A QUEER COMPACT
"Have you done?" rasped McPherson. "Have you quite done?"
"Why, what----?"
"Then listen to me. Abuse is not argument. Neither is silly mockery. I
console myself with the thought that men have laughed at the theory of
the earth going round, and at vaccination, and lightning rods, and
magnetism, and daguerreotypes, and steamboats, and cars, and telephones,
and at the theory of the circulation of the blood, and at wireless
telegraphy, and at flying in the air. So your gibing is forgivable.
_But_--I'm very, _very_ much disappointed, Peter, that so old a friend
should refuse such a simple request. I'll be wishing you a very good
day."
"Hold on, Andrew! Hold on!" cried Grimm, hastily setting down his pipe
and hurrying forward to intercept his angrily departing guest. "Man,
man, can't you keep your temper? I didn't mean to rile you. Come back.
If you take the thing so seriously, I'll--I'll make the compact with
you. Here's my hand on it. I know you're an old fool. And I'm another.
So we're both in bad company. Shake hands. Now then! Whichever of us
_does_ go first is to come back and try to make himself known to the
other. And----"
A fit of uncontrollable laughter cut across his words. The doctor
frowned pettishly and made as though to turn away. But Peter still held
his hand and would not let it go.
"There, Andrew!" he said remorsefully, as he wiped the laughter tears
from his eyes. "I've riled you again. I'm sorry. We'll leave the matter
this way: if I go first--and if I can come back, I _will_ come back--and
I'll apologise to you for being in the wrong. There! Does that satisfy
you, Andrew? I say I'll come back and apologise."
"You mean it, Peter?" asked McPherson eagerly. "You're not joking?"
"No, I mean it. If I can, I'll come back. And if I come back I'll
apologise to you. It's a deal. Now let's have a nip of my plum brandy to
seal the compact."
"Good!"
"I'll step down to the cellar and get a fresh bottle of it. That one on
the sideboard hasn't got two man's size drinks left in it. I'll be back
in a minute and then we'll drink to spooks. Especially to spooks that
come back and apologise."
With a chuckle at his own odd conceit, he vanished cellarward. As the
door closed behind him, Kathrien came in from the dining-room, where
evidently she had been awaiting a chance for a word alone with
McPherson.
"Doctor," she asked almost breathlessly, "do you really believe the dead
can come back?"
"Why not?" demanded McPherson, beginning to bristle for a new argument.
"Why shouldn't they?"
"But--you mean to say you could come back to this room if you were dead,
and I could see you?"
"You might not see me. I don't say you could. But I could come back."
"And--and could you _talk_ to me?"
"I think so."
"But, could I hear you?"
"That I don't know. You see, that's what we gropers after the light are
trying to make possible. Hello!" he interrupted himself, in a none too
pleased whisper. "_Here_ are some people that can talk and that one
can't help hearing!"
Ushered in by Willem, the Rev. Mr. Batholommey, the local Episcopal
clergyman of Grimm Manor, and his placid, portly wife, swept in from the
vestibule on clerical visitation bent.
"Good-morning, Doctor," sighed Mrs. Batholommey, comprising the whole
sunlit room in one all-compassionate glance.
"Good-morning, Kathrien."
"Good-morning, Mrs. Batholommey," answered Kathrien, loudly enough to
drown McPherson's growl of unwelcoming welcome. "Good-morning, Pastor.
Oom Peter will be back directly. I'll tell him you're here."
She hurried out of the room. McPherson showed strong inclination to
follow her. But Mrs. Batholommey had already singled him out for her
prey and bore down upon him with a becomingly woe-begone face.
"Oh, Doctor," she panted, wiping her eyes. "Does he know it yet? _Does_
he?"
"Does _who_ know _what_?" snapped the doctor, his glance straying
wrathfully toward the rotund clergyman, who all at once assumed an
abjectly apologetic air and interested himself in a picture on the
farther wall.
"Poor dear Mr. Grimm," pursued Mrs. Batholommey. "Does he know he's
going to die?"
Willem, who was halfway out of the room by this time, halted, turned
back and, unobserved, stood listening with wide eyes and open mouth.
"What in blue blazes are you talking about?" thundered McPherson,
glowering down on his rector's wife in a most unadmiring manner.
"About Mr. Grimm. Does he know yet that he must die?"
"Does the whole damned town know it?" roared the doctor.
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey in prim horror at the explosive adjective.
"You see, Doctor," put in the rector with urbane haste, before his
spouse could recover breath to rebuke the blasphemer or return to the
attack. "You see, it's this way: You consulted Mr. Grimm's lawyer. And
his wife told _my_ wife."
