Rebecca Mary could never believe that the next two weeks really
happened. They were far too wonderful. They couldn't have happened to
her for nothing but influenza and moths and insurance premiums had come
to her. She felt as if she were in the middle of the very nicest dream a
girl could have when she stood in the most attractive bed room she had
ever seen and looked around her. It certainly was going to be jolly to
perch in the lap of luxury for a while.
No wonder Rebecca Mary liked Mrs. Peter Simmons' guest room. It was so
very different from the dingy rectangle which was her sitting room by
day and her sleeping room by night. Mrs. Simmons' guest room, with its
flower strewn chintz whose roses were repeated in the garlands on the
ivory bed and dresser, overlooked Mrs. Simmons' garden from which the
roses seemed to have strayed. A white bathroom opened from this rose
bower and beyond it was a blue room among whose forget-me-nots and
bachelor buttons Joan had found a place for her family portrait, her
clock and her potato masher.
And Rebecca Mary's days were as different as her bed room. Instead of
going to school Rebecca Mary went about with Granny and met a lot of
pleasant people of all ages. Granny was a favorite with the young
people, and as there was no end to what she would do for them she was
always the center of a jolly little group.
"It's the prescription I'm trying to keep my heart young," she told
Rebecca Mary wistfully.
So there were luncheons and teas with girls Rebecca Mary had never
imagined she would ever know, and informal dinners and dances at the
Country Club and long automobile drives. One morning Granny took her
guests to see Mrs. Hiram Bingham's small sons, and Joan hung enraptured
over the dimpled twins.
"Horatio and Hiram!" How Granny laughed at the names. "What should you
have done, Judith, if there had been but one baby? Which father would
you have honored?"
"Thank goodness I didn't have to make a choice!" Judith shivered at the
mere thought of honoring but one father. "Providence was mighty good to
send me two sons. Horatio and Hiram are dreadful names, aren't they?
But I just had to name the boys for my daddy and for Father Bingham."
"If there had been but one you could have named him for the jam which
brought you and Hiram together," suggested Granny with a twinkle.
"They name babies for kaisers but do they ever name them for jam?" Joan
could not believe that a jar of preserves would furnish a suitable name
for any child. "My daddy was named for a kaiser, not this kaiser but
another one. His name is Frederick William Gaston Johan Louis," she
announced proudly.
"Mercy me, what a mouthful! What does he do with so many?" Granny had
emphasized each name with a squeeze of Rebecca Mary's arm. Surely Joan
could never have imagined such a combination.
"He doesn't use them all now." Joan was almost apologetic. "In Waloo he
only uses the Frederick one. Isn't it funny how your names change? In
Germany I'm Johanna. '_Ein gutes Kind, Johanna_,' the kaiser said I was
himself, and in France and America I'm Joan. Oh, did you see that?" For
young Horatio had seized a handful of Joan's black hair. "Isn't he a
darling! He's--he's a lot better than a potato masher, isn't he?"
They all laughed, and names were forgotten for the moment although
Granny gave Rebecca Mary an extra hard squeeze when she heard what the
kaiser had called Joan.
"They must be German," Granny said, when she and Rebecca Mary were
alone. "I thought so all the time. No one but a German would go away and
leave a little girl as Joan was left. I shouldn't be surprised if Count
Ernach de Befort never came back," she added cheerfully.
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary was stunned at such a thought. "Of course he will
come back. And Joan didn't say she was a German."
"Joan doesn't say she is anything. I don't believe she knows even if she
did say she was from Echternach. Never mind, Rebecca Mary, if she is
left on your hands I'll help you take care of her. She amuses me with
her contradictory statements. I like a mystery now that the war is
over."
"I'm not sure that I do," murmured bewildered Rebecca Mary.
She really didn't have much time to wonder about Joan for Granny's
friends seemed to have entered into a delightful conspiracy to make much
of Rebecca Mary. Sallie Cabot gave a dinner dance for her and Rose
Horton, who had been Rose Cabot, gave a tea and even Madame Cabot, who
was Richard's great aunt, gave a theater party, after which she took her
guests to the Waloo for supper and to dance. You can't really blame
Rebecca Mary for rubbing her eyes and wondering if she could be Rebecca
Mary Wyman.
Stanley Cabot was at several of these affairs, and he watched Rebecca
Mary with an amused smile.
"I thought you said she scowled at old Dick," he said to Granny.
"Perhaps I don't know a scowl when I see one, but I didn't think it was
like that." And he nodded toward Rebecca Mary, who was smiling at
Richard Cabot.
"Dear child," murmured Granny. "When you are my age, Stanley, you will
hate to see anything but smiles on young faces. I hope Rebecca Mary has
forgotten how to frown. But it was a scowl, Stanley, I know it was,
which first attracted Richard."
It almost seemed as if Rebecca Mary had forgotten how to do anything but
smile, and young Peter had no occasion to shout "Pirate." He was in and
out of the house at all hours and so had every opportunity to see what
Rebecca Mary was doing. It was not often that she could persuade him to
talk to her of his experiences in France.
