Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable

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It was still very early, and the Circus looked empty and strange. He
walked down Piccadilly, and wondered at the clean, soft touch of the
dawning day, and recalled another memorable Sunday morning walk. He
passed very familiar places, and was conscious of feeling an exile, an
inevitable one, but none the less an exile, for all that. And so he came
into St. James's Park, still as aimlessly as he had left the hotel.

Before him, clear as a pointing finger in the morning sky, was the
campanile of that stranger among the great cathedrals of England. It
attracted him for the first time, and he made all but unconsciously
towards it, Peter was not even in the spiritual street that leads to the
gates of the Catholic Church, and it was no incipient Romanism that moved
him. He was completely ignorant of the greater part of that faith, and,
still more, had no idea of the gulf that separates it from all other
religions. He would have supposed, if he had stopped to think, that, as
with other sects, one considered its tenets, made up one's mind as to
their truth or falsehood one by one, and if one believed a sufficient
majority of them joined the Church. It was only, then, the mood of the
moment, and when, he found himself really moving towards that finger-post
he excused himself by thinking that as he was, by his own act, exiled,
from, more familiar temples, he would visit this that would have about it
a suggestion of France.

He wondered if it would be open as he turned into Ashley Gardens. He
glanced at his watch; it was only just after seven. Perhaps an early Mass
might be beginning. He went to the central doors and found them fast;
then he saw little groups of people and individuals like himself making
for the door in the great tower, and these he followed within.

He stood amazed for a few minutes. The vast soaring space, so austere in
its bare brick, gripped his imagination. The white and red and gold of
the painted Christ that hung so high and monstrous before the entrance to
the marbles of the sanctuary almost troubled him. It dominated everything
so completely that he felt he could not escape it. He sought one of the
many chairs and knelt down.

A little bell tinkled, Peter glanced sideways towards the sound, and
saw that a Mass was in progress in a side-chapel of gleaming mosaics,
and that a soldier in uniform served. Hardly had he taken the details
in, when another bell claimed his attention. It came from across the
wide nave, and he perceived that another chapel had its Mass, and a
considerable congregation. And then, his attention aroused, he began to
spy about and to take in the thing.

The whole vast cathedral was, as it were, alive. Seven or eight Masses
were in progress. One would scarcely finish before another priest,
preceded by soldier in uniform or server in cassock and cotta, would
appear from beyond the great pulpit and make his way to yet another
altar. The small handbells rang out again and again and again, and still
priest after priest was there to take his place. Peter began cautiously
to move about. He became amazed at the size of the congregation. They had
been lost in that great place, but every chapel had its people, and there
were, in reality, hundreds scattered about in the nave alone.

He knelt for awhile and watched the giving of Communion in the guarded
chapel to the north of the high altar. Its gold and emblazoned gates were
not for him, but he could at least kneel and watch those who passed in
and out. They were of all sorts and classes, of all ranks and ages; men,
women, children, old and young, rich and poor, soldier and civilian,
streamed in and out again. Peter sighed and left them. He found an altar
at which Mass was about to begin, and he knelt at the back on a mosaic
pavement in which fishes and strange beasts were set in a marble stream,
and watched. And it was not one Mass that he watched, but two or three,
and it was there that a vision grew on his inner understanding, as he
knelt and could not pray.

It is hard and deceptive to write of those subconscious imaginings that
convict the souls of most men some time or another. In that condition
things are largely what we fashion them to be, and one may be thought to
be asserting their ultimate truth in speaking of their influence. But
there is no escaping from the fact that Peter Graham of a lost allegiance
began that Sunday morning to be aware of another claimant. And this is
what dawned upon him, and how.

A French memory gave him a starting-point. Here, at these Low Masses, it
was more abundantly plain than ever that these priests did not conceive
themselves to be serving a congregation, but an altar. One after the
other they moved through a ritual, and spoke low sentences that hardly
reached him, with their eyes holden by that which they did. At first he
was only conscious of this, but then he perceived the essential change
that came over each in his turn. The posturing and speaking was but
introductory to the moment when they raised the Host and knelt before it.
It was as if they were but functionaries ushering in a King, and then
effacing themselves before Him.

