PATRICIA DECIDES TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT
"Oh!" said Patricia on the threshold.
"S-s-sh!" warned a number of restrained voices.
They smiled kindly at her as she stood in the doorway, though they
plainly would not tolerate an interruption. Patricia had not meant to
interrupt. She was only surprised.
The firelight played over the lounging figures of the girls who were
grouped about the dim warm-colored room, lighting up a golden head or
the gleam of some piece of polished furniture or glass, picking out the
faces of some of the intent listeners and flinging a ruddy shadow over
others, flickering over the grand piano and the figure seated before it.
Patricia had cried out her "Oh" at the sight of this figure. It was so
very different from her idea of what a countess--and a Polish one, at
that--should be that it gave her quite a shock, and for the tiniest
fraction of a second made her forget even the Grieg music.
The little woman at the piano was small and rather wrinkled, and was
wearing an old-fashioned ulster which fitted her small form rather
carelessly. The small sealskin cap on her drab hair did not even pretend
to be a stylish one. It was rather worn, even in the kindly firelight,
and gave an emphasis to the shabbiness of the whole figure.
Patricia sank down beside Rita Stanford and stared under cover of the
fire-flicker. How disappointing some countesses were!
But she did not stare long. She soon forgot there was a shabby figure at
the big piano, because she was seeing the butterfly soaring up and up in
the sunshine, with the jewels glowing on his gorgeous wings, wings that
were soon to be broken and trailing. She saw the pulsing of the broken
wings, and felt the pity that was pulsing through the sunny world at
this darkening tragedy. The wings pulsed slower and slower. The
butterfly was dead!
Patricia found her eyes wet, and she heard the soft applause in a sort
of daze--the music that melted her also always intoxicated her--and she
sat without a word till the countess began again.
It was Shubert's Fantasia Impromptu this time, and there was absolute
silence as it ended.
The little shabby countess gave them a moment for recovery, and then,
whirling about on the stool, she said, with only a trace of accent:
"That is my farewell. Tomorrow I leave for the home-land."
There was a chorus of questions at this and that ended the music.
Patricia enjoyed the humorous chatter of the experienced, happy-go-lucky
countess, and she laughed over her accounts of her travels and
privations while lecturing in the West and writing books at odd times,
but she did not want to rub out the "Papillion" and she soon left the
Red Salon and took her way to her own room, thinking of a number of
things.
"She's had a hard time, too," she thought. "I suppose she'd never have
played so if she hadn't known trouble and tragedy, too, perhaps. Oh,
dear, it's very comforting when one is rather in low spirits and things
have gone wrong, but it doesn't look half so attractive when there's fun
ahead."
She shook her head and then laughed her rippling laugh at herself. "I'm
getting too deep," she warned herself. "I've got to stay where I can
touch bottom. Constance may go far ahead, but I've got to go slow or
I'll be getting silly again on the other side."
She kept to this wise decision and whenever she found herself beginning
to pose as a being enlightened through suffering she made a face at
herself in the quaint mirror and ran away to do something "plain and
practical" for someone.
And so the days sped and Judith came back from Rockham full of news and
wondering greatly at the change in her dear Miss Pat.
"You're awfully meek now, aren't you?" she asked her suddenly, after
Judith's little trunk had been unpacked and the things stowed in the
most convenient drawers. "You used to be nice, but you didn't give up to
younger persons like you do now."
Patricia started to say that she had learned a great lesson, but she
caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and she said instead that she
was treating Judith as a guest now, and so she had to be polite.
Judith was only half convinced. She had not been studying people's faces
and searching for meanings in their expressions all these months for
nothing. The tales about Rockham alone would have sharpened her to that
extent.
"You're different," she said positively. "And I don't know whether I
like you better or not. You seem too good to be true, somehow."
Patricia's derisive laughter only made her more emphatic. "You aren't
half so gay as you were, and you practice as though you were doing a
lesson instead of because you couldn't help it, like you used to," she
declared. "You're nice to that gorgeous Rosamond Merton and you let her
wipe her feet on you every time you go in there. I've seen how meek you
are. If it wasn't you," she said with a pucker in her brow, "I'd think
you were up to something. Why don't you sing like you used to?"
Patricia said that she had been at a song, but it was not to be known,
and she made Judith promise not to tell Constance or anyone else at home
before she would sit down at the shining piano Bruce had got a musical
friend to select for her, and sang the song through to its end.
Judith still looked puzzled. "It's lovely, of course. Your voice always
is," she said loyally. "But somehow it doesn't _ring_. The glad sound
has gone out of it. That's it!"
