Part 12 (1/2)
Rosamond turned drowsily on her pillows, pulling the satin coverlet up to her chin.
”Awfully kind,” she said indifferently. ”I had tickets for us two and Miss Ardsley was to chaperone us. It was to surprise you, but we can give our tickets to her and let her take someone else. I fancy she can find some one who will go.”
She turned over with so definite an air that Patricia snapped off the light and went slowly to her own little room, where she sat down before her table and got out her writing materials. She had a letter to write to Mrs. Spicer, but somehow the bloom seemed to be rubbed off of her wonderful afternoon, and she sat staring at the heading, 'Dear Mrs.
Nat,' for a long time before she began to write.
Her mind was ranging over the costumes which Rosamond had made her describe so minutely and she was thinking with an earnestness new to her how much she should like to be like Rosamond, with her lovely voice and sumptuous clothes.
At last she dipped her dry pen and laid the blotter ready. ”I guess Mrs.
Nat will be glad to hear all about it,” she said with a little self-conscious smile twisting her pink lips. ”She hasn't much chance at really splendid doings, and she does love pretty things.”
She stopped before she had written a sentence to muse again. ”I wish she hadn't taken a sort of dislike to Rosamond when she saw her out at Red Top,” she said wistfully. ”It's so hard to write without putting Rosamond in. She's in almost everything I do now.”
CHAPTER X
MISS PAT PLAYS NURSE
Patricia found that Rosamond was still more interwoven into her daily life when she went into her room the next morning, and found her breathing heavily and entirely oblivious of all about her.
”Oh, dear, she must be really ill,” said Patricia, half aloud, as she bent over the bed and looked at the flushed face anxiously. ”I wonder if I ought to call Miss Ardsley or Miss Tatten.”
She tried to find out just how ill poor Rosamond was, but in spite of her careful attempts to rouse her, Rosamond refused to come back to wakefulness, and Patricia was forced to give up the effort.
”I wish I could go to Miss Tatten,” she thought, drawing the door softly to behind her and hurrying through the sitting-room. ”She's the one in charge, after all. And she doesn't make so much conversation about things as Miss Ardsley does.”
A picture of the fastidious, affable Directress rose clearly before her and she saw what a contrast to little efficient ”Tattie,” as the girls called the st.u.r.dy little house-keeper behind her back, Miss Ardsley would make at a sick-bed.
”I suppose I'll have to go straight down to the office,” she said aloud, as she went out into the hall. ”Oh, dear, I hope she isn't going to be ill.”
Constance Fellows was at her door, unseen by Patricia, and she caught the distressed words. As Patricia hurriedly started for the stair she called to her.
”Is the fair Rosamond under the weather again?” she asked lightly.
Patricia turned, indignant at her levity in the face of trouble.
”Rosamond is in a stupor and I can't wake her up. I'm going for Miss Ardsley,” she said shortly.
Then Constance dropped her bantering tone and, closing her own door, came over to Patricia. ”Let me see her before you call out the authorities,” she said earnestly. ”She may not be seriously ill, and if they once get hold of her they'll keep her in quarantine for weeks after she's all over it.”
Patricia remembered Rosamond saying something much to this effect, and she agreed eagerly.
”I'll go in first and see if she's waked up,” she said on the threshold of Rosamond's room.
Rosamond was lying in the same position as she had been and was as unresponsive to efforts to rouse her as before. Patricia beckoned Constance into the room.
”I'm afraid she's very ill,” she whispered, as Constance came to the bedside, and she waited in great suspense for what should come next.
Constance felt Rosamond's head and listened to her heart in quite a professional manner. Then she disappeared for a moment and came back with a thermometer and an alcohol bottle.