Patricia

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Patricia watched him curiously. So this was what Thorny had become, a horseman, specializing in polo at present.

  But there was a new kind of poise, almost dignity, about him. Was it real? She hardly knew how to take him. The indignities that he had put upon her in the past were still sharp memories that stifled any impulse she had to be friendly, so she turned her eyes to the spirited horse that stood with fiery eye champing his bit and stamping a dainty foot on the hard drive.

  “That’s a beautiful horse you have,” she remarked, turning the subject from his own personal career.

  Thorny’s eyes lit up with satisfaction.

  “Yes,” he said coolly, “I’m rather proud of him. I got him in England. Pedigreed, of course.” He launched into a brief detailed account of his horse’s ancestry.

  Patricia listened politely and knew her mother would think she ought to ask him to sit down. She didn’t want to, she was deeply interested in her book, yet she knew she must.

  Perhaps he saw her indifference, for he brought his discourse to an abrupt close and, looking at her again with that amazed smile, remarked almost irrelevantly, “My, but you are lovely! And by the way, I understand you are a great horsewoman. When I heard that, I came right over, for I thought we would at last have something in common. I understand you have a wonderful horse.”

  Patricia smiled.

  “I enjoy my horse,” she said pleasantly.

  “I thought so,” said Thorny dramatically. “Then we shall have some wonderful rides together.”

  “Why, I usually ride with my father,” she said coolly.

  “Never alone?” he asked with lifted meaningful brows.

  “Oh yes, alone sometimes. But then I am alone, not with anyone,” she laughed.

  “Ah! But you and I will ride together!” he announced as if it were a decree gone forth. “Now that I have found you again as it were, I am not sure but I shall linger longer than the few days I had planned.”

  “Well, I’m rather busy this summer doing some extra studying.”

  “How about now? Go get ready, and I’ll bring your horse. He’s in the old stable, is he?”

  “No, I could not go now. I have something else to do.”

  “Then how about tomorrow morning?”

  “No,” said Patricia decidedly, “I have other plans. Excuse me a minute and I will call Mother. She used to be a great friend of yours, and she would not like to miss your call.” And suddenly Patricia slipped inside the screen door and upstairs.

  Mrs. Prentiss came down at once all smiles, but Patricia did not return for some minutes, and when she came she was very cool. But somehow this only made Thorny more eager to gain her attention.

  Of course Patricia had known that to call her mother into the matter would mean a return of some of the persecution she had suffered when she was younger, but at least, she reasoned, the conversation would not be too intimate. However, she had not been seated again three minutes on the porch before she realized that it had been a mistake to call her mother down. Of course, sooner or later she would have found out that Thorny was at home, but she might have managed to delay the knowledge for a day or two.

  For Mrs. Prentiss sailed right in as if her daughter were still a small child, and said how nice it was that Thorny was at home and how wonderful that he rode and what a relief it would be to feel there was some competent person to go riding with “dear little Patty.”

  Patricia’s heart grew heavy as her mother enlarged upon the subject and she saw herself in bondage once more. Then she remembered that she had a refuge, and silently her heart cried out to God to help her with this situation.

  That was the beginning of Thorny’s constant attention. Patricia was so filled with the horror of the past that she could not imagine it possible for her to endure riding alone with Thorny, so she got her father to promise to go out with them some mornings, and he did.

  “He’s not so bad, Pat,” he said when they came back. “Just a dumb bunny that likes to show off. But I’m game to go with you whenever you say.”

  So Patricia rode less and less that summer, and almost always her father was along. Though she did have to own that Thorny was not as bad as she had feared. Thorny was finding out that here was a girl who could not be won by flattery, nor cave-man stuff. He must take her seriously. And so he set about being serious, though there wasn’t a serious fiber in his whole being. He succeeded, however, only in making her feel that he was a bore.

  Patricia was glad when it was time for her to return to college, because she was weary of Thorny’s constant attendance wherever she went and her mother’s happy purr over the state of things.

  Not that she hated Thorny now the way she used to do when she was a child. He seemed to have given up his tormenting ways and love of cruel teasing, though she sometimes suspected him of acting a part, because he had never before let any girl snub him.

  As for Thorny, he was really exerting himself now to be courteous and to make his attentions so unobtrusively necessary to her well-being that she would fall into the habit of getting used to him. And then, then, he reasoned, when she once was his, he could bend her as he wished.

  So Patricia went back to college and another year began.

  But Thorny had ways of being extremely attentive even at a distance. He was getting a name for himself in the polo world, getting his handsome picture and his name in the papers. He wrote to her constantly, though her replies were few and far between. She told him that she was studying hard and intimated that it was time he did so also. Yet still he went on with his career, bombarding her constantly with photographs, both portraits and snapshots, and begging for one of her. To this request she made no reply except that she had no time to have her picture taken. And then, of course, he begged one from her mother. It really was of no use to try to get rid of him. She just must settle down to the fact that he would stick whether she wanted him or not. More and more she let his letters go unanswered for long periods. Only when he sent big boxes of roses and orchids and other lovely flowers, or enormous boxes of expensive candy, she felt she had to reply, and then she made her notes most brief and cool, and often gave the flowers and candy away to her fellow students.

