By pain and sickness thrown upon a down-bed,'"
 

she carolled; and for once the hymn put on a garb of mocking gayety.

"Patience Sanford!" solemnly ejaculated the pious maid-servant, putting her head in at the chamber-door. "It's tempting Providence to sing that hymn that way. No good'll come of it, you may depend."

"Nonsense, Bath! I could dance to the hymns of the cherubim!"

And into the garden she flew to pin a bunch of clove-pinks at her belt.

"Do you know how solemn you looked," Putnam asked as they drove along the smooth road, between unfenced fields green with the starting aftermath, "when I found you on the piazza? Were you thinking of your sins?"

"No: of those of my neighbors."

"Of omission, or commission?" he asked, looking at her closely.

"Both," she returned, flushing a little. "I was lonesome, of course. You wouldn't like to stay at home alone all day."

"On the contrary," he said, "there are few things I like better. It is strange how a woman is never good company for herself. She can never keep still and think, but must always be rattling away to somebody."

"You think so because you don't know."

"My observation has not been very extensive, perhaps; but it has been all in one direction. Men are content enough to be alone."

"It is all the conceit of the men," she retorted. "You all fancy you are never in so good company as when alone."

"Unless we are favored by some one of your sex."

"Nonsense! You don't think so. What a man finds to say to himself, I cannot imagine; unless, indeed, his mind is one grand vacuum."

"The wisdom of a man's reflections must always be beyond a woman's comprehension," he returned. "Some men have made great mistakes by forgetting this."

"Then, of course, you'll never marry," Patty ventured. "You wouldn't want a companion who couldn't understand you."

"Oh! I may join 'the noble army of martyrs,'" he answered in the same bantering tone he had been using. "Every man will be ruled by some women; and with a wife his resistance would be a trifle less restrained, you see."

"I have heard it said," she answered, "that, as love increased, good manners decreased; but I never made such an application of it."

"Of course," he began, "having a legal mind, I regard a wife as a piece of personal property, and" —

"There!" she interrupted. "It is perfectly maddening to hear you talk in that way about women. I hate it."

"I'm sure I don't mean any disrespect," he answered soberly. "I should have married long ago, had I been able."

"Whom would you have married?" she demanded. "You speak as if you had only to make your selection, and any girl would be glad of the chance to take you."

"That is because I think so highly of the penetration of your sex," he retorted, with a return to his light manner; adding, with some bitterness, "but, when a man is as poor as a church mouse, he can have as little thought of marrying, and being given in marriage, as the angels in heaven."

"Don't be profane. You have your profession."

"Oh! I earn enough to keep soul and body together, if I don't do too much for either. But this is not a cheerful subject, even if it were in good taste for me to be complaining of poverty. Did you know my nephews came last night?"

"Yes; and I am so glad! It is always pleasant to have Hazard Breck here. Of course, they'll be at the picnic."

"Yes. Frank, you know, has graduated, and Hazard is a junior. It is two years since I have seen them."

"They probably feel ten years older. We are to have company too. Grandmother is coming."

With such discourse they rolled over the country road towards Mackerel Cove. Under the gay surface of the conversation was a sting for Patty in the lawyer's allusion to his poverty. He was usually very reticent about his affairs; and it may have been for that reason that the gossips of Montfield called him "close." "He's close-mouthed and he's close-fisted," Mrs. Brown was accustomed to say; "and most generally the things go together."

To Patty's thinking few faults could be worse. To an open-handed Sanford, avarice was the most disgusting of vices; and this fatal defect in her companion was like the feet of clay of the image of gold.