CHAPTER XVII
THE CRISIS
And then the day came when the doctor said Patty had pneumonia. Roomswere darkened; nurses went around silently; Nan wandered about, unableto concentrate her mind on anything and Mr. Fairfield spent much of histime at home.
The telephone was continually ringing, as one friend after another askedhow Patty was, and the rooms downstairs were filled with the gifts offlowers that the patient might not even see.
“What word, Doctor?” asked Mona Galbraith, as the physician camedownstairs, one morning. The girls came and went as they chose. Alwayssome one or more of them were sitting in the library or living-room,anxiously awaiting news.
“I think I can say she’s holding her own,” replied the doctor,guardedly; “if she had a stronger constitution, I should feel decidedlyhopeful. But she is a frail little body, and we must be very, verycareful.”
He hurried away, and Mona turned back to where Elise sat.
“I know she’ll die,” wailed Elise. “I just _know_ Patty will die. Oh, itseems _such_ a shame! I can’t _bear_ it!” and she broke down in a tumultof sobbing.
“Don’t, Elise,” begged Mona. “Why not hope for the best? Patty isn’tstrong,—but she’s a healthy little piece, and that doctor is a calamityhowler, anyway. Everybody says so.”
“I know it, but somehow I have a presentiment Patty never will getwell.”
“Presentiments are silly things! They don’t mean a thing! I’d ratherhave hope than all the presentiments in the world. Here comes Roger.”
Knowing his sister and his fiancée were there, Roger came in. They toldhim what the doctor had said.
“Brace up, girls,” he said, cheeringly. “The game’s never out till it’splayed out. I believe our spunky little Patty will outwit the oldpneumonia and get the better of it. She always comes out top of the heapsomehow. And her holding on so long is a good sign. Don’t you want to gohome now, Mona? You look all tired out.”
“Yes, do go, Mona,” said Elise, kindly. “But it isn’t tiredness, Roger,it’s anxiety. Go on, you two, I’ll stay a while longer.”
The pair went, and Elise sat alone in the library.
Presently, through the stilled house, she heard Patty’s voice ring out,high and shrill.
“I don’t _want_ it!” Patty cried; “I don’t _want_ the fortune! And Idon’t want to marry _anybody_! Why do they make me _promise_ to marryeverybody in the whole world?”
The voice was that of delirium. Though not really delirious, Patty’smind was flighty, and the sentences that followed were disjointed andincoherent. But they all referred to a fortune or to a marriage.
“What can she mean?” sobbed Nan, who, with her husband, sat in anadjoining room.
“Never mind, dear, it’s her feverish, disordered imagination talking. Ifshe were herself, she wouldn’t know what those words meant. Perhaps itis better that her mind wanders. Some say that’s a good sign. Keep uphope, Nan, darling, if only for my sake.”
“Yes, Fred. And we have cause for hope. Doctor is by no meansdiscouraged, and if we can tide over another twenty-four hours——”
“Yes—if we can——”
“We will! Something tells me Patty will get well. The clear look in hereyes this morning——”
“Were they clear, Nan? Did they seem so to you?”
“Yes, dear, they did. And the nurse said that meant a lot.”
“But the specialist doctor—he said Patty is so frail——”
“So she is, and always has been. But that’s in her favour. It’s oftenthe strong, robust people that go off quickest with pneumonia. Patty hasa wiry, nervous strength that is a help to her now.”
“You’re such a comfort, Nan. But I don’t want Patty to die.”
“Nor I, Fred. She is nearly as dear to me as to you. You know that, I’msure. And Patty is a born fighter. She’s like you in that. I know she’llbattle with that disease and conquer it,—I _know_ she will!”
“Please God you’re right, dearest. Let us hope it with all our hearts.”
Alone, Patty fought her life and death battle. Doctors, nurses, friends,all did what they could, but alone she grappled with the angel of death.All unconsciously, too, but with an involuntary struggle for lifeagainst the grim foe that held her. Now and again her voice cried out indelirium or murmured in a babbling monotone.
Now racked with fever, now shivering with a chill, the tortured littlebody shook convulsively or lay in a death-like stupor.
Once, when Kit Cameron was downstairs, they heard Patty shriek out aboutthe fortune.
“Oh,” said Kit, awestruck; “can she mean that fortune-telling businesswe had? Don’t you remember I told her she’d inherit a fortune. Ofcourse, I was only joking. Fortune-tellers always predict a legacy. Ihope _that_ hasn’t worried her.”
