Rebecca's Promise Part 11

"Come, Rebecca Mary," she said impatiently. "Put on your hat. We'll go to-night!"

CHAPTER VIII

"To-night!" Rebecca Mary swung around to look at her. It was almost midnight, time to go nowhere but to bed, but Granny was not dressed for bed. What on earth did she mean?

"I promised Mrs. Swenson I'd come and see Otillie's things," Granny spoke almost fretfully. "I know what time it is, Rebecca Mary, but if we don't go before old Peter Simmons comes we'll never leave. He'll want us to stay at home until he can go with us, and he can never go. He's always too busy."

Rebecca Mary's eyes opened wider. She didn't understand why Granny should want to leave for Seven Pines in almost the middle of the night if old Peter Simmons was coming home. Rebecca Mary did not know old Peter Simmons, she did not know very much about him except that he was the head of a big manufacturing plant and that he was to have a golden wedding on the twenty-second of July. Granny had always spoken as if she adored her husband. It seemed strange for her to leave for Seven Pines if he was coming home.

"Just put a few things in a suit case," ordered Granny. "We shan't be away more than a couple of days."

Rebecca Mary only stared harder. There was an expression on Granny's face which she did not understand.

"We'll go to Seven Pines to-night for several reasons," went on Granny impatiently. "First because I want to go to Seven Pines before my golden wedding for a special reason, and I promised to take you and Joan there, and because Otillie Swenson wants us to see her wedding things. If we don't go before old Peter Simmons comes we won't go at all, as I said.

When he is in Waloo he wants me to be in Waloo. I can gad as much and as far as I please when he's away but when he is in town I must be home. I know very well the way he'll stamp in here and say: 'h.e.l.lo, Kitty! How are you?' and kiss me and go to bed and sleep like a log until seven in the morning and then he'll eat his breakfast and go to the factory and I shan't see him until dinner time. I might as well be at Seven Pines. And then--I suppose you'll think I'm crazy, Rebecca Mary, but I never was saner in my life. You would understand perfectly if you had been married to old Peter Simmons for almost fifty years." The twinkle died out of her eyes as she spoke of those fifty years, and she borrowed a frown from Rebecca Mary.

Rebecca Mary caught her breath and wondered if there could be any trouble between Granny and old Peter Simmons. Granny had always talked so proudly of her husband and what he had done to help win the war, quite as proudly as she talked of young Peter.

"Oh!" was all she could say, but Granny seemed dissatisfied with that startled exclamation.

"Read that!" She thrust the crumpled telegram into Rebecca Mary's hand.

"'Will be home on the 11.55 what do you want for the jubilee?'"

Even after she had read the telegram and mechanically divided it into two sentences, Rebecca Mary did not seem able to understand.

Granny took the message from her and read it aloud with an indignant snort.

"You see?" She looked at Rebecca Mary as if she defied her to say that the situation was not spread out before her as clearly as the green vegetables at the grocer's. "'What do you want for the jubilee?'" she read scornfully. "If that isn't just like old Peter Simmons! For almost fifty years, Rebecca Mary, I've told that man what I wanted for anniversary and birthday and Christmas presents. I've even had to tell him when the anniversaries and the birthdays were. Never once has old Peter Simmons remembered them for himself. He has never brought me a present without first asking me what I wanted. He can't even remember whether I like white meat or dark when we have chicken for dinner. He asks me every single time just as if it were the first time. And I'm tired of doing his thinking for him. He knows very well what I want.

We've talked of it often enough. But I feel in my bones that if I see him to-night and he asks me what I want for my golden wedding I'll say something that will make trouble. And I don't want any trouble that will interfere with my golden wedding. I've earned that, and I'm going to have it. I'm not going to take any chance of an argument to-night. And the safest way to avoid an argument is to run away from it. We'll go Out to Seven Pines and look at Otillie Swenson's wedding clothes and then I may feel different. Put on your hat, Rebecca Mary. I know Peter does a lot of this only to tease me, but I don't feel like being teased now.

