Simon Called Peter Part 29

She looked up as he came in, and he noticed R.A.M.C. badges.

"Good-evening," he said cheerily.

"Good-evening, padre," she replied, plainly willing to talk. "Where have you sprung from?"

"Abbeville via Eu in a convoy of Red Cross cars," he said, "and I feel like a sun-downer. Won't you have another with me?"

"Sure thing," she said, and he ordered a couple from the French maid who came in answer to his ring. "Do you live here?" he asked.

"For my sins I do," she said. "I doctor Waac's, and I don't think much of it. A finer, heartier lot of women I never saw. Epsom salts is all they want. A child could do it."

Peter laughed. "Well, I don't see why you should grumble," he said.

"Don't you? Where's the practice? This business out here is the best chance for doctors in a lifetime, and I have to strip strapping girls hopelessly and endlessly."

"You do, do you?" said a voice in the doorway, and there stood Julie.

"Well, at any rate you oughtn't to talk about it like that to my gentleman friends, especially padres. How do you do, my dear?"

"Julie, by all that's holy! Where have you sprung from?"

She glanced from one to the other. "From Abbeville via Eu in a convoy of Red Cross cars, I dare bet," she said.

"Julie, you're beyond me. If you weren't so strong I'd smack you, but as it is, give me another kiss. _And_ introduce us. There may as well be propriety somewhere."

They sorted themselves out and sat down. "What do you think of my rig?"

demanded Dr. Melville (as Julie had introduced her).

"Toppin'," said Julie critically. "But what in the world is it? Chiefly Waac, with three pukka stars and an R.A.M.C. badge. Teanie, how dare you do it?"

"I dare do all that doth become a woman," she answered complacently. "And it doth, doth it not? Skirt's a trifle short, perhaps," she added, sticking out a leg and examining the effect critically, "but upper's eminently satisfactory."

Julie leaned over and prodded her. "No corsets?" she inquired innocently.

"Julie, you're positively indecent. You must have tamed your padre completely. You're not married by any chance?" she added suddenly.

Julie screamed with laughter. "Oh, Teanie, you'll be the death of me,"

she said at last. "Solomon, are we married? I don't think so, Teanie.

There's never no telling these days, but I can't recollect it."

"Well, it strikes me you ought to be if you're jogging round the country together," said the other, her eyes twinkling. "But if you're not, take warning, padre. A girl that talks about corsets in public isn't respectable, especially as she doesn't wear them herself, except in the evening, for the sake of other things. Or she used not to. But perhaps you know?"

Peter tried to look comfortable, but he was completely out of his depth.

He finished his drink with a happy inspiration, and ordered another. That down, he began to feel more capable of entering into the spirit of these two. They were the sort he wanted to know, both of them, women about as different from those he had met as they could possibly be.

Another man dropped in after a while, so the talk became general. The atmosphere was very free and easy, bantering, careless, jolly, and Peter expanded in it. Julie led them all. She was never at a loss, and apparently had no care in the world.

The two girls and Peter went together to dinner and sat at the same table. They talked a good deal together, and Peter gathered they had come to know each other at a hospital in England. They were full of reminiscences.

"Do you remember ducking Pockett?" Teanie asked Julie.

"Lor', I should think I do! Tell Peter. He won't be horrified unless you go into details. If I cough, Solomon, you're to change the subject. Carry on, Teanie."

"Well, Pockett was a nurse of about the last limit. She was fearfully sn.o.bby, which n.o.body of that name ought to be, and she ruled her pros.

with a rod of iron. I expect that was good for them, and I say nothing as to that, but she was a beast to the boys. We had some poor chaps in who were d.a.m.nably knocked about, and one could do a lot for them in roundabout ways. Regulations are made to be broken in some cases, I think. But she was a holy terror. Sooner than call her, the boys would endure anything, but some of us knew, and once she caught Julie here..."

"It wasn't--it was you, Teanie."

"Oh, well, one of us, anyway, in her ward when she was on night duty, sitting with a poor chap who pegged out a few days after. It soothed him to sit and hold her hand. Well, anyway, she was furious and reported it.

There was a bit of a row--had to be, I suppose, as it was against regulations--but thank G.o.d the P.M.O. knew his job, so there was only a strafe with the tongue in the cheek. However, we swore revenge, and we had it--eh, Julie?"

"We did. Go on. It was you who thought of it."

"Well, we filled a bath with tepid water and then went to her room one night. She was asleep, and never heard us. We had a towel round her head in two twinks, and carried her by the legs and arms to the bathroom.

Julie had her legs, and held 'em well up, so that down went her head under water. She couldn't yell then. When we let her up, I douched her with cold water, and then we bolted. We saw to it that there wasn't a towel in the bathroom, and we locked her bedroom door. Oh, lor', poor soul, but it was funny! She met an orderly in the corridor, and he nearly had a fit, and I don't wonder, for her wet nightie clung to her figure like a skin. She had to try half a dozen rooms before she got anyone to help her, and then, when she got back, we'd ragged her room to blazes.

She never said a word, and left soon after. Ever hear of her again, Julie?"

"No," said she, looking more innocent than ever, Peter thought; "but I expect she's made good somewhere. She must have had something in her or she'd have kicked up a row."

Miss Melville was laughing silently. "You innocent babe unborn," she said; "never shall I forget how you held...."

"Come on, Captain Graham," said Julie, getting up; "you've got to see me home, and I want a nice walk by the sea-front."

They went out together, and stood at the hotel door in the little street.

There was a bit of a moon, with clouds scurrying by, and when it shone the road was damp and glistening in the moonlight. "What a heavenly night!" said Julie. "Come on with us along the sea-front, Teanie--do!"

Miss Melville smiled up at them. "I reckon you'd prefer to be alone," she said.

Peter glanced at Julie, and then protested. "No," he said; "do come on,"

and Julie rewarded him with a smile.

So they set out together. On the front the wind was higher, lashing the waves, and the moonlight shone fitfully on the distant cliffs, the harbour mouth, and the sea. The two girls clung together, and as Peter walked by Julie she took his arm. Conversation was difficult as they battled their way along the promenade. There was hardly a soul about, and Peter felt the night to fit his mood.

They went up once and down again, and at the Casino grounds Teanie stopped them. "'Nough," she said; "I'm for home and bed. You two dears can finish up without me."

"Oh, we must see you home," said Peter.

The doctor laughed. "Think I shall get stolen?" she demanded. "Someone would have to get up pretty early for that. No, padre, I'm past the need of being escorted, thanks. Good-night. Be good, Julie. We'll meet again sometime, I hope. If not, keep smiling. Cheerio."

She waved her hand and was gone in the night. "If there was ever a plucky, unselfish, rattling good woman, there she goes," said Julie.

"I've known her sit up night after night with wounded men when she was working like a horse all day. I've known her to help a drunken Tommy into a cab and get him home, and quiet his wife into the bargain. I saw her once walk off out of the Monico with a boy of a subaltern, who didn't know what he was doing, and take him to her own flat, and put him to bed, and get him on to the leave-train in time in the morning. She'd give away her last penny, and you wouldn't know she'd done it. And yet she's not the sort of woman you'd choose to run a mother's meeting, would you, Solomon?"

"Sure thing I wouldn't," said Peter, "not in my old parish, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't in my new one."

"What's your new one?" asked Julie curiously.

"Oh, it hasn't a name," said Peter, "but it's pretty big. Something after the style of John Wesley's parish, I reckon. And I'm gradually getting it sized up."

"Where do I come in, Solomon?" demanded Julie.