Rebecca's Promise Part 23

CHAPTER XIX

Rebecca Mary's nose was out of joint. The great experiment proved so absorbing that at noon Ben carried sandwiches and milk to the shop, and Frederick Befort was the only man who joined Rebecca Mary and Joan at the big table in the dining room. Frederick Befort seemed in a strange mood. At one moment he would be wildly excited and tell some extravagant story which made the two girls laugh heartily, and the next minute he would frown at his plate or jump up and go to the window which overlooked the path which led to the shop.

"Those may be Luxembourg manners," Rebecca Mary thought disapprovingly.

"But why isn't he at the shop with the others?"

"If Granny Simmons were here she'd say you had the fidgets," remarked Joan precociously. "She always tells me that I have the fidgets when I can't sit still."

"It is a day to make a man have the fidgets," and her father stopped on his way back from the window to pat her cheek. "You will never know, _mignonne_, what this day means to your father."

"You could tell me?" hinted Joan.

But he only laughed and patted her cheek again before he went back to his place. Rebecca Mary looked at him curiously. What a strange man he was, not a bit like an American, like young Peter or--or Richard. She wasn't sure she understood him, he was so strange. But she really didn't bother very much about Frederick Befort then for she, too, was in a strange mood. She wanted to be by herself and think. She scarcely knew of what she wanted to think but she was conscious of a little glow of content. Perhaps if she went down by the river bank she could discover why she felt so contented and happy when she had been so restless and unreasonable. She was glad to hear Frederick Befort promise to play ball with Joan although she wondered again why he did not go to the shop, but that was his business, not hers.

She ran upstairs to find Granny asleep and with a sigh of relief she crossed the terrace on her way to the river bank. But Joan called to her from the tennis court and ran toward her. Rebecca Mary might have ignored the childish hail once, but she couldn't do it now, and she walked slowly toward the court.

"Look what my father made for me!" Joan demanded breathlessly. She always spoke of her father with an emphasis as if her father was made of "sugar and spice and everything nice" while other fathers were compounded of dust and water without a grain of seasoning. She held up what was meant to be a ball, but it was made from an old glove stuffed with--papers. Rebecca Mary could feel them crackle. The glove fingers were wound around the palm to hold the papers firm. It really wasn't much of a ball to any one but Joan, who capered proudly and almost s.n.a.t.c.hed it from Rebecca Mary as if she could not quite trust even her with it. "My father made it for me," she repeated joyously.

Her father laughed. "Miss Wyman does not think that was any great feat, _ma pet.i.te_," he teased. "She does not think it is a very good ball."

Miss Wyman was a true descendant of George Was.h.i.+ngton, and she horrified Joan by confessing that Frederick Befort was right, and she had seen better b.a.l.l.s than the one he had made out of an old glove and some sc.r.a.ps of paper.

"What do you really think yourself?" She caught a tennis ball from the court, where it lay neglected, and showed him what a ball could be.

"But that's a ball from a store!" Joan saw the difference in a flash.

"And my father never made a ball before. He said so. This is the first one he ever made, and he made it for me."

"No one else would accept it." He pinched her cheek. "Now, Joan, you must play by yourself. I must go to the shop, but I tell you again you cannot throw this ball I made over the hedge. It is not like a store ball."

"If you wait I'll show you!" Joan was only too eager to show what she could do, but he turned impatiently away.

"This may be the greatest day of my life, Miss Wyman." He stopped in front of her. "Will you be so very kind as to wish me luck?" He took the hand which hung at her side and pressed it.

She looked at him in surprise, and she was more surprised when she saw the flush on his usually pale face. She wondered why this should be such a great day, but as he did not tell her she did not ask but prettily offered her best wishes. He pressed her hand again and went toward the shop with long eager steps. Rebecca Mary looked after him curiously. She shook her head. No, she didn't understand him at all, not even a little bit. And because a closed box is always more fascinating than an open one she would have continued to think of Frederick Befort if Joan would have let her. But Joan was pulling her sleeve.

