“Alain, are you sure you don’t know me?”
“What do you mean?” Paul said. “My name is Paul Laurens. What do you mean?”
“Your name is Alain.” The man took a step toward them and Paul pushed Flip back a little. “Your name is Alain Berda. Are you sure you don’t know me?”
“Why should I know you?” Paul demanded.
“Because I am your father, Alain,” the man said.
For a minute Flip thought Paul was going to fall. All the color drained from his face and if he had not been holding on to Flip’s arm, he could not have remained standing.
“No,” he said. “No. You are not my father.” And his voice came out as hoarse and strange as Flip’s had on the morning she woke up with laryngitis.
“I know it’s a surprise to you,” the man said. “You are happy where you are and you don’t want to remember the past. But surely you must remember your own father, Alain.”
“You are not my father,” Paul repeated firmly.
Now the man came a step closer and Flip felt as though she were going to be sick from distaste and loathing of him. She put her arm firmly about Paul. “If Paul says you aren’t his father that’s that. Good-bye.”
The man smiled, and when he smiled, his face seemed even more frightening than when he was serious. “Perhaps you’re thinking that I’m a shabby sort of person to be your father, Alain, but if I’m shabby it’s because of the months and years I’ve spent searching for you.”
“How did you find me?” Paul asked, and his voice was faint.
“I heard that a child answering to my lost son’s description might be in a boarding school in Switzerland. You can imagine the months I’ve spent searching all the Swiss schools. I have spent hours watching the boys in the school up the mountain. I even looked at the girls’ school down the mountain, hoping perhaps to come across someone who might have known you. That is when I first saw this young lady here.” He nodded at Flip.
“Why did you tell me you were going to tend the furnace?” Flip asked.
“I couldn’t very well tell you I was looking for a lost boy, could I? Then I saw Paul, as he is now called, and I knew that my search had come to an end. I’ve been watching you from a distance to make sure, but now there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re my son Alain.” He opened his arms as though he expected Paul to run into them, but Paul clutched Flip even tighter.
“You are not my father,” he said again, and Flip could feel him trembling all over. She herself was shaking and she felt very cold as she stood there in the snow with her arms about Paul.
“Go away!” Paul cried. “You’re playing a horrible trick on me.”
“I don’t want to hurry you, Alain,” the man said. “I know this must be a great shock to you. But remember that you have found not a stranger but a father who will love and protect you. Why don’t you take me home to Monsieur Laurens and we’ll talk it over with him?”
“No,” Paul said. “You mustn’t see my father.”
“But why not, Alain?”
“My father is working. You mustn’t disturb him.”
“But about something so important, Alain?”
“No,” Paul reiterated. “You mustn’t see my father.”
“Alain,” the man said. “Suppose I could prove to you that I was your father?”
“How could you prove it? You’re not my father. Stop calling me Alain.”
“Alain,” the man’s voice was pleading. “Suppose I showed you a picture I have of you and me when you were little?”
After a moment Paul said, “Let me see the picture.”
“It’s up the mountain in the chalet where I’m staying. Come with me and I’ll show it to you.”
“No.” Paul’s voice was flat and colorless with shock and fear. “Bring it to me.”
“Very well,” the man said. “I’ll bring it to your house this evening.”
“No,” Paul said again. “No. You can’t go there. I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Bring it to the château. Leave it there for me.”
“I can’t leave that picture lying around, Alain. It’s all I’ve had of my son for a long time. But I’ll bring it to the château tonight after dinner, at eight o’clock, and you can look at it and see if it helps you to remember.”
“Very well. I’ll be there,” Paul said.
The man moved toward him as though to kiss him, but as Paul drew back in repulsion the man dropped his arms to his side and stood there looking at him. “I suppose it is too much to ask that you should know me all at once; but when we have lived together for a little while I am sure things will be different.”
“Bring me the picture,” Paul cried in a choking voice.