"Gabbed, did he?" snorted McPherson. "To perdition with the professional
man who gabs to his wife!"
"Oh, Doctor!" expostulated Mrs. Batholommey. "How can----?"
"I am inexpressibly grieved," said her husband, "to learn that Mr.
Grimm has an incurable malady. And is it true that the nature of it
is----?"
"The nature of the whole affair is _this_," returned McPherson. "He
isn't to be told. Understand that, please. He must _not_ know. I didn't
say he had to die at once. He may outlive us all. He probably will. And,
in any event, no one must speak to him about it."
"I should think," said Mrs. Batholommey in lofty rebuke, "that a man's
rector might be allowed to talk to him on such a theme. It seems to me,
Dr. McPherson, if _you_ can't do any more, it's _his_ turn. From the way
you doctors assume control of everything, it's a wonder to me you don't
want to baptise the babies, too."
"Rose!" murmured the doctor in mild reproof.
"At the last moment," Mrs. Batholommey insisted, ignoring her husband,
"Mr. Grimm will want to make a will. And you know he _hasn't_. He'll
want to remember the Episcopal Church of Grimm Manor, and his
charities--and his--friends. If he doesn't, the rector will be blamed as
usual. You're not doing right, Doctor, in keeping----"
"Rose! My dear!" interjected her husband. "These private matters----"
"But----"
"I'll trouble you, Mrs. Batholommey," shouted McPherson, "to attend to
your own affairs, and----"
"Doctor!" bleated the rector.
"Oh, let him talk, Henry!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey in semi-tearful
exaltation. "I can bear it. Besides," coming to earth level, "no one in
town pays any attention to what he says since he has taken up with
spiritualism."
"Oh, Rose! My dear!"
"Shut up!" whispered McPherson wrathfully. "Here he comes. Remember what
I----"
Peter Grimm put an end to the warning by reappearing from the cellar
with a small demijohn in his hand. His face brightened into a smile of
pleasant greeting as he saw his two new guests.
"Why," he exclaimed, "this is the jolliest sort of a surprise. I hope I
haven't kept you waiting long?"
The rector and his wife glanced at each other in embarrassment. Mrs.
Batholommey turned toward Peter with a lachrymose grimace, intended
doubtless for a consoling smile, and seemed about to break into a
torrent of speech. But the rector, after a timid look at McPherson,
nervously forestalled her by coming hurriedly to the front.
"Good-morning, dear friend," said he. "This is just a little impromptu
visit of gratitude. We wish to thank you for the lovely flowers that
Willem brought us a few minutes ago, and for the noble check you sent
yesterday."
"Why," laughed Peter uncomfortably, "please don't even think of thanking
me. I----"
"And," nervously pursued the rector, sparring for time, "I want to let
you know how much we are still enjoying the delicious vegetables you so
generously provided. I _did_ relish that squash. If I were obliged to
say offhand what my favourite vegetable is, I----"
"Pardon me," interposed Peter, his glance straying past the rector and
resting with swift concern upon Mrs. Batholommey's quivering expanse of
face, "but is anything distressing you, Mrs. Ba----?"
"No, no!" interjected the rector with break-neck haste.
"No, no!" responded Mrs. Batholommey in the same breath.
A half inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of
negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the
simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the
trio to another.
Willem, strolling from his retreat, crossed to the table, picked up a
picture book, and in leisurely fashion mounted with it to the gallery
landing that overlooked the room. There he threw himself on a settee
between the bedroom doors and opened the book at random.
His lower lip quivered ever so little and his blue eyes were big with a
troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy
pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time
the wonder in his eyes became tinged with a new sorrow.
Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward
her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's
jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake--quite visibly.
"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might
have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able----"
"Oh, no! No, no, _no_!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I--I hope
you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No--no--I don't mean that. I--I don't
mean that I hope you are _well_. Of course not. I--that is----"
"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with
heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a
leaden dollar. "And of course _all_ of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With
all our hearts. And we wish you many, _many_ years of life and----"
"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson
just said, there may perhaps be no reason,--with proper care--why you
shouldn't----"
"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when
it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"
It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be
confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in
a gruff undertone--that filled the room like far off thunder.
Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of
outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.
"Will you--will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then
caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.
"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of
Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the
President of our local W. C. T. U. and the----"
"The Little Brothers of the Artesian Well," added Grimm, "or whatever
they call it. I remember. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't tempt you from your
principles for the world. Forgive me. How about _you_, Pastor? A little
drop of plum brandy, for--for--let's see, what is it St. Paul says
about----?"
