PATRICIA MOVES
She received Rosamond's careless chiding for her unconventional behavior
with an uneasy feeling. Her divinity was showing the first flaw.
"I don't think I was entirely to blame, even though I did feel shy at
first," she defended herself with some hesitation. "Couldn't you have
sent for me, even if you didn't want to come yourself? The footmen were
going about constantly with those cute little ices."
Her sense of justice was not appeased by her friend's evading this very
reasonable statement, and Rosamond's laughing indifference to her
disappointment in not meeting Madame Milano again stung her to the
quick.
She was too proud to show her feelings openly, however, and she went to
her lesson very miserable indeed, feeling that she had lost both the
splendid Rosamond's interest and her dear Elinor's sympathy.
That was one of the worst mornings Patricia ever knew. She sang so
unevenly that Tancredi scolded her and put her back in her first
exercises for punishment. She was longing to ask about Madame Milano,
but her lips were sealed by her own fault. She would not trespass on her
teacher's indulgence and she left the house so wretched that she hated
even the dear music she had so longed for and lived in.
"I'll never be a real singer," she thought dolefully, as she walked
slowly towards Artemis Lodge. "Tancredi doesn't care a rap about my
voice and I don't believe she'd have bothered with me if it hadn't been
to please Madame Milano, and Madame Milano only told me to go on because
she wanted to please Elinor and Bruce because they are friends of the
Van Kelts, who are such chums with her Dutch friend."
If she had not been so woebegone she would have laughed at this string
of disheartening reasons for her being so falsely encouraged to compete
with gifted creatures like Rosamond Merton, but her gloom was too deep
and too real to see the funny side of anything just then.
The clock in the tower was pointing to twelve as she passed along on the
other side of the Square, and she looked wistfully up at the big window
of the studio, where she knew that Elinor or Bruce would be just
dismissing a model and making ready to clean their brushes and tidy up
for the one o'clock luncheon which they always had sent in to them.
"I wonder if they'd care if they never saw me again," she thought with
what she instantly knew to be shallow sentimentality. "I suppose they
would care," she acknowledged, and her sense of justice saved her from
any more silly speeches like that. "They think I'm an awful goose,
though," she amended, and she knew she was rather safe in this.
As she turned the corner toward her own street, she saw a couple of
figures come out of the rather imposing entrance of the studio
building, and her dejection deepened. She could easily recognize
Elinor's blue coat and Doris Leighton's black suit with the white fur
collar. They were coming briskly toward her and she hastily turned on a
sudden impulse and crossed the Square in the opposite direction.
"I simply can't see anyone just now," she told herself miserably.
She walked with her head up, though the tears were in her eyes, and she
went along very briskly, not caring at all where she went, so that it
was away from Artemis Lodge and her troubles.
She walked for more than an hour, and found that her troubles would not
leave her so readily, so she turned toward the down-town section again
and went resolutely back to them.
It was one of those days when spring seems to leap suddenly into the
sunshine, and Patricia, though very miserable indeed, could not help
responding a little to the waking season.
"Perhaps I was a bit hard to manage last night," she thought, as she
reached the green door, and the fact that the caretaker smiled at her
added to her conviction that she had been hasty.
She ran up the stairs and with a light tap came into the room where she
expected to find Rosamond, but the words of contrition died on her lips,
for the room was filled with a litter of lovely gowns, hats and
slippers, in the midst of which sat Rosamond criticising and selecting,
while a deferential young woman in correct black made notes on a little
pad. The name of an exclusive outfitter was on the box-lids and
wrappers.
Rosamond looked up smiling at Patricia. She seemed to have forgotten
that there had been any coolness between them.
"Come and help me select some of these things, Miss Pat," she said
amiably.
And Patricia was instantly ashamed of her resentment.
Rosamond, it seemed, had received an unusually large remittance from
home, and was employing it in enlarging her wardrobe, which she declared
was scandalously shabby. She bought recklessly, while Patricia sighed
over the beautiful things and felt that she must have been childish and
unreasonable indeed to accuse this friendly, chatting girl of wilful
neglect or unkindness.
They were pleasantly engaged in this delightful fashion when the knocker
tapped and Constance Fellows' bright face appeared in the doorway.
"Ods-bodikins! What have we here?" she asked with a twinkle in her clear
hazel eyes. "Going to be married, Fair Rosamond, or is it merely
preparation for the dance next week?"
Rosamond disclaimed either. "I'm just getting a few things to freshen up
my old clothes," she said with a tinge of ostentation, which was not
lost on Constance.
"My word, but you need a lot of freshening," she said gayly, glancing at
the array on chairs and divan. "One quarter of this would make me
absolutely over. That's what it is to be ambitious."
Patricia thought Rosamond seemed vexed at this free speech, but
Constance gave her no time for reply.
"Your sister is in Miss Ardsley's rooms and they would like to speak to
you," she said to Patricia. "They were coming up here, but they saw the
dray-load of hats being taken in, and they concluded there would be more
breathing room downstairs."
Patricia had a sudden misgiving that something might be wrong at the
studio--Judith or Bruce ill. Constance saw the thought in her face and
shook her hand.
"Everything's O.K." she assured her. "Miss Ardsley's got a room for you
at last, that's all. They want you to come down and deliver sentence."
To Patricia this seemed a veritable finger of destiny.