"I'll show you, then, Miss Wyman. Shall I? Shall I show you that I can throw my ball over the hedge?" She was on tiptoe to show Miss Wyman.

Rebecca Mary looked at the only hedge near them, the arbor vitae which kept Riverside from spilling into the road, and shook her head. "You'll lose it if you do. You can't go after it, you know." She reminded Joan that she was a prisoner.

"The guard will bring it to me if I ask him." Joan was not a bit afraid that she would lose her ball even if Rebecca Mary did shake her head and doubt whether the guard would leave his post by the gate to hunt among the bushes which edged the road for a ball. She raised her arm to send the ball flying over the hedge, but Rebecca Mary caught her hand.

"I fear your father is not a very good ball maker, Joan. See, the fingers have come unfastened. The stuffing is falling out." She took the glove from Joan and tried to push the papers back into it.

"The stuffing is my father's papers. He took them from his pocket,"

Joan told her proudly. "Can you put them back?"

"I'd better sew them in or they will be all over the place. Why----" she broke off to stare at one of the sc.r.a.ps of papers which had fallen into her hand. There were figures on it and a tiny drawing and a few German words. How strange! She pulled a larger piece from the glove and after she had smoothed it she found more German words.

Like an express train das.h.i.+ng through a country station many things dashed through Rebecca Mary's brain as she stood and looked at the bits of paper. She remembered what Major Martingale had said about the great experiment, how important it was and how Germany was trying to get control of it to regain her old position in the commercial world. She remembered that Frederick Befort had been named for one kaiser and had been a friend of another kaiser, who had decorated him. She remembered many things Joan had said about Germany and that the kaiser had called her "_ein gutes Kind, Johanna_," and Joan's whisper that her father did not wish her to speak of Germany now, he wanted her to forget Germany.

She remembered also that Frederick Befort had said he was from Luxembourg where the Germans had had great influence and power, that he had gone to school in Germany. And Mrs. Erickson had heard him talking German to one of the mechanics behind the woodshed!

Rebecca Mary had heard many a spy story during the war, and she s.h.i.+vered as she looked at the bits of paper in her hand. Oh, it couldn't be possible that Frederick Befort had come to the Simmons factory, that he had come to Riverside to obtain possession of the secret of this great experiment which was to do so much for the world. He couldn't be one of the German secret agents which the newspapers had had so much to say about during the war. It wasn't possible, and yet when she had added one to one and then to two and three she could obtain but one answer.

The work at Riverside was practically finished. Richard had told her so that morning. Frederick Befort would have all the information he wanted by now, and, of course, he would wish to get it to Germany as soon as possible. That was why he had torn his papers and stuffed them into an old glove which Joan was to throw over the hedge. If the guard saw it he would think it was only a child's plaything. A confederate was hiding in the bushes and would catch the ball when it was tossed out. The whole plan had been skillfully thought out and was now as plain as print to Rebecca Mary's horrified mind.

Joan pulled her sleeve impatiently. "Can't you fix it? Let me take it and throw it over the hedge as my father told me." She tried to take the ball from Rebecca Mary.

"No, no! Leave it alone, Joan, or you'll have the papers all over the gra.s.s." She had to think like chain lightning. "I'll run in and sew it up. Don't tell your father," she cautioned chokingly. "He wouldn't like it if he knew that his ball came to pieces so soon."

With the ball in her hand, and Joan trotting along beside her, she went back to the house wondering what on earth she should do and how she could get rid of Joan for a few minutes. Joan found the way herself when she saw the farmhouse kitten asleep on the steps.

"It has run away. I'd better take it right back or Mrs. Erickson will be cross with me again. She said I was always taking her things and forgetting to bring them back."

"Yes, run over with the kitten." Rebecca Mary knew if Joan once ran over she would stay for some time, long enough perhaps to forget about the ball, for there were wonderful things to interest a child at the farmhouse.

Rebecca Mary shut the door of her room and turned the key before she pulled the rest of the papers from the old glove. Oh, there was no doubt about it! The papers were covered with drawings and German words.

