The Return of Peter Grimm - David Belasco (best books to read for knowledge .TXT) 📗

the same:--ever a Grimm had swayed the little community.

Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now, after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with queer stories of his private dealings.

There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran, for instance, who lived "on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who, with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now told the real source of that providential "legacy."

A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.

A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition upon the gift:--absolute secrecy.

These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the week after Grimm's death.

The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a silent burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with masses of fragrant blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.

And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so well, the dead man went to his burial.

In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face and as crassly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.

Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,--rather than Frederik or the frankly blubbering old housekeeper,--on whom people's eyes most often rested--rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive. And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked casket in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.

Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment. For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.

"When it comes my time to fall asleep," he had said, during one of these Philippics, "I don't want anybody that cares for me to make death horrible by going around dressed like an undertaker. I'd as soon expect a mother to put on black after she had kissed her child good-night. There'd be just as much sense in it. If it's done because we're grieved to think where our friends have gone,--well and good. But if we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, why dress as if we were sorry for them?"

Wherefore, Kathrien was wearing one of the white summer dresses he had loved. She had timidly suggested that Frederik also honour the dead man's prejudices. But the sad, reproachful look he had bent upon her at her first hint of the subject had silenced the girl and had left her half-convicted of heartlessness because of her own avoidance of black.

Willem was not at the funeral. After that first strange outburst on learning that Grimm was dead, the child had said no word all day. At night when Kathrien came to take him to bed, she found him in a high fever.

Dr. McPherson had been sent for, and had examined the child closely, but could find no palpable cause for the malady.

"He's an odd little fellow," he told Kathrien. "Like no other boy I've ever known. The Scotch call such children 'fey' and prophesy short lives for them. And the prophecy usually comes true. There's always been something psychic about Willem. A hypnotist or a medium would look on him as a treasure.

"All the diagnosis I can make is that Peter's death caused a shock to the boy's never strong nerves and that the shock has caused the fever. Keep him in bed for a few days. He'll probably come around all right. There doesn't seem to be anything really serious--except that in a constitution like his everything is apt to be more or less serious."

After the funeral, life went on outwardly much as before at the Grimm home. The only change was the impalpable one which occurs in a room when a clock stops.

And, in fulfilment of Peter Grimm's last request, preparations for the "June wedding" were begun. It was Frederik who tactfully broached the theme. Kathrien, after a look of helpless fear, nodded acquiescence.

"I promised him," she said faintly. "And he died while the promise was still scarcely spoken. The smile of happiness it brought to his dear old face was on it when they laid him to sleep. I _couldn't_ break that promise."

"And you wouldn't, if you could. I know that," said Frederik tenderly. "Dear one, I would not urge the wedding at a time like this if it had not been his last wish that we should be married this very month."

"Yes," she agreed lifelessly. "It was his wish. And we must do it."

And with this unenthusiastic assent Frederik was forced to be satisfied. So the preparations were pushed on with a furtive, almost apologetic, haste.

Mrs. Batholommey entered into the spirit of the affair with a lugubrious zest that would have sickened Kathrien had it not taken so much of the burden of arrangement-making off her own tired young shoulders.

It was to Frederik and Mrs. Batholommey that every one at length turned for directions in details for the wedding, not to the still-faced girl who seemed to know or to care nothing about the way matters were to be conducted.

And this gave Kathrien surcease,--a breathing space wherein to try to think with a brain from which sorrow had driven the power of clear thought; a time to plan, to _realise_, to remember,--with faculties too numb to carry out the will power's intent. The days crept past her like shadows. And the wedding day drew near. But still she could not wholly rouse herself from the dumb inertia that gripped her.


CHAPTER IX


THE EVE OF A WEDDING

Ten days later the household, which had been Peter Grimm's and was his no longer, had sufficiently adjusted itself to new conditions to endeavour to carry out his dearest wish--the marriage of Kathrien to Frederik.

It was near the close of a rainy afternoon, and Mrs. Batholommey (installed in the house as temporary chaperone and adviser to Kathrien) was busily engaged in drilling four little girls from her own Sunday-school class to sing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin.

Standing at the piano, and playing with a sure, determined touch, she gazed over her shoulder at the children and sang vigorously, nodding her head to emphasise the tempo:


"Faithful and true we lead ye forth
Where love triumphant shall lead the way.
Bright star of love, flower of the earth,
Shine on ye both on your love's perfect day."


As the last line was reached, Mrs. Batholommey raised her hand in a signal to stop.

"That's better. Now, children--not too loud. Remember, this is a very _quiet_ wedding. You're to be here at noon to-morrow. You mustn't speak as you enter the room, and take your places near the piano. Now we'll sing as though the bride were here. I'll represent the bride."

Mrs. Batholommey pointed at Kathrien's door as she spoke, and started toward it with subdued but undeniable enthusiasm.

"Miss Kathrien will come down the stairs from her room, I suppose--and will stand--I don't know where--but you've got to stop when I look at you. Watch me now----"

Bending her knees, she stood bobbing up and down in time to the children's singing, until she caught the step, then started down the stairs, unconsciously raising and lowering her dress skirt to emphasise the rhythm of the song.

Across the room she marched, head bent and eyes cast down, while the children repeated the familiar verse over and over.

Having marched herself into a corner she halted and faced the little singers. At that moment, however, Frederik entered, and the rehearsal was over for the day. Mrs. Batholommey quickly left her role of bride and dismissed the chorus with many warnings and instructions.

"That will do, children. Hurry home between showers and don't forget what I've told you about to-morrow!"

While she busied herself helping them into their rubbers and waterproofs, Frederik puffed at a cigarette in silence and was seemingly without the slightest interest in what was going on around him. A great change had taken place in his demeanour since his uncle's death. He had come into his own. The place, and everything, including Kathrien herself, would be his. He did not even try to veil his feeling of mastership. Walking over to his uncle's desk-chair, he sat down and began to pull off his gloves, looking at the children a trifle superciliously.

Mrs. Batholommey felt it necessary to explain, and murmured with deprecatory haste:

"My Sunday-school children. I thought your dear uncle wouldn't like it if he knew there wasn't going to be _any_ singing during the marriage ceremony to-morrow. I know how bright and cheery _he_ liked everything," she purred. "If he were alive it would be a church wedding! Dear, happy, charitable soul!"

As she spoke she handed the children their umbrellas and, exchanging good-byes, the little choir hurried out into the rain.

"Where's Kathrien?" said Frederik.

"Still upstairs with Willem," answered Mrs. Batholommey, glancing up toward the little boy's room apprehensively as she spoke, and lowering her voice a bit.

Frederik made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, and putting his hand into his pocket, took out two steamer tickets and examined them. His one idea was to get away from the simple, quaint surroundings that his uncle had kept and beautified for him in the fond, proud hope that his nephew would love and care for the place as he had done.

To Frederik it meant nothing but a humdrum existence, full of annoying detail. The money for which it stood had been his goal--that, and Kathrien, his uncle's very brightest flower--a flower which he was about to tear up by the roots and transplant to foreign soil.

Mrs. Batholommey sat down in the big chair by the