"Of course a man can't get it out of his thoughts," he did say one day,
"but it isn't anything he wants to talk about. It was just luck that got
me up to the front. If I hadn't been lucky I shouldn't have gone any
farther than Dick Cabot. You know he tried to get into the service, any
service? Yep. But he broke his arm when he was a kid and it's a little
stiff. The doctors wouldn't pass him. Then he tried for the Red Cross
and Uncle Sam said, 'No, you're a banker, Dick Cabot, and the work you
can do is to sell Liberty bonds.' I'd hate to tell you how many bonds
Dick did sell. It was owing to him that this district went over the top
as soon as the sales were on. He's a corker, Dick Cabot, all right, all
right. And he did as much at home to win the war as I did in France."
"Oh!" breathed Rebecca Mary, trying to grasp this point of view which
Peter was offering her. It was splendid of Peter to talk that way but
she couldn't really think that Richard at home had done as much as Peter
in France, and she said so.
"That shows what an ignorant little girl you are," Peter retorted. "But
don't let's talk about the war. There are a lot of pleasanter subjects."
"Such as?" If he wouldn't talk about the war he could choose his own
subject.
"You," Peter told her as she should have known he would tell her. And he
chuckled when she flushed as he had known she would flush. Peter loved
to make Rebecca Mary blush and stammer although it was not as easy as it
had been. Rebecca Mary was acquiring poise.
Richard's class in motor driving met as he had planned, and his one
pupil would never forget the first time that she had her hands on the
wheel and felt the pull of the sixty horses harnessed under the hood.
"It makes you feel like a--like a god!" she gasped, not daring to take
her eyes from the road.
"It makes you look like a goddess," laughed Richard. "You're going to
make a good driver, Miss Wyman. You can follow instructions and keep
your mind on what you are doing. You don't try a dozen things at once."
"That was what I was trained to do. A school teacher has to keep her
mind on her work, and, goodness knows, she is given plenty of
instructions to follow."
"You won't be a school teacher long," prophesied Richard, reaching over
to show her something, and his hand covered hers.
A thread of fire seemed to start from his fingers and run all over
Rebecca Mary. She couldn't speak for a second, and when she did speak
her voice was not as steady as she wanted it to be.
"Gracious me, I hope not," she stuttered. "Who would want to teach
school for ever?"
"You won't do it for ever!" Richard said again, and no seventh daughter
of a seventh daughter could have been more emphatic about the future. He
smiled at Rebecca Mary as she sat beside him, her cheeks pink, her eyes
black with excitement, her hair blowing about her face. She wore another
small portion of Aunt Ellen's present, an old rose silk sweater, and it
was wonderfully becoming.
"I'd like to do this for ever," she murmured. "I've at last found an
occupation which suits me right down to the very ground."
"Would you like to do it for me for ever?" The question did not surprise
Rebecca Mary half as much as it did Richard. It was not often that he
uttered soft nothings to a girl. He was more accustomed to talk of
stocks and bonds, and he thought it was strange that he never wanted to
talk of stocks and bonds to Rebecca Mary. "You must have another lesson
very soon," he went on in a more matter of fact voice as she did not
tell him whether she would like to drive for him for ever. "Practice is
the only thing that will make you perfect. You must have a lot of
practice."
When Peter heard that Richard was teaching Rebecca Mary to drive his big
car he pretended to be vastly indignant.
"Why didn't you tell me you wanted to learn?" he demanded.
"I didn't have to tell Mr. Cabot," she answered triumphantly.
"Great old mind reader, Dick Cabot is, isn't he? Well, if you're
learning to drive his big car you had better let me teach you how to
manage a roadster and Granny's small car and the limousine."
"And then I can stop teaching school and open a garage," dimpled Rebecca
Mary. "Very well, bring out your roadster."
"You drive very well," Peter was good enough to say when Rebecca Mary
had demonstrated what she could do. "A little more practice and you can
drive anywhere."
"Really!" Rebecca Mary liked his words so much that she wanted to hear
them again.
"Really."
And then Rebecca Mary killed her engine and couldn't remember how to
start it again. Peter put his hand on the button at the same moment she
did, and his five fingers closed over Rebecca Mary's five fingers.
Rebecca Mary quivered to her toes, but she tried to be very matter of
fact.
"Granny said I might have to drive for her," she said quickly. "Karl is
going to leave, and she hasn't found a new chauffeur yet."
That evening she actually did drive Richard through the traffic which
surged around the pavilion where the weekly band concert was given. If
Peter had been there he would have had to shout "Pirate" several times
for Rebecca Mary did scowl yellow brownly, but that was because she was
so anxious to drive well.
"Aren't you shaking in your shoes?" she asked when they were held up at
a very busy crossing. "No one can question your bravery now. You've
certainly earned a medal."
Richard looked at her sparkling eyes, and his staid invulnerable heart
gave a flop which startled him, and a flash appeared in his dark eyes.
"I'm a man who always collects what he earns," he told her in a way
which made her heart thump a bit, too, although she would not let him
know that, not for worlds. "There isn't a better collector in all Waloo
than I am."
"My goodness gracious AND my gracious goodness!" Rebecca Mary seemed
much impressed by Richard, the bill collector. "But you must not read
the future by the past," she cautioned gravely. "I seem to remember that
at college I was told that even Napoleon had his Waterloo."