Here, then, the Old Testament of Peter's past became to him a
schoolmaster. He heard himself repeating again the comfortable words of
the Prayer-Book service: "Come unto Me...." "God so loved...." "If any
man sin...." Louise's hot declaration forced itself upon him: "It is He
Who is there." And it was then that the eyes of his mind were enlightened
and he saw a vision--not, indeed, of the truth of the Roman Mass (if it
be true), and not of the place of the Sacrament in the Divine scheme of
things, but the conception of a love so great that it shook him as if
it were a storm, and bowed him before it as if he were a reed.

The silent, waiting Jesus.... All these centuries, in every land.... How
He had been mocked, forgotten, spurned, derided, denied, cast out; and
still He waited. Prostitutes of the streets, pardoned in a word, advanced
towards Him, and He knew that so shortly again, within the secret place
of their hearts, He would be crucified; but still He waited. Careless
men, doubtless passion-mastered, came up to Him, and He knew the sort
that came; but still He waited. He, Peter, who had not known He was here
at all, and who had gone wandering off in search of any mistress, spent
many days, turned in by chance, and found Him here. What did He wait for?
Nothing; there was nothing that anyone could give, nothing but a load of
shame, the offering of a body spent by passionate days, the kiss of
traitor-lips; but still He waited. He did more than wait. He offered
Himself to it all. He had bound Himself by an oath to be kissed if Judas
planned to kiss Him, and He came through the trees to that bridal with
the dawn of every day. He had foreseen the chalice, foreseen that it
would be filled at every moon and every sun by the bitter gall of
ingratitude and wantonness and hate, but He had pledged Himself--"Even
so, Father"--and He was here to drink it. Small wonder, then, that the
paving on which Peter Graham knelt seemed to swim before his eyes until
it was in truth a moving ocean of love that streamed from the altar and
enclosed of every kind, and even him.

The movement of chairs and the gathering of a bigger congregation than
usual near a chapel that Peter perceived to be for the dead aroused him.
He got up to go. He walked quickly up Victoria Street, and marvelled over
the scene he had left. In sight of Big Ben he glanced up--twenty to nine!
He had been, then, an hour and a half in the cathedral. He recalled
having read that a Mass took half an hour, and he began to reckon how
many persons had heard Mass even while he had been there. Not less than
five hundred at every half-hour, and most probably more. Fifteen hundred
to two thousand souls, of every sort and kind, then, had been drawn in to
that all but silent ceremony, to that showing of Jesus crucified. A
multitude--and what compassion!

Thus he walked home, thinking of many things, but the vision he had seen
was uppermost and would not be displaced. It was still in his eyes as he
entered their bedroom and found Julie looking at a magazine as she lay in
bed, smoking a cigarette.

"Lor', Peter, are you back? I suppose I ought to be up, but I was so
sleepy. What's the time? Why, what's the matter? Where have you been?"

Peter did not go over to her at once as she had expected. It was not that
he felt he could not, or anything like that, but simply that he was only
thinking of her in a secondary way. He walked to the dressing-table and
lifted the flowers she had worn the night before and put there in a
little glass.

"Where have you been, old Solomon?" demanded Julie again.

"Seeing wonders, Julie," said Peter, looking dreamily at the blossoms.

"No? Really? What? Do tell me. If it was anything I might have seen, you
were a beast not to come back for me, d'you hear?"

Peter turned and stared at her, but she knew as he looked that he hardly
saw her. Her tone changed, and she made a little movement with her hand,
"Tell me, Peter," she said again.

"I've seen," said Peter slowly, "a bigger thing than I thought the world
could hold, I've seen something so wonderful, Julie, that it hurt--oh,
more than I can say. I've seen Love, Julie."

She could not help it. It was a foolish thing to say just then, she knew,
but it came out. "Oh, Peter," she said, "did you have to leave me to see
that?"

"Leave you?" he questioned, and for a moment so lost in his thought was
he that he did not understand what she meant. Then it dawned on him, and
he smiled. He did not see as he stood there, the clumsy Peter, how the
two were related. So he smiled, and he came over to her, and took her
hand, and sat on the bed, his eyes still full of light. "Oh, you've
nothing to do with it," he said. "It's far bigger than you or I, Julie.
Our love is like a candle held up to the sun beside it. Our love wants
something, doesn't it? It burns, it--it intoxicates, Julie. But this love
waits, _waits_, do you understand? It asks nothing; it gives, it suffices
all. Year after year it just waits, Julie, waits for anyone, waits for
everyone. And you can spurn it, spit on it, crucify it, and it is still
there when you--need, Julie." And Peter leaned forward, and buried his
face in her little hand.

