Patricia (5 page)

The first year John Worth was in high school he began to be identified with the school teams. He was looked upon as one of the best pitchers they had, and all his athletic work was good. Now and then Patricia would hear the high school girls talking about how he had struck out this or that formidable player. When at the end of his second year they made him captain of the basketball team, enthusiasm ran high.

By that time Patricia was in high school herself. Many a time she longed with all her heart to be able to stay to the baseball games or come out to the evening games in the gymnasium as the other girls did and watch all that went on. But Patricia's mother drew the line at evening events connected with the public school. They were not for her child. The evening was the time for social affairs, parties, with well-selected children of her own class. So Patricia had no part nor lot in the school spirit that rejoiced over winnings and mourned over losses and cheered lustily for their school wherever they went.

But secretly she was glad that John Worth had taken his place among the best, and she wished she might be a part of it all. Once or twice it is true, she lingered after school for a few minutes, especially when she was sure her mother was engaged with her club meetings or her bridge parties, and hovering near the edge of the ball grounds, she watched a play or two. She was always glad to spot John Worth among the team. But such stolen moments brought her no contact with the players and little of the thrill that came to the other girls, huddled joyously on the grandstand, cheering for their favorites, wearing their colors, and waving pennants with vigor.

She was growing taller now and distinctly lovely in appearance, although of that she was hardly yet aware. She was not a vain child, merely eager to have her part with all the others in the interests of her beloved school. She was at all times more interested in the school than in anything else. The constant parties to which her mother subjected her meant little to her, because she was not fond of the company she met there. Little by little she was trying to withdraw herself from them.

Her first open rebellion was occasioned by a party at Thornton Bellingham's on his fifteenth birthday, and Patricia did not want to go. It was a long time since the occurrence on the hill above the creek, and the incident was only a childish happening, of course, but Patricia had never forgotten the look on that boy's face as he came at her. It seemed indelibly stamped upon him, a look of deviltry, almost of hate, and she had avoided him as far as possible ever since.

Of course, he was no longer in the little boy's prep school where he used to be when they had their snow fight on the hillside. He had been away three years now, during school sessions, of course; and they had not been thrown together. But now he was home for his birthday and his mother was making a grand event out of it.

“I shall not go!” announced Patricia decidedly when she received the invitation. “I don't like him, and I don't want to have anything to do with his old parties!”

“Patricia!” exclaimed her mother, horrified. “Not going! Of course you'll go! Thorny Bellingham's mother is my dearest friend. You know that perfectly well. It would be insulting to my friend for you to do that. I can't see how you can be so disagreeable as to say things like that.”

“I'm not disagreeable, Mother,” said Patricia. “I don't see how that's insulting anybody either. I'll write a very nice polite note and thank her for the invitation and tell her that I have another engagement. There's nothing insulting about that. I have another engagement, anyway, that I wouldn't miss for anything. It's a meeting of our Sunday school class at the church, and I promised to help get ready for a rally that's going to be held pretty soon.”

“Your Sunday school class!” sneered the mother. “What's that got to do with things? Nothing from that little old-fashioned Sunday school has any claim on you. Give them some money and tell them you can't come, you have something more important on hand!”

“But I haven't, Mother! I
want
to go to that meeting. I
like
to help them. I don't like Thorny, and I don't want to go to his party.”

“Patricia, I'm ashamed of you!” said her mother. “To think that you would carry your childish dislikes all through the years. That's ridiculous! You're both almost grown-up now, and you'll find Thorny very much changed. I saw his picture the other day when I went over to call on his mother, and he's stunning looking. He's grown handsome, although I always thought he was one of the prettiest little boys I ever saw. He didn't really need to get any better looking.”

“I don't like pretty boys!” said Patricia gravely. “I like boys that have some character in their faces. Thorny always looks as though he liked to eat better than anything else!”

“Patricia, that's coarse of you! Do you realize that you are no longer a child? You cannot afford to let your childish prejudices hold through the years that way. Thorny is your natural friend in every way. His family and yours are close friends. He is brought up under the same ideas; he is your equal in manners and education—that is, you should be his equal if your father hadn't had such absurd ideas about making you go to that bourgeois school among the rubble. But of course we will have that remedied when you graduate from high school. Your father promised that you might do what you liked after that, and I intend to see that you have all the educational opportunities possible to make you Thorny's equal. And then, my dear, there is another point which perhaps you are too young to appreciate. Thorny's family are wealthy, as wealthy as your father, and you will both inherit good fortunes. There is nothing like money to make people akin. You will be invited to the same places, have the same traditions, the same tastes, and will in all probability be the closest of friends, so I advise you not to do anything which will make your future friendship embarrassing. You will go to his party, of course. You will write your acceptance at once, or I shall see that your father does something definite immediately about removing you from that ridiculous school.”

“Mother! You couldn't do that now, when I've only two years more before I graduate!” Patricia's voice was all of a tremble.

“I
couldn't
? Oh, you think I couldn't?” Mrs. Prentiss's voice was cool and dominating, and very assured. “Watch me, and see what I can do, if there is any more demurring about that party.”

So Patricia, sighing deeply, wrote her acceptance to the invitation, in cold little stilted phrases, and assented apathetically to all her mother's plans for the dress to be worn on that occasion.

She was very beautiful and always exquisitely attired, although she herself would have liked plainer, more youthful dresses than the ornate and sophisticated ones of her mother's choosing. Her mother, of course, laid all her reluctance toward the party and the sophisticated garments to her being a product of the public school, though she might have been greatly surprised if she could have known how many of her daughter's fellow students in that school wore just such trailing robes of glory and sophistication at their parties.

