CHAPTER V
A SUMMER HOME
“If I were sure Patty would get her motor car,” said Nan, “I’d vote for the seashore. But, if she doesn’t, I’d rather go to the mountains.”
“’Course I’ll get it,” declared Patty. “I’m sure, certain, positive, convinced, satisfied beyond all shadow of doubt that I’ve cinched that car! It only remains to get the formal notice.”
“And to get the car,” added her father.
They were discussing, in family conclave, their plans for the coming summer.
Patty liked the seashore, and Nan, the mountains, but each wanted the other to be pleased, so there was a generous rivalry going on.
“But I can use it in the mountains,” went on Patty; “mountain roads are pretty much civilised nowadays. And, anyway, it’s sure to be a perfect hill-climber.”
“Oh,sureto be!” said Mr. Fairfield, who never could bring himself to believe seriously that Patty would get the car.
“Well, let’s divide the time,” suggested Nan. “Let’s go to the seashore first, and spend, say, May, June, and July. Then go to the mountains for August and September.”
“That would be lovely!” declared Patty, enthusiastically, “if I didn’t know you were planning it that way for my benefit. And I can’t—no, I cannotbring myself to accept such a sackerry-fice!”
“You can’t help yourself, you mean,” said Nan. “And, now that part of it’s settled, where shall we go?”
“I like the New Jersey shore,” said Mr. Fairfield, “because I can run up to New York so easily from there. But I was thinking of buying a house, so we could go to it each summer, and so do away with this yearly discussion of where to go. Even if we have a summer home, we can go on a trip to the mountains as well, later in the season.”
“That’s so,” agreed Nan. “No one wants to go to the mountains before August.”
“Oh, won’t it be gay!” cried Patty. “A home of our own, at the seashore! With little white curtains blowing out of its windows, and box trees at the entrance to the drive!”
“That sounds attractive,” agreed Nan. “And wide verandas all round, and the ocean dashing over them, sometimes.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad investment,” said Mr. Fairfield. “We wouldn’t build, you know, but buy a house, and then fix it up to suit ourselves. And, whenever we tired of it, we could sell it.”
“Good business, Mr. Fairfield,” said Patty, nodding her head at him approvingly. “Now, I know the spot I’d like best. And that’s at Spring Beach. It’s the prettiest part of the whole Jersey coast.”
“I think so, too,” said Nan. “It’s not a large enough place to be rackety and noisy, but it has beautiful homes and charming people. I’ve been there several times, though not to stay long.”
“Be sure to buy a house with a garage, father,” put in Patty. “For I must have a place to keep my car.”
“Well, as we’ll have our own car there, I fancy we’ll have a garage, Puss. But we may have to add an ell, to accommodate your toy wagon. When do you expect to get it, by the way?”
“The winner will be announced on the twentieth of April, and the car delivered about May first. So I’ll take you both for a May-day ride. Not both at once, of course.”
“You’ll take Miller on your first few rides, my girl; until you’ve thoroughly learned how to manage the thing.”
“All right, I will. For I don’t want to make any stupid mistakes through ignorance. Accidents may happen, but, if so, I expect to be able to use my skill and knowledge to repair them.”
“Patty, you have a sublime self-confidence,” said her father, laughing; “but I’m glad of it. For it will probably carry you through when your vaunted skill and knowledge give out.”
A few nights later, Mr. Fairfield came home with several photographs of Spring Beach houses that were for sale. Each was accompanied with a description, and the Fairfield trio looked them over with great interest. Two seemed more desirable than the rest, and it was decided that, next day, they should all go down to the shore to look at them.
“Let’s take Christine,” suggested Patty; “a day at the seashore will do her good.”
So, next morning, the quartette started for Spring Beach.
Christine had never seen the ocean before, and Patty greatly enjoyed seeing the Southern girl’s delight.
It was a fine April day, the air clear and cool, and the blue sky cloudless, save for some cotton-wool masses near the horizon. The waves were deep, translucent blue, with brilliantly white crests, and they rolled and tumbled in to shore, as if anxious to greet Christine.
“Is it like you thought it would be?” asked Patty, as Christine stood, with clasped hands, gazing.
“Yes; in its lines. For, of course, I’ve seen pictures of it. But I didn’t know it was soalive.”
“Yes,” said Patty, with a nod of comprehension, “that’s the way it seems to me. Really alive, and always responsive to my moods and thoughts.”
“I didn’t know you had moods and thoughts,” said Christine, smiling at Patty a little quizzically.
“’Deed I have! Perhaps not such subtle and temperamental ones as yours or Mr. Hepworth’s, but perfectly good moods and thoughts, all the same.”
“Why do you class mine with Mr. Hepworth’s?”
“Because you’re both artists. Aren’t artists supposed to have most impressive and unspeakable thoughts at sight of the ocean or the moon or the purple shadows on the distant hills?”
“Patty, I suppose you’re making fun of me, but I don’t mind a bit. And, of one thing I’m sure, whatever your thoughts may be, they’re never unspeakable!”
