With a broad smile Ben led the way up the stairs, talking all the time.
"Ah suah will be glad to hab ladies about agin," he chuckled. "Genelmen
is all right in der way. Ah hain't got nothin' to say agin genelmen as
genelmen, but no one can say they is so picturefying as de ladies. You
better take the fambly rooms, Mrs. Simmons. There hain't nobody been
usin' of 'em an' you'll find 'em mighty pleasant whether you looks out
or in. An' they's allus ready."
He opened the door of the suite which occupied the west wing, and
Rebecca Mary gave a little exclamation of delight. She quite agreed with
Ben. The rooms were mighty pleasant in their pretty furnishings, while
from the windows one looked over the formal garden to the river which
flowed so peacefully between its two banks.
"How perfectly beautiful!" she murmured.
"Yes, they are very good cells," agreed Granny. "I'm sure we shall be as
comfortable as prisoners should be. Bring in our suit cases, please,
Ben. Doesn't it seem restful and quiet, Rebecca Mary? I believe it will
be good for us to rest here for a few days. It is too bad we won't see
Otillie's wedding things, but that isn't our fault as I shall explain to
Mrs. Swenson. You heard me tell that young man that we might stay until
the twentieth? That was just a blind. We'll only stay until we want to
go and then we'll slip away."
"How?" laughed Rebecca Mary, still hanging enchanted over the garden.
"Shall I twist a sheet and lower you from the window?"
"I don't think it will be necessary to spoil good sheets," Granny
laughed, too, perhaps at the picture Rebecca Mary had painted of a
golden wedding bride dangling by a twisted sheet from a second story
window. "I shall find a more comfortable way. You know, Rebecca Mary,"
she said in an undertone so that Joan, who was trying all of the faucets
in the bathroom, would not hear her, "I'm not just sure about things
here. That story may be all right, it may be true that Major Martingale
has brought a lot of men down here to work out some experiment for the
government and he may be afraid that some hint may leak out to the
Germans, but it sounds very queer to me. I can't imagine what the
experiment could be. And Joshua Cabot has never hinted to me that he
has loaned Riverside to any one. So I think we had better not make any
fuss but just stay quietly until we can learn something definite, and
then if the story isn't true we can slip away and warn Joshua that queer
things are happening here."
"Why, Granny Simmons!" Rebecca Mary had never thought that Major
Martingale's story could be anything but true. "How shall we find out?"
"We shall keep our eyes and ears wide open. First we must make them
trust us and then--and then, Rebecca Mary, we can learn the truth. Don't
ask me how again," as she saw the question trembling on Rebecca Mary's
lips, "for I don't know. But we shall, and until we do we'll just forget
about it. I declare I feel younger than I have for years. But I'm tired.
I didn't sleep well last night. If you take my advice now, children,
you'll try these beds and see how soft they are. I am sure I feel the
need of at least forty good winks."
"Oh, I couldn't sleep now." Rebecca Mary was too excited even to think
of sleep. She would rather go down to the garden where the big pool
showed the blue sky how becoming the fleecy white clouds were. The
garden was far more alluring to her just then than the softest of beds.
"I couldn't, either!" exclaimed Joan. "Must I?"
Granny did not insist, and after she was tucked under the silken
comforter Rebecca Mary and Joan went down the stairs hand in hand. They
ran through the open door and found a surprise on the other side, a
surprise over six feet long.
"Hello!" exclaimed the surprise, all a-grin.
"Hello!" replied Rebecca Mary somewhat feebly, and then she laughed for
the surprise was young Peter Simmons. If Rebecca Mary's fingers had not
been in her pocket with the four-leaf clover locket she would not have
believed her two gray eyes. "Then it wasn't a dream!" she said
triumphantly.
"Wasn't it?" Peter looked at Rebecca Mary as she stood before him in her
crumpled white frock and pink sweater. Peter never saw that the frock
was crumpled. He only saw the two shining gray eyes, the smiling red
mouth and the two pink cheeks which helped to make Rebecca Mary's
radiant face.
"I told Granny that you found us last night and she said I was
dreaming," she explained more soberly. "Have you come to rescue us
again?" It would be so romantic if the four-leaf clover had sent young
Peter Simmons to their rescue a second time.
"Rescue you?" He looked puzzled, for Rebecca Mary did not look as if she
were in any danger as she stood there in front of the door. "I want to
apologize for leaving you in the old shed," he went on. "It started to
rain just before we turned in here last night and the shed was the
nearest place. Yes, I picked you up, it wasn't any dream. Granny was
wrong. I had received a hurry up call to come out at once and was on my
way in my little gas wagon with a man from the factory when at the cross
roads, a mile and half back, I came across two women and a half----"
"Was the half me?" demanded Joan, dancing up and down. "Do you mean me
when you say half a woman?"
