Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable

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Peter made the only possible answer, and they went back to the bedroom.
The man was bringing up her luggage, and he deposited it on the
luggage-stool. "Heavens!" said Julie, "where are my keys? Oh, I know, in
my purse. I hope you haven't lost it. Do give it to me. The suit-case is
beautifully packed, but the trunk is in an appalling mess. I had to throw
my things in anyhow. By the way, I wonder what they'll make of different
initials on all our luggage? Not that it matters a scrap, especially
these days. Besides, I don't suppose they noticed."

She was on her knees by the trunk, and had undone it. She lifted the lid,
and Peter saw the confusion inside, and caught sight of the unfamiliar
clothes, Julie was rummaging everywhere. "I know I've left them behind!"
she exclaimed. "Whatever shall I do? My scent and powder-puff! Peter,
it's terrible! I can't go to Soho to dinner without them."

"Let's go and get some," he suggested; "there's time."

"No, I can't," she said. "You go. Don't be long. I want to sit in front
of the fire and be cosy."

Peter set off on the unfamiliar errand, smiling grimly to himself. He got
the scent easily enough, and then inquired for a powder-puff. In the old
days he would scarcely have dared; but he had been in France. He selected
a little French box with a mirror in the lid and a pretty rosebud
pattern, and paid for it unblushingly. Then he returned.

He opened the door of their sitting-room, and stood transfixed for a
minute. The shaded reading-lamp was on, the other lights off. The fire
glowed red, and Julie lay stretched out in a big chair, smoking a
cigarette. She turned and looked up at him over her shoulder. She had
taken off her dress and slipped on a silk kimono, letting her hair down,
which fell in thick tumbled masses about her. The arm that held the
cigarette was stretched up above her, and the wide, loose sleeve of the
kimono had slipped back, leaving it bare to her shoulder. Her white
frilled petticoat showed beneath, as she had pushed her feet out before
her to the warmth of the fire. Peter's blood pounded in his temples.

"Good boy," she said; "you haven't been long. Come and show me. I had to
get comfortable: I hope you don't mind."

He came slowly forward without a word and bent over her. The scent of her
rose intoxicatingly around him as he bent down for a kiss. Their lips
clung together, and the wide world stood still.

Julie made room for him beside her. "You dear old thing," she exclaimed
at the sight of the powder-puff. "It's a gem. You couldn't have bettered
it in Paris." She opened it, took out the little puff, and dabbed her
open throat. Then, laughing, she dabbed at him: "Don't look so solemn,"
she said, "Solomon!"

Peter slipped one arm round her beneath the kimono, and felt her warm
relaxed waist. Then he pushed his other hand, unresisted, in where her
white throat gleamed bare and open to him, and laid his lips on her hair.
"Oh, Julie," he said, "I had no idea one could love so. It is almost more
than I can bear."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck a half-hour, and Julie stirred in his
arms and glanced up. "Good Lord, Peter!" she exclaimed, "do you know what
the time is? Half-past seven! I shall never be dressed, and we shall get
no dinner. Let me up, for goodness sake, and give me a drink if you've
got such a thing. If not, ring for it. I shall never have energy enough
to get into my things otherwise."

Peter opened the little door of the sideboard and got out decanter,
siphon, and glasses. Julie, sitting up and arranging herself, smiled at
him. "Is there a single thing you haven't thought of, you old dear?" she
said.

"Say when," said Peter, coming towards her. Then he poured himself out a
tumbler and stood by the fire, looking at her.

"It's a pity we have to go out at all," he said, "for I suppose you can't
go like that."

"A pity? It's a jolly good thing. You wait till you've seen my frock, my
dear. But, Peter, do you think there's likely to be anyone there that we
know?"

He shook his head. "Not there, at any rate," he said.

"Here?"

"More likely, but it's such a big place we're not likely to meet them,
even so. But if you feel nervous, do you know the best cure? Come down
into the lounge, and see the crowd of people. You sit there and people
stream by, and you don't know a face. It's the most comfortable, feeling
in the world. One's more alone than on a desert island. You might be a
ghost that no one sees."

Julie shuddered. "Peter don't! You make me feel creepy." She got up "Go
and find that maid, will you? I want her to help me dress."

Peter walked to the bell and rang it, "Where do I come in?" he asked.

"Well, you can go and wash in the bathroom, and if you're frightened of
her you can dress there!" And she walked to the door laughing.

"I'll just finish my drink," he said. "You will be heaps longer than I."

