CHAPTER IV
AN AQUATIC PARTY
Of course all were agreed that Patty must have a farewell party of somesort; and as Nan dearly loved elaborate affairs, she had decided thatit should be an Aquatic Party.
Patty frankly confessed her ignorance as to what an Aquatic Party mightbe, whereupon Nan informed her that she had only to wait until theoccasion itself to find out.
So busy was Patty herself that she took no hand in the preparations forthe party, and indeed Nan required no help. That capable and energeticyoung matron secured the services of some professional decorators andable-bodied workmen, but the direction and superintendence was entirelyin her own hands.
Patty was consulted only in regard to her own costume for the occasion.
"You see," said Nan, coming into Patty's room one morning, "I don'tknow whether you would rather say good-bye to your friends in the guiseof a kelpie or a pixy or a jelly-fish."
"Cut out the jelly-fish," said Patty, laughing, "for they're horrid,floppy old things, I'm sure. As to the others, what's the differencebetween a kelpie and a pixy?"
"Oh, a great deal of difference," declared Nan, wagging her headwisely; "a kelpie is an imaginary water sprite, you know, and a pixy isa--a--why, a sort of make-believe fairy who lives in the water."
"Well, I'm glad that you see a difference in your two definitions. Formy part I don't see anything to hinder my being a kelpie and a pixyboth, even if I'm not twins."
"Well, they're not so very different, you know. One is a kelpie, andone is a pixy; that's about all the difference."
Patty laughed. "Well, if it will help you out any to have me make achoice," she said, "I'll choose to be a kelpie. What's the latest thingin kelpie costumes?"
"Oh, it will be lovely, Patty! I'll have it made of pale green silk,with a frosted, silvery, shimmering effect, you know, and draped withtrailing green seaweed and water grasses."
"Lovely!" agreed Patty. "And what would the pixy costume have been, ifI had chosen that?"
"Just the same," confessed Nan, laughing; "but it's easier to havesomething definite to work at. You can wear my corals, Patty, and, withyour hair down, you'll be a perfect kelpie."
Patty smiled at her young stepmother's enthusiasm, and Nan ran away tobegin preparations for the kelpie costume.
The night of the party the whole Fairfield house was so transformedthat it must scarcely have recognised itself.
The large front drawing-room represented the arctic regions in thevicinity of the North Pole. Frames had been erected which, when coveredwith sheets, simulated peaks of snowy mountains and snow-coveredicebergs. Here and there signs, apparently left by explorers, told thelatitude and longitude, and a flag marked the explorations FarthestNorth. Over these snow peaks scrambled white polar bears in mostrealistic fashion, and in one corner an Esquimau hut was built.
The ceiling represented a clear blue sky, and the floor the blue waterof the open polar sea.
By a clever arrangement of electric lights through colored shades afair representation of the Aurora Borealis was made to appear atintervals.
The library, which was back of the drawing-room, had been transformedinto an aquarium. All round the walls, waves of blue-green gauzesimulated water, in which papier-mache fish were gliding and swimming.The illusion was heightened by other fishes, which, being suspendedfrom the ceiling by invisible threads, seemed to be swimming throughthe air.
Altogether the effect, if not entirely realistic, was picturesque andamusing, and coral reefs and rocky cliffs covered with seaweed gaveaquatic impressions, even if not entirely logical.
But Nan's pride was what she chose to call the Upper Deck. This was aroom on the second floor, a large front room, which had been made torepresent the upper deck of a handsome yacht. Sail-cloth draped andheld up by poles formed the roof and sides, and a realistic railingsurrounded it. A dozen or more steamer chairs stood in line, strewnwith rugs, pillows and paper-backed novels. Coils of rope, lanterns,life-preservers, and other paraphernalia added to the realism of thescene, and at one side a carefully constructed window opened into thesteward's cabin. The steward himself, white-duck-suited andwhite-capped, was prepared to serve light refreshments exactly afterthe fashion of a correct yachting party.
When the guests began to arrive and were dressed in various costumes,each representing some type or phase of water pleasures, the scene tookon a gay and festive air.
