THE TURNING POINT
It was very hard for Patricia to go over to Rosamond's room after
breakfast for her hour at the piano, but she did it so bravely that the
self-centered Rosamond never guessed how much it cost her.
That was her first unconscious victory over herself.
Next she found that the other girls, from whose comradeship Rosamond's
constant presence had barred her, now made room for her in the jolly,
hail-fellow style which went straight to her bruised heart and soothed
her wounded feelings sooner than she knew.
She kept her place at the little table in the cafe with Rosamond, of
course, but after the first day she did not go into her room at
tea-time, going instead into the big room downstairs where the girls
and their guests came every afternoon to consume thin bread and butter,
and innumerable cups of tea and packs of petite-beurres. Rosamond had
thought her own dainty service with an exclusive friend all that could
be desired, but Patricia rejoiced in the atmosphere of the club room
with its great grand piano and the groups of interested girls, with a
sprinkling of equally interested and clever guests. The steaming,
gleaming samovar with Doris Leighton's friendly face behind it brought a
warmth to her heart the first afternoon that Constance had insisted on
her cutting the hour with Rosamond and going with her to the tea-room
below.
She found the easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more
to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an
hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne--with an _e_ as she always
explained carefully--was being shown the purchases which had seemingly
consoled Rosamond for her withdrawal.
Mary Browne, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking girl with a bored manner,
was lounging in a chair, looking with reverent yearning at the articles
as they were exhibited--Rosamond trying each on and enlarging on its
points of excellence.
Mary Browne, though of the purest blood, was, as she put it, "rather
strapped," and wore her shapely garments longer than even Patricia did.
Her soul was in the matter, as anyone could see by the way in which she
looked at each article, murmuring tensely through her aristocratic
teeth, "It's a stair. It's a _star_."
Patricia had just come from a flying visit to little Rita Stanford, whom
she had suspected, from certain little sounds coming over her open
transom, to be crying, and the contrast to that heroic little person
putting aside her fresh grief to try to be entertaining to the newcomer
in her hall made Patricia suddenly rather contemptuous of this
worshipful attitude toward the mere accessories of life.
She had sprung up with relief when Constance's knock gave her the chance
to escape, and in spite of Rosamond's rather absent protests, she had
gone downstairs with Constance.
The tea-room was very full that afternoon and Doris had little time for
talk, but she asked Patricia to stay for a chat after the samovar was
taken away, and Patricia very willingly promised. The guests left at the
proper time, but the girls seemed loath to leave. They lingered, talking
about all sorts of glorious futures they were planning and discussing
the eager present with great animation.
"Tancredi says that Rosamond Merton is going into opera as soon as she
is done with her," a girl whose name Patricia did not know leaned across
a space to tell her. She knew that Patricia was Rosamond's closest
associate and she was following the social impulse to please.
Her friendly action brought the color to Patricia's cheeks and her eyes
shone.
"How splendid!" she said ardently. "How did you hear it? Do you know
Tancredi?"
The girl shook her head. "My sister knows her," she replied, "and she
told her that Carneri, the director of the Cosmopolitan Company, told
her she should have a place whenever she was pronounced fit by Tancredi.
Pretty great for the Fair Rosamond, isn't it? They say she met him at a
luncheon she gave to Milano and her teacher at the Ritz last week. It
pays to be rich as well as talented, you see."
"Is she really very rich?" asked Patricia, and then was sorry she had
spoken. It seemed as though she were prying into Rosamond's private
affairs.
"Of course. She's old Cedar-tank Merton's only thing," replied the girl
rather flippantly, Patricia thought. "She's hordes and gobs of coin, as
well as being gifted with a voice and a family tree that makes the
California redwoods look like mere bushes. You're with Tancredi, too,
aren't you?"
Patricia nodded.
"I suppose she has a name, though I haven't heard it," the girl said to
Constance, who was chatting with someone at an opposite table.
Constance did not hear her, but Patricia readily supplied the
deficiency.
