Simon Called Peter Part 17

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 pa.s.sing girls, standing in a queue at c.o.x'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 gla.s.s swing-door, with every a.s.surance. The place seemed fairly full. There was a subdued hum of talk and clink of gla.s.ses; 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, d.i.c.k, 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. "G.o.d! 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 d.a.m.ned 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 gla.s.s. 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 mult.i.tude," 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.

"Yes, but I do not know your friend yet," he heard the girl say, and saw she was being introduced to Pennell. She held out a decently gloved hand with a gesture that startled him--it was so like Hilda's. Hilda! The comparison dazed him. He fancied he could see her utter disgust, and then he involuntarily shook his head; it would be too great for him to imagine. What would she have made of the story he had just heard? He concluded she would flatly disbelieve it....

But Julie? He smiled to himself, and then, for the first time, suddenly asked himself what he really felt towards Julie. He remembered that first night and the kiss, and how he had half hated it, half liked it. He felt now, chiefly, anger that Donovan had had one too. One? But he, Peter, had had two.... Then he called himself a d.a.m.ned fool; it was all of a piece with her extravagant and utterly unconventional madness. But what, then, would she say to this? Had she anything in common with it?

He played with that awhile, blowing out thoughtful rings of smoke. It struck him that she had, but he was fully aware that that did not disgust him in the least. It almost fascinated him, just as--that _was_ it--Hilda's disgust would repel him. Why? He hadn't an idea.

"Monsieur le Capitaine is very dull," said a girl's voice at his elbow.

He started: Louise had moved to the sofa and was smiling at him. He glanced towards his companions, Alex was standing, finishing a last drink; Pennell staring at Louise.

He looked back at the girl, straight into her eyes, and could not read them in the least. The darkened eyebrows and the glitter in them baffled him. But he must speak, "Am I?" he said. "Forgive me, mademoiselle; I was thinking."

"Of your fiancee--is it not so? Ah! The Capitaine has his fiancee, then?

In England? Ah, well, the girls in England do not suffer like we girls in France.... They are proud, too, the English misses. I know, for I have been there, to--how do you call it?--Folkestone. They walk with the head in the air," and she tilted up her chin so comically that Peter smiled involuntarily.

"No, I do not like them," went on the girl deliberately. "They are only half alive, I think. I almost wish the Boche had been in your land.... They are cold, la! And not so very nice to kiss, eh?"

"They're not all like that," said Pennell.

"Ah, non? But you like the girls of France the best, mon ami; is it not so?" She leaned across towards him significantly.

Pennell laughed. "_Now_, yes, perhaps," he said deliberately; "but after the war ..." and he shrugged his shoulders, like a Frenchman.

A shade pa.s.sed over the girl's face, and she got up. "It is so," she said lightly. "Monsieur speaks very true--oh, very true! The girls of France now--they are gay, they are alive, they smile, and it is war, and you men want these things. But after--oh, I know you English--you'll go home and be--how do you say?--'respectable,' and marry an English miss, and have--oh! many, many bebes, and wear the top-hat, and go to church.

There is no country like England...." She made a little gesture. "What do you believe, you English? In le bon Dieu? Non. In love? Ah, non! In what, then? Je ne sais!" She laughed again. "What 'ave I said? Forgive me, monsieur, and you also, Monsieur le Capitaine. But I do see a friend of mine. See, I go! Bon soir."

She looked deliberately at Peter a moment, then smiled comprehensively and left them. Peter saw that Alex had gone already; he asked no questions, but looked at Pennell inquiringly.