Rebecca's Promise Part 15

"A question?" Peter looked hopelessly bewildered. "Why should any one, least of all an old woman of sixty-eight, run away from a question?"

Even when Rebecca Mary had explained what question it was which had made Granny abandon her comfortable home in Waloo at midnight Peter didn't seem to understand, and he said so.

"That's because you're a man!" Rebecca Mary was very scornful of a man's power of comprehension. "I understand perfectly, and I don't blame Granny a bit. It must be perfectly maddening to have your husband ask you whether you want light meat or dark every time a chicken comes to the table or what you want for a birthday or a Christmas present. I don't blame Granny," she repeated for fear he had not heard her the first time she said it.

"Neither do I when you say it like that," Peter agreed amiably.

"Although I can't see why she didn't go to grandfather and tell him how she felt. My grandfather, Miss Rebecca Mary Wyman, is the best old scout in the world. Don't think for a minute that he is a crabbed selfish old dub because he isn't. He's the head of a big manufacturing plant which he had ready to turn over to the government before the war because he saw it coming, and it's been no joke to get it back to a peace basis since the war. I don't know anything about this chicken meat proposition, but I do know that granddad has so much on his mind that it isn't surprising if he has forgotten a little thing like an anniversary----"

"Little thing!" Anniversaries were not little things to Rebecca Mary.

They aren't little things to any woman. "A golden wedding a little thing!" It was perfectly clear to Peter that a golden wedding with all its tributes and attributes would never be a little thing to Rebecca Mary.

"She's going to ask me," Joan broke in excitedly. "I've never been to one, and I can't think what it will be like. What will be golden? The bride can't be, can she?"

"No," Rebecca Mary put an arm around Joan as she explained. "No, honey, the golden part will be the beautiful memory the bride and bridegroom will have of the fifty happy years they have spent together." She stopped suddenly as she remembered that was what Cousin Susan had said, that memories were golden. "What a long time that is!" she murmured dreamily. "Fifty years!"

"Not too long for two people who love each other," suggested Peter in a voice which sent the ready color to her cheeks. "When you are married you will want a golden wedding, won't you?"

"I wonder," her lips murmured perversely, although her heart told her with one big beat that she would, she most certainly would, want a golden wedding.

"I know," insisted Peter. "Come on in and help me find some breakfast. I haven't had a thing to eat since last night," piteously.

"We have!" Joan was triumphant. "We had strawberries and toast and eggs and coffee!"

"Greedy!" Peter made a face at her. "I hope you didn't eat all the strawberries, nor all the eggs, nor all the toast!"

CHAPTER XII

Rebecca Mary and Joan sat beside Peter while he ate his strawberries and his eggs and toast and bacon. Rebecca Mary poured two cups of coffee for him in a demure little way which Peter found quite enchanting, and his eyes told her so as they followed her to the other side of the table.

But there was nothing sentimental to Joan in the fact that Rebecca Mary had poured Peter two cups of coffee. She found it only interesting, and her eyes grew big when Peter broke a third egg.

"Gentlemen hold a lot more than ladies, don't they?" she asked with frank interest. "Granny only ate berries and toast and drank half a cup of coffee, and you, dear Miss Wyman, had an egg with your toast and coffee and so did I, but Mr. Simmons already has eaten----"

"Spare me the list of my victories," begged Peter. "And bear in mind, Friend Joan, that men are hard working creatures who have to be well stoked to do their job."

"But ladies work, too." Joan objected to such s.e.x discrimination. "I've seen them, haven't I, Miss Wyman?"

"You have unless you kept your eyes shut, which is what so many of our busy gentlemen do," twinkled Rebecca Mary. "If you are quite sure you won't have another cup of coffee, Mr. Simmons, I'll run up and see if Granny is awake and tell her the surprise that is waiting for her."

But Granny was still asleep under the rose strewn coverlet, and Rebecca Mary slipped out as quietly as she had slipped in.

Peter had finished his breakfast when she returned to the dining room, and they all walked out to the garden where he smoked a cigarette.

"But you know Granny can't stay here without sending word to grandfather," insisted Peter.

"Why can't she?"

"Why can't she?" Peter stared as if Rebecca Mary should have known better than to waste words on such a question. "My grandfather adores my grandmother, Miss Wyman, although he does tease her to death, and he'll worry his old gray head off if he doesn't know where she is."