“Very well, Alain,” the man said. “I will leave you now but I will see you at the château this evening.” And he turned and started up the mountain and in a moment disappeared in a clump of trees.
When he was out of sight Paul bent down and fastened on his skis. His lips were pale and tightly closed and he did not say a word. Flip put on her skis and silently followed him down the mountain.
When they got to the gate house Paul said, “Don’t tell my father.”
“What are you going to do, Paul?”
“I don’t know. But I know I can’t tell my father.”
“Why not?”
Paul’s voice shook. “He might believe him. If my father believes him, I’ll have to go with him.”
“You don’t remember him? You don’t remember him at all, Paul?” Flip asked.
Paul shook his head.
“You don’t think he is your father?” Flip asked.
Paul shook his head again and he was shivering.
“We’d better go in,” Flip said. “You’re cold.”
Georges Laurens was shut up in his tiny study and Flip and Paul crouched in front of the fire.
“Thank goodness Aunt Colette isn’t here,” Paul said. “She’d guess something was the matter right away.”
“I wish she were here!” Flip cried. “She’d know what to do.”
But Paul shook his head again. “I know what I have to do.”
“What, Paul?”
“I have to go to the château tonight and see that picture. Maybe that will help me to remember.”
“You don’t look like him,” Flip said. “You don’t look like him at all.”
“No.” Paul picked up the poker and jabbed miserably at the logs. “But you don’t seem as if you look at all like either your mother or father, from their pictures.”
“I don’t,” Flip said. “I look like my grandmother.”
“Well, you see then? It doesn’t mean anything if I don’t look like him. But Flip, I’m sure if I saw my father I’d remember him. Don’t you think I would?”
“I don’t know,” Flip said. “It seems to me you would.”
Paul knocked all the logs out of place with the poker and had to take the tongs to put them back. “He’s so hideous, Flip. Like a snake. Or a rat. And, Flip, if I were really his son and he’d spent all that time looking for me, it would be because he loved me, wouldn’t it? And I didn’t feel that he loved me at all. If only he’d had that picture with him. If only I could get it without going to the château to meet him tonight.”
They sat looking into the fire. A log broke in half and fell, sending up a shower of sparks, and suddenly Flip thought of something that made a prickly feeling begin at the base of her spine and go all the way up her back. At last she said, “I know how you can get the picture without having to go to the château.”
“How?” Paul asked eagerly.
“I’ll go.”
“Don’t be a little idiot,” Paul said. “As if I’d let you. Anyhow, he wouldn’t give it to you.”
“I could pretend I was you.”
“I wouldn’t let you.”
“I could wear your ski clothes.”
“They wouldn’t fit you.”
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p; “They’d fit well enough,” Flip said. “I’m not so much shorter than you. And I could put my hair under your cap and in the dark he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
Paul put his head down on his knees. “I won’t let you do that.”
“If you go,” Flip said, “I’m afraid he’ll never let you come back. He doesn’t want me.”
“Wouldn’t you be afraid to go?”
“Yes,” Flip admitted. “I would be. But I’d be more afraid to have you go than I would be to go myself.”
“No,” Paul said firmly. “It’s wonderful of you to think of it. But it is impossible.”
And Flip knew there was no use arguing with him.
Thérèse came in and stood arms akimbo in the doorway, announcing, “Lunch is on the table and it’s good onion soup, so come and eat it while it’s hot.”
“I’m not hungry,” Paul whispered.
“I’m not either,” Flip whispered back. “But we’ve got to pretend we are. Does Ariel like onion soup?”
“Ariel likes anything.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” Flip said.
A wind came up during the afternoon and by dinnertime it was howling about the gate house. Flip had thought up a scheme in which, in spite of Paul’s opposition, she would be the one to make the trip to the château. But it was so daring, so dangerous, that whenever she thought of it she began to shiver. Her shivers started somewhere deep inside of her, the way she thought a tidal wave must start deep inside of the ocean, and then it seemed to break over her like a wave. Gloria said that when you shivered like that when you weren’t cold it meant that somebody was walking over the place your grave was going to be.