Five minutes later, having had no answer to his ring, he switched off the
light, and walked out into the hall He hesitated at Julie's door, then he
tapped. "Come in," she said.

She was standing half-dressed in front of the glass doing her hair, "Oh,
it's you, is it?" she said. "Wherever is that maid? I can't wait all
night for her; you'll have to help."

Peter sat down and began to change. Half-surreptitiously he watched Julie
moving about, and envied her careless abandon. He was much the more
nervous of the two.

Presently she called him from the bathroom to fasten her dress. When it
was done, she stood back for him to examine her.

"That all right?" she demanded, putting a touch here and there.

Not every woman could have worn her gown. It was a rose pink with some
rich flame-coloured material in front, and was held by two of the
narrowest bands on her shoulders. In the deep _decollete_ she pushed
two rosebuds from the big bunch, and hung round her neck a pendant of
mother-of-pearl and silver. She wore no other jewellery, and she needed
none. She faced him, a vision of loveliness.

They went down the stairs together and out into the crush of people, some
of the women in evening dress, but few of the men. The many uniforms
looked better, Peter thought, despite the drab khaki. They had to stand
for awhile while a taxi was found, Julie laughing and chatting
vivaciously. She had a wrap for her shoulders that she had bought in Port
Said, set with small metallic points, and it sparkled about her in the
blaze of light. She flattered him by seeming unconscious of anyone else,
and put her hand on his arm as they went out.

They drove swiftly through back-streets to the restaurant that Peter had
selected, and stopped in a quiet, dark, narrow road off Greek Street.
Julie got out and looked around with pretended fear. "Where in the world
have you brought me?" she demanded. "However did you find the place?
It's worse than some of your favourite places in Havre."

Inside, however, she looked round appreciatively. "Really, Peter, it's
splendid," she said under her breath--"just the place," and smiled
sweetly on the padrone who came forward, bowing. Peter had engaged a
table, and they were led to it.

"I had almost given you up, sir," said the man, "but by good fortune,
some of our patrons are late too."

They sat down opposite to each other, and studied the menu held out to
them by a waiter. "I don't know the meaning of half the dishes," laughed
Julie. "You order. It'll be more fun if I don't know what's coming."

"We must drink Chianti," said Peter, and ordered a bottle. "You can think
you are in Italy."

Elbows on the table as she waited, Julie looked round. In the far corner
a gay party of four were halfway through dinner. Two officers, an elderly
lady and a young one, she found rather hard to place, but Julie decided
the girl was the fiancee of one who had brought his friend to meet her.
At other tables were mostly couples, and across the room from her, with
an elderly officer, sat a well-made-up woman, very plainly _demimonde_.
Immediately before her were four men, two of them foreigners, in morning
dress, talking and eating hare. It was evidently a professional party,
and one of the four now and again hummed out a little air to the
rest, and once jotted down some notes on the back of a programme. They
took no notice of anyone, but the eyes of the woman with the officer, who
hardly spoke to her, searched Julie unblushingly.

Julie, gave a little sigh of happiness. "This is lovely, Peter," she
said. "We'll be ages over dinner. It's such fun to be in nice clothes
just for dinner sometimes and not to have to worry about the time, and
going on elsewhere. But I do wish my friends could see me, I must say.
They'd be horrified. They thought I was going to a stodgy place in West
Kensington. I was must careful to be vague, but that was the idea. Peter,
how would you like to live in a suburb and have heaps of children, and
dine out with city men and their wives once or twice a month for a
treat?"

Peter grimaced. Then he looked thoughtful. "It wouldn't have been any so
remarkable for me at one time, Julie," he said.

She shook her head. "It would, my dear. You're not made for it."

"What am I made for, then?"

She regarded him solemnly, and then relaxed into a smile. "I haven't a
notion, but not that. The thing is never to worry. You get what you're
made for in the end, I think."

"I wonder," said Peter. "Perhaps, but not always. The world's full of
square pegs in round holes."

"Then they're stodgy pegs, without anything in them. If I was a square
peg I'd never go into a round hole."

"Suppose there was no other hole to go into," demanded Peter.

"Then I'd fall out, or I wouldn't go into any hole at all. I'd sooner be
anything in the world than stodgy, Peter. I'd sooner be like that woman
over there who is staring at me so!"

Peter glanced to one side, and then back at Julie. He was rather grave.
"Would you really?" he questioned.

