Return of Peter Grimm Novelised From the Play

David Belasco

Description

The train drew to a halt at the Junction. There was a fine jolt that ran the length of the cars, followed by a clank of couplings and a half-intelligible call from the conductor.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819903420
• Langue: English

Extrait

CHAPTER I
A MAN AND A MAID
The train drew to a halt at the Junction. There wasa fine jolt that ran the length of the cars, followed by a clank ofcouplings and a half-intelligible call from the conductor.
The passengers, – dusty, jaded, crossly annoyed atthe need of changing cars, – gathered up their luggage and filedout onto the bare, roofless station platform. There, after a lookdown the long converging rails in vain hope of sighting the trainthey were to take, they fell to glancing about the cheerlessstation environs.
Far away were rolling hills, upland fields ofwind-swept wheat, cool, dark stretches of woodland. But around thestation were areas of ill-kept lots, with here and there ajerry-built cottage, sadly in need of shoring, and bereft of paint.Across the road on one side stood the general store with its clumpof porch-step loafers and its windows full of gaudy advertisements.To the side, and parallel with the tracks, sprawled a huge,weather-buffeted signboard that read: " Grimm's Botanical Gardensand Nurseries. 1 Mile. "
The passengers eyed the half-defaced lettering,pessimistically. But almost at once they received a far pleasanterreminder of the botanical gardens. A boy, flushed with running, andevidently distressed at being late, pattered up the road and ontothe platform. From one of his fragile arms hung a great basket. Thelid had fallen aside and showed the basket piled to the brim withfresh flowers.
Hurrying to the nearest passenger – an obesetravelling man who mopped a very red face, – the boy timidly held aGloire de Dijon rose up to him and recited with parrot-likeglibness: "With the compliments of Peter Grimm."
The fat man half unconsciously took the rose fromthe little hand and stood looking as though in dire doubt what todo with it. The boy did not help him out. Already he had moved onto the next passenger, – this time a man of clerical bearing andsuspiciously vivid nose, – and handed him a gleaming Madonna lily."With the compliments of Peter Grimm," he announced, passing on tothe next.
And so on down the bunched line of waiting men andwomen the lad made his way. In front of each, he paused, presenteda flower taken at random from the basket, recited his droningformula, and passed on.
The fat travelling man stared stupidly at his rose.Then he looked about him, half shamefacedly and in wonder. "What inblazes – – ?" he began. "You must be a stranger in this part of thestate," volunteered a big young fellow, who had just come out ofthe waiting-room. "Did you never hear of the flower-giving at theJunction?" "No. What's the idea? Is it done on a bet? Or is it an'ad' for the man on the sign over there?" "Neither. It has beenPeter Grimm's custom for twenty years or more. Ever since I firstknew him." "And it isn't an ad?" "No," was the enigmatic answer asthe big young man moved off in the wake of the lad. "It's PeterGrimm."
The boy meanwhile had reached the last of thepassengers. She was middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peereddown at him with more than common interest as he went through hispat little presentation formula. A psychologist would have gatheredmuch from the lad's tense, flushed face and in the oddly strainedlook of the big blue eyes. To this woman, he was only a thin,lonely looking youngster, whose face held an unconscious appealthat she answered without reading it. "I am very much obliged toMr. Peter Grimm for sending me this lovely flower," she said, alittle patronisingly, as she sniffed at the half-opened Killarneyrose she held. "You need not be," answered the boy. "He didn'treally send it to you. In fact, I'm quite sure he never even heardof you. He just sent it because he is good and because – – ""Because he loves flowers," suggested the woman as the boyhesitated. "No," corrected the boy, in his gentle, old-fashioneddiction, wherein lurked the faintest trace of foreign accent, "Inever heard him say anything about loving flowers. But I know theflowers love him." "What?" "You see, they grow for him as theydon't grow for any one else. Much better I am sure," headded a little bitterly, "than they will ever grow for Frederik. Idon't think flowers love Frederik." "What queer ideas you have!"she laughed, embarrassed at his quiet statement of facts thatseemed to her absurd. "Are you Mr. Grimm's son?" "No, ma'am. He isnot married. I don't think he has any sons at all. I'm Anne Marie'sson." "Anne Marie? Anne Marie – what?" "Just Anne Marie. I'mWillem, you know." "William?" "No, ma'am. Willem." "Willem Grimm?""No, ma'am. Anne Marie's Willem. I – Oh, Mr. Hartmann!" he brokeoff, catching sight of the big young man who drew near, "MynheerPeter said you'd be on this train. Now I can have some one to walkback with."
