A TEA CLUB TEA
Patty rebelled at being overruled in this manner, but Marian had some
Fairfield firmness of her own, and taking her cousin's arm led her to the
library and plumped her down upon the couch in a reclining position,
while she vigorously jammed pillows under her head.
"There, miss," she announced, "you will please stay there until luncheon
is announced."
"But, Marian," pleaded Patty, seeing that resistance was useless, "I've
such a lot of things to do, and the girls will be here before I get them
all done."
"Let them come," said the hard-hearted Marian, "it won't hurt them a bit,
and you've got enough things done now to feed the Russian army."
"But they're not finished," said Patty, "and they'll spoil standing."
"You'll more likely spoil them by finishing them. Now you stay right
where you are."
So Patty rested, until Pansy came and called them to a most appetising
little lunch spread very simply on the dining-table.
The two hungry girls did full justice to it, and then Patty said:
"Now, Marian, you're a duck, and you mean well, I know; but this is my
house and my tea-party, and now you must clear out and leave me to fix it
up pretty in my own way."
"All right," said Marian, "I rescued you once, now this time I'll
leave you to your fate; but I'll give you fair warning that those Tea
Club girls would rather have a few nice little things like we had at
lunch, than all those ridiculous contraptions that you've got out
there half baked."
"Oh me, oh me!" sighed Patty, in mock despair. "Nobody appreciates me;
nobody realises or cares for my one great talent. I believe I'll go and
drown myself."
"Do," said Marian, "drown yourself in that tub of wine-jelly, for it
will never stiffen. I can tell that by looking at it."
"Bye, bye," said Patty, pushing Marian out of the dining-room, "run along
now, and take a little nap like a good little girl. Cousin Patty must set
the table all nice for the pretty ladies."
"Goose!" was the only comment Marian vouchsafed as she walked away.
Then Patty, with the assistance of Pansy Potts, proceeded to lay the
table. Elaborate decoration was her keynote and she kept well in tune.
Along the centre of the table over the damask cloth, she spread a rich
lace "runner" and over this, crossed bands of wide, pink, satin ribbon
ran the entire diagonal length of the table. In the centre was a large
cut-glass bowl of pink roses, and at each corner slender vases of a
single rose in each. Also single roses with long stems and leaves were
laid at intervals on the cloth. Asparagus fern was lavishly used, and
pink-shaded candles in silver candlesticks adorned the table. Small
silver dishes of almonds, olives, and confectionery were dotted about,
and finger-bowls with plates were set out on the side-table.
Certainly it was all very beautiful, and Patty surveyed it with feelings
of absolute satisfaction.
"We will have tea at five o'clock, Pansy," she said, "and just before
that, you light the candles and fill the glasses and see that everything
is ready."
"Yes, Miss Patty," said Pansy, who adored her young mistress, and who was
especially quick in learning to do exactly what was expected of her.
The afternoon was slipping away, and Patty suddenly discovered that she
had only time to get dressed before the girls would arrive.
So she announced to Mancy that she must finish up such things as were not
finished, and without waiting to hear the old woman's remarks of
disapproval, Patty ran up to her room.
There she found that Marian had kindly laid out her dress and ribbons for
her, and was ready to help do her hair.
"You're a good old thing, Marian," she said, as she dropped into a chair
in front of her toilet mirror, "I'm as tired as a bicycle wheel, and
besides, I do love to have somebody do my hair. Sometimes Pansy does it,
but to-day she's too busy."
"Taking days as they go," said Marian in an impersonal manner, "I don't
think I ever saw a more busy one than to-day has seemed to be. The Tea
Club does seem to make a most awful amount of fluster in a new house."
"Yes, it _is_ exacting, isn't it?" said Patty, who caught her cousin's
eye in the mirror and looked very demure, though she refused to smile.
"There are some of the girls coming in at the front gate now," said
Marian as she tied the big white bow on Patty's pretty, fluffy hair.
"Didn't I time this performance just right?"
"You did indeed," said Patty, and kissing her cousin, she ran gaily
downstairs.
How the Tea Club girls did chatter that afternoon! there was so much to
see and talk about in Patty's new home, and there were also other weighty
matters to be discussed.
The proposed entertainment was an engrossing subject, and as various
opinions were held, the arguments were lively and outspoken.
"You can talk all you like," said Helen Preston, "but you'll find that a
bazaar will be the most sensible thing after all. You're sure to make a
lot of money, and the boys will help, and we all know exactly what to do
and how to go about it."
"It may be sensible," said Laura Russell, "but it won't be a bit of fun.
Stupid, poky, old chestnut; nobody wants to come to buy things, they only
come because they think they have to. Now if we had a play--"
"Yes," said Elsie Morris, "a play would be the very nicest thing. I've
brought two books for us to look over. One's that Shakespeare thing, and
the other is called 'A Reunion at Mother Goose's.' It's awfully funny; I
think it's better than the Shakespeare."
"I think Mother Goose things are silly," said Ethel Holmes. "Who wants to
go around dressed up like Little Bo-peep, and say 'Ba, ba, black sheep,'
all the time?"
"Yes, or who wants to be Red Riding Hood's wolf and eat up Mary's
little lamb?"
"Oh, it isn't like that; it's a reunion, you know, and all the Mother
Goose children are grown up, and they talk about old times."
"It does sound nice," said Patty, "let's read it."
They read both the plays, and so interested were they in the reading and
discussing them that before they knew it the afternoon slipped away, and
Pansy Potts came in to announce that the tea was ready.
"Goodness," cried Patty, "I forgot all about it! Come on, girls, we can
discuss the play just as well at the table."
"Yes, and better," said Elsie.
