"Oh, Percy always knows everything about everybody," Jackie said with
admiration. "I don't know how she does it. And you can't ever get
away with anything with Percy but you never mind how strict she is.
Sometimes I think I love Percy almost as much as my mother."
"You have a crush on her," Sally said.
Jackie looked at the grey lump of suet pudding remaining on her plate
and turned up her nose in disgust. "I merely have a great admiration
for her."
"Oh, for john's sake, Jackie, I was just kidding. Can't you take a
joke? Let's change the subject. Tell us a story, Glo. Have you heard
any good ones lately?"
"Well, Esmée told me one yesterday," Gloria started.
Solvei broke in, "Not at the table. Save it for the Common Room if you
feel you have to tell it."
Flip looked at Solvei in gratitude. Mlle. Dragonet at the head table
stood up before Gloria could retort; all the chairs in the dining room
were scraped back and the girls filed out.
4
On Sunday afternoons all the girls were supposed to spend a rest period
in their rooms, but after the rest period there would be two hours when
Flip could try to escape and go back to the deserted chateau. She sat
curled up on her bed with the dog-eared calendar she carried around
with her in her blazer pocket and looked at the small block of days
that was marked off and then at all the days and days that stretched
out to be lived through somehow before the Christmas holidays and her
father would finally come. Sometimes she was afraid that the Christmas
holidays would never be reached. She knew already that the one certain
thing in an uncertain world was that time always passed; but as day
followed day, each one exactly like the other, she felt that nothing,
not even time, could put an end to their unbearable monotony.
--Oh, please God, please, God, make Christmas come quickly, Flip
prayed, her hand still moving softly over her dog-eared calendar; and
because time did not wheel faster in its vast circle for her she became
filled with despair and homesickness and bitterness at her misery and
she shoved the book she had brought up with her off the bed so that it
fell on the floor with a thud. Across the room Gloria yawned noisily
over her required weekly letter to her mother; Erna and Jackie, as
usual, were whispering and giggling together. "They're so childish,"
Esmée was always saying to Gloria, but she was careful to keep on good
terms with Jackie because Jackie's father was a movie director.
Flip leaned over and picked up her book, smoothing out its pages in
swift apology, and waited for the bell.
5
She hurried out of the room after Quiet Hour, got her coat from the
Cloak Room, and started up the mountain. She knew that the others would
think she had gone to the chapel. She ran almost until she stood at the
edge of the forest where the trees thinned out and mingled with the
underbrush that surrounded the chateau, and there was the chateau as
it had been the day before, cold and beautiful and deserted. She stood
looking at the grey stones and at the birds, her heart thumping; but no
Ariel came rushing towards her to knock her down with his greeting,
and after a moment she began pushing her way to the chateau, jumping
like a startled woods animal each time a twig snapped or the wind moved
in the high grasses. Just as she had almost neared the decaying walls
of the building she heard a low whine and there was Ariel standing in
the shadow of a shutter that hung drunkenly. The shadow seemed to move
and she saw that Paul was there, too, holding Ariel by the collar.
"Paul!" she called softly.
For a moment she thought Paul was going to go back into the chateau;
then he stepped out of the shadow of the shutter and held out his hand
in greeting.
"Oh," he said. "It's you."