Rebecca's Promise Part 22

CHAPTER XVIII

Granny woke in the morning with a headache. Rebecca Mary found her with heavy eyes and flushed cheeks when she went in to see if she would get up for breakfast.

"I have such a headache," Granny moaned piteously.

"Poor dear!" Rebecca Mary put her fresh cool hand against Granny's hot old face. "Then you should stay in bed. You mustn't get up for breakfast."

"I shan't." Granny was a model of obedience. "I couldn't," she said with another moan. "I shan't be any good all day. I always have to stay in bed when I have one of these attacks, and I just want to be left alone.

I don't want to see any one! You can tell old Peter Simmons that it was worrying over my golden wedding present that gave me this headache. That should make him ashamed of himself. No, I don't want a thing but to be left alone."

But Rebecca Mary shook up her pillows and smoothed her bed and pulled down the shades and kissed her hot forehead, and said it was a horrid shame that she was ill, and she hoped that Granny would be better soon, and she certainly should tell old Peter Simmons what Granny had said.

Then she tiptoed out and shut the door very softly behind her.

Old Peter Simmons was very sorry to hear that Granny was ill, and he thought she was very sensible to stay in bed until she was better; he knew those headaches and there was nothing for them but quiet and rest, but as for the golden wedding present----

"That's nonsense, perfect nonsense!" he declared stoutly. "Can't she trust me?"

Rebecca Mary slowly shook her head. "I think she feels that she has trusted you and now she isn't sure she can trust herself," she ventured demurely. It was rather fun for Rebecca Mary to stand before the great Peter Simmons and find fault with him.

"And my past is against me." Old Peter Simmons admitted it ruefully. "I don't know why it is so confoundedly hard to remember some things. You women! Can't you learn that an anniversary or a holiday is just a day, just one of the three hundred and sixty-five which make up a year?"

"Anniversaries and holidays are the decorations of the year," Rebecca Mary told him quickly. He should have known that without being told. No one had ever had to tell her.

Old Peter Simmons looked at her from under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. "You are all alike, you women," he grumbled. "And I guess men are pretty much alike, too. Decoration doesn't mean as much to us. But my wife might remember that I've had a good deal on my mind the last few years. She has, too," he admitted honestly. "Peter will never know how many nights his grandmother lay awake worrying about him. She did too much, all that Red Cross work during the war and all the refugee work after the war.

And now she's worrying over this golden wedding of hers." He spoke as if the golden wedding belonged exclusively to Granny. "She should be home where she could look after it herself. She shouldn't be here."

"She can't help that!" Rebecca Mary was indignant that old Peter Simmons should blame Granny for what wasn't her fault. "She didn't want to stay."

"You made the rule yourself," stammered Major Martingale, who was waiting fussily to carry old Peter Simmons away. Major Martingale was indignant, also. "When we had so much trouble with the labor agitators you said no one was to leave Riverside. Absolutely no one, you said!" He bristled like an angry turkey c.o.c.k.

"Sure, I made the rule," admitted old Peter Simmons. "I made it for you and the boys and the mechanics. But I didn't make it for my wife and her friends."

"How did I know you hadn't sent her?" began the Major bitterly, but old Peter Simmons wouldn't let him finish.

"Why should I send a woman, two women, to a place I had chosen for an important experiment which I wanted to work out in secret? That's nonsense, Major! At the same time I believe that it has done Mrs.

Simmons good to be here. I'm glad you did keep her. There hasn't been anything for her to do so she has been able to get some rest. It hasn't been bad for you, either, young lady." And he nodded his grizzled head approvingly as he looked at rosy cheeked Rebecca Mary.

"Women," muttered the Major in a dark dank way, "are always interfering.

They do their best to ruin things for a man."

"Oh!" Rebecca Mary looked at old Peter Simmons for help.

He gave it to her at once. "My experience, Major Martingale," he said slowly, "is that women help men more than they hinder them. I've had fifty years to prove a decision I made on my wedding day, that a woman perfects a man's life, and I know that I'm correct. Yes, I'll be right out," as the Major moved hastily and suggestively toward the door.

"Don't wait for me."

"If you feel that way," Rebecca Mary said impulsively, "why do you tease Granny?" She was rather scared when she had put the question, but she looked at him as if she were not scared at all.

Old Peter Simmons seemed nonplussed for a moment. "On my soul, I don't know. Mrs. Simmons used to like me to tease her, and so I kept on. But I'm afraid she doesn't care for it as much as she did," he admitted ruefully.

"Indeed, she doesn't!" Rebecca Mary wondered why on earth he kept on teasing Granny when he knew Granny didn't like to be teased. Rebecca Mary was beginning to feel sorry for old Peter Simmons, although she did think that even the head of a big manufacturing plant should have room in his mind for anniversaries and holidays. His mind shouldn't be filled entirely with contracts.

"Does she honestly expect me to remember that golden wedding present?"

The twinkle was more p.r.o.nounced than ever in old Peter Simmons' blue eyes. "Can't you give me a clue?" he begged with a chuckle, but Rebecca Mary couldn't. She hadn't any idea herself what it was that Granny Simmons and her husband had talked about so many times. Granny Simmons had never told her.

So old Peter Simmons had to go away muttering that women were the d.i.c.kens, the very d.i.c.kens. That was exactly what they were. How was he to know what one of them wanted for a golden wedding present? And even if his wife had told him what she wanted, if they had talked it over hundreds of times together, how could he be sure that she would want it on the golden wedding day? Women changed their minds once a minute. A man was never sure of them. But his eyes twinkled as he grumbled, and Rebecca Mary's eyes twinkled, too. There was no doubt that old Peter Simmons was the greatest kind of a tease. Granny had described him perfectly.

