Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable

R >> Robert Keable >> Simon Called Peter

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

"So you 'ave come," she said in broken English. "I told Lucienne that you
would not."

"Lucienne!" exclaimed Peter, and looked back at Pennell.

That traitor laughed, and seated himself on the edge of the bed, drawing
the other girl to him. "I'm awfully sorry, Graham," he said; "but I
couldn't help it. You wanted to see life, and you'd have shied off if I
hadn't played a game. I do just know this little girl, and jolly nice she
is too. Give me a kiss, Lulu."

The girl obeyed, her eyes sparkling. "It's not proper before monsieur,"
she said. "'E is--how do you say?--shocked?"

She seated herself on Pennell's knee, and, putting an arm round his neck,
kissed him again, looking across at Peter mischievously. "We show 'im
French kiss," she added to Pennell, and pouted out her lips to his.

"Well, now you 'ave come, what do you want?" demanded the girl on the arm
of Peter's chair. "Sit down," she said imperiously, patting the seat,
"and talk to me."

Peter laughed more lightly than he felt. "Well, I want a drink," he said,
at random. "Pen," he called across the room, "what about that drink?" The
girl by him reached over and touched a bell. As she did so, Peter saw the
curls that clustered on her neck and caught the perfume of her hair. It
was penetrating and peculiar, but not distasteful, and it did all that it
was meant to do. He bent, and kissed the back of her neck, still
marvelling at himself.

She straightened herself, smiling. "That is better. You aren't so cold as
you pretended, cherie. Now kiss me properly," and she held up her face.

Peter kissed her lips. Before he knew it, a pair of arms were thrown
about his neck, and he was being half-suffocated with kisses. He tore
himself away, disgusted and ashamed.

"No!" he cried sharply, but knowing that it was too late.

The girl threw herself back, laughing merrily, "Oh, you are funny!" she
said. "Lucienne, take your boy away; I want to talk to mine."

Before he could think of a remonstrance, it was done. Pennell and the
other girl got up from the bed where they had been whispering together,
and left the room. "Pennell!" called Peter, too late again, jumping up.
The girl ran round him, pushed the door to, locked it, and dropped the
key down the neck of her dress. "Voila!" she said gaily.

There came a knock on the door. "Non, non!" she cried in French. "Take
the wine to Mlle. Lucienne; I am busy."

Peter walked across the room to her. "Give me the key," he said, holding
out his hand, and changing his tactics. "Please do. I won't go till my
friend comes back. I promise."

The girl looked at him. "You promise? But you will 'ave to find it."

He smiled and nodded, and she walked deliberately to the bed, undid the
front of her costume, and slipped it off. Bare necked and armed, she
turned to him, holding open the front of her chemise. "Down there," she
said.

It was a strange moment and a strange thing, but a curious courage came
back to Peter in that second. Without hesitation, he put his hand down
and sought for the key against her warm body. He found it, and help it
up, smiling. Then he moved to the door, pushed the key in the keyhole,
and turned again to the girl. "There!" he said simply.

With a gesture of abandon, she threw herself on the bed, propping her
cheek on her hand and staring at him. He sat down where Pennell had sat,
but made no attempt to touch her, leaning, instead, back and away against
the iron bed-post. She pulled up her knees, flung her arms back, and
laughed. "And now, monsieur?" she said.

Peter had never felt so cool in his life. His thoughts raced, but
steadily, as if he had dived into cold, clear water. He smiled again,
unhesitatingly, but sadly. "Dear," he said deliberately, "listen to me. I
have cheated you by coming here to-day, though you shan't suffer for it.
I did not want anything, and I don't now. But I'm glad I've come, even
though you do not understand. I don't want to do a bit what my friend is
doing. I don't know why, but I don't. I'm engaged to a girl in England,
but it's not because of that. I'm a chaplain too--a cure, you know--in
the English Army; but it's not because of that."

"Protestant?" demanded the girl on the bed.

He nodded. "Ah, well," she said, "the Protestant ministers have wives.
They are men; it is different with priests. If your fiancee is wise, she
wouldn't mind if you love me a little. She is in England; I am here--is
it not so? You love me now; again, perhaps, once or twice. Then it is
finished. You do not tell your fiancee and she does not know. It is
no matter. Come on, cherie!"

She held out her hands and threw her head back on the pillow.

Peter smiled again. "You do not understand," he said. "And nor do I, but
I must be different from some men. I do not want to."