When the hateful day arrived, Patricia went to the party. The committee at the church had to get along without Patricia's wistful presence, while she was swept away to an undesired evening in the world. A mere meeting in a little old-fashioned chapel should never bind Mrs. Prentiss's child to an engagement that would hinder a brilliant party. Patricia was attired in a long, full white tulle dress that touched the floor all around. It had an slim top strapped on with bands of tiny pink rosebuds sewed to narrow black velvet ribbons. The girdle was an assorted collection of black velvet loops and long-stemmed tiny rosebuds. The same rosebuds garlanded her dark hair, fastened with a small knot of the velvet. It was a charming gown, and Thorny's mother, in conference with Patricia's mother beforehand, had seen to it that a charming bouquet of sweetheart rosebuds set about with a frill of quaint lace paper had gone to Patricia that afternoon, with Thorny's card. Not that Thorny himself had anything to do with the sending. He was merely told it had been done. Thorny hadn't seen his former enemy now for some time, and he only made an ugly face when his mother told him about the flowers, for he was not at that time any more enamored of Patricia than she was of him.

Patricia herself, on receipt of the flowers, was most contemptuous of them, especially when her mother told her that she would have to wear them or carry them.

“Well, I certainly will
not
!” said Patricia firmly. “What would I want to let him think I liked his flowers for? I don't like him and he doesn't like me, and why should we have to act as if we did?”

“Patricia! Have you no politeness, no courtesy at all? When a young man sends you flowers to wear to his party, have you no sense of gratitude? It certainly shows that the young man has no such dislike as you are attributing to Thorny, since he sends you such charming flowers.”

“Young man!” sneered Patricia. “He's nothing but the same old spoiled Thorny he always was. And as for the flowers, his mother probably made him send them! He probably didn't want to send them any more than I want to wear them!”

“Patricia, you are simply unspeakable! The sooner you get out of that terrible school and that impossible church and Sunday school, the better. As it is, I'm afraid it's already too late!”

Patricia gave her mother a despairing look.

“All right. I'll carry them. But I won't wear them. They aren't the kind to wear anyway. They are supposed to be carried.”

Patricia went off to her party with an independent little toss of her head but a sorrowful, frightened feeling in her heart. She would have to watch her step tonight. If anything went on that didn't altogether please Mrs. Bellingham, it surely would be reported to her mother, and then there would be another battle royal with Dad, and how long would it take to tire Dad out and make him give up and send her to a private school after all? If she couldn't graduate with her beloved class, if she had to have her own commencement come off without her while she took her place among the dummies in Miss Greystone's Select School for Girls, she would
die
! She would simply pass out with shame and humiliation!

So all that evening she trod the hours with care and discretion. Not once did she try to lay down that awful little dub of a sissy bouquet and lose it or hide it. All the evening she carried it elaborately, posing it so that it would show how well it matched the garlands on her dress. She even curtsied low, with a deft sweep of her long skirt, before Thorny as he stood near his mother, and no one else in immediate proximity, and said with pleasant husky tones, “Thank you so much, Mr. Bellingham, for your darling flowers. They are just too quaint and lovely for words.”

And Thorny lifted his handsome head and fetched forth his cocksure smile and said in a new prep school voice he had acquired since he had been away, “Oh, hello, Pitty-Pat. Glad you like the weeds!”

Then his eyes came to dwell on her fresh young loveliness, and in a kind of surprise he added, “They're not half so charming as the girl who carries them!” and prepared to devote himself to his old enemy for the evening.

But Patricia had no such plan. All the technique of formality she had learned at dancing school she drew upon now, and Thorny was surprised into setting up an active campaign for her company. If he had had his way, he would have danced every number with her. But Patricia had been clever. She had thought this thing out. Not entirely by herself, either. Her father had had a hand in it.

Patricia had come home from school by way of her father's office that first afternoon after the invitation had come, and she had coaxed her father to walk home with her. Then on the way she had presented her grievance to him. Did she have to go to that old party? Did she
have
to dance with that awful Thorny?

Her father talked it over with her gravely. “I don't like Thorny any better than you do, little Pat,” he said, looking down into her earnest eyes, “and I don't like the dancing part either. If I'd had my way, you would never have gone to dancing school, you know. But—you know how your mother is—and I had crossed her about your school. I didn't see that I could make a fuss about the dancing. But maybe I should have.”

“No, Daddy,” said the little girl earnestly, “it doesn't really matter. I don't mind the class so very much. But I do hate dancing with that terrible Thorny. Why, Daddy, he used to step on my feet every time we had to dance together. He just did it on
purpose
!”

“Well, let us hope he's too grown-up for that now. He was only a little devil then. Perhaps he's learned some politeness. But of course, little Pat, I suppose you would have to dance once with him if he asks you. I guess that's what's expected, for the host to dance at least once with every lady present. I really don't know much about it myself. I never liked dancing and I used to stay away from such things the few times I ever got invited. But you know, Patty,
we
weren't rich people then, and
I
didn't get invited much to such things.”

“Well, I guess I'm like you, Daddy,” said Patricia, comfortably nestling her hand in her father's. “I don't mind the dancing if I could do it by myself, but I just can't bear that Thorny. And some of the rest of the boys aren't so pleasant, either. Besides, I'll have that long dress on, and I'll maybe fall right down on the floor.”