The Return of Peter Grimm Part 15

"Oh, I _couldn't_!" protested the poor girl. "_Really_, I couldn't."

"Nonsense, little girl. It's the easiest thing in the world to get ready to be happy. Ten days is plenty. And you----"

"We can get your trousseau later," put in Frederik eagerly.

"Fritz!" cried the old man, exasperated. "_Will_ you keep out of this?

Who is managing it? You or I? In ten days, then, Katje? _Please!_"

"Why," she stammered, wretchedly at a loss, "if it will make you so happy, Oom Peter--if it means so much to you----"

"It does. It _does_!"

"I owe everything to you----"

"Then give me the privilege of seeing you a happy, contented wife, and we will write 'Paid' across the bill."

"But why need I marry so terribly soon?"

"To gratify a cranky old man's whim, Katje. It means more to me than I can tell you. Frederik understands."

She looked from one to the other. On each face she read a fatuous eagerness. She knew the futility of pleading with Frederik. She knew still more surely the uselessness of trying to make Peter Grimm change his stubborn wishes. With a little catch in her breath, she gave up the hopeless, unequal fight.

"Very well," she a.s.sented.

"You will do it?" cried Peter Grimm joyfully.

"Yes, I--promise," she answered; and her voice was dead.

"Good!" sighed Grimm, as he picked up his pipe and leaned back again in the big chair's recesses, a smile of utter peace and contentment irradiating his square old face. "You've made me very, _very_ happy, Katje," he murmured, his eyes half-shut, his words trailing away almost into incoherence. "Very, very happy. I'm happier than ever I was in all my life--happier than ever I dreamed a man could be. I----"

He ceased to speak. The light on his face grew brighter, then slowly faded as a peaceful summer day fades. He settled a little lower in his chair and lay back there, very still. The gnarled hand that held the meerschaum relaxed.

The pipe fell clattering to the floor. Frederik stooped to pick it up.

Kathrien, her eyes chancing to fall on Grimm's face, cried aloud in horror.

Frederik followed the direction of her gaze. He sprang toward his uncle, laid a hand over the old man's heart, and bent down toward the still, grey face that was upturned to his.

"Good G.o.d, Kitty!" he gasped. "He's _dead_!"

The girl had already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson coming away from a professional call at a house across the street.

"Doctor!" screamed Kathrien frantically. "_Doctor!_"

McPherson, next moment, had pushed past her into the living-room.

Kneeling beside Grimm's body he made a swift examination.

As he rose to face the others, Willem burst into the house.

"Oom Peter! Oom Peter!" shrilled the child happily. "I got them!"

"Hus.h.!.+" exclaimed McPherson.

The boy halted in the doorway, looking in puzzled dismay at the huddled form in the chair.

"What--what is----?" he began.

"He is dead," replied Frederik shortly.

Willem stood aghast for a second, while the curt announcement sank into his senses. Then in a burst of angry, rebellious wonder, the child cried:

"Dead? He can't be. He _can't_! Why, I've got our circus tickets!"

CHAPTER VIII

AFTERWARD

Grimm Manor was in mourning. And, far more to the dead man's honour, Grimm Manor _was_ mourning.

The last of the ancient line was dead. The Grimms had been the ruling spirits in the drowsy little up-State town for more than two centuries.

From father to son, the hierarchy had been handed down.

In days when the district was a wilderness and when the Grimms fought wild animal and Indian, and in the days when it was a prosperous suburb and the Grimms fought "scale" and locust, it had been the same:--ever a Grimm had swayed the little community.

Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now, after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with queer stories of his private dealings.

There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran, for instance, who lived "on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who, with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now told the real source of that providential "legacy."

A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.

A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition upon the gift:--absolute secrecy.

These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the week after Grimm's death.

The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a silent burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with ma.s.ses of fragrant blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.

And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so well, the dead man went to his burial.

In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face and as cra.s.sly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.

Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,--rather than Frederik or the frankly blubbering old housekeeper,--on whom people's eyes most often rested--rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive.

And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked casket in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.

Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment.

For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.