Patricia (6 page)

“Oh no you won't. You'll sail in there and act like a little princess. You'll remember that you're Father's little girl and are going to do just as well as you can, and then when you've got through this one party, maybe there'll be a way out somehow. Maybe there won't be any more dancing parties after Thorny goes back to school. Anyway, maybe he isn't so bad as he used to be. He's growing up now, you know.”

“Maybe!” said Patricia doubtfully. “I don't expect it, though.”

“Then there's another thing, little Pat. Perhaps
you
can get your little program card pretty well filled up so Thorny won't have a chance to ask you but once.”

“Yes, I know,” said Patricia thoughtfully. “There's Eddie Bridgeman. I suppose he'll be there. His mother is in the club. He's not so very interesting. He's what the girls call a dub. But sometimes I feel sorry for him. He's kind of awkward and doesn't seem to know what to do or say. I'll make him put his name on my card.”

“Do you think he will like that, Pat? Wouldn't he ask you of his own accord?”

“No,” said Patricia decidedly, “he would be scared. He always stands around till the teacher tells him who to ask. I'll just smile at him as soon as I see him and say, ‘Eddie, don't you want to put your name down on my card?' I think he'll be glad. I don't think he likes to come to the class, but his mother makes him. He gets awfully red when he has to ask a girl.”

“Well,” said the father, with a worried look, “I don't like your having to ask people to dance with you. It isn't a lady's place. But after all you're only a little girl, and I guess it won't matter if it's to protect you against Thorny. If you say so, I'll have a talk and try to get Mother to let you decline the invitation. Of course, she'll be awfully upset, she's so fond of Mrs. Bellingham.”

“No,” said Patricia, “you can't. It's too late. Mother made me write my acceptance right away this morning, and I guess by this time she's mailed it. And anyway, Daddy, I guess it would make too much discussion. I do hate to have you and Mother argue. She always wants me to go to a private school, and Daddy, you won't ever,
ever
let me have to do that, will you? I do love my school!”

Reassured about her school, Patricia swallowed down the necessity for going to the party and began from the first to plan to evade Thorny as much as possible.

So Patricia at her first big party was sweet and smiling. She danced the first dance with Thorny, because he asked her right in front of his mother, and Patricia knew that whatever was done in the presence of his mother would be reported tomorrow morning to her mother, so with fear and trembling she stepped forth into what she dreaded.

Thorny was not the awkward little hooligan that he used to be in the early days of dancing school. He did not step on her feet, and he did not fall all over the room as he used to delight to do. He had acquired a mature technique and a grace that made him what was called a good dancer. But he grabbed her possessively from the start and held her too close. How she hated this contact with him. How she despised the way he looked down into her eyes and pressed her to him! She was suddenly appalled at the disgust that filled her. Somehow she had to get through this gesture and acquit herself graciously, and yet how could she stand it? She loathed the way he held her hand as if it belonged to him, the closeness of his daring handsome face, the hotness of his breath in her face. She had never experienced anything like this in her life, and she wanted to strike him. Yet she knew she must do whatever she did like a lady. Thorny's mother was watching her and would report to her mother.

God, won't You please help me now,
she prayed as she closed her eyes briefly and drew back a little and away. But Thorny only pressed her body closer to his and swept her on.

Patricia held herself aloof as much as possible and endured it with as sweet an expression as she could, and when at last the number was over and he made as if to keep possession of her for the next dance, she laughed and tossed he head.

“But we can't,” she said happily, “it's promised. My program is all filled up. I just saved this first one for you in case you wanted it.”

“Let's see!” said Thorny rudely, snatching at her dainty little program card. “I don't see how you got them all filled up when you didn't have the cards till you got here.”

“They're not all written in yet,” said Patricia, amused, “but I've promised them.”

“Well, that doesn't make any difference,” said Thorny loftily; “this is my party and I intend to dance every dance with you. I can do what I like at my own party, of course. I'll just tell any fellow that comes that he can go chase himself away, I'm going to dance with you. Except Harold Charlesworth, of course. He's my roommate at school, and he's visiting me. If he wants to dance with you, he can have one dance.”

“Really?” said Patricia archly. “But only if
I
like. Besides, I haven't met this roommate. And besides, I've promised practically all my other numbers.”

“Here he comes now,” announced Thorny as a tall bored-looking fellow came toward them. “Hey! Chas! Meet my girl! Isn't she a humdinger? I'll let you dance once with her, but that's all. She belongs to me. We were practically brought up together, you know.”