The waiter brought the Chianti and poured out glasses. Julie waited till
he had gone, and then lifted hers and looked at Peter across it. "I
would," she said. "I couldn't live without wine and excitement and song.
I'm made that way. Cheerio, Solomon!"

They drank to each other. Then: "And love?" queried Peter softly.

Julie did not reply for a minute. She set her wine-glass down and toyed
with the stem. Then she looked up at him under her eyelashes with that
old daring look of hers, and repeated: "And love, Peter. But real love,
not stodgy humdrum liking, Peter. I want the love that's like the hot
sun, and the wide, tossing blue sea east of Suez, and the nights under
the moon where the real world wakes up and doesn't go to sleep, like it
does in the country in the cold, hard North. Do you know," she went on,
"though I love the cities, and bands, and restaurants, and theatres, and
taxis, and nice clothes, I love best of all the places where one has none
of these things. I once went with a shooting-party to East Africa, Peter,
and that's what I love. I shall never forget the nights at Kilindini,
with the fireflies dancing among the bushes, and the moon glistening on
the palms as if they were wet, and the insects shrilling in the grass,
and the hot, damp air. Or by day, up in the forest, camped under the
great trees, with the strange few flowers and the silence, while the sun
trickled through the leaves and made pools of light on the ground. Do you
know, I saw the most beautiful thing I've ever seen or, I think, shall
see in that forest."

"What was that?" asked Peter, under her spell, for she was speaking like
a woman in a dream.

"It was one day when we were marching. We came on a glade among the
trees, and at the end of it, a little depression of damp green grass,
only the grass was quite hidden beneath a sheet of blue--such blue, I
can't describe it--that quivered and moved in the sun. We stood quite
still, and then a boy threw a little stone. And the blue all rose in the
air, silently, like magic. It was a swarm of hundreds and hundreds of
blue butterflies, Peter. Do you know what I did? I cried--I couldn't help
it. It was too beautiful to see, Peter."

A little silence fell between them. She broke it in another tone.

"And the natives--I love the natives. I just love the all but naked girls
carrying the water up to the village in the evening, tall and straight,
like Greek statues; and the men, in a string of beads and a spear. I
wanted to go naked myself there--at least, I did till one day I tried it,
and the sun skinned me in no time. But at least one needn't wear
much--cool loose things, and it doesn't matter what one does or says."

Peter laughed. "Who was with you when you tried the experiment?" he
demanded.

Julie threw her head back, and even the professional four glanced up and
looked at her. "Ah, wouldn't you like to know?" she laughed. "Well, I
won't tease you--two native girls if you want to know, that was all. The
rest of the party were having a midday sleep. But I never can sleep
at midday. I don't mind lying in a hammock or a deck-chair, and reading,
but I can't sleep. One feels so beastly when one wakes up, doesn't one?"

Peter nodded, but steered her back. "Tell me more," he said. "You wake
something up in me; I feel as if I was born to be there."

"Well," she said reflectively, "I don't know that anything can beat the
great range that runs along our border in Natal. It's different, of
course, but it's very wonderful. There's one pass I know--see here, you
go up a wide valley with a stream that runs in and out, and that you have
to cross again and again until it narrows and narrows to a small footpath
between great kranzes. At first there are queer stunted trees and bushes
about, with the stream, that's now a tiny thing of clear water, singing
among them, and there the trees stop, and you climb up and up among the
boulders, until you think you can do no more, and at the last you come
out on the top."

"And then?"

"You're in wonderland. Before you lies peak on peak, grass-grown and
rocky, so clear in the rare, still air. There is nothing there but
mountain and rock and grass, and the blue sky, with perhaps little clouds
being blown across it, and a wind that's cool and vast--you feel it fills
everything. And you look down the way you've come, and there's all Natal
spread out at your feet like a tiny picture, lands and woods and rivers,
till it's lost in the mist of the distance."

She ceased, staring at her wine-glass. At last the chatter of the place
broke in on Peter. "My dear," he exclaimed, "one can see it. But what do
you do there?"

She laughed and broke the spell. "What would one do?" she demanded. "Eat
and drink and sleep, and make love, Peter, if there's anybody to make
love to."

"But you couldn't do that all your life," he objected.

"Why not? Why do anything else? I never can see. And when you're
tired--for you _do_ get tired at last--back to Durban for a
razzle-dazzle, or back farther still, to London or Paris for a bit.
That's the life for me, Peter!"

He smiled: "Provided somebody is there with the necessary, I suppose?" he
said.