Isn't there something else you should take with you?" she asked, and she looked vaguely around the room when at last Rebecca Mary was hatted and packed.

Rebecca Mary stopped feeling anxious and giggled. It did seem so absurd for her to run away with Granny from old Mr. Simmons' frantic question.

She could visualize just how frantic old Mr. Simmons was, and she felt sorry for him. At the same time she didn't blame Granny. It was irritating to be asked continually what you wanted a person to give you.

Rebecca Mary's mother was something like old Peter Simmons. For weeks before Christmas she wrote and asked Rebecca Mary what she wanted when all the time she knew that Rebecca Mary would have to take what she needed.

"Isn't there something else you should take?" Granny asked helplessly as Rebecca Mary put her in her motor coat and straightened her hat.

"There's Joan?" suggested Rebecca Mary, trying to keep her face from breaking into the little holes Joan liked.

"Of course." Granny pulled herself away before Rebecca Mary could b.u.t.ton her coat. "We can't leave Joan until we find her father. You call her, while I explain to Pierson."

Joan was an interrogation point when she was wakened and told that she was to go to Seven Pines at once. She caught the picture of her father and mother from the table but Rebecca Mary was glad to see that she left the potato masher where it was.

"I don't care as much for it as I did," Joan confessed, a little ashamed of her fickleness. "But I just have to take the picture and the clock, too."

"Aren't you ready?" called Granny. "It's half past now." And as if to prove that she was right Grandfather clock in the hall boomed the half hour. It sounded very solemn, and Joan slipped her free hand into Rebecca Mary's hand. "It is fortunate you have learned to drive the car, Rebecca Mary," Granny said as they went down the stairs. "Karl left this morning, you know, and the new man isn't to come until to-morrow. We'll take the small car, the five pa.s.senger. You can drive it, can't you?"

she stopped on the last step to ask.

"I hope so." That was as much as Rebecca Mary could promise for it was one thing to drive a car over a smooth boulevard in broad daylight and with a helping hand at her elbow, and a vastly different thing to drive a car over an unknown country road in the moonlight and without a helping hand. Rebecca Mary was really scared to pieces, but Granny was so confident that Rebecca Mary didn't like to confess how scared she was.

She looked to see that there were gasoline and water for Richard had told her never to take out a car without seeing that it had plenty of food and drink. "You'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the end," he had promised, and, goodness knows, Rebecca Mary didn't want any trouble.

"You're taking a lot of time," fretted Granny from the tonneau where she sat with Joan. "And we haven't a minute to waste. It's a quarter to twelve now. If old Peter Simmons finds us in this garage we'll never see Otillie Swenson's wedding things."

"I'm ready now." Rebecca Mary wiped her hands on a piece of waste and slipped in behind the wheel.

They had to stop at the house for Pierson was waving a small basket.

"I put up a few sandwiches for you, Mrs. Simmons." She was breathless from the haste she had made. "You'll be hungry before you get to Seven Pines."

"That's very thoughtful of you, Pierson," commended Granny as Pierson put the basket on the seat beside Rebecca Mary. "Now, remember, you are not to tell Mr. Simmons when we went. Just say that I am on a motor trip with a couple of young friends. And don't tell him we are at Seven Pines. If he doesn't know where I am he can't keep asking me irritating questions. Now, my dear, straight ahead until you come to the end of the boulevard. Yes, Joan, it is very wrong to run away from home in the middle of the night and you are never to do it until you are sixty-eight years old and not then unless your husband will annoy you by asking what you want for a golden wedding present."

"I won't, Granny." Joan promised solemnly, although she knew that she would never live to be sixty-eight. Why, it would take years and years and years. But it was enough to make a little girl feel solemn to be wakened in the middle of the night and told to get up and run away from a question. No wonder Joan s.h.i.+vered. "And I know why you are running away," she went on eagerly. "It isn't from any question, is it? It's to find the young heart you are always talking about. I'm going to look for my father. Why are you going, Miss Wyman?" she leaned forward to ask.