"Shall I bother you if I move out?" she asked Rosamond rather wistfully.
If she had hoped for comfort, she got very little. "Why should you go at
all?" asked Rosamond, while she held a hat up for inspection, viewing it
first on one side and then on the other. "I thought you were very well
as you are."
"But," faltered Patricia. "I was only to stay till I could get a room."
She hoped Rosamond would lay down the hat and look at her with friendly
eyes. Rosamond kept on with her scrutiny.
"Stay as long as you will. I'm sure we've got on beautifully together,"
she said with her air of amiable indifference.
After that Patricia felt she had no choice.
She followed Constance into Miss Ardsley's rooms without knowing how she
got there, and even Elinor's gentle words of greeting sounded stiff and
formal to her quivering, over-wrought humor. Miss Ardsley's genteel
accents grated horribly on her. She was anxious to have the interview
over and she readily agreed to take the room at once, without evincing
any interest in it or anything else. All that she wanted just then was
to get away by herself, so afraid was she that the tears so near her
eyelids might pop out at any moment.
Elinor very properly put her changed manner down to the incident of the
night before, and she did not insist on going up with her to talk it
over with Miss Merton, as she would have done if all had been as usual
between Patricia and herself.
She sighed a little as she kissed her good-bye in the corridor, and
wondered sadly at the stony face her dear Miss Pat turned to her at
parting.
"You'll want me to come over and help you move?" she asked, with a world
of tender concern in her tones.
Patricia heard only the mere words. She was wild to get away before she
disgraced herself before the others. "I'll move in tomorrow. Constance
will help me if you're busy," she said, hardly knowing how her words
sounded.
Elinor went home too hurt to reply and too generous to insist on
intruding, while Patricia ran upstairs and shut herself in her room,
where she could hear the murmur of Rosamond and the saleswoman going on
monotonously.
"I won't wait another moment; I'll go straight down and get the key,"
she said, springing up after a bad quarter of an hour, wherein all her
idols had tottered from their pedestals. "I can't stand being cooped up
forever like a mummy!"
Miss Ardsley gave her the key most willingly, even going so far as the
courtyard to point out the windows of the room, which was on the
opposite side of the quadrangle, recommending her to call on Martha or
Christine if there were anything she needed.
Patricia found the room and opened the door with a sense of relief at
finding a shelter for her wounded feelings. She liked the queer shape of
it, with the two odd windows giving toward the sunset, and the angle
where her cosy corner seemed already to have appropriated.
"It's perfectly dear, and I'll love it!" she said passionately. "I'll
move in this very instant, no matter what Rosamond may say."
Rosamond had very little to say, though that little was regretful and
apparently sincere. Patricia suspected her now of insincerity, but that
was not one of Rosamond Merton's faults. Had she feigned more, Patricia
would never have left her. She was sorry for Miss Pat to go, but since
she seemed so eager for it, there was nothing else to be done.
"We'll see just as much of one another," she said, still absently intent
on her purchases. "You'll practice here, of course."
Patricia had forgotten the piano, but she was not given to retreat.
"There's plenty of room for one of my own over there," she said with a
forced smile. "I'll miss hearing you sing, though." She was afraid she
was going to break down, but she didn't. "I'll get my things out now, so
that you can have the little room for cold storage," and she motioned to
the jumble which lay gloriously about.
Rosamond made the best of it. "It will be hard to get anyone to help
now," she said, rising. "It's just tea-hour and the maids will be busy.
I'll see that you have someone at once."
Patricia wanted to protest, but the words stuck in her throat and she
was forced to accept the sturdy charwoman whom Rosamond's telephone
secured.
The moving was over sooner than she had thought possible. She was
settled in her room, and Rosamond had come over to declare it the
cosiest spot in the world, while Constance Fellows and Doris Leighton
had been in a couple of times on visits of congratulation before the
clock across the housetops spelled out her usual bed hour on its
illuminated face.
Patricia felt very strange as she put out the light and got into the
narrow bed with its transplanted canopy and frills, yet there was a
feeling of independence that was perhaps all the sweeter because she
would not acknowledge it.
"I'm more lonely than I ever was in my life," she told herself as her
head sank against her pillow.
But she forgot that she had said her prayers very thoroughly tonight,
which showed that she had passed the darkest spot of her loneliness, for
no one is quite desolate who can talk to God.
The next morning she awoke with a start, thinking she heard Rosamond
calling her, but all she saw was the bright spring sunshine flooding
into her pleasant, queer room, and all she heard was the trilling of the
girl across the hall, little Rita Stanford, whose mother had died since
Patricia had come to Artemis Lodge.
"Poor little brave thing," she thought with a warm rush of feeling,
"I'll ask her over to practice as soon as I get my piano."
All about her she heard sounds of life that the private stair had shut
her away from. Someone was unlocking her door and going whistling down
the corridor, and in the room next to her the girl was rushing about in
great haste, banging doors and slamming down the windows.
Rosamond would have sighed over such intimate contact with the rank and
file of student life. It charmed Patricia. She loved democracy, although
she had been shunning it ever since she had come to room with Rosamond
Merton, and she jumped out of bed with a lighter heart than she could
have dreamed possible the night before.
Unconsciously she had begun to fulfill Madame Milano's purpose in sending
her to Artemis Lodge.