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

were here?" she echoed in reproach. "Why not?"

"For the same reason I didn't stay when I was here before. I----"

"Why did you go away that time?" she demanded. "Why did you go without a word of good-bye to--to any of us?"

"Tell her, boy," adjured Peter Grimm. "Don't mind _my_ feelings."

"Your uncle sent me away," blurted Hartmann, "but it was partly at my own request."

"Oom Peter sent you away? Why?"

"I told him the truth again."

"Oh! One of your usual hot arguments that used to worry me so? I remember how excited you both used to get. Was it about the superiority of potatoes to orchids this time?"

"No. The superiority of one person to the whole world."

But she did not catch his meaning. She was looking up at the big athletic body and the clean, strong face, with an absurd longing to creep into the man's arms for shelter as might a tired child.

"It's so _good_ to see you back," she said.

"I'm only here for a few hours," he answered. "Just long enough to put one or two details of the business to rights. Then I'm going away again--this time for good."

"No! Where are you going?"

"Father and I are going to try our luck on our own account. I've a few thousands from a legacy that came to me last month from my grandmother. And father has saved a tidy little sum, too. We're going to start in with small fruits and market gardening. We haven't decided just where."

"It will be so strange--so different--so lonely and _empty_ when I come back," she mourned, "with Uncle and you both gone. It seems as if the blessed old home was all broken up. It can never be the same again. I don't know how I can muster courage to come into this house after----"

"It will be easier after the first wrench. Everything is easier than we think it's going to be. And, Kathrien," he went on, steadying his voice by a supreme effort, "I hope you'll be happy--beautifully happy."

Neither of them realised that her hand had somehow slipped into his and was resting very contentedly in the big, firm grasp.

"Whether I'm happy or not," replied Kathrien miserably, "it's the only thing to do. Please try to believe that. Oh, James, he died smiling at me--thinking of me--loving me. And just before he went he had begged me to marry Frederik. I shall never forget the wonderful look of happiness in his eyes when I promised. It was all he wanted in life. He said he'd never been so happy before. He smiled up at me for the very last time, with his dear face all alight. And there he sat, smiling, after he was gone. The smile of a man leaving this life absolutely satisfied--at peace!"

"I know. Marta told me. I----"

"It's like a hand on my heart, hurting it almost unbearably when I question doing anything he wanted. It has always been so with me ever since I was a baby. I never could bear to go against his wishes. And now that he's gone--why, I _must_ keep my word. I couldn't meet him in the Hereafter if I didn't keep that last sacred promise to him. I couldn't say my prayers at night. I couldn't speak his name in them. Oom Peter trusted me. He depended on me. He did everything for me. I must do this for him."

"No, no!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You are wrong. Tell her so, James!"

"I wanted you to know this, James," finished Kathrien, "because--because----"

A gush of tears blotted out Hartmann's tense, wretched face and choked her hesitating utterance.

"Have you told Frederik that you don't love him?" asked Hartmann, forcing himself to resist the yearning to gather her into his arms and kiss away her tears. "Does he know?"

She nodded, her face buried in her hands.

"And Frederik is willing to take you like that? On those terms?"

Another dumb nod of the pretty, fluffy little head, with its face still convulsed and hidden.

"The yellow dog!" burst forth Hartmann.

"You flatter him," sadly assented Peter Grimm.

"Look here, Kathrien," hurried on Hartmann, "I didn't mean to say a word of this to-day,--or ever. Not a word. But the instant I came in here from the office just now, something made me change my mind. I knew all at once I _must_ talk to you. You looked so little, so young, so helpless, all huddled up there by the fire. Kathrien, you've never had to think for yourself. You don't know what you are doing in going on with this blasphemous, loveless marriage. Why, dear, you are making the most terrible mistake possible to a woman. Marriage _with_ love is often a tragedy. Without love it is a hell. A horror that will deepen and grow more dreadful with every year."

"Do you suppose I don't understand that?" she whispered. "Don't make it harder for me."

"Your uncle was wrong to ask such a sacrifice. Why should you wreck your life to carry out his pig-headed plans?"

"Oh!"

"Not strong enough yet," advised Peter Grimm. "Go on, lad."

"You are going to be wretched for the rest of your days, just to please a dead man who can't even know about it," insisted Hartmann. "Or if he _does_ know, you may be certain he sees the affair more sanely by this time and is bitterly sorry he made you promise."

"He assuredly is," acquiesced Peter Grimm. "I wish I'd known in other days that you had so much sense. Go ahead!"

"You mustn't speak so, James," reproved Kathrien, deeply shocked. "I----"

"Yes, he must," contradicted the Dead Man. "Go on, James. Stronger!"