“Right you are, Christine! I’m glad you appreciate my talent for volubility! That’s why I like the sea. I can talk to it all day, and it is most appreciative, but it never talks back.”
“Oh, it talks back to me! It has told me lots of things already.”
“That’s because you’re an artist. But this must be the new house! Father’s turning in here. Oh, isn’t it lovely!”
It was a most beautiful place, though its somewhat dense shrubbery partly hid the view of the ocean.
But the house was delightful. Large, roomy, and well-built, it seemed all any one could desire for a summer home.
They went through it, with many comments, and then went on a block farther, to look at the other one they had in mind.
This was equally desirable, in every way, as a dwelling, but the large grounds had very few trees or tall shrubs, so that the sea-view was unobstructed.
“This is my choose!” declared Patty, sitting down on the steps of the front veranda. “What’s the use of coming to the seashore and living in a forest? Oh, my fond parents, do decide to take this one, for your little Patty’s sake!”
“Will there be shade enough?” asked Mr. Fairfield.
“Yes, indeed!” declared Patty. “If not, we can go inside and draw the curtains. But I do love a house where you can see out. And I think this is the finest ocean view on the beach.”
“It is,” corroborated the agent, who was showing them the house. “And the sunrise view is grand.”
“I don’t often see the sun rise,” admitted Patty, laughing; “but perhaps I shall, down here, for I’m going to sleep out of doors.”
“In your motor car?” enquired her father.
“No, sir! I’m going to have a veranda bedroom. There, you see it, between those two front towers. I’ve always wanted to try that sort of a fresh-air fund scheme.”
“Well, whatever you and Nan decide on, I’ll agree to,” said Mr. Fairfield, who lived but to please his wife and daughter.
So, after some further serious consideration of rooms and outlooks, Nan and Patty agreed that the second house they had visited was the one for them, and Christine commended their choice.
“It’s rather large for just us three,” said Nan, but Patty replied: “Never mind, we’ll have lots of company. I expect to have house parties a great deal of the time; we’ve never had room for much company in New York. What shall we name the place?”
“‘Sea View,’” said her father, and Patty laughed.
“Yes,” she said; “or ‘Ocean View,’ or ‘Fair View,’ or ‘Beach View’! No, let’s get something descriptive and unhackneyed. Help us, Christine.”
“I like a name like ‘The Breakers,’” said Nan. “It’s so dignified.”
“How about ‘The Pebbles’?” asked Christine, looking at the pebbled walks that led through the lawn.
“That’s just right!” said Patty, “and it’s seashorey, too. We’ll call the place ‘The Pebbles’; shall us, Nan?”
“Yes; I like that. It’s simple and yet expressive.”
“And now,” said Mr. Fairfield, “let us go over to the hotel for luncheon, and then, while I have a little business talk with the agent, you ladies can rave over the sea, the sea, the open sea.”
“What good times you do have, don’t you, Patty?” said Christine, as they strolled along the board walk to the hotel.
“Yes, Christine, I do. And I often feel as if I didn’t deserve so much happiness; and perhaps it’s wrong for me to have so much, when many other girls have so little.”
“No, Patty; that isn’t the way to look at it. You ought to be glad and thankful, but never feel any doubt about its being all right. Myself, I have so much to be thankful for, sometimes my heart almost bursts with gratitude. But I know it’s all right, and that Ioughtto have it. Whatever is, is right, Patty.”
“Yes; I s’pose so. But, Christine, what do you mean, about yourself? Are you glad you have to earn your own living?”
“Oh, that’s merely incidental. Since I have to earn my own living, I’m glad I can, of course. Or, at least, I shall soon be able to. But I mean, I’m so glad that I have such talent as I have, and such a love of my life work, and such dear friends, and such a happy outlook generally.”
“Christine, you’re a darling. I don’t believe many people know how fine and lovely you are. Do they?”
“I don’t know many people,” said Christine, smiling; “but those I do know don’t all share your views. Elise doesn’t.”
“Bother Elise! Don’t let her bother you! Why think of her at all? Christine, if your philosophy of happiness is any good, it ought to teach you to cut out anything unpleasant. And, if Elise is unpleasant, cut her out.”
“No, girlie; not that. If Elise is unpleasant,—and it may be only my imagination,—I shall try to make her become pleasant.”
“I wish you joy of your task,” said Patty, grinning, for she knew Elise better than Christine did, and, while she liked her herself, she felt sure her two friends could never be very congenial.
The well-selected and well-served luncheon proved most acceptable to appetites sharpened by sea air, and, during its course, enthusiastic plans were made for improving and furnishing “The Pebbles.”
“Christine will help us with the ‘artistic values,’—I think that’s what you call ’em,” said Patty. “Nan can look after chairs and tables and such prosaic things; and I’ll sew the curtains and sofa-cushions. I love to make soft, silky, frilly things,—and I’m just going to have fun with this house.”
“What’s my part in this universal plan?” asked Mr. Fairfield.
“Oh, you can just pay the bills, and say ‘perfectly lovely, my dear,’ whenever we ask you how you like anything!”
As this was just the rôle Mr. Fairfield had laid out for himself, he acquiesced graciously, and then, luncheon being over, they all went back to the house again.
