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Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable

R >> Robert Keable >> Simon Called Peter




Peter grinned in the dark, and told her.

"Oh, you perfect beast!" she said, "Then you knew the Quai de France all
the time. Well, you're jolly near, anyway." "Oh, Lord!" she exclaimed
suddenly, "you aren't the new padre?"

"I am," said Peter.

"Good Lord! what a spree! Then you'll come in on duty. You can come in
any hour of the day or night. Tommy, do you hear that? Solomon's our
spiritual pastor. He's begun well, hasn't he?"

Peter was silent. It jarred him horribly. But just then the car slowed
down.

"What's up now?" demanded Donovan.

"Only the sentry at the swing bridge," said Tommy. "They stop all cars at
night. He's your side, dear; give him the glad eye."

The door opened, and a red-cap looked in. "Hospital, corporal; it's all
right," said Julie, beaming at him.

"Oh, all right, miss. Good-night," said the man, stepping back and
saluting in the light of the big electric standard at the bridgehead.
"Carry on, driver!"

"We're just there," said Julie; "I am sorry. It's been rippin'. Stop the
car, Solomon, somewhere near the leave-boat; it won't do to drive right
up to the hospital; we might be spotted."

Peter leaned out of the window on his side. The lights on the quay glowed
steadily across the dark water, and made golden flicking streaks upon it
as the tide swelled slowly in. In the distance a great red eye flashed in
and out solemnly, and on their side he could see the shaded lights of the
hospital ship, getting ready for her night crossing. He judged it was
time, and told the man to stop.

"Where's my powder-puff?" demanded Julie. "I believe you've bagged it,
Captain Donovan. No, it's here. Skip out, Tommy. Is anyone about?"

"No," said the girl from the step. "But don't wait all night. We'd best
run for it."

"Well, good-night," said Julie. "You have both been dears, but whether
I'm steady enough to get in safely I don't know. Still, Tommy's a rock.
See you again soon. Good-bye-ee!"

She leaned forward. "_Now_, if you're good," she said to Donovan. He
kissed her, laughing; and before he knew what she was doing, she reached
over to Peter, kissed him twice on the lips, and leaped lightly out. "Be
good," she said, "and if you can't, be careful."




CHAPTER VII


Following a delay of some days, there had been a fairly heavy mail, and
Peter took his letters to the little terrace by the sea outside the mess,
and sat in the sun to read them. While he was so occupied Arnold appeared
with a pipe, but, seeing him engaged, went back for a novel and a
deck-chair. It was all very peaceful and still, and beyond occasional
hammering from, the leisurely construction of the outer harbour wall and
once or twice the siren of a signalling steamer entering the docks, there
was nothing to disturb them at all. Perhaps half an hour passed, then
Peter folded up some sheets, put them in his pocket, and walked moodily
to the edge of the concrete, staring down, at the lazy slushing of the
tide against: the wall below him.

He kicked a pebble discontentedly into the water, and turned to look, at
Arnold. The older man was stretched out: in his chair smoking a pipe and
regarding him. A slow smile passed between them.

"No, hang it all," said Peter; "there's nothing to smile about, Arnold,
I've pretty well got to the end of my tether."

"Meaning what exactly?" queried the other.

"Oh, well, you know enough already to guess the rest.... Look here,
Arnold, you and. I are fairly good pals now, I'd just like to tell you
exactly what I feel."

"Sit down then, man, and get it out. There's a chair yonder, and you've
got the forenoon before ye. I'm a heretic and all that sort of thing, of
course, but perhaps that'll make it easier. I take it it's a kind of
heretic you're becoming yourself."

Peter pulled up a chair and got out his own pipe. "Arnold," he said, "I'm
too serious to joke, and I don't know that I'm even a Christian heretic.
I don't know what I am and where I stand. I wish I did; I wish I even
knew how much I disbelieved, for then I'd know what to do. But it's not
that my dogmas have been attacked and weakened. I've no new light on the
Apostles' Creed and no fresh doubts about it. I could still argue for the
Virgin Birth of Christ and the Trinity, and so on. But it's worse than
that. I feel ..." He broke off abruptly and pulled at his pipe. The other
said nothing. They were friends enough by now to understand each other.
In a little while the younger man found the words he wanted.