  But the winter passed, and the summer came. Patricia had accepted the fact of Thorny’s inevitability with a kind of apathy. She didn’t enjoy his presence, neither did she ever miss him. He never gave her a chance. When she was at home, he was always there. Always on hand to take her anywhere that she had to go. He had become a habit. He was taking it very much for granted that he was wanted. He never asked if he might go, he went. And any other admirer she might have had must stand by and let him have all privileges, for he took them anyway. Well, Patricia had no admirers that she cared anything about, so what did it matter? There were pleasant young men who called sometimes, but inevitably Thorny was always there also, and whatever visiting they had to do must be done under the shadow of his presence.

  Patricia was tired. She didn’t tell anybody, but she was fearfully tired of it all, this espionage by Thorny. Her father saw it and tried to help. He took time off from his business and went with her everywhere, until his wife called him to account for it.

  “Don’t you realize what you are doing, Mr. Prentiss? Don’t you know that those two young things don’t want you along all the time? Don’t you see that you are giving them no chance at all for courting?”

  “Courting!” roared Patricia’s father. “Why should they want to court? You don’t suppose that our Pat is going to take up with that poor schmuck after all these years of hating him?”

  “Now, George, don’t be silly! Don’t you know that the strongest love often begins with great dislike? Look at us. I never disliked anybody so much in my life as you when I first met you. I thought you were the homeliest man I’d ever laid eyes on!”

  Her husband looked at her with keen, tired eyes.

  “And you think our love is that kind, do you? The strongest kind there is?” His
honest eyes pierced her fussy little soul. She got a little red and fidgeted around, and then answered:

  “Well, George, I supposed you thought it was.”

  For answer her husband watched her silently a minute and then said with a deep sigh, “All right, Amelia, you win! I’m sure I don’t know anything about it, only I intend to go wherever Pat wants me.”

  “What makes you so sure she wants you?” asked Amelia in a superior tone.

  “What? Well, because I am, that’s all.”

  But sometimes when Patricia got very tired of it all she used to think back to the young boy in high school and wonder if she would ever see him again. He was a grown man now, and he probably had other interests. Very likely he had forgotten that he had promised to come back. And if he came he might not seem the same to her as long ago. Oh, life was hard, and it seemed to grow more complicated as one grew older.

  But she went back to college again and worked faithfully.

  That winter Thorny came to the college to see her several times. Just brief visits he made, took her down to a wonderful concert in the nearby city. Took her to dinner at a famous restaurant. Never urged her when she declined to go to a nightclub. He was biding his time.

  And all the time she was just suffering him, neither liking him nor entirely disliking him as the days went on, and he seemed to be fairly trustworthy and devoted. Yet no more than in the days gone by did she want his devotion. There was not anybody—now that the vision of John Worth was fading and growing so dreamlike and impossible to her mature mind—not anybody she wanted to have devoted to her.

  And then commencement came on swiftly, and now and then when she had time she wondered vaguely what she was going to do with herself when college was over and she was supposed to begin her life.

  Her mother’s idea, of course, was that she should have a lavish party and be presented to society. She had spoken of her plans and ideas about that several times. She had also suggested that they go abroad and Patricia be presented at court. But Patricia didn’t want all that. It might be interesting, perhaps, to meet a king and queen, but what was that to being presented to the King of heaven some day when all this mixed-up, disappointing life was over? And she was twice as interested in the little prayer meetings they were having regularly at college, or in gathering in a shy new soul now and then who was troubled about life and death that might be lurking along the way, than she was in planning a marvelous wardrobe for her debut.

  The commencement came at last, and all the hard work was done. But when she herself stood up for the very honorable part she had in the program of the day, in spite of herself she lifted wistful eyes to the far corner of the big auditorium back under the gallery, much like the old high school gathering place, to see if there were quiet brown eyes with lamps behind them watching her.

  Of course they were not there, and she had known they would not be when she looked, but still she looked. She sighed when it was over and turned away from Thorny’s classic face with that smug assurance upon it as he watched her. It was only her father who really cared and was looking at her with love in his proud eyes. Her mother was looking at her dress and thinking it might have been a shade more elaborate if only Patricia hadn’t been so silly, still clinging to that old idea of being a child. Well, at least her education was done now, and she could have clear sailing to establish her in the right circle of life and give her a good start. And of course, there was Thorny, so the stage seemed to be already well set.

  Chapter 19

  And then at last it was all over, the good-byes said, the baggage packed, the flowers stowed in the back of the car; the graduating presents, the tears, the smiles, the last little prayer-meeting up in Patricia’s room with the door locked even against her family whom she had bribed to let her alone a few minutes; and then the going home.

  Her father’s gift was a tiny jeweled wristwatch, and she loved it. Her mother had persisted in getting her a diamond necklace, and she shrank from its glitter.