"Ah, well," she exclaimed brightly, sitting up, "another time! Give me my
dress, monsieur le cure."

He got up and handed it to her. "Tell me," he said, "do you like this
sort of life?"

She shrugged her white shoulders indifferently. "Sometimes," she
said--"sometimes not. There are good boys and bad boys. Some are rough,
cruel, mean; some are kind, and remember that it costs much to live
these days, and one must dress nicely. See," she said deliberately,
showing him, "it is lace, fine lace; I pay fifty francs in Paris!"

"I will give you that," said Peter, and he placed the note on the bed.

She stared at it and at him. "Oh, I love you!" she cried. "You are kind!
Ah, now, if I could but love you always!"

"Always?" he demanded.

"Yes, always, always, while you are here, in Le Havre. I would have no
other boy but you. Ah, if you would! You do not know how one tires of the
music-hall, the drinks, the smiles! I would do just all you please--be
gay, be solemn, talk, be silent, just as you please! Oh, if you would!"

Half in and half out of her dress, she stood there, pleading. Peter
looked closely at the little face with its rouge and powder.

"You hate that!" she exclaimed, with quick intuition. "See, it is gone. I
use it no more, only a leetle, leetle, for the night." And she ran across
to the basin, dipped a little sponge in water, passed it over her face,
and turned to him triumphantly.

Peter sighed. "Little girl," he said sadly, hardly knowing that he spoke.
"I cannot save myself: how can I save you?"

"Pouf!" she cried. "Save! What do you mean?" She drew herself up with an
absurd gesture. "You think me a bad girl? No, I am not bad; I go to
church. Le bon Dieu made us as we are; it is necessaire."

They stood before each other, a strange pair, the product of a strange
age. God knows what the angels made of it. But at any rate Peter was
honest. He thought of Julie, and he would not cast a stone.

There came a light knock at the door. The girl disregarded it, and ran to
him. "You will come again?" she said in low tones. "Promise me that you
will! I will not ask you for anything; you can do as you please; but come
again! Do come again!"

Peter passed his hand over her hair. "I will come if I can," he said;
"but the Lord knows why."

The knock came again, a little louder. The girl smiled and held her face
up. "Kiss me," she demanded.

He complied, and she darted away, fumbling with her dress. "I come," she
called, and opened the door. Lucienne and Pennell came in, and the two
men exchanged glances. Then Pennell looked away. Lucienne glanced at them
and shrugged her shoulders. "Come, Graham," said Pennell; "let's get out!
Good-bye, you two."

The pair of them went down and out in silence. No one had seen them come,
and there was no one to see them go. Peter glanced at the number and made
a mental note of it, and they set off down the street.

Presently Pennell laughed, "I played you a dirty trick, Graham," he said,
"I'm sorry."

"You needn't be," said Peter; "I'm very glad I went."

"Why?" said Pennell curiously, glancing sideways at him. "You _are_ a
queer fellow, Graham." But there was a note of relief in his tone.

Peter said nothing, but walked on. "Where next?" demanded Pennell.

"It looks as if you are directing this outfit," said Peter; "I'm in your
hands."

"All right," said Pennell; "I know."

They took a street running parallel to the docks, and entered an American
bar. Peter glanced round curiously. "I've never been here before," he
said.

"Probably not," said Pennell. "It's not much at this time of the year,
but jolly cool in the summer. And you can get first-class cocktails. I
want something now; what's yours?"

"I'll leave it to you," said Peter.

He sat down at a little table rather in the corner and lit a cigarette.
The place was well lighted, and by means of mirrors, coloured-glass
ornaments, paper decorations, and a few palms, it looked in its own way
smart. Two or three officers were drinking at the bar, sitting on high
stools, and Pennell went up to give his order. He brought two glasses
to Peter's table and sat down. "What fools we are, padre!" he said. "I
sometimes think that the man who gets simply and definitely tight when he
feels he wants a breather is wiser than most of us. We drink till we're
excited, and then we drink to get over it. And I suppose the devil sits
and grins. Well, it's a weary world, and there isn't any good road out of
it. I sometimes wish I'd stopped a bullet earlier on in the day. And yet
I don't know. We do get some excitement. Let's go to a music-hall
to-night."

"What about dinner?"

"Oh, get a quiet one in a decent hotel. I'll have to clear out at
half-time if you don't mind."

"Not a bit," said Peter. "Half will be enough for me, I think. But let's
have dinner before we've had more of these things."

The bar was filling up. A few girls came and went. Pennell nodded to a
man or two, and finished his glass. And they went off to dinner.