"Look here, it's like this. I remember once, on the East Coast, coming
across a stone breakwater high and dry in a field half a mile from the
sea. There was nothing the matter with the breakwater, and it served
admirably for certain purposes--a seat, for instance, or a shady place
for a picnic. But it was no longer of any vital use in the world, for the
sea had receded and left it there. Now, that's just what I feel. I had a
religion; I suppose it had its weaknesses and its faults; but most of it
was good sound stone, and it certainly had served. But it serves no
longer, not because it's damaged, but because the need for it has changed
its nature or is no longer there." He trailed off into silence and
stopped.

Arnold stirred to get out his pouch. "The sea is shifty, though," he
said. "If they keep the breakwater in decent repair, it'll come in handy
again."

"Yes," burst out Peter. "But, of course, that's where illustrations are
so little good: you can't press them. And in any case no engineer worth
his salt would sit down by his breakwater and smoke a pipe till the sea
came in handy again. His job is to go after it."

"True for ye, boy. But if the old plan was so good, why not go down to
the beach and get on with building operations of the same sort?"

"Arnold," said Peter, "you couldn't have put it better. That's exactly
what I came here to do. I knew in London that the sea was receding to
some extent, and I thought that there was a jolly good chance to get up
with it again out here. But that leads straight to my second problem:
I can't build on the old plan, and it doesn't seem any good. It's as
if our engineer found quicksands that wouldn't hold his stone, and
cross-currents that smashed up all his piles.... I mean, I thought I knew
what would save souls. But I find that I can't because my methods are--I
don't know, faulty perhaps, out of date maybe possibly worse; and, what
is more, the souls don't want my saving. The Lord knows they want
something; I can see that fast enough, but what it is I don't know.
Heavens! I remember preaching in the beginning of the war from the text
'Jesus had compassion on the multitude.' Well I don't feel that He has
changed, and I'm quite sure He still has compassion, but the multitude
doesn't want it. I was wrong about the crowd. It's nothing like what I
imagined. The crowd isn't interested in Jesus any more. It doesn't
believe in Him. It's a different sort of crowd altogether from the one He
led."

"I wonder," said Arnold.

Peter moved impatiently. "Well, I don't see how you can," he said. "Do
you think Tommy worries about his sins? Are the men in our mess
miserable? Does the girl the good books talked about, who flirts and
smokes and drinks and laughs, sit down by night on the edge of her little
white bed and feel a blank in her life? Does she, Arnold?"

"I'm blest if I know; I haven't been there! You seem to know a precious
lot about it," he added dryly.

"Oh, don't rag and don't be facetious. If you do, I shall clear. I'm
trying to talk sense, and at any rate it's what I feel. And I believe you
know I'm right too." Peter was plainly a bit annoyed.

The elder padre sat up straight at that, and his tone changed. He stared
thoughtfully out to sea and did not smoke. But he did not speak all at
once. Peter glanced at him, and then lay back in his chair and waited.

Arnold spoke at last: possibly the harbour works inspired him. "Look
here, boy," he said, "let's get back to your illustration, which is no
such a bad one. What do you suppose your engineer would do when he got
down to the new sea-beach and found the conditions you described? It
wouldn't do much good if he sat down and cursed the blessed sea and the
sands and the currents, would it? It would be mighty little use if he
blamed his good stone and sound timber, useless though they appeared.
I'm thinking he'd be no much of an engineer either if he chucked his
job. What would he do, d'you think?"

"Go on," said Peter, interested.

"Well," said the speaker in parables, "unless I'm mighty mistaken, he'd
get down first to studying the new conditions. He'd find they'd got laws
governing them, same as the old--different laws maybe, but things you
could perhaps reckon with if you knew them. And when he knew them, I
reckon he'd have a look at his timber and stone and iron, and get out
plans. Maybe, these days, he'd help out with a few tons of reinforced
concrete, and get in a bit o' work with some high explosive. I'm no
saying. But if he came from north of the Tweed, my lad," he added, with a
twinkle in his eye and a touch of accent, "I should be verra surprised
if that foreshore hadn't a breakwater that would do its duty in none so
long a while."

"And if he came from south of the Tweed, and found himself in France?"
queried Peter.

"I reckon he'd get down among the multitude and make a few inquiries,"
said Arnold, more gravely. "I reckon he wouldn't be in too great a hurry,
and he wouldn't believe all he saw and heard without chewing on it a bit,
as our Yankee friends say. And he'd know well enough that there was
nothing wrong with his Master, and no change in His compassion, only,
maybe, that he had perhaps misunderstood both a little."

A big steamer hooted as she came up the river, and the echoes of the
siren died out slowly among the houses that climbed up the hill behind
them.

Then Peter put his hand up and rested his head upon it, shading his face.

