The Return of Peter Grimm by David Belasco (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📕

reading mine," said Hartmann. "That's what people call 'Telepathy,' isn't it?"

"Yes," smiled the Dead Man. "That is what 'people' call it--who know no better. Oh, what a jumble people do make of the simple things of the Universe!"

"Anyway," went on Hartmann, without waiting for Kathrien to reply to his question, "it doesn't matter which of us thought of it first. It's enough to know it's true. And you _will_ marry me to-morrow?"

"_Yes!_" vociferated Peter Grimm.

"Y-yes," faltered the girl.

"Listen, dear," continued Hartmann, "we won't be very well off, I'm afraid. I've a little money--but not much. I know scientific gardening as not many men know it. So we won't starve. But it won't be as if you were going to marry a rich man like Frederik Grimm."

"Thank Heaven, it won't!" she breathed fervently. "And do you suppose it will matter one bit to me that we won't be rich? I wish, of course, that we didn't have to leave this dear old house, but----"

"If we had both the house and the little capital that belongs to me," answered Hartmann, "we could stay on here and make a splendid living. But what's the use of building air castles?"

"Why not?" urged the Dead Man. "They're as cheap to build as air dungeons; and a million times pleasanter to live in. But, don't fret about the house. Frederik is going to turn it over to you--I've seen to that. And you will prosper, you two, here in the home I loved."

"I believe it will come out all right!" declared the girl. "I have a feeling that it will. Intuition if you like."

"'Intuition,'" repeated the Dead Man whimsically. "Yes. Call it that, if you choose. 'Intuition' and 'telepathy' are both pretty synonyms for the words spoken to you that mortal ears are too gross to understand and whose sense sometimes finds vague resting-place in mortal brains."

"It will come out all right," she reiterated, smiling up at her lover.

"It's good to see you smile again," said Hartmann, once more drawing her close to him. "I'm glad your cloud of grief is beginning to lift."

"It _has_ lifted," she returned. "When Oom Peter went away, and seemed utterly lost to me forever, I thought my heart would break. But now--now I know he _hasn't_ gone. I know he has been here with me this very evening."

"I--I don't understand."

"It is true," she insisted. "You must believe it, dear. For it is very real to me. I believe he came back to set me free from my promise to Frederik. Some time--some time, I'll tell you all about it."

"In the meanwhile," adjured the Dead Man, "believe her, James. If men would put less faith in their own four-square logic and more faith in their wives' illogical beliefs, there'd be fewer mistakes made."

"Don't ask me any more about it to-night," begged the girl in response to the amazed questioning in her lover's eyes. "I can't speak of it just yet. It's all too near--too wonderful."

"Just as you like," he agreed. "Now I must go, for I want to catch Mr. Batholommey before he goes to sleep, and make the arrangements with him for the wedding."

His arm around her, they crossed to where his hat and coat were hanging.

"I wonder if Oom Peter can see us now?" she mused, as Hartmann stooped to kiss her good-night.

"That's the great mystery of the ages," answered Hartmann. "Who can tell? But I wish he might know. I think, seen as he must see things now, he would be glad. Good-night, sweetheart."

She watched him stride down the walk. Then she came back into the room, her eyes alight.

"Oh, Oom Peter," she murmured, half aloud.

"I see," returned Peter Grimm. "I know all about it. I know, little girl. I know."


CHAPTER XXII


"ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"

Late as was the hour, Kathrien yet lingered a few minutes longer in the room where that night her freedom and her life's crown had come to her.

She paused by the desk and lovingly caressed the rich, red mass of roses which, in memory of her uncle, she daily placed there. The cool, velvety touch of the blossoms was like a living response to her caress. And from the crimson petals arose a faint, drowsy fragrance.

Kathrien sank into the worn desk chair and gazed dreamily into the dying fire. She seemed to read there a wonderful story. Or else the grey-red embers shaped themselves into beautiful pictures. For her face was joyous beyond all belief.

"To-morrow!" she murmured to herself.

And Peter Grimm, looking down at her, smiled as he caught the whispered word.

"Yes, _lievling_," he answered. "To-morrow. Isn't it a marvellous word? It holds all the hopes and fears of the whole world."

"I'm so happy! I'm so _happy_!" she breathed.

The Dead Man laid his hand gently on the soft lustre of her hair.

"Then, good-night to you, my darling," he said in the old tender voice that had comforted her childish griefs and shared her childish delights in the bygone days. "Good-night, my darling. Love can never say 'good-bye.' I am going, little girl. I am leaving you here in your dear home that shall always be yours. Here, in the years that are to come, the way will lie clear before you. May pleasure and peace go with you, little girl of mine."

