The Return of Peter Grimm Part 29

Frederik got shamblingly to his feet, and looked around with a frown, as though wondering why he had risen. His gaze swept the desk for some cause for his action, then rested moodily on the dying embers in the hearth.

The Dead Man at the far side of the desk confronted him like some unearthly Judge from whose heart pity, humanity, and all else but righteous wrath were banished.

"You shall not have my little girl!" thundered Peter Grimm. "I have come back to take her away from you. And you cannot put me to rest. I have come back. You cannot drive me from your thoughts."

He touched Frederik's damp forehead with his forefinger.

"I am _there_," he said. "I am looking over your shoulder as you read or write or think. I am looking in at the window when you deem you are alone and unseen. _I have come back._ You are breathing me in the air. I am hammering at your heart in each of your pulse beats. Wherever you are, I am there."

His forced calmness gave way to a gust of helpless rage as he felt his words falling upon world-deafened ears.

"Hear me!" he commanded furiously. "_Hear_ me! You _shall_ hear me!"

At each frenzied repet.i.tion of the command, the Dead Man hurled his arms aloft and brought down his clenched fist with all his power upon the desk in mighty blows of utterly soundless violence.

Impotently he cried aloud:

"Oh, will _no_ one hear me? Has my journey been all in vain? Has it been useless?--worse than useless?"

The Dead Man looked upward, in an anguish of desperation. He seemed to be entreating the Unseen in his clamour of wild, hopeless appeal.

"Has it all been for nothing?" he wailed. "Must we forever stand or fall by the mistakes we make in this world? Is there _no_ second chance?"

Frederik shook his head angrily as though to banish clinging unwelcome thoughts from his brain, got up and crossed to the sideboard, where he poured himself a double drink of liquor and swigged it down with feverish eagerness.

As he left the desk, Marta entered from the kitchen with the light supper he had ordered:--coffee, with sugar and cream, and a plate of little cakes. She went to the desk and began clearing a s.p.a.ce among the scattered papers for the supper tray. As her free hand moved among the papers, the Dead Man was at her elbow.

"Marta!" he whispered, as though fearing his words might reach Frederik.

"Look! _Look!_"

He pointed excitedly to the torn letter and the photograph that lay face downward under her hand. And she picked up both letter and picture, to make room for the tray.

"Marta!" urged the Dead Man, almost incoherent in his wild haste. "See what you have there! Look down at that picture in your hand! Turn it over and _look_ at it! Look at the hand-writing on that torn letter!

Look quickly! Then run with them to Miss Kathrien. Make her piece the letter together and read it! Quick! It's the only way she can learn the truth. Frederik will never tell her. Marta!--_Ah!_"

His wild plea broke off in a cry of chagrin. For Frederik, turning from the sideboard, had seen the old woman.

"Your coffee, Mynheer Frederik," said she, laying down the photograph and letter without a glance at them.

"Yes, yes. Of course," answered Frederik. "I forgot. Thanks."

She turned to leave the room. Frederik, coming over to the desk, caught sight of the torn blue envelope and the picture, where she had laid them.

Hurriedly covering them with his hand, he glanced at her in quick, terrified suspicion. But the face she turned to him as she hesitated for a moment at the kitchen door showed him at once that he was safe.

Nevertheless, Marta lingered on the threshold.

"Well?" queried Frederik, seating himself beside the tray.

"Is there," she stammered, "is there no--no word--no letter----?"

"Word? Letter?" he echoed nervously. "What do you mean?"

"From----" began the old woman in timid hesitation, then in a rush of courage: "From my little girl. From Anne Marie."

"No!" he snapped. "Of course not. I----"

"But--at a time like this--if she knows--oh, I felt it,--I hoped--that there would be _some_ message from her! Every day I have hoped----"

"No," he broke in. "Nothing's come. No letter. No word of any sort from her. I'd have let you know if there had. By the way, I have an appointment at the hotel in a few minutes. Tell Miss Kathrien, if she asks for me."

He busied himself with the tray. Marta looked at him a moment longer, held by some power that she could not explain. Then years of habit overcame impulse. She courtesied and withdrew to her kitchen.

As the door shut behind her, Frederik caught up the torn blue letter.

Tossing it in a metal ash tray he struck a match. Peter Grimm, divining his intent, sprang forward with a wordless cry to stop him. The Dead Man's hands tore at the wrists of the Living; sought by main strength to s.n.a.t.c.h the paper out of his reach; with pitiful helplessness tried to thrust back the hand that held the lighted match.

Unknowingly, Frederik touched the flame to the paper, shook out the match, and watched the torn letter blaze and curl. Then he tossed the charred bits into a jardiniere on the floor, and picked up the picture.

"There's an end to _that_!" he murmured, turning to throw the photograph into the smoking embers of the fireplace.

Peter Grimm stood erect. A new hope drove the sick despair from his face. Looking toward Willem's room he raised his arm and beckoned.

At once the door stealthily opened. A white little figure slipped out onto the gallery and toward the stairs. Down the flight of steps, clad in his white flannel pajama suit, his eyes wide, his yellow hair tumbled, Willem ran.

Frederik, in the act of consigning the photograph to the fire, was arrested by the sound of pattering feet. Laying the picture on the desk, he turned guiltily, in time to see Willem speeding across the room toward the bay window.

"What are you doing down here?" demanded Frederik. "If you're so sick, you ought not to get out of bed. That's the place for sick boys."

"The circus!" mumbled Willem in the queer, strained voice of a sleep walker. "The circus music waked me up. So I had to come and hear it."

"Circus music?" repeated Frederik amazedly, as he watched the boy tugging at the rain-tightened window sash to force it upward.

"Yes, it woke me. I can see the parade if I can get this window open.

It----"

"Why, you're half asleep!" exclaimed Frederik. "The circus left town ten days ago!"

"No, no!" insisted Willem, raising the window with one final wrench of his frail arms. "The band's playing _now_. Hear it?"

A gust of chilly, wet air dashed in through the open window, sending a sharp draught across the room and waking the boy wide as it beat into his hot face.

"Why," babbled Willem, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him, "why, it's _night_ time! I wonder what made me think the circus was here. I--I guess it was a dream."

Frederik strode to the window impatiently and slammed it shut. As he pa.s.sed Willem on the way back to the desk the boy intuitively cowered away from him.

"You've had a fever," said Frederik crossly, "and you're liable to catch cold, wandering around this draughty old barn in your night clothes. Go back to bed."

"Yes, sir," whimpered the boy, cringing under the sharp tone and starting back for the stairs. But, before he reached the lowest step, he halted. Peter Grimm stood barring his way. For a moment the Dead Man and the child stood face to face. Then, still frightened but unable to resist, Willem turned back toward Frederik, who had just picked up the photograph once more; to put it in the smouldering ashes.

"Mynheer Frederik," asked the boy in a voice not his own, "where is Anne Marie?"