The Return of Peter Grimm Part 39

"Well, Doctor, the breaking off of the engagement is--er--sudden, isn't it? We've been talking it over in the front parlour, Mr. Batholommey and I."

The doctor darted a withering look at her over his spectacles.

"I suggest sending out a card----" she purred, "just a neat card" (here she measured off an imaginary card with her fingers), "saying that owing to the bereavement in the family the wedding has been indefinitely postponed. Of course," she sighed, "it isn't exactly true."

"Won't take place at all," exploded the doctor, going on at once with his reading.

"Evidently not," said Mrs. Batholommey, "but if the whole matter looks very strange to _me_--How is it going to look to other people--especially when we haven't any--any _rational_ explanation--as yet? We must get out of it in _some_ fas.h.i.+on. I'm sure I don't know how else we can explain--I don't like telling anything that isn't true--but--there _was_ to be a wedding." Mrs. Batholommey waved her right hand. "There _isn't_ to be any wedding," she waved her left hand.

"At least, Frederik isn't to be in it--and one must account for it _somehow_?"

"Whose business is it?" fired the doctor, in a voice that made Mrs.

Batholommey start like a frightened rabbit.

For one moment his eyes peered fiercely at her under their s.h.a.ggy brows, and then he returned to his narrative.

"n.o.body's at all," she made great haste to say. "n.o.body's at all--n.o.body's at all, of course. But Kathrien's position is certainly unusual; and the strangest part of it is--she doesn't appear to feel her situation. She's sitting alone in the library seemingly placid and happy. She acts as if a weight were off her mind. But the main point I've been arguing is this: Should the card we're going to send out have a narrow black border, or not?"

She turned toward the doctor and indicated with her fingers the width of black border that seemed to her to fit the occasion. But her trouble was entirely wasted.

Dr. McPherson was once more engrossed in his writing, and had forgotten her existence.

"Well, Doctor," she said in an injured tone, "you don't appear to be interested. You don't even answer!"

"I couldn't," snapped Dr. McPherson. "I didn't know whether you were talking _again_ or _still_."

Mrs. Batholommey was hurt, and she showed it in the reproachful look she cast at the doctor's una.s.sailable, uninterested back.

"Oh, of course," she said, "all these little matters sound trivial to you. But men like you couldn't look after the workings of the _next_ world, if other people didn't attend to _this one_. _Somebody_ has to do it," she ended triumphantly.

"I fully appreciate the fact, Mistress Batholommey, that other people are making it possible for me to be _myself_----"

Here the conversation was interrupted by a couple of raps on the window pane.

"What's that?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, jumping up in alarm.

"Telegram for Frederik Grimm," came a voice from the darkness, and a form was silhouetted against the moonlight.

"Mr. Grimm's down at the hotel," said Mrs. Batholommey, hastily throwing up the window, "but I'll sign for it. Where do I sign?" she fluttered.

"Oh, yes, I see, _here_!"

She wrote Frederik's name, then handed back the book to the telegraph boy, and closed the window. Just as she laid the telegram on the desk, Mr. Batholommey came into the room.

"Well, Doctor," he said with veiled sarcasm, "I would by all means suggest that we don't judge Frederik until the information Willem has _volunteered_ can be verified."

"Umph!" grunted the doctor.

Then he got up and went to the telephone.

"Four--red," he called to "Central."

Mr. Batholommey betook himself to the vestibule and began to put on his rubbers with methodical care.

"However, I regret," (he went on as easily as if the doctor had not grunted) "that Frederik has left the house without offering some sort of explanation."

"Four--red?" pursued the doctor. "That you, Marget? I'm at Peter's. I mean--I'm at the Grimms'. No, don't wait up for me. Send me my bag here.

I'll stay the night with Willem. Bye."

He put up the receiver and began to collect his scattered papers.

"Good-night, Doctor," said the clergyman. "Good-night, Rose."

He started toward the door, but the doctor called him back.

"Hold on, Mr. Batholommey!" he interposed. "I'm writing an account of all that's happened here to-night--from the very beginning. I've an idea it's going to make a stir. It's just the sort of thing the Society has been after----"

"Indeed!" said Mr. Batholommey in a doubtful tone.

"When I have verified every word of the evidence by Willem's mother----"

Here the Rev. Mr. Batholommey smiled behind his hand in a decidedly secular way.

"----I shall send in my report," continued the doctor. "Would you have any objection to the name of Mrs. Batholommey being used as a witness?"

Mr. Batholommey hesitated. His usually placid eyes were full of perplexity.

"Well--Doctor--I--I----"

But Mrs. Batholommey, unlike her temporising husband, did not hesitate.

She rushed into the conversation all unasked.

"Oh, no, you don't!" she cried. "You may flout _our_ beliefs,--but wouldn't you like to bolster up your report with an endors.e.m.e.nt by the wife of a clergyman! It sounds so respectable and sane, doesn't it? No, sir! You can't prop up your wild-eyed theories against the good black of _one_ minister's coat. Not by any means! I think myself that you have probably stumbled on the truth about Willem's mother; but that doesn't prove there's anything in all your notions, for that child knew the truth all along. He's eight years old and he was with her until he was five;--and five's the age of memory. He's a precocious boy, besides.

Every incident of his mother's life lingered in his little mind. Suppose you prove by her that it's all true?--Still, _Willem remembered_! And that's all there is to it."

Confident that she had made a good point, Mrs. Batholommey gave her head a toss and left the field, or to be more exact, went out to get her husband's umbrella.

Mr. Batholommey felt that after this display of colours on the part of his consort, he must needs testify also.

"Don't you think, Doctor,--(mind, I'm not opposing your ideas. I'm just echoing just what everybody else thinks)--don't you believe these ideas are leading away from the heaven we were taught to believe in; that they tend toward irresponsibility--toward eccentricity? Is it healthy--that's the idea. Is it--_healthy_?"

Dr. McPherson shook himself like a s.h.a.ggy dog.

"Well, Batholommey," he said, "religion has frequently led to the stake, and I never heard the Spanish Inquisition called _healthy_ for anybody taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fas.h.i.+oned, unscientific, gilt, gingerbread idea of heaven blew up ten years ago--went out. _My_ heaven's just coming in. It's new. Dr. Funk and a lot of clergymen are in already. You'd better get used to it, Batholommey, and join in the procession."

Having delivered this ultimatum the doctor became oblivious to the existence of the Batholommey family and gave his whole attention once more to his writing.

"H'm!" said Mr. Batholommey tolerantly. "When you can convince _me_!"

(He lapsed into Dutch.) "Well, _tou roustin_, Doctor."

The clergyman started for the door, but his dutiful wife was there before him, his umbrella in her hand.