CHAPTER XVIII
PATTY’S FORTUNE
Though Patty’s recovery was steady, it was very, very slow. The utmostcare was taken against relapse; and so greatly had the disease sappedher strength, that it seemed well-nigh impossible for her to regain it.But skilled nursing proved effectual in the end, and the day came atlast when Patty was allowed to see one or two visitors.
Adele was the first to be admitted to the presence of the convalescent.She had come down from Fern Falls as soon as the welcome word reachedher that she might see Patty. She was to remain with her but a fewmoments, and then, if no harm resulted, the next day Mona was to beadmitted.
Patty herself was eager to see her friends, and showed decided interestin getting arrayed for the occasion of Adele’s visit. This greatlypleased Nurse Adams for until now, Patty had turned a deaf ear to allnews or discussion of the outer world, and had shown a listless apathywhen Nan or her father told her of the doings of the young people of herset. This had been partly due to her weakened condition and partly toher brooding in secret over the promise she had given Mrs. Van Reypen.She had never mentioned this subject to Nan, nor had they yet told Pattyof Mrs. Van Reypen’s death. The doctor forbade the introduction of anyexciting topic, and this news of her dear old friend would surelystartle her.
“I’ll wear my blue _crêpe de chine_ negligée,” Patty directed; “the onewith lace insets. And the cap with Empire bows and rosebuds.”
“Delightful!” said Miss Adams. “It will be a pleasant change to see youdressed up for company.”
“I haven’t been dolled up in so long, I ’most forget how to primp, but Idaresay it will come back to me, for I’m a very vain person.”
“That’s good,” and Nurse Adams laughed. “It’s always a good sign when apatient revives an interest in clothes.”
“I doubt if I ever lost mine, really. It was probably lying dormant allthrough the late unpleasantness. Now, please, my blue brocade mules andsome blue stockings,—or, no,—white ones, I think.”
Miss Adams brushed the mop of golden curls, that had been so in the wayduring the severe illness, and massed them high on the little head,crowning all with the dainty cap of lace and ribbons.
“Now, I will gracefully recline on my boudoir couch, and await theraising of the curtain.”
“You darling thing!” cried Adele, as she entered, “if you aren’t thesame old Patty!”
“’Course I am! Who did you think I would be? Oh, but it’s good to seeyou! I haven’t seen a soul but the Regular Army for weeks and months andyears!”
Patty had never referred to Farnsworth’s presence, and no one had spokenof it to her. They had concluded that she was really unconscious of it,or it had lapsed from her memory.
“And you’re looking so well. Your cheeks are quite pink, and, why, I dodeclare, you look almost pretty!”
“_I_ think I look ravishingly beautiful. I’ve consulted a mirror todayfor the first time, and I was so glad to see myself again, it was quitelike meeting an old friend. How’s Jim?”
“Fine. Sent you so many loving messages, I decline to repeat them.”
“Dear old Jim. Give him my best. Tomorrow I’m to see Mona. Isn’t thatgay?”
“Yes, but I’d rather you’d be more interested in my call than to belooking forward to hers.”
“You old goose! Do you s’pose I’d had you first, if I didn’t love youmost?”
“Now, I know you’re getting well. You’ve not lost your knack of makingpretty speeches.”
“It’s a comfort to have somebody to make them to. The doctors were mostunimpressionable, and I can’t bamboozle Miss Adams with flattery. Shewon’t stand for it!”
The white-garbed nurse smiled at her pretty patient.
“And,” Patty went on, “after Mona, I’m to see Elise and the other girls,and then if you please, I’m to be allowed to see some of my boyfriends!”
“Oh, you coquette! You’re just looking forward with all your eyes tohaving Chick and Kit and all the rest come in and tell you how wellyou’re looking.”
“Yes,” and Patty folded her hands demurely. “It’s such pleasant hearing,after weeks of looking like a holler-eyed mummy, all skin and bone.”
“Patty, you’re incorrigible,” and Adele laughed fondly at the girl sheloved so well. “But you’re certainly looking the part of interestinginvalid, all right. Isn’t she, Mrs. Fairfield?”
“Rather!” said Nan, who had just appeared in the doorway. “And yourvisit is doing her a lot of good. Why, she looks quite her old self.”
“A sort of reincarnated version of her old self, all made over new. Bythe way, Patty, I saw Maude Kent yesterday.”