Patricia looked young Charlesworth over coolly; and then as Eddie Bridgeman shyly approached in response to her signal, she lifted her dainty chin, and taking Eddie's correctly stiff young arm, she bowed laughing and swept away. There was one thing about Eddie: he would do as he was told, and he would not dare to hold her in a close embrace. Patricia was doing the princess act now, remembering what her father had said and being wise and naive and charming all at the same time.

Thorny and his chum stood looking after her with puzzled glowers upon their faces, until Thorny's mother sent for him and reminded him that he had duties as host to other girls as well as Patricia, and he must hurry to fulfill them.

By means of smiles and wiles, and finally twisting her ankle just the least little bit, Patricia contrived not to dance with Thorny again that evening and only to dance with his guest Harold once. But by so doing she only managed to make Thorny become all the more anxious to absorb her exclusively. When at last the evening was over and she could get home and think things over, she didn't know whether she was pleased or not at the way it had all turned out. For though she only had to dance with him once during the evening, still the once bitter enemy seemed to have turned into an over-eager friend and admirer. It was all a terrible bore. Patricia acknowledged to herself that Thorny was even better looking than he had been as a small boy, that his eyes were handsome and his teeth sparkled like jewels and his smile was most flattering when he had looked at her; still she liked him no better than she had when he was a small boy. He was still selfish, she could see that. She still had the feeling that, with all his admiration, he was only being nice to her now because he thought she was pretty, and Patricia was not a vain little girl. Her head was not turned by his attention. She was glad he was going back to school in a day or two. She did hope that something nice would develop during the interval that would send him off to Europe or Alaska or California for the vacation time, anywhere so that he would not have to stay around home and be flung in her face daily by conniving mothers. Patricia did not want to grow up too soon and be in training for the proper selection of a husband. And the hints about nice boys and culture and making friends in her own class and the importance of money made her dread to grow up, made her turn from her mother's world with loathing.

Sometimes she would talk it over with her father, on the rare occasions when he was at home and her mother was away for some social or club gathering. And her father would listen and watch her and sigh and say, “Oh, little Pat. I'm with you. You have the right idea. I wish your mother didn't set her heart on things so much!”

Such cheer was enough for the time being to brighten her heart. If Daddy agreed with her, then surely when she was older they could work something out together.

So she went happily on through her school days.

Patricia seldom saw John Worth anymore except afar. His last year in high school was her third year, and he was seldom in evidence. He didn't seem to be in athletics anymore. Once or twice she had lingered to watch the start of a game, and he was never there. Then one day she heard one of the girls say it was too bad John Worth couldn't play that spring, that it was likely they wouldn't win many games without him, he had been so much better than anybody else on the team. And when she asked why he didn't play, they looked at her astonished. Didn't she know that John Worth was working now? Oh yes, he had been working ever since the late fall. He worked on Miller's farm, was a hired hand, or something like that. Even in public school it seemed that there was such a thing as caste.

Oh yes, some of the other boys worked after hours, but their work was confined mostly to delivering papers or driving the delivery truck for one of the grocery stores during Christmas holidays when the rush hours were on. But that was mere fun, of course. And that was at holidays. That did not class a high school boy as a laborer. John Worth had to milk the cows and groom the horses. He had to get up before daylight to do these things. He had to feed the chickens and clean the chicken house and the stables. He had to plow and plant. He had to weed and hoe and help harvest wheat and corn. Just a common hired man! And still in high school! The girls said it was a shame, and the boys put on superior airs, even some of the public school boys.

Yet John Worth seemed just the same. He was always neat and clean and well groomed, even though he still wore corduroys and a flannel shirt. His hair was always handsome and carefully brushed, and his hands, though tanned and strong, were as well cared for as if he did nothing but play the piano all day. He still walked with an upright bearing, a spring in his step, and that light in his eyes that set his face apart from the others. It was almost as if that light behind his eyes were a symbol of something in his soul that was guiding him.

One girl said she had heard that John Worth's father was very sick and couldn't go in town anymore to business or whatever he did, and that was why John was working, to help out. He was only working part-time, of course, because he was going to finish high school, and he never seemed to miss a day, but he went to the farm the minute the afternoon session was over. She said she had heard that he was going to work at Miller's farm full-time as soon as he graduated.

Patricia thought about that several times. It seemed so hard that a nice boy like that had to go to work before he was done with high school and didn't have a minute to call his own, couldn't play ball anymore or even skate, perhaps. It seemed too bad. And Thorny, spoiled conceited Thorny, had all his time to himself. She had heard through Gloria Van Emmons that Thorny had flunked his spring examinations and was going to have to have a tutor and take them over again in the fall. If that was so, he would probably hang around home all summer and bother her a lot. How she wished it were Thorny that had to work on Miller's farm and John Worth that lived in the town. But then, of course, she wouldn't see anything of him anyway. He was an older boy and very studious, and her mother wouldn't consider that he was in her class.

