Simon Called Peter, Robert Keable [read e books online free txt] 📗

don't," said Donovan, and he slipped the hair out again with his finger.

"Be quiet; but I'll concede that. This won't do, though." Out came a tiny powder-puff. "How's that?" she demanded, smiling up at him.

"Perfect," he said. "But it's not fair to do that here."

"Wait for the taxi then," she said. "Besides, it won't matter so much then."

"What won't matter?" demanded Peter.

"Solomon, dear, you're as innocent as a new-born babe. Isn't he?" she demanded of his friend.

Donovan looked across at him. "Still waters run deep," he said. "I don't know, but excuse me!"

He had been sitting next Julie and opposite Miss Raynard, but he was now on his feet and begging her to change places with him. She consented, laughing, and did so, but Julie pretended to be furious.

"I won't have it. You're a perfect beast, Tommy. Captain Donovan, I'll never come out with you again. Solomon, come and sit here, and you, Tommy, go over there."

Peter hadn't an idea why, but he too got up. Tommy protested. "Look here," she said, "I came for dinner, not for a dance. Oh, look out, Captain Graham; you'll upset the cutlets!" Peter avoided the waiter by an effort, but came on round her to the other side.

"Get out of it, Tommy," said Julie, leaning over and pushing her. "I will have a man beside me, anyhow."

"I'd sooner be opposite," said Donovan. "I can see you better, and you can't make eyes at the Frenchman at the other table quite so well if I get my head in the way."

"Oh, but he's such a dear," said Julie. "I'd love to flirt with him. Only
I must say his hair is a bit greasy."

"You'll make his lady furious if you don't take care," said Donovan, "and it's a shame to spoil her trade."

Peter glanced across. A French officer, sitting opposite a painted girl, was smiling at them. He looked at Julie; she was smiling back.

"Julie, don't for Heaven's sake," said her half-section. "We shall have him over here next, and you remember once before how awkward it was."

Julie laughed. "Give me another drink, then, Captain Donovan," she said, "and I'll be good."

Donovan filled up her glass. She raised it and challenged him. "Here's to we two in Blighty," she began.

Miss Raynard rose determinedly and interrupted her. "Come on," she said; "that's a bit too much, Julie. We must go, or we'll never get back, and don't forget you've got to go on duty in the morning, my dear." She pulled out a little watch. "Good heavens!" she cried. "Do you know the time? It's eight-twenty now. We ought to have been in by eight, and eighty-thirty is the latest time that's safe. For any sake, come on."

Julie for once agreed. "Good Lord, yes," she said. "We must have a taxi.
Can we get one easily?"

"Oh, I expect so," said Donovan. "Settle up, Graham, will you? while I shepherd them out and get a car. Come on, and take care how you pass the Frenchman."

In a few minutes Peter joined them on the steps outside. The restaurant was in the corner of a square which contained a small public garden, and the three of them were waiting for him on the curb. A taxi stood by them. The broad streets ran away to left and right, gay with lights and passers-by, and the dark trees stood out against a starry sky. A group of British officers went laughing by, and one of them recognised Donovan and hailed him. Two spahis crossed out of the shade into the light, their red and gold a picturesque splash of colour. Behind them glared the staring pictures of the cinema show on a great hoarding by the wall.

"Come on, Graham," called Donovan, "hop in."

The four packed in closely, Peter and Tommy opposite the other two, Julie farthest from Peter. They started, and he caught her profile as the street lights shone in and out with the speed of their passing. She was smoking, puffing quickly at her cigarette, and hardly silent a moment.

"It's been a perfect treat," she said. "You're both dears, aren't they, Tommy? You must come and have tea at the hospital any day: just walk in. Mine's Ward 3. Come about four o'clock, and you'll find me any day this week, Tommy's opposite. There's usually a crush at tea, but you must come. By the way, where's your camp? Aren't you going heaps out of your way? Solomon, where do you live? Tell me."

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