"Thank you, no," declined the rector, with an apprehensive gesture
towards his wife.
"Oh, come, come!" urged Peter hospitably. "Why, the other evening when
you dropped over here after the vespers, sir, you----"
"I only use it when absolutely needful for medicinal purposes," insisted
the rector hurriedly. "Not to-day, I thank you."
"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man,
was he not, Pastor?"
[Illustration: "I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was
a single man, was he not, Pastor?"]
"I--I believe so. It is not definitely known. But why?"
"I was only wondering," mused Peter, "how he would have accounted to St.
Pauline, or whatever his wife's name would have been, for what he wrote
in favour of 'a little wine for--'"
"Oh," explained Mrs. Batholommey, still safe, and ever feeling safer,
now that temperance was again the theme, "St. Paul referred to
unfermented wine, you know. Every one ought to understand that. It is so
hard to make people see the difference."
"One bottle would convince them," said Peter very gravely.
"No," Mrs. Batholommey corrected him with serene loftiness. "You do not
quite get my point, dear Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,--even
good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier--speak of 'wine,'
they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to
typify----"
"Booze," growled McPherson.
"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single
frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the
Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old
Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to
suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village
might get a wrong impression of dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You
remember the couplet occurs:
"'And now I have come with this lost love of mine
To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'
"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:
"'And now I have come with this beautiful maid
To tread one last measure,--drink one lemonade.'
"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous
reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid.
But I insisted, and at last----"
"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation
of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor
Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught
him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a
second and then blurted out:
"'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate
To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"
"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed _you_ put
him up to it."
"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at
least be more in keeping with what Sir Walter intended than your
straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."
"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled
waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them
to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."
"_What?_" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has
been stepped on.
"To spooks--we----"
"Oh, how _can_ you?" she gasped. "How _can_ you? To spooks! _You_ of all
men! The very idea!"
"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his
glass and moving toward her. "Something _has_ happened! You are
quite----"
"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.
"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm," soothed the rector. "Nothing at all, I
assure you. My wife is a trifle overwrought this morning. Nothing of any
consequence. I mean--that is, of course--we must all keep our spirits
up, Mr. Grimm."
"Good Lord, deliver us!" intoned McPherson in mingled fervour and
disgust.
"I know what it is," declared Peter with sudden enlightenment. "You've
just come from a wedding! That's it! I know. Women love weddings better
than anything on earth. They'll talk about it for months beforehand.
They'll walk miles to attend one.--And they'll weep all the rest of the
day. I don't know why. But they do it. I should be grateful, I suppose,
that no women were ever called upon to shed tears at _my_ wedding. But I
hope, before so very long----"
Mrs. Batholommey had not in the very least caught the drift of the
laughing speech whereby he had sought to put the poor woman at her ease.
And now all at once, the last sagging vestige of self-control went from
her.
"Oh, Mr. Grimm!" she moaned, breaking in upon his words. "You were
always so kind to us. There never was a better, kinder, gentler man in
all this world than you were."
"Than I _was_?" asked Peter bewildered. "Is my character changing
or----?"
"No, no!" she corrected herself flounderingly. "I don't mean that. I
mean--I meant----"
Her gaze fluttered helplessly about the big room and chanced at last to
fall upon the reading boy, asprawl on the gallery bench above them.
"I meant," she plunged along, "what would become of poor little Willem
if you----?"
This time her glance was caught and transfixed by McPherson's furious
glare, much as a great flopping beetle might be pierced by the sting of
a wasp. Mrs. Batholommey prided herself upon her tact. That glare nerved
her to another effort.
"You see," she shrilled, wildly and awkwardly clambering out of the
slough, "it's fearful he had such a 'M.'"
"Such a 'M'?" queried Peter. "What does that mean?"
With a warning glance toward the absorbed boy she shaped her lips
noiselessly into the word "Mother."
"Oh!" said Peter. "I understand. But----"
"She ought to have told Mr. Batholommey or me," went on Mrs.
Batholommey, climbing still higher on to solid ground, "who the 'F'
was."
"'F'? What does that mean?"
And again the rabbit-like lips shaped themselves into a soundless word,
this time 'Father.'
"Oh," grunted Peter, "the word you want isn't 'Father,' but 'Scoundrel!'
Whoever he is----"
Willem flung aside his book and leaped to his feet as though his little
body were galvanised. The others looked at him in guilty dread, fearing
he had heard and had somehow understood their awkwardly veiled allusions
to his parentage. But they were mistaken. A sound, far more potent to
every normal child's ear than the fiercest thunders of morality, had
reached his keen senses as he lounged up there. And a moment later they
all heard it.
