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

a King to me. I suppose he is only a man, but I don't want to think of him so. He stands for the Empire and for the Flag, and he stands for England too. I'd obey that man almost in anything, right or wrong, but I don't know that I'd obey anyone else."

"Then you're a survival of the Dark Ages," he said.

"Don't be a beast!" said Julie.

"All right, you're not, and indeed I don't know if I am right. Very likely you're the very embodiment of the spirit of the Present Day. Having lost every authority, you crave for one."

Julie considered this. "There may be something in that," she said. "But I don't like you when you're clever. It was the King, and that's enough for me. And I don't want to see anything more. I'm hungry; take me to lunch."

Peter laughed. "That's it," he said—"like the follower of Prince Charlie who shook hands once with his Prince and then vowed he would never shake hands with anyone again. So you've seen the King, and you won't see anything else, only your impression won't last twelve hours, fortunately."

"I don't suppose the other man kept his vow," said Julie. "For one thing, no man ever does. Come on!"

And so they drifted down the hours until the evening theatre and Carminetta. They said and did nothing in particular, but they just enjoyed themselves. In point of fact, they were emotionally tired, and, besides, they wanted to forget how the time sped by. The quiet day was, in its own way too, a preparation for the evening feast, and they were both in the mood to enjoy the piece intensely when it came. The magnificence of the new theatre in which it was staged all helped. Its wide, easy stairways, its many conveniences, its stupendous auditorium, its packed house, ushered it well in. Even the audience seemed different from that of last night.

Julie settled herself with a sigh of satisfaction to listen and watch. And they both grew silent as the opera proceeded. At first Julie could not contain her delight. "Oh, she's perfect, Peter," she exclaimed—"a little bit of life! Look how she shakes her hair back and how impudent she is—just like one of those French girls you know too much about! And she's boiling passion too. And a regular devil. I love her, Peter!"

"She's very like you, Julie," said Peter.

Julie flashed a look at him. "Rubbish!" she said, but was silent.

They watched while Carminetta set herself to win her bet and steal the heart of the hero from the Governor's daughter. They watched her force the palace ballroom, and forgot the obvious foolishness of a great deal of it in the sense of the drama that was being worked out. The whole house grew still. The English girl, with her beauty, her civilisation, her rank and place, made her appeal to her fiancé; and the Spanish bastard dancer, with her daring, her passion, her naked humanity, so coarse and so intensely human, made her appeal also. And they watched while the young conventionally-bred officer hesitated; they watched till Carminetta won.

Julie, leaning forward, held her breath and gazed at the beautiful fashionable room on the stage, gazed through the open French windows to the moonlit garden and the night beyond, and gazed, though at last she could hardly see, at the Spanish girl. That great renunciation held them both entranced. So bitter-sweet, so humanly divine, the passionate, heart-broken, heroic song of farewell, swelled and thrilled about them. And with the last notes the child of the gutter reached up and up till she made the supreme self-sacrifice, and stepped out of the gay room into the dark night for the sake of the man she loved too much to love.

Then Julie bowed her head into her hands, and in the silence and darkness of their box burst into tears. And so, for the first and last time, Peter heard her really weep.

He said foolish man-things to comfort her. She looked up at last, smiling, her brown eyes challengingly brave through her tears, "Peter, forgive me," she said. "I shouldn't be such a damned fool! You never thought I could be like that, did you? But it was so superbly done, I couldn't help it. It's all over now—all over, Peter," she added soberly. "I want to sit in the lounge to-night for a little, if you don't mind. Could you possibly get a taxi? I don't want to walk."

It was difficult to find one. Finally Peter and another officer made a bolt simultaneously and each got hold of a door of a car that was just coming up. Both claimed it, and the chauffeur looked round good-humouredly at the disputants. "Settle it which-hever way you like, gents," he said. "Hi don't care, but settle it soon."

"Let's toss," said Peter.

"Right-o," said the other man, and produced a coin.

"Tails," whispered Julie behind Peter, and "Tails!" he called.

The coin spun while the little crowd looked on in amusement, and tails it was. "Damn!" said the other, and turned away.

"A bad loser, Peter," said Julie; "and he's just been seeing Carminetta, too! But am I not lucky! I almost always win."

In the palm lounge Julie was very cheerful. "Coffee, Peter," she said, "and liqueurs."

"No drinks after nine-thirty," said the waiter. "Sorry, sir."

Julie laughed. "I nearly swore, Peter," she said, "but I remembered in time. If one can't get what one wants, one has to go without singing. But I'll have a cigarette, not to say two, before we've finished. And I'm in no hurry; I want to sit on here and pretend it's not Saturday night. And I want to go very slowly to bed, and I don't want to sleep."

"Is that the effect of the theatre?" asked Peter. "And why so different from last night?"

Julie evaded. "Don't you feel really different?" she demanded.

"Yes," he said.

"How?"

"Well, I don't want to preach any sermon to-night. It's been preached."

