The days flew by as days will fly whether they are bright with diamonds
or veiled in gray. Granny became rested, Joan was spoiled, and even
Rebecca Mary began to feel the effect of too much attention. There had
been a time when Rebecca Mary had thought that it would be perfect bliss
to have just one man devoted to her, but now that she had four she found
that she never had a minute to herself. Whether she wanted to or not she
had to play tennis with Wallie Marshall, walk with George Barton, ride
the farmhorses with Peter Simmons, recite French verbs to Frederick
Befort or play accompaniments for Major Martingale, who still liked to
hear the young people sing the old war songs. And you know how it is
yourself if you have just had a generous portion of plum pudding you
don't care to see another plum pudding no matter how holly wreathed it
is. In spite of all the admiration and attention which were falling on
Rebecca Mary like an April shower she was not satisfied; she was
conscious of a vague longing for something, she didn't know what, for
she did not analyze the faint discontent which annoyed her. She only
knew that she wanted something which she did not have and she told
herself that she was an ungrateful beast to ask more of her talisman
when already the clover leaf had given her so much.
It was the same way with Granny, who had looked on Riverside when she
arrived as a haven of rest, but she soon was as surfeited with rest as
Rebecca Mary was with admiration. Granny had so little to occupy her
mind that she just had to think of old Peter Simmons, to wonder uneasily
what he was doing, to ask herself if he were thinking of her instead of
his factory, if he had received her letter, and a thousand other things
all of which had old Peter Simmons for their subject. Twice Major
Martingale found her with her hand on the door of the room which he used
as an office and which held the only telephone at Riverside and to which
he alone had the key.
"Do you wish to leave any message with me?" he asked each time.
"If I said what I wanted to say I expect the message would be left with
you," Granny said sadly. "You never would send it on. How much longer
will it be before we may leave, Major Martingale?"
"You know as much about it as I do." Major Martingale was discouraged
just then and was sadly in need of a word of encouragement.
But Granny hadn't enough encouragement for herself; she couldn't spare a
word for any man. "The twenty-second is a week from yesterday," she said
significantly. "I told you, you know, that we wouldn't stay a minute
after the twentieth," she added in case he had missed the significance.
"I hope none of us will have to stay later than the twentieth, but you
should have thought of that before you came."
"Came!" Granny was indignant. "I didn't come!"
"Well, I didn't bring you!" He was too exasperated to remember the
courtesy which is ever due a lady.
"A perfect bear, my dear," Granny told Rebecca Mary five minutes later.
"If he has his way we'll be here for Thanksgiving," she prophesied
gloomily.
Rebecca Mary sat up on the _chaise longue_ where she had hidden herself
for a quiet half hour and stared at her. "Thanksgiving! We can't stay
that long. Why, school begins the first of September!" The beginning of
school was an event so large in the life of Rebecca Mary that everything
should give away to it. Everything always had.
"Major Martingale wouldn't care for that. It isn't our wishes nor our
convenience he is thinking of. If we could do anything to help him I
shouldn't say a word. If we even knew anything about this wonderful
experiment it would be different, but we might as well be in New York or
Bombay for all we know of what is going on in that shop. We couldn't
tell anything intelligent enough for even a German to understand. I'm
beginning to feel that the whole thing is nonsense, Rebecca Mary, and so
I don't think that we have to stay. And I'm worried for fear Edith won't
order things the way I want them for my golden wedding. I never meant to
stay away so long. I'm sorry we ever started for Seven Pines. But we can
go back. We'll run away from here."
"But how can we run away from Riverside?" It didn't sound as easy to
Rebecca Mary as it had to Granny.
"I'll find a way." Granny was not to be daunted. "I'll have to. I'm tired
being a prisoner."
"So am I." Joan dropped her doll and came to tell them that she, too,
was ready to leave Riverside. "I'd like to go somewhere else."
"I'm sorry now," went on Granny, "that I didn't stay at home and let
old Peter Simmons ask his tormenting question and take the
consequences."
"I'm not!" Indeed, Rebecca Mary wasn't. She had made far too many
payments on her memory insurance policy ever to regret the past few
weeks. "You see, we've helped here," she explained when Granny and Joan
had cried, "You're not!" "The boys say we've been an inspiration to
them, that they have worked a lot better because we were here to cheer
them up."
"They would have worked a lot faster if we hadn't been here." There was
a dry tone to Granny's soft voice which sent the ready color into
Rebecca Mary's cheeks. "I've no doubt Joan and I have furnished lots of
inspiration. It is pleasant to think so, isn't it, Joan?"
Joan looked doubtful. "Is it the same as being a nuisance? Mrs. Erickson
said we were all nuisances, but I was the biggest. But she never said we
were inspirations."
"Let her complain to Major Martingale. Is that only two o'clock?" as the
old clock called to them from the hall. "How many hours are there left
until bedtime?" There was no doubt that Granny was losing patience.
It was a warm sultry day, the sort of a July day which tries the
disposition in normal conditions, and by evening every one was more or
less on edge. It showed in the increased politeness with which they
spoke and in the silence which fell over them as they sat on the terrace
under the stars and tried to think that there was a breeze blowing up
from the river. Joan had gone to bed most reluctantly, and her father
was sitting beside Rebecca Mary on the broad balustrade. Peter sat on
the other side so that they made a sandwich of her. And in front of her
lounged Wallie in a steamer chair reciting nonsense rhymes to which she
scarcely listened, and not a yard from Wallie was George Barton singing
sentimental verses under his breath as he touched the strings of a
ukelele.
Not so many days had passed since Rebecca Mary would have thought that
it would be heaven for a girl to sit on the terrace balustrade of a
beautiful old country place with a Luxembourg count on one side of her
and a _croix de guerre_ man on the other while two very likable young
men were in front of her, but now she was only vaguely conscious that
they were not what she wanted at all. She didn't want any more plum
pudding. She wished irritably that they wouldn't sit so close to her.
She wanted all the air she could get. And her wandering thoughts led
her back to where she would be if she were not at Riverside and that
brought her to Cousin Susan and the mysterious talisman and to--Richard
Cabot. When her thoughts reached Richard they loitered there with a
strange little feeling of satisfaction. She knew that Richard would
never have let her remain so uncomfortable on a hot July night. Richard
would have taken her for a swift ride in his big car to some cool place
where ice tinkled in tall glasses. Rebecca Mary was not exactly fair for
it was not the fault of Peter nor Wallie nor George nor even Frederick
Befort that she was not flying over the country road with them. But
Rebecca Mary did not want to be fair. She just wished that Richard were
there--she wished----
She startled Peter and Frederick Befort and offended Wallie and George
by jumping to her feet in the middle of Wallie's funniest poem and the
most sentimental of George's songs. But before she could utter a word of
explanation or apology there came the sound of voices and another sound,
sharp and clear like a trumpet. It woke Granny, who was half asleep in
her chair.
"God bless my soul!" she exclaimed, and she sat up with a bewildered,
almost a frightened, expression on her face. "No one blows his nose
like that but old Peter Simmons. He must have come for me. Run, Peter!"
She was in a panic. "And tell him to stay in the road. Major Martingale
will lock him up if he comes in."