“We’ll have to come down several times,” said Nan, “but we may as well measure for some of the hangings and rugs now.”
So Mr. Fairfield filled many pages of his memorandum book with notes and measurements, and, after an hour or so, they all felt they had made quite a beginning on the furnishing of the new house.
One delightful room, with a full sea view, Patty declared was Christine’s room, and she was to occupy it just whenever she chose, and she was to select its furnishings herself. The girl’s eyes filled with tears at this new proof of loving friendship, and, though she knew she should take but few vacation days from her work that summer, yet she willingly consented to select the fittings, on condition that it be used as a guest room when she was not present.
Patty’s own rooms were delightful. A bedroom and dressing-room, opening on a half-enclosed balcony, gave her the opportunity for sleeping out of doors that she so much desired. Her father insisted that she should have what he called a “civilised bedchamber,” and then, if she chose to play gipsy occasionally, she might do so.
So she and Christine planned all her furniture and decorations, and made notes and lists, and, before they knew it, it was time to return to New York.
“You know a lot about house decoration, Christine; don’t you?” said Patty, as they sat in the homeward-bound train.
“No, not a lot. But it comes natural to me to know what things harmonise in a household. Of course, I’ve never studied it,—it’s a science; now, you know. But, if I didn’t want to take up illustrating seriously, I would try decorating.”
“Oh, illustrating is lots nicer,—and it pays better, too.”
“I don’t know about that. But Mr. Hepworth says I will make a name for myself as an illustrator, and so I know I shall.”
Patty laughed. “You have as much faith in that man as I have,” she said.
“Yes; I’ve implicit faith in his judgment, and in his technical knowledge.”
“Well, I’ve faith in him in every way. I think he’s a fine character.”
“You ought to think so, Patty. Why, he worships the ground you walk on.”
“Oh, Christine, what nonsense!” Patty blushed rosy-red, but tried to laugh it off. “Why, he’s old enough to be my father.”
“No, he isn’t. He’s thirty-five,—that’s a lot older than you,—but, all the same, he adores you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Christine,” said Patty, with a new note of hauteur in her voice. “Mr. Hepworth is my very good friend, and I look up to him in every way, but there is no affection or any such foolishness between us.”
“Not on your side, perhaps; but there is on his.”
“Well, if you think so, I don’t want to hear about it. When you talk like that, it just goes to spoil the nice pleasant friendship that Mr. Hepworth and I have had for years.”
“It isn’t the same as you have for Roger Farrington and Kenneth Harper.”
“It is! Just the same. Except that Mr. Hepworth is so much older that I never call him by his first name. The others were my school chums. Look here, Christine, we’re going to be very good friends, you and I,—but, if you talk to me like that about Mr. Hepworth, you’ll queer our friendship at its very beginning. Now, quit it,—will you?”
“Yes, I will, Patty. And I didn’t mean any harm. I only wanted you to know Mr. Hepworth’s attitude toward you.”
“Well, when I want to know it, I’ll discover it for myself, or let him tell me. You must know, Christine, that I’m not bothering about such things. I don’t want affection, as you call it, from any man. I like my boy friends, or my men friends, but there’s no sentiment or sentimentality between me and any one of them? Are you on?”
“On what?” asked Christine, a little bewildered at Patty’s emphatic speech.
“On deck,” said Patty, laughing at Christine’s blank expression and changing the subject with promptness and dexterity.
CHAPTER VI
THE AWARD
Patty was in high spirits. It was the twentieth of April, and it was almost time for the postman to call on his afternoon round. The two Farringtons and Kenneth were present, and all eagerly awaited the expected letter, telling the result of the Prize Contest.
“Just think,” said Patty, “how many anxious hearts all over this broad land are even now waiting for the postman, and every one is to be disappointed, except me!”
“I believe you enjoy their disappointment,” said Elise.
“You know better, my child. You know Ihateto have people disappointed. But, in this case, only one can win. I’m glad I’m that one, and I’m sorry for the others.”
“S’pose you don’t win,” observed Roger; “what will you do?”
“There’s no use s’posin’ that, for it can’t happen,” declared Patty, turning from the window, where she had been flattening her nose against the glass, in a frantic endeavour to catch a first glimpse of the belated postman.
“But, just for fun,” urged Kenneth, “just for argument’s sake, if you didn’t get that prize, what would you do?”
“I wouldn’t do anything. I’d know the company that offered it was a fake, and had gone back on its own promise.”
“Patty, you’re incorrigible!” said Ken. “I give you up. You’re the most self-assured, self-reliant, cocksure young person I ever saw.”
“Thank you, sir, for them kind words! Oh! sit still, my heart!DoI hear that familiar whistle at last?”
“You do!” shouted Kenneth, making a spring for the front door.
They all followed, but Kenneth first reached it, and fairly grabbed the letters from the astonished letter-carrier.
Returning to the library with his booty, he ran them over slowly and tantalisingly.
