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

but Peter wondered how far he was getting to know the real girl.

Tea was an unusual success for France. It was real tea, but then there was reason for that, for Julie had insisted on going into the big kitchen, to madame's amusement and monsieur's open admiration, and making it herself. But the chocolate cakes, the white bread and proper butter, and the cream, were a miracle. Peter wondered if you could get such things in England now, and Julie gaily told him that the French made laws only to break them, with several instances thereof. She declared that if a food-ration officer existed in Caudebec he must be in love with the landlady's daughter and that she only wished she could get to know such an official in Havre. The daughter in question waited on them, and Julie and she chummed up immensely. Finally she was despatched to produce a collection of Army badges and buttons—scalps Julie called them. When they came they turned them over. All ranks were represented, or nearly so, and most regiments that either could remember. There were Canadian, Australian, and South African badges, and at last Julie declared that only one was wanting.

"What will you give for this officer's badge?" she demanded, seizing hold of one of Peter's Maltese crosses.

The girl looked at it curiously. "What is it?" she said.

"It's the badge of the Sacred Legion," said Julie gravely. "You know Malta? Well, that's part of the British Empire, of course, and the English used to have a regiment there to defend it from the Turks. It was a great honour to join, and so it was called the Sacred Legion. This officer is a Captain in it."

"Shut up Julie," said Peter, sotto voce.

But nothing would stop her. "Come now," she said. "What will you give?
You'll give her one for a kiss, won't you, Solomon?"

The girl laughed and blushed "Not before mademoiselle," she said, looking at Peter.

"Oh, I'm off," cried Julie, "I'll spare you one, but only one, remember." and she deliberately got up and left them.

Mademoiselle was "tres jolie," said the girl, collecting her badges. Peter detached a cross and gave it her, and she demurely put up her mouth. He kissed her lightly, and walked leisurely out to settle the bill and call the car. He had entirely forgotten his depression, and the world seemed good to him. He hummed a little song by the water's edge as he waited, and thought over the day. He could never remember having had such a one in his life. Then he recollected that one badge was gone, and he abstracted the other. Without his badges he would not be known as a chaplain.

When Julie appeared, she made no remark, as he had half-expected. They got in, and started off back in the cooling evening. Near Tancarville they stopped the car to have the hood put up, and strolled up into the grounds of the old castle while they waited.

"Extraordinary it must have been to have lived in a place like this," said Peter.

"Rather," said Julie, "and beyond words awful to the women. I cannot imagine what they must have been like, but I think they must have been something like native African women."

"Why?" queried Peter.

"Oh, because a native woman never reads and hardly goes five miles from her village. She is a human animal, who bears children and keeps the house of her master, that's all. That's what these women must have done."

"The Church produced some different types," said Peter; "but they had no chance elsewhere, perhaps. Still, I expect they were as happy as we, perhaps happier."

"And their cows were happier still, I should think," laughed Julie. "No, you can't persuade me. I wouldn't have been a woman in those days for the world."

"And now?" asked Peter.

"Rather! We have much the best time on the whole. We can do what we like pretty well. If we want to be men, we can. We can put on riding-breeches, even, and run a farm. But if we like, we can wear glad rags and nice undies, and be more women than ever."

"And in the end thereof?" Peter couldn't help asking.

"Oh," said Julie lightly, "one can settle down and have babies if one wants to. And sit in a drawing-room and talk scandal as much as one likes. Not that I shall do either, thank you. I shall—oh, I don't know what I shall do. Solomon, you are at your worst. Pick me some of those primroses, and let's be going. You never can tell: we may have to walk home yet."

Peter plucked a few of the early blooms, and she pushed them into her waist-belt. Then they went back to the car, and got in again.

"Cold?" he asked, after a little.

"A bit," she said. "Tuck me up, and don't sit in that far corner all the time. You make me feel chilly to look at you. I hate sentimental people, but if you tried hard and were nice I could work up quite a lot of sentiment just now."

He laughed, and tucked her up as required. Then he lit a cigarette and slipped his arm round her waist. "Is that better?" he said.

"Much. But you can't have had much practice. Now tell me stories."

Peter had a mind to tell her several, but he refrained, and they grew silent, "Do you think we shall have another day like this?" he demanded, after a little.

"I don't see why not," she said. "But one never knows, does one? The chances are we shan't. It's a queer old world."

"Let's try, anyway; I've loved it," he said.

"So have I," said Julie. "It's the best day I've had for a long time, Peter. You're a nice person to go out with, you know, though I mustn't flatter you too much. You should develop the gift; it's not everyone that has it."

"I've no wish to," he said.

"You are an old bear," she laughed; "but you don't mean all you say, or rather you do, for you will say what you mean. You shouldn't, Peter. It's not done nowadays, and it gives one away. If you were like me, now, you could say and do anything and nobody would mind. They'd never know what you meant, and of course all the time you'd mean nothing."