Patricia had been knowing it herself ever since she had realized that
Tancredi was only keeping her for friendship's sake, and it had been
almost too much to bear alone. Without thinking, she blurted it out.
"I can't really sing, after all, Ju," she told her passionately.
"Tancredi is only keeping me on for this quarter and then she'll let me
down."
Judith was aghast, but she kept her head. "When did she tell you?" she
demanded sharply.
"She hasn't just exactly told me in words," confessed Patricia. "But
she's shown me very clearly. And Madame Milano hasn't ever asked to see
me again, though I know she's seen Rosamond twice since I went to the
'Hour' at her hotel. If I hadn't been with Bruce and Elinor to hear her
in opera every time she sang, I'd never known she was in New York at
all."
Judith was very white and still. At last she said with conviction, "I
think you're making a mistake, Miss Pat. I don't believe it's true that
you aren't going to be a success. You know how you tried and tried to
make yourself ready and fit for the music, and I don't believe that all
that hard work is going to be wasted."
Patricia smiled with the new knowledge that had so recently come to her.
"Oh, Judy dear, you are too young to understand," she said with serene
satisfaction; "but it will not be wasted. One must suffer to grow glad."
Judith opened her eyes. "Now I know you're queer," she declared with a
wag of her head that made her uneven mane quiver. "You didn't use to
talk such stuff."
Patricia wanted to tell her it wasn't stuff, but somehow she could not
find the right words to explain her feelings, and so she left it go,
feeling very old and wise indeed beside the crude, inexperienced Judith.
They had a very good time together, nevertheless, and Judith made
friends with the girls in a way that pleased and surprised Patricia.
"That kid sister of yours is a wonder," said the slangy ones, and the
others declared that Judith was a dear. Altogether, Patricia had never
enjoyed Judith's company so much.
"I'm sorry you can't come to the dance," she told her with regret, but
Judith did not care in the least, she said. She was going to spend the
night with Rita Stanford, with whom she had struck up a close
friendship--the first that Patricia had known her to make.
She seemed much absorbed in Rita. She took walks with her while Patricia
was at her lesson or otherwise occupied, and she went to afternoon
service with her. She was so much with Rita when not with Patricia that
it was a surprise to Patricia to see her coming in the afternoon of the
dance entirely alone and wearing a rapturous expression. She said she
had been doing an errand and Patricia was too much occupied with the
finishing touches to her white net--she was putting the dearest bunches
of apple blossoms at odd places on the skirt and waist--to be too
inquisitive.
She noticed that Judith hung about her, seeming to be trying to make up
her mind to say something, but she did not stop to ask what it was, as
she supposed it merely a trifling comment or criticism on her dress.
She sent Judith over to Constance's room to borrow a spool of pink silk
and then forgot her in the delightful task of deciding whether the apple
blossoms ought to go on the sleeves or not.
Judith came back with the spool and a yellow envelope which she had
signed for. "That's what made me so long," she explained, but Patricia
had hardly missed her.
The telegram was from Elinor. They were coming back and would be at the
dance. "Coming home tonight. Save a dance for Bruce. Love. Elinor."
Patricia was wild with delight. "Oh, Judy, won't it be fine?" she cried
with quite her old gay laugh. "I'm so glad they're coming."
But before Judith could add her rejoicings the bright look had died into
a quieter expression and Patricia said, "I was forgetting that you
weren't going to be there. I wish, oh, I wish you could go."
"Well, I can't and there's an end of it," said Judith calmly. "And I
hear Rita beginning to get things ready. We're going to make fudge, so
I'll have to be off."
She was at the door before she remembered. "Constance told me she'd stop
on her way down for you if you changed your mind about going late," she
said briskly. "She wants you to see her dress, anyway, before anything
happens to it. She says she's sure to wreck it. She's so used to good
tough stuff that she'll walk right through this one."
Patricia nodded brightly and Judith hurried off across the hall, where
Rita's welcome reached Patricia's ears. "Dear old Ju," she thought
fondly. "She's always doing the right thing. She's such a comfort."
Then she smiled to herself at Constance's message. "It's good of her to
come away over here, when the ball-room is so near her," she said
gratefully. "I'll be glad to see her dress. She's been so secret about
it."
Her face grew wistful as she thought of the dance. "I'll have a good
time, I suppose," she said slowly. "Rosamond will sing, and that will
make me remember I'm a failure. But Bruce and Elinor and Constance will
be there, and I can have the fun of showing Doris to Mr. Long without
her knowing it."
This brought the light into her eyes again, and she held up her golden
head very bravely.
"I'll have a good time," she said again, with a nod at the mirror. "I
may be a failure as a singer, but I needn't be as a human critter, as
Hannah Ann calls us."