Such a shout of exclamation as went up from the Tea Club girls when they
saw Patty's table.
"Why didn't you tell us there was to be a wedding?" said Ethel, "and we
would have brought presents."
"Is it an African jungle?" said Laura, "or is it only Smith's flower
store moved up here bodily?"
"I think it looks like a page out of the _Misses' Home Guide_" said
Polly Stevens. "You ought to have this table photographed, it would take
the first prize! But where are we going to eat? Surely you don't expect
us to sit down at this Louis XlV. gimcrack?"
"Nonsense," said Patty. "I fixed it up pretty because I thought it would
please you. If you don't like it--"
"Oh, we like it," cried Christine Converse, "we love it! We want to take
it home with us and put it under a glass case."
"Stop your nonsense, girls," said Marian, who had noticed Patty's rising
colour, "and take your places. It's a beautiful party, and a lot too good
for such ungrateful wretches! If you can read writing, you'll find your
names on your cards."
"I can read writing," said Lillian Desmond, "but not such elegant gold
curlycues as these. Won't you please spell it out for me, Miss
Fairfield?"
"Oh, take any place you choose," said Patty, laughing good-naturedly. She
didn't really mind their chaff, but she began to think herself that she
had been a little absurd.
Then Pansy brought in the various dishes that Patty had worked so hard
over, and perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that they were
almost uneatable, or, at least, very far from the dainty perfection they
ought to have shown.
On discovering this, the girls, who were really well-bred, in spite of
their love of chaffing, quite changed their manner and, ignoring the
situation, began merrily to discuss the play.
But as the various viands proved a continuous succession of failures,
Patty became really embarrassed and began to make apologies.
"Don't say a word," said Marian; "it was all my fault. I insisted on
spending the day here, and I nearly bothered the life out of my poor
cousin. Indeed, I carried her off bodily from the kitchen just at a dozen
critical moments."
"No, it wasn't that," said honest Patty, "but I did just what I'm always
doing, trying to make a lot of things I don't know anything about"
"Well," said Elsie, "if you couldn't try them on us girls, I don't know
who you could try them on; I'm more than willing to be a martyr to the
cause, and I say three cheers for our noble President!"
The cheers were given with a will, and Patty's equanimity being restored,
she was her own merry self again, and they all laughed and chatted as
only a lot of happy girls can.
And that's how it happened that when Mr. Fairfield reached home at about
six o'clock he heard what sounded like a general pandemonium in the
dining-room. As he appeared in the doorway he was greeted by a merry
ovation, for most of the Tea Club members knew and liked Patty's pleasant
and genial father.
Then the girls, realising how late it was, began to take their leave.
Marian went with them, and Patty, after the last one had gone, returned
to the dining-room, to find her father regarding the table with a look of
comical dismay.
It was indeed a magnificent ruin. Besides the dishes of almost untasted
delicacies, the flowers had been pushed into disarray, one small vase had
been upset and broken; owing to improper adjustment the candles had
dripped pink wax on the table-cloth; and the ice cream, which Pansy had
mistakenly served on open-work plates, had melted and run through.
Patty didn't say a word, indeed there was nothing to say. She went and
stood very close to her father, as if expecting him to put his arm around
her, which he promptly did.
"You see, Pitty-Pat," he said, "it wouldn't have made any difference at
all--not _any_ difference at all, _except_ that I have brought my friend
Mr. Hepworth, the artist, home to dinner; and you see, misled by the
experiences of last night, I promised him we would find a tidy little
dinner awaiting us."
"Oh, papa," cried Patty, "I _am_ sorry. If I had only known! I wouldn't
have failed you for worlds."
"I know it, my girl, and though this Lucullus feast does seem out of
proportion to a young misses' Tea Club, yet we won't say a word about
that now. We'll just get snow shovels and set to work and clear this
table and let Mancy get a simple little dinner as quickly as she can."
"But, papa," and here Patty met what was, perhaps, so far, the hardest
experience of her life, "I forgot to order anything for dinner at all!"
"Why, Patty Fairfield! consider yourself discharged, and I shall suit
myself at once with another housekeeperess!"
"You are the dearest, best, sweetest father!" she exclaimed. "How can you
be so good-natured and gay when my heart is breaking?"
"Oh, don't let your heart break over such prosaic things as dinners!
We'll crawl out of this hole somehow."
"But what can we do, papa? It's after six o'clock, and all the markets
are shut up, and there isn't a thing in the house except those horrible
things I tried to make."
"Patty," said her father, struck by a sudden thought, "to-morrow is
Sunday. Do you mean to say you haven't ordered for over Sunday?"
"No, I haven't," said Patty, aghast at the enormity of her offence.
Mr. Fairfield laughed at the horror-stricken look on his daughter's face.
"I always thought you couldn't keep house," he said, with an air of
resignation. "On Monday I shall advertise for a housekeeper."
"Oh, please don't," pleaded Patty. "Give me one more trial. I've had a
good lesson, and truly I'll profit by it. Let me try again."
"But you can't try again before Monday, and by that time we'll all be
dead of starvation."
"Of course we will," said Patty despairingly. "I wish we were Robinson
Crusoes and could eat bark or something."
"Well, baby, I think you _have_ had a pretty good lesson, and we can't
put old heads on young shoulders all at once, so I'll help you out this
time, and then, the next time you go back on me in this heartless
fashion, I'll discharge you."
"Papa, you're a _dear_! But what can we do?"
"Well, the first thing for you to do is to go and brush your hair and
make yourself tidy, then come down and meet Mr. Hepworth; and then we'll
all go over to the hotel for dinner. Meanwhile I'll call in the Street
Cleaning Department to attend to this dining-room."