"I certainly do," smiled Peter. "One woman and a half were sound asleep
and the other woman was just about asleep. The cross roads didn't seem
the safest place for a nap so I left my machine to the mechanic and took
the wheel of yours. I didn't dare take you to the house until I spoke to
old Martingale but when I met him he wouldn't listen to my story but
marched me off to the shop for a minute. The minute grew into sixty
before I could get away, and when I went back to the shed you had gone.
How is Granny? The idea of a child of her age going to sleep in a motor
car thirty miles from home. Any one could have come along and carried
you off!" It almost sounded as if Peter was scolding them.
"I said you brought us here, I remember perfectly now, but Granny
wouldn't believe me. Did you know that we would have to stay for ever?"
"For ever?" Peter didn't understand.
With Joan's assistance Rebecca Mary explained that no one who came to
Riverside could leave, and Peter threw back his head and laughed and
laughed.
"Good work," he chuckled. "I guess I've eliminated old Dick Cabot for a
while. He always was in the way in Waloo. But why in the dickens were
you and Granny and this half woman," he pinched Joan's cheek, "going to
Seven Pines in the middle of the night?" Evidently he had forgotten the
explanation Rebecca Mary had given him in the middle of the night.
"Your grandmother decided rather suddenly to leave home," Rebecca Mary
dimpled as she remembered how suddenly Granny had decided, "and she
asked me to drive her to Seven Pines. I was scared to pieces but I
couldn't refuse."
"That's very good as far as it goes, but it doesn't explain why Granny
had to start in the middle of the night, why she couldn't wait until
morning?"
Rebecca Mary hesitated until she remembered that Granny had said she
didn't care if Peter knew, she didn't care if every one knew.
"I suppose I may tell you," the corners of her mouth tilted up. "She
wanted to run away from a question."
"A question?" Peter looked hopelessly bewildered. "Why should any one,
least of all an old woman of sixty-eight, run away from a question?"
Even when Rebecca Mary had explained what question it was which had made
Granny abandon her comfortable home in Waloo at midnight Peter didn't
seem to understand, and he said so.
"That's because you're a man!" Rebecca Mary was very scornful of a man's
power of comprehension. "I understand perfectly, and I don't blame
Granny a bit. It must be perfectly maddening to have your husband ask
you whether you want light meat or dark every time a chicken comes to
the table or what you want for a birthday or a Christmas present. I
don't blame Granny," she repeated for fear he had not heard her the
first time she said it.
"Neither do I when you say it like that," Peter agreed amiably.
"Although I can't see why she didn't go to grandfather and tell him how
she felt. My grandfather, Miss Rebecca Mary Wyman, is the best old scout
in the world. Don't think for a minute that he is a crabbed selfish old
dub because he isn't. He's the head of a big manufacturing plant which
he had ready to turn over to the government before the war because he
saw it coming, and it's been no joke to get it back to a peace basis
since the war. I don't know anything about this chicken meat
proposition, but I do know that granddad has so much on his mind that it
isn't surprising if he has forgotten a little thing like an
anniversary----"
"Little thing!" Anniversaries were not little things to Rebecca Mary.
They aren't little things to any woman. "A golden wedding a little
thing!" It was perfectly clear to Peter that a golden wedding with all
its tributes and attributes would never be a little thing to Rebecca
Mary.
"She's going to ask me," Joan broke in excitedly. "I've never been to
one, and I can't think what it will be like. What will be golden? The
bride can't be, can she?"
"No," Rebecca Mary put an arm around Joan as she explained. "No, honey,
the golden part will be the beautiful memory the bride and bridegroom
will have of the fifty happy years they have spent together." She
stopped suddenly as she remembered that was what Cousin Susan had said,
that memories were golden. "What a long time that is!" she murmured
dreamily. "Fifty years!"
"Not too long for two people who love each other," suggested Peter in a
voice which sent the ready color to her cheeks. "When you are married
you will want a golden wedding, won't you?"
"I wonder," her lips murmured perversely, although her heart told her
with one big beat that she would, she most certainly would, want a
golden wedding.
"I know," insisted Peter. "Come on in and help me find some breakfast. I
haven't had a thing to eat since last night," piteously.
"We have!" Joan was triumphant. "We had strawberries and toast and eggs
and coffee!"
"Greedy!" Peter made a face at her. "I hope you didn't eat all the
strawberries, nor all the eggs, nor all the toast!"