It was the braying of a distant but steadily approaching brass band.
With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping,
raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien
came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered
in from the office, Willem rushed down the stairway and into the window
seat, where he sprang upon a chair and craned his neck to see the
stretch of village street beyond. Nearer and louder came the music and
the attendant vocal Babel.
"It's the circus parade!" shouted Willem. "The one they tell about in
the advertisements and pictures on the fences. I didn't know the parade
would start so early. There come some of them now. Oh, look! Oom Peter!
Look! It's a clown! See! He's coming right toward us!"
The band in full brazen force was discoursing a "Dutch Ditties" waltz as
it turned the corner above. And now, the voices of the barkers were
heard in the land.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer,
"one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a
grand free balloon ascension!"
"Remember," adjured a second Unseen, "one price admits you to all parts
of the big show!"
"Lemo--lemo--ice cold lemonade--five cents a glass!" shouted a youthful
vender.
"You ought to quaff one beaker of it to Sir Walter Scott's memory, Mrs.
Batholommey," observed McPherson.
But the din of the oncoming parade drowned his voice. The whole roomful,
from Marta down to Willem, were thronging into the bay window. They were
all children again. A touch of circus had renewed their youth as by the
wave of a magic wand. Willem broke into a cry of utter joy and pointed
ecstatically at the open window.
The next moment a clown, white and vermilion of face, clad in the
traditional white, black, and scarlet motley of his tribe, had leaped
cat-like upon the window sill and swept the room with his painted grin.
In his hands he held a great bunch of variegated circus bills. Tossing a
half-dozen of these at the feet of the all-absorbed spectators, he cried
in high cracked falsetto:
"Well, _well_, _WELL_! Here we are again, good people! Billy Miller's
Big Show! Larger--greater--grander than ever. Everything new! Come and
see the wild animals! Hear the lions roar!"
Wheeling suddenly towards Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened
forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady
jumped at least six inches from the ground.
"Steady, ma'am!" exhorted the clown. "I won't let him bite you! Come
one, come all! Come see the diving deer! The human fly, Mademoiselle
Zarella!" he added, addressing the rector. "She walks suspended from the
ceiling! One ring and no confusion!" he confided to the delightedly
smiling Peter. "And all for the price of admission! Remember the grand
free exhibition one hour before the big show!"
He paused, catching sight of Willem for the first time. Now, it is a
well-grounded tradition in one-ring circus life that no clown stays long
in the business or scores a hit in it unless he is genuinely fond of
children. Noting the all-absorbing bliss and adoration in Willem's wide
eyes, the clown grinned at the boy in right brotherly fashion.
"Howdy!" said he cordially. "Shake!"
Marvelling, overcome with rapture, feeling as though the proffered
honour was one far too wonderful to be real, Willem shyly extended his
hand and met the friendly grasp of the flour-dusted fingers. The clown,
striking an attitude, began in shrill, exaggerated diction, to chant the
antiquated "Frog Opera" song:
"Uncle Rat has gone to town,--Ha-_H'M_!
Uncle Rat has gone to town,"
he sang on, addressing Willem,
"To buy his niece a wedding gown."
"Ha-_H'M_!" intoned Willem, delightedly; laughing aloud as he realised
he was actually singing with a real live clown.
"What shall the wedding breakfast be?"
continued the clown, interrogating the equally youthful and delighted
Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught
up the refrain:
"Ha-_H'M_!
Hard-boiled eggs and a cup of tea,"
sang the clown. And again from Willem and the rest came the answering:
"Ha-_H'M_!"
"Billy Miller's Big Show!" yelled the clown. "Come one, come all! So
long, Sonny!"
He was gone. The others came back to earth. But Willem was still in the
wonder clouds. It had been to him an experience to rehearse a thousand
times, to dream over, to remember forever. Peter Grimm, reading the
boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned
Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work
in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary
excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.
"Willem!" called Grimm.
"_Ja_, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight
with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.
"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would
you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"
"_Stupid!_" gasped the boy. "Oh!"
"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"
"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"
"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two _front_
seats. _Two._ We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll
stay out till--till ten o'clock!"
The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.
"_Ekar, ekar na hat circus!_" he babbled dazedly.
Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand
in both his own.
"Oh, Mynheer _Grimm_!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else
like you in the world. And--and--when the other fellows laugh at your
funny hat, _I_ don't."
"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"
The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But,
momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity,
he said:
"And--and--Mynheer Grimm--it's too bad you've got to die!"