"That nightgown is most unsuitable," Miss Tulip said disapprovingly. "I
trust you have something else more appropriate."
"That depends on what you call appropriate, please, Miss Tulip," Gloria
said.
"I will go over your things tomorrow. Report to me after breakfast."
"Yes, Miss Tulip," Gloria said meekly, and winked at Erna.
"Good night, girls. Remember, no talking." And Miss Tulip switched out
the light.
Flip lay there in the dark. As her eyes became accustomed to the night
she noticed that the lights from the terrace below shone up through
the iron railing of the balcony and lay in a delicate pattern on the
ceiling. She raised herself on one elbow and she could see out of
the window. All down the mountainside to the lake the lights of the
villages lay like fallen stars. As she watched, one would flicker
out here, another there. Through the open window she could hear the
chime of a village church, and then, almost like an echo, the bell
from another church and then another. She began to feel the sense of
wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her
and made her forget her fears. Now she saw the lights of the train as
it crawled up the mountain, looking like a little luminous dragon. And
on the lake was a tiny band of lights from one of the lake boats.
--Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! she thought. Then she began to
long for her father to show the beauty to. She couldn't contain so much
beauty just in herself. It had to be shared, and she couldn't whisper
to the girls in her room to come and look. She couldn't cry, "Oh, Erna,
Jackie, Gloria, come look!" Erna and Jackie must know how beautiful it
was, and somehow Flip thought that Gloria would think looking at views
was stupid.--Father, she thought.--Oh, Father. What's the matter with
me. What is it?
Then she realized. Of course. She was homesick. Every bone in her
ached with homesickness as though she were getting 'flu. Only she
wasn't homesick for a place, but for a person, for her father. How many
months, how many weeks, how many days, hours, minutes, seconds, till
Christmas?
5
She sat in the warm tub on her first bath night and longing for her
father overflowed her again and she wept. Miss Tulip entered briskly
without knocking.
"Homesick, Philippa?" she asked cheerfully. "I expect you are. We all
are at first. But you'll get over it. We all do. But you mustn't cry,
you know! It doesn't help. Not a bit. Sportsmanship, remember."
Flip nodded and watched the water as it lapped about her thin knees.
"Almost through?"
"Yes."
"Yes, Miss Tulip," the matron corrected her.
"Yes, Miss Tulip," Flip echoed obediently.
"Well, hurry up, then. Its almost time for the next girl. Mustn't get a
Tardy Mark by taking more than your fifteen minutes."
"I'll hurry," Flip said.
"Washed behind your ears?"
"Yes." Flip was outraged that Miss Tulip should ask her such a baby's
question. But Miss Tulip with another brisk nod bounced out as
cheerfully as she had entered. Flip stepped out of the tub and started
to dry herself.
6
They were supposed to start hockey but it rained and Flip's class had
relay races in the big gym at the other end of the playing fields from
the school. The gym had once been the hotel garage but now it was full
of bars and rings and leather horses and an indoor basket ball court
where the class above Flip's was playing. Erna and a Norwegian girl,
Solvei Krogstad, were captains. Erna chose Jackie, then dutifully chose
Gloria and Flip. It was to be a simple relay race. The girls were to
run with a small stick to the foot of the gym and back, putting the
stick into the hand of the next girl. Flip was fifth in line, following
Gloria.
Gloria ran like a streak of lightning. Sally Buckman, the girl behind
Flip, was jumping up and down, shrieking, "Keep it up, Glory! Oh,
Glory, swell!" She looked like a very excited pug dog.
Gloria snapped the stick smartly into Flip's fingers but Flip fumbled
and dropped it. Sally groaned. Flip picked up the stick and started to
run. She ran as fast as she could. But her knee seemed stiffer than it
ever had before and her legs were so long that she had no control of
them and her feet kept getting in their own way. She heard the girls
screaming, "Run, Philippa, _run_, can't you!" Now she had reached the
end of the gym and she turned around and started the long way back to
Sally Buckman. The girls were jumping up and down in agony and their
shouts were angry and despairing. "Oh, Philippa! Oh, Philippa, _run_!"
