The Return of Peter Grimm Part 23

And so, at Frederik's frightened demand, "Who came into the room?" the Dead Man stood among his own again. Before him was the nephew he had loved. Nearby were the husband and wife whose follies and harmless affectations he had forgiven with a laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt, for the sake of their goodness and for the devotion they bore himself. Lounging in the chair that had been his own was the lawyer who had been his dear friend and adviser. The friends he had cared for, the nephew on whom his every hope had been set.

With a wistful half-smile, Peter Grimm surveyed the group.

And, as Marta brought in one lighted lamp and then bustled about lighting another, he stood in clear view of them all. Clad in the same old-fashioned garb with which they were so familiar, he was unchanged, save that all age and all care lines were wiped from his face.

He was not a wraith, no grisly spectre, no half-nebulous Shape. He was Peter Grimm, rugged, homespun, the man whose iron individuality had undergone and could undergo no change.

He stood there in the lamplight, plainly visible--to such as had eyes to see him.

The dog, with that sense which G.o.d gives to all animals and withholds from all humans, had had no more difficulty in recognising him than when Peter Grimm had walked the earth in the flesh.

The faculty which makes a sleeping dog awake, raise its head, wag its tail and follow with its eyes the movements of some invisible form that moves from place to place in a room,--which makes a flock of chickens scatter squawking and fluttering when no human being can discern cause for their flight--which makes a horse shy violently when travelling a patch of road, apparently barren of anything to alarm him,--which makes a cat suddenly arch its back and spit and strike at the Unseen, or else rub purringly against an invisible hand--this faculty made Peter Grimm very real to his blear-eyed, asthmatic old collie.

But the inmates of the room, being but human, had seen and heard nothing. Frederik, it is true, being in a constant state of nervous tension that rendered his senses less dense and earthy than usual, had fancied he heard--or felt--some one enter the room. But at the disclaimers of the rest, the notion vanished as such notions do. And the warm flood of lamplight dispelled whatever of the psychic may have brooded over the little group, bringing back their comfortable materialism with a rush.

Wherefore, in his old home and among his own, Peter Grimm stood unseen; that deprecatory half-smile on his square, ageless face.

The lighting of the lamps and Marta's noisy return to her own culinary domain served as signals to break up the group about the desk. Mr.

Batholommey crossed the room and took his hat and coat from the rack, pa.s.sing within a hand's-breadth of the smiling, expectant Peter Grimm as he did so.

"Well, Frederik," said the rector doubtfully by way of farewell, "I hope that you'll follow your uncle's example at least as far as our parish poor are concerned,--and keep on with _some_ of his charities."

Mrs. Batholommey, dutifully following her husband to the rack and helping him on with his coat, turned to hear Frederik answer the question she and the rector had so often and so anxiously discussed during the past ten days. The heir did his best to settle their every doubt in the fewest possible words.

"I may as well tell you now, as any time," said he, "that you needn't look to me for any charitable graft at all. Your parish poor will have to begin hustling for a living now. I don't intend to waste good money in feeding what you Americans call 'a bunch of panhandlers.'"

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, inexpressibly disappointed.

The smile died on Peter Grimm's face and the light of happy expectancy was gone from his eyes.

"I am very sorry, Frederik," said the rector stiffly, "not only that you can speak so of G.o.d's poor, but that you are not willing to continue your uncle's splendid philanthropies. It--it doesn't seem possible that he never told you how dear his charities were to him. Well," he broke off with a shrug, and glancing at his watch, "I've got thirty minutes to make a call before tea time."

"I must be toddling, too," said Colonel Lawton. "Are you going my way, Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host good-bye, "it's queer--deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it.

But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder----"

"Heirlooms? Relics?" queried Frederik, puzzled. "Oh--you mean all this junk?" with a comprehensive hand wave that included Dutch clock, Dutch warming pans, Dutch bric-a-brac, and Dutch furniture. "This junk all over the house? Oh, I'll have it carted to the nearest ash heap. It isn't worth a red cent of any one's money."

Peter Grimm strode forward, his lips parted in quick protest. But Colonel Lawton was already answering, with an appraising look about the room:

"I don't know about that, Frederik. It may not be as worthless as you seem to think. Better let me send for a dealer to sort it over after you've gone on your honeymoon. I've heard that some people are fools enough to pay a lot of good money for this sort of antique trash."

"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it, won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it at a profit, too, why, all the better."

"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But----"

"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility, "that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."

"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"

"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not hear.

"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day--"do you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"

"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I know."

"I should say to him----" began Mrs. Batholommey.

Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not understand, and finished somewhat lamely:

"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we gain to immunity just by dying. And--oh, by the way, Henry," she broke off as her husband and the lawyer pa.s.sed out of the vestibule, "Kathrien expects you back for supper. Don't forget, will you, dear? Good-night, Colonel Lawton."

She followed them, closed the front door behind them, and bustled off to look after the arrangements for supper.

Frederik yawned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out into the office, Peter Grimm watching him with infinitely sad reproach in his luminous eyes.

Then, left alone in the room he had loved, the Dead Man looked about him at the dear old bits of furniture and ornaments that had meant so much to him and whose fate he had just heard weighed between auctioneer's hammer and rubbish heap.

He moved across to the rack, as if by lifelong instinct, and hung his antique hat on its accustomed peg. The simple, everyday action brought him so vividly close to older days that, as Marta pottered in with another newly filled lamp, he accosted her.

"Marta!" he called, as she gave no sign of recognition to his kindly nod and smile.

She set down the lamp in its place on the piano, crossed to the pulley-weight clock, and noisily wound it. As the old woman started back toward her kitchen, the Dead Man put himself once more in her way.

"Marta!" said he, then more loudly and peremptorily, "_Marta!_"

She pa.s.sed within an inch of his outstretched hand and entered the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Peter Grimm stared blankly after his housekeeper.

"I seem to be a stranger in my own house," he murmured. "My friends pa.s.s me by. Their gross eyes cannot see me. Their gross ears will not hear me. But--Lad knew me. He came to meet me, wagging his tail just as he used to. I--I remember I've more than once noticed his going to meet other people like that. People _I_ couldn't see in those days."

Frederik lounged back from the office, cigarette in mouth. He took out his watch, compared it with the clock on the wall, slipped it back into his pocket, and was crossing to the outer door when the telephone bell on the desk jangled.

Frederik laid down his cigarette, seated himself at the desk, and picked up the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo!" he called.

At the reply, he glanced around hastily, to make sure he was not likely to be overheard. Then, sinking his voice almost to a whisper and speaking with a nervous, almost guilty eagerness, he answered:

"Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Grimm. Mr. Frederik Grimm. I've been waiting all day to hear from you, Mr. Hicks. How are you? Wait one moment, please."

He rose, crossed the room, closed the door into the dining-room,--the only door that had been open,--glanced up into the bedroom gallery to make certain it was empty, then hurried back to the telephone.

"Yes," said he. "Go ahead."

There was a brief pause while he listened. Then he replied, in a tone of laboured indifference:

"Oh, no. You're quite mistaken. I am not 'eager to sell.' Not at all. As a matter of fact," he continued unctuously, "I much prefer to carry out my dear uncle's wishes and keep the business in the family. You must surely remember how determined he was that it should be kept on.--What?--'If I could get my price,' eh? That's different, of course.

It puts a new aspect on the whole affair.--What? Oh, well, an offer such as that deserves careful thought. I could not decline it offhand.--No, I admit it is very tempting.--'Talk it over?' Certainly."

He paused, then went on in answer to a query from the other end of the wire: