Kitabı oku: «Patty's Fortune», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XVII
THE CRISIS
And then the day came when the doctor said Patty had pneumonia. Rooms were darkened; nurses went around silently; Nan wandered about, unable to concentrate her mind on anything and Mr. Fairfield spent much of his time at home.
The telephone was continually ringing, as one friend after another asked how Patty was, and the rooms downstairs were filled with the gifts of flowers that the patient might not even see.
“What word, Doctor?” asked Mona Galbraith, as the physician came downstairs, one morning. The girls came and went as they chose. Always some one or more of them were sitting in the library or living-room, anxiously awaiting news.
“I think I can say she’s holding her own,” replied the doctor, guardedly; “if she had a stronger constitution, I should feel decidedly hopeful. But she is a frail little body, and we must be very, very careful.”
He hurried away, and Mona turned back to where Elise sat.
“I know she’ll die,” wailed Elise. “I just know Patty will die. Oh, it seems such a shame! I can’t bear it!” and she broke down in a tumult of sobbing.
“Don’t, Elise,” begged Mona. “Why not hope for the best? Patty isn’t strong, – but she’s a healthy little piece, and that doctor is a calamity howler, anyway. Everybody says so.”
“I know it, but somehow I have a presentiment Patty never will get well.”
“Presentiments are silly things! They don’t mean a thing! I’d rather have hope than all the presentiments in the world. Here comes Roger.”
Knowing his sister and his fiancée were there, Roger came in. They told him what the doctor had said.
“Brace up, girls,” he said, cheeringly. “The game’s never out till it’s played out. I believe our spunky little Patty will outwit the old pneumonia and get the better of it. She always comes out top of the heap somehow. And her holding on so long is a good sign. Don’t you want to go home now, Mona? You look all tired out.”
“Yes, do go, Mona,” said Elise, kindly. “But it isn’t tiredness, Roger, it’s anxiety. Go on, you two, I’ll stay a while longer.”
The pair went, and Elise sat alone in the library.
Presently, through the stilled house, she heard Patty’s voice ring out, high and shrill.
“I don’t want it!” Patty cried; “I don’t want the fortune! And I don’t want to marry anybody! Why do they make me promise to marry everybody in the whole world?”
The voice was that of delirium. Though not really delirious, Patty’s mind was flighty, and the sentences that followed were disjointed and incoherent. But they all referred to a fortune or to a marriage.
“What can she mean?” sobbed Nan, who, with her husband, sat in an adjoining room.
“Never mind, dear, it’s her feverish, disordered imagination talking. If she were herself, she wouldn’t know what those words meant. Perhaps it is better that her mind wanders. Some say that’s a good sign. Keep up hope, Nan, darling, if only for my sake.”
“Yes, Fred. And we have cause for hope. Doctor is by no means discouraged, and if we can tide over another twenty-four hours – ”
“Yes – if we can – ”
“We will! Something tells me Patty will get well. The clear look in her eyes this morning – ”
“Were they clear, Nan? Did they seem so to you?”
“Yes, dear, they did. And the nurse said that meant a lot.”
“But the specialist doctor – he said Patty is so frail – ”
“So she is, and always has been. But that’s in her favour. It’s often the strong, robust people that go off quickest with pneumonia. Patty has a wiry, nervous strength that is a help to her now.”
“You’re such a comfort, Nan. But I don’t want Patty to die.”
“Nor I, Fred. She is nearly as dear to me as to you. You know that, I’m sure. And Patty is a born fighter. She’s like you in that. I know she’ll battle with that disease and conquer it, – I know she will!”
“Please God you’re right, dearest. Let us hope it with all our hearts.”
Alone, Patty fought her life and death battle. Doctors, nurses, friends, all did what they could, but alone she grappled with the angel of death. All unconsciously, too, but with an involuntary struggle for life against the grim foe that held her. Now and again her voice cried out in delirium or murmured in a babbling monotone.
Now racked with fever, now shivering with a chill, the tortured little body shook convulsively or lay in a death-like stupor.
Once, when Kit Cameron was downstairs, they heard Patty shriek out about the fortune.
“Oh,” said Kit, awestruck; “can she mean that fortune-telling business we had? Don’t you remember I told her she’d inherit a fortune. Of course, I was only joking. Fortune-tellers always predict a legacy. I hope that hasn’t worried her.”