"Solomon," she mocked, "Solomon, Solomon! Why do you spoil it all? But
you're right, of course, Peter, though I hate to think of that."

"I see how we're like, and how we're unlike, Julie," said Peter suddenly,
"You like real things, and so do I. You hate to feel stuffy and tied up
in conventions, and so do I. But you're content with just that, and I'm
not."

"Am I?" she queried, looking at him a little strangely.

Peter did not notice; he was bent on pursuing his argument. "Yes, you
are," he said. "When you're in the grip of real vital things--nature
naked and unashamed--you have all you want. You don't stop to think of
to-morrow. You live. But I, I feel that there is something round the
corner all the time. I feel as if there must be something bigger than
just that. I'd love your forest and your range and your natives, I think,
but only because one is nearer something else with them than here. I
don't know how to put it, but when you think of those things you feel
_full_, and I still feel _empty_."

"Peter," said Julie softly, "do you remember Caudebec?"

He looked up at her then. "I shall never forget it, dear," he said.

"Then you'll remember our talk in the car?"

He nodded. "When you talked about marriage and human nature and men, and
so on," he said.

"No, I don't mean that. I did talk of those things, and I gave you a
little rather bitter philosophy that is more true than you think; but I
don't mean that. Afterwards, when we spoke about shams and playing. Do
you remember, I hinted that a big thing might come along--do you
remember?"

He nodded again, but he did not speak.

"Well," she said, "it's come--that's all."

"Another bottle of Chianti, sir?" queried the padrone at his elbow.

Peter started. "What? Oh, yes, please," he said. "We can manage another
bottle, Julie? And bring on the dessert now, will you? Julie, have a
cigarette."

"If we have another bottle you must drink most of it," she laughed,
almost as if they had not been interrupted, but with a little vivid
colour in her cheeks. "Otherwise, my dear, you'll have to carry me
upstairs, which won't look any too well. But I want another glass. Oh,
Peter, do look at that woman now!"

Peter looked. The elderly officer had dined to repletion and drank well
too. The woman had roused herself; she was plainly urging him to come on
out; and as Peter glanced over, she made an all but imperceptible sign to
a waiter, who bustled forward with the man's cap and stick. He took them
stupidly, and the woman helped him up, but not too noticeably. Together
they made for the door, which the waiter held wide open. The woman tipped
him, and he bowed. The door closed, and the pair disappeared into the
street.

"A damned plucky sort," said Julie; "I don't care what anyone says."

"I didn't think so once, Julie," said Peter, "but I believe you're right
now. It's a topsy-turvy world, little girl, and one never knows where one
is in it."

"Men often don't," said Julie, "but women make fewer mistakes. Come,
Peter, let's get back. I want the walk, and I want that cosy little
room."

He drained his glass and got up. Suddenly the thought of the physical
Julie ran through him like fire. "Rather!" he said gaily. "So do I,
little girl."

The waiter pulled back the chairs. The padrone came up all bows and
smiles. He hoped the Captain would come again--any time. It was better to
ring up, as they were often very full. A taxi? No? Well, the walk through
the streets was enjoyable after dinner, even now, when the lights were so
few. Good-evening, madame; he hoped everything had been to her liking.

Julie sauntered across the now half-empty little room, and took Peter's
arm in the street. "Do you know the way?" she demanded.

"We can't miss it," he said. "Up here will lead us to Shaftesbury Avenue
somewhere, and then we go down. Sure you want to walk, darling?"

"Yes, and see the people, Peter, I love seeing them. Somehow by night
they're more natural than they are by day. I hate seeing people going to
work in droves, and men rushing about the city with dollars written all
across their faces. At night that's mostly finished with. One can see
ugly things, but some rather beautiful ones as well. Let's cross over.
There are more people that side."

They passed together down the big street. Even the theatres were darkened
to some extent, but taxis were about, and kept depositing their loads of
men and smiling women. The street-walks held Tommies, often plainly with
a sweet-heart from down east; men who sauntered along and scanned the
faces of the women; a newsboy or two; a few loungers waiting to pick up
odd coppers; and here and there a woman by herself. It was the usual
crowd, but they were in the mood to see the unusual in usual things.

