The Return of Peter Grimm, David Belasco [most popular ebook readers TXT] 📗

ended in this kiss."

He touched his lips to her forehead. And, at the unfelt contact, the light again sprang into her eyes.

"Can't you see I'm trying to help you, Katje?" he begged. "Can't you even hope? Come, come! _Hope!_ Why, anybody can hope. It is the very easiest and most natural thing on earth. Especially when one is young--as you and I are. What _is_ Youth but perpetual Hope?"

The light in her eyes deepened. Her look strayed again to the closed office door. She rose and took a step toward it, then turned, passed her hand caressingly over the flowers on the desk, and moved over to the piano.

She seated herself on the music stool and, for the first time in ten endless days, let her fingers stray over the keys. In a hushed little voice she began to sing:


"The bird so free in the heavens
Is but the slave of the nest.
For all things must toil as God wills it,
Must laugh and toil and rest.
The rose must bloom in the garden,
The bee must gather its store.
The cat must watch the mousehole,
And the dog must guard the door."


"Oh!" she broke off in sudden self-reproach. "How _can_ I sit here singing,--at a time like this!"

"Sing!" urged the Dead Man. "Why not? Why not at a time like this as well as at any other time? Is it because you are afraid you are not being sad enough at losing me? You _haven't_ lost me. Nothing is ever lost. The old uncle you loved doesn't sleep out in the churchyard dust. That is only a dream. He is _here_--alive! More alive than ever he was. A thousandfold more alive. All his age and weaknesses and faults are gone. Youth is glowing in his heart. He is bathed in it. It radiates from him. Eternal Youth that no one still on earth can know. Oh, little girl of mine, if only I could tell you what is ahead of you! It's the wonderful secret of the Universe. And you _won't_ hear me? You won't understand?"

Still smiling, but without turning toward the loving, eager Spirit close beside her, Kathrien was looking out into the fragrant June dusk. Peter Grimm shrugged his shoulders.

"I must try some other way of making you hear," said he.

He looked up at the closed door of Willem's sick room for a moment, then nodded.

"Here comes some one," he announced, with the old whimsical twist of his lips, "who will know all about it. The secrets of the other world are as plain as day to him. He has told me so himself."


CHAPTER XIV


"I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"

The door of Willem's room opened, and Dr. McPherson came out on the landing. He moved slowly, hesitatingly, as though impelled by some force outside his logical comprehension.

Still walking as if drawn forward half against his will, the doctor descended the stairs to the big living-room. At the stair-foot stood Peter Grimm, with outstretched hands to receive him.

"Well, Andrew," said the Dead Man, in the tone of banter that had never in life failed to "get a rise" out of his medical crony, "I apologise. You were right. I was mistaken. I didn't know what I was talking about. So I've come back, as I promised, to keep our compact and to apologise. You see, I----"

"Well, Doctor," asked Kathrien, looking back into the room at sound of McPherson's steps, "how is Willem?"

"Better," answered McPherson. "He's dropped off to sleep again. I'm still a bit puzzled about his case. It's----"

"Andrew! _Andrew!_" interrupted the Dead Man, almost fiercely. "I've got a message to deliver, but I can't get it across. This sort of thing is your own beloved specialty. Now's your chance. The chance you've always been longing for. Tell her I don't want her to marry Frederik! Tell her I----"

"A puzzling condition," continued McPherson, unhearing. "I can't quite grasp the meaning----"

"What meaning?" demanded Peter Grimm. "Mine? Try again. Tell her I don't want her to----"

"But," went on McPherson, drawing out pad and fountain pen, "I'll leave this prescription for one of the gardeners to take over to the druggist's. I'll leave it as I go out. I'll be back in--Why, what's up, Kathrien? What has happened? Oh, you've thought it over, eh? That's good. That's the way it should be. I left you all tears and now I find you all smiles. It----"

"Yes," answered Kathrien, half ashamed at her own oddly changed spirits. "I am happier for some reason. Much, _much_ happier than I've been for days and days. I've--I've had such a strange feeling this past few minutes!"

"Have, eh?" asked McPherson curiously. "H'm! So have I. It's in the air, I suppose. I've been as restless as a hungry mouse. Something, for instance, seemed to draw me downstairs here. I can't explain it."

"I can," exulted Peter Grimm. "I'm beginning to be felt!"

"Doctor," hesitated Kathrien, looking nervously about her into the dimmer corners of the lamplit room, "just a little while ago, I--I thought I heard Oom Peter call me.--I was upstairs in my room. And it seemed to me I could hear that dear old call he used to give. It was so vivid, so distinct, so real! It was my imagination, of course. I'm so used to hearing Oom Peter's voice in this room that sometimes I forget for a moment that he isn't here. But--but some one _must_ have called me. I couldn't have imagined it _all_. Isn't it strange to hear a call like that and then look around and find no one is there?"

