Once in the carriage, Nan sat beside her and Mr. Fairfield opposite, and they started for home. No reference was made to Patty herself, but the others talked lightly and pleasantly of the afternoon performance.
On reaching home, Nan put Patty to bed at once, and telephoned for the Doctor.
But when Dr. Martin came, Nan met him downstairs, and told him all about the case. They then decided that the Doctor should not see Patty, as to realise the fact that she was in need of medical attendance might prove a serious shock.
"And really, Doctor," said Nan, "if the girl shouldn"t be allowed at least to try to go through with the play this evening, I wouldn"t like to answer for the consequences."
"I understand," said Dr. Martin, "and though I think that with the aid of certain prescriptions I shall give you, she can probably get through the evening, it would be far better if she did not attempt it."
"I know it Doctor," said Nan, "and with some girls it might be possible to persuade them to give it up, but I can"t help feeling that if we even advised Patty not to go to-night, she would fly into violent hysterics."
"Very likely," said Dr. Martin, "and I think, Mrs. Fairfield, you are right in your diagnosis. If you will give her these drops exactly as I have directed, I think she will brace up sufficiently to go through her part all right."
Nan thanked the Doctor, and hurried back to Patty"s room to look after her charge. She found Patty lying quietly, but in a state of mental excitement. When Nan came in, she began to talk rapidly.
"It"s all right, Nan, dear," she said. "I"m not ill a bit. Please let me get up now, and dress so I can go around to the schoolroom a little bit early. There are two or three things I must look after, and then the play will go off all right."
"Very well," said Nan, humouring her, "if you will just take this medicine it will brace you up for the evening, and you can go through with the play as successfully as you did your part this afternoon."
Patty agreed, and took the drops the Doctor had left, without a murmur.
Soon their soothing effect became apparent, and Patty"s nervous enthusiasm quieted down to such an extent that she seemed in no haste to go.
She ate her dinner slowly, and dawdled over her dressing, until Nan again became alarmed lest the medicine had been too powerful.
Poor Nan really had a hard time of it. Patty was not a tractable patient, and Nan was frequently at her wits" end to know just how to manage her.
But at last she was ready, and they all started for the school again.
Although Patty"s own people, and a few of her intimate girl friends knew of her overwrought state, most of the cla.s.s and even the teachers had no idea how near to a nervous breakdown she was. For her demeanour was much as usual, and though she would have moments of dazed bewilderment, much of the time she was unusually alert and she flew about attending to certain last details in an efficient and clear-headed manner.
CHAPTER IX
THE PLAY
The play went through beautifully. Every girl did her part wonderfully well, but Patty surpa.s.sed them all. Buoyed up by excitement, she played her part with a dash and sprightliness that surprised even the girls who had seen her at rehearsal. She was roguish, merry and tragic by turns, and she sang her solos with a dramatic effect that brought down the house. She looked unusually pretty, which was partly the effect of her intense excitement, and though Nan and Mr. Fairfield could not help admiring and applauding with the rest, they were very anxious and really alarmed, lest she might not be able to keep up to these emotional heights until the end of the play.
Without speaking his thoughts to anyone else, Mr. Hepworth, too, was very much concerned for Patty"s welfare. He realised the danger she was in, and noted every evidence of her artificial strength and merriment. Seeing Dr. Martin in a seat near the back of the room, he quietly rose and went and sat beside the old gentleman.
"Doctor," he said, "I can"t help fearing that a collapse of some sort will follow Miss Fairfield"s performance."
"I am sure of it," said the Doctor, looking gravely at Mr. Hepworth.
"Then don"t you think perhaps it would be wise for you to go around behind the scenes, presently, and be there in case of emergency."
"I will gladly do so," said Dr. Martin, "if Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield authorise it."
Mr. Hepworth looked at his programme, and then he looked at Patty. He knew the play pretty thoroughly, and he knew that she was making one of the final speeches. He saw too, that she had nearly reached the limit of her endurance, and he said, "Dr. Martin, I wish you would go on my authority. The Fairfields are sitting in the front part of the house, and it would be difficult to speak to them about it without creating a commotion. And besides, I think there is no time to be lost; this is almost the end of the play, and in my judgment, Miss Fairfield is pretty nearly at the end of her self-composure."