Julie heard him through, and it was well that before the end he did not
see her eyes. Then she moved her other hand which held the half-burnt
cigarette and dropped the smoking end (so that it made a little hiss)
into her teacup on the glass-topped table, and brought her hand back, and
caressed his hair as he lay bent forward there. "Dear old Peter," she
said tenderly, "how he thinks things! And when you saw this--this love,
Peter, how did you feel?"

He did not answer for a minute, and when he did he did not raise his
head. "Oh, I don't know, Julie," he said. "It went through and through
me. It was like a big sea, and it flooded me away. It filled me. I seemed
to drink it in at every pore. I felt satisfied just to be there."

"And then you came back to Julie, eh, Peter?" she questioned.

"Why, of course," he said, sitting up with a smile. "Why not?" He gave a
little laugh. "Why, Julie," he said, "I never thought of that before. I
suppose I ought to have been--oh, I don't know, but our days together
didn't seem to make any difference. That Love was too big. It seemed
to me to be too big to be--well, jealous, I suppose."

She nodded. "That would be just it, Peter. That's how it would seem
to you. You see, I know. It's strange, my dear, but I don't feel
either--jealous."

He frowned. "What do you mean?" he said. "Don't you understand? It was
God's Love that I saw."

She hesitated a second, and then her face relaxed into a smile. "You're
as blind as a bat, my dear, but I suppose all men are, and so you can't
help it. Now go and ring for breakfast and smoke a cigarette in the
sitting-room while I dress." And Peter, because he hated to be called a
bat and did not feel in the least like one, went.

He rang the bell, and the maid answered it. She did not wait for him to
give his order, but advanced towards him, her eyes sparkling. "Oh, sir,"
she said, "is madame up? I don't know how to thank her, and you too. I've
wanted a frame for Jack's picture, but I couldn't get a real good one,
I couldn't. When I sees this parcel I couldn't think _what_ it was. I
forgot even as how I'd give the lady my name. Oh, she's the real good
one, she is. You'll forgive me, sir, but I know a real lady when I see
one. They haven't got no airs, and they know what a girl feels like,
right away. I put Jack in it, sir, on me table, and if there's anything
I can do for you or your lady, now or ever, I'll do it, sir."

Peter smiled at the little outburst, but his heart warmed within him. How
just like Julie it was! "Well," he said, "it's the lady you've really to
thank. Knock, if you like; I expect she'll let you in. And then order
breakfast, will you? Bacon and eggs and some fish. Thanks." And he turned
away.

She made for the door, but stopped, "I near forgot, sir," she said. "A
gentleman left this for you last night, and they give it to me at the
office--this morning. There was no answer, he said. He went by this
morning's train." She handed Peter an unstamped envelope bearing the
hotel's name, and left the room as he opened it. He did not recognise
the handwriting, but he tore it open and glanced at once at the
signature, and got a very considerable surprise, not to say a shock.
It was signed "Jack Donovan."

"MY DEAR GRAHAM, [the letter ran],

"Forgive me for writing, but I must tell you that I've seen you twice
with Julie (and each time neither of you saw anyone else but
yourselves!). It seems mean to see you and not say so, but for the Lord's
sake don't think it'll go further, or that I reproach you. I've been
there myself, old bird, and in any case I don't worry about other
people's shows. But I want to tell you a bit of news--Tommy Raynard and I
have fixed it up. I know you'll congratulate me. She's topping, and just
the girl for me--no end wiser than I, and as jolly as anyone, really. I
don't know how you and Julie are coming out of it, and I won't guess, for
it's a dreadful war; but maybe you'll be able to sympathise with me at
having to leave _my_ girl in France! However, I'm off back to-morrow, a
day before you. If you hadn't run off to Paris, you'd have known. My
leave order was from Havre.

"Well, cheerio. See you before long. And just one word, my boy, from a
fellow who has seen a bit more than you (if you'll forgive me): remember,
_Julie'll know best_.

"Yours, ever,
"JACK DONOVAN."

Peter frowned over his letter, and then smiled, and then frowned again.
He was still at it when he heard Julie's footstep outside, and he thrust
the envelope quickly into his pocket, thinking rapidly. He did not in the
least understand what the other meant, especially by the last sentence,
and he wanted to consider it before showing Julie. Also, he wondered
if it was meant to be shown to Julie at all. He thought not; probably
Donovan was absolutely as good as his word, and would not even mention
anything to Tommy. But he thought no more, for Julie was on him.