“One for Mrs. Fairfield,” he said. “From a fashionable tailor. Do you suppose it’s a dun? Or, perhaps, merely an announcement of new spring furbelows. Next, one for Mr. Fairfield. Unmistakably a circular! No good! Ha! another for Mrs. Fairfield. Now, this——”
“Oh, Ken, stop!” begged Patty. “Have pity on me! Is there one for me?”
“Yes, yes, child. I didn’t know you wanted it. Yes, here’s one for you. It is postmarked ‘Vernondale.’ Take it, dear one!”
“Nonsense, Ken. Not that one! But isn’t there one from the Rhodes and Geer Motor Company?”
“Why, yes; since you mention it, I notice there is such a one! Do you want it?”
Kenneth held it high above Patty’s head, but she sprang and caught it, and waved it triumphantly in the air.
“I told you so!” she cried.
“But you haven’t opened it yet,” said Elise. “Maybe it only tells you you’ve failed.”
“Hush, hush, little one!” said Patty. “I’ll show it to you in a minute.”
Accepting the letter-opener Kenneth proffered, she cut open the envelope, and read the few lines on the typewritten sheet enclosed. She read them again, and then slowly refolded the sheet and returned it to its envelope.
“After all,” she said, calmly, “it is well to be of a philosophical nature in a time of disappointment.”
“Oh, Patty, you didn’t win!” cried Kenneth, springing to her side, and grasping her hand.
“No, I haven’t won,” said Patty, with a heart-rending sigh.
“I thought you were terribly positive,” said Elise, not very kindly.
“I was,” sighed Patty. “I was terribly positive. I am, still!”
“What are you talking about, Patty?” said Roger, who began to think she was fooling them. “Let me see that letter.”
“Take it!” said Patty, holding it out with a despairing gesture. “Read it aloud, and let them all know the worst!”
So Roger read the few lines, which were to the effect that, owing to the unexpected number of answers received, the decision must be delayed until May first.
“Oh, Patty!” exclaimed Kenneth, greatly relieved. “How you scared me! Of course you’ll get it yet.”
“Of course I shall,” said Patty, serenely, “but I hate to wait.”
Since it was not failure, after all, the young people felt greatly relieved, and congratulated Patty upon her narrow escape.
“But the situation is too dramatic for my nerves,” declared Kenneth. “When the real letter comes, I prefer not to be here. I can’t stand such harrowing scenes.”
“It won’t be harrowing when the real letter comes,” said Patty. “It will be just one grand, triumphant jubilee.”
“Well, jubilees are nerve-racking,” said Kenneth. “I think I’ll stay away until the shouting is over.”
“You can’t,” said Patty, saucily. “You’ll be the first one here, the day the letter is due.”
“Oh, I suppose so! Curiosity has always been my besetting sin. But to-day’s entertainment seems to be over, so I may as well go home.”
“Us, too,” said Roger. “Come on, Elise.”
So good-byes were said, and Patty’s friends went laughing away.
Then Patty took up the letter and read it again.
“Ten days to wait,” she said, to herself. “And suppose I shouldn’t get it, after all? But I will,—I know I will. Something inside my brain makes me feel sure of it. And, when I have that sort of sureness, it never goes back on me!”
She went upstairs, singing merrily, and without a shadow of doubt in her mind as to her success in the contest.
The ten days passed quickly, for Patty was so absorbed in the furnishings for the new summer home that she was occupied every moment from morning till night.
She went with Nan to all sorts of fascinating shops, where they selected wall-papers, rugs, furniture, and curtains. Not much bric-a-brac, and very few pictures, for they were keeping the house simple in tone, but comfortable and cheerful of atmosphere. Christine gladly gave her advice when needed, but she was very busy with her work, and they interrupted her as seldom as possible.
Patty bought lovely things for her own rooms,—chairs of blue and white wicker; curtains of loose-meshed, blue silky stuff, over ruffled dimity ones; a regulation brass bedstead for her bedroom, but a couch that opened into a bed for her out-of-door dormitory. By day, this could be a chintz-covered couch with chintz pillows; by night, a dainty, white nest of downy comfort. Several times they went down to Spring Beach, to inspect the work going on there, and always returned with satisfactory reports.
As the time of departure drew near, Elise began to realise how much she would miss Patty, and lamented accordingly.
“I think you might have arranged to go where we’re going,” she said. “You know you could make your people go wherever you wanted to.”
“But you go to the Adirondacks, Elise; I couldn’t run my motor car much up there.”
“Oh, that motor car! Even if you do get it, Patty, you won’t use it more than a few times. Nobody does.”
“P’raps not. But, somehow, it just seems to me I shall. It justseemsto me so. But, Elise, you’ll come down to visit me?”
“Yes; for a few days. But you’ll have Christine there most of the time, I suppose.”
“I’ll have Christine whenever she’ll come,” said Patty, a little sharply; “and, Elise, if you care anything for my friendship, I wish you’d show a little more friendliness toward her.”
“Oh, yes; just because Mr. Hepworth thinks she’s a prodigy, and Mrs. Van Reypen has taken her up socially, you think she’s something great!”
Patty looked at Elise a moment in astonishment at this outburst, and then she broke into a hearty laugh.