“No,” said Nan, shaking her head, “it isn’t that. She’s been worrying about that fortune ever since she’s been flighty. I know what she means. Never mind it.”
Glad that it was not an unfortunate result of his practical joke, Kit dropped the subject.
“I want her to get well so terribly,” he went on. “I just can’t have it otherwise. I’ve always cherished a sort of forlorn hope that I could win her yet. Do you think I’ve a chance, Mrs. Nan?”
“When we get her well again, we’ll see,” and Nan tried to speak cheerfully. “But it’s awfully nice of you boys to come round so often. You cheer us up a good deal. Mr. Fairfield is not very hopeful. You see Patty’s mother died so young, and Patty is very like her, delicate, fragile, though almost never really ill. And here comes another of my boys.”
Nan always called Patty’s friends her boys; and they all liked the pleasant, lively young matron, and affectionately called her Mrs. Nan.
This time it was Chick Channing, and he came to inquire after Patty, and also to bring the sad news that Mrs. Van Reypen was dead.
Though not entirely unexpected, for the old lady had been very ill, it was a shock, and cast a deeper gloom over the household.
“I’m so sorry for Philip,” said Nan. “He was devoted to his aunt, and she idolised him. Of late, he practically made his home with her.”
“I suppose he is her heir,” observed Channing.
“I suppose so,” returned Nan, listlessly. And then she suddenly remembered what Patty had said about Mrs. Van’s bequest to her. But she decided to make no mention of it at present.
“She was a wealthy old lady,” said Cameron. “Van Reypen will be well fixed. He’s a good all-round man, I like him.”
“I don’t know him well,” said Chick, “I met him a few times. A thorough aristocrat, I should say.”
“All of that. They’re among the oldest of the Knickerbockers. But nothing of the snob about him. A right down good fellow and a loyal friend. Well, I must go. Command me, Mrs. Nan, if I can do the least thing for our Patty Girl. Keep up a good heart, and – ”
Kit’s voice choked, and he went off without further words.
Channing soon followed, but all day the young people kept calling or telephoning, for Patty had hosts of friends and they all loved her.
Nan went to her room to write a note of sympathy to Philip. Her own heart full of sorrow and anxiety, she felt deeply for the young man whose home death had invaded, and her kindred trouble helped her to choose the right words of comfort and cheer.
The day of Mrs. Van Reypen’s funeral, Patty was very low indeed. Doctor and nurses held their breath as their patient hovered on the borderland of the Valley of Shadow, and Patty’s father, with Nan sobbing in his arms, awaited the dread verdict or the word of glorious hope.
Patty stirred restlessly, her breathing laboured and difficult. “I – did – promise,” she said in very low, but clear tones, “but I didn’t – oh, I didn’t —want to – I didn’t – ” her voice trailed away to silence.
“What is that promise?” whispered the doctor to Nan. “It’s been troubling her – ”
“I don’t know at all. She usually tells me her troubles, but I don’t know what this means.”
There was a slight commotion below stairs. The doctor looked at a nurse, and she moved noiselessly out to command quiet.
Patty’s eyes opened wide, they looked very blue, and their glance was more nearly rational than it had been.
“Sh!” she said, weakly. “Listen! It is! Yes, it is. Tell him to come up, I want to see him.”
“Who is it?” asked the doctor. “She mustn’t see anybody.”
“I must,” whimpered Patty, beginning to cry; “it’s Little Billee; I want him now.”
“For heaven’s sake, she’s rational!” exclaimed the doctor. “Bring him up, whoever he is, if she says so! No matter if it’s an elephant, bring him at once!”
Half frightened, Nan went out into the hall. Sure enough, big Bill Farnsworth was halfway upstairs.
“I heard her!” he said, in a choked voice, “she said she wanted me – ”
“Come,” said Nan, and led the way.
Softly Farnsworth stepped inside the door, gently as a woman he took Patty’s thin little hand in his two big strong ones, as he sat down in a chair beside her bed.