So the days went on. Patricia's studies grew harder, and she had to work with all her might. She mustn't flunk her examinations. She would never be allowed to go on an extra year. Her mother raved at the school system and kept saying, “I told you so!” to Daddy. For the honor of her father and her school she must do well and graduate.

The spring was coming on swiftly and commencement was in the air. John Worth was to graduate. He had been selected to give the valedictory address, and it was generally conceded that he was the best scholar in the school. Too bad he couldn't make use of the school scholarship, which would have given him a free year at college.

“I should think they'd get along somehow and let him go to college,” said Doris Price. “A boy as bright as John simply ought to go to college.”

Patricia, as she listened, wondered just how “somehow” was and wished there was a way to provide that how.

But John Worth went and came and held his head as high and smiled as cheerfully as before, although there was a serious look in his eyes now that had not been there before. But Patricia noticed when she met him one day that the lamps behind his eyes were still lit when he smiled, just as they had been ever since she had known him.

Patricia's class was coming into notice now, holding meetings and electing officers. Patricia herself was an officer, treasurer of the class. She kept her accounts with scrupulous care and took her duties seriously. Her mother laughed at the idea that she had to stay after school for a class meeting. She said it was absurd, that a public school had no class, and why should it take on airs like a college? But Patricia's father took her part and showed her mother that she had been honored by the office and must do her part, of course.

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Prentiss. “Treasurer! What honor is that? You are as blind as your child. Don't you see that it's very plain why they made her treasurer? They know her father is rich and will make up all deficits. They know what they are about.”

But Patricia was allowed to attend her class meeting in peace.

“After all, it can't last much longer! Only one year, thank goodness!” Mrs. Prentiss said to her friend Mrs. Bellingham.

“Well, I must say you've been very patient,” said the Bellingham woman. “I wouldn't have stood for what you have, allowing a girl as beautiful as Patty to be communized by attending that impossible school. I certainly wouldn't have stood it for a day. There are things about that school that will cling to that child all her life. It gives her entirely too democratic an outlook. Why, they tell me that one of the graduates this year is nothing more nor less than a hired man on Miller's farm, and he, my dear, is the one they have selected to give the valedictory address. Imagine it! Giving the highest honor of the school to a mere hired hand on a farm!”

“Oh, my dear! How dreadful! But you see, that's something I hadn't heard. Thank you for telling me. I don't suppose Mr. Prentiss knows that. That may make some difference. I shall tell him as soon as he comes home tonight.”

But to her dismay when she told Mr. Prentiss, he gave her a mildly surprised look.

“Why, my dear! What's the matter with that? I clearly remember hearing your father tell me that he himself hired out to a farmer in his youth in order to get enough money to finish out a year of college.”

“Mr. Prentiss, you are utterly mistaken!” said the good lady in an irate tone. “My father never was a hired man! It is strange how you are willing to try and drag your family down.”

“There is nothing demeaning in honest work. It is often uplifting to get back to the soil and down to primitive conditions. In fact, I can think of nothing that would be better for that little prig of a paragon you are always talking about, that young Thorny Bellingham, than to send him to a farm for a couple of years. Let him learn to plow and plant and sow and reap. Let him milk the cows and tend to sheep and chickens. Perhaps it might put some sense into even that pretty little sissy boy.”

“I think you are too insulting, Mr. Prentiss, talking that way about the son of my dearest friend. I think it is contemptible the way you always try to get the better of me.”

Mrs. Prentiss got out her small elaborate handkerchief and began to wipe her eyes neatly, dabbing at them so that her makeup might not be impaired. Her husband looked at her with cold despairing eyes, at her florid complexion enhanced by brick-red rouge and blue-black shadows under her eyes; at her sleek head that was too childish in its outline for a woman of her years; at the brisk, ruddy wave of her hair, hair that he knew was already graying softly before she had it so deftly treated, and he thought back to the days when he thought he fell in love with her. When her hair was a ruddy gold and her gray eyes bright, not hard and cold as now. When her father had been a poor man and the neat print dresses she wore had seemed beautiful to him.

He had been glad to be able to give her beautiful expensive garments such as she was wearing now, but as he looked back, those days seemed so much happier. Amelia so utterly more desirable! That time was not so many years removed from the time her father had worked on a farm. Oh, Amelia had climbed too far on his money and rising position, and now she was insisting that his little girl should climb, too, into an artificial life that money could buy but true worth could not always attain.

He sat there regarding her sternly, sadly, not answering at first. Just letting her talk herself out. And as he watched her he sighed.