Panting, her throat dry and aching, she thrust the stick into Sally's
hand, and limped to the back of the line.
After gym she locked herself in the bathroom and read again the letter
from her father which had come in the morning's mail. It was a gay,
funny letter, full of little sketches. She answered it during study
hall, hoping that the teacher in charge would not notice. She drew him
a funny picture of Miss Tulip, and little sketches of her roommates and
some of the other girls. She told him that the food wasn't very good.
Too many boiled potatoes. And the bread was doughy and you could almost
use it for modelling clay. But maybe it would help her get fat. She did
not tell him that she was homesick and miserable. She could not make
him unhappy by letting him know what a terrible coward she was. She
looked around at the other girls in the study hall, Sally chewing her
pencil, Esmée twisting a strand of hair around and around her finger,
Gloria muttering Latin verbs under her breath.
Gloria had whispered to her that the teacher taking Study Hall was
the Art teacher. Her name was Madame Perceval, and she was Mlle.
Dragonet's niece. The girls called her Percy, and although she had a
reputation for being strict, she was very popular. Flip stared at her
surreptitiously, hoping that she wouldn't be as dull and unsympathetic
as the art teacher in her school in New York. She had finished her
lessons early and now that she had written her letter to her father
she did not know what to do. She thought that Madame Perceval looked
younger and somehow more alive than the other teachers. "I wonder where
her husband is?" Gloria had whispered. "Jackie says nobody knows, not
even Esmée. She says everybody thinks there's some sort of mystery
about Percy. I say, isn't it glamorous! I can't wait for the first Art
lesson."
Madame Perceval had thick brown hair, the color of well-polished
mahogany. It was curly and quite short and brushed back carelessly from
her face. Her skin was burnished, as though she spent a great deal of
time out of doors, and her eyes were grey with golden specks. Flip
noticed that Study Hall tonight was much quieter than it had been the
other nights with other teachers in charge.
She reached for a pencil to make a sketch of Madame Perceval to put in
the letter to her father, and knocked her history book off the corner
of her desk. It fell with a bang and she felt everybody's eyes on her.
She bent down to pick it up. When she put it back on her desk she
looked at Madame Perceval, but the teacher was writing quietly in a
note book. Flip sighed and looked around. There was no clock in Study
Hall and she wondered how much longer before the bell. Erna, sitting
next to her at the desk by the window was evidently wondering the same
thing, because Flip felt a nudge: she looked over, then quickly took
the rolled up note Erna was handing to her. She read it. "How many more
dreary minutes?"
Flip reached across the aisle and nudged Solvei Krogstad, who had a
watch. Solvei took the note, looked at her watch, scribbled "ten" on
the note, and was about to pass it back to Flip when Madame Perceval's
voice came clear and commanding.
"Bring that note to me, please, Solvei." Flip was very thankful that
she wasn't the one who had been caught.
Solvei rose and walked up the aisle to the platform on which the
teachers desk stood. She handed the note to Madame Perceval and waited.
Madame Perceval looked at the note, then at her own watch.
"Your watch is fast, Solvei," she said with a twinkle. "There are
fifteen more dreary minutes, not ten."
Very seriously Solvei set her watch while everybody in the room laughed.
After Study Hall while they were all gathered in the Common Room during
the short period of free time before the bell that sent them up to bed,
Gloria said to Flip, "I say, that was decent of Percy, wasn't it?"
Flip nodded.
"Imagine Percy being the Dragon's niece!" Then Gloria yawned. "I say,
Philippa, have you any brothers or sisters?"
Flip shook her head.
"Neither have I. Mummy and Daddy didn't really want me, but I popped
up. Accidents will happen, you know. They said they were really glad,
and I'm not much trouble after all, always off at school and things.
In a way I'm rather glad they didn't want me, because it relieves me
of responsibility, doesn't it? I always have enough responsibility at
school without getting involved in it at home."