"Mrs. Simmons left a message with Pierson."

"That she had gone to Seven Pines. When grandfather calls up Seven Pines Granny won't be there. No, she must send him a message at once."

"You can't send any messages from Riverside. Major Martingale told us so most emphatically."

"I rather guess we could get a word to old Peter Simmons if we went about it in the right way." Young Peter seemed much amused to hear that she imagined that they couldn't. "Don't you know----" he began, and then he laughed and stopped short.

Rebecca Mary knew, of course, that he had meant to tell her what an important man his grandfather was, and she liked him the better for breaking his sentence off in the middle and not boasting. He chuckled to himself several times as he walked with Rebecca Mary through the garden which was such a riot of gorgeous color, around the flower-bordered pool, by the old lichen-studded sun dial and through the green wreathed pergola to the river bank, where Peter forgot his grandparents as he remembered his history and told Rebecca Mary the legend the Indians had written on the big rock on the other side. It was a gruesome tale, and Joan shook in her small shoes. Rebecca Mary would have shivered in her larger oxfords if she had not remembered that the gruesomeness was some two hundred years old. They had a most delightful morning and strolled back when they heard the clang of a big bell, a bell which Peter told Joan talked of absolutely nothing but food.

"The mechanics are quartered in the farmhouse," he explained.

There was one word in his sentence which reminded Rebecca Mary that she was a member of Granny's detective bureau, and she looked up quickly.

"Just what is this experiment which is going to mean so much to the world?" she asked with serpent guile. The minute she had seen young Peter Simmons she knew that Major Martingale's story was true, but she should like to know more of his experiment. She had no doubt Peter would tell her more.

Peter squirmed uneasily. He wanted to tell her what he knew but a man's tongue is sometimes tied.

"I'm sorry," he said as Wallie Marshall had said earlier in the morning.

"But we aren't allowed to breathe a word. We're under oath, you know.

Can't run the risk of any leak."

"You don't trust me?" For just a second Rebecca Mary threatened to be injured or indignant. Peter held his breath. "Never mind!" She decided to smile, and Peter drew a sigh of relief. "It must have something to do with aeroplanes----"

"I'm not here as an aviator," Peter told her quickly, and then seemed sorry that he had spoken.

"You're not?" But as Peter refused to say in what capacity he was at Riverside she went on rather scornfully; "I suppose it has nothing to do with chemistry or electricity, either, although Mr. Marshall told me he was one kind of an engineer and Mr. Barton was the other."

"The d.i.c.kens he did!" Peter grinned at her powers of deduction.

"I dare say I'll know all about it in time." Rebecca Mary tossed her head with a fair show of indifference. "That is if there is anything to know. Come, Joan, I'm sure Granny is awake now."

"I say, you're not angry with me?" Peter did not see why he should be intrusted with secrets which would make Rebecca Mary angry with him. He caught her hand.

She looked down at the five fingers which rested on Peter's broad palm and then up at his face, and to his delight there was no anger in her eyes, nothing but the most innocent surprise.

"Why should I be angry?" And when he didn't tell her she went on lightly: "Of course, I should want to know anything I shouldn't know, any girl would, and equally, of course, you must keep your oath, but----" She shrugged her shoulders and took her fingers away from Peter.

"I see," muttered Peter ruefully as he followed her. But he didn't see at all.

They found Granny awake, and on the terrace. She was surprised to see Peter for she had not believed a word of Rebecca Mary's dream, and she asked him at once if Major Martingale's story were true or should she and Rebecca Mary run away and warn Joshua Cabot that queer things were taking place at Riverside? There was no beating about the bush with Granny. She did not hesitate a second, and she looked very crestfallen when Peter told her that Major Martingale had told nothing but the truth.

"You'd never believe how important the experiment is nor how much Germany wants it," he said. "Old Martingale has to be suspicious and careful. He can't trust any one who isn't on oath. You were lucky you weren't shot at sunrise. No, you can't do a thing but stay until the Major lets you go. I'm glad you're here. It will make it pleasanter for me," he explained with a grin. "Although I'll confess that I didn't realize that things were on quite such a military footing. I didn't bring you here to be locked up but because I thought it was safer than to leave you on the high road. I didn't know you would have to stay," he insisted. "Better send a message to grandfather," he told his grandmother.

She shook her head. "I can't. I'm not allowed to send messages to any one."