The music-hall was not much of a show, but it glittered, and people
obviously enjoyed it. Peter watched the audience as much as the stage.
Quite respectable French families were there, and there was nothing done
that might not have been done on an English stage--perhaps less, but the
words were different. The women as well as the men screamed with
laughter, flushed of face, but an old fellow, with his wife and daughter,
obviously from the country, sat as stiffly as an English farmer through
it all. The daughter glanced once at the two officers, but then looked
away; she was well brought up. A half-caste Algerian, probably, came
on and danced really extraordinarily well, and a negro from the States,
equally ready in French and English, sang songs which the audience
demanded. He was entirely master, however, and, conscious of his power,
used it. No one in the place seemed to have heard of the colour-bar,
except a couple of Americans, who got up and walked out when the comedian
clasped a white girl round the waist in one of his songs. The negro made
some remark that Peter couldn't catch, and the place shook with laughter.

At half-time everyone flocked into a queer kind of semi-underground hall
whose walls were painted to represent a cave, dingy cork festoons and
"rocks" adding to the illusion. Here, at long tables, everyone drank
innocuous French beer, that was really quite cool and good. It was rather
like part of an English bank holiday. Everybody spoke to everybody else,
and there were no classes and distinctions. You could only get one glass
of beer, for the simple reason that there were too many drinking and too
few supplying the drinks for more in the time.

"I must go," said Pennell, "but don't you bother to come."

"Oh yes, I will," said Peter, and they got up together.

In the entrance-hall, however, a girl was apparently waiting for someone,
and as they passed Peter recognised her. "Louise!" he exclaimed.

She smiled and held out her hand. Peter took it, and Pennell after him.

"Do you go now?" she asked them. "The concert is not half finished."

"I've got to get back to work," said Pennell, "worse luck. It is la
guerre, you know!"

"Poor boy!" said she gaily. "And you?" turning to Peter.

Moved by an impulse, he shook his head. "No," he said, "I was only seeing
him home."

"Bien! See me home instead, then," said Louise.

"Nothing doing," said Peter, using a familiar phrase.

She laughed. "Bah! cannot a girl have friends without that, eh? You have
a fiancee, 'ave you not? Oh yes, I remember--I remember very well. Come!
I have done for to-day; I am tired. I will make you some coffee, and we
shall talk. Is it not so?"

Peter looked at Pennell. "Do you mind, Pen?" he asked. "I'd rather like
to."

"Not a scrap," said the other cheerfully; "wish I could come too. Ask me
another day, Louise, will you?"

She regarded him with her head a little on one side. "I do not know," she
said. "I do not think you would talk with me as he will. You like what
you can get from the girls of France now; but after, no more. Monsieur,
'e is different. He want not quite the same. Oh, I know! Allons."

Pennell shrugged his shoulders. "One for me," he said. "Well, good-night.
I hope you both enjoy yourselves."

In five minutes Peter and Louise were walking together down the street. A
few passers-by glanced at them, or especially at her, but she took no
notice, and Peter, in a little, felt the strangeness of it all much less.
He deliberately crossed once or twice to get between her and the road, as
he would have done with a lady, and moved slightly in front of her when
they encountered two drunken men. She chatted about nothing in
particular, and Peter thought to himself that he might almost have been
escorting Hilda home. But if Hilda had seen him!

She ushered him into her flat. It was cosy and nicely furnished, very
different from that of the afternoon. A photograph or two stood about in
silver frames, a few easy-chairs, a little table, a bookshelf, and a
cupboard. A fire was alight in the grate; Louise knelt down and poked it
into a flame.

"You shall have French coffee," she said. "And I have even lait for you."
She put a copper kettle on the fire, and busied herself with cups and
saucers. These she arranged on the little table, and drew it near the
fire. Then she offered him a cigarette from a gold case, and took one
herself. "Ah!" she said, sinking back into a chair. "Now we are, as you
say, comfy, is it not so? We can talk. Tell me how you like la France,
and what you do."

Peter tried, but failed rather miserably, and the shrewd French girl
noticed it easily enough. She all but interrupted him as he talked of
Abbeville and the raid. "Mon ami," she said, "you have something on your
mind. You do not want to talk of these things. Tell me."

Peter looked into the kindly keen eyes. "You are right, Louise," he said.
"This is a day of trouble for me."

She nodded. "Tell me," she said again. "But first, what is your name, mon
ami? It is hard to talk if one does not know even the name."

