Patricia Part 8

"Isn't the train late?" Patricia demanded, the moment her aunt was within earshot.

Miss Kirby smiled. "It isn't due yet, Patricia, for five minutes." She didn't look in the least excited, going calmly up the garden path to the house.

But then it wasn't _her_ grandmother who was coming; besides, Patricia's gray eyes danced mischievously, she didn't know about the punchbowl.

Patricia decided to wait down by the gate--explanations were such tiresome things.

Then, in a few moments, far down the quiet village street she caught sight of a familiar gig, duly attended by old Caesar, the pointer.

The gig was quite close now. Patricia's heart gave a great jump, then seemed to stand quite still.

She hadn't come!

There was a lady in the gig with Daddy; but--

Patricia turned sharply, and regardless of her shoes ran swiftly back up the driveway and through the garden to the meadow beyond; never stopping until she dropped, a little breathless heap, beside the brook.

Custard barked excitedly, thinking it some new move in this grandmother game; then suddenly he poked his cold black nose in under the tossed thatch of Patricia's brown curls. For Patricia was crying--and doing it quite as earnestly and as thoroughly as she did most things.

At last she sat up, dabbing her eyes.

"She didn't come! And we were all ready--and now it can't be just the same--when she does come. Custard, do you suppose it's a--a judgment on me, for taking the punchbowl?"

Custard looked sober.

"I'll go put it right back. Oh, dear, I do hope that other person hasn't stayed to supper!"

Patricia went back to the house, forlorn, bedraggled; very different from the Patricia whom Sarah had sent downstairs not an hour before, imploring her to "try and keep smarted up for once."

On the back porch she met her father.

"Patricia," he asked, "what does this mean? Why did you run away when you saw your grandmother coming?"

Patricia gasped. "But, Daddy, she didn't come! I didn't see her! Oh, do you mean, was that--I expected she'd have on a bonnet tied under her chin--and a shawl--and gla.s.ses." Patricia was half crying again, her head on her father's shoulder.

It was hard to relinquish the picture of the grandmother she had been carrying in her mind for the past fortnight; a sort of composite picture of all the grandmothers she knew in Belham.

And the doctor, understanding, comforted her, sending her to freshen herself up again for supper, with the promise that it would all come right--she would see.

On the upper landing Patricia came face to face with grandmother; a grandmother who was tall and slender and dressed in some delicate gray material that rustled softly when she walked, and gave forth a faint scent of violets. There was very little gray in the dark wavy hair, that framed a face altogether different from the placid wrinkled one of Patricia's imaginings; but when Mrs. Cory said, "O Patricia!" and held out her arms, Patricia went to her at once.

They sat down on the broad window seat to get acquainted; Patricia hoped grandmother would not see she had been crying and how tumbled her clean dress was. Though Mrs. Cory saw, she said nothing, she had the gift of knowing what questions not to ask; only asking instead, "Patricia dear, who put that delightful bowl of flowers in my room?"

Patricia's color deepened. "I did--grandmother; I thought you would like them--they were," Patricia caught herself up, doubting now the appropriateness of those "old-ladyish" flowers.

Fortunately Custard appeared at that moment, wagging ingratiatingly; and grandmother at once responded to his overtures with a friendliness that warmed not only the heart of Custard but of Custard's small mistress.

Patricia went to bed that night with her thoughts rather in a whirl.

"I suppose," she decided finally, "that she is one of those 'up-to-date grandmothers' one reads about; anyhow, she's a dear and I love her, and oh, Aunt Julia did behave beautifully about the punchbowl--she seemed to appreciate what a delicate situation it was--and I'll never, never take it again without asking."

On the whole, this "up-to-date grandmother" proved a most charming possession; a grandmother who took long walks with one, who played croquet with one, who planned delightful trips in town to shops and even to matinees. And how delightful to know that one was the object of both envy and interest to the other girls; to be able to show the tiniest of enameled watches, straight from Paris; to have a grandmother who had actually been in Egypt, and had seen the king and queen of England.

Patricia held her head very high in these days.

Yet at times there was an odd, barely defined feeling of something like regret at the bottom of Patricia's heart.

This new grandmother was the best of chums and companions, but somehow it was hard to realize that she was really a _grandmother_. And before Patricia's inward gaze would pa.s.s the picture of a little white-capped old lady, quietly knitting at one corner of the fireplace; an old lady whose big Dutch pocket held an unfailing supply of ginger nuts and peppermint drops, whose stories were all of those far-off days when "I was a little girl."

But only at times; as a rule these days were too full for Patricia to find time for inner visions.

"You're the luckiest girl, Patricia Kirby," Patricia's particular chum, Nell Hardy, declared one morning on the way to school. "I think Mrs.

Cory's perfectly lovely; she always acts as if she was ever so glad to see you."

Patricia swung her strap of books thoughtfully. "Daddy says she has a beautiful manner. I'm going to be just like her."

Nell's quick glance was hardly flattering. "When?"

"Anyhow, she's _my_ grandmother!" Patricia retorted; she shook out her short skirts, if only she could have silk linings. Clothes were beginning to take on new meanings for Patricia.

"We'd better hurry," Nell said, "or we'll be late."

"Grandmother never really hurries."

"Maybe she did when she was going to school; there's the bell now!"

"Bet I'll be there first," Patricia said, darting ahead.

But she wasn't; it seemed as if all the babies and dogs in town chose that particular moment to get right in her path, avoiding with equal skill Nell's eager rush. What with picking up a baby here and stopping to speak to one there--Patricia never could get by babies--Patricia reached the schoolhouse just too late to join her line and had to wait outside until the opening exercises were over.

It was by no means the first time; and Miss Carrol looked very grave as Patricia slipped into her place a little later, trying to ignore Nell's bob of triumph.

It was after supper that evening that the doctor called Patricia into the office. "Patricia," he said, as she came to stand before him, "I met Miss Carrol this afternoon."

"Yes, Daddy." Patricia's thoughts flew rapidly backward; had she been doing anything very dreadful?

"She tells me that you have been tardy very frequently of late, Patricia."

"Y-yes, Daddy."

"And yet you usually appear to start in good season?"

"Yes, Daddy; it--it doesn't seem to be the _starting_ early.

It's--such a lot of things always do seem to happen on the way."

"What kind of things, Patricia?"

"Well, you see, Daddy, there are such a lot of babies all along, they just expect to be noticed; and sometimes I go for some of the girls and they've something to do and I wait to help; and sometimes I go an errand for old Mrs. Daly--you know she hasn't any one to go at home. If you were with me you'd understand, Daddy."

The doctor smiled. "Oh, I understand all right, Patricia; still, this being late for school has got to stop. Suppose every one in the room came just a little late?"