Rebecca Mary groaned. What should she do? She put her hands over her eyes to shut out the sight of those German words, but she could not shut the thought of them from her brain. She felt nauseated. To think that a man would use his little daughter as Frederick Befort had planned to use Joan. It was despicable. She never wanted to see Frederick Befort again, and she had liked him so much. Why, only this noon---- She began to understand now his extravagant gayety at luncheon, he had thought his work was done, and he had stayed with them to find a way for Joan to give the information he had collected to his confederates. No one would suspect Joan. And she had wished him luck! She groaned again. It was all so very plain to her that she turned and hid her face against the back of the chair.

After a long, long time, five minutes perhaps, she rose suddenly and with her lips pressed tight together went to the desk and found an envelop in which she put the sc.r.a.ps of paper. She looked about for a place to hide the package for it was too bulky to carry in her pocket.

Where would be a good place? She opened the closet door. Across one end were several drawers and above them were two shelves. On the top shelf was a bandbox. Rebecca Mary climbed up to the bandbox and looked into it. She took out a hat and turning it over, tucked her package inside the lining. Then she replaced the hat and put the box on the shelf. She stood in the doorway and gazed anxiously at the box. It looked as innocent as a box could look. No one ever would imagine that it held a secret. Rebecca Mary sighed as she shut the closet door.

Then she took several sheets of Sallie Cabot's best note paper and drew meaningless lines on them and wrote what might be taken at a careless glance for German words, and tore the paper into sc.r.a.ps with which she stuffed the old glove. She would let Joan toss it over the hedge so Joan could tell her father. If Frederick Befort thought his plans had reached his confederate he would do nothing more. He couldn't get away himself, and Rebecca Mary would have a little time in which to think what she should do. She must tell someone, not Major Martingale, he would be merciless, but Peter, or, no--Richard! Richard would be the man for her to tell. But, oh, how she did hate to tell any one. Suppose she should speak to Frederick Befort himself, persuade him to promise to forget everything that had happened at Riverside, to remain true to the oath he had given Major Martingale? If she could do that--if she only could.

She had liked Frederick Befort. He was so different from any man she had ever met. He had fascinated her with his talk of courts and grand d.u.c.h.esses and emperors, she thought now a little bitterly. There was an air of mystery about him which would pique a girl's interest, but if the mystery meant that he was a German secret agent she wouldn't be interested another minute. She would only be horrified and disgusted.

Oh, what should she do? Never had a teacher in the third grade of the Lincoln school been given such a problem to solve. If only she could wake up and find that it was a dream she would be so happy to forget it all. She shouldn't want to remember this when she was sixty, she told herself drearily.

But it wasn't a dream. The old glove on the desk told her it wasn't, and she took it in her hand. "Well, Count Ernach de Befort," she said under her breath, "I have spoiled your scheme for the present. If Joan throws this to your confederate he will be puzzled what to make of it."

Even as she spoke Joan pounded on the door.

"Are you there, Miss Wyman? Have you mended the ball my father made me?

Can't you be quicker? I want to throw it over the hedge before my father comes to dinner."

And she did throw it over the hedge as she stood on the tennis court. It was a good throw for a little girl, and Joan was jubilant as she ran across the court and climbed up on the stone wall, behind the arbor vitae to see where the ball had fallen. Rebecca Mary ran too, although her legs did feel too weak to carry her, and her heart was beating so fast.

She caught the toes of her white oxfords in a cranny of the wall and lifted herself so that she might look. But although they both looked and looked there was no ball to be seen on that stretch of the road. Down by the gate the guard was leaning against the fence, but the guard was not a ball, and they were looking for a ball.

"It's gone!" Joan was surprised. "Some one must have taken it. Who do you think it was, Miss Wyman, a fairy or an ogre?"

"An ogre!" Rebecca Mary said fiercely. She felt so fierce that she was faint. "A horrid black ogre. Oh, Joan! Why did you throw it?" she wailed.