"That's difficult--and dangerous, Arnold" he said.

"It is that, laddie," the other answered quickly. "There was a time when
I would have thought it too difficult and too dangerous for a boy of
mine. But I've had a lesson or two to learn out here as well as other
folks. Up the line men have learnt not to hesitate at things because they
are difficult and dangerous. And I'll tell you something else we've
learnt--that it is better for half a million to fail in the trying than
for the thing not to be tried at all."

"Arnold," said Peter, "what about yourself? Do you mind my asking? Do you
feel this sort of thing at all, and, if so, what's your solution?"

The padre from north of the Tweed knocked the ashes out of his pipe and
got up, "Young man," he said, "I don't mind your asking, but I'm getting
old, and my answering wouldn't do either of us any good, if I have a
solution I don't suppose it would be yours. Besides, a man can't save his
brother, and not even a father can save his son .... I've nothing to tell
ye, except, maybe, this: don't fear and don't falter, and wherever you
get to, remember that God is there. David is out of date these days,
and very likely it wasn't David at all, but I don't know anything truer
in the auld book than yon verse where it says: 'Though I go down into
hell, Thou art there also.'"

"I beg your pardon, padre," said a drawling voice behind them. "I caught
a word just now which I understand no decent clergyman uses except in the
pulpit. If, therefore, you are preaching, I will at once and discreetly
withdraw, but if not, for his very morals' sake, I will withdraw your
congregation--that is, if he hasn't forgotten his engagement."

Graham jumped up. "Good Heavens, Pennell!" he exclaimed, "I'm blest if I
hadn't." He pushed his arm out and glanced at his watch. "Oh, there's
plenty of time, anyway. I'm lunching with this blighter down town, padre,
at some special restaurant of his," he explained, "and I take it the sum
and substance of his unseemly remarks are that he thinks we ought to get
a move on."

"Don't let me stand in the way of your youthful pleasures," said Arnold,
smiling; "but take care of yourself, Graham. Eat and drink, for to-morrow
you die; but don't eat and drink too much in case you live to the day
after."

"I'll remember," said Peter, "but I hope it won't be necessary. However,
you never know 'among the multitude,' do you?" he added.

Arnold caught up the light chair and lunged out at him. "Ye unseemly
creature," he shouted, "get out of it and leave me in peace."

Pennell and Peter left the camp and crossed the swing bridge into the
maze of docks. Threading their way along as men who knew it thoroughly
they came at length to the main roadway, with its small, rather smelly
shops, its narrow side-streets almost like Edinburgh closes, and its
succession of sheds and offices between which one glimpsed the water.
Just here, the war had made a difference. There was less pleasure traffic
up Seine and along Channel, though the Southampton packet ran as
regularly as if no submarine had ever been built. Peter liked Pennell.
He was an observant creature of considerable decencies, and a good
companion. He professed some religion, and although it was neither
profound nor apparently particularly vital, it helped to link the two
men. As they went on, the shops grew a little better, but no restaurant
was visible that offered much expectation.

"Where in the world are you taking me?" demanded Peter. "I don't mind
slums in the way of business, but I prefer not to go to lunch in them."

"Wait and see, my boy," returned his companion, "and don't protest till
it's called for. Even then wait a bit longer, and your sorrow shall be
turned into joy--and that's Scripture. Great Scott! see what comes of
fraternising with padres! _Now._"

So saying he dived in to the right down a dark passage, into which the
amazed Peter followed him. He had already opened a door at the end of it
by the time Peter got there, and was halfway up a flight of wood stairs
that curved up in front of them out of what was, obviously, a kitchen.
A huge man turned his head as Peter came in, and surveyed him silently,
his hands dexterously shaking a frying-pan over a fire as he did so.

"Bon jour, monsieur," said Peter politely.

Monsieur grunted, but not unpleasantly, and Peter gripped the banister
and commenced to ascend. Half-way up he was nearly sent flying down
again. A rosy-cheeked girl, short and dark, with sparkling eyes, had
thrust herself down between him and the rail from a little landing above,
and was shouting:

"Une omelette aux champignons. Jambon. Pommes sautes, s'il vous plait."

Peter recovered himself and smiled. "Bon jour, mademoiselle," he said,
this time. In point of fact, he could say very little else.

"Bon jour, monsieur," said, the girl, and something else that he could
not catch, but by this time he had reached the top in time to witness a
little 'business' there. A second girl, taller, older, slower, but
equally smiling, was taking Pennell's cap and stick and gloves, making
play with her eyes the while. "Merci, cherie," he heard his friend say
and then, in a totally different voice: "Ah! Bon jour Marie."

