BACK TO THE STORY
Dr. McPherson occasionally gave a vigorous shake to his fountain pen,
and made corrections here and there.
It was nearly midnight, and he had been writing almost uninterruptedly
since he had followed Willem upstairs after the boy's flight.
Willem had been restless and feverish, and had asked repeatedly to be
brought down to the living-room. He seemed irresistibly drawn toward the
place where he had talked with Peter Grimm and had "almost seen him."
So the sofa had been drawn up to the fire and a bed made for him there.
Now, however, he was at last sleeping peacefully in his little upstairs
room, and the whole house was quiet, though no one else had gone to bed,
and there was everywhere a subdued feeling of excitement.
The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the
fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and
chill). He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only
bright spot in the big room.
Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the
arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like
some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another
world.
McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "séance" while it was
still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in
a waiting hour by writing.
Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his
concentration.
"Oh--I'm _so_ nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as
she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second
lamp.
"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened
in this room--just a few hours ago, too?"
Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be
interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of
his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.
"I thought perhaps Frederik had come back," she went on.
"So Willem's feeling better again?" she asked, advancing on the doctor.
"Yes," he answered abstractedly. "I took him upstairs a few minutes
ago."
"Strange how the boy wants to remain in this room!" said Mrs.
Batholommey.
"M'm----" grunted Dr. McPherson shortly, without looking up at all.
Mrs. Batholommey came nearer and sat down.
"Oh, Doctor! Doctor!" she cried. "The scene that took place here
to-night has completely upset me."
The doctor's only reply was to turn his back on Mrs. Batholommey and
begin reading his manuscript aloud in an undertone, scratching out a
word here, adding something there.
Mrs. Batholommey, quite unconscious that she was a nuisance, leaned back
in her chair and let her words flow on.
"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_ fashion. 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 shaggy brows,
and then he returned to his narrative.
"Nobody's at all," she made great haste to say. "Nobody's at
all--nobody'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 unassailable, 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 endorsement 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 shaggy 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-fashioned,
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.
"Good-night, Henry," she said, beaming affectionately on him. "I'll be
home to-morrow."
Then with a most coquettish glance, she purred coyly:
"You'll be glad to see me, dear, _won't_ you?"
Mr. Batholommey beamed in his turn, and patted her on the cheek.
"Yes, my church mouse!" he said as he kissed her good-bye and went out
into the night.
Mrs. Batholommey closed the doors after him, but immediately opened them
a trifle and peered through the crack.
"Look out, Henry, for the trolley cars," she cried. "It's dark out
there--And be careful you don't step into a mud puddle! They must be as
deep as mill ponds after this rain, and there aren't half enough street
lamps in this neighbourhood--you'll be in over your ankles before you
know it!"
"All right!" came in a diminuendo from the clergyman's receding form.
"I'll be careful. Don't stand there taking cold. Good-night!"
"Woman," thundered Dr. McPherson in a terrible voice, "_close that
door_! Do you want my lamp to blow clean out? How can a body write with
such goings-on in his ears? St. Paul was a wise man. 'Let the woman
learn in silence,' he said, 'with all subjection.' Will you be good
enough to heed that, and let me write in peace?"
Mrs. Batholommey fastened the door with elaborate and most deliberate
care; then, as she passed the doctor's table on her way to the front
parlour, she fired a parting shot.
"Write as much as you like, Doctor," she said loftily. "Words are but
air. _You_ know and _I_ know and _everybody_ knows that seeing is
believing."
"Damn everybody!" growled the doctor, frowning at the lady's retreating
figure. "It's 'everybody's' ignorance that's set the world back five
hundred years. Where was I, before?" he said to himself. "Oh! Yes."
And he went back to his Statement.