“Did you, Adele? What is she doing now?”
“Concerts as usual. I heard about her session with your father!” andAdele laughed. “The idea of her thinking you’d dream of the stage!”
“But think what a great tragedienne is lost to the world!” said Patty.“I know I have marvelous talent, but my stern parents refused to let meprove it.”
“The most outrageous ideal!” declared Nan. “Nobody but that Mr.Farnsworth would have suggested such a thing! I suppose Westerners havea different code of conventions from ours.”
“Bill Farnsworth suggest it!” cried Patty. “Why, Nan, you’re crazy! He’sthe one who kept me from it. Wasn’t he, Adele?”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Nan. It was he who went over to Poland Spring withPatty——”
“Yes, that’s what I heard. Took Patty over there to see this Kent personabout the matter.”
“Goodness, gracious me!” Patty exclaimed; “wherever did you get such amixup, Nansome? Why, it was Little Billee who gave Maude whatfor,because she mentioned the idea! He told her never to dream of it, andmade me go straight home.”
Nan looked puzzled. “Why,” she said, “Philip Van Reypen told me that Mr.Farnsworth put you up to it, and said you were good-looking enough——”
Patty laughed outright. “Oh, Nannie, I remember that! _I_ said I wasgood-looking enough, and Bill said yes, I was _that_,—of course, he hadto agree!—but he said that had nothing to do with the matter. And as toPhil, he knew nothing about it. He wasn’t there.”
“No. Somebody told him, that day he met you all in Boston.”
“Oh, fiddle-de-dee! Somebody said that somebody else heard thatsomebody—Now, listen here, Nan, nobody put me up to that stage business’ceptin’ my own little self, and, of course, Maude, who told me aboutit. But she did nothing wrong in giving me the chance. And it’s all pasthistory, only don’t you say Little Billee egged me on, because he mostemphatically egged me off. Didn’t he, Adele?”
“Yes, he did. You told me all about it at the time. Bill Farnsworth wasmost indignant at Miss Kent, but she was a friend of Chick Channing’sand so Bill wouldn’t say anything against her.”
“There isn’t anything against her,” declared Patty, “and Little Billeewouldn’t say it if there were. But you just remember that he was on theother side of the fence. If anybody sort of approved of it, it wasChick. He thought it would be rather fun, but he didn’t take itseriously at all. So you just cross off that black mark you have againstBig Bill!”
“I will,” promised Nan, and Adele said, “Where is Bill now? Have youseen him of late?”
“No,” said Patty; “not since before I was ill. I don’t know where heis.”
Nan looked at her closely, but it was evident she was speaking inearnest. As they thought, then, she had forgotten the incident of hisappearance at her bedside. Perhaps she never really knew of it, as shewas so nearly unconscious at the time.
“He is in New York,” said Nan, covertly watching Patty.
“Is he?” said Patty, with some animation. “After I get well enough tosee men-people, I’d like to have him call.”
“Very well,” returned Nan, “but now I’m going to take Adele away. Thenurse has been making signals to me for five minutes past. You mustn?
??tget overtired with your first visitor, or you can’t have others.”
But visitors seemed to agree with Patty. Once back in the atmosphere ofgay chatter and laughter with her friends, she grew better rapidly, andthe roses came back to her cheeks and the strength to her body.
And so, when they thought she could bear it, they told her of Mrs. VanReypen’s death.
“I suspected it,” said Patty, her eyes filling with tears, “just becauseyou didn’t say anything about her, and evaded my questions. When wasit?”
They told her all about it, and then Mr. Fairfield said, “And, my child,in her will was a large bequest for you.”
“I know,” said Patty, and her fingers locked nervously together. “Ahundred thousand million dollars! Or it might as well be. I don’t wantthe money, Daddy.”
“But it is yours, and in your trust. You can’t well refuse it. Half isfor——”
“Yes, I know,—for a Children’s Home. But I can’t build a house now.”
“Don’t think about those things until you are stronger. The Home projectwill keep,—for years, if need be. And when the time comes, all theburdensome details will be in the hands of a Board of Trustees and youneedn’t carry it on your poor little shoulders.”
“It isn’t that that’s bothering me, but my own half. You don’t know_why_ she gave me that.”
“Why did she?” said Nan, quickly, her woman’s mind half divining thetruth.