“Little Billee,” and Patty smiled faintly, “I want somebody to strong me – I’m so weak – you can – ”
“Yes, dear,” and firmly holding her hand in one of his, Farnsworth softly touched her eyelids with his fingertips, and the white lids fell over the blue eyes, and with a contented little sigh, Patty sank into a natural sleep, the first in many days.
Released from his nervous tension, the doctor’s set features relaxed. He looked in gratified amazement at the sleeping girl, and at the two astonished nurses.
“She will live,” he said, softly. “But it is like a miracle. On no account let her be awakened; but you may move, sir. She is in a sound sleep of exhaustion.”
Farnsworth rose, – laying down Patty’s hand lightly as a snowflake, – and soundlessly left the room.
Nan and Mr. Fairfield followed, after a moment.
They found the big fellow looking out of the hall window. At their footsteps, he turned, making no secret of the fact that he was wiping the tears from his eyes.
“I didn’t know – ” he said, brokenly, “until yesterday. I was in Chicago, – I made the best connections I could, and raced up here. Have I – is she – all right now?”
“Yes,” and Fred Fairfield grasped Farnsworth’s hand. “Undoubtedly you saved her life. It was the crisis. If she could sleep – they said, – and she is sleeping.”
“Thank God!” and the honest blue eyes of the big Westerner filled again with tears.
“Thank you, too,” cried Nan, and she shook his hand with fervour. “Come into my sitting-room, and tell me all about it. How did Patty know you were here?”
“Didn’t you tell her?” Bill looked amazed.
“No; she must have heard your voice – downstairs – ”
“But I scarcely spoke above my breath!”
“She heard it, – or divined your presence somehow, for she said you were there and she wanted you, – the first rational words she has spoken!”
“Bless her heart! Perhaps she heard me, perhaps it was telepathy. I don’t know, or care. She wanted me, and I was there. I am glad.”
The big man looked so proud and yet so humble as he said this, that Nan forgot her dislike and distrust of him, and begged him to stay with them.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That wouldn’t do. I’ll be in New York a few weeks now, at the Excelsior. I’ll see you often, – and Patty when I may, – but I won’t stay here, thanks. I’m so happy to have been of service, and always command me, of course.”
Farnsworth bowed and went off, and the two Fairfields looked at each other.
“What an episode!” exclaimed Nan. “Did he really save her life, Fred?”
“He probably did. We can never say for certain, but at that crisis, a natural sleep is a Godsend. He induced it, whether by a kind of mesmerism, or whether because Patty cares so much for him, I can’t say. I hate to think the latter – ”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, you know that story Van Reypen tells, about Farnsworth trying to get Patty to go on the operatic stage – ”
“I never was sure about that – we didn’t hear it so very straight.”
“Well, and Farnsworth is not altogether of – of our own sort – ”
“You mean, not the aristocrat Phil is?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, all that doesn’t matter just now. If the doctor says Bill saved Patty’s life, I shall always adore him, and I shall erect a very high monument to his honour. So there, now!”
Nan was almost gay. The revulsion of feeling brought about by Patty’s improved condition made her so joyous she had to express it in some way.
First, she tiptoed to the door, and beckoned the nurse out. From her she demanded and received assurance that Patty was really past the present danger, and barring relapse or complication, would get well.
Then she flew to the telephone and told Mona, leaving her to pass the glad news on to the others.
She wanted to call up Van Reypen, but was uncertain whether to do so or not. He was but just returned from his aunt’s burial, and the time seemed inopportune. Yet, he would be so anxious to hear, and perhaps no one else would tell him.
So she called him, telling the servant who answered, who she was, and saying Mr. Van Reypen might speak to her or not, as he wished.
“Of course I want to speak to you,” Phil’s deep voice responded; “how is she?”
“Better, really better. She will get well, if there are no setbacks.”
“Oh, I am so glad. Mrs. Nan, I have been so saddened these last few days. I couldn’t go to you as I wished, because of affairs here. Now, dear old aunty is laid to rest, and soon I must come over. I don’t hope to see Patty, but I want a talk with you. May I come tonight?”
“Surely, Philip. Come when you will, you are always welcome.”
“But I don’t know,” Nan said to Fred Fairfield, “what Philip will say when he knows who it was that brought about Patty’s recovery.”
“Need he know? Need anybody know? Perhaps when Patty can have a say in the matter, she will not wish it known. The nurses won’t tell. Need we?”
