Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

  CHAPTER XXII

  If Richard was a tower of strength that night he was a veritablemagician the next morning, for he extracted the two women and a halffrom a carefully guarded place as easily as most men would take a friendout for a walk or to a theater or church. Granny had been delighted toaccept Richard's kind invitation to run away to Waloo. Her faded blueeyes sparkled when Rebecca Mary gave it to her.

  "Of course, I'll go," she said at once. "It's too great a strain to beunder the same roof with old Peter Simmons. I'm crazy to see him,Rebecca Mary, but I don't dare. Perhaps if I run away again he'll knowthat I don't want to be teased. I simply can't discuss a golden weddingpresent now. We've done it too often. But I don't know what I'll do,Rebecca Mary, if he doesn't remember what we planned. If I weren't soproud I should tell him that it begins with an H. But I can't even dothat, Rebecca Mary. It's funny I should feel this way after fiftyyears, but I do. I can't help it even if I do know how silly it is."

  So in the early morning Granny and Rebecca Mary and a very sleepy Joanleft the house as stealthily as if they had been robbing Riverside andmade their way from one clump of shrubbery to another to the gate. Itthrilled Rebecca Mary, whose teeth fairly chattered. It even thrilledold Granny a bit, but it only puzzled Joan, who could not understand whyshe had been wakened so early nor why she was being taken from Riversidewithout saying good-by to her father although Granny told her that theyhad left a note for her father and one for old Peter Simmons. HowRebecca Mary did blush when Count Ernach de Befort was mentioned!

  Before they reached the gate Richard came down the driveway in the carwhich had brought Granny and Rebecca Mary and Joan to Riverside. Hestopped to speak to the guard, who was on the other side of the car sothat the three prisoners were able to slip by it and hide themselves inthe bushes which were most conveniently placed just outside the gate.

  "Pooh!" exclaimed Granny as she settled herself in the tonneau withJoan, "if I had known how easy it would be I shouldn't have stayedtwenty-four hours. Oh, well, I don't know as I care so long as I shallget home before old Peter Simmons. We have had a rest and a change. Idon't often find fault with an experience after it is over. I did wantto go to Seven Pines before the golden wedding, but perhaps it is justas well. You haven't anything to complain of, have you, Rebecca Mary?Riverside was more interesting for you than Seven Pines would have been.Wasn't it?"

  "Much more interesting!" Rebecca Mary had never seen a foot of SevenPines and so should not have been so quick to decide that Riverside wasmore interesting. "I'm glad that Major Martingale made prisoners of us."And then she remembered what had happened the last day she had been aprisoner, and she flushed and stammered. "At least I was glad." Shelooked at Richard to see if he remembered the secret that they shared,and he nodded and smiled. Rebecca Mary did not like to think of thatlast night. It made her hot all over, from the top of her head to hervery heels, to remember what she had done. She hoped that no one butRichard would ever know.

  "We're going home, we're going home," sang Joan to an air of her owncomposition. "I'm the only one who has what we came for," she announcedjubilantly. "I came for my father and I found him right away. But youhaven't your young heart, have you, Granny? And dear Miss Wyman hasn'tfound the payment for her insurance, have you, Miss Wyman?" Howdisappointed Granny and Rebecca Mary must be!

  "Perhaps I didn't find the real young heart I wanted, Joan, but then Iknew that an old body isn't just the place for a real young heart,"Granny confessed honestly. "But my old heart is a lot younger than itwas. It makes an old heart young in just the right way to match an oldbody to be with young people, you know." She gave the prescriptiongravely to Joan, and Joan received it as gravely.

  "That makes two of us who have what we came for." Joan was even morejubilant. "I'm sorry you haven't, Miss Wyman." Miss Wyman couldn't knowhow sorry she was.

  But Rebecca Mary didn't want sympathy from any one, and she said so atonce. "Indeed I did make a payment on my memory insurance policy, Joan.I made a lot of payments. Why, at the rate I've been paying I shan't beable to collect all the payments on that memory insurance policy, not ifI live to be a hundred!"

  Joan bounced up and down on the seat beside Granny. "Then it's time togo home," she said with funny solemnity. "When you get what you want itis always time to go home."

