Simon Called Peter - Robert Keable (ready to read books .txt) 📗

They went up, and Julie dropped into her chair while Peter knelt to poke the fire. Then he lit a cigarette, and she refused one for once, and he stood there looking into the flame.

Julie drew a deep sigh. "Wasn't it gorgeous, Peter?" she said. "I can't help it, but I always feel I want it to go on for ever and ever. Did you ever see Kismet? That was worse even than this. I wanted to get up and walk into the play. These modern things are too clever; you know they're unreal, and yet they seem to be real. You know you're dreaming, but you hate to wake up. I could let all that music and dancing and colour go on round me till I floated away and away, for ever."

Peter said nothing. He continued to stare into the fire.

"What do you feel?" demanded Julie.

Peter drew hard on his cigarette, and then he blew out the smoke. "I don't know," he said. "Yes, I do," he added quickly; "I feel I want to get up and preach a sermon."

"Good Lord, Peter! what a dreadful sensation that must be! Don't begin now, will you? I'm beginning to wish we'd gone into the lounge after all; you surely couldn't have preached there."

Peter did not smile. He went on as if she had not spoken, "Or write a great novel, or, better still, a great play," he said.

"What would be the subject, then, you Solomon, or the title, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Peter dreamily. "All Men are Grass, The Way of all Flesh—no, neither of those is good, and besides, one at least is taken. I know," he added suddenly, "I would call it Exchange, that's all. My word, Julie, I believe I could do it." He straightened himself, and walked across the room and back again, once or twice. "I believe I could: I feel it tingling in me; but it's all formless, if you understand; I've no plot. It's just what I feel as I sit there in a theatre, as we did just now."

Julie leaned forward and took the cigarette she had just refused. She lit it herself with a half-burnt match, and Peter stood and watched her, but hardly saw what she was doing. She was as conscious of his preoccupation as if it were something physical about him.

"Explain, my dear," she said, leaning back and staring into the fire.

"I don't know that I can," he replied, and she felt as if he did not speak to her. "It's the bigness of it all, the beauty, the triumphant success. It's drawn that great house full, lured them in, the thousands of them, and it does so night after night. Tired people go there to be refreshed, and sad people to be made gay, and people sick of life to laugh and forget it. It's the world's big anodyne. It offers a great exchange. And all for a few shillings, Julie, and for a few hours. The sensation lingers, but one has to go again and again. It tricks one into thinking, almost, that it's the real thing, that one can dance like mayflies in the sun. Only, Julie, there comes an hour when down sinks the sun, and what of the mayflies then?"

Julie shifted her head ever so little. "Go on," she said, looking up intently at him.

He did not notice her, but her words roused him. He began to pace up and down again, and her eyes followed him. "Why," he said excitedly, "don't you see that it's a fraudulent exchange? It's a fraudulent exchange that it offers, and it itself is an exchange as fraudulent as that which our modern world is making. No, not our modern world only. We talk so big of our modernity, when it's all less than the dust—this year's leaves, no better than last year's, and fallen to-morrow. Rome offered the same exchange, and even a better one, I think—the blood and lust and conflict of the amphitheatre. But they're both exchanges, offered instead of the great thing, the only great thing."

"Which is, Peter?"

"God, of course—Almighty God; Jesus, if you will, but I'm not in a mood for the tenderness of that. It's God Himself Who offers tired and sad people, and people sick of life, no anodyne, no mere rest, but stir and fight and the thrill of things nobly done—nobly tried, Julie, even if nobly failed. Can't you see it? And you and I to-night have been looking at what the world offers—in exchange."

He ceased and dropped into a chair the other side of the fire. A silence fell on them. Then Julie gave a little shiver. "Peter, dear," she said tenderly, "I'm a little tired and cold."

He was up at once and bending over her. "My darling, what a beast I am! I clean forgot you for a minute. What will you have? What about a hot toddy? Shall I make one?" he demanded, smiling. "Donovan taught me how, and I'm really rather good at it."

She smiled back at him, and put her hand up to smooth his hair. "That would be another exchange, Peter," she said, "and I don't want it. Only one thing can warm me to-night and give me rest."

He read what she meant in her eyes, and knelt beside the chair to put his arms around her. She leaned her face on his shoulder, and returned the kisses that he showered upon her. "Poor mayflies," she said to herself, "how they love to dance in the sun!"

Ever after that next day, the Saturday, will remain in Peter's memory as a time by itself, of special significance, but a significance, except for one incident, very hard to place. It began, indeed, very quietly, and very happily. They breakfasted again in their own room, and Julie was in one of her subdued moods, if one ever could say she was subdued. Afterwards Peter lit a cigarette and strolled over to the window. "It's a beastly day," he said, "cloudy, cold, windy, and going to rain, I think. What shall we do? Snow up in the hotel all the time?"

"No," said Julie emphatically, "something quite different. You shall show me some of the real London sights, Westminster Abbey to begin with. Then we'll drive along the Embankment and you shall tell me what everything is, and we'll go and see anything else you suggest. I don't suppose you realise, Peter, that I'm all but absolutely ignorant of London."