“Perhaps not,” said Nan, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XVIII
PATTY’S FORTUNE
Though Patty’s recovery was steady, it was very, very slow. The utmost care was taken against relapse; and so greatly had the disease sapped her strength, that it seemed well-nigh impossible for her to regain it. But skilled nursing proved effectual in the end, and the day came at last when Patty was allowed to see one or two visitors.
Adele was the first to be admitted to the presence of the convalescent. She had come down from Fern Falls as soon as the welcome word reached her that she might see Patty. She was to remain with her but a few moments, and then, if no harm resulted, the next day Mona was to be admitted.
Patty herself was eager to see her friends, and showed decided interest in getting arrayed for the occasion of Adele’s visit. This greatly pleased Nurse Adams for until now, Patty had turned a deaf ear to all news or discussion of the outer world, and had shown a listless apathy when Nan or her father told her of the doings of the young people of her set. This had been partly due to her weakened condition and partly to her brooding in secret over the promise she had given Mrs. Van Reypen. She had never mentioned this subject to Nan, nor had they yet told Patty of Mrs. Van Reypen’s death. The doctor forbade the introduction of any exciting topic, and this news of her dear old friend would surely startle her.
“I’ll wear my blue crêpe de chine negligée,” Patty directed; “the one with lace insets. And the cap with Empire bows and rosebuds.”
“Delightful!” said Miss Adams. “It will be a pleasant change to see you dressed up for company.”
“I haven’t been dolled up in so long, I ’most forget how to primp, but I daresay it will come back to me, for I’m a very vain person.”
“That’s good,” and Nurse Adams laughed. “It’s always a good sign when a patient revives an interest in clothes.”
“I doubt if I ever lost mine, really. It was probably lying dormant all through the late unpleasantness. Now, please, my blue brocade mules and some blue stockings, – or, no, – white ones, I think.”
Miss Adams brushed the mop of golden curls, that had been so in the way during the severe illness, and massed them high on the little head, crowning all with the dainty cap of lace and ribbons.
“Now, I will gracefully recline on my boudoir couch, and await the raising of the curtain.”
“You darling thing!” cried Adele, as she entered, “if you aren’t the same old Patty!”
“’Course I am! Who did you think I would be? Oh, but it’s good to see you! I haven’t seen a soul but the Regular Army for weeks and months and years!”
Patty had never referred to Farnsworth’s presence, and no one had spoken of it to her. They had concluded that she was really unconscious of it, or it had lapsed from her memory.
“And you’re looking so well. Your cheeks are quite pink, and, why, I do declare, you look almost pretty!”
“I think I look ravishingly beautiful. I’ve consulted a mirror today for the first time, and I was so glad to see myself again, it was quite like meeting an old friend. How’s Jim?”
“Fine. Sent you so many loving messages, I decline to repeat them.”
“Dear old Jim. Give him my best. Tomorrow I’m to see Mona. Isn’t that gay?”
“Yes, but I’d rather you’d be more interested in my call than to be looking forward to hers.”
“You old goose! Do you s’pose I’d had you first, if I didn’t love you most?”
“Now, I know you’re getting well. You’ve not lost your knack of making pretty speeches.”
“It’s a comfort to have somebody to make them to. The doctors were most unimpressionable, and I can’t bamboozle Miss Adams with flattery. She won’t stand for it!”
The white-garbed nurse smiled at her pretty patient.
“And,” Patty went on, “after Mona, I’m to see Elise and the other girls, and then if you please, I’m to be allowed to see some of my boy friends!”
“Oh, you coquette! You’re just looking forward with all your eyes to having Chick and Kit and all the rest come in and tell you how well you’re looking.”
“Yes,” and Patty folded her hands demurely. “It’s such pleasant hearing, after weeks of looking like a holler-eyed mummy, all skin and bone.”
“Patty, you’re incorrigible,” and Adele laughed fondly at the girl she loved so well. “But you’re certainly looking the part of interesting invalid, all right. Isn’t she, Mrs. Fairfield?”
“Rather!” said Nan, who had just appeared in the doorway. “And your visit is doing her a lot of good. Why, she looks quite her old self.”