“I think you’re something great, Elise! I think you’re a great goose! What kind of talk are you talking? Christine is a dear, sweet, brave girl,—and you know it. Now, drop it, and never, never, never talk like that again.”
Elise was a little ashamed of her unjust speech, and only too glad to turn it off by joining in Patty’s laughter. So she only said, “Oh, Christine’s all right!” and dropped the subject.
By the first of May, everything was ready for occupancy at “The Pebbles.” The lawn and grounds were in fine condition, and the house in perfect order.
But Patty begged that they shouldn’t start until she had received word about her prize car.
“Why, Puss, all the mail will be forwarded,” said her father. “You’ll get your precious missive there just as well as here.”
“I know that, daddy dear,—but, well,—I can’t seem to feel like going, until I know that car is my very own. Just wait until the third of May, can’t you?”
She was so persuasive that Nan went over to her side, and then, of course, Mr. Fairfield had to give his consent to wait. Not that he cared, particularly, but he was a little afraid that Patty would not get the prize, and thought she might bear her disappointment better if away from her young friends.
But they waited, and again the group of those most interested gathered in the Fairfield library to await the letter.
Christine and Mr. Hepworth were there, too, this time; also Philip Van Reypen.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield, though outwardly calm and even gay, were perhaps the most anxious of all, for they knew how keenly a disappointment would affect Patty.
The whistle sounded. The postman’s step was heard. Instead of rushing to the door, Patty felt a strange inertia, and sank back in her chair.
“Go, Ken,” she said, faintly, and Kenneth went.
Silently he took the mail from the carrier, silently he returned with it to the library. There was none of the gay chaffing they had had before, and all because Patty, the moving spirit, was grave and quiet, with a scared, drawn look on her sweet face.
Hastily running over the letters, Kenneth laid aside all but one, and slowly extended that to Patty.
She took it, opened it, and read it with a dazed expression.
The eager ones circled round, with faces tense and waiting.
Again Patty read her letter. Then, still with that dazed look on her face, she glanced from one to another. As her eyes met Mr. Hepworth’s, she suddenly held the paper out to him.
“I’ve won,” she said, simply, and gave him the letter.
Then she drew a short little sigh, almost a sob of relief, and then the colour came back to her face, the light to her eyes, and she smiled naturally.
“I’ve won!” she cried again. “It’s all right!”
Then there was jubilation, indeed! Everybody congratulated everybody else. Everybody had to read the wonderful letter, and see for himself that the prize, the Electric Runabout, had indeed been awarded to Miss Patricia Fairfield, for the best and most complete list of answers to the puzzles in the contest.
Only the girls’ parents and Gilbert Hepworth knew how tightly the tension of Patty’s nerves had been strained, but they had been alertly watching for any sign of collapse, and were thankful and relieved that the danger was over.
Hepworth didn’t stop then to wonder why Patty had handed him the letter first. And, indeed, she didn’t know herself. But she felt his sensitive sympathy so keenly, and saw such deep anxiety in his eyes, that involuntarily she turned to him in her moment of triumph.
“I told you so!” Philip Van Reypen was shouting. “I knew we’d win! Hepworth, old man, you did it, with that last charade! Bully for you!”
“Yes, he did!” cried Patty, holding out her hand to Mr. Hepworth, with a smile of gratitude; “but you all helped me. Oh, isn’t it splendid! I didn’t so much care for the car, but I wanted towin!”
“Oh,listento that!” exclaimed Kenneth. “She didn’t care for the car! Oh, Patty, whatareyou saying? Give me the car, then!”
“Oh, of course I want the car, you goose! But I mean I really cared more for thegame,—the winning of it!”
“Of course you did!” declared Van Reypen. “That’s the true sportsman spirit: ‘not the quarry, but the chase!’ I’m proud of you, Miss Fairfield! Your sentiments are the right sort.”
Patty smiled and dimpled, quite her roguish self again, now that the exciting crisis was past.
“Nan,” she cried, “we must celebrate! Will you invite all this hilarious populace to dinner, or give them an impromptu tea-fight right now?”
“Dinner!” cried Philip Van Reypen; and “Dinner!” took up the other voices, in gay insistence.
“Very well,” said Nan; “but, if it’s to be dinner, you must all run away now and come back later. I can’t order a celebration dinner at a moment’s notice.”
“All right, we will.” And obediently the guests went away, to return later for a gala dinner.
And a real celebration it was. Mr. Fairfield himself went out to the florist’s and returned with a centrepiece for the table, consisting of a wicker automobile filled with flowers.
By dint of much telephoning, Nan provided place cards and favours of little motor cars; and the ices were shaped like tiny automobiles; and the cakes like tires. And all the viands were so delicious, and the guests so gay and merry, that the feast was one long to be remembered by all.
“When will you get the car, Patty?” asked Elise.
“I don’t know exactly. In a fortnight, perhaps. But we’ll be down at Spring Beach then, so whoever wants a ride in it will have to come down there.”
“I want a ride in it,” said Philip Van Reypen, “and I will come down there. May I ask you to set the date?”
