Rebecca's Promise Part 17

"That is why he made you an eagle, isn't it?" Joan broke in, eager to have a share in these interesting explanations.

"Indirectly, yes." He smiled at her as she stood beside him. "I was able to arrange a very successful wild boar hunt and the kaiser was so pleased that he decorated me. He was with us for several days and made excursions all over the duchy. It was as if he wished to learn every road and mountain path. We thought nothing of it then, fools that we were! I even put on the Prussian uniform of one of the officers and wore it at the costume ball that my wife gave in his honor." So that was why he had been photographed in a Prussian uniform. Rebecca Mary's eyes crinkled. "There always has been a close relation between Luxembourg and Germany," he went on, and a frown chased the smile from his face.

"Before our present grand d.u.c.h.ess came to the throne German influence was supreme, most of our trade was with Germany, our railroads were developed with German money and by Germans, but in our hearts we had no love for Germany. And then came the day when the German army would have marched through the duchy and our grand d.u.c.h.ess, brave little Marie Louise Adelheid, motored out to forbid them to use her country as a thoroughfare. She had her car turned across the road to bar their entrance, and the German officers laughed at her. Laughed at her, madame! They told her to go home. What could Marie Louise Adelheid do?

We had an army of three hundred, only a palace guard and a military band," he laughed bitterly. "We were not soldiers, we were farmers.

Germany knew that. And our little grand d.u.c.h.ess had to go home. It would have been useless to resist. Germany would have devastated Luxembourg as she devastated Belgium. But I have it in my heart to wish that we had resisted, that we had fought and died as the Belgians did. The Germans have used Luxembourg as they pleased. For fifty years our capital was garrisoned by German troops. They left an odious memory and the German soldiers who have swarmed over the duchy since 1914 are even more odious. No, madame, you need not ask. No people hate Germany as do we of Luxembourg."

His words sounded brave and true, and his face looked brave and true.

His eyes flashed fire. It was easy to believe that he would rather have fought and died than to have yielded to the German hordes.

"We are small," he said more quietly, "but we are rich. Germany wanted us, she wanted our iron, our factories, but she did not get them. No!

You see, madame, I have changed my mind. I no longer believe that I was born on the wrong side of the Sure. I thank G.o.d now that there is no German blood in my veins!"

"You should," nodded Granny, "Men of German blood, and women, too, will have to pay a fearful price for their nationality, the price of a world hatred. That is a dreadful thing, to be hated by a whole world." She s.h.i.+vered as she thought what a dreadful thing it would be.

"How can it be otherwise?" Frederick Befort shrugged his shoulders. "If you had seen what I have seen----" He broke off with a shudder.

Granny leaned forward and put her hand on his. "It is strange that we should find you here," she said after a moment. "Providence has queer ways of bringing people together. It would have seemed easier to have introduced us that afternoon we were all in the Viking room at the Waloo."

"On my birthday," Joan whispered to her father, "Miss Wyman was there and Granny Simmons and young Mr. Simmons, and, oh, everybody."

"It might have been easier but would it have been as thrilling?" Rebecca Mary was almost faint from the thrills of the afternoon. "We might never have had such wonderful times if we had met that day at the Waloo." She drew a long breath as she thought of the wonderful times which had followed that tea hour.

Granny smiled at her, so did young Peter and Frederick Befort, and unconsciously they all promised Rebecca Mary more wonderful times.

Enthusiasm does make people so much more generous than quiet acceptance.

"Then, perhaps Joan is right and you are really Count Ernach de Befort?"

laughed Granny. "We thought the child was romancing."

"Yes, in Luxembourg I am a count but in America I like best to be just Mr. Befort." And Mr. Befort looked almost apologetic.

For the first time in her life Rebecca Mary knew what it was to be a popular girl. As she had told Granny, since she had been in Waloo she had known no men over eight years of age and while the boys in her third grade were interesting and dear they were young. Here at Riverside, where she was a prisoner, Rebecca Mary found three most attractive men of exactly the right age, Peter Simmons, Wallace Marshall and George Barton, and one very fascinating older man, Frederick Befort, who was a count in his own country, a country which Rebecca Mary scarcely knew by name.

Busy as the men were over the experiment which was to be such a boon to the world, they found many hours in which to walk with Rebecca Mary, to play tennis with her, to talk with her, to dance with her while the victrola played a new fox trot, or to ride with her around the farm on the fat horses which Peter borrowed from the farmer. Each one of them showed Rebecca Mary very plainly that there was no other girl in his world, as indeed there wasn't just then, and Rebecca Mary, to her undying astonishment, discovered that she could flirt and play one man against another as well as any woman. She scarcely had time to record the payments on her memory insurance policy she was so busy making them.