  They stopped at a farmhouse to telephone to Pierson to have breakfastready for them, and when they reached the house a most deliciousbreakfast was waiting in the dining room.

  "I'm glad you're back, Mrs. Simmons," Pierson said. "Young Mrs. Simmonsand I don't agree about the arrangements for your golden wedding."

  "Don't you, Pierson?" smiled Granny. "I wonder if you and I will agreeabout them. If we don't you must remember that the golden wedding ismine. Gracious, but I am glad to be home again where I can look afterthings myself! I declare, Rebecca Mary, I can't think now why we everwent away. I must have been in a panic."

  "Mr. Simmons came about fifteen minutes after you left, ma'am,"explained Pierson, who stood beside Granny, eager to tell her what hadhappened. "He was quite put out, I can tell you, when I told him you hadgone on a motor trip. He wanted to know where----"

  "You couldn't tell him that, could you, Pierson?" Granny seemed quitepleased to think that Pierson couldn't. "You didn't know where we were.We haven't been near Seven Pines."

  "No, ma'am, I know. Mrs. Swenson called me up to ask where you were. Butwhen Mr. Simmons asked me the way he did he got me all flustered andbefore I knew it I told him you had gone to the Cabot country place. Youoften go there, you know, Mrs. Simmons, so it wasn't strange I told himyou were probably at Riverside."

  Granny put down her knife and fork and stared at her. "You never toldhim that, Pierson?" She hid her face in her napkin, and her shouldersshook. "What did he say? What did Mr. Simmons say, Pierson?"

  "He didn't say anything for a minute, ma'am, and then he laughed in afunny sort of a way. 'At Riverside?' he said, ma'am. 'Well, I'll bedarned! The devil she is!' That's exactly what he said. But you often gothere as Mr. Simmons knows, and yet he seemed surprised as anything tohear you might have gone there now. But I had to tell him something,Mrs. Simmons, when he asked me like he did."

  Granny was laughing so that she almost choked. "Pierson," she said whenshe could control her voice, "I shall raise your wages. I neversuspected that you had an imagination. No wonder Mr. Simmons wasn'tsurprised to find us at Riverside. I dare say Major Martingale told him,too, and young Peter, in spite of their promise to me. Dear, dear! Mr.Simmons always seems to get the best of me." She shook her headruefully. "I wonder what he said when he found that we had run away fromRiverside."

  "He probably said 'Well, I'll be darned' again," laughed Richard as herepeated a phrase which was often on old Peter Simmons' lips when he wassurprised. "You mustn't be too hard on him, Granny. You know thisexperiment is frightfully important and--you know him," he finishedrather lamely.

  "I do," nodded Granny. "If I didn't know him I should never have done alot of things that I have. You must put off fireworks to make old PeterSimmons see anything besides his business. If men weren't so queer womenwouldn't have to be so peculiar," she sighed. "You might remind oldPeter Simmons that he was married at noon. It would be just like him tocome in at night," she prophesied gloomily.

  "Mr. Simmons won't be late," Richard promised somewhat rashly. "I'll seemyself that he is here by noon."

  "You always were a good dependable boy. I can trust you. It is a greatthing, Rebecca Mary, to have a man about whom you can trust." There wassomething so significant in the way she spoke that Rebecca Mary turnedpink until she matched the sweet peas in the center of the table.

  She looked so pretty in her self-conscious confusion that Richard had tostop eating omelet and muffins and look at her.

  Granny went to telephone to young Mrs. Simmons about the golden wedding,and Joan ran after Pierson to tell her all that they had found atRiverside. Rebecca Mary pushed back her chair and rose, too. She justcouldn't sit ther
e and let Richard stare at her as he was doing. It madeher feel--she could scarcely tell you how it did make her feel when sheremembered the way Richard had comforted her the night before. She couldstill feel the pressure of his arm about her when he had told her thatshe was a goose. She slipped out on the porch where Richard found her inthe swing beside the rambler rose.

  She looked up with a smile. "It doesn't seem as if it could be true thatwe are free again. I think it was wonderful the way you got us out ofRiverside."

  He smiled, too. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked impulsively.

  "I can!" She turned a curious face toward him. "I'm a perfect wonder atkeeping secrets. I love 'em so I just can't give them away. Do tell meone!"

