Rebecca's Promise Part 2

"Yes?" Miss Weir waited for her to explain that "underneath," and when Rebecca Mary just stammered on she said gently, but, oh, so firmly: "That is why I ask you to visit the homes, so that you can understand the 'underneath.'"

"Yes," murmured Rebecca Mary meekly, but when Miss Weir had gone with Disapproval shouting, "Fie, fie, Rebecca Mary Wyman," from her unbending back Rebecca Mary was anything but meek. She stamped her foot and threw a book on the floor and murmured rebelliously that the days would have to be three times as long as they were if she were to get "underneath"

the forty children in her room.

She found the house, a modest frame cottage, in a block which held only one other house. Joan was sitting on the steps, and she looked very small and very forlorn until she saw Rebecca Mary. She jumped to her feet and stood waiting, her arms full of what Rebecca Mary naturally thought were playthings. She wore her hat and had a suit case on the steps beside her.

"Oh dear Miss Wyman!" she called joyously. "I thought you'd never come.

Mrs. Lee, over there," she nodded toward the next house, "said you couldn't be here a minute before half-past three." She looked at the small silver clock which was one of the things she held and shook it for the clock said plainly that in its opinion it was a quarter to four.

"This must be an ignorant clock," she decided with a frown, "for I know you wouldn't wait a minute when you knew I wanted you. It doesn't matter now, and I'm to tell you that I'm to be your little girl!" She was quite enchanted by the prospect, and she expected Rebecca Mary to be enchanted, too.

"My goodness gracious!" And Rebecca Mary frowned. Old habits are hard to break. "What do you mean, Joan?"

Joan was only too ready to explain. "You see my father has gone away for a long long time, we don't know how long, and Mrs. Muldoon, who keeps our house for us, has gone, too. She said I was to stay with you until she came back because at Mrs. Lee's they have scarlet fever upstairs and the mumps downstairs." Rebecca Mary could see for herself that Mrs. Lee had scarlet fever. A card on the house was actually red in the face with its efforts to tell her that Mrs. Lee had scarlet fever. "Mrs. Muldoon said she guessed my teacher was an all right person to leave me with, and so she's loaned me to you. Yes, she has!" as Rebecca Mary seemed unable to believe it. "I'm loaned to you until my father or Mrs. Muldoon comes home again. Aren't you glad?" Her lip quivered for Rebecca Mary looked anything but glad.

Rebecca Mary couldn't say she was glad, either. She seemed to have lost her tongue for she just stood there and looked down at black-haired, black-eyed Joan and wondered what in the world she would do if Joan's absurd story was true.

"Are you Joan's teacher?" called Mrs. Lee from next door. "Mrs. Muldoon was sure that you would look after Joan while she was away. Her son in Kansas City is sick. She went as soon as she got the telegram, and she said she didn't know a living soul who would look after Joan until she thought of you. I'd be glad to take her in here if the health officer would let me. If you can't look after her I suppose the a.s.sociated Charities could find some one," she suggested.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Rebecca Mary. Joan did not seem at all like an a.s.sociated Charities case. Bewildered as Rebecca Mary was she could see that.

"That's what I thought, and Mrs. Muldoon thought so, too. Mr. Befort is away on business she said. They're nice people, used to much better days, I'd say. You won't have a mite of trouble with Joan."

"Not a mite!" promised Joan, winking fast to keep the tears in her black eyes. It wasn't pleasant to be loaned to a teacher who didn't want to borrow. "I'll be so good you'll never know I'm there!"

"Shan't I?" Rebecca Mary visualized the tiny apartment she had shared with a fellow teacher until Miss Stimson had been called home by the illness of her mother. At first Rebecca Mary had liked to be alone, but even before Cousin Susan talked to her as only a relative can talk to one, she had wished for a companion, not an eight-year-old companion she thought quickly as she looked at Joan. Goodness knows, she had enough of children during school hours. But what could she do? Plainly Mrs. Lee and Joan expected her to take Joan home and keep her indefinitely. It was absurd. But if she didn't take her there was only the a.s.sociated Charities.