Her eyes were luminous. There was a half-smile on her lips. Peter Grimm's own eyes reflected her smile as he stroked her hair and continued to look down into her rapt face as though to impress its every detail upon his memory.

"Here on sunny, blossoming days," he went on, "when you look out on my old gardens, as a happy wife, all the flowers and trees and shrubs shall bloom enchanted to your eyes. For, love gives a heaven-light to everything. And when the home we love is our own, it becomes doubly fair."

The light in her eyes grew brighter and he stooped to brush his lips to her forehead.

"All that happens, happens again," he went on in that same caressing voice as though loath to leave her, and seeking to prolong his stay at her side. "And when, as a mother, you explain each leaf and bud, and the miracle of the growing flowers to your own little people, you will sometimes think of the days when you and I walked through the gardens and the leafy lanes together, and how I taught you all those things--even as you shall be teaching your own children. Yes,--all that happens, happens again and has happened before. You will teach them, just as I taught you. And so I shall always linger in your heart. Here, in our home, everything will keep on reminding you of me. Not in sadness nor in gloom. But as a wonderful, golden memory. You will forget only the part of me that was stubborn and unreasonable and ill-tempered--and you will remember me only as I _wished_ to be. That is one of the gifts of God to those who have left this world. Their dear ones remember them only as kind, as loving, as good. Their faults fade from the memory and the _good_ ever glows more and more brightly."

He paused. And still he could not leave the happy girl as she sat there in her blissful, fireside reverie.

"I shall be waiting for you, Katje," he said. "And I shall be knowing all of your life, its joys, its happy toil and its sweet rest, its lights and its passing shadows. I shall love your children with all my whole heart. And I shall be their grandfather just as though I were here. I shall be everywhere about you and yours, Katje. Always. In the stockings at Christmas, in the big, busy, teeming world of shadows, just outside your threshold; or whispering to you in the stillness of the night. And, as the years drift on, you can never know what pride I shall take in your middle life--the very best age of all! After the luxuries and the eager gaieties and the vanities and the possessions and the hot strife for gain cease to be important, we return to very simple things. For then, sunset is at hand, and the peace of Home calls to us far more clearly than the roar of the outer world. The evening of life comes bearing its own lamp."

Her face had grown graver, but still was radiant. The Dead Man smiled as he said:

"Then, as a little old grandmother--a little old child whose bedtime is drawing near, I shall still see you; happy to sit out in the sunlight of another day; asking no more of life than a few hours still to be spent with those you love;--telling your grandchildren how much more brightly the flowers used to blossom when _you_ were young.--All that happens, happens again.

"And then, one glad day, glorified, radiant, young once more--divinely young,--you will come to us. And your mother and I shall take you in our arms again. Oh, what a meeting it will be! To _you_, many happy years away. To _us_, only a brief hour of waiting. We shall meet so perfectly then--the flight of Love to Love. And now," bending down once more and kissing her, "good-night, my own little girl."

She rose, half-dazzled by the brightness that filled her soul. Pausing to bury her face for a moment in the bowl of roses, she murmured:

"Dear, _dear_ Oom Peter!"

Then, slowly, smilingly, she made her way up the stairs to her own room. The Dead Man's eyes followed her every light step. The Dead Man's hand was raised in unspoken benediction. Marta bustled in from the kitchen on her nightly round of window-locking and door-barring. As she passed the big wall clock, she stopped, sighed right lugubriously, and proceeded to wind the ancient timepiece by the simple old-time process of drawing down its pulley chain.

"Poor old Marta!" said Peter Grimm quizzically, as she departed. "Every time she thinks of me, she winds my clock. We're not quite forgotten after all, it seems. Good-night, old friend! There are a few tears ahead of you. But there is plenty of sunshine beyond them."

He glanced about the room, his eyes resting at last on Willem's door in the gallery above. The door swung open, and Dr. McPherson appeared on the threshold. In one hand he held a candle-stick. In the hollow of his right arm lay Willem, a Dutch patchwork bedquilt wrapped around him.

"All right, laddie," McPherson was saying in a voice whose softness would have amazed the Batholommeys. "Since you want so badly to sleep downstairs, you shall. The sofa by the fire is just as snug as your own bed. What Mistress Batholommey will say to my giving in to a sick little boy's whim, I don't know. But we don't care. Do we, Willem? And," he added, reaching the living-room and carrying the child across to the sofa, "if you want to be down here, and if you won't be happy anywhere else, here you shall be."

He laid Willem gently on the couch and covered him with the quilt.

"How do you feel, now?" he asked.

"I'm sleepy," answered Willem. "It's good to be in this room. I'll sleep finely here. Could--could I have a drink of water, please?"

The doctor crossed to the sideboard. The ice-water pitcher was empty. McPherson took up a glass.