"The kids think it's sort of funny."
"I know they do." Flip pulled up her blankets and straightened them out.
"How do you know?" Gloria asked.
Flip's voice was tight. "I'm not deaf. Anyhow I heard you laughing in
the Common Room with them about it."
"I never did."
"I heard you."
"You eavesdropped."
"I didn't. I walked into the Common Room and I couldn't help hearing.
Anyhow, I don't go running off to the chapel. I just go there once in a
while. There's nothing wrong with that."
"You know, Pill," Gloria said, cocking her head and looking at Flip
curiously, "somehow I never thought of you as being particularly pious."
Flip looked startled. "I don't think I am. I mean, I never thought
about it."
"Then what do you go running off to the chapel for? Don't you go there
to pray or something?"
"No," Flip said. "At least I usually do say a prayer or something
because if I go there I think it's only courteous to God. But I really
go there to be alone."
"To be alone?"
"Yes. There isn't any other place to go."
"What do you want to be alone for?" Gloria asked.
"I just do," Flip said. "If you don't know why I can't explain it to
you, Gloria."
"You're a funny kid, Pill," Gloria said. "You'd be all right if you
just gave yourself a chance."
Jackie and Erna came in then and Gloria turned back to making her bed.
9
Jackie pulled Flip aside one evening after chapel. They waited until
everyone had gone into the Common Room; then Jackie pulled Flip
into the dining room. The maids had finished clearing away and the
tables were already set for breakfast the next morning. Jackie seemed
embarrassed and unhappy.
"Philippa, I want to say something to you." They stood under the long
box of napkin racks, each little cubby hole marked with the inevitable
number. Flip stared at Jackie and waited. Jackie looked away, looked
up, over Flip's head, over the napkin racks, up to the ceiling. "I want
to apologise to you."
"What for?" Flip asked.
"My mother said I should apologise to you," Jackie said rapidly, still
looking up at the ceiling, her hands plunged deep into the pockets of
her blue blazer, "about our laughing about your going to the chapel. I
always write my mother everything and I wrote her about our thinking
it was funny and laughing and she wrote back and said who am I of all
people to laugh. She said if you got down on the floor in the middle of
the Common Room and bowed towards Mecca I should honor and respect your
form of worship."
"Oh," Flip said. She felt that she ought to try to explain to Jackie
that it really wasn't a burning question of religion that led her to
brave Miss Tulip's annoyance and go to the chapel but she was afraid
that Jackie would not understand and might even be angry.
Jackie had finished her uncomfortable quoting from her mother's letter
and she looked down at her feet. "So I do apologise," she said. "I'm
very sorry, Pill."
"That's all right," Flip answered, embarrassed, but making an effort to
sound friendly.
Jackie heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, I've got to go now," she almost
shouted. "The others are waiting for me." She tore off and Flip was
left standing under the napkin racks.
10
Saturday afternoons they had free time. Most of the girls clustered
in the Common Room, talking, shrieking, laughing, playing records.
Flip stood by the balcony window thinking that she had been at the
school only a few weeks and yet it seemed as though she had been there
forever. She felt in her pocket for her father's latest letter that she
had already read several times in the peace of the chapel. When she
read his letters, those wonderful wonderful letters, full of little
anecdotes and sketches, she would look at the drawings of forlorn
waifs, ragged and starving, and feel ashamed of her own misery which
for the moment at any rate seemed completely unjustified. She had had a
letter that morning from Mrs. Jackman, too, written on heavy expensive
paper saying that she hoped that Flip had settled down and was happy,
and signed, affectionately, Eunice. Flip had read it in the hall by the
mail boxes, torn it up and thrown it in the trash basket.
"I love you--u--u--" the phonograph wailed.
"And then he said to me, 'your legs are fascinating'," Esmée was saying.
"He was the most divine boy," she heard Sally saying, "until I heard he
had a whole set of false teeth and a toupee."
"During the holidays," Gloria screeched, "I smoke at _least_ a pack of
Players a day."