"So you mean nothing all the time?" he queried.

"Of course," she said merrily. "What do you think?"

That jarred Peter a little, so he said nothing and silence fell on them, and at the Hôtel de Ville in the city he asked if she would mind finishing alone.

"Not a bit, old thing, if you want to go anywhere," she said.

He apologised. "Arnold—he's our padre—is likely to be at the club, and I promised I'd walk home with him," he lied remorselessly. "It's beastly rude, I know, but I thought you'd understand."

She looked at him, and laughed. "I believe I do," she said.

He stopped the car and got out, settling with the man, and glancing up at a clock. "You'll be in at nine-forty-five," he said, "as proper as possible. And thank you so much for coming."

"Thank you, Solomon," she replied. "It's been just topping. Thanks awfully for taking me. And come in to tea soon, won't you?" He promised and held out his hand. She pressed it, and waved out of the window as the car drove off. And no sooner was it in motion than he cursed himself for a fool. Yet he knew why he had done as he had, there, in the middle of the town. He knew that he feared she would kiss him again—as before.

Not noticing where he went, he set off through the streets, making, unconsciously almost, for the sea, and the dark boulevards that led from the gaily lit centre of the city towards it. He walked slowly, his mind a chaos of thoughts, and so ran into a curious adventure.

As he passed a side-street he heard a man's uneven steps on the pavement, a girl's voice, a curse, and the sound of a fall. Then followed an exclamation in another woman's voice, and a quick sentence in French.

Peter hesitated a minute, and then turned down the road to where a small group was faintly visible. As he reached it, he saw that a couple of street girls were bending over a man who lay sprawling on the ground, and he quickened his steps to a run. His boots were rubber-soled, and all but noiseless. "Here, I say," he said as he came up. "Let that man alone. What are you doing?" he added in halting French. One of the two girls gave a little scream, but the other straightened herself, and Peter perceived that he knew her. It was Louise, of Travalini's.

"What are you doing?" he demanded again in English. "Is he hurt?"

"Non, non, monsieur," said Louise. "He is but 'zig-zag.' We found him a little way down the street, and he cannot walk easily. So we help him. If the gendarme—how do you call him?—the red-cap, see him, maybe he will get into trouble. But now you come. You will doubtless help him. Vraiment, he is in luck. We go now, monsieur."

Peter bent over the fallen man. He did not know him, but saw he was a subaltern, though a middle-aged man. The fellow was very drunk, and did little else than stutter curses in which the name of our Lord was frequent.

Peter pulled at his arm, and Louise stooped to help him. Once up, he got his arm round him, and demanded where he lived.

The man stared at them foolishly. Peter gave him a bit of a shake, and demanded the address again, "Come on," he said. "Pull yourself together, for the Lord's sake. We shall end before the A.P.M. if you don't. What's your camp, you fool?"

At that the man told him, stammeringly, and Peter sighed his relief. "I know," he said to Louise. "It's not far. I'll maybe get a taxi at the corner." She pushed him towards a doorway: "Wait a minute," she said. "I live here; it's all right. I will get a fiacre. I know where to find one."

She darted away. It seemed long to Peter, but in a few minutes a horn tooted and a cab came round the corner. Between them, they got the subaltern in, and Peter gave the address. Then he pulled out his purse before stepping in himself, opened it, found a ten-franc note, and offered it to Louise.

The girl of the street and the tavern pushed it away. "La!" she exclaimed. "Vite! Get in. Bon Dieu! Should I be paid for a kindness? Poor boy! he does not know what he does. He will 'ave a head—ah! terrible—in the morning. And see, he has fought for la patrie." She pointed to a gold wound-stripe on his arm. "Bon soir, monsieur."

She stepped back and spoke quickly to the driver, who was watching sardonically. He nodded. "Bon soir, monsieur," she said again, and disappeared in the doorway.

CHAPTER IX

A few weeks later the War Office—if it was the War Office, but one gets into the habit of attributing these things to the War Office—had one of its regular spasms. It woke up suddenly with a touch of nightmare, and it got fearfully busy for a few weeks before going to sleep again. All manner of innocent people were dragged into the vortex of its activities, and blameless lives were disturbed and terrorised. This particular enthusiasm involved even such placid and contented souls as the Chaplain-General, the Principal Chaplain, their entire staffs and a great many of their rank and file. It created a new department, acquired many additional offices for the B.E.F., dragged from their comfortable billets a certain number of high-principled base officers, and then (by the mercy of Providence) flickered out almost as soon as the said officers bad made themselves a little more comfortable than before in their new posts.

It was so widespread a disturbance that even Peter Graham, most harmless of men, with plenty of his own fish to fry, was dragged into it, as some leaf, floating placidly downstream, may be caught and whirled away in an excited eddy. More definitely, it removed him from Havre and Julie just when he was beginning to want most definitely to stay there, and of course, when it happened, he could hardly know that it was to be but a temporary separation.

He was