Fifteen minutes later Rebecca Mary and Joan with Joan's suit case and
the picture and the clock and the potato masher were driving away with
Mrs. Simmons, while Mrs. Lee waved her apron and promised to let them
know the very first minute that Mr. Befort or Mrs. Muldoon returned.
"This is the picture of my very own father and my very own mother," Joan
explained as she showed Mrs. Simmons and Rebecca Mary the photograph of
a man in a very gorgeous uniform and with an order on his breast
standing beside a beautiful young woman in a smart evening gown, a long
string of pearls about her neck. There was a coat of arms emblazoned on
the silver frame, and Mrs. Simmons touched it with her fingers to call
Rebecca Mary's attention to the splendor of it.
"This clock was my mother's, too," Joan chattered on. "And I've wound it
myself every night since she went away so I had to bring it with me, and
this," she looked at the potato masher doubtfully. "I don't know why I
like it, but I do."
"Then I'm glad you brought it with you." Mrs. Simmons patted the small
fingers which clutched the wooden potato masher and wondered if the
pictured father was dressed for a costume ball or if his every-day
clothes were so gorgeous. "Did you ever see her father?" she asked
Rebecca Mary.
Rebecca Mary quite forgot the brief glimpse she had had of Mr. Befort's
back as he was leaving the Viking room with Joan. "Never!" she exclaimed
with an emphasis which made Mrs. Simmons laugh. It sounded so fierce, as
though if Rebecca Mary ever had seen Mr. Befort she would have told him
a thing or two.
"He has only been at the factory for a few months," Mrs. Simmons
explained. "We'll stop at my house and telephone to the office. It will
be interesting to hear where he has gone and why he has gone."
But when they stopped at Mrs. Simmons' house, a big sprawling mansion of
brick and plaster and brown timbers, and telephoned to the office all
they learned was that Frederick Befort had gone away on special business
and could not be reached by any one--not by any one at all.
"Well, upon my word!" Mrs. Simmons was quite taken aback by the decisive
answer from the office. "I've half a mind to show that man that I can
reach Frederick Befort if I want to. It's ridiculous, perfectly
ridiculous, to think that any business is more important than his child.
What will you do?" she asked Rebecca Mary.
"I suppose I shall have to keep her until her father comes back," sighed
Rebecca Mary. "I really can't turn her over to the Associated Charities,
but it seems to me that a good deal is expected of a teacher."
"She might stay here," suggested Mrs. Simmons. "One of my maids could
look after her. How would you like that?" she asked Joan, who stood
beside her.
"It would be like home." Joan looked about the big spacious rooms with
their rich rugs and hangings, the attractive furnishings and beautiful
pictures. "Our old home, I mean. But I wasn't loaned to you. I was--I
was loaned to Miss Wyman." Her lips quivered and tears hung perilously
near the edge of each black eye.
"So you were, honey." Suddenly Rebecca Mary realized that a great deal
was being expected of Joan, too, and she hugged her. She felt almost as
sorry for Joan as she did for herself. It couldn't be pleasant to be
left on the door step with a picture and a clock and a potato masher.
"It's ever so kind of you, Mrs. Simmons, but we'll manage some way."
"I'm sure she wouldn't bother me as much as she will you, and I have an
obligation toward her as long as her father works for my husband. Don't
go yet," as Rebecca Mary rose and took Joan's hand. "We'll have a cup of
tea, and then I'll take you home in the car."
"I like to ride in cars," dimpled Joan, all smiles again. "I always used
to."
Over her head Mrs. Simmons looked at Rebecca Mary and raised her
eyebrows questioningly, but Rebecca Mary could only shake her head.
Rebecca Mary began to see that there might be something in her
principal's wish to have her teachers know more of their pupils than
their ability to read and cipher. There was such a lot more about Joan
that Rebecca Mary would like to have known that very minute.
"Where was your old home, my dear?" Mrs. Simmons did not hesitate to ask
for any information she wished to have.