“No,” said Nan, shaking her head, “it isn’t that. She’s been worryingabout that fortune ever since she’s been flighty. I know what she means.Never mind it.”
Glad that it was not an unfortunate result of his practical joke, Kitdropped the subject.
“I want her to get well so terribly,” he went on. “I just _can’t_ haveit otherwise. I’ve always cherished a sort of forlorn hope that I couldwin her yet. Do you think I’ve a chance, Mrs. Nan?”
“When we get her well again, we’ll see,” and Nan tried to speakcheerfully. “But it’s awfully nice of you boys to come round so often.You cheer us up a good deal. Mr. Fairfield is not very hopeful. You seePatty’s mother died so young, and Patty is very like her, delicate,fragile, though almost never really ill. And here comes another of myboys.”
Nan always called Patty’s friends her boys; and they all liked thepleasant, lively young matron, and affectionately called her Mrs. Nan.
This time it was Chick Channing, and he came to inquire after Patty, andalso to bring the sad news that Mrs. Van Reypen was dead.
Though not entirely unexpected, for the old lady had been very ill, itwas a shock, and cast a deeper gloom over the household.
“I’m so sorry for Philip,” said Nan. “He was devoted to his aunt, andshe idolised him. Of late, he practically made his home with her.”
“I suppose he is her heir,” observed Channing.
“I suppose so,” returned Nan, listlessly. And then she suddenlyremembered what Patty had said about Mrs. Van’s bequest to her. But shedecided to make no mention of it at present.
“She was a wealthy old lady,” said Cameron. “Van Reypen will be wellfixed. He’s a good all-round man, I like him.”
“I don’t know him well,” said Chick, “I met him a few times. A thorougharistocrat, I should say.”
“All of that. They’re among the oldest of the Knickerbockers. Butnothing of the snob about him. A right down good fellow and a loyalfriend. Well, I must go. Command me, Mrs. Nan, if I can do the leastthing for our Patty Girl. Keep up a good heart, and——”
Kit’s voice choked, and he went off without further words.
Channing soon followed, but all day the young people kept calling ortelephoning, for Patty had hosts of friends and they all loved her.
Nan went to her room to write a note of sympathy to Philip. Her ownheart full of sorrow and anxiety, she felt deeply for the young manwhose home death had invaded, and her kindred trouble helped her tochoose the right words of comfort and cheer.
The day of Mrs. Van Reypen’s funeral, Patty was very low indeed. Doctorand nurses held their breath as their patient hovered on the borderlandof the Valley of Shadow, and Patty’s father, with Nan sobbing in hisarms, awaited the dread verdict or the word of glorious hope.
Patty stirred restlessly, her breathing laboured and difficult.“I—did—promise,” she said in very low, but clear tones, “but Ididn’t—oh, I didn’t—_want_ to—I didn’t——” her voice trailed away tosilence.
“What _is_ that promise?” whispered the doctor to Nan. “It’s beentroubling her——”
br /> “I don’t know at all. She usually tells me her troubles, but I don’tknow what this means.”
There was a slight commotion below stairs. The doctor looked at a nurse,and she moved noiselessly out to command quiet.
Patty’s eyes opened wide, they looked very blue, and their glance wasmore nearly rational than it had been.
“Sh!” she said, weakly. “Listen! It _is_! Yes, it _is_. Tell him to comeup, I want to see him.”
“Who is it?” asked the doctor. “She mustn’t see anybody.”
“I must,” whimpered Patty, beginning to cry; “it’s Little Billee; I wanthim now.”
“For heaven’s sake, she’s rational!” exclaimed the doctor. “Bring himup, whoever he is, if she says so! No matter if it’s an elephant, bringhim at once!”
Half frightened, Nan went out into the hall. Sure enough, big BillFarnsworth was halfway upstairs.
“I heard her!” he said, in a choked voice, “she said she wanted me——”
“Come,” said Nan, and led the way.
Softly Farnsworth stepped inside the door, gently as a woman he tookPatty’s thin little hand in his two big strong ones, as he sat down in achair beside her bed.
“Little Billee,” and Patty smiled faintly, “I want somebody to strongme—I’m so weak—you can——”
“Yes, dear,” and firmly holding her hand in one of his, Farnsworthsoftly touched her eyelids with his fingertips, and the white lids fellover the blue eyes, and with a contented little sigh, Patty sank into anatural sleep, the first in many days.