They sat by the fire, Flip and Paul, huddled there all afternoon, scarcely saying a word, listening to the wind rise. Fortunately Georges Laurens was absorbed in his work and their silence did not penetrate his concentration any more than their conversation would have.
“If he’d just leave the picture for me,” Paul said.
“He won’t. He’ll be there. He wants to make sure he gets you.”
After dinner they went upstairs and sat on Paul’s bed.
“I’ll go in five minutes,” Paul said, staring unhappily down at the floor.
“Paul—” Flip started.
“What?”
“I want to give you something to take with you for good luck.”
“I need good luck,” Paul said.
“Well, in the old days a knight always carried the handkerchief of his lady. Would you like to carry my handkerchief?”
“Yes,” Paul said.
“It’s under my pillow. But it’s a clean one.”
“I’ll get it and then I’ll go.” Paul got up and crossed the hall to Flip’s room. She followed close at his heels and stood in the doorway, and when he had reached the head of the big bed and was feeling under her pillow for the handkerchief she slammed the door on him, the door that did not open from the inside.
“Flip! What are you doing!” Paul cried. “Open the door!”
“No,” Flip called softly through the door. “I’m going to put on your ski clothes and go to the château.” And she rushed into Paul’s room and pulled on his brown ski trousers and red sweater, and pulled his striped stocking cap over her hair.
“Let me out! Flip, you devil! Let me out!” Paul cried, pounding against the door.
Flip took a hasty look at herself in the mirror as she pulled on Paul’s mittens. I’ll be all right in the dark, she told herself. “Good-bye, Paul,” she called through the door to him. “I’ll be back with the picture as fast as I possibly can.”
Ignoring his frantic shouts, she hurried down the stairs. She was afraid that Georges Laurens would hear the commotion and come to investigate, but as she tiptoed past his study she saw that he was deep in concentration, and Paul’s cries were falling on deaf ears. Madame Perceval had taken Ariel with her, so she need not be afraid that the dog would arouse Monsieur Laurens or even Thérèse.
She let herself out of the house.
It was one of the coldest evenings of the winter and the wind slapped at her face like a cruel hand. Clouds were scudding across the moon and their shadows on the snow seemed alive and Flip kept jumping with fear as the shadows moved and made her think they belonged to some animate creature.
“He is not Paul’s father, he is not Paul’s father, please, God, make him not be Paul’s father,” she kept saying under her breath.
The château loomed up, a gaunt ruin. A night bird flew out of one of the windows with a cry that sent Flip’s heart into her mouth, and various shutters and loose boards were banging in the vicious wind. She stood still on the snow for a long time before she dared to go on. Then she almost ran, jumping sideways like a startled pony to avoid the shadows that moved so strangely across the white ground. Although she was expecting it, when she heard a whispered “Alain” her tense body jerked and she stopped stock still.
“Alain,” the voice came again, and the man moved out from the shadows.
“Here I am,” Flip whispered.
“It’s cold,” he said. “Are you warmly dressed?”
“Yes. Where is the picture?” She kept on whispering because that way the man was not as apt to realize that it was a girl’s voice.
“Come with me and I’ll give it to you.”
“I want to see it now,” Flip whispered.
“You couldn’t see it in this light. It’s up in my chalet just up the mountain. It’s warm there and I’ll have some nice hot soup for you.”
“I’ve finished dinner,” Flip whispered, “and I don’t want to go to your chalet. I just want to see the picture.”
“You still don’t remember that I’m your father?” the man asked, and he stepped forward and took her wrist in his hand.
“No!” Flip cried, trying to pull away. “No! You promised I could see the picture! Let me go!”
“And so you shall see the picture, Alain, if you will come with me.”