"But I _must_ speak so!" declared Hartmann, swept on by a power he could not understand. "I'll speak my mind. I don't care how fond you were of your uncle or how much he did for you. It was not right for him to ask this sacrifice of you. The whole thing was the blunder of an obstinate old man!"

"No! You mustn't!"

"I loved him, too," said Hartmann. "As much in my own way, perhaps, as you did. Though he and I never agreed on any subject under the sun. But, in spite of all my affection for him, I know and always knew he _was_ an obstinate old man. Obstinate as a mule. It was the Dutch in him, I suppose."

Peter Grimm nodded emphatic approval.

"Do you know why I was sent away?" rushed on Hartmann, still upheld and goaded along by that incomprehensible impulse. "Do you know why I quarrelled with your uncle?"

"No."

"Because I told him I loved you. He asked me. I didn't tell him because I had any hopes. I hadn't. I haven't now. Oh, girl, I don't know why I'm talking to you like this. I love you. And my arms are aching for you."

He stepped toward her, arms out as he spoke. She retreated, frightened, to where Peter Grimm stood surveying the lover with keen approbation.

"No, no!" she warned. "You mustn't, James. It isn't right--don't."

Her next backward step brought her close to Peter Grimm. And the Dead Man, with a swift motion of his hand, waved her forward into her lover's outstretched arms.

Through no conscious volition of her own, Kathrien sped straight onward, unswerving, unfaltering into the strong circle of those arms for whose warm refuge she had so guiltily felt herself longing.

"No!" she panted, in dutiful resistance.

But the negation was lost against Hartmann's broad breast as he pressed her closely to him.

"I love you!" he repeated over and over in a daze of rapture.

Then in awed wonder:

"And you love _me_, Kathrien!"

"No, no--don't make me say it, dear heart!"

"I _shall_ make you say it. It is true. You do love me!"

"What matter if I do?" wailed the girl. "It wouldn't change matters."

"Kathrien!"

"Please don't say anything more. I can't bear it."

Gently, reluctantly, she sought to release herself from that wonderful embrace. But Hartmann now needed no Spirit Guest to urge him to hold his own.

"I'm not going to let you go," he cried, kissing her white, upturned face till the red glowed back into it. "I won't give you up, Kathrien. I _won't_ give you up!"

"You must," she insisted, struggling more fiercely against herself than against him. "You must, dear. I can't break my promise to Oom Peter. I----"

The front door opened. The lovers sprang apart. Frederik entered, glancing quickly from one to the other of them.

"Oh!" he observed. "You in here, Hartmann? I thought I'd find you in the office. I've some unopened mail of my uncle's to glance over. Then I'll join you there."

Hartmann took the broad hint, nodded, and left the room. Frederik's eyes followed him steadily until the door closed behind the young intruder. Then he turned to where Kathrien crouched, panting, bewildered, trembling. Frederik abruptly went over to her, and, before she could guess his purpose, kissed her full on the lips.

Involuntarily the girl recoiled as from some loathly thing.

"Don't!" she exclaimed, fighting for her shaken self-control. "Please don't!"

"Why not?" he snapped.

She did not answer.

"Has Hartmann been talking to you?"

She moved toward the stair-foot.

"Just a moment, please," Frederik interposed, hurrying forward to catch up with her before she could gain the safety of the stairway.

"Hartmann _has_ been talking to you. What has he been saying?"

He had seized her hand as she made to mount the stairway. As she did not reply to his question, he repeated it, adding:

"Do you really imagine, Kathrien, that you care for that--fellow?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, please, Frederik," she pleaded.

"No? But it is necessary. Do you----"

She broke away from his suddenly rough grip and fled up the stairway to her own room. As the door shut behind her, Frederik, with clouded face and working lips, strode over to the desk. He passed close by Peter Grimm. But the Dead Man was still staring blankly after Kathrien.

"Oh, Katje," he muttered, "even Love could not get my message to you! Less influence would be needed to change the fate of a nation than the mind of one good woman. I think a good woman--a _good_ woman,--is more stubborn than anything else in the Universe. Not excepting myself. When she has made up her mind to do _right_,--which invariably means to sacrifice herself and thereby make as many other people wretched as possible--not even a Spirit from the Other World can influence her."

With a despairing shrug of the shoulders he turned toward his nephew, and his face hardened. Frederik had seated himself at the desk. He had drawn out the little handful of personal letters that had arrived that afternoon for Peter Grimm and those that Mrs. Batholommey had put into the drawer for safe keeping.

One letter after another Frederik cut open, glanced over, and either put back into the drawer or laid under a paperweight on the desk. Peter Grimm crossed to the opposite side of the desk and stood looking down at him with set face and sad, reproving gaze.

"Frederik Grimm," said the Dead Man at last, his voice low but infinitely impressive, "my beloved nephew! You sit there opening my mail with the heart