A third girl was before them. In her presence the other two withdrew. She
was tall, plain, shrewd of face, with reddish hair, but she smiled even
as the others. It was little more than a glance that Peter got, for she
called an order (at which the first girl again disappeared down the
stairs) greeted Pennell, replied to his question that there were two
places, and was out of sight again in the room, seemingly all at once. He
too, then, surrendered cap and stick, and followed his companion in.

There were no more than four tables in the little room--two for six, and
two for four or five. Most were filled, but he and Pennell secured two
seats with their backs to the wall opposite a couple of Australian
officers who had apparently just commenced. Peter's was by the window,
and he glanced out to see the sunlit street below, the wide sparkling
harbour, and right opposite the hospital he had now visited several times
and his own camp near it. There was the new green of spring shoots in the
window-boxes, snowy linen on the table, a cheerful hum of conversation
about him, and an oak-panelled wall behind that had seen the Revolution.

"Pennell," he said, "you're a marvel. The place is perfect."

By the time they had finished Peter was feeling warmed and friendly, the
Australians had been joined to their company, and the four spent an idle
afternoon cheerfully enough. There was nothing in strolling through the
busy streets, joking a little over very French picture post-cards,
quizzing the passing girls, standing in a queue at Cox's, and finally
drawing a fiver in mixed French notes, or in wandering through a huge
shop of many departments to buy some toilet necessities. But it was good
fun. There was a comradeship, a youthfulness, carelessness, about it all
that gripped Peter. He let himself go, and when he did so he was a good
companion.

One little incident in the Grand Magasin completed his abandonment to the
day and the hour. They were ostensibly buying a shaving-stick, but at the
moment were cheerily wandering through the department devoted to
_lingerie_. The attendant girls, entirely at ease, were trying to
persuade the taller of the two Australians, whom his friend addressed
as "Alex," to buy a flimsy lace nightdress "for his fiancee," readily
pointing out that he would find no difficulty in getting rid of it
elsewhere if he had not got such a desirable possession, when Peter heard
an exclamation behind him.

"Hullo!" said a girl's voice; "fancy finding you here!" He turned quickly
and blushed. Julie laughed merrily.

"Caught out," she said, "Tell me what you're buying, and for whom. A
blouse, a camisole, or worse?"

"I'm not buying," said Peter, recovering his ease. "We're just strolling
round, and that girl insists that my friend the Australian yonder should
buy a nightie for his fiancee. He says he hasn't one, so she is
persuading him that he can easily pick one up. What do you think?"

She glanced over at the little group. "Easier than some people I know,
I should think," she said, smiling, taking in his six feet of bronzed
manhood. "But it's no use your buying it. I wear pyjamas, silk, and I
prefer Venns'."

"I'll remember," said Peter. "By the way, I'm coming to tea again
to-morrow."

"That will make three times this week," she said. "But I suppose you
will go round the ward first." Then quickly, for Peter looked slightly
unhappy: "Next week I've a whole day off."

"No?" he said eagerly "Oh, do let's fix something up. Will you come out
somewhere?"

Her eyes roved across to Pennell, who was bearing down upon them. "We'll
fix it up to-morrow," she said. "Bring Donovan, and I'll get Tommy. And
now introduce me nicely."

He did so, and she talked for a few minutes, and then went off to join
some friends, who had moved on to another department. "By Jove," said
Pennell, "that's some girl! I see now why you are so keen on the
hospital, old dear. Wish I were a padre."

"I shall be padre in ..." began Alex, but Peter cut him short.

"Oh, Lord," he said, "I'm tired of that! Come on out of it, and let's get
a refresher somewhere. What's the club like here?"

"Club's no good," said Pennell. "Let's go to Travalini's and introduce
the padre. He's not been there yet."

"I thought everyone knew it," said the other Australian--rather
contemptuously, Peter thought. What with one thing and another, he felt
suddenly that he'd like to go. He remembered how nearly he had gone there
in other company. "Come on, then," he said, and led the way out.