Julie drew hard on her cigarette, and blew out a cloud of smoke. "It has, Peter," she said merrily, "and thank the Lord I am therefore spared another."

"You're very gay about it now, Julie, but you weren't at first. That play made me feel rather miserable too. No, I think it made me feel small. Carminetta was great, wasn't she? I don't know that there is anything greater than that sort of sacrifice. And it's far beyond me," said Peter.

Julie leaned back and hummed a bar or two that Peter recognised from the last great song of the dancer. "Well, my dear, I was sad, wasn't I?" she said. "But it's over. There's no use in sadness, is there?"

Peter did not reply, and started as Julie suddenly laughed. "Oh, good Lord, Peter!" she exclaimed, "to what are you bringing me? Do you know that I'm about to quote Scripture? And I damn-well shall if we sit on here! Let's walk up Regent Street; I can't sit still. Come on." She jumped up.

"Just now," he said, "you wanted to sit still for ages, and now you want to walk. What is the matter with you, Julie? And what was the text?"

"That would be telling!" she laughed. "But can't I do anything I like, Peter?" she demanded. "Can't I go and get drunk if I like, Peter, or sit still, or dance down Regent Street, or send you off to bed and pick up a nice boy? It would be easy enough here. Can't I, Peter?"

Her mood bewildered him, and, without in the least understanding why, he resented her levity. But he tried to hide it. "Of course you can," he said lightly; "but you don't really want to do those things, do you—especially the last, Julie?"

She stood there looking at him, and then, in a moment, the excitement died out of her voice and eyes. She dropped into a chair again. "No, Peter," she said, "I don't. That's the marvel of it. I expect I shall, one of these days, do most of those things, and the last as well, but I don't think I'll ever want to do them again. And that's what you've done to me, my dear."

Peter was very moved. He slipped his hand out and took hers under cover of her dress. "My darling," he whispered, "I owe you everything. You have given me all, and I won't hold back all from you. Do you remember, Julie, that once I said I thought I loved you more than God? Well, I know now—oh yes, I believe I do know now. But I choose you, Julie."

Her eyes shone up at him very brightly, and he could not read them altogether. But her lips whispered, and he thought he understood.

"Oh, Peter, my dearest," she said, "thank God I have at least heard you say that. I wouldn't have missed you saying those words for anything, Peter."

So might the serving-girl in Pilate's courtyard have been glad, had she been in love.

CHAPTER X Part at least of Julie's programme was fulfilled to the letter, for they lay long in bed talking—desultory, reminiscent talk, which sent Peter's mind back over the months and the last few days, even after Julie was asleep in the bed next his. Like a pageant, he passed, in review scene after scene, turning it over, and wondering at significances that he had not before, imagined. He recalled their first meeting, that instantaneous attraction, and he asked himself what had caused it. Her spontaneity, freshness, and utter lack of conventionality, he supposed, but that did not seem to explain all. He wondered at the change that had even then come about in himself that he should have been so entranced by her, He went over his early hopes and fears; he thought again of conversations with Langton; and he realised afresh how true it was that the old authorities had dwindled away; that no allegiance had been left; that his had been a citadel without a master. And then Julie moved through his days again—Julie at Caudebec, daring, iconoclastic, free; Julie at Abbeville, mysterious, passionate, dominant; Julie at Dieppe—ah, Julie at Dieppe! He marvelled that he had held out so long after Dieppe, and then Louise rose before him. He understood Louise less than Julie, perhaps, and with all the threads in his hand he failed to see the pattern. He turned over restlessly. It was easy to see how they had come to be in London; it would have been more remarkable if they had not so come together; but now, what now? He could not sum up Julie amid the shifting scenes of the last few days. She had been so loving, and yet, in a way, their love had reached no climax. It had, indeed, reached what he would once have thought a complete and ultimate climax, but plainly Julie did not think so. And nor did he—now. The things of the spirit were, after all, so much greater than the things of the flesh. The Julie of Friday night had been his, but of this night…? He rolled over again. What had she meant at the play? He told himself her tears were simple emotion, her laughter simple reaction, but he knew it was not true….

And for himself? Well, Julie was Julie. He loved her intensely. She could stir him to anything almost. He loved to be with her, to see her, to hear her, but he did not feel satisfied. He knew that. He told himself that he was an introspective fool; that nothing ever would seem to satisfy him; that the centre of his life was and would be Julie; that she was real, tinglingly, intensely real; but he knew that that was not the last word. And then and there he resolved that the last word should be spoken on the morrow, that had, indeed, already come by the clock: she should promise to marry him.

He slept, perhaps, for an hour or two, but he awoke with the dawn. The grey light was stealing in at the windows, and Julie slept beside him in the bed between. He tried to sleep again, but could not, and, on a sudden, had an idea. He got quietly out of bed.

"What is it, Peter?" said Julie sleepily.

He went round and leaned over her. "I can't sleep any more, dearest," he said. "I think I'll dress and go for a bit of a walk. Do you mind? I'll be in to breakfast."

"No," she said. "Go if you want to. You