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

had to be pretty shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"

"I believe so."

"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've--well, I've had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance, how does she go? With _me_. When she goes to the theatre, how does she go? With _me_. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it to her? _I_ did. And so it has been from the first. Every pleasure--she's had 'em all. And she had 'em all from _me_. What's the result? She's perfectly happy and----"

"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because _you_ were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because _she_----?"

"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does it?"

"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.

"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's the second time you've--Why do you harp on that _if_?"

His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.

"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.

"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.

"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know--or _think_ you know?"

"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered and desperate, "you are the greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them. But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've----"

"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy _living_ to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to cry. But that's what they all cry over;--'Nothing!'"

Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:

"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."

"Prescribed?"

"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor with queer notions in my head. And the cure worked to perfection. When my old friend Staats died----"

"Oh, yes, I've often heard----"

But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repetition of his favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.

"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the House. Yes,"--his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,--"I had missed _many_ children in the house. James, I was born in that little room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please God, Katje's children shall play in the room where I was born."

"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,--and the secretary's voice and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,--"it's a very pretty picture--if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint it."

"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation. "What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"

"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."

"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband _here_--and her children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw," turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear secrets to a dolt like you."

"Perhaps," assented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's frown softened into a smile of welcome.

"_Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm_," said Marta, while Willem, walking over to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting, with the salutation:

"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm._"

"_Huge moroche, Willem_," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.

"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced Willem, drifting into English.

"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said Grimm.

"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."

"And you're getting real well again?"

"_Ja, Mynheer._ The doctor says I'm all right now."

"That's good. Tell Otto to give you a _big_ armful of flowers for the rectory. A _big_ armful, remember."

Marta's grandmotherly gaze fancied it detected a twist in the boy's neatly tied cravat. So she swooped down upon him and bore him away to the window seat, where her blurring eyes would have light enough to readjust the tie to her satisfaction. Grimm, with a quick glance to make sure they were not in earshot, tapped Hartmann on the shoulder and whispered:

"There's a nice result of the 'freedom' you said young girls ought to have. Marta's Anne Marie had nothing but freedom. She was the worst spoiled child in town. Marta let her come and go as she pleased. Come and go--Heaven knows where. And Heaven knows where the poor shamed girl is now. Every time I look at Willem," raising his voice to normal pitch as Marta and her grandson passed into the kitchen, "I realise how right I've been in the way I've brought up Katje. H'--m! Want me to give Katje a chance for more freedom, do you? Why----"

"Mr. Grimm," interrupted Hartmann, suddenly getting to his feet and facing his employer, "I'd like to be transferred to your Florida headquarters. At once, if it is convenient to you. I want to work out in the open for a while."

"What?" exclaimed Grimm dumfounded. "Florida? At this time of the year? And you were so glad to get back here to--Pshaw! You've just got a cranky fit on you, lad. Get rid of it. Put on your overalls and go out and potter around among those beloved vegetables of yours. Change your ideas, I say. Change the whole lot of them. They're all wrong. You don't know _what_ you want."

Hartmann's lips were parted for a retort. But he closed them, turned on his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting a box full of bulbs.

But in a minute or two he was interrupted by Frederik.

"I saw Hartmann crossing the yard," said the younger man, "so I stepped over for a little chat with you, if you've time to listen to me."

"I've always got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James. Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured cut of the new tulip, I may as well tell you----"

"It isn't. It's about your pig-headed friend, James."

"James? What about him?"

"Just this, Oom Peter: I think he is interested in Kathrien."

"Who? James? Bah! You're dreaming. That's just like a lover. Thinks every one is trying to steal his sweetheart. Why, James is too much wrapped up in his work to care about anything else. His work and his crazy theories that he gets out of books. Interested in Kathrien? Just to show you how foolish you are to think that, he asked me not five minutes ago to transfer him to the Florida headquarters. And, even if he weren't so absorbed in the business, he'd never even presume to think of Kathrien. It's preposterous!"

"Is it?" said Frederik, quite unconvinced. "Yet I've reason to believe he has been making love to her."

There was a quiet certainty in his nephew's voice that caught Grimm's reluctant credence.

"We'll find out mighty soon," he declared. "Katje!"

"No, no!" expostulated Frederik. "It would be better not to bring her into it or give her the idea that----"

"Katje!"

"Yes, Oom Peter," answered the girl, hurrying in from the dining-room in response to the bellowed summons. "What's the matter?"

"Katje," began the old man in visible embarrassment, "has--has James----?"

"What?" queried Kathrien, as Grimm paused and broke into a shamefaced laugh.

"Has--has James ever shown any special interest in you? Ever made love to you, or----?"

"Oh, Oom Peter!" expostulated Kathrien, reddening to the roots of her hair. "Whatever gave you such an idea as that?"

"Nothing at all," he answered her. "It was just a bit of silly nonsense. A joke. I can't help teasing you. Because you blush so prettily. But--but _has_ he?"

"Why, of course not. I've always known James. Ever since I can remember. He's never shown any interest in me that he ought not to,--if that's what you mean. He's always been _very_ respectful; in a perfectly--a perfectly friendly way."

She was scarlet and stammering. But Grimm apparently did not notice her confusion.

"Respectful," he repeated musingly. "In a perfectly friendly way. Surely we couldn't ask for anything more than that. Thank you, little girl. That's all I wanted to know. Run along."

Casting a puzzled look at Grimm and then at Frederik--who, since she first entered the room had been seated near the window, deeply absorbed in a book,--Kathrien returned to her work in the other part of the house.

Grimm's kind eyes had never for an instant left her troubled face, nor had they failed to note her evident relief at escaping from the room. As the door closed behind her, the kindly look faded from the old eyes, leaving them hard and cold. The firm jaw set more tightly. Yet, as he turned toward Frederik, there was no trace in his tone of anything but pleasant banter.

"There, Fritzy!" said he. "You see James was only 'respectful to her in a