"It is a phenomenon well recognised in modern science," affirmed McPherson. "I could cite you a hundred instances of it. Not all from imaginative persons either, Kathrien!" he added solemnly. "I have the firm conviction that in a very short time I shall hear from Peter!"

"I hope so," sighed the Dead Man in whimsical despair.

"He made the compact I told you about," continued McPherson, "and Peter Grimm never broke his word. He will come back. Be sure of that. But what I want is some positive proof,--some absolute test to prove his presence when he comes. Poor old Peter! Bless his kind, obstinate heart! If he keeps that compact with me and comes back, do you know what I shall ask him first?"

"You poor, blind, deaf, old Scotchman!" laughed Peter Grimm. "Open your eyes and your ears! You are like the man who lay down at the edge of the river and died of thirst."

"What would you ask him first, Doctor?" queried the girl as McPherson paused with dramatic effect, awaiting the question.

"First of all," said the doctor, "I shall ask him: 'Peter, in the next world does our work go on just where we left it off here?'"

"Well," returned Peter Grimm thoughtfully, "that question is rather a poser, isn't it?"

"It is a difficult question to answer, I admit," mused McPherson, following what he deemed to be the trend of his own thoughts. "I realise that."

"You heard me?" cried the Dead Man, with sudden excitement. "You _heard_? Come! We're getting results at last, you and I!"

"Results," murmured the doctor abstractedly, "are----What was I saying? Oh, yes. In the life-to-come, for instance, am I to be a bone-setter and is he to keep on being a tulip man?"

"It stands to reason, Andrew, doesn't it?" suggested Peter Grimm. "What chance would a beginner have with a fellow who knew his business before he was born? Hey?"

With the merrily victorious air that he had ever assumed when he had scored a telling point in their old-time discussions, Peter surveyed the doctor.

"I believe, Katje," mused McPherson after a moment's consideration, "that it is possible to have more than one chance at our life work. It never occurred to me before, but----"

"There!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You caught _that_! Now, why can't you get that message about Kathrien's marriage? Try, man! Try!"

"Kathrien," said McPherson, suddenly shifting from conjecture to everyday conditions, "have you thought over what I said to you about this marriage with Frederik?"

"He _did_ get it!" muttered Peter Grimm.

"Yes," rejoined Kathrien, "I have thought it over, Doctor. And I thank you with all my heart. But----"

"Well?"

"I shall go on with it. I shall be married, just as Oom Peter wished me to. I shan't go back on my promise."

McPherson growled in futile disgust.

"Don't give up, Andrew!" exhorted Peter Grimm. "Don't give up! _Make_ her see it your way. A girl can always change her mind. Try again. _Andrew!_"

The last word was almost a cry. For McPherson, with a shrug of his shoulders, accepted defeat in surly silence and was tramping across to the hat rack, where he began to gather up his outdoor raiment.

"Oh, Andrew! _Andrew!_" he pleaded, following him up. "Don't throw away the fight so easily! Tell her to----"

"Good-bye, Kathrien," said the doctor at the threshold. "If you choose to make toad-pie of your life, it's no business of mine. I'll drop in later for a good-night look at Willem."

"Good-night, Doctor," answered Kathrien, "and--thank you again."

With a wordless grunt, McPherson went out, leaving Peter Grimm staring hopelessly after him.

"I see I can't depend on _you_, Andrew," murmured the Dead Man, "in spite of your psychic lore and your belief in my return. Why is it they can all understand--or _half_ understand--the unimportant things I say, and yet be deaf to my message? It is like picking out the simple words in a foreign book and then not know what the story is about. Marta--Kathrien--McPherson--they all fail me. I must find some other way."

He turned slowly toward the door of the office. The door almost immediately opened and James Hartmann came into the room. The young man had a pen behind his ear and a half-written memorandum of sales in his hand. He had evidently risen from his work and entered the living-room on an unplanned impulse.

Kathrien had seated herself in a chair by the fire and was gazing drearily into the red embers.

"Look at her, lad!" breathed Peter Grimm. "She is so pretty--so young--so lonely! Look! There are kisses tangled in that gold hair of hers where it curls about her forehead and neck. Hundreds of them. And her lips are made for kisses. See how dainty and sweet and heart-broken she is. She is dreaming of _you_, James. Are you going to let her go? Why, who could resist such a girl? _You're not going to let her go!_ You feel what I am saying to you. You won't give her up. She loves you, boy. And you realise now that you can't live without her. Speak! Speak to her!"

"Miss Kathrien!" said Hartmann earnestly; then halted, frightened at his own temerity.

The girl looked up quickly. At sight of him she flushed and rose impulsively to face him.

"Oh, James!" she cried. "I'm so glad--so _glad_ to see you!"

As their hands met the man's hesitancy fled.

"I _felt_ that you were in here," said he. "All at once I seemed to know you were here and alone. And before I realised what I was doing, I came in. I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to come and see me while you