The Return of Peter Grimm Part 13

"Willem," asked Grimm gently, "how did you happen to say such a queer thing just now? What made you think I'm going to die?"

A concerted and unintelligible interruption from the trio was voiced too late to prevent Willem's reply.

"_He_ said so," replied the boy, pointing at McPherson.

Then he caught the doctor's annihilating frown. And, simultaneously the rector cried in stern admonition:

"Willem!"

Mrs. Batholommey, too, was making quite awful and wholly incomprehensible faces at him. Under the triple menace the boy wilted.

Like every child, since Cain, he had a thousand times been reproved for things he had said or done in perfect innocence. In fact, the more unconscious the offence, the more dire was the reproof. Children do not reason in such matters. It is enough for them to know they have said or done the wrong thing; without stopping to discover why or how that thing chanced to be wrong.

The non-linguist traveller in a foreign land cannot read the "Keep off the Gra.s.s" or "No Thoroughfare" signs. But the policeman's threatening club has a universal language that he understands and intuitively obeys.

So Willem (ignorant of death save as an empty name that vaguely carried a note of sorrow, and wholly unaware why he should not have imparted the news of Grimm's coming demise), saw he had said something very terrible.

And a look of abject panic came into his face.

But Grimm's hand was still on his head,--gentle, caressing, infinitely tender in its touch.

"No, don't stop the boy," commanded Peter, meeting the variously anguished glances of the others with a half smile that began and ended in the suddenly widened eyes. "Don't stop him. Only children speak the truth nowadays. It used to be 'children and fools.' But fools have learned to tell fool-lies, and they have left children the monopoly of truth telling. Go on, Willem. You heard the doctor say that I am going to----?"

Willem's fragile little body was trembling from head to foot. Under Mrs.

Batholommey's distorted glare and threatening noiseless mouthings his puny courage had gone to pieces. Big tears began to roll down his cheeks. And noting the child's terror, Grimm fell to soothing him.

"There, there, _jounker_," comforted Peter. "Don't let them frighten you. Oom Peter will stand by you. You haven't done anything wrong and n.o.body's going to scold you. Don't be scared."

Under the strangely gentle voice and the consoling touch of the rough, kindly hand, Willem's fears subsided. With Oom Peter on his side, he could brave the frowns of all Grimm Manor if need be. For who was so strong, so wise as Oom Peter?

Did not every one bend to his orders and come running to him for advice and aid, as troubled children seek out a loving father? The boy ceased to tremble. He looked up into Grimm's face for something that should confirm the words and the touch.

And he found it. The rugged old visage had never before been so kindly, so unruffled. And in the little eyes that could flash so obstinately and irritably, there was nothing but friendliness.

Yes--something more that the boy had never before seen. Something he could not read, but that seemed to draw him strangely close to the old man, and freed him of his last vestige of fear.

"Don't be scared, dear lad," repeated Grimm. "So you heard Dr. McPherson say I am going to die?"

"Yes, sir."

Grimm turned slowly to the doctor, who still stood glowering, red, speechless, furiously miserable.

"Andrew," asked Grimm quietly, "what did you mean?"

Before McPherson could speak, Grimm checked him with a move of the head and glanced down at the boy.

"Never mind just now," said he. "Willem didn't mean any harm in telling me. It just popped out, didn't it, Willem? The only person who never says the wrong thing at the wrong time is a deaf mute whose fingers are paralysed. We'll forget all about it. Now run along, lad, and get those circus tickets before all the best ones are gone. Front row seats, remember. We're going to have the finest sort of a spree, you and I.

Hurry now."

"_Ja_, Oom Peter!" cried the boy, all laughter once more.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his cap from the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell.

Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out his hand.

"Good-bye, dear brave friend," he said, with an air gruesomely if unconsciously reminiscent of his burial service manner. "Any time you telephone for me, day or night, I'll run over _immediately_. G.o.d bless you, sir!" his rounded voice shaking uncontrollably. "I have never come to you in behalf of any worthy charity and been refused. You have set an example in upright living, in generosity, in true manliness, and in constant church attendance that should be an example to all my vestrymen and to the town at large. I have never seen a n.o.bler man. Never.

Good--good-morning."

He moved toward the door, winking very fast and clearing his throat. At the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had already borne down upon Peter.

"Mr. Grimm!" she sobbed. "The best--the kindest--the--the--Oh, I _don't_ see how we are going to bear it."

"Dear Mrs. Batholommey," answered Grimm. "Please don't be so overcome. I may outlive you all. Nevertheless, I am grateful to your husband for letting me hear my funeral eulogy in advance, and to you for----"

"Oh, how _can_ you make light of it?" she sobbed. "Yes, dear, I'm coming. Good-bye, Mr. Grimm."

Like a confused and somewhat elderly hen she scuttled off in her husband's wake, while Peter Grimm stared after the two with a half-amused, half-perplexed smile.

"Of all the wall-eyed, semi-anthropoid congenital idiots," roared McPherson as the door closed behind them, "those two are----"

"You're mistaken, Andrew," contradicted Grimm. "They're kind-hearted, good people, who spend their lives and their substance in helping others. If you and they can't get on together it's no one's fault. Any more than because fuchsias and sunflowers won't thrive in the same bed.

Now calm down a bit, old friend, and tell me----"

"Nothing! It was nothing. Just nonsense. Don't give it another thought, Peter. You said, yourself, a while ago, that many a man who was given up by the doctors at twenty-five lives to be a hundred. And there is no reason on earth why you----"

"Don't!" urged Grimm. "I don't need that. I----"

"Don't fret yourself, Peter," insisted McPherson. "You mustn't get the idea that you are worse off than you really are. Don't get cold feet or let this thing worry you to death. You must live for----"

"Andrew!" chided Grimm, with tolerant reproof. "Are you so tangled up that you think you're talking to Willem instead of to a full-grown man?

If it's got to be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a _man_ is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing could be said of every one."

McPherson tried to speak, then turned and made blindly for the door.

"Wait a minute!" called Grimm.

McPherson halted. Peter crossed to where his friend stood. With an effort at his old-time whimsical banter he held out his hand.

"I just want to promise again, Andrew," he said, "that if there's anything in this spook business of yours, I'll come back. And I'll apologise. Good-bye and good luck."

McPherson wrung his hand, without speaking, and strode noisily out.

CHAPTER VII

THE HAND RELAXES

Peter Grimm walked slowly back into the room. He paused at his desk and laid his hand on a sheaf of papers piled there. He looked about the big sunlit apartment almost as if he were trying to stamp the image of each of its familiar, pleasant features upon his memory.

Frederik, in the window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the young man's sorrow.