He hardly hesitated. It seemed natural to say it. "Peter," he said.

She smiled, rolling the "r." "Peterr. Well, Peterr, go on."

"I'll tell you about to-day first," he said, and, once launched, did so
easily. He told the little story well, and presently forgot the strange
surroundings. It was all but a confession, and surely one was never more
strangely made. And from the story he spoke of Julie, but concealed her
identity, and then he spoke of God. Louise hardly said a word. She poured
out coffee in the middle, but that was all. At last he finished.

"Louise," he said, "it comes to this: I've nothing left but Julie. It was
she restrained me this afternoon, I think. I'm mad for her; I want her
and nothing else. But with her, somehow, I lose everything else I possess
or ever thought I possessed." And he stopped abruptly, for she did not
know his business in life, and he had almost given it away.

When he had finished she slipped a hand into his, and said no word.
Suddenly she looked up. "Peterr, mon ami," she said, "listen to me. I
will tell you the story of Louise, of me. My father, he lived--oh, it
matters not; but he had some money, he was not poor. I went to a good
school, and I came home for the holidays. I had one sister older than
me. Presently I grew up; I learnt much; I noticed. I saw there were
terrible things, chez nous. My mother did not care, but I--I cared. I was
mad. I spoke to my sister: it was no good. I spoke to my father, and,
truly, I thought he would kill me. He beat me--ah, terrible--and I ran
from the house. I wept under the hedges: I said I would no more go 'ome.
I come to a big city. I found work in a big shop--much work, little
money--ah, how little! Then I met a friend: he persuade me, at last he
keep me--two months, three, or more; then comes the war. He is an
officer, and he goes. We kiss, we part--oui, he love me, that officer. I
pray for him: I think I nevair leave the church; but it is no good. He is
dead. Then I curse le bon Dieu. They know me in that place: I can do
nothing unless I will go to an 'otel--to be for the officers, you
understand? I say, Non. I sell my things and I come here. Here I do
well--you understand? I am careful; I have now my home. But this is what
I tell you, Peterr: one does wrong to curse le bon Dieu. He is wise--ah,
how wise!--it is not for me to say. And good--ah, Jesu! how good! You
think I do not know; I, how should I know? But I know. I do not
understand. For me, I am caught; I am like the bird in the cage. I cannot
get out. So I smile, I laugh--and I wait."

She ceased. Peter was strangely moved, and he pressed the hand he held
almost fiercely. The tragedy of her life seemed so great that he hardly
dare speak of his own. But: "What has it to do with me?" he demanded.

She gave a little laugh. "'Ow should I say?" she said. "But you think God
not remember you, and, Peterr, He remember all the time."

"And Julie?" quizzed Peter after a moment.

Louise shrugged her shoulders. "This love," she said, "it is one great
thing. For us women it is perhaps the only great thing, though your
English women are blind, are dead, they do not see. Julie, she is as us,
I think. She is French inside. La pauvre petite, she is French in the
heart."

"Well?" demanded Peter again.

"C'est tout, mon ami. But I am sorry for Julie."

"Louise," said Peter impulsively, "you're better than I--a thousand
times. I don't know how to thank you." And he lifted her hand to his
lips.

He hardly touched it. She sprang up, withdrawing it. "Ah, non, non,"
she cried. "You must not. You forget. It is easy for you, for you are
good--yes, so good. You think I did not notice in the street, but I see.
You treat me like a lady, and now you kiss my hand, the hand of the girl
of the street.... Non, non!" she protested vehemently, her eyes alight.
"I would kiss your feet!"

Outside, in the darkened street, Peter walked slowly home. At the gate of
the camp he met Arnold, returning from a visit to another mess. "Hullo!"
he called to Peter, "and where have you been?"

Peter looked at him for a moment without replying. "_I'm_ not sure, but
seeing for the first time a little of what Christ saw, Arnold, I think,"
he said at last, with a catch in his voice.

