Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable (read aloud .txt) 📕

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

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 nécessaire."

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 fiancée, '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