“You’ll get a notification in due season,” said Patty, smiling at the eager youth. “I’m not sure it’s your turn first. No, Elise must be first.”
“Why, I didn’t help you at all,” said Elise, greatly pleased, however, at Patty’s remark.
“No, but you’re my lady friend, and so you come first. Perhaps your brother will come with you.”
“Perhapshewill!” said Roger, with emphasis.
“And who comes next?” asked Kenneth, with great interest.
“Christine, of course,” said Patty, smiling at the Southern girl, who was enjoying all the fun, though quiet herself.
“Just as I guessed,” said Kenneth. “And,then, who next? Don’t keep me in suspense!”
“Owing to the unexpected number of applicants, decision is delayed for ten days,” said Patty, laughing at Ken’s disappointed face. “We’ll let you know when you’re due, Ken. Don’t you worry.”
“NeedIworry?” asked Van Reypen, and then Hepworth said, “Need I?”
“No, you needn’t any of you worry. But I’m not going to take anybody riding until I learn how to manage the frisky steed myself.”
“But I can show you,” said Philip, insinuatingly.
“So can I,” said Roger.
“No, you can’t,” said Patty. “Miller is going to teach me, and then,—well, then, we’ll see about it.”
And, with this somewhat unsatisfactory invitation to “The Pebbles,” they were forced to be content.
After dinner, Kenneth remarked that it looked like a shower.
“What do you mean?” asked Patty. “It’s a still, clear night.”
“You come here, and I’ll show you,” said Kenneth, mysteriously. Then, taking Patty’s hand, he led her to a large davenport sofa, and seated her in the centre of it.
“Now,” he said, “let it shower!”
As if by magic, a half a dozen or more parcels of all shapes and sizes fell into Patty’s lap.
“It’s a shower, for you!” explained Elise, dancing about in glee. “Open them!”
“Oh! I see,” said Patty. “How gorgeous!”
The parcels were in tissue paper, ribbon-tied, and Patty was not long in exposing their contents. One and all, they were gifts selected with reference to her new motor car.
Elise gave her a most fetching blue silk hood, with quaint shirring, and draw-strings, and wide blue ribbon ties.
Christine gave her a lovely motor-veil, of the newest style and flimsiest material.
Roger gave her gauntleted motor-gloves, of new and correct make.
Kenneth gave a motor-clock, of the most approved sort; and Philip Van Reypen presented a clever little “vanity case,” which shut up into small compass, but held many dainty toilette accessories.
Mr. Hepworth’s gift was an exquisite flower vase, of gold and glass, to be attached to her new car.
Patty was more than surprised; she was almost overcome by this “shower” of gifts, and she exclaimed:
“You are thedearestpeople! And you needn’t wait for invitations. Come down to ‘The Pebbles’ whenever you want to, and I’ll take you all riding at once! I don’t see where you ever found such beautiful things! Norwhyyou gave them to me!”
“Because we love you, Patty dear,” said Christine, so softly that she thought no one heard.
But Kenneth heard, and he smiled as he looked at Patty, and said, “Yes, that’s why.”
CHAPTER VII
A NEIGHBOUR
Two days later the Fairfields went down to Spring Beach.
The intervening day was a busy one. Mr. Fairfield went with Patty to select her motor car, for some details of equipment and upholstery were left to her choice. As the car had been built especially for the Prize Contest, it was a beautiful specimen of the finisher’s art. It was a Stanhope, of graceful design and fine lines. The body was Royal Blue, with cushions of broadcloth of the same colour.
Patty was informed she could have any other colour if she wished, but she said the blue suited her best.
There was a top which could be put up or down at will, wide skirt-protecting mudguards, and a full equipment of all necessary paraphernalia, such as storm-apron, odometer, and a complete set of tools.
Patty had carried with her her flower vase and clock, and the man in charge agreed to have them fastened in place. The flower vase, he said, was unusual on a Stanhope, but, when Patty said itmustbe attached somewhere, he promised to have it done.
The steering gear was a bar, fitted with a hand grip, and both this and the controller were exceedingly simple and easily operated.
The demonstrator offered to give Patty a driving lesson then and there, but Mr. Fairfield preferred that she should be taught by himself, or his experienced chauffeur, the trusty Miller.
Of course, the men in charge of the salesroom where the car was on exhibition were greatly interested in seeing Patty, because she was the winner of the contest. One young man stepped forward with a camera, and asked the privilege of taking a picture of Patty seated in her own car.
But this Mr. Fairfield would not allow, and, after making the necessary arrangements about shipping the motor to Spring Beach, he took Patty away.
“Isn’t it fun, father?” she exclaimed, as she went off with him, her hands full of descriptive catalogues and circulars, telling of the marvellous superiority of the Rhodes and Geer cars over all competitors.
“It’s lots more interesting than if you had just bought a car and given it to me.”
“And lots less expensive, too,” said Mr. Fairfield, smiling. “Why, Patty, girl, that whole affair, as it stands, is worth nearly three thousand dollars.”
“Goodness gracious! Is it really? I had no idea they were so expensive! Why, your big car didn’t cost much more than that, did it?”