"I'm Patricia Kendall," she said, feeling rather apologetic for herself,
though she did not know quite why.
"I'm Louise Woods," replied the other. "I'll look you up some time after
I've spotted you and tell you what Tancredi says about _you_."
"Oh, it couldn't be much," cried Patricia in dismay. "I've just begun to
study and Tancredi only bothers with me because a friend of hers asked
her to."
The girl seemed not much impressed. "You've got something up your
sleeve, I think," she smiled as she rose. "Tancredi doesn't cast her
pearls before swine that way."
Patricia watched her making her sociable way out of the room, and she
decided that she liked her.
"I wonder why I never met her before?" she thought, and then realized
how completely Rosamond had blocked her view of all the other girls. "I
guess I'll not be half so lonely as I thought. They all seem so kind."
She felt still better content when, as the twilight gathered and Doris
came to make one of their group, one of the girls went to the big piano
and illustrated her idea of the Swan Song in Lohengrin, striking
passionate chords with her finger-tips and throwing her full-toned
contralto into the dimness with an effect that was thrilling to
Patricia.
Then another girl pushed her from the seat and, interrupting herself
from time to time with explanations of the method, sang part of the
scene where Louise leaves her home.
The magic of the dim hour was on them and they gave themselves to the
music entire. The great winged Victory above the bookshelf showed back
of the singer's dark head. The real everyday world dropped away and a
more real and vital world took its place. One after another, the music
students took their place eagerly on the seat, and sang or played the
melody that was surging within them, to which the magic moment had
given utterance.
Patricia never knew how it ended or if it were herself that was back in
the everyday world of the cafe, eating dinner with Rosamond as usual, or
whether she was still in that twilit world of melody listening to the
voices, until Rosamond said rather sharply for her:
"Are you ill, Miss Pat, that you look so strange?"
Then Patricia drew herself together and managed to appear as normal as
she could, but her one desire was to get away by herself to gloat over
the riches that had been flung in her lap.
"I'd never, never known how splendid it was if I hadn't left Rosamond,"
she marveled. "Oh, how much I've been missing all this time!"
She was so taken out of herself by the beautiful experience that she
hurried to her room and sat down to write a note to Elinor, begging her
to forgive her silly conduct and her rank ingratitude for all their
care. She made it as strong as that, and when she had sealed it she
went down and put it in the mail-box herself, so eager was she that it
should speed on its way.
She went to her room with a lighter heart and the day ended triumphantly
with her. She counted the good things that had come to her on her
fingers. First, she had cheered Rita Stanford--that she was sure of.
Next, she had not shown any ill feeling towards Rosamond--her visits in
morning and afternoon proved that. And third, she had been received into
the fellowship of the musical set in a way that set her dreaming of the
hour when she, too, might take her place on the seat of the grand piano
in the twilight and sing out what was in her heart. Then, she had
conquered her reluctance to make the first overtures to Elinor, and she
had discovered that the girls in the next room were going to be worth
while.
That finished off one hand and she paused as she began on the other.
What was it the Woods girl had said about Rosamond entertaining Madame
Milano at luncheon last week? Patricia would have thought it a mistake
a week ago, but now she believed Rosamond capable of forgetting to tell
her such a momentous fact.
"She doesn't care for me at all any more," she thought, with a sort of
slow contempt rising through the sadness that the memory had brought
back to her.
"I don't believe she ever did care for me," she said, a few minutes
later. "I think she only tolerated me because she thought that I must be
going to have a wonderful voice since Milano recommended, but when she
found that I was only a stupid beginner, and not worth bothering with,
she forgot I was in existence except when I was in sight."
She had so loved and admired the sumptuous Rosamond and in spite of the
break had felt so little resentment that her feelings were now a
surprise to her.
"I'm getting dreadfully cross-grained, I suppose," she said sadly, as
she sat down again to write to Mrs. Spicer. "I quarreled with Elinor--of
all people--and I've broken off with Rosamond. I must be growing
horrid."