In the Circus they lingered a little. Shrouded as it was, an atmosphere
of mystery hung over everything. Little groups that talked for a while
at the corners or made appointments, or met and broke up again, had the
air of conspirators in some great affair. The rush of cars down Regent
Street, and then this way and that, lent colour to the thought, and
it affected both of them. "What's brooding over it all, Julie?" Peter
half-whispered. "Can't you feel that there is something?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and then gave a little shiver. "Love, or what
men take for love," she said.

He clasped the hand that lay along his arm passionately. "Come along," he
said.

"Oh, this _is_ good, Peter," said Julie a few minutes later. She had
thrown off her wrap, and was standing by the fire while he arranged the
cigarettes, the biscuits, and a couple of drinks on the little table with
its shaded light. "Did you lock the door? Are we quite alone, we two, at
last, with all the world shut out?"

He came swiftly over to her, and took her in his arms for answer. He
pressed kisses on her hair, her lips, her neck, and she responded to
them.

"Oh, love, love," he said, "let's sit down and forget that there is
anything but you and I."

She broke from him with a little laugh of excitement. "We will, Peter,"
she said; "but I'm going to take off this dress and one or two other
things, and let my hair down. Then I'll come back."

"Take them off here," he said; "you needn't go away."

She looked at him and laughed again. "Help me, then," she said, and
turned her back for him to loosen her dress.

Clumsily he obeyed. He helped her off with the shimmering beautiful
thing, and put it carefully over a chair. With deft fingers she loosened
her hair, and he ran his fingers through it, and buried his face in the
thick growth of it. She untied a ribbon at her waist, and threw from
her one or two of her mysterious woman's things. Then, with a sigh of
utter abandonment, she threw herself into his arms.

They sat long over the fire. Outside the dull roar of the sleepless city
came faintly up to them, and now and again a coal fell in the grate. At
long last Peter pushed her back a little from him. "Little girl," he
said, "I must ask one thing. Will you forgive me? That night at
Abbeville, after we left Langton, what was it you wouldn't tell me?
What was it you thought he would have known about you, but not I? Julie,
I thought, to-night--was it anything to do with East Africa--those
tropical nights under the moon? Oh, tell me, Julie!"

The girl raised her eyes to his. That look of pain and knowledge that he
had seen from the beginning was in them again. Her hand clasped the
lappet of his tunic convulsively, and she seemed to him indeed but a
little girl.

"Peter! could you not have asked? But no, you couldn't, not you.... But
you guess now, don't you? Oh, Peter, I was so young, and I thought--oh,
I thought: the big thing had come, and since then life's been all one
big mockery. I've laughed at it, Peter: it was the only way. And then
you came along. I haven't dared to think, but there's something about
you--oh, I don't know what! But you don't play tricks, do you, Peter?
And you've given me all, at last, without a question.... Oh, Peter, tell
me you love me still! It's your love, Peter, that can make me clean and
save my soul--if I've any soul to save," she added brokenly.

Peter caught her to him. He crushed he so that she caught her breath with
the pain of it, and he wound his hand all but savagely in her hair. He
got up--and she never guessed he had the strength--and carried her out in
his arms, and into the other room.

And hours later, staring into the blackness while she slept as softly as
a child by his side, he could not help smiling a little to himself. It
was all so different from what he had imagined.

CHAPTER VIII

Peter awoke, and wondered where he was. Then his eye fell on a half-shut,
unfamiliar trunk across the room, and he heard splashing through the open
door of the bathroom. "Julie!" he called.

A gurgle of laughter came from the same direction and the splashing
ceased. Almost the next second Julie appeared in the doorway. She was
still half-wet from the water, and her sole dress was a rosebud which she
had just tucked into her hair. She stood there, laughing, a perfect
vision of unblushing natural loveliness, splendidly made from her little
head poised lightly on her white shoulders to her slim feet. "You lazy
creature!" she exclaimed; "you're awake at last, are you? Get up at
once," and she ran over to him just as she was, seizing the bed-clothes
and attempting to strip them off. Peter protested vehemently. "You're a
shameless baggage," he said, "and I don't want to get up yet. I want some
tea and a cigarette in bed. Go away!"

"You won't get up, won't you?" she said. "All right; I'll get into bed,
then," and she made as if to do so.

"Get away!" he shouted. "You're streaming wet! You'll soak everything."

"I don't care," she retorted, laughing and struggling at the same time,
and she succeeded in getting a foot between the sheets. Peter slipped out
on the other side, and she ran round to him. "Come on," she said; "now
for your bath. Not another moment. My water's steaming hot, and it's
quite good enough for you. You can smoke in your bath or after it. Come
on!"

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