"Not too long," Solvei put in on Flip's behalf. "She did awfully well
during the initiation."
Behind her blindfold and gag Flip felt a glow of pride because she
could hear from Solvei's voice that this time she really meant what she
was saying.
"Well, fifteen minutes, then," Erna said.
"Fifteen minutes! What are you talking about!" Esmée Bodet cried. "An
hour at least."
"Well, half an hour, then," Jackie compromised.
"You're getting off easy, Pill," Gloria told the blind and dumb Flip.
"Come on, kiddos. Let's play ping and relax. Me first."
"Second!" "Third!" "Fourth!" came the cries. And, "We can come get Pill
in half an hour!" "Race you back to school!"
She heard them tearing off.
She could not move or speak or see. All she could do was hear.
Strangely enough, instead of being frightened, she felt an odd sense of
peace. By divesting her of any voluntary action they had also divested
her of any sense of responsibility. She was free simply to stand there
against the tree and think what she chose until they came back. She
felt that she had done well during the initiation, far better than
she had expected Philippa Hunter to do and far better than they had
expected the class Pill to do. She was not, as yet, uncomfortable, and
at first it seemed as though half an hour would pass quickly. There was
very little noise in the air around her; just a faint murmur in the
grasses and occasionally when the wind shifted briefly she could hear a
faint far-away burst of voices from the school.
But long before the half hour was over it seemed as though it should
have been over. Through her blindfold she could not see the fog that
was beginning to straggle in wooly-looking streamers about the playing
fields and the grounds; but she could feel the damp seeping through her
blazer and skirt and her body grow numb. Erna had bound her tightly and
her muscles began to ache from standing and the tautened stockings of
the rope dug into the flesh of her wrists and ankles and the darkness
became oppressive instead of peaceful. She strained against her bands
but could not move them. And now she began to be afraid, to be afraid
that they had forgotten her, that no one would remember her, and she
would be found there, eventually, when at last someone missed her,
frozen to death.
7
But just as her despair turned almost to panic she heard footsteps.
There they come! she thought. But it was not the running steps of a
group of girls but a single pair of footsteps, walking briskly.
Her heart began to thump and her imagination again thrust her onto an
English highway filled with murderers and madmen. Through her gag she
panted. At first she thought the footsteps were going to go on by, that
whoever it was would pass without seeing her; but then she heard a low
exclamation and felt deft fingers untying the blindfold and the gag.
"Well, Philippa," Madame Perceval said, and set to work unknotting the
stockings. Flip stepped away from the tree and her stiff long legs
buckled under her and she sat down abruptly. Madame helped her up.
"Thank you," Flip whispered.
Madame looked at her and raised her eyebrows mockingly. "You look as
though you'd been beset by highwaymen. What happened?"
"It was just an initiation," Flip said. "It was fun, you know."
"Was it fun?" Madame asked.
"Oh--yes."
"And what was supposed to happen next?"
"Oh--they were supposed to come back and get me in half an hour. But
I'm sure I'd been there more than half an hour."
"What was the initiation about?" Madame asked. "Or is that a secret?"
"Oh--I don't think so," Flip said. "It was just our class initiating
the new girls. I was the only one who really had to be initiated
because all the other girls did a Courageous Deed so they were exempt."
"Why didn't you do a courageous deed?"
"I couldn't think of any. The things I thought would be brave I didn't
think they would, and I couldn't think of any of the same kind of
things the others did."
"Things like what?"
"Things that were funny, too."
"Like Gloria's spitting her teeth into Fräulein Hauser's hand?" Madame
Perceval asked with a twinkle.
Flip nodded. "I don't think about things being funny until they _are_
funny. My mother and father always told me my sense of humor was my
weak point. It's awful to be born without a sense of humor. Sort of
like being born color blind."
"Sometimes you can grow a sense of humor, you know," Madame Perceval
told her. "Now I have an idea. Why don't you turn the tables on the
girls and not be here when they come for you?"
"That would be wonderful," Flip said. "Only there's no place I'm
allowed to go except the Common Room and they're all there. We aren't
allowed in our bedrooms and if I hide in the bath room Miss Tulip will
come and knock on the door."
"Come along with me to my room," Madame Perceval said. "You're allowed
to be there if I invite you."
"Oh--that would be wonderful!" Flip cried. "But--but you were going
somewhere."
"Just for a walk, and it's colder than I thought it was. Legs
unlimbered?"
"Yes, thank you." Flip grinned and shook out her gangly legs.
"Come along, then." Madame Perceval took her arm in a friendly way and
they set out for the school. They walked in silence, Flip desperately
trying to think of something to say to the art teacher to show that
she was grateful. Every once in a while she stole a look at Madame
Perceval's face, and it was serene and quiet and Flip remembered the
way she had looked that evening when she leaned against the tree and
looked out over the lake.
"We'll go in the back way," Madame Perceval said, "So we'll be sure not
to bump into anyone." She took Flip's hand and opened the small back
door and together they crept upstairs like two conspirators. Flip felt
ecstatically happy.
Madame lived on the top floor of the building near the Art Studio. She
was the only person who slept on the fifth floor except for the cook
and the maids who were in the opposite wing of the building. Most of
the teachers had single rooms distributed about the school among the
girls so that there was at least one teacher to each corridor. Madame
Perceval had two curious rooms in one of the turrets, and a tiny
kitchen as well. She led Flip into her sitting room. It was octagonal;
four of the walls were filled with books; the other four were covered
with prints. Flip recognized many of her favorites, two Picasso
Harlequins, Holbein's Erasmus, Lautrec's Maybe, Seurat's Study for the
Grande Jatte, a stage design by Inigo Jones, Van Gogh's Le Café de
Nuit, Renoir's Moulin de la Galette. Flip looked at them enthralled.
Madame Perceval smiled. "I like it, too," she said. "It's a hodge
podge but I like it. This bit of privacy is the one privilege I ask
for being Mlle. Dragonet's niece. Sit down and I'll brew us a pot of
tea." She moved the screen away from the grate, stirred up the coals,
and added some more. Flip sat down on a stool covered with a patch of
oriental rug and stared into the fire. Behind her she could hear Madame
Perceval moving about in her tiny kitchen, and then she was aware that
the art teacher was standing behind her. "A penny for your thoughts,
Philippa," Madame Perceval said lightly.
Flip continued to stare into the fire. "I was thinking how happy I was,