"Over the sea--at Echternach." Joan turned an eager face toward her,
quite willing to talk of that old home where she had lived with her
daddy and her mother until she had come to the United States with her
mother. Her mother had died suddenly, leaving Joan with a grandmother
who had lived only long enough to give the little girl back to her
father when he came a year later. And as she chattered Mrs. Simmons and
Rebecca Mary looked at the coat of arms on the silver frame and at the
photograph of the gorgeously uniformed man and the beautiful woman.
"Tell me about your father?" Mrs. Simmons asked as soon as she could
slip a word in edgeways.
Joan looked up, a trifle puzzled by the question. "Daddy?" she repeated.
"Why, he's just--daddy. He's like--well, his eyes always look at me so
lovingly and his mouth talks to me so sweetly and his ears hear
everything I say and his hands work for me and his feet bring him to
me." She kept her eyes on the photograph to make sure she left nothing
out. "That's my daddy!" she finished triumphantly, and she looked up as
if she dared them to find fault with such a daddy.
Mrs. Simmons patted her shoulder, and Rebecca Mary hugged her.
"That's a very good working description of a daddy," smiled Mrs.
Simmons. "And here is Sako with the tea."
When the Japanese butler had placed the tray on the low table beside
Mrs. Simmons, Joan handed cups and passed sandwiches quite as if she
were accustomed to that pleasant task.
"I'm consumed with curiosity," Mrs. Simmons whispered to Rebecca Mary.
"She is a most unusual child. You must tell me anything you learn about
her. Echternach sounds German, doesn't it? And although the war is over
and we're told we are to forgive our enemies, I can't quite forgive the
Germans for all the dreadful things they did. Nor the Turks. Of course
the children aren't to be blamed, but--That's my grandson," she told
Joan, who was looking at a large framed photograph on the table. "Young
Peter Simmons, and I'm sinfully proud of him. He was my first
grandchild, and even when he was a fat bald-headed baby I knew that some
day he would do wonderful things. I suppose all grandmothers think that,
just as all mothers do. But I really didn't think Peter would do as
wonderful things as he has," she went on more to Rebecca Mary than to
Joan. "You know he has a _croix de guerre_?" She drew a quick breath and
looked at Rebecca Mary with a smile which was not at all a laughing
smile. "I'm apt to be a bit foolish when I talk of young Peter Simmons,"
she admitted as she wiped her eyes.
"I don't wonder!" Rebecca Mary drew a quick breath, too. "I should think
you would be proud!" She knew she should be proud if young Peter
Simmons belonged to her. She didn't care if he had scowled at her.
"My daddy has one of those." Joan's pink finger pointed to the cross on
young Peter Simmons' tunic. "Only his is an eagle." She showed it to
them on her pictured father. "He doesn't wear it every day."
"Neither does my Peter," complained Peter's grandmother. "Listen!
Doesn't that sound like Peter now?" For a car had stopped before the
house, and there was a rush of young feet and a chatter of young
tongues. "Don't you hope it is?"
Rebecca Mary must have hoped it was for she turned a deep crimson, and
when young Peter Simmons did actually come in she gazed at him as if he
were the most wonderful, the most amazing, man in the world. Rebecca
Mary had never met a hero before and although Peter looked like any
young man of twenty-three, big and brave and jolly, she knew that he was
a hero and that the French government had given him a cross to prove
that he was a hero. No wonder she drew a quick breath and that her eyes
were full of awe as she looked at him. She quite forgot that once he had
scowled at her, and she had scowled at him.
Peter was not alone, and Rebecca Mary and Joan were introduced to Doris
Kilbourne and Martha Farnsworth and Stanley Cabot. The girls rushed
across the room to kiss Granny Simmons and tell her about their golf at
the Country Club and to ask her if Peter wasn't a perfect brute to beat
them.
And Peter chuckled. "You must expect to be beaten," he told them in a
lordly manner. "Golf is no game for a girl, is it, Miss Wyman?"
Rebecca Mary colored to have him appeal to her, and she stammered a bit
as she answered. "I thought it was a game for men, fat bald-headed old
men."
The girls shrieked at that. "There, Peter Simmons! I reckon that will
hold you for a while!"
