Rebecca's Promise Part 24

CHAPTER XX

Rebecca Mary's feet were as heavy as lead as she went back to the house, and her heart was far heavier than her feet. Oh, Cousin Susan, Cousin Susan, what a tangle you caught Rebecca Mary in when you persuaded her to take out a memory insurance policy!

It was later than she had thought, but the men had not come up from the shop. Ben told her that they weren't coming, that he had just taken them something to eat. He supposed that they would work all night again.

Rebecca Mary looked at him blankly. She had thought that all she would have to do would be to return to the house and call Richard aside and slip her responsibility from her slim shoulders to his broad back. She was so disappointed that she felt almost sick. What should she do?

"Is Mr. Befort at the shop?" she asked Ben, trying her best to keep her voice steady and her chin from trembling.

"Yas'm, he's there with all the rest of 'em. They's gwine to make a night ob it fo' suah. Will you gwine have yo' dinner now, Miss Wyman?

It's ready an' it won't be no better fer waitin'."

Rebecca Mary was so relieved to hear that Frederick Befort was at the shop that her chin stopped trembling. If Frederick Befort was with the other men, with Richard and young Peter and old Peter, he wasn't trying to get in touch with his confederates, and she could draw a long breath.

It didn't seem as if she had had a good breath since she had seen the sc.r.a.ps of paper fall from the old glove.

"Just a minute, Ben, until I run up and see if Mrs. Simmons feels well enough to come down."

"She don't," grumbled Ben. "Ah asted her an' she said Ah was ter brung her up a tray. Folks seems to think Ah hain't got nothin' else ter do but carry dinner here an' there an' yonder. Three in one night is more than one n.i.g.g.e.r's job."

"I know." Rebecca Mary was as sympathetic as she could be with her mind full of something so much more important than dinner. "But perhaps it won't happen again. You might serve Mrs. Simmons first. She didn't eat any luncheon, and she must be hungry."

As Rebecca Mary's leaden feet carried her up the stairs she wondered if she should tell Granny and show her the proof of her story which was in the bandbox in her closet. But as soon as she saw Granny in a thin lavender negligee on the _chaise longue_ she decided that she wouldn't tell her. Granny couldn't do anything, and she had enough to bother about. Indeed, Granny did look pale and tired from spending her day with the headache. She held out a welcoming hand when Rebecca Mary came in.

"Where have you been all afternoon? I thought you were lost."

"Have you missed me?" Rebecca Mary stooped to kiss the pale cheek. "You were so sound asleep when I looked in that I thought you wouldn't be awake for hours. I'm a brute that I didn't come in again."

"I really haven't been awake very long," Granny admitted when she heard how repentant Rebecca Mary was. "I do wish I were home, Rebecca Mary. It was so silly to run away as we did. I might have known something would happen. I'd give anything if we could be back in Waloo before old Peter Simmons. I shan't mind his teasing so much at home. I shan't feel quite so foolish there. A woman can't stand up to her husband as well as she should if she feels foolish. I don't suppose there is any way we could slip out?" she asked wistfully.

No, Rebecca Mary didn't think there was any way, and even if there had been she couldn't take it until she had told her story to Richard and showed him the sc.r.a.ps of paper. But she would not tell Granny that; she could only kiss Granny again and pet her and tell her that Richard had said that they would be free soon to go where they pleased.

She told Granny also what old Peter Simmons had said, that he had proved the decision he had made on his wedding day, that his wife had perfected his life. She made a very pretty speech of it, and it pleased Granny enormously.

"He always did have a nimble tongue," she murmured. "And he really does have a lot of patience with me. Here is Ben with my dinner. I hope you brought a lot, Ben. You know I didn't have any luncheon."

"Yas'm. Ah hopes you gwine ter like the lower half of this spring chicken, Mrs. Simmons? When Ah took the dinner out ter the shop Mr.

Simmons, he sez what you gwine give Mrs. Simmons fer her dinner? An'

when Ah done tell him spring chicken he sez ter brung you de lower half 'cause you gwine ter like de dark meat better'n you do de white."

"He did?" Granny was surprised. "Well! well! So he does know what I like. Rebecca Mary, why do you suppose he always asks me? Perhaps he has remembered other things, too. Didn't I tell you he was a great tease?

Run down to your own dinner, child. I shall do very well. And you and Joan must be hungry."

Rebecca Mary had never felt less hungry in her life but she obediently ran down. She thought she wouldn't eat a mouthful until she saw the array of good things which Ben had prepared when she suddenly discovered that she was hungry. Nothing would be gained by starving herself, she thought, as she patted Joan's shoulder.

"We shall serve ourselves," she told Ben. "And will you please go over to the shop and ask Mr. Cabot if I may speak to him at once?"

"Ah dunno as Ah dares. Old Mr. Simmons said he didn't want ter see any one 'thin gunshot ob dat shop ter night. Maybe Ah could stand away an'

holler," he suggested helpfully.