A little hand clutched her arm. "You aren't h-happy because I-I'm loaned to you," faltered a trembling little voice.

Rebecca Mary was almost unkind enough to say she wasn't and to ask how she could be, but the sob in Joan's voice made her ashamed of herself and her frown. She dropped down on the top step and put her arms around Joan and her clock and a framed picture and a potato masher which she discovered made the odd collection in Joan's arms. The potato masher hit her nose and she frowned again.

Joan leaned against her with a tired sigh. "It's--it's very hard when no one wants you," she hiccoughed.

Rebecca Mary knew just how hard it was, but she didn't say so. Her back was toward the street so that she did not see a limousine coming toward them. It stopped in front of the cottage, and if it hadn't been for the four-leaf clover in her pocket Rebecca Mary would have been very much surprised to hear Mrs. Peter Simmons' voice.

"Does Mr. Frederick Befort live here? Upon my word!" as Rebecca Mary jumped up and faced her. "I wondered if we should meet again. Mr. Befort is one of the men at the factory so I have come to get acquainted with his family," she explained with a friendly smile.

"That's me!" Joan was on her toes with importance. "I'm all the family Mr. Frederick Befort has, but I'm loaned to Miss Wyman!"

CHAPTER III

Fifteen minutes later Rebecca Mary and Joan with Joan's suit case and the picture and the clock and the potato masher were driving away with Mrs. Simmons, while Mrs. Lee waved her ap.r.o.n and promised to let them know the very first minute that Mr. Befort or Mrs. Muldoon returned.

"This is the picture of my very own father and my very own mother," Joan explained as she showed Mrs. Simmons and Rebecca Mary the photograph of a man in a very gorgeous uniform and with an order on his breast standing beside a beautiful young woman in a smart evening gown, a long string of pearls about her neck. There was a coat of arms emblazoned on the silver frame, and Mrs. Simmons touched it with her fingers to call Rebecca Mary's attention to the splendor of it.

"This clock was my mother's, too," Joan chattered on. "And I've wound it myself every night since she went away so I had to bring it with me, and this," she looked at the potato masher doubtfully. "I don't know why I like it, but I do."

"Then I'm glad you brought it with you." Mrs. Simmons patted the small fingers which clutched the wooden potato masher and wondered if the pictured father was dressed for a costume ball or if his every-day clothes were so gorgeous. "Did you ever see her father?" she asked Rebecca Mary.

Rebecca Mary quite forgot the brief glimpse she had had of Mr. Befort's back as he was leaving the Viking room with Joan. "Never!" she exclaimed with an emphasis which made Mrs. Simmons laugh. It sounded so fierce, as though if Rebecca Mary ever had seen Mr. Befort she would have told him a thing or two.

"He has only been at the factory for a few months," Mrs. Simmons explained. "We'll stop at my house and telephone to the office. It will be interesting to hear where he has gone and why he has gone."

But when they stopped at Mrs. Simmons' house, a big sprawling mansion of brick and plaster and brown timbers, and telephoned to the office all they learned was that Frederick Befort had gone away on special business and could not be reached by any one--not by any one at all.

"Well, upon my word!" Mrs. Simmons was quite taken aback by the decisive answer from the office. "I've half a mind to show that man that I can reach Frederick Befort if I want to. It's ridiculous, perfectly ridiculous, to think that any business is more important than his child.

What will you do?" she asked Rebecca Mary.

"I suppose I shall have to keep her until her father comes back," sighed Rebecca Mary. "I really can't turn her over to the a.s.sociated Charities, but it seems to me that a good deal is expected of a teacher."

"She might stay here," suggested Mrs. Simmons. "One of my maids could look after her. How would you like that?" she asked Joan, who stood beside her.