This dismal idea took full possession of her and she sat staring at the
papers strewn on her table, seeing a tragic picture of herself grown
desolate and lone in the long years wherein she lost, one by one, the
friends who had once loved her. Mrs. Nat's puzzled face rose vividly
before her as it had looked across the studio table, and she shook her
head dolefully.
It was not often that Patricia had given way to such a mood, and if
there had been anyone within reach to talk to, she would have shaken it
off before it took full possession of her. But she was alone for the
evening and it had free access. She actually believed that she was grown
unlovable, and the conviction that her voice was not worth considering
haunted her morbidly.
She had, without knowing it, a touch of grippe. Not enough to make her
feel really ill, but merely sufficient to emphasize her dismal
sensations into actual mental misery, and she lay awake half the night
wondering mournfully why she had been allowed to leave the country and
thrust herself among the talented and fortunate. She was really quite
thorough in her distrust of herself.
In the morning she found a messenger with two notes, one from Elinor and
one in Bruce's strong hand, waiting her as she went down to her late
breakfast. Elinor's was very loving, ignoring the disagreeable Sunday
night and telling her that they were suddenly called away on business of
Bruce's, and that Judith, after spending a few days at Rockham with Mrs.
Shelly, was to come to share her room at Artemis for the rest of the
time. All had been arranged with Miss Ardsley by telephone while
Patricia was yet in bed.
Patricia was so excited by this surprising news that she hurried off to
Miss Ardsley's rooms with Bruce's unopened letter still in her hand.
Miss Ardsley explained that Elinor had called up about eight o'clock and
as the Directress had been positive she had seen Patricia cross the
courtyard on her way out just before that hour, she had told Elinor that
her sister was not in.
Patricia had to go away without expressing her indignation at the
mistake, and after she had read Bruce's short note in her own room, she
was glad to remember that she had not sinned again.
"Small Sister Pat," the note ran. "I know it isn't time for the puncture
you requested, but would it bother you if I asked when our own Miss Pat
is coming back? We're mighty lonesome for her. Elinor is dropping some
big tears while she thinks I am not looking, and I know it is because
she misses her old chum. Judy is divided between the desire to go to her
Mama Shelly's and her wish to find her jolly sister Pat. Do you think
you could look her up and tell her we're all sure that she wants to see
us as much as we want to see her?"
Patricia sat for a long time with the note in her hand, and then she put
her golden head down on it and cried heartily.
Then she sat up, and her face showed that the mists were beginning to
clear from that doleful future which had haunted her since last night.
"What a goose I've been, and what a perfect duck Bruce is," she said
heartily and then laughed out loud at her zoological titles. "Oh, how I
wish I'd had a chance to talk to Elinor. She couldn't have my letter by
the time she left, and she must still think me horrid."
She rose and stood looking out of the window at the blue expanse above
the housetops, with part of the smile still lingering on her pink lips.
She knew that she had come back, as Bruce called it, and a delightful
sense of relief stole over her.
"I'm so glad, glad," she whispered, clasping her hands tight against her
breast. "I'll have a chance to show them that I'm really sorry for my
silliness. I'll do something, I'll have something ready for them when
they come back that will prove I'm done with sentimental nonsense now
and for always."
She could not think what it should be, but she knew she could find out
and she turned from the window with the old sunny expression on her
face.
"I'll try to be unselfish, even though I am a failure," she said
determinedly. "Bruce never guessed that it might be quite as hard for a
failure to be unselfish as for a successful person. He's always been
successful, thanks to Aunt Louise and his own splendid self."
The memory of her unknown aunt's secret disappointment came to her now
with a throb of understanding love. The dark, brave face over the desk
in the library at Greycroft rose vividly before her, and, as at other
moments of need, courage and determination flowed from the serene eyes
into Patricia's wistful ones.
"I'll bear my troubles, too," she whispered, smiling back at the vision.
"I'll remember that I am your namesake."