CHAPTER II A LAST MEETING

Patty and her father looked at several apartments before they found one which seemed satisfactory in every way. It was necessary that it should be near the school Patty was to attend, and also conveniently located with a view to Mr. Fairfield’s daily trips downtown.

Besides this, Mr. Fairfield was particular about the atmosphere of the hotel. Some they looked into seemed to Patty like gorgeous glittering palaces, with decorations so rich and ornate as to be almost barbaric. These Mr. Fairfield came out of as rapidly as he went in, and more than once Patty cast a longing backward glance at the marble floors and gilded frescoes which her father seemed to scorn. On the other hand, Mr. Fairfield was equally ill-pleased with a house which was unattractive in appearance, or whose furnishings were not tasteful.

Patty almost began to think that her father was too fastidious, and would never be able to find a place that would exactly suit him.

However, the moment they stepped inside of a certain apartment hotel named The Wilberforce, Mr. Fairfield’s face showed an expression of satisfaction, which immediately convinced Patty that they had struck the right trail at last.

And so it proved, for after looking into several suites of rooms then vacant, Mr. Fairfield told Patty that if she could feel contented to take up her abode there, he thought he could.

Patty willingly agreed, for she, too, liked The Wilberforce from the first.

The hotel faced Central Park, and though not among the largest in the city, it was more attractively planned than any of the others they had looked at.

The apartment they liked best was a corner one with windows looking toward the east and south. The large corner room had a beautiful bay window, and was so light and sunny that Patty declared it should be their library.

“Library, sitting-room and general living-room,” said her father, laughing; “you know, Puss, you can’t have as many rooms at your disposal in the city as you have in Vernondale. But we’ll have all our books and favourite belongings in this room, and I’m sure we can make it very comfortable. Then this smaller room next will be a more formal reception room for casual callers.”

There were four bedrooms, and Mr. Fairfield insisted that the two sunniest and pleasantest ones should be assigned to Patty and Grandma Elliott. The other two, whose windows opened on an airshaft instead of on the street, were to be Mr. Fairfield’s bedroom and a guest-room.

The whole apartment was very prettily furnished in good taste, and entirely without that lavish use of bright colours which so often characterises a hotel.

The library was in green and the little reception-room in pale blue.

Patty’s own room was daintily done up in pink, and though perhaps not just the colour she would have chosen, it was so fresh and pretty that she expressed herself perfectly satisfied.

Of course, everything in the way of chairs and tables was amply provided, but the Fairfields proposed to bring in a quantity of their own furniture, rugs, pictures and books.

Having decided on the apartment, Mr. Fairfield drew a plan of it so that when they returned home they might better decide what pieces of furniture could be accommodated.

Patty flew around from room to room in great delight.

“I’m so used to changing my home,” she said, “that I really feel quite at home in this apartment already. This library is going to be the loveliest room in the world. You can have your desk there, and I can have my little desk here, and we’ll have our big library table in the middle, just as it is at home. Then we’ll have Grandma’s little work-table by this window. This big fireplace is perfectly fascinating and we can bring our brass andirons and fireset. They’re a lot prettier than these old black iron things. And we can bring a book-case or two, can’t we, papa?”

“You can bring whatever you like, Chicken; but I wouldn’t advise carting in many of those heavy things at first, until we’re sure we like the place well enough to stay all winter. It certainly looks attractive, and it has been highly recommended to me, but after all it may prove to have serious disadvantages. So at first we’ll just bring our desks, and some books and pictures, and a few little trinkets to prettify the rooms, and then later on, if we like it, we can run back to Vernondale for a few more things.”

“Yes, that is best, papa,” said Patty; “you always do know what is best. And now how soon do you suppose we can come in to stay?”

“I think we’ll move next Saturday. I can take a whole holiday that day, and get you and Grandma safely established here.”

So eager was Patty to select and pack up the things she wanted to take to the city that she could scarcely wait to get back to Vernondale. It had been a tiresome day, but as soon as she reached home she quite forgot her fatigue in the fun of making her selections. Her favourite pictures were taken from the walls and stood in the hall ready to be packed. All of her tea-things, a small selection of bric-a-bric, and a large box of books were added. Then Patty packed her own trunk and her father’s. Mr. Fairfield looked after the heavier matters, such as rugs and chairs and the two desks and Grandma’s little work-table.

Altogether, it seemed like a regular moving, and Marian, who came over in the midst of the excitement, sat down on the box of books and burst into tears.

“Marian,” said Patty, almost crying herself, “if you don’t stop acting like that I don’t know what I shall do. I’m rapidly growing homesicker and homesicker, and now if you commence to weep all over the place I shall just go to pieces entirely.”

“But you want to go away,” wailed Marian, between her sobs, “you just want to go, and that’s the worst of it! If you did cry you’d be nothing but an old hypocrite!”

“I do want to go, but I’m sorry to leave Vernondale, too. Don’t you suppose I’m fond of all you girls? Don’t you suppose I’ll miss you like sixty? And don’t you suppose it’s a heap worse for me to go away from you all than it is for you to have me go? Why, there’s lots of you to cheer each other up, and there’s only one of me. But what’s the use of acting like this, anyway? I’ve got to go, and I might as well go laughing as crying. If your father wanted you to go, you’d go, and I wouldn’t do all I could to make it harder for you by crying from morning to night.”