“A sort of reincarnated version of her old self, all made over new. By the way, Patty, I saw Maude Kent yesterday.”
“Did you, Adele? What is she doing now?”
“Concerts as usual. I heard about her session with your father!” and Adele laughed. “The idea of her thinking you’d dream of the stage!”
“But think what a great tragedienne is lost to the world!” said Patty. “I know I have marvelous talent, but my stern parents refused to let me prove it.”
“The most outrageous ideal!” declared Nan. “Nobody but that Mr. Farnsworth would have suggested such a thing! I suppose Westerners have a different code of conventions from ours.”
“Bill Farnsworth suggest it!” cried Patty. “Why, Nan, you’re crazy! He’s the one who kept me from it. Wasn’t he, Adele?”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Nan. It was he who went over to Poland Spring with Patty – ”
“Yes, that’s what I heard. Took Patty over there to see this Kent person about the matter.”
“Goodness, gracious me!” Patty exclaimed; “wherever did you get such a mixup, Nansome? Why, it was Little Billee who gave Maude whatfor, because she mentioned the idea! He told her never to dream of it, and made me go straight home.”
Nan looked puzzled. “Why,” she said, “Philip Van Reypen told me that Mr. Farnsworth put you up to it, and said you were good-looking enough – ”
Patty laughed outright. “Oh, Nannie, I remember that! I said I was good-looking enough, and Bill said yes, I was that, – of course, he had to agree! – but he said that had nothing to do with the matter. And as to Phil, he knew nothing about it. He wasn’t there.”
“No. Somebody told him, that day he met you all in Boston.”
“Oh, fiddle-de-dee! Somebody said that somebody else heard that somebody – Now, listen here, Nan, nobody put me up to that stage business ’ceptin’ my own little self, and, of course, Maude, who told me about it. But she did nothing wrong in giving me the chance. And it’s all past history, only don’t you say Little Billee egged me on, because he most emphatically egged me off. Didn’t he, Adele?”
“Yes, he did. You told me all about it at the time. Bill Farnsworth was most indignant at Miss Kent, but she was a friend of Chick Channing’s and so Bill wouldn’t say anything against her.”
“There isn’t anything against her,” declared Patty, “and Little Billee wouldn’t say it if there were. But you just remember that he was on the other side of the fence. If anybody sort of approved of it, it was Chick. He thought it would be rather fun, but he didn’t take it seriously at all. So you just cross off that black mark you have against Big Bill!”
“I will,” promised Nan, and Adele said, “Where is Bill now? Have you seen him of late?”
“No,” said Patty; “not since before I was ill. I don’t know where he is.”
Nan looked at her closely, but it was evident she was speaking in earnest. As they thought, then, she had forgotten the incident of his appearance at her bedside. Perhaps she never really knew of it, as she was so nearly unconscious at the time.
“He is in New York,” said Nan, covertly watching Patty.
“Is he?” said Patty, with some animation. “After I get well enough to see men-people, I’d like to have him call.”
“Very well,” returned Nan, “but now I’m going to take Adele away. The nurse has been making signals to me for five minutes past. You mustn’t get overtired with your first visitor, or you can’t have others.”
But visitors seemed to agree with Patty. Once back in the atmosphere of gay chatter and laughter with her friends, she grew better rapidly, and the roses came back to her cheeks and the strength to her body.
And so, when they thought she could bear it, they told her of Mrs. Van Reypen’s death.
“I suspected it,” said Patty, her eyes filling with tears, “just because you didn’t say anything about her, and evaded my questions. When was it?”
They told her all about it, and then Mr. Fairfield said, “And, my child, in her will was a large bequest for you.”
“I know,” said Patty, and her fingers locked nervously together. “A hundred thousand million dollars! Or it might as well be. I don’t want the money, Daddy.”
“But it is yours, and in your trust. You can’t well refuse it. Half is for – ”
“Yes, I know, – for a Children’s Home. But I can’t build a house now.”
“Don’t think about those things until you are stronger. The Home project will keep, – for years, if need be. And when the time comes, all the burdensome details will be in the hands of a Board of Trustees and you needn’t carry it on your poor little shoulders.”
“It isn’t that that’s bothering me, but my own half. You don’t know why she gave me that.”
“Why did she?” said Nan, quickly, her woman’s mind half divining the truth.