CHAPTER IV

Looking back on them afterwards, Peter saw the months that followed as a
time of waiting between two periods of stress. Not, of course, that
anyone can ever stand still, for even if one does but sit by a fire and
warm one's hands, things happen, and one is imperceptibly led forward. It
was so in this case, but, not unnaturally, Graham hardly noticed in what
way his mind was moving. He had been through a period of storm, and he
had to a certain extent emerged from it. The men he had met, and above
all Julie, had been responsible for the opening of his eyes to facts that
he had before passed over, and it was entirely to his credit that he
would not refuse to accept them and act upon them. But once he had
resolved to do so things, as it were, slowed down. He went about his work
in a new spirit, the spirit not of the teacher, but of the learner, and
ever since his talk with Louise he thought--or tried to think--more of
what love might mean to Julie than to himself. The result was a curious
change in their relations, of which the girl was more immediately and
continually conscious than Peter. She puzzled over it, but could not get
the clue, and her quest irritated her. Peter had always been the least
little bit nervous in her presence. She had known that he never knew what
she would do or say next, and her knowledge had amused and carried her
away. But now he was so self-possessed. Very friendly they were, and they
met often--in the ward for a few sentences that meant much to each of
them; down town by arrangement in a cafe, or once or twice for dinner;
and once for a day in the country, though not alone; and he was always
the same. Sometimes, on night duty, she would grope for an adjective to
fit him, and could only think of "tender." He was that. And she hated it,
or all but hated it. She did not want tenderness from him, for it seemed
to her that tenderness meant that he was, as it were, standing aloof from
her, considering, helping when he could. She demanded the fierce rush of
passion with which he would seize and shrine her in the centre of his
heart, deaf to her entreaties, careless of her pain. She would love then,
she thought, and sometimes, going to the window of the ward and staring
out over the harbour at the twinkling lights, she would bite her lip with
the pain of it. He had thought she dismissed love lightly when she called
it animal passion. Good God, if he only knew!...

Peter, for his part, did not realise so completely the change that had
come over him. For one thing, he saw himself all the time, and she did
not. She did not see him when he lay on his bed in a tense agony of
desire for her. She did not see him when life looked like a tumbled heap
of ruins to him and she smiled beyond. She all but only saw him when he
was staring at the images that had been presented to him during the past
months, or hearing in imagination Louise's quaintly accepted English and
her quick and vivid "La pauvre petite!"

For it was Louise, curiously enough, who affected him most in these days.
A friendship sprang up between them of which no one knew. Pennell and
Donovan, with whom he went everywhere, did not speak of it either to him
or to one another, with that real chivalry that is in most men, but if
they had they would have blundered, misunderstanding. Arnold, of whom
Peter saw a good deal, did not know, or, if he knew, Peter never knew
that he knew. Julie, who was well aware of his friendship with the two
first men, knew that he saw French girls, and, indeed, openly chaffed
him about it. But under her chaff was an anxiety, typical of her. She did
not know how far he went in their company, and she would have given
anything to know. She guessed that, despite everything, he had had no
physical relationship with any one of them, and she almost wished it
might be otherwise. She knew well that if he fell to them, he would the
more readily turn to her. There was a strength about him now that she
dreaded.

Whatever Louise thought she kept wonderfully hidden. He took her out to
dinner in quiet places, and she would take him home to coffee, and they
would chat, and there was an end. She was seemingly well content. She did
her business, and they would even speak of it. "I cannot come to-night,
mon ami," she would say; "I am busy." She would nod to him as she passed
out of the restaurant with someone else, and he would smile back at her.
Nor did he ever remonstrate or urge her to change her ways. And she
knew why. He had no key with which to open her cage.

Once, truly, he attempted it, and it was she who refused the glittering
thing. He rarely came uninvited to her flat, for obvious reasons; but one
night she heard him on the stairs as she got ready for bed. He was
walking unsteadily, and she thought at first that he had been drinking.
She opened to him with the carelessness her life had taught her, her
costume off, and her black hair all about her shoulders. "Go in and wait,
Peterr," she said; "I come."

She had slipped on a coloured silk wrap, and gone in to the sitting-room
to find him pacing up and down. She smiled. "Sit down, mon ami," she
said; "I will make the coffee. See, it is ready. Mais vraiment, you shall
drink cafe noir to-night. And one leetle glass of this--is it not so?"
and she took a green bottle of peppermint liqueur from the cupboard.

"Coffee, Louise," he said, "but not the other. I don't want it."

She turned and looked more closely at him then. "Non," she said, "pardon.
But sit you down. Am I to have the wild beast prowling up and down in my
place?"

"That's just it, Louise," he cried; "I am a wild beast to-night. I can't
stand it any longer. Kiss me."

He put his arms round her, and bent her head back, studying her French
and rather inscrutable eyes, her dark lashes, her mobile mouth, her long
white throat. He put his hand caressingly upon it, and slid his fingers
beneath the loose lace that the open wrap exposed. "Dear," he said, "I
want you to-night."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25