“But, you see, this Stanhope of yours is a special car, in every way, and all its fittings and accessories are of the most up-to-date and extravagant type. You must do all you can for the company, by praising it to your friends. I don’t think you can do any more than that to further their interests.”
“Oh, I don’t feel under any obligation to the company. It was a business enterprise on their part. They offered a prize and I won it. Now we’re quits. Of course, I shall praise the car to my friends, but only because it’s such a beauty, and not because I feel that I owe anything to the company.”
“You are rather a logical young woman, after all, Patty. Sometimes you seem a feather-headed butterfly, and then again you appear to have sound sense.”
“A ‘feather-headed butterfly’ sounds pretty, I think. I guess I’ll be that, mostly.”
“You won’t have to try very hard,” remarked her father.
“But sometimes I have spells of being very serious: for instance, wasn’t I serious when I tried so hard to earn fifteen dollars in one week?”
“Yes, serious enough; but it was largely your stubborn determination to succeed.”
“Well, that’s a good trait to have, then. It’s what Mr. Hepworth calls steadfastness of purpose.”
“Yes; they’re about the same thing. And I’m glad you have it; it’s what won the car for you.”
“That, and my helpful friends.”
“Oh, the helpful friends were incidental, like text-books or cyclopædias. I truly congratulate you, Patty, girl, on your real success in this instance. But I also ask of you not to go into anything of such a public nature again, without consulting me first.”
“All right, Father Fairfield, I promise.”
And then they were at home again, and the luncheon hour was enlivened by Patty’s descriptions to Nan of her wonderful new toy.
“Are you going to give it a name, Patty?” Nan asked, after hearing of its glories.
“Yes; but not until after I’ve used it. I can’t tell, you see, just what sort of a name it needs until I try it. And, Nan, let’s do a little shopping this afternoon. I want a new motor-coat, and a few other trifles, to live up to the appearance of that thing of beauty.”
The shopping was done, some marvellous motor-apparel was purchased, and then, the next day, the departure from New York was made.
They reached “The Pebbles” in mid-afternoon, and the ocean and sky were a glowing mass of blue and white and gold.
Nan’s well-trained servants had the house open and ready for them, and Patty flew up the steps and into the great hall with a whoop of delight.
“Isn’t it great, Nan! Isn’t it fine! More fun than travelling abroad or touristing through Sunny It.! For, you see, this is our own home and we own it!”
“Patty, your enthusiasm will wear you out some day. Do take it more quietly.”
“Can’t do it! I’m of a nervous temperament and exuberant disposition, and I have to express my thinks!”
The big hall was in reality a living-room. It extended straight through the house, with wide doors at either end. It had alcoves with cushioned seats, a huge fireplace, deep-seated windows, and from one side a broad staircase curved upward, with a landing and balcony halfway.
The wicker furniture was well-chosen and picturesque, besides being very comfortable and inviting.
“Just as soon as I can get a few things flung around, it will be perfect,” announced Patty. “At present, it’s too everlastingly cleared-up-looking.”
She tossed on a table the magazines she had bought on the train, and flung her long veil over a chair back.
“There, you see!” she said. “Watch that veil flutter in the seabreeze,—our own seabreeze, coming in at our own front door, and then tell me if ‘The Pebbles’ is a success!”
“Yes; and, unless you shut that door, you’ll have a most successful cold in your head,” observed her father. “It’s May, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to be very thoroughly May, as yet.”
So Patty shut the door, and then, opening the piano, she sang “Home, Sweet Home,” and then some gayer songs to express her enthusiasm.
Her own rooms, Patty concluded, were the gem of the house. From her balcony, on which she proposed to sleep, she had not only a wide view of the sea, but an attractive panorama of the beautiful estates along the shore. A hammock was slung between two of the pillars, and, throwing herself into this, with an Indian blanket over her, Patty swayed gently back and forth, and indulged in daydreams of the coming summer. An hour later, Nan found her still there.
“Come to tea, Patty,” she said; “we’re having it indoors, as the wind is rising.”
“Yes, it’s breezing up quite some;” and Patty looked out at the waves, now so darkly blue as to be almost black.
She followed Nan downstairs to the hall, and looked approvingly at the tea-table, set out near the blazing wood-fire.
“Lovely!” she cried. “I believe I am chilly, after all. But the air is fine. Buttered muffins, oh, goody! Father, the table bills will be a lot bigger down here than in the city.”
“I daresay; but I won’t begrudge them, if you will put some more flesh on that willowy frame of yours. You’re not strong, Patty, and I want you to devote this summer to building yourself up physically. No study, not much reading, no ‘Puzzle Contest’ work. Just rest, and exercise moderately, and spend most of your time out-of-doors.”
“Why, daddy dear, your plans and specifications exactly suit me! How strange that our ideas should be the same on this subject! You see, with my new Stanhope, I’ll be out-of-doors all day, and, as I propose to sleep in the open, I’ll be out-of-doors all night. Can I do more?”
“I’m not sure about this sleeping outside. You must never do it on damp or foggy nights.”