"It would be like home." Joan looked about the big s.p.a.cious rooms with their rich rugs and hangings, the attractive furnis.h.i.+ngs and beautiful pictures. "Our old home, I mean. But I wasn't loaned to you. I was--I was loaned to Miss Wyman." Her lips quivered and tears hung perilously near the edge of each black eye.

"So you were, honey." Suddenly Rebecca Mary realized that a great deal was being expected of Joan, too, and she hugged her. She felt almost as sorry for Joan as she did for herself. It couldn't be pleasant to be left on the door step with a picture and a clock and a potato masher.

"It's ever so kind of you, Mrs. Simmons, but we'll manage some way."

"I'm sure she wouldn't bother me as much as she will you, and I have an obligation toward her as long as her father works for my husband. Don't go yet," as Rebecca Mary rose and took Joan's hand. "We'll have a cup of tea, and then I'll take you home in the car."

"I like to ride in cars," dimpled Joan, all smiles again. "I always used to."

Over her head Mrs. Simmons looked at Rebecca Mary and raised her eyebrows questioningly, but Rebecca Mary could only shake her head.

Rebecca Mary began to see that there might be something in her princ.i.p.al's wish to have her teachers know more of their pupils than their ability to read and cipher. There was such a lot more about Joan that Rebecca Mary would like to have known that very minute.

"Where was your old home, my dear?" Mrs. Simmons did not hesitate to ask for any information she wished to have.

"Over the sea--at Echternach." Joan turned an eager face toward her, quite willing to talk of that old home where she had lived with her daddy and her mother until she had come to the United States with her mother. Her mother had died suddenly, leaving Joan with a grandmother who had lived only long enough to give the little girl back to her father when he came a year later. And as she chattered Mrs. Simmons and Rebecca Mary looked at the coat of arms on the silver frame and at the photograph of the gorgeously uniformed man and the beautiful woman.

"Tell me about your father?" Mrs. Simmons asked as soon as she could slip a word in edgeways.

Joan looked up, a trifle puzzled by the question. "Daddy?" she repeated.

"Why, he's just--daddy. He's like--well, his eyes always look at me so lovingly and his mouth talks to me so sweetly and his ears hear everything I say and his hands work for me and his feet bring him to me." She kept her eyes on the photograph to make sure she left nothing out. "That's my daddy!" she finished triumphantly, and she looked up as if she dared them to find fault with such a daddy.

Mrs. Simmons patted her shoulder, and Rebecca Mary hugged her.

"That's a very good working description of a daddy," smiled Mrs.

Simmons. "And here is Sako with the tea."

When the j.a.panese butler had placed the tray on the low table beside Mrs. Simmons, Joan handed cups and pa.s.sed sandwiches quite as if she were accustomed to that pleasant task.

"I'm consumed with curiosity," Mrs. Simmons whispered to Rebecca Mary.

"She is a most unusual child. You must tell me anything you learn about her. Echternach sounds German, doesn't it? And although the war is over and we're told we are to forgive our enemies, I can't quite forgive the Germans for all the dreadful things they did. Nor the Turks. Of course the children aren't to be blamed, but--That's my grandson," she told Joan, who was looking at a large framed photograph on the table. "Young Peter Simmons, and I'm sinfully proud of him. He was my first grandchild, and even when he was a fat bald-headed baby I knew that some day he would do wonderful things. I suppose all grandmothers think that, just as all mothers do. But I really didn't think Peter would do as wonderful things as he has," she went on more to Rebecca Mary than to Joan. "You know he has a _croix de guerre_?" She drew a quick breath and looked at Rebecca Mary with a smile which was not at all a laughing smile. "I'm apt to be a bit foolish when I talk of young Peter Simmons,"

she admitted as she wiped her eyes.

"I don't wonder!" Rebecca Mary drew a quick breath, too. "I should think you would be proud!" She knew she should be proud if young Peter Simmons belonged to her. She didn't care if he had scowled at her.