The logic of these remarks seemed to impress Marian, for she stopped crying, and said: “I suppose I am a horrid old thing to act so, and I am going to stop, at least until after you’re gone, and then I’m going to cry all I want to.”

“Do,” said Patty, “have a real good time and cry all day, and every day, if you like. But now come on and help me pack my photographs.”

Marian was as good as her word. She cried no more, and though her demeanour was not exactly hilarious, she ceased wearing a reproachful air, and went around helping Patty with a loving good-will.

The last few days before their departure Patty and Mr. Fairfield spent at the Elliotts’ home.

The trunks and boxes had all been sent away, and Boxley Hall was shut up and securely barred and fastened.

The servants had found other situations. Mancy was going to live at Miss Daggett’s, though the good-natured coloured woman was not all sure of her ability to stay with that sharp-tongued lady.

Pansy was to live with the Elliotts, and Mr. Fairfield had promised her that if under his sister’s tuition she became a competent waitress she should come the next year to live in the city house of the new Mrs. Fairfield. Pansy was delighted at this prospect, for she had become devotedly attached to the Fairfields, and, moreover, was a great admirer of the lovely Miss Allen.

The day before Patty was to leave Vernondale the Tea Club had a farewell meeting at Marian’s.

“You know, Patty,” said Elsie Morris, “that you’ll still have to be president of the Club. We utterly refuse to let anyone else have that position.”

“But that’s perfectly silly,” protested Patty; “it would be much more sensible for me to be an honourable or honorary ex-president, and you put in somebody else to rule the Club this winter.”

“Pooh,” said Ethel Holmes, “don’t flatter yourself you ruled this Club!”

“No,” said Patty, laughing, “or if I did rule them, they overruled me. You’re a fractious lot, and it’s far from being an easy task to be your president. However, as I want you to have somebody to keep you straight during my absence, I’m going to propose my cousin Marian for the office of president.”

This proposal was most favourably received, and Marian was unanimously elected president of the Tea Club, until such time as Patty should return to Vernondale. For the girls, one and all, refused to admit that Patty was going away permanently. They chose to assume that she was merely going to New York for the winter, and implicitly believed that the summer months would see her again established at Boxley Hall.

“And very likely we shall return,” said Patty. “Nobody can foretell what my father is going to do, and nobody can stop him when he once decides what he is going to do. I certainly never dreamed he was going to marry Nan, until he told me so himself.”

“Aren’t you glad about it?” asked Helen Preston.

“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed Patty; “I’m as happy as can be about it. I just love Nan, and it will be just like having a sister. I wish they’d get married right away, only then I suppose we wouldn’t have Grandma Elliott with us this winter, and I’d be sorry about that. Now remember, girls, just as soon as we get settled at The Wilberforce you’re all to come in some Saturday. Papa says not to come for tea, because it makes you so late getting home, but to come for luncheon, and he’ll take us all to the matinée afterward.”

There was a general chorus of glee at this, for the girls were well acquainted with the kind and genial Mr. Fairfield, and his invitation meant a delightful treat.

“I do think your father is lovely,” said Polly Stevens, “and I think you’re going to have beautiful times in the city this winter. I really quite envy you.”

“But I wish you weren’t going,” said Christine Converse; “I don’t see how the Tea Club can get along at all without you.”

“But I shall often come out to the Tea Club meetings,” said Patty; “of course I shall often come out to Marian’s to stay a day or two, and if I’m here on Saturday I can come to the Club, and whenever you have an evening entertainment I’ll come out for that.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Marian, brightening a little; “and you can come out to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and New Year’s Day, and all the holidays, can’t you?”

“Yes,” said Patty, smiling; “except the ones you come in to spend with me.”

As this brighter outlook had greatly decreased Marian’s aspect of hopeless gloom, the girls all began to wax more merry, and soon they were all joking and laughing in true Tea Club style.

Each one had brought a parting gift for Patty and the presentations were made with jesting speeches.

Elsie Morris brought a well-filled court-plaster case, for, as she explained, Patty was sure to be knocked down and run over every day by automobiles and trolley cars, and the healing strips would prove beneficial.

Laura Russell brought her a tiny fern growing in a flower pot, in order that she might have some green thing to remind her of the country.

“Oho,” said Ethel Holmes, “I’m going to give you a dozen green things to remind you of the country,” and Ethel produced her gift, which was nothing more nor less than a humorous sketch of the twelve girls of the Tea Club. Ethel was clever at drawing, and the group was well caricatured. Instead of drawing the faces, she had pasted in tiny photographs of the girls’ features, and, moreover, had realistically bedecked their hats with tiny feathers and microscopic bows of real ribbon. Neckties and hair-ribbons were also pasted into place, until the whole affair was a most comical representation of the Club members.

Patty was delighted and declared she would have this work of art framed and conspicuously hung in her new home.