Flip turned away from the window, slipped out of the Common Room,
tiptoed through the big lounge, and slipped out the side door when the
teacher on duty was busy talking to someone. The air was crisp and a
light wind was blowing. She took deep breaths of it and walked swiftly,
exulting in the unaccustomed freedom. She climbed the hill behind the
school, knowing that as she got into the pine trees clustered thickly
up the mountainside she would be safe from detection. She ran until she
was panting and her weak knee ached, but soon the trees got thicker and
thicker and she dropped down onto the fragrant rusty carpet of fallen
pine needles. As soon as she had regained her breath she walked on a
little further, rubbing her fingers lovingly over the rough, resiny
trunks of the pines. She felt free and happy for the first time since
she had been at school. The air was full of piney perfume; the needles
were soft and gently slippery under her feet; high above her head she
could see the blue sky shining in chinks and patches through the trees;
and the sun sifted down to her in long golden shafts like the light
in a church. She lay down on her back on the pine needles and looked
up and up and it seemed that the trees pierced the sky. Oh, trees,
oh, sky, oh, sun, something in her sang. Oh, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful. And she was happy.
After a while she stood up and brushed and shook the pine needles off
her uniform and climbed still further. There was a small clearing where
the railroad track cut through on its zigzag way up the mountain. She
crossed the track and climbed higher. She did not know where the school
bounds ended and forbidden territory began; she had forgotten that
there was such a thing as a boundary line, and she kept on pushing up,
up the mountain.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, rushing in her direction with the most
hideous baying she had ever heard, bounded a wild beast. Her heart
leaped in terror, beating frantically against her chest, then seemed to
stop entirely, before she realized that the beast was Ariel.
"Ariel!" she cried. "Oh, Ariel!" as the bulldog knocked her down in the
ecstasy of his greeting. "Ariel, please!" The dog began bounding about
her, barking wildly, and she lay quietly on the fallen pine needles
until he stopped and stood at her feet, sniffing her anxiously.
"Where's Paul?" she asked, and she was amazingly pleased to see the
dog's hideous face with the drooling, undershot jaw.
Ariel barked.
Flip sat up; then, as Ariel waited quietly, she stood up, and looked
around, but she could see no sign of the boy she had met down by the
lake on the morning of the day she came to school.
"Paul!" she called, but there was no answer except from Ariel, who
barked again, caught hold of her skirt, released it, bounded up the
mountain, then came back and took her skirt in his teeth again.
"But I can't go with you, Ariel," she said. "I have to go back to
school."
Ariel barked and tried again to lure her up the mountain.
"I have to go, Ariel," she told him. "I'm sure I'm out of bounds or
something, being here. I have to go back to school." Then she laughed
at the serious way in which she had been trying to explain to the
bulldog, turned away from him, and started back down the mountain. But
Ariel pranced along beside her, always trying to head her back up the
mountain, catching hold of her skirt or the hem of her coat, tugging
and pulling, gently, but persistently.
"Ariel, you can't come back to school with me, you just can't!" Flip
tried to push the dog away but he barked, reached up, and caught hold
of the cuff of her sleeve.
"Oh, Ariel!" she cried, half exasperated, half pleased because she knew
the dog was going to win. "All right!"
And she turned around and headed back up the mountain.
Ariel bounded ahead of her, running on a few yards, then doubling back
to make sure she was following. Soon she saw grey slate roof-tops
through the trees and as Ariel led her closer she saw that the
roof-tops belonged to a chateau. When the trees cleared and Ariel began
to crash through the heavy undergrowth she realized that the chateau
was old and deserted, for the shutters hung crazily by their hinges;
some of the windows were boarded up; and at others the boards had come
off and the glass was broken and jagged. Grass and weeds grew wild and
high and late autumn flowers bloomed in undisciplined profusion. Birds
flew in and out of the broken windows and as she pushed through the
weeds they began calling to each other, screaming, someone is coming!
Someone is coming!
Her heart beating with excitement Flip pressed forward, following
Ariel, who suddenly leaped ahead of her, bounded across the remaining
distance to the chateau, and disappeared. Flip pushed after him,
calling, "Ariel! Ariel! Wait!" but there was no sound, no sign of life
about the chateau except for the birds and the banging of a shutter
against the gray stones. She crossed what had once been a flag-stoned
terrace to a row of shuttered French windows. One of the shutters was
open and hung by one hinge, and all the glass in the window was gone.
It was through this opening that Ariel had disappeared. Flip peered in
but could see nothing through the obscurity inside.
"Ariel!" she called, then "Paul! Paul!" There was no answer and her
words came faintly echoing back to her. "Ariel! Paul! Paul!"
At last she turned and started back to school.