  "I hate to be told how wonderful I am when I haven't been wonderful atall," he said honestly. "So I'll confess that Mr. Simmons asked me tobring you and Granny and Joan home."

  "He did?" Rebecca Mary couldn't believe it. She visualized the cautionwith which Granny had slipped from bush to bush, how stealthily she hadcrept to the gate. And there had been no need of caution. How old PeterSimmons could tease Granny now! By running away from his teasing she hadonly given him more material with which to tease her. "She'll befurious," she said, not sure but she was a little furious herself.

  "She must never know." Richard reminded her that what he had given herwas a secret. "Mr. Simmons said if Granny could slip out of Riversideand get home before he did she would think she was getting the better ofhim and be a lot happier."

  "The dear old man," breathed Rebecca Mary, forming a new opinion of oldPeter Simmons instantly. "What next?"

  "And he asked me to bring her to Waloo. That's all, but you see youcan't pin any cross on me. I was just obeying orders. I thought youwould enjoy the joke, but we won't tell Granny. Let her think that shedid get ahead of Mr. Simmons."

  "I should say so. That dear old Peter Simmons to let Granny retreat withhonor! He's not such a bad sort if he does forget his anniversaries andpresents and things. Dear me, how long ago it seems since we ran awayfrom here! Otillie Swenson must be an old married woman by now."

  "I don't suppose you thought of me once while you were at Riverside,"Richard said jealously.

  "Well," a perverse imp appeared in Rebecca Mary's cheek just above thecorner of her lip, and there was a perverse imp in her voice, also, "Iwas rather busy you know. I was the only girl there and four, no, five,men, for old Major Martingale had to have a word now and then, five menin the hand didn't leave much time for one in----"

  "The heart," suggested Richard quickly and eagerly, and he dropped intothe swing beside her. "If you tell me you kept me in your heart,Rebecca Mary, I shan't mind how many men there were in your hand?"

  But Rebecca Mary wouldn't tell him that although the question sent herinto the strangest flutter she had ever been in in her life, and Richardfrowned. He remembered how the men at Riverside had hung about RebeccaMary.

  "You girls are all alike," he said bitterly, and he jumped up from theswing. "I thought that day at the Waloo you would be different----"

  "At the Waloo!" interrupted Rebecca Mary. "I should say I was differentthat day! Why, nothing had ever happened to me then; every day was justlike every other day, gray and stupid, but now----" she stopped,appalled at all that had happened since that day at the Waloo, at thefew gray stupid days there had been and the many many rosy interestingones. "Just suppose Cousin Susan had bought kitchen curtains!" sheexclaimed with what Richard considered irritating irrelevance.

  "Never mind about curtains." Richard wasn't interested in anythingconnected with the kitchen just then. "They aren't important----"

  "Oh, but they were! Frightfully important. Why, there was a moment whenmy whole future was wrapped up in ten yards of cheap swiss?" She lookedalmost frightened as she thought of her future in a neat parcel with tenyards of cheap swiss. "You know I was a very selfish self-centereddisagreeable person,--yes, I was!--before I went to the Waloo withCousin Susan that day. But there must have been magic in the tea or--orin the favors," she laughed tremulously as she remembered the favor shehad received. "I haven't been the same since," she confessed in a waywhich told him that she was very glad that she hadn't been the same.

  "If you would only be the same for two minutes in succession," beggedRichard helplessly. He never felt helpless before a man at the bank, nomatter who he was, but he felt absolutely helpless as he stood beforeRebecca Mary and looked into her rosy face. There was so much he wantedto tell her, and yet he didn't seem able to form an intelligentsentence. He could only stand there like a silly fool and look at therosy face in which two gray eyes sparkled so adorably. His own facereddened, and his heart seemed to miss a beat.

  "Better change your mind and stay for luncheon, Richard." Granny cameout with a cordial invitation. "My, Rebecca Mary, but it does seem goodto be at home again!" And she said, as she had said so many times inthe past few days; "I don't understand now why I ever ran away. But ifyou won't stay, Richard, you must be sure and tell Mr. Simmons that heshould be here by twelve o'clock at the latest. If he isn't here--if heisn't here----" she stopped aghast at the possibility she had voiced."If he isn't here I don't know what I shall do," she finished truthfullyif weakly.