"Peter, it's started to rain! I knew it would. Why does it always rain on
Sundays in London? Probably the heavens themselves weep at the sight of
so gloomy a city. However, I don't care a damn! I've made up my mind what
we're going to do. We shall sit in front of the fire all the morning,
and you shall read to me. Will you?"

"Anything you like, my darling," he said; "and we couldn't spend a better
morning. But bacon and eggs first, eh? No, fish first, I mean. But pour
out a cup of tea at once, for Heaven's sake. _I_ haven't had a drop this
morning."

"Poor old thing! No wonder you're a bit off colour. No early tea after
that champagne last night! But, oh, Peter, wasn't _Carminetta_ a dream?"

Breakfast over, Peter sat in a chair and bent over her. "What do you want
me to read, Julie darling?" he demanded.

She considered. "_Not_ a magazine, _not La Vie Parisienne_, though we
might perhaps look at the pictures part of the time. I know! Stop! I'll
get it," She ran out and returned with a little leather-covered book.
"Read it right through, Peter," she said. "I've read it heaps of times,
but I want to hear it again to-day. Do you mind?"

"Omar Khayyam!" exclaimed Peter. "Good idea! He's a blasphemous old
pagan, but the verse is glorious and it fits in at times. Do you want me
to start at once?"

"Give me a cigarette! no, put the box there. Stir up the fire. Come and
sit on the floor with your back to me. That's right. Now fire away."

She leaned back and he began. He read for the rhythm; she listened for
the meaning. He read to the end; she hardly heard more than a stanza:

"Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--_this_ Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the rest is lies--
The flower that once has blown for ever dies."

They lunched in the hotel, and at the table Peter put the first necessary
questions that they both dreaded. "I'm going to tell them to make out my
bill, Julie," he said. "I've to be at Victoria at seven-thirty a.m.
to-morrow, you know. You've still got some leave, haven't you, dear; what
are you going to do? How long will you stay on here?"

"Not after you've gone, Peter," she said. "Let them make it out for me
till after breakfast to-morrow."

"But what are we going to do?" he demanded.

"Oh, don't ask. It spoils to-day to think of to-morrow. Go to my friends,
perhaps--yes, I think that. It's only for a few days now."

"Oh, Julie, I wish I could stay."

"So do I, but you can't, so don't worry. What about this afternoon?"

"If it's stopped raining, let's go for a walk, shall we?"

They settled on that, and it was Julie who took him again to St. James's
Park. As they walked: "Where did you go to church this morning, Peter?"
she asked.

He pointed to the campanile. "Over there," he said.

"Then let's go together to-night," she said.

"Do you mean it, Julie?"

"Of course I do. I'm curious. Besides, it's Sunday, and I want to go to
church."

"But you'll miss dinner," objected Peter. "It begins at six-thirty."

"Well, let's get some food out--Victoria Station, for instance. Won't
that do? We can have some supper sent up afterwards in the hotel."

Peter agreed, but they did not go to the station. In a little cafe
outside Julie saw a South African private eating eggs and bacon, and
nothing would do but that they must do the same. So they went in. They
ate off thick plates, and Julie dropped the china pepper-pot on her eggs
and generally behaved as if she were at a school-treat. But it was a
novelty, and it kept their thoughts off the fact that it was the last
night. And finally they went to church.

The service did not impress Peter, and every time he looked at Julie's
face he wanted to laugh; but the atmosphere of the place did, though he
could not catch the impression of the morning. For the sermon, a
stoutish, foreign-looking ecclesiastic mounted the pulpit, and they both
prepared to be bored. However, he gave out his text, and Peter sat bolt
upright at once. It would have delighted the ears of his Wesleyan
corporal of the Forestry; and more than that it was the text he had
quoted in the ears of the dying Jenks. He prepared keenly to listen. As
for Julie, she was regarding the altar with a far-away look in her eyes,
and she scarcely moved the whole time.

Outside, as soon as they were out of the crowd, Peter began at once.

"Julie," he said, "whatever did you think of that sermon?"

"What did you?" she said. "Tell me first."