From one of the turrets of the château an owl cried, making them both jump, but the man did not loose his hold on her wrist. He took the bony fingers of his other hand and held her chin and turned her face up to the moonlight and said, “You mustn’t be afraid of me, Alain, my boy,” and then he shouted, “What kind of a trick is this? You’re the girl!”
Before she knew what she was doing Flip had squirmed out of his grasp and was pelting across the snow, but he was after her and caught her with furious fingers. Flip screamed and fought, biting and clawing like a little wild beast, and the night was full of her screams and the man’s snarls and the banging of boards and shutters and the cries of disturbed birds. Neither of them saw when a shutter was blown loose from a turret window and came flying down to strike Flip on the head. She dropped like a wounded bird to the snow and lay there motionless. She did not see the man staring at her limp body in horror, nor know when he picked her up and went into the château with her and dumped her there in the dark, a small inert bundle on the stone floor.
SIX: THE PRISONER FREED
FLIP WAS LYING AT THE BOTTOM of the ocean and all the weight of the sea was upon her, pressing her down into the white sands, and bells were ringing down at the bottom of the sea, ringing and ringing, and the tides came and went above her and the waves were wild in the wind and the breakers rolled and she lay with all the waters of the world pushing her down onto the floor of the sea and the bells rang and rang until finally they were dissolved into icy darkness.
She opened her eyes and she saw Paul’s white face. She turned toward him and whispered weakly, “I didn’t get the picture, Paul,” and then she moaned because the movement of turning her head seemed to bring the waters of the ocean down on her once more. She tried to push the weight of the waters away from her, but her fingers closed on a handful of cobwebs. She felt that she was being lifted and then again she was drowned in darkness.
When the darkness finally rose it was a quiet and almost imperceptible
happening. She felt the bright warmth of winter sunlight on her eyelids and she thought at first that it was a morning back at school and in a moment the bell would ring and she would have to get up. And then she remembered that now it was winter and it was dark until after breakfast and if she had been in bed at school the sun would not be warm against her closed eyes.
And then she remembered the night before, the man who said he was Paul’s father, and she remembered the château and the picture, and the waters of darkness suddenly bearing down upon her, and she was afraid to open her eyes. Her lids still shut tight, she stirred faintly upon the pillow.
“You’re all right, Flip. You’re absolutely all right, darling.”
Now she opened her eyes and there was Madame Perceval standing beside the bed saying, “Everything’s all right, Flip. Everything’s all right. Close your eyes and go to sleep, my darling.”
So she closed her eyes and this time the waters were gentle and she felt that she was slowly drifting down a river of sleep and when she woke up she was no longer afraid to look.
She opened her eyes and she was lying in the big four-poster bed in the room in the gate house that Madame Perceval used; and Mlle Duvoisine, not in her uniform but in a tweed skirt and the sweater she had been knitting the day of Flip’s laryngitis, was sitting in a chair by the window, reading. As Flip moved, Mlle Duvoisine rose and came quickly over to the bed. She put her fingers lightly against Flip’s wrist and said, “Well, Philippa, how are you?”
“I guess I’m fine. Where’s Paul, please? Is he all right? I couldn’t get the picture!” Flip started to sit up in her anxiety, but as she tried to raise her head it felt as though a crushing weight were holding it down and a wave of nausea swept over her.
“You’d better lie still,” Mlle Duvoisine warned her. “You’ll probably have that headache for a couple of days.”
“Why? What happened?”
“A piece of one of the shutters blew off the château and gave you what your roommate, Gloria Browne, would call a bop on the bean.” Mlle Duvoisine smiled at her with a warmth Flip had never seen in her eyes before.
“Is Paul all right?”
“Yes,” Mlle Duvoisine assured her. “You can see him in a few minutes. You’re a foolish little girl, Philippa. Did you know that?” But she didn’t sound as though she thought Flip foolish at all.
And Both Were Young Page 16