"May we have some tea, Granny?" drawled Doris in her soft rich voice.
"Or is it all gone?" She would have peeped into the tea pot to see but
Granny kept her brown fingers in her soft white hands.
"Is it, Miss Wyman? Do you think you can find any tea for these thirsty
children?"
Rebecca Mary was glad to pour tea. It gave her something to do while the
others laughed and chattered of golf and tennis and the Country Club
dances and a hundred other things about which she knew nothing. Doris
and Martha wore smartly cut skirts of heavy white piqué. Doris had a
green sweater and a soft green hat and green stockings while Martha
wore purple. Rebecca Mary could scarcely decide which she liked the best
as she sat back in her low chair, her hands loosely clasped on her knee.
She wore a white skirt herself and a white blouse but they were a little
rumpled from spending the day in school. But in her white hat and
clothes and with a red rose in each cheek she had only a faint family
resemblance to the girl in the shabby blue serge who had scowled at
Peter that day in the Viking room. Peter looked at her curiously. There
was something familiar about the rosy little face, but he could not
remember where he had seen it as he refused tea and lounged back in a
chair to smoke a cigarette.
"Hello, who's the chap in the Prussian uniform?" he asked suddenly, and
he lifted the photograph of Joan's father and mother from the table
where it lay beside the clock and the potato masher.
"That's my father!" Joan ran across to look at the picture with him.
"And he has a medal, too." She pointed to it as she nodded at Peter.
"So he has, a real German eagle." Peter was as astonished as she could
wish, and he lifted his eyebrows inquiringly at Granny as if he would
ask where the German eagle came from.
"He showed it to me," Joan hinted delicately, and when Peter only
grinned, she went on not quite so delicately; "I love to see medals."
"Joan!" Rebecca Mary was mortified to death. What would Peter think?
"You'd like to see it, too. You told the grandmother you would,"
insisted Joan.
"Would you?" teased Peter, who had already discovered how easy it was to
make Rebecca Mary blush, and what fun it was, also.
She blushed then, all the way from the brim of her hat to the V of her
blouse, but she had to say, "Yes, thank you." Goodness, if she had
imagined half the embarrassment her promise to Cousin Susan would cause
her she never would have made it.
"All right, I'll show it to you, but it will be no treat to you, young
woman," he pinched Joan's cheek, "if you have a German eagle in your
family. Where is your father now?"
"He's gone." Her eyes filled with tears, and Peter imagined that he knew
what she meant, that her father was dead, and he patted her shoulder
sympathetically. "And I'm loaned to Miss Wyman!" The tears disappeared
as she jubilantly announced what had happened.
"I hope Miss Wyman is as pleased as you are." Peter grinned at Rebecca
Mary.
Rebecca Mary laughed softly and said that Miss Wyman was, and she only
told the truth, for if it had not been for Joan she knew very well that
she never would be in Mrs. Peter Simmons' lovely room with young Peter
Simmons laughing at her.
Joan had to ask him again before young Peter pulled a small box from his
pocket and showed her and Rebecca Mary the _croix de guerre_. Rebecca
Mary had never seen anything which brought such a lump into her throat
as that bronze cross on the red and green ribbon. She could not keep her
voice steady as she said:
"How proud you must be of it!"
"Huh," grunted young Peter, closing the box with a snap and thrusting it
back into his pocket. "It makes me feel like a sweep. Why, every man in
the section deserved a cross more than I did!"
"The French general didn't think so!" Granny was indignant.
"It's true!" insisted Peter, red and embarrassed.
"Oh!" breathed Rebecca Mary. She liked to see Peter red and embarrassed.
She hadn't supposed that heroes ever were that way, but she knew that
school teachers were.
Stanley Cabot watched her face brighten. Stanley had been an artist
before the war and now that the war was over he was an artist again,
and the vivid expression of her face held his attention.
"She looks as if she had just wakened up," he said to himself.
But suddenly the bright color faded from Rebecca Mary's cheeks. "We must
go home," she said quickly. "Come, Joan."