Patty's kelpie costume was a great success, and the girl never lookedprettier than as she stood receiving her guests in the pretty greensilk gown, trailing with seaweed and shimmering with silver dust. Hercurly golden hair was wreathed with soft green water-grasses, and herrosy cheeks and dancing eyes made her look like a mischievous watersprite.
Nan's own costume was that of a fish-wife, and though very differentfrom Patty's, it had all the picturesqueness of the quaint costume ofthe Breton fisher-folk. A basket slung over her shoulder heldrealistic-looking fishes, and Nan looked quite as if she might havestepped out of the frame of a picture in the French Academy.
Mr. Fairfield, not without some difficulty, had been induced torepresent Neptune. False flowing white hair and beard, a shining crownand trident, and a voluminous sea-green robe made him a gorgeous sight.
The three stood near the North Pole to receive their guests, andformality was almost lost sight of in the hilarity caused by theprocession of picturesque costumes.
There were pirates of fierce and bloodthirsty mien; there were jollyJack Tars and natty ship officers; there were water babies, mermaids,fishermen, and many dainty yachting costumes. Then there were queer andgrotesque figures, such as a frog, a lobster, and a huge crab.
Altogether the motley procession presented a most interestingappearance, and Patty was glad when the guests had all arrived and shecould leave her post and mingle with the crowd.
It was not long before a group of Patty's most intimate friends hadgathered on the Upper Deck to chat. Patty herself had been snuglytucked into a deck chair by Kenneth, who insisted on showing her justhow the proceeding should be accomplished.
"Nothing shows your ignorance, my child, on board ship," he was saying,"like not knowing how to manage your steamer rug and pillow."
"But," said Patty, "I shall then have on a suitable gown that willstand rough usage; but I beg of you, Ken, stop tucking that rug aroundmy delicate kelpie decorations.
"Oh," said Kenneth, "you're a kelpie, then! Strange I didn't recogniseyou at once, but I so rarely meet kelpies in the best society. Now I'mCaptain Kidd."
"Are you?" cried Elise gaily; "now I had an idea you were AdmiralFarragut; but then one so rarely meets Captain Kidd in the bestsociety."
"That's so," said Kenneth; "and think how long it will be, girls,before you have the pleasure of meeting this particular Captain Kidd inany society. I tell you, I envy you. You're going to have the time ofyour life in Paris, and I wish to goodness I could go along with you."
"Oh, do, Kenneth," cried Patty; "we'd have just the best time ever!Can't you give up college and put in a lot of study over there?"
"No, indeed, I can't; I'm only just wishing I could. There's no harm inwishing, you know. But if you'll stay until next summer, perhaps I'llcome over and see you during vacation, and then we can all come hometogether."
"That would be fine," said Elise, "and we're just as likely to stayuntil summer as not. But then, on the other hand, we're just as likelyto come home as soon as we get there. You never can tell what thoseabsurd parents of mine are going to do."
Meantime a strange-looking figure was walking across the Upper Decktoward the group that surrounded Patty. It was impossible not torecognise the character, which was meant to be a representation ofNoah. But it was the well-known Noah of the children's Noah's ark, andthe straight-up-and-down, tightly fitting brown garment, with yellowbuttons down the front, was exactly like the patriarch as shown in thewooden toys. A flat, broad-brimmed hat sat squarely on his head, and ashe held his arms straight down at his side, an
d as his cheeks borelittle round daubs of red paint, Mr. Hepworth was exactly like agigantic specimen of the nursery Noah.
He came across the deck with a staggering, uncertain motion, as if theship were rolling and pitching about. His realistic acting made themall laugh, and when he dropped into a deck chair and, calling thesteward, asked faintly for a cup of weak tea, Patty declared shebelieved she wouldn't go to Paris after all.
"For I'm sure," she said, "that I don't want to go wabbling across adeck and looking as ill and woebegone as you do."
Mr. Hepworth smiled at her. "You'll have so many remedies andpreventives given you," he said, "and you'll be so busy pitching themoverboard that you won't have time to be seasick. Really I don'tbelieve you'll think of such a thing all the way over, let aloneexperiencing it."
