Although it was not anywhere near tea time according to the school clock, they had eaten lunch shortly after eleven and Madame Perceval and Fräulein Hauser started handing around packets of marmalade sandwiches. At the sound of the whistle Flip rose and straggled over to the girls surrounding the teachers. She stood on the outskirts, still looking about her at the sky and the mountains and the snow, and feeling that wonderful surge of happiness at the beauty that always banished any loneliness or misery she might be feeling. Somehow a miscount had been made in the school kitchen when the tea was packed and Solvei and Jackie, and of course Flip, the last one on the outskirts, found themselves without anything to eat for tea. A small chalet stood across the ridge and Madame Perceval said, “I know Monsieur and Madame Rasmée. They’re used to serving meals to amateur mountain climbers and I know they could take care of these girls. Suppose I take them over.”
“It seems the only thing to do,” Fräulein Hauser agreed.
So Flip found herself walking across the rough ground with Madame Perceval, Solvei, and Jackie, her pleasure in this unusual adventure marred by her awareness of the longing glances Jackie cast at Erna, and Solvei at her best friend, Maggie Campbell.
Madame Perceval said a few words to the pleasant woman who met them at the chalet and in a few minutes the girls found themselves sitting at a small table in front of an open fire. They stripped off their blazers.
“All right, girls,” Madame Perceval said. “Have a good tea and come back as soon as you’ve finished.”
“Oh, yes, Madame.” They smiled at her radiantly as she left them. Only Madame Perceval would have allowed them to enjoy this special treat unchaperoned.
“I wish Percy taught skiing instead of Hauser,” sighed Jackie. “She’s much better.”
Solvei nodded. “Once, last winter when Hauser had the flu, Percy took skiing and it was wonderful.”
“She’s always one of the judges at the ski meet,” Jackie continued, “and then there’s Hauser, and the skiing teacher from one of the other schools, and two professional skiers. It’s wonderful fun, Pill. There aren’t any classes, like today, and we all go up to Gstaad for the meet and have lunch up there and there are medals and a cup and it’s all simply magnifique.”
Flip thought of the skis Eunice had given her and somehow she felt that she might be good at skiing. And she was happy, too, because suddenly Jackie and Solvei seemed to be talking to her, not at her and around her, and she opened her mouth to tell them about the skis Eunice had given her, skis that had belonged to Eunice but which she had discarded; Eunice did not really care for skiing. Because she doesn’t look her best in ski clothes, Flip thought unkindly. “My skis—” she started to say to Solvei and Jackie, when suddenly she closed her mouth and she felt the blood drain from her face and then flood it, because there, coming in at the door, was a tall stooped man, and with him, slender and dark, was Paul.
THREE: THE ESCAPE FROM THE DUNGEON
PAUL SAW HER ALMOST AT ONCE and quickly shook his head, and Flip heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, oh, thank goodness, Jackie and Solvei had their backs to the door and had seen neither Paul nor his signal.
But Jackie said, “What’s the matter, Pill? You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”
Flip pretended to choke and said, “I just swallowed the wrong way. May I have the butter, please, Solvei?”
On Thursday Flip received one of the proprietary letters from Eunice that always upset her. Luckily she was assigned to Madame Perceval’s table that day, and this special stroke of luck cheered her a little, for Madame Perceval’s tact and humor seemed to act like a magnet drawing everyone into a warm circle of friendliness and sympathy. Erna was with her again and said as they sat down after grace, “We seem to stick together like glue, don’t we, Pill?”
Flip nodded and grinned, because Erna’s tone had been friendly.
During dinner they began discussing their parents. Esmée Bodet’s father was a lawyer. Erna’s father was a surgeon and had done operations on the battlefields. Polly Huber, an American girl from Alabama who had been at the school for three years, had a father who was a newspaperman, and Maggie Campbell’s father taught Greek at the University of Edinburgh.
“And your father’s a painter, isn’t he, Pill?” Erna asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, our house needs painting. Do you think he’d do it cheap for us since I know you?”