And if the three younger men admired her for her youth and s.e.x and gay enthusiasm, Frederick Befort revered her for her kindness to Joan. When he was not absorbed in the experiment or at the shop, where he worked with a detached interest to the world around him, which would have made Granny and Rebecca Mary understand many things about Joan which they had not understood, he had to think of what might have happened if Rebecca Mary had not accepted the loan of Joan. His grat.i.tude was sometimes embarra.s.sing and always thrilling to Rebecca Mary, who often had to pinch herself to make sure that she really was Rebecca Mary Wyman. She told herself a dozen times a day that, of course, it was because she was the only girl at Riverside that every one was so perfectly wonderful to her, but she liked to pretend that it was because she was so beautiful and fascinating. At heart Rebecca Mary was not a bit conceited. Her life never had let her acc.u.mulate enough vanity to balance on the point of a pin. And if you had told her that really she was very pretty and very charming she would have laughed at you.

She liked them all, even old Major Martingale, whom she had identified as the short, stout, red-faced man who had consumed such quant.i.ties of hot b.u.t.tered toast that afternoon at the Waloo. She discovered that Wallie Marshall and George Barton had been in the tea room on that memorable afternoon also and it did seem strange, as Granny had said that Fate should bring them together again in this fas.h.i.+on. Never for a moment did Rebecca Mary suspect that Major Martingale had slipped the four-leaf clover into her hand, but she did wonder if one of the others had. She did not want to ask them outright, that would have ended, perhaps spoiled, the delightful mystery. She would have to wait and the waiting was proving very enjoyable. Once Rebecca Mary had hoped that it was Peter who had given her the talisman but now she wished it was Frederick Befort. It would be so romantic when she was sixty to remember that it had been Count Ernach de Befort. Dear me, but Rebecca Mary was glad that Cousin Susan had been so foolish as to spend her kitchen curtains for two cups of tea.

And while Rebecca Mary was the belle of Riverside, Granny took the rest cure.

"It's a heaven sent chance," she told Rebecca Mary and Peter. "I was in such a whirl all through the war that I'm still wound up in a hard knot.

I'm sorry we didn't get to Seven Pines but I'll just rest here for a few days and perhaps I'll be in a good condition to enjoy my golden wedding."

"Grandfather----" began Peter, but she cut him short.

"Don't say grandfather to me, Peter Simmons. When you've been married fifty years less a few weeks you'll understand more than your grandfather ever understood if I know anything of the modern girl. Won't he, Rebecca Mary?"

"I don't know how much his grandfather understands." Rebecca Mary was proving every day what a help she would be to a diplomatic corps.

"He doesn't understand anything about women," grumbled Granny.

She did not come down to breakfast but let Rebecca Mary take a tray to her room and after she had eaten her berries and toast and drunk her coffee she exchanged her bed for a couch in the sun room, where she dozed until luncheon, when she appeared in the dining room to be received like a queen. A nap over a novel filled the afternoon, and after dinner she always played three games of double Canfield with Major Martingale, who frowned blackly over the first game, was puzzled at the second and smiled broadly at the third, which Granny always let him win.

"That keeps him in a good humor," she explained to Rebecca Mary. "Men have to be managed even over a game of cards."

She took Rebecca Mary over the house and showed her the original part which had been built by the great grandfather of Richard and Joshua Cabot.

"He was one of the big pioneers of the northwest," she said. "He came from Pennsylvania in the early forties as an Indian trader. Later he went into the transportation business. He used wagons first, those queer Red River carts. You've seen them at state celebrations?" Rebecca Mary nodded. She remembered the quaint two-wheeled squeaky carts if she didn't remember the Cabots. "Old Mr. Cabot built here when the state was still a territory, and from an historical standpoint I suppose there isn't a more interesting house in the northwest. Councils of war, political rallies, b.a.l.l.s, celebrations of every sort were held in these rooms. He entertained all the important people who came to the northwest. His wife was the daughter of a rival French trader, and Joshua Cabot's grandfather was prouder of his French blood than he was of what his father had done to open up a new country. I think Richard is like the old Pennsylvanian," she went on thoughtfully. "More so than Joshua or any of the others. I expect he will do something big some day."