"Never mind then." Rebecca Mary spoke as carelessly as she could.

"Perhaps he'll be up before long."

"If you ast me Ah'd say they won't be along 'fo' sunrise. Ah'm to take 'em another meal at midnight. That 'speriment suah makes 'em hungry."

"You can tell Mr. Cabot then that I should like to speak to him at once." Midnight was better than nothing, than morning.

"Yas'm. Maybe Ah can. Ah can try."

"Do you want to tell we why you want to talk to Mr. Cabot?" asked Joan curiously. "You haven't talked to me very much since we came to dinner."

"I think I must be tired. Suppose you talk to me? What did Mrs. Erickson say when you took the kitten back?" It was a safe question for Mrs.

Erickson was sure to say considerable. Joan repeated Mrs. Erickson's words and added enough of her own to last through dinner. She caught Rebecca Mary's hand as they rose from the table.

"Shall we go and play ball, Miss Wyman? I have a new tennis ball I borrowed from Mr. Marshall."

Ball! Rebecca Mary never wanted to see another ball in her life. There had been one ball too many in it as it was. She forced herself to smile at Joan. "I must go up to Granny, honey," she said slowly. "She has been alone all day. You will have to play by yourself. If Mr. Cabot comes up from the shop, or Mr. Peter, or even old Mr. Simmons, will you call me, please?"

She stood in the doorway and looked across the lawn in the direction of the shop. The chatter of the gasoline engine came to her faintly, puff-puff. She wondered if she should run across and call to Richard herself, and she decided that she had better wait. She must do nothing to make Frederick Befort suspect that she knew why he was at Riverside.

When at last she went upstairs she found that Granny was not inclined for conversation.

"If you'll hand me that book, Rebecca Mary, I'll finish it. There is a silly little heroine in it who can't make up her mind which of three men she loves."

"Do you think it is always easy for a girl to know what to do?" Rebecca Mary asked wistfully. Rebecca Mary was almost overwhelmed at the number of things she had discovered that a girl should know.

Granny began a rather scornful speech but as she looked at Rebecca Mary's troubled little face she changed it for a more sympathetic one.

"No, I don't. I think it's very hard sometimes for every one, for even an old lady, to know what is best to do. But if you were in a book, Rebecca Mary, it would be easy. All you would have to do would be to wait for your knight of the four-leaf clover," she laughed.

"Oh, that!" Rebecca Mary had lost all pleasure in her mysterious talisman; it had brought her all at once such a huge amount of bad luck.

"But how am I going to find him?" she asked impatiently. "It's weeks since that day at the Waloo, and I don't know any more than I did then."

"Don't you?" Granny raised quizzical eyebrows.

"Well, not much." Rebecca Mary didn't wish to talk of clover leaves, but it would be easier to follow Granny's lead than to offer one of her own.

If she talked of what was really in her thoughts she would frighten Granny into hysterics. "I know that Peter and Mr. Cabot were there that afternoon and Wallie Marshall and George Barton. Even old Major Martingale was there eating hot b.u.t.tered toast, but I can't make one of them say that he gave me that clover leaf. You don't think it was Major Martingale, do you?" Rebecca Mary would rather never know the truth if fat old Major Martingale had given her the talisman.

Granny chuckled. "Ask him, Rebecca Mary. Run along and ask him. You are sillier than this silly heroine."

Rebecca Mary never pa.s.sed such an evening in her life. It was long, endlessly long, and dreary and lonely, for Joan went to bed and Granny insisted on following the adventures of her silly heroine. Rebecca Mary thought she would go mad as she stood on the terrace and listened to the chattering gasoline engine or raced up the stairs to see if the bandbox was still on the top shelf of her closet.

At last she couldn't wait another minute. She didn't care what old Peter Simmons had told Ben. She would go within gunshot of the shop and call to--she wasn't sure yet whether she would call for Frederick Befort and beg him to turn over a new leaf and be loyal to the men with whom he was working, or to Richard and tell him the suspicion which was tormenting her. She couldn't go to bed until she had told some one. She called herself names because she hadn't gone to the shop at once.

Ben had forgotten to turn on the lights and the hall stretched before her as dark as Egypt. She felt as if she were making her way through a length of black velvet as she went down the stairs. But as she turned to run out of the side door, which was the shortest way to the shop, she saw a thread of light. It came from the right, from the room Major Martingale used as an office. The door was always kept locked, but now it was ajar.

Through the wide crack Rebecca Mary could see a light on the desk beside which a man was standing as he fumbled among the Major's papers. He was too tall and not wide enough to be Major Martingale, and even before he turned so that the light fell on his face Rebecca Mary knew who he was.

Quickly, without taking even a second to think, Rebecca Mary pulled the door shut. The key was in the lock, on the outside, and she turned it.