Dr. Martin gave the younger man a searching glance, and then said, "You are right, Mr. Hepworth. It may be advisable that I should be there when Miss Fairfield comes off the stage. I will go at once. Will you come with me?"
"Yes," said Mr. Hepworth, and the two men quietly left the room, and hastened around the building to the side entrance.
As Mr. Hepworth had a.s.sisted with the scenery for the play, and had been present at one or two rehearsals, he knew his way about, and guided Dr.
Martin through the corridors to the room where the girls were gathered, waiting their cue to go on the stage for the final tableau and chorus.
Lorraine and Hilda looked at each other comprehendingly, as the two men appeared, but the other girls wondered at this apparent intrusion.
Then as the time came, they all went on the stage, and Dr. Martin and Mr.
Hepworth, watching from the side, saw them form the pretty final tableau.
Patty in a spangled dress and tinsel crown, waving a gilt wand, stood on a high pedestal. Around her, on lower pedestals, and on the floor, were the rest of the fairy maidens in their glittering costumes.
The last notes of the chorus rang out, and amidst a burst of applause the curtain fell. The applause continued so strongly that the curtain was immediately raised again, and the delighted audience viewed once more the pretty scene.
Mr. Hepworth was nearer the stage than Dr. Martin, in fact, in his anxiety, he was almost edging on to it, and while the curtain was up, and the audience was applauding, and the orchestra was playing, and the calcium lights were flashing their vari-coloured rays, his intense watchfulness noticed a slight shudder pa.s.s over Patty"s form, then she swayed slightly, and her eyes closed.
In a flash Mr. Hepworth had himself rung the bell that meant the drop of the curtain, and as the curtain came down, he sprang forward among the bewildered girls, and reached the tall pedestal just in time to catch Patty as she tottered and fell.
"She has only fainted," he said, as he carried her off the stage, "please don"t crowd around, she will be all right in a moment."
He carried her to the dressing-room and gently laid her on a couch. Dr.
Martin followed closely, and Mr. Hepworth left Patty in his charge.
"You, Miss Hamilton, go in there," he said to Lorraine, at the door, "and see if you can help Dr. Martin. I will speak to the Fairfields and see that the carriage is ready. I don"t think the audience knows anything about it, and there need be no fuss or commotion."
Quick-witted Hilda grasped the situation, and kept the crowd of anxious girls out of the dressing-room, while Dr. Martin administered restoratives to Patty.
But it was not so easy to overcome the faintness that had seized upon her. When at last she did open her eyes, it was only to close them again in another period of exhaustion.
However, this seemed to encourage Dr. Martin.
"It"s better than I feared," he said. "She isn"t delirious. There is no threat of brain fever. She will soon revive now, and we can safely take her home."
And so when the Doctor declared that she might now be moved, Mr.
Fairfield supported her on one side, and Kenneth on the other as they took her to the carriage.
"Get in, Mrs. Fairfield," said Kenneth, after Patty was safely seated by her father, "and you too, Dr. Martin. I"ll jump up on the box with the driver. Perhaps I can help you at the house."
So away they went, without a word or a thought for poor Mr. Hepworth, to whose watchfulness was really due the fact of Dr. Martin"s opportune a.s.sistance. And too, if Mr. Hepworth had not seen the first signs of Patty"s loss of consciousness, her fall from the high pedestal might have proved a serious accident.
Although Dr. Martin told the family afterward of Mr. Hepworth"s kind thoughtfulness, it went unnoted at the time. But of this, Mr. Hepworth himself was rather glad than otherwise. His affection for Patty was such that he did not wish the girl to feel that she owed him grat.i.tude, and he preferred to have no claim of the sort upon her.
When the party reached the Fairfield house, Patty had revived enough to talk rationally, but she was very weak, and seemed to have lost all enthusiasm and even interest in the occasion.
"It"s all over, isn"t it?" she asked of her father in a helpless, pathetic little voice.