“Now, father, the sanitariums advise it for everybody—every night. Well, I’ll agree not to sleep out in a thunderstorm, for I’m scared to death of them.”
“And you mustn’t begin it yet, anyway. It’s too cold. Wait until June, and then we’ll see about it.”
“All right, I’ll agree to that. Why, somebody’s coming up the front walk! Nan, here comes our first caller. Wow! She’s a dasher!”
In a few moments, Jane, the new parlour maid, admitted the visitor, and she came in with a self-important flutter.
“How do you do?” she said, cordially. “I’m Miss Galbraith,—Mona Galbraith, your next-door neighbour. At least, we live in the house with red chimneys, two blocks down, but there’s no house between us.”
“How do you do, Miss Galbraith,” said Nan, rising to greet the guest, and followed by the others.
“You see,” went on the young woman, volubly, after she had accepted the seat offered by Mr. Fairfield, “I thought I’d just run right in, informally, for you might feel a bit lonesome or homesick this first day. So many people do.”
“No,” said Patty, smiling, “we’re not lonesome or homesick, but it was nice of you to come to see us in this neighbourly fashion. Have a muffin, won’t you?”
“Indeed, I will; what delicious muffins! Did you bring your servants with you?”
“Some of them,” said Nan. “We’re simple people, and haven’t a large retinue.”
“Well, we have,” said Miss Galbraith. “And I’m at the head of the whole bunch. Just father and I; we live alone, you know. Will you come to see us? Come to dinner, soon, won’t you?”
“We’ll see about it,” said Nan, who scarcely knew how to take this self-possessed and somewhat forward young person.
Miss Galbraith wore a costume of embroidered white linen, but the embroidery was too elaborate, and the style of the gown rather extreme. She wore a long gold chain, with what Patty afterward called half a peck of “junk” dangling from it. There were a lorgnette, a purse, a cardcase, a pencil, a vinaigrette, a well-filled key-ring, and several other trifles, all attached to the chain, and Miss Galbraith played with the trinkets incessantly.
“I hope we’ll be real good friends,” she said, earnestly, to Patty. “I want an intimate friend awfully, and I like your looks.”
As Patty couldn’t honestly return the compliment, she said nothing in reply. Miss Galbraith’s personal appearance was comely, and yet it was not of the type with which Patty was accustomed to be friendly. Her sandy hair was too much curled and puffed, piled too high on her head, and held with too many jewelledpins; while her rather large hands showed too many rings for a young girl.
Her high-heeled, white shoes were too tight for her, and her easy attitudes and frank speech were too informal for a first call on strangers.
“Of course, we shall be friends,” said Nan, with just enough absence of enthusiasm in her tones to convey to a sensitive mind her reservations.
But Miss Galbraith hadn’t a sensitive mind.
“Dear Mrs. Fairfield,” she said, effusively, “how good you are! I see you have the neighbourly instinct. Isn’t it nice that we’ll all be down here together for the whole summer? Do you swim, Miss Fairfield? and do you love to dance?”
“Yes,” began Patty, “but——”
As she hesitated, Mr. Fairfield came to his daughter’s rescue.
“To be frank, Miss Galbraith,” he said, “I am trying to keep my daughter rather quiet this summer. I want her to exercise only moderately, and I must positively forbid much dancing, and late hours, and all that sort of thing.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” returned the visitor; “nobody keeps very late hours at Spring Beach. Well, I must run away now,—and I give you fair warning! If you don’t come and return my call soon, I’ll come straight over here and return it myself!”
She shook a playful finger at Patty, and, after voluble leave-takings, she went away, tripping down the walk with the satisfied air of one who has accomplished her object.
“Well!” said Patty, with an air of utter exasperation.
“Well!” exclaimed Nan.
Mr. Fairfield smiled grimly.
“It’s our own fault,” he said. “We should have enquired as to the character of the neighbours before we bought the house.”
“How soon can you sell it, father?” asked Patty. “One more visitation like that would give me nervous prostration! Mona! Mona, indeed! I never saw a Mona before, but I might have known they were like that.”
“But can’t you really stay here?” asked Mr. Fairfield, in alarm.
“Nonsense, daddy, of course we can! Do you think I’d let myself be dispossessed by a mere Mona? No, sir; Nan and I can manage her.”
“I don’t quite see how,” said Nan, thoughtfully. “She’s that impossible sort. Oblivious to manner, impervious to hints. Patty, she’s dreadful!”
“Of course she is, Sweet Nancy. She isn’t our sort. But I’ll attend to her. I don’t know how, just yet, but I’ll find out. She’s a problem to be coped with, a difficulty to be overcome. But did you ever see such a gown? There was just enough embroidery on it for three self-respecting frocks. And her hair! Looked like the wax ladies’ coiffures in the hair-store windows!”
“Don’t make rude personal remarks, Patty, girl.”
“Oh, father, as if one could be rude to an object like that! Well, people dear, let’s put her out of our minds and hearts for the rest of to-day, anyway. I won’t have the birthday of ‘The Pebbles’ spoiled by a slight incident like that. Forget it!”
And so the impossible Miss Galbraith was voluntarily ignored.