He turned and smiled on her. "And you really want to see these things?" he said.

"Yes, of course I do. You don't think I suggested it for your benefit? But if it will make you any happier, I'll flatter you a bit. I want to see those things now, with you, partly because I'm never likely to find anyone who can show me them better. Now then. Aren't you pleased?"

At that, then, they started. Westminster came first, and they wandered all over it and saw as much as the conditions of war had left for the public to see. It amused Peter to show Julie the things that seemed to him to have a particular interest—the Chapter House, St. Faith's Chapel, the tomb of the Confessor, and so on. She made odd comments. In St. Faith's she said: "I don't say many prayers, Peter, but here I couldn't say one."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because it's too private," she said quaintly. "I should think I was pretending to be a saint if I went past everybody else and the vergers and things into a little place like this all by myself. Everyone would know that I was doing something which most people don't do. See? Why don't people pray all over the church, as they do in France in a cathedral, Peter?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Come on," he said; "your notions are all topsy-turvy, Julie. Come and look at the monuments."

They wandered down the transept, and observed the majesty of England in stone, robed in togas, declaiming to the Almighty, and obviously convinced that He would be intensely interested; or perhaps dying in the arms of a semi-dressed female, with funeral urns or ships or cannon in the background; or, at least in one case, crouching hopelessly, before the dart of a triumphant death. Julie was certainly impressed, "They are all like ancient Romans, Peter," she said, "and much more striking than those Cardinals and Bishops and Kings, kneeling at prayer, in Rouen Cathedral. But, still, they were not ancient Romans, were they? They were all Christians, I suppose. Is there a Christian monument anywhere about?"

"I don't know," said Peter, "but we'll walk round and see."

They made a lengthy pilgrimage, and finally Peter arrested her. "Here's one," he said.

A Georgian Bishop in bas-relief looked down on them, fat and comfortable. In front of him was a monstrous cup, and a plate piled with biggish squares of stone. Julie did not realise what it was. "What's he doing with all that lump-sugar?" she demanded.

Peter was really a bit horrified. "You're an appalling pagan," he said.
"Come away!" And they came.

They roamed along the Embankment. Julie was as curious as a child, and wanted to know all about everything, from Boadicea, Cleopatra's Needle, and the Temple Church, to Dewar's Whisky Works and the Hotel Cecil. Thereabouts, Julie asked the name of the squat tower and old red-brick buildings opposite, and when she heard it was Lambeth Palace instantly demanded to visit it. Peter was doubtful if they could, but they crossed to see, and they were shown a good deal by the courtesy of the authorities. The Archbishop was away, to Peter's great relief, for as likely as not Julie would have insisted on an introduction, but they saw the chapel and the dining-hall amongst other things. The long line of portraits fascinated her, but not as it fascinated Peter. The significance of the change in the costumes of the portraits struck him for the first time—first the cope and mitre and cross, then the skull-cap and the tippet, then the balloon-sleeves and the wig, then the coat and breeches and white cravat, then the academic robes, and then a purple cassock. Its interest to Julie was other, however. "Peter," she whispered, "perhaps you'll be there one day."

He looked at her sharply, but she was not mocking him, and, marvelling at her simplicity and honest innocence, he relaxed into a smile. "Not very likely, my dear," he said. "In other days a pleasant underground cell in the Lollards' Tower would have been more likely."

Then, of course, Julie must see the famous tower, and see a little of it they did. She wanted to know what Lollardy was; their guide attempted an explanation. Julie was soon bored. "I can't see why people make such a bother about such things," she said. "A man's religion is his own business, surely, and he must settle it for himself. Don't you think so, Peter?"

"Is it his own business only?" he asked gravely.

"Whose else should it be?" she demanded.

"God's," said Peter simply.

Julie stared at him and sighed. "You're very odd, Peter," she said, "but you do say things that strike one as being true. Go on."

"Oh, there's no more to say," said Peter, "except, perhaps, this: if anyone or any Church honestly believed that God had committed His share in the business to them—well, then he might justifiably feel that he or it had a good deal to do with the settling of another man's religion. Hence this tower, Julie, and as a matter of fact, my dear, hence me, past and present. But come on."

She took his arm with a little shiver which he was beginning to notice from time to time in her. "It's a horrible idea, Peter," she said. "Yes, let's go."

So their taxi took them to Buckingham Palace and thereabouts, and by chance they saw the King and Queen. Their Majesties drove by smartly in morning dress with a couple of policemen ahead, and a few women waved handkerchiefs, and Peter came to the salute, and Julie cheered. The Queen turned towards where she was standing, and bowed, and Peter noticed, amazed, that the eyes of the Colonial girl were wet, and that she did not attempt to hide it.

He had to question her. "I shouldn't have thought you'd have felt about royalty like that, Julie," he said.

"Well, I do," she said, "and I don't care what you say. Only I wish they'd go about with the Life Guards. The King's