"Not yet," begged Granny. "You can't stay? Peter, will you see if Karl
is waiting? He will drive them home. Yes, my dear," as Rebecca Mary
protested that it was not necessary, they could go home in the street
car. "You have too much luggage," she laughed as Joan gathered her
photograph and her clock and her potato masher. "The suit case is in the
car, isn't it? I hope you will come very soon again," she said
cordially, as she went into the hall with them. "I want to see more of
you and of Joan. I love young people, and I love to have them with me.
It makes me feel young. I hate to be old, but I am old, and the only way
I can cheat myself is to have young people with me. You and Joan must
come to dinner some night. Come Thursday. Perhaps we shall have heard
something from Mr. Befort by then."
Joan, struggling with the potato masher and the clock, heard her. "My
father's name," she said quickly, "isn't Mr. Befort. It's Count Ernach
de Befort."
"What!" exclaimed Granny, who had no idea that she had been entertaining
a young countess.
"Joan!" cried Rebecca Mary very much surprised, indeed, to learn that a
young countess was in the third grade of the Lincoln school.
They were so amazed that Joan flushed and her fingers flew to her guilty
lips. "Oh," she cried, "I forgot! I wasn't to tell. They don't have
counts in this country."
"Ernach de Befort," murmured Granny in Rebecca Mary's ear. "That sounds
like a queer Franco-German combination. I'd like it better if it were
one thing or another, if it were French. Never mind, Joan," as Joan
began to whimper that she had forgotten that she wasn't to tell. "We'll
keep the secret, won't we, Miss Wyman? Do you believe her?" she
whispered to Rebecca Mary.
Rebecca Mary shook her head. Not for a second did she believe that
Joan's father was Count Ernach de Befort. She had met the active
imagination of a child too often, and she whispered that Joan was only
playing a little game of "let's pretend" before she said good-by to
Granny and promised to come Thursday to dinner.
Peter was waiting beside the luxurious limousine.
"I hope I shall see you again soon, Miss Wyman," he said pleasantly, and
Rebecca Mary devoutly hoped he would, too. "Good-by, Miss Loan Child."
He grinned at Joan as she sat with her arms full of her treasures.
"Good-by." Joan released one hand to wave it at him as they drove away.
"He's very nice, don't you think so, Miss Wyman? And awfully brave or he
wouldn't have that cross. My father is as brave as a lion, too." And she
held the photograph up so that Rebecca Mary could see how brave her
father looked.
After Joan was tucked into Miss Stimson's abandoned bed Rebecca Mary sat
by the window in the soft darkness and recalled the astonishing events
of the day. How amazing they had been! And how jolly! She hoped she
would see Peter Simmons again, but there wasn't much chance. He didn't
go to the Lincoln school.
She laughed softly and jumped up and went to her desk to take out the
insurance policy which was such a bugbear to her now and which was to be
such a comfort to the old age that always had loomed so blackly before
her. She read it over and then giggled as she took a sheet of paper and
wrote across the top in large letters--"The Memory Insurance Company."
And below in smaller letters she copied and adapted the form of her old
policy--"by this policy of insurance agrees to pay on demand to Rebecca
Mary Wyman such memories as she may have paid into the said company."
And below that she wrote in large letters again just one
word--"Payments."
She pressed her fountain pen against her lips and studied that one word
before she chuckled and began to enter her payments.
"Kitchen curtains.
"A four-leaf clover, origin unknown.
"One loan child of mysterious parentage.
"A hero and his _croix de guerre_."
What a lot there were! Why, it was only ten days since she had promised
to take out a memory insurance policy. Cousin Susan would be pleased at
the number of payments she had made on it already. Her whole face
twinkled as she read the list. A hero and a _croix de guerre_! H-m! And
that four-leaf clover! Where had it come from? That list--why, that list
represented securities that she couldn't lose and which no one could
take from her. So long as she could remember anything she would remember
Cousin Susan's kitchen curtains which never would be bought now. She
could scarcely wait to make another payment, and she felt in each of her
two hundred and eight bones that there would be other payments,--many of
them.