“She made me promise, the last time I saw her, that—that I would marryPhilip. And when I said I wouldn’t promise, she was very angry, and saidthen she wouldn’t leave me the money. And I was madder than she was, andsaid I didn’t want her old money, and neither I don’t, with Philip orwithout him.”
“But what an extraordinary proceeding!” exclaimed Mr. Fairfield. “Shetried to buy you!”
“Oh, well, of course she didn’t put it that way, but she was all honeyand peaches and leaving me fortunes and building Children’s Homes untilI refused to promise, _then_ she turned and railed at me.”
“And then——” prompted Nan.
“Then I was mad and I tried to start for home. Then she calmed down andwas sweet again, and said she didn’t mean to balance the money againstthe promise, but, well—she kept at me until she _made_ me give in.”
“And you promised?”
“Yes.”
“You poor little Patty,” cried Nan; “you poor, dear, little thing! Howcould she torture you so?”
“It was, Nan,” cried Patty, eagerly; “it was just that,—torture. Oh,I’m so glad you can see it! I didn’t know _what_ to do. She said Imustn’t refuse the request of a dying woman, and she grabbed my arm andshook me, and she looked like a—oh, she just looked _terrifying_, youknow, and she—well, I guess she hypnotised me into promising.”
“Of course she did! It’s a perfect shame!” and Nan gathered Patty intoher arms.
“It _is_ a shame,” agreed Mr. Fairfield, smiling at his daughter, “butit won’t be such an awfully hard promise to keep, will it, Little Girl?Of course you hated to have it put to you in that manner, but there areless desirable men in this world than Philip Van Reypen.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Patty, and she burst into tears onNan’s shoulder.
“And you sha’n’t,” returned Nan, caressing her. “Go away, Fred. A mandoesn’t know how to deal with a case like this. Patty isn’t strongenough yet to think of bothersome things. You go away and we’ll tell youlater what we decide.”
Mr. Fairfield rose, grumbling, laughingly, that it was the first time hehad ever been called down by his own family. But he went away, sayingover his shoulder, “You girls just want to have a tearfest, that’s all.”
“Tell me all about it, dear,” said Nan, as Patty smiled through hertears.
“That’s about all, Nancy. But it was such a horrid situation. I do likePhil, but I don’t want to make any such promise as that. Of course, Philhas asked me himself, several times, but I’ve never said yes——”
“Or no?”
“Or no. I don’t have to till I get ready, do I? And I surely don’t haveto give my promise to the aunt of the person most interested. Oh, I’m sosorry she died. I wanted to ask her to let me off. I dreamed about itall the time I was sick. It was like a continual nightmare. Has Philbeen here?”
“Yes, two or three times. He wants to see you as soon as you say so.”
“How can I see him? Do you suppose he knows of my promise?”
“Very likely she told him. I don’t know. But, Patty, don’t blame her toomuch. You know, she was very fond of you, and she worshipped him. It wasthe wish of her heart,—but, no, she _hadn’t_ any right to force yourpromise!”
“That’s what she did, she forced it. Nan, am I bound by it?”
“Why, no; that is, not unless you want to be. Or unless——”
“Unless I consider a promise made to a dying person sacred. Well, I’mafraid I do. I’ve thought over this thing, day in and day out, and itseems to me I’d be _wicked_ to break a promise given to one who isgone.”
“Maybe Philip will let you off.”
“No, he won’t. I know Phil wants me to marry him, _awfully_, and he’dtake me on any terms. This sounds conceited, but I _know_, ’cause he’stold me so.”
“Well, Patty, why not?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know why not. Sometimes I think it’s justbecause I don’t want to be made to do a thing, whether I choose or not.And then sometimes,——”
“Well?”
“Sometimes I think I don’t love Phil enough to marry him. He’s a dear,and he’s awfully kind and generous and good. And he adores me,—but Idon’t feel—say, Nan, were you _terribly_ in love with father when youmarried him?”
“I was, Patty. And I still am.”
“Yes, I know you are now. But were you before the wedding day?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not _terribly_ in love with Phil. But he says that will comeafter we’re married. Will it, Nan?”
“It’s hard to advise you, Patty. I daren’t say the greater love willcome to you,—for I don’t know. But don’t marry him unless you are surehe is the only man in the world you can love.”
“I’ve got to marry him,” said Patty, simply; “I promised.”