"We are not discussing Napoleon Bonaparte but one Richard Deane Cabot,"
Richard reminded her severely.
"Vice president of the First National Bank of Waloo," she nodded as if
to make sure that they were talking of the same Richard Deane Cabot.
"That sounds very important, doesn't it? Important and rich and--and
solid. How does it feel?" she asked with a certain gay insouciance which
was as new to Rebecca Mary as it was becoming.
He laughed. "Just at present it feels mighty good. I'm very grateful to
the First National Bank. I owe my present job as a motor teacher to that
same bank."
Rebecca Mary's sober face made a desperate attempt to conceal her amused
smile. "That's true," she said, but her voice was as much of a failure
as a disguise as her sober face. "The two most important buildings in
Waloo are undoubtedly the First National Bank and the Waloo Hotel. At
last!" as the traffic policeman gave them the right of way. "I hope I
don't do the wrong thing now and mortify my teacher as well as myself.
You never can tell what a pupil will do."
"I'm not afraid of my pupil." Richard was stimulatingly confident.
"I told you that you were a brave man. There!" Rebecca Mary drew a long
breath. "We are on our way again." She turned impulsively to Richard and
exclaimed from the very depths of her heart: "I can't ever tell you, Mr.
Cabot, how happy you have made me!"
"I'm glad," was all Richard said, but his eyes flashed again. "It
doesn't take much to make some little girls happy."
"Don't belittle your own generosity," scolded Rebecca Mary. "You've
given me a lot and you know it."
Joan ran out to meet them when they returned.
"Granny is going to let me have a party!" she cried, scarcely able to
believe her news herself. "I'm to choose the guests and the dinner and
everything. I'm going to have you and the Bingham twins and Mr. Peter.
And I can't think whether to have little pig sausages and waffles like
we did the other morning for breakfast or nightingales' tongues like in
the story you read me, Miss Wyman. Granny said sausage and waffles
didn't belong to dinner, but if we had them for dinner they would,
wouldn't they? And she said she was afraid there weren't any
nightingales' tongues in the market, and if there were did I think the
Bingham twins could eat them. Once at home we had a swan with all its
feathers on, and another time, at Echternach, when the kaiser came, we
had a boar's head. Do you think you'd like one of those?" doubtfully.
Rebecca Mary looked up quickly to see Richard's face when Joan spoke of
the kaiser as a dinner guest at Echternach, but he only looked amused so
Rebecca Mary stooped and kissed the flushed little face. "What I should
like best would be a little spring chicken," she said.
"Odd little thing, isn't she?" Richard said when Joan had danced away to
ask Granny if the three months' old Bingham twins could eat spring
chicken. "Have you heard from her father?"
"Not a word. Nor from Mrs. Muldoon. We drove over yesterday, but Mrs.
Lee hadn't heard anything."
"It was mighty good of you to take her in." Richard spoke as if no one
in the world but Rebecca Mary would have taken charge of a child who
had been left on the door step with a clock, a portrait and a potato
masher.
"What else could I do?" Rebecca Mary would like to be told how she could
have done anything else. "She was--loaned to me." And she laughed. It
was so easy to laugh at the loan now.
"All the same it was mighty good of you." He wished she would laugh
again. Like Joan, Richard did admire Rebecca Mary's face when it "broke
into little holes." "I don't know many girls who would have taken care
of a child who had no claim on them."
"But she did have a claim on me. I was her teacher." And Rebecca Mary
did laugh again.
Granny was just hanging up the telephone receiver when Rebecca Mary went
into the house.
"I've been talking to Seven Pines," she said. "Is there any reason why
we shouldn't drive out there to-morrow, Rebecca Mary? Mrs. Swanson just
called me up to tell me that Otillie is going to be married and she
wants me to come out and see her wedding things."
"A wedding!" Joan jumped up and down on delighted toes. "You'll take me,
Granny Simmons? You'll never leave me in Waloo? You know I've never
been to a wedding. I've only been to church and school and a moving
picture show."
"Then you certainly shall go to Otillie's wedding. We'll start in the
morning and take our time," Granny suggested to Rebecca Mary. "What do
you say?"
"I say goody, goody!" exclaimed Rebecca Mary. "You have told me so much
about Seven Pines I'm crazy to see it."
That night when she went to her room she nodded merrily at the radiant
face of the girl in the big mirror.
"Well, Rebecca Mary Wyman," she murmured joyously. "You certainly have
turned over a new leaf--a real four-leaf clover leaf. You're having the
time of your young life. You must send Cousin Susan a testimonial for
her memory insurance company!" For she remembered to give the credit for
her new leaf to where credit was due. "You've had more fun since you
took out one of her policies than you ever had before. Gracious, I
should think you had!"
She was still looking at the happy face in the mirror and dreamily
wondering about the bright new leaf she had turned over when the door
opened and there stood Granny Simmons. She wore her hat and her motor
coat dragged from her arm. In her hand she held a yellow telegram.
"Come, Rebecca Mary," she said impatiently. "Put on your hat. We'll go
to-night!"