Released from his nervous tension, the doctor’s set features relaxed. Helooked in gratified amazement at the sleeping girl, and at the twoastonished nurses.
“She will live,” he said, softly. “But it is like a miracle. On noaccount let her be awakened; but you may move, sir. She is in a soundsleep of exhaustion.”
Farnsworth rose,—laying down Patty’s hand lightly as a snowflake,—andsoundlessly left the room.
Nan and Mr. Fairfield followed, after a moment.
They found the big fellow looking out of the hall window. At theirfootsteps, he turned, making no secret of the fact that he was wipingthe tears from his eyes.
“I didn’t know—” he said, brokenly, “until yesterday. I was inChicago,—I made the best connections I could, and raced up here. HaveI—is she—all right now?”
“Yes,” and Fred Fairfield grasped Farnsworth’s hand. “Undoubtedly yousaved her life. It was the crisis. If she could sleep—they said,—andshe is sleeping.”
“Thank God!” and the honest blue eyes of the big Westerner filled againwith tears.
“Thank _you_, too,” cried Nan, and she shook his hand with fervour.“Come into my sitting-room, and tell me all about it. How did Patty knowyou were here?”
“Didn’t you tell her?” Bill looked amazed.
“No; she must have heard your voice—downstairs——”
“But I scarcely spoke above my breath!”
“She heard it,—or divined your presence somehow, for she said you werethere and she wanted you,—the first rational words she has spoken!”
“Bless her heart! Perhaps she heard me, perhaps it was telepathy. Idon’t know, or care. She wanted me, and I was there. I am glad.”
The big man looked so proud and yet so humble as he said this, that Nanforgot her dislike and distrust of him, and begged him to stay withthem.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That wouldn’t do. I’ll be in New York a few weeksnow, at the Excelsior. I’ll see you often,—and Patty when I may,—but Iwon’t stay here, thanks. I’m so happy to have been of service, andalways command me, of course.”
Farnsworth bowed and went off, and the two Fairfields looked at eachother.
“What an episode!” exclaimed Nan. “Did he really save her life, Fred?”
“He probably did. We can never say for certain, but at that crisis, anatural sleep is a Godsend. He induced it, whether by a kind ofmesmerism, or whether because Patty cares so much for him, I can’t say.I hate to think the latter——”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, you know that story Van Reypen tells, aboutFarnsworth trying to get Patty to go on the operatic stage——”
“I never was sure about that—we didn’t hear it so very straight.”
“Well, and Farnsworth is not altogether of—of our own sort——”
“You mean, not the aristocrat Phil is?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, all that doesn’t matter just now. If the doctor says Bill savedPatty’s life, I shall always adore him, and I shall erect a very highmonument to his honour. So there, now!”
Nan was almost gay. The revulsion of feeling brought about by Patty’simproved condition made her so joyous she had to express it in some way.
First, she tiptoed to the door, and beckoned the nurse out. From her shedemanded and received assurance that Patty was really past the presentdanger, and barring relapse or complication, would get well.
Then she flew to the telephone and told Mona, leaving her to pass theglad news on to the others.
She wanted to call up Van Reypen, but was uncertain whether to do so ornot. He was but just returned from his aunt’s burial, and the timeseemed inopportune. Yet, he would be so anxious to hear, and perhaps noone else would tell him.
So she called him, telling the servant who answered, who she was, andsaying Mr. Van Reypen might speak to her or not, as he wished.
“Of course I want to speak to you,” Phil’s deep voice responded; “how isshe?”
“Better, really better. She will get well, if there are no setbacks.”
“Oh, _I am_ so glad. Mrs. Nan, I have been so saddened these last fewdays. I couldn’t go to you as I wished, because of affairs here. Now,dear old aunty is laid to rest, and soon I must come over. I don’t hopeto see Patty, but I want a talk with you. May I come tonight?”
“Surely, Philip. Come when you will, you are always welcome.”
“But I don’t know,” Nan said to Fred Fairfield, “what Philip will saywhen he knows who it was that brought about Patty’s recovery.”
“Need he know? Need anybody know? Perhaps when Patty can have a say inthe matter, she will not wish it known. The nurses won’t tell. Need we?”
“Perhaps not,” said Nan, thoughtfully.