"You're a great comfort," said Patty heartily; "you always tell me themost comforting things. Now everybody else declares that after I'vebeen at sea for a day I'll be so ill that I won't care whether I liveor die."
"Nonsense," declared Mr. Hepworth; "don't pay any attention to suchcroakings."
"I agree with you," said Elise. "I've made up my mind that I'm notgoing to be seasick, but I'm going to have a perfectly jolly time allthe way across."
"Of course you'll have jolly times," said Marian, who was in one of herdoleful moods; "but think of us who are left behind! We won't have anyjolly time until you come back again."
"Oh, I don't know!" said Kenneth. "Of course I'm devoted to these twogirls, but I'm not going to let it blight my young existence and crushmy whole career, just because I have to live without them for sixmonths."
"But you don't love Patty as I do," said Marian with a sigh, as shegazed at her adored cousin.
"No, Marian, I don't," said Kenneth; "not as YOU do, for I assume thatyou love her as a first cousin. Now my affection for Patty is more onthe order of a grandmother's brother-in-law once removed. You can't betoo careful about the exact type of attachment you feel for a younglady, and I think that expresses my regard for Patty. Now toward EliseI feel more like a great niece's uncle's brother-in-law. There is avery subtle distinction between the two, but I know that both girls areacutely aware of the exact kind and degree of my regard for them."
"I am, anyway," said Patty; "and I must say, Ken, that it's much easierto leave you, with that definite affection of yours, than it is to goaway from Marian and leave her floundering in her deep and somewhatdamp woe."
Marian vouchsafed a sad sort of smile, and said it was all very wellfor them to make fun of her, but she couldn't help missing Patty.
"Nobody can help missing Patty," declared Mr. Hepworth; "and for mypart, if I find that I miss her very much I shall go straight over toParis and bring her back."
"I hope you will," cried Patty; "that is, I hope you'll come over, andperhaps we can persuade you not to be in such a dreadful hurry to comeback."
"I had expected to run over in the early spring, anyway," said Mr.Hepworth carelessly, as if it were a matter of no moment; "I want to docertain French sketches that I've had my mind on for some time."
"Well, if you do come," said Elise cordially, "come right to our houseand I know we can put you up. The Farringtons are erratic, but alwayshospitable; and I hereby invite this whole crowd to visit us in Paris,either jointly or severally, whenever the spirit moves you."
"If I find a spirit that can move me over to Paris, I shall comeoften," declared Kenneth; "but I'm afraid I'm too substantially builtto be wafted across the ocean in the clutches of any spirit."
Just then the notes of a bugle sounded clear and sweet from below.
"That's the ship's bugler," declared Mr. Hepworth, "and that's thebugle call for supper. Shall we go down and refresh ourselves?"
"Yes, indeed," cried Patty, jumping from her nest of steamer rugs; "I'mas hungry as a hawk."
But it somehow happened that all of the gay young crowd left the UpperDeck to go to the supper room before Patty and Mr. Hepworth started. Hedetained her for a moment while he said: "Little girl, will you miss mewhile you're away?"
"Even if I expected to I wouldn't own up to it," said Patty, as shegave him a mischievous glance.
"Why wouldn't you own up to it?" Mr. Hepworth spoke quite seriously andlooked intently at the pretty face before him, with its golden haircrowned by the shining green sea-wreath.
"I don't know," said Patty slowly. She felt herself forced by hisimpelling gaze to raise her eyes to his, and for the first time itoccurred to her that Mr. Hepworth felt more interest in her than shehad ever suspected. "I don't know why I wouldn't own up to it, I'msure," she went on; "in fact, now that I come to think of it, I believeI should own up to it."
"Well, own it then. Tell me you will miss me, and will sometimes wish Imight be with you."
"Oh," cried Patty, laughing merrily, "I only meant I would own it if itwere true. Of course I sha'n't really miss you; there'll be so much toamuse and interest me that I sha'n't have time to miss anybody exceptpapa and Nan."
"That's just what I thought," said Mr. Hepworth.
Patty in Paris Page 4