Alone on the front seat Rebecca Mary laughed. "I reckon I'll find a payment on my memory insurance," she said, and over her shoulder she told Granny of the policy which Cousin Susan had persuaded her to take out and which was to be payable at any time during her old age. And Granny, who had reached her old age, thought that it was a most wonderful and business-like arrangement.

"Your Cousin Susan is exactly right. Young people begin all their thoughts with 'I shall,' but old people think 'I did' or 'I had.'"

"I'm young then," Joan announced with much satisfaction, "for I always think I shall."

"So do I!" Rebecca Mary was quite astonished to find that she did. "How far is it to Seven Pines, Mrs. Simmons?"

"Sixty-three miles from our front steps. Listen--is that the train? I reckon we are safe now." And she leaned back with a sigh of relief.

"Sixty-three miles!" gasped Rebecca Mary, who never had driven one mile by herself. But there is always a first time, and she remembered that she would have to drive only a mile at a time, and anyway it would be Granny who would be responsible for what would happen.

They did not talk much after the first few miles. Joan fell asleep and even Granny dozed although she really couldn't sleep for Rebecca Mary had to ask her every few minutes the way to Seven Pines. Long before they reached the end of the boulevard Rebecca Mary forgot to be frightened or nervous. She found it rather thrilling to run away from old Mr. Simmons' question in the moonlight. They seemed to have the world to themselves for they met no one. Rebecca Mary thought she should like to go on for ever and ever.

She would never forget this ride, and she chuckled to herself. When she was as old as Granny she would remember how they had fled from old Mr.

Simmons' irritating question. And thinking of old Mr. Simmons, whom she had never seen, made her remember young Mr. Simmons, whom she admired so much. What would he think when he came to-morrow, no, to-day, and found her gone? And Mr. Cabot? She had promised to drive out to the Country Club with Richard that very afternoon after banking hours. Richard was going to teach her to play golf. She was sorry that Granny had not given her time to write a little note, to write two little notes.

But she would not be away long. Granny had said only a few days. And she could telephone to Richard and to Peter from Seven Pines the very first thing, before she even looked at Otillie Swenson's wedding things. She hoped Peter and Richard would miss her for she knew that she would miss them. A month ago she had known neither of them. And now----

Young Peter Simmons was the most fascinating man. She flushed as her thoughts strayed back to young Peter, and she wondered if the day ever would come when he would ask his wife what she wanted for a birthday or an anniversary present. She knew that Richard Cabot would never ask. He would never have to ask for he would make a note of the date in his memorandum book and would be ready with his gift on the proper day.

Young Peter and Richard were as different as a vanilla ice and a cherry pie. She liked them both. She couldn't think which she did like the best. Peter had fascinated her ever since she had seen him eating fresh tomato sandwiches with such gusto at the Waloo, and Richard did give her such a comfortable, well cared for, warm feeling. It was like being wrapped in a down comforter on a winter night to be with Richard. h.e.l.lo, here they were at another cross road. Should she turn to the right or the left or keep straight ahead? She would have to ask Granny.

But when she turned she saw that Granny was fast asleep beside Joan.

Joan's sleek little head was on Granny's shoulder and Granny's gray head was resting on Joan's black hair. They looked so comfortable cuddled close together that Rebecca Mary had not the heart to disturb them. And anyway what difference did it make when they reached Seven Pines?

"She'll be awake in a few minutes," she thought lazily. "And in the meantime I'll stretch myself and take a sandwich."

She slipped from her seat to draw a rug over the two sleepers and then stretched herself luxuriously before she took the place beside the wheel where she would have more room to stretch while she ate her sandwich.

"Chicken salad," she murmured approvingly when she opened a package.