Patricia had come into the house while they were talking and, hearing her mother's loud excited voice, tiptoed softly into an adjoining room to listen a moment and see what it was all about. These were the days when Patricia was always quaking lest her mother would somehow manage to get her out of her school before she graduated.

Patricia stood across that adjoining room in the hall doorway and looked through the partly open door from the library into the sitting room where they were. She could see her father plainly from where she stood. He was sitting in his old leather chair that he liked so much; he wouldn't let it be taken out of the sitting room even though it was shabby. His head was resting against its back and his eyes were straight ahead studying Amelia, sadly, hopelessly, dejectedly. The late afternoon's sun came in at the window beside him and shone across his face, showing deep furrows in brow and cheek and heavy lines around his eyes that always looked like cheery crinkles when he smiled at his little girl. It suddenly struck Patricia that he was getting old and was tired of it all and sorrowful. It came to her that he must be as unhappy about the way life had turned out as her mother was. Her mother wanted a showy, luxurious life, an imposing home, and a pliant daughter and husband who would contribute their all to her purposes and have nothing that they wanted for themselves. In fact, she resented it that their desires were not as hers. And on the other hand her father wanted a sweet, quiet home where peace and harmony reigned. He wanted tender words and loving deeds, and he admired real things. And money alone could not buy such things as he desired.

Patricia in that moment, with that image of her father stamped upon her heart, slipped away, feeling that she had suddenly grown up and had comprehended things that were too great for her to understand or remedy. Sadly she stole upstairs and sat in her own room for a long time trying to puzzle it out. Why did homes get that way? Why did fathers have to feel sad about what mothers did and said? Life was certainly a most perplexing thing.

But the rising sound of her mother's angry voice continued downstairs, and the little girl, suddenly bowed with grief over that hopeless look in her father's eyes, flung herself down on her knees beside her bed and burst into soft tears.

“Oh, God!” she whispered into her pillow. “Did You mean things to be this way? Aren't there fathers and mothers who are happy and like the same things?”

And downstairs the battle went on.

George Prentiss did not attempt to give his usual angry retorts to the things Amelia said. He just sat and looked sadly at her, and for once Amelia said all that was in her heart at the time, without interruption. But at last she became aware of the silence, like a stone wall that seemed reared between her conversation and her husband. She looked up from her delicately attended weeping to see why her words seemed almost to rattle back into her face, and she caught that look in George's eyes, that patient, hopeless look, and she became all at once incoherent. At last she managed to stutter out: “What—what are you sitting there looking at me like that for? Wh–what do you
mean
?”

He gave a deep, hopeless sigh.

“I was just thinking how different you were from the girl I married,” he said, getting up and going over to look out the window.

Amelia was flabbergasted.

“Different?” she screamed. “Different! And I'd like to know what you think
you
are? You were real spruce and good-looking, and you seemed to want me to have what I wanted. You don't think I'd have married you if I'd thought you'd look the way you do now? Going around in baggy trousers and insisting on not getting your hair cut often enough, and sticking an old shabby leather chair around with my nice furniture, making me ashamed so that I don't dare bring my friends into this room at all. You don't think I'd have married you if I'd known you were going to be like that, do you?”

“Perhaps not,” said George Prentiss sadly, not turning his head to look at her. “Perhaps it would have been better for you if you hadn't. But it's rather late to talk about that now, Amelia. I'll take the old chair upstairs to that little back room and sit there, if you would like that better.”

There was great weariness in his voice, and humility, and Amelia was suddenly silent, almost as if she were ashamed. Then George Prentiss turned around and looked her sternly in the eye, as if there were still one point on which he was firm.

“But there's one thing, Amelia, I will have. No matter what you think or want in the matter. Pat has
got
to have this last year in high school as she wants it! I won't have her interfered with! She shall not have disappointments in connection with it. She has only this one more year to go there, and it's not going to be spoiled by any more fool nonsense. There'll be doings in the school, gatherings and plays and parties and the like. Picnics sometimes, too, and games, and the child has got to be free to attend every one of them if she wants to. She isn't a girl who will overstep her privileges, and her wants are very simple and usually very safe. I don't want her school life interfered with from now till she graduates, and I don't want any other fool nonsense got up like parties in your circle to interfere with what she wants to do there. The same goes with regard to her church obligations. It isn't much to ask, is it? And after all, she's part my child, and certainly I'm paying for what my family has. I feel that I have a right to make such stipulations, and I'm making them. And I don't want to have to battle this over again, either. I want it understood that this goes! And what's more, I mean every word I've said!” Then he turned and stalked out of the room and did not look back to see what Amelia thought of it. There was something decisive in his attitude that kept her silent as she watched him walk away.