"I should say he has done something big already," exclaimed Rebecca Mary, rather surprised to find herself championing Richard Cabot. "There aren't many men of his age who are vice-presidents of a bank like the First National. And Peter told me how splendid he was at selling Liberty bonds."

"That's true," admitted Granny soberly, and she carefully hid the twinkle in her eyes from Rebecca Mary. "And banks and bonds are not the only things that interest Richard. I used to think they were. But they're not."

"Yes?" questioned Rebecca Mary politely, but she was too polite, and too unconcerned. Granny refused to tell her what, with stocks and bonds, shared Richard's interest. Rebecca Mary had to guess what Granny meant.

It was astonis.h.i.+ng how often they talked of Richard, or would have been astonis.h.i.+ng if they had not been prisoners in Richard's great-grandfather's old house.

No one came to Riverside as one day ran after another. They were quiet and restful days for Granny, but far from quiet or restful to Rebecca Mary and Joan. Joan made friends with the farmer's wife and the farmer's eight months' old baby and a maltese cat, and she deserted Rebecca Mary for the farmhouse. There were chickens at the farmhouse which Joan was allowed to feed if Mrs. Erickson did not have to say "don't" too many times, and a s.h.a.ggy dog and a flock of young turkeys as well as the baby, which Joan was permitted to hold if she was sure that her hands were clean.

Bread and milk may be a healthy change from lobster a la Newburg and chiffonade salad, but to a palate accustomed to the rich food a simple fare soon palls. Before many days Granny began to feel so rested that she was not satisfied to lie in the sun room and doze. She began to wonder what old Peter Simmons was doing, what he had said when Pierson delivered her message the night he came home on the eleven fifty-five and found her gone, and to wonder last of all if she had been wise to run away. Her conscience began to p.r.i.c.k and p.r.i.c.k hard. At last she went to Sallie Cabot's pretty writing table.

"My dear old Peter," she began, "of course Pierson told you that I had left for Seven Pines with a couple of young friends. I did not wait to see you for several reasons. If you take time to think you will know why I felt that I had to go to Seven Pines just now. Do take care of yourself. I shall die if anything should happen to spoil our golden wedding. I've looked forward to it for over fifty years."

She signed herself "Your affectionate wife," with a little grunt and sigh and then she carefully tore the "Riverside" mark from the paper.

She folded her letter and put it in a plain envelop, which she inclosed in a second envelop, which was addressed to the housekeeper at Seven Pines. She gave the letter to Peter and told him that as he had bothered her so unceasingly she had written to his grandfather and the letter could be sent if it could go by way of Seven Pines.

Peter seemed quite sure he could have it sent that way. "Good work, Granny!" He patted her shoulder approvingly. "You won't be sorry," he promised.

"I hope I shan't," sighed Granny.

"She's a good old sport," Peter told Rebecca Mary when he had his turn for a dance or a walk and they chose a walk down by the river. "I honestly didn't think she'd do it, but she did. Of course----" He stopped suddenly and called her attention to the hollyhocks, like pink and white sentinels.

Rebecca Mary was not to be diverted by pink or white hollyhocks. "Yes?

You were saying----"

"Nothing, that is, nothing of any consequence," he told her hurriedly.

"I say what was old Wallie telling you before dinner that made you both howl? I haven't heard a good joke for some time and that must have been a scream from the way you two chortled."

But if Peter wouldn't tell her she wouldn't tell him. "I don't feel at liberty to repeat Mr. Marshall's jokes," she said very loftily.

"Now you're testy and it isn't my fault. I say, you know, you're not the girl you were in Waloo," reproachfully. "You wouldn't have exploded at nothing in Waloo," he complained.

It was only the truth. Rebecca Mary was not the same girl she had been in Waloo. She knew it as well as he did and laughed triumphantly. She was so glad she was not that old scowling shabby Waloo girl. The soft low laugh rather went to Peter's head. He put out his hand and took Rebecca Mary's fingers in his warm palm.

"I say," he began a bit huskily, "you shouldn't look at a fellow like that. You--you----"

"Yes?" Rebecca Mary dared him with a racing heart.

"Hi there, Simmons! Miss Wyman!" shouted a voice behind them and there was Wallie Marshall, all indignation. "You think a fat lot of yourself, don't you?" he said to Peter with some heat, "to run off with all the partners at this dance. What do you think you are? Come this way, Miss Wyman. I found a corking place among the willows this afternoon when I was fis.h.i.+ng. Let us see how it looks by moonlight."