  Her mother, of course, had tried to make her ride with Thorny in his car, for he had driven up with that in mind, but Patricia said no, she was going home alone with her parents. She didn’t want anybody else along, either. No, Thorny must not crowd in and hire someone else to bring his car home later. No, she wanted to rest with her family for the drive home.

  Strangely enough, this kind of thing only made Thorny more devoted, more determined to win her finally.

  And then at home after the first quiet days, there was the party that her mother was so determined about.

  “Better let her have it, Pat! She tells me she’s just lived for that ever since you were born,” said her father, with a sad little smile. “She wouldn’t understand if you didn’t.”

  So Patricia sat obediently down day after day and helped her mother write out lists of people to be invited, and saw her turn down any of her old friends from high school that she suggested, even though some of them had married into very respectable families and were doing well. Mrs. Prentiss meant to have this party one of the grandest affairs socially that their town had ever known.

  They discussed whether it should be held in the house or whether they would hire a big hall in the finest hotel in the city. How Patricia hated it all, the tiresome question of what “they” would think about this or that and no thought of what her Lord might think. But there wasn’t anything that she could do about it. Her mother was having the time of her life, and why not let her have it? Of course, there were questions of worldliness that were involved. Patricia had had opportunity in college to come to certain decisions about them. There would be liquors. Her mother would insist upon it. Her father wouldn’t like it, and she hated it, and yet it would be. And there would be dancing. Patricia had not enjoyed that for a long time now. Never had she heard discussion of it but her own feeling was against it. Patricia prayed about that party a good deal in those early fall days, that the Lord would take control of it and somehow direct it the way He wanted it.

  Mr. Prentiss watched his daughter’s face from day to day and saw shadows gather there. He knew without her saying anything that this great debut was not happiness to his little girl.

  And then one day when the hotel was all but hired, the decorators and confectioners were all but arranged for, he came home and suggested that the party be put off and they tour a year in Europe first.

  He knew by the great light that broke on Pat’s face that it would be an intense relief to her tired young soul.

  “Why, George!” babbled Amelia bewilderedly. “We couldn’t! How could we? The party, you know. Patricia’s party.”

  “Put it off,” he said quickly, “or chuck it altogether!” And he laughed.

  “George!” said Amelia, aghast. “When Patricia has her dress all ready!”

  “She can wear the dress to church or somewhere, can’t she, Amelia? Or to a garden party. Any old place. I’ll tell you what. She can use it to be presented at court in. That’ll settle it all fine! Then you can chuck the party altogether and no harm done!”

  “George!” reproved his wife severely. “Is it possible that you don’t know that young women are not presented at court in garments of their own choosing? Surely you know that the fashions for such presentations are all prescribed by the court!”

  “To heck with the court, then! To heck with the king and queen, I say. Any old king and queen that aren’t satisfied with a dress my daughter picks out to come and see them in can go to thunder for all me. She doesn’t have to be presented to any old court, either, if they’re that particular!”

  “George!” said Amelia, almost in tears. “I’d be afraid, positively afraid, to take you over to Europe lest you might express some such ideas and be overheard and get arrested.”

  “Well, Mrs. Prentiss, I didn’t know that you contemplated taking me over to Europe. I thought I was taking you. In which case I can readily promise that I won’t get me arrested, not while you’re around, anyway. Now, is that all settled? What do yo
u say, Pat? Shall we go?”

  “Oh, Daddy, that would be too beautiful!”

  “Well then, get up and dance with your old daddy and mamma, Pat, and let’s celebrate. We’ll put away the whole kit of plans for that bloomin’ party and get us ready to trip off to Europe on the next desirable boat.” He danced over to his wife and pulled her to her feet, making her dance over to their daughter and pull her to her feet, and together they three whirled around the room, with joined hands, until poor Amelia was all out of breath and puffing like a porpoise.

  And so they sailed for Europe the next week, while Thorny was away playing polo.

  But Thorny came trailing after them on the very next boat and turned up everywhere they went, until Patricia again grew quite used to him and altogether indifferent to him. There were so many other things to see and do that she didn’t have to think much about him. Mrs. Prentiss enjoyed his constant presence immensely and was always inventing excuses to call her husband away and leave Thorny with Patricia. She followed them with fond eyes when they went anywhere together and felt that she had her daughter very well placed in spite of all the trouble she had had.

  Patricia was living in a world of wonder, getting acquainted with the reality of things about which she had studied. That Thorny was her constant attendant made very little difference to her. It kept her mother satisfied to have someone along with her.

  Thorny wasn’t the least interested in the historic or literary value of the things they were seeing. He trailed around with her making very little response to what she said about them. He was watching Patricia, rather proud to be with her, for he saw that she made an impression wherever she went. She was a beautiful girl, her family was all right, and she dressed in exquisite taste, though rather plainly when one considered her position as the daughter of a moderately wealthy man. And their fortunes were well matched. Of course, Thorny hadn’t any fortune just now, for his father had him on a strict allowance, but he was sure if he should marry, his mother would make his father “come across”; and anyway, Dad wasn’t very well, and Thorny would inherit a lot when he passed on. That was the way he reasoned.