There was nothing in Travalini's to distinguish it from many other such
places--indeed, to distinguish it from the restaurant in which Peter,
Donovan, and the girls had dined ten days or so before, except that it
was bigger, more garish, more expensive, and, consequently, more British
in patronage. The restaurant was, however, separated more completely
from the drinking-lounge, in which, among palms, a string-band played.
There was an hotel above besides, and that helped business, but one could
come and go innocently enough, for all that there was "anything a
gentleman wants," as the headwaiter, who talked English, called himself a
Belgian, and had probably migrated from over the Rhine, said. Everybody,
indeed, visited the place now and again. Peter and his friends went in
between the evergreen shrubs in their pots, and through the great glass
swing-door, with every assurance. The place seemed fairly full. There was
a subdued hum of talk and clink of glasses; waiters hurried to and fro;
the band was tuning up. British uniforms predominated, but there were
many foreign officers and a few civilians. There were perhaps a couple of
dozen girls scattered about the place besides.

The friends found a corner with a big plush couch which took three of
them, and a chair for Alex. A waiter bustled up and they ordered drinks,
which came on little saucers marked with the price. Peter lay back
luxuriously.

"Chin-chin," said the other Australian, and the others responded.

"That's good," said Pennell.

"Not so many girls here this afternoon," remarked Alex carelessly. "See,
Dick, there's that little Levantine with the thick dark hair. She's
caught somebody."

Peter looked across in the direction indicated. The girl, in a cerise
costume with a big black hat, short skirt, and dainty bag, was sitting in
a chair halfway on to them and leaning over the table before her. As he
watched, she threw her head back and laughed softly. He caught the gleam
of a white throat and of dark sloe eyes.

"She's a pretty one," said Pennell. "God! but they're queer little bits
of fluff, these girls. It beats me how they're always gay, and always
easy to get and to leave. And they get rottenly treated sometimes."

"Yes I'm damned if I understand them," said Alex. "Now, padre, I'll tell
you something that's more in your way than mine, and you can see what you
make of it. I was in a maison toleree the other day--you know the sort
of thing--and there were half a dozen of us in the sitting-room with the
girls, drinking fizz. I had a little bit of a thing with fair hair--she
couldn't have been more than seventeen at most, I reckon--with a laugh
that did you good to hear, and, by gum! we wanted to be cheered just
then, for we had had a bit of a gruelling on the Ancre and had been
pulled out of the line to refit. She sat there with an angel's face, a
chemise transparent except where it was embroidered, and not much else,
and some of the women were fair beasts. Well, she moved on my knee, and I
spilt some champagne and swore--'Jesus Christ!' I said. Do you know, she
pushed back from me as if I had hit her! 'Oh, don't say His Name!' she
said. 'Promise me you won't say it again. Do you not know how He loved
us?' I was so taken aback that I promised, and to tell you the truth,
padre, I haven't said it since. What do you think of that?"

Peter shook his head and drained his glass. He couldn't have spoken at
once; the little story, told in such a place, struck him so much. Then he
asked: "But is that all? How did she come to be there?"

"Well," Alex said, "that's just as strange. Father was in a French
cavalry regiment, and got knocked out on the Marne. They lived in Arras
before the war, and you can guess that there wasn't much left of the
home. One much older sister was a widow with a big family; the other was
a kid of ten or eleven, so this one went into the business to keep the
family going. Fact. The mother used to come and see her, and I got to
know her. She didn't seem to mind: said the doctors looked after them
well, and the girl was making good money. Hullo!" he broke off, "there's
Louise," and to Peter's horror he half-rose and smiled across at a girl
some few tables away.

She got up and came over, beamed on them all, and took the seat Alex
vacated. "Good-evening," she said, in fair English, scrutinising them.
"What is it you say, 'How's things'?"

Alex pressed a drink on her and beckoned the waiter. She took a syrup,
the rest martinis. Peter sipped his, and watched her talking to Alex and
Pennell. The other Australian got up and crossed the room, and sat down
with some other men.

The stories he had heard moved him profoundly. He wondered if they were
true, but he seemed to see confirmation in the girl before him. Despite
some making up, it was a clean face, if one could say so. She was
laughing and talking with all the ease in the world, though Peter noticed
that her eyes kept straying round the room. Apparently his friends had
all her attention, but he could see it was not so. She was on the watch
for clients, old or new. He thought how such a girl would have disgusted
him a few short weeks ago, but he did not feel disgusted now. He could
not. He did not know what he felt. He wondered, as he looked, if she were
one of "the multitude," and then the fragment of a text slipped through
his brain: "The Friend of publicans and sinners." "_The_ Friend": the
little adjective struck him as never before. Had they ever had another?
He frowned to himself at the thought, and could not help wondering
vaguely what his Vicar or the Canon would have done in Travalini's. Then
he wondered instantly what that Other would have done, and he found no
answer at all.

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