Slipping his hand into Hartmann's, Willem turned hisback on the platformful of perspiring beneficiaries and, together,the two struck off down the yellow, dusty road toward the doublerow of giant elms that marked the beginning of the villagestreet.
Willem shuffled in high contentment alongside hisbig companion. And as he walked, he stole upward and sidelongglances of furtive hero worship at the tall, plainly clad figure.Jim Hartmann was of a build and aspect to rouse such worship in thefrail little fellow. He had the shoulders, the chest girth, thestride of an athlete, tempered by the slight roundness of thosesame shoulders, the non-expansiveness of chest, and the heavy treadof the large man whose strength and physique have been acquired atmanual labour instead of in athletics. A figure more common east ofthe Atlantic than in America.
His dark suit was neat and fitted honestly well. Butit was palpably not the suit of a man whose father had worncustom-made clothes or whose own earlier youth had been blessedwith such garments. Yet there was a breezy, staunch outdoornessabout the whole man that reminded one of a breath of mountain airin a close room and left half unnoticed the details of costume andbearing. "Weren't you glad to get away from New York City?" queriedthe boy as they came into the elm shade of Grimm Manor's one realstreet. "A week is an awful long time to be away from here." "Youbet it is. You're a lucky chap to be able to stay at Grimm Manorall the time instead of being sent here, there, and everywhere onbusiness." "I shouldn't like that," assented the boy; "I thinkpeople would be very liable of losing their way. I wonder ifMynheer Peter will send me 'here, there, and everywhere onbusiness' when I'm older." "Perhaps," agreed Hartmann, catching theslight note of wistfulness in Willem's voice. "You're beginning theway I began. It wasn't more than a week after my father got hisgardening job with Mr. Grimm that I used to be sent up to meet thetrains with a basket of flowers and 'the compliments of PeterGrimm.' It seems more like yesterday than eighteen years ago." "I'mglad you're back from New York City," said the boy, circling backto the conversation's starting-point. "It's been rather lonely.Mynheer Peter has been so busy. And Frederik – – " "Well," queriedJim as the boy checked himself and looked nervously behind him,"what about Frederik? And why do you always look like that when youspeak of him?" "Like what?" "As if you were afraid some one wouldslap you. Is Frederik ever unkind to you?" "No," denied the boy, inscared haste. "No, he never is. He – he doesn't notice me at all.That's what I was going to say. He doesn't seem to care to. But helikes to be with Kathrien, I think. Yes, I'm sure he does. I thinkKathrien missed you, too, Mr. Hartmann."
The big man grew of a sudden vaguely embarrassed. Hecast back along the trail of the talk for some divergent path, andfound one. "Yes," he said, "it's good to be back from New York. Thecity always seems to cramp me and make it hard for me to breathe.The pavements hurt my feet and I have a silly feeling as though theskyscrapers were going to topple inward."
He was talking to himself rather than to the boy.But Willem rejoined sympathetically: "I don't like New York Cityeither." "You, why you surely can't remember when you used to livethere?"
The boy's fair brow creased in an effort of memory."Sometimes," he hesitated, "I can. And sometimes I don't seem ableto. But I remember Anne Marie. She cried." "How is Mynheer Peter?"demanded Hartmann with galvanic suddenness. "And how are that lastlot of Madonna lilies coming on? They ought to be – – ""Sometimes," went on the boy, still following his own line ofthought and oblivious of the interruption, "sometimes I wonder whyshe cried. Sometimes for a minute or two – mostly at night, whenI'm nearly asleep – I seem to remember why. But I always forget.Mr. Hartmann, did you see Anne Marie when you were in New YorkCity?" "No, of course not. How are Lad and Rex and Paddy? And dothey still dig for moles in the flower-beds? Or did the dose of redpepper my father scattered over the beds cure them of digging?" "Iwonder," observed Willem, "why everybody always talks abouteverything else when I want to talk about Anne Marie. And if otherfellows' mothers come to see them and live with them, why doesn'tAnne Marie come and live with me? I asked Oom Peter once and hesaid – – " "I've got to leave you now and hurry over to MynheerGrimm's office with my report," broke in Hartmann. "My train was alittle late anyhow and you know how he hates to be keptwaiting."
They had entered a wide gateway and had come fromsuburban America, at a step, into rural Holland. The prim gravelleddrive led between acres of prosaically regular flower-beds, flankedon one side by a domed green house and on the other by a creakingDutch windmill with weather-browned sails.
Straight ahead and absurdly near the road for acountry house that boasted so much land about it, was the stone andyellow stucco cottage that for centuries had sheltered successivegenerations of Grimms. Painfully neat, unpicturesquely ugly, thehouse stood among its great oaks. It did not nestle among them. Itstood. As well expect a bread