"I don't believe you listened at all, but I can't help talking of it. It
was amazing. He began by speaking about Adam and Eve and original sin and
the Garden of Eden as if he'd been there. There might never have been a
Higher Critic in existence. Then he said what sin did, and that sin was
only truly sin if it did do that. _That_ was to hide the face of God, to
put Him and a human being absolutely out of communication, so to speak.
And then he came to Christ, to the Cross. Did you hear him, Julie? Christ
comes in between--He got in between God and man. All the anger that
darted out of God against sin hit Him; all the blows that man struck back
against God hit Him. Do you see that, Julie? That was wonderfully put,
but the end was more wonderful. Both, ultimately, cannot kill the Heart
of Jesus. There's no sin there to merit or to feel the anger, and we can
hurt, but we can't destroy His love."

Peter stopped, "That's what I saw a little this morning," he said after a
minute.

"Well?" said Julie.

"Oh, it's all so plain! If there was a way to that Heart, one would be
safe. I mean, a way that is not an emotional idea, not a subjective
experience, but something practical. Some way that a Tommy could travel,
as easily as anyone, and get to a real thing. And he said there was a
way, and just sketched it, the Sacraments--more than ours, of course,
their seven, all of them more or less, I suppose. He meant that the
Sacraments were not signs of salvation, but salvation itself. Julie, I
never saw the idea before. It's colossal. It's a thing to which one might
dedicate one's life. It's a thing to live and die gladly for. It fills
one. Don't you think so, Julie?" He spoke exultantly.

"Peter, to be honest," said Julie, "I think you're talking fanatical
rubbish."

"Do you really, Julie? You can't, _surely_ you can't."

"But I do, Peter," she said sadly; "it makes no appeal to me. I can only
see one great thing in life, and it's not that. 'The rest is lies,' But,
oh! surely that great thing might not be false too. But why do you see
one thing, and I another, my dear?"

"I don't know," said Peter, "unless--well, perhaps it's a kind of gift,
Julie, 'If thou knewest the gift of God...' Not that I know, only I can
just see a great wonderful vision, and it fills my sight."

"I, too," she said; "but it's not your vision."

"What is it, then?" said he, carried away by his own ideas and hardly
thinking of her.

Her voice brought him back. "Oh, Peter, don't you know even yet?"

He took her arm very tenderly at that. "My darling," he said, "the two
aren't incompatible. Julie, don't be sad. I love you; you know I love
you. I wish we'd never gone to the place if you think I don't, but I
haven't changed towards you a bit, Julie. I love you far, far more than
anyone else. I won't give you up, even to God!"

It was dark where they were. Julie lifted her face to him just there. He
thought he had never heard her speak as she spoke now, there, in a London
street, under the night sky. "Peter, my darling," she said, "my brave
boy. How I love you, Peter! I know _you_ won't give me up, Peter, and I
adore you for it. Peter, hell will be heaven with the memory of that!"
There, then, he sealed her with his kiss.

* * * * *

Julie stirred in his arms, but the movement did not wake him any more
than the knock of the door had done. "All right," she called. "Thank
you," and, leaning over, she switched on the light. It was 5.30, and
necessary. In its radiance she bent over him, and none of her friends had
ever seen her look as she did then. She kissed him, and he opened his
eyes.

"Half-past five, Peter," she said, as gaily as she could. "You've got to
get a move on, my dear. Two hours to dress and pack and breakfast--no, I
suppose you can do that on the train. But you've got to get there. Oh,
Lord, how it brings the war home, doesn't it? Jump up!"

Peter sighed. "Blast the war!" he said lazily. "I shan't move. Kiss me
again, you darling, and let your hair fall over my face."

She did so, and its glossy curtain hid them. Beneath the veil she
whispered; "Come, darling, for my sake. The longer you stay here now,
the harder it will be."

He threw his arms round her, and then jumped out of bed yawning.

"That's it," she said. "Now go and shave and bath while I pack for you.
Hurry up; then we'll get more time."

While he splashed about she sought for his things, and packed for him as
she never packed for herself. As she gathered them she thought of the
night before, when, overwhelmed in a tempest of love, it had all been
left for the morning. She filled the suit-case, but she could not fasten
it.

"Come and help, Peter," she called.

He came out. She was kneeling on it in her loose kimono, her hair all
about her, her nightdress open at the throat. He drank her beauty in, and
then mastered himself for a minute and shut the case. "That all?" she
queried.

"Yes," he said. "You get back into bed, my darling, or you'll catch cold.
I'll be ready in a second, and then we can have a few minutes together."

At the glass he marshalled his arguments, and then he came over to her.
He dropped by the bedside and wound his arms about her. "Julie," he
whispered, "my darling, say you'll marry me--please, _please_!"

She made no reply. He kissed her, unresisting, again and again.

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