They were in the big parlor where the old portrait of Richard Cabot's great-grandmother hung. Rebecca Mary never thought of that portrait as Joshua Cabot's great-grandmother, but always as Richard's great-grandmother. And when old Peter Simmons went grumbling and twinkling away, Rebecca Mary looked up at the portrait.

"I wonder if your husband gave you what you wanted on holidays and anniversaries?" she asked impulsively. "And do you think your great-grandson will remember his golden wedding without being reminded?"

"I don't know what it is, but I'm sure this great-grandson will make a desperate effort to remember anything you want him to remember,"

exclaimed a voice behind her.

Like a red and yellow wooden top, Rebecca Mary swung around and saw--would wonders ever cease?--Richard Cabot, himself. It was not the Richard Cabot she had seen in Waloo for that Richard had always looked as if he had just stepped from a brand new bandbox and this Richard didn't look as if he had ever seen a bandbox. His hair was too rumpled and his clothes too crumpled. Rebecca Mary stared at him, her eyes and mouth big round O's of astonishment. Her heart suddenly climbed into her throat and promised to choke her as he crossed the room with quick eager steps.

"Aren't you going to say that you are glad to see me?" He took the hand she was far too surprised to offer him.

"Where did you come from?" She didn't seem able to find her every-day voice and had to use her Sunday one, which shook a little. "Are you a prisoner, too?" Rebecca Mary hoped that he was. Although there were four men at Riverside all devoted to her, you see she was not satisfied. She wanted a fifth, even if this fifth man did make her heart beat so uncomfortably. "There is a very jolly crowd of prisoners here," she added encouragingly. "I'm sure you will like them."

Richard looked from her sunburnt fingers to her face, which was a most adorable pink, and knew that he had not been mistaken--she was just what he had thought she was.

"If I had known you were here I should have come long ago," he said quite as if he could come and go as he pleased. Evidently he had not met stern Major Martingale. "How could you run away without leaving a word for me?" he went on reproachfully. "I tried to make old Pierson tell me where you were, but all she would say was that Granny had taken you on a motor trip. I thought that meant Seven Pines and called up the house only to be told by Mrs. Swenson that for the first time in seven years old Mrs. Simmons had disappointed her. She had promised to come to Otillie's wedding and the wedding was on and Mrs. Simmons hadn't come.

Mrs. Swenson didn't know whether to be mad or worried. And I was in the same boat. I wrote to Mifflin, and when I didn't hear a word from you I thought that perhaps you had decided that you didn't like bankers. I sure was sore!" He laughed softly as if now, with Rebecca Mary's hand still in his, it was rather amusing to remember how sore he had been.

Guilty consciousness was plainly written on Rebecca Mary's pink and white forehead. "It wasn't my fault." She made the best defense she could. "I didn't have a minute in which to send any one word. And since we have been here we couldn't send words. You must remember that I have been a prisoner." And she laughed as if it were the greatest fun in the world to be a prisoner.

"A prisoner in my great-grandmother's old home," smiled Richard, who had not been half as surprised to see her as Rebecca Mary had expected him to be. Indeed, he had not seemed surprised at all. "How do you like my great-grandmother?" he asked in a whisper as if he did not wish his great-grandmother to hear Rebecca Mary's answer.

"We're the greatest friends," she whispered back. "And I like your great-grandfather's old house enormously, but I don't quite like to be a prisoner."

"You'll be given your freedom soon," promised Richard, quite as if he knew all about her case. "Things are moving right along out there." He nodded in the direction of the shop. "I shouldn't be surprised if you were released very soon now."

"Are you interested in this mysterious experiment, too? Granny and I are dying to know about it for all that we are sure of is that an aviator, a chemical engineer and an electrical engineer and a United States Army officer and a Luxembourg count are working on it with a lot of Waloo mechanics. It is a very confusing combination. Major Martingale insists that it is, oh, frightfully important and that Germany is reaching out grabbing hands for it. He scowls like a pirate if we ask any questions at all. At first we thought it must have something to do with aeroplanes, on account of Peter, you know, and then we thought of a wireless something, but when the Luxembourg count was tangled up with it we stopped trying to imagine what it was. We hear the weirdest noises and smell the weirdest smells but they don't tell us anything." She smiled expectantly and waited for him to tell her all about the great experiment, but when he never told her a word but just smiled at her she crinkled her nose and went on more slowly: "And now if a banker is added to the staff we shall be more hopelessly at sea than ever."

His smile grew into a laugh. "The banker hasn't very much to do with it, but Major Martingale is right. The thing is tremendously important. And Germany does want to grab it. It would do a lot to reinstate her commercially and she is still making every effort to get control of it.

That's why Major Martingale has been so cautious. He didn't want to run any risk of a leak. Did you know that old Mr. Simmons is the Big Boss?"

Then Rebecca Mary had guessed right. She was sure she had, but she liked to hear Richard tell her that she had.

"He brought me down with him last night and old Martingale caught me as soon as we pa.s.sed the guard and carried me off to the shop. That is why I didn't see you last night and why now I'm so suggestive of 'the morning after.' But you haven't said yet that you were glad to see me,"

he said suddenly, and he took Rebecca Mary's other hand. "It has seemed a thundering long time since I saw you. Has it seemed long to you?" He bent his tall head so that he could look into her eyes.

But before Rebecca Mary could tell him whether the days since she had seen him had dragged or whether they had exceeded the speed limit Major Martingale's harsh voice was heard in the hall.

"Cabot!" he bellowed. "Where are you?"