All the girls laughed loudly except Flip, who colored angrily and looked down at her plate with a sulky expression.
After dinner, when everybody stood up, Madame Perceval said quietly to Flip, “Please wait, Philippa.” And all the girls exchanged glances, because that was the tone Madame used when she was not pleased and intended to say so. Flip stood nervously behind her chair and looked down at the table with the empty dessert dishes and the crumbs scattered about and at Madame Perceval’s coffee cup with a small amount of dark liquid left in the bottom.
“Philippa,” Madame said gravely when they had the dining room to themselves except for the maids who were clearing away, “I haven’t seen you a great deal with the other girls, but several of the teachers have told me that you are always off somewhere sulking and that your attitude is unfriendly in the extreme.”
“I don’t mean to sulk,” Flip said. “I didn’t know I sulked. And I don’t mean to be unfriendly. I don’t, truly, Madame.” If I had been thinking of Paul instead of Eunice I wouldn’t have behaved the way I did, she thought.
“When Erna suggested that your father paint her house she was making a joke and you took it seriously and looked hurt and wounded.”
“I know,” Flip said. “It was stupid of me.”
“But you always do it, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Flip admitted. “I guess I do, most of the time.”
“I know you’re not happy here, Philippa, but when you make it so easy for the girls to tease you, you can’t blame them for taking advantage of it. Girls can be very cruel, especially when they get the idea that someone is ‘different.’ ”
“But I am different,” Flip said desperately.
“Why?”
“I’m so clumsy and I’m the tallest girl in the class. I’m as tall as lots of the seniors. And I fall over things and I’m not good at athletics, and I wasn’t blitzed or underground or anything during the war.”
Now Madame Perceval sounded really severe. “I didn’t expect to hear you talk quite so foolishly, Philippa. You are tall, yes, but you can turn that into an advantage later on. And perhaps right now you’re a little awkward, but you’ll outgrow that. Incidentally, have you forgotten that Maggie Campbell’s sister, Liz, has a brace on her leg? And she’s one of the most popular girls in her class. And as for being blitzed or underground, remember that the girls who are in the difficult and defensive position are the German girls. They’ve had a hard time of it here, some of them. It wasn’t easy for Erna, for instance.”
“Yes,” Flip persisted stubbornly, “but they were all in it and I wasn’t in it at all.”
“Neither were the other Americans,” Madame said sharply. “I’m beginning to realize what the other teachers meant.”
Flip looked as though Madame Perceval had struck her. She pleaded, “Please don’t hate me because I’ve been the—the way I’ve been. Please. I’ll try not to be. I’ll try to be different. I do try. I just don’t seem to know how. But I’ll try harder. And I know it’s all my own fault. Truly.”
“Very well,” Madame Perceval said. “Go on back to the common room now until time for study hall.”
“Yes, Madame.” Flip started to leave, but when she got to the dining room she turned and said desperately, “Madame, thank you for telling me. I—I guess I needed to be told how awful I am.”
For the first time, Madame Perceval smiled at her, but all she said was, “All right, Philippa. Run along.” And she gave her a little spank.
Flip spent the rest of the week waiting for Saturday and sighe
d with relief when Paul was at his usual place by the shutter when she reached the château. Ariel ran dashing to meet her, jumping up and down and barking. I feel as though I’d come home, Flip thought as she waved at Paul.
“Hello, Flip!” Paul called. “Down, Ariel! Down! Come here this instant, sir!”
Ariel went bounding back to Paul, who held him by the collar and Flip thought again how much he looked like the page in the tapestry.
“Hello,” she said, her heart leaping with pleasure because Paul was so obviously glad to see her. She had dug Eunice’s gift of Chanel No. 5 out of her bottom drawer and put a little behind her ears and had brushed her hair until it shone.
“Come on,” Paul urged. “I want to show you something.” He went into the château and Flip and Ariel followed. They went across the empty hall and up the wide stairs, then down a broad corridor and up more stairs, and it seemed that every time Paul led her down a dim passage there was another flight of stairs at the end. At last he opened a door and started up a very steep, circular iron stairway. Openings were cut in the thick stones of the walls and through them Flip could see the sky, very blue, and puffs of snowy clouds. The stairs were white with bird droppings and Flip could hear the birds just above their heads. A swallow sat on the stones of one of the openings and watched them. Ariel laboriously climbed up three steps, then sat down to wait, a patient expression on his ferocious bulldog’s countenance. Flip followed Paul on up. At the top of the stairs was a small platform and more openings looking out over the country on all four sides. The birds flew in and out, scolding excitedly. Flip rushed to one of the windows and there was the valley of the Rhone spread out before her, Montreux, Vevey and Lausanne, lying in a pool of violet shadows, and the lake like melted silver, and across the lake the mountains rising proudly into the sky, with the snow descending farther and farther down their strong flanks in ever-lengthening streaks.
“Like it?” Paul asked.
“Oh, yes!” Flip breathed. “Oh, Paul—”
“This is my place,” Paul said. “I never thought I’d bring anyone here. But I knew you’d feel about it the way I do.”
Paul leaned back against the cold stones of the turret wall, his scarlet sweater bright against the gray stone. “Still worrying about that Eunice?”
“I can’t help it,” Flip said.
“School any better?”
“No.”
“Still hate it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t blame you. It must be very unpleasant living in an institution.”
“I don’t think it’s the school,” Flip told him with unwilling honesty. “I think it’s just me. Lots of the girls love it.”
Paul shook his head. “I don’t think I’d ever like a place where I couldn’t leave when I chose.”
“I’d like it better,” Flip said with difficulty, “if anybody liked me. But nobody does.” She leaned her elbows on one of the ledges and stared out over the valley toward the Dents du Midi so that she would not have to look at Paul.
“Why don’t they like you?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But I like you.”
Flip did not insult him by saying “Do you really?” Instead she asked, “Why do you like me, Paul?”
Paul considered. “I knew right away that I liked you, so I never bothered to think why. I just—well, I like the way you look. Your eyes are nice. I like the way you see things. And I like the way you move your hands. You could be a surgeon if you wanted to. But you want to be an artist.”
“Yes,” Flip said, blushing at his words. “I want to paint and paint. Everything in the world. Mostly people, though. Paul—” she asked hesitantly.
“What?”
“It doesn’t make you like me any less because—”
“Because what?”
“Because the girls at school don’t like me . . .”
Paul looked at her severely. “You can’t think much of me if you think I’d stop liking you just because a few silly girls in school haven’t any sense. If they don’t like you, it’s because they don’t know you. That’s all.”
“It’s funny,” Flip said, “how you can know someone for years and years and never know them and how you can know someone else all at once in no time at all. I’ll never know Eunice. I’ll always feel funny with her. But the very first day I saw you I felt as though I knew you, and when I’m with you I can talk . . . I’d better go now. It’s getting awfully late. See how dark the towns are getting down by the lake.”
“Can you come back tomorrow?” Paul asked.
“Yes. I know they’ll catch me sooner or later and then it’ll be awful, but I’ll come till they catch me.”
“They wouldn’t give you permission to see me if you asked?”
“Oh, no! Nobody except seniors is allowed to see boys—except brothers.”
“Well, I’ll think of something.” Paul sounded so convincing that Flip almost believed he really would be able to work out a plan. “Come on,” he said. “Ariel and I’ll walk as far as the woods with you, but I think it would be dangerous if I went any farther. We mustn’t run any risk of being seen together.”