“She made me promise, the last time I saw her, that – that I would marry Philip. And when I said I wouldn’t promise, she was very angry, and said then she wouldn’t leave me the money. And I was madder than she was, and said I didn’t want her old money, and neither I don’t, with Philip or without him.”
“But what an extraordinary proceeding!” exclaimed Mr. Fairfield. “She tried to buy you!”
“Oh, well, of course she didn’t put it that way, but she was all honey and peaches and leaving me fortunes and building Children’s Homes until I refused to promise, then she turned and railed at me.”
“And then – ” prompted Nan.
“Then I was mad and I tried to start for home. Then she calmed down and was sweet again, and said she didn’t mean to balance the money against the promise, but, well – she kept at me until she made me give in.”
“And you promised?”
“Yes.”
“You poor little Patty,” cried Nan; “you poor, dear, little thing! How could she torture you so?”
“It was, Nan,” cried Patty, eagerly; “it was just that, – torture. Oh, I’m so glad you can see it! I didn’t know what to do. She said I mustn’t refuse the request of a dying woman, and she grabbed my arm and shook me, and she looked like a – oh, she just looked terrifying, you know, and she – well, I guess she hypnotised me into promising.”
“Of course she did! It’s a perfect shame!” and Nan gathered Patty into her arms.
“It is a shame,” agreed Mr. Fairfield, smiling at his daughter, “but it won’t be such an awfully hard promise to keep, will it, Little Girl? Of course you hated to have it put to you in that manner, but there are less desirable men in this world than Philip Van Reypen.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Patty, and she burst into tears on Nan’s shoulder.
“And you sha’n’t,” returned Nan, caressing her. “Go away, Fred. A man doesn’t know how to deal with a case like this. Patty isn’t strong enough yet to think of bothersome things. You go away and we’ll tell you later what we decide.”
Mr. Fairfield rose, grumbling, laughingly, that it was the first time he had ever been called down by his own family. But he went away, saying over his shoulder, “You girls just want to have a tearfest, that’s all.”
“Tell me all about it, dear,” said Nan, as Patty smiled through her tears.
“That’s about all, Nancy. But it was such a horrid situation. I do like Phil, but I don’t want to make any such promise as that. Of course, Phil has asked me himself, several times, but I’ve never said yes – ”
“Or no?”
“Or no. I don’t have to till I get ready, do I? And I surely don’t have to give my promise to the aunt of the person most interested. Oh, I’m so sorry she died. I wanted to ask her to let me off. I dreamed about it all the time I was sick. It was like a continual nightmare. Has Phil been here?”
“Yes, two or three times. He wants to see you as soon as you say so.”
“How can I see him? Do you suppose he knows of my promise?”
“Very likely she told him. I don’t know. But, Patty, don’t blame her too much. You know, she was very fond of you, and she worshipped him. It was the wish of her heart, – but, no, she hadn’t any right to force your promise!”
“That’s what she did, she forced it. Nan, am I bound by it?”
“Why, no; that is, not unless you want to be. Or unless – ”
“Unless I consider a promise made to a dying person sacred. Well, I’m afraid I do. I’ve thought over this thing, day in and day out, and it seems to me I’d be wicked to break a promise given to one who is gone.”
“Maybe Philip will let you off.”
“No, he won’t. I know Phil wants me to marry him, awfully, and he’d take me on any terms. This sounds conceited, but I know, ’cause he’s told me so.”
“Well, Patty, why not?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know why not. Sometimes I think it’s just because I don’t want to be made to do a thing, whether I choose or not. And then sometimes, – ”
“Well?”
“Sometimes I think I don’t love Phil enough to marry him. He’s a dear, and he’s awfully kind and generous and good. And he adores me, – but I don’t feel – say, Nan, were you terribly in love with father when you married him?”
“I was, Patty. And I still am.”
“Yes, I know you are now. But were you before the wedding day?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not terribly in love with Phil. But he says that will come after we’re married. Will it, Nan?”
“It’s hard to advise you, Patty. I daren’t say the greater love will come to you, – for I don’t know. But don’t marry him unless you are sure he is the only man in the world you can love.”
“I’ve got to marry him,” said Patty, simply; “I promised.”