As she followed Paul down from the tower Flip felt so happy over their friendship that she almost wanted to cry, it was so wonderful. She said good-bye to Paul at the edge of the woods and was nearly back at school when something terrible almost happened. She had cleared the ring of trees and was scurrying across the lawn, when Martha Downs and Kaatje van Leyden came around the corner of the building. Flip saw them and started to hurry toward the side door, but Martha called her. Flip was awed by both of them at the best of times—Martha, the beautiful and popular head girl of the school, and Kaatje, the equally popular and formidable games captain and head monitor; and Flip knew that this was anything but the best of times. She felt as though her guilt were sticking all over her like molasses.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Martha asked.
“Nowhere,” Flip answered. “I just went for a walk.”
“All by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t you find anyone to go with you?”
“I wanted to be by myself,” Flip said.
“That’s all right,” Kaatje interposed kindly. “We all like to be by ourselves once in a while. She wasn’t breaking any rules.”
Flip was sure that they would ask her where she had been, but Martha said instead, “You’re Philippa Hunter, aren’t you?”
Flip nodded.
“I’m glad we bumped into you,” Martha told her. “I’ve been meaning to look you up. I had a letter a few days ago from a friend of my mother’s, Mrs. Jackman.”
“Oh,” Flip said.
“And she asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Oh,” Flip said again. Why did Eunice have to pursue her even at school?
“She said she was a very dear friend of your father’s, and that it was through her you had come here.”
That’s right, Flip thought. It’s all because of Eunice.
But she knew she couldn’t really blame Eunice and anyhow, now that there was Paul, being miserable while she was actually at the school didn’t matter so much anymore.
“Everything all right?” Martha asked. “You’re all settled and everything?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, if you ever want me for anything, just come along and give a bang on my study door.”
“I will. Thank you very much,” Flip said, knowing that she wouldn’t. And she went back into the common room and sat at the big billiard table, a legacy from the days when the school had been a hotel, and tried to write a letter to her father. But she could not concentrate. Images of Eunice kept crowding themselves into her mind. Eunice. Eunice and her father. Once Eunice had even said something to her about her father being young and probably marrying again—but not Eunice! P
lease, not anybody, but especially please, not Eunice!
The next morning when she woke up, Flip’s throat was raw and her head was hot and when she opened her mouth to speak her voice came out in a hoarse croak.
“You’d better report to the nurse,” Erna told her.
Flip shook her head violently. “I’m all right. Just getting a cold.”
“Sounds as though you’d got one, ducky,” Gloria said.
“Oh, well, it’s nothing,” Flip creaked in a voice like a rusty hinge.
Nothing, she thought, nothing must keep her from going up to the château to see Paul.
Fortunately it was Sunday and breakfast was unsupervised; she might have escaped detection if it hadn’t been for Madame Perceval. Madame Perceval was planning an art exhibit, and, after chapel, she came into the common room and walked over to the corner where Flip sat reading Anna Karenina.
“Philippa,” she said as Flip scrambled clumsily to her feet.
“Yes, Madame?”
“I want to use two of your paintings in my exhibit and you haven’t signed either of them. Come up to the studio with me and do it now.”
“Yes, Madame,” Flip croaked.
“What on earth is the matter with your voice, child?”
“Oh, nothing, Madame, really. I’m just a little hoarse.”
“After you’ve finished signing your pictures you’d better report to Mademoiselle Duvoisine.”
Mlle Duvoisine was the school nurse, and since she was a special friend of Miss Tulip’s, Flip rather distrusted her. “Oh, no, Madame, I’m all right, truly. Please, I promise you.”
“We’ll leave that up to Mademoiselle Duvoisine. Come along, please, Philippa.”
As they walked along the corridor and started up the stairs Madame Perceval said in her pleasant voice, “You’ve been trying hard, Philippa. Keep it up.”
Flip bowed her head and muttered something unintelligible, blushing with pleasure that her efforts had been noticed.
After she had signed her pictures, writing HUNTER carefully in one corner the way her father did, Madame Perceval walked back to the infirmary with her. Mlle Duvoisine was sitting at the infirmary desk, knitting a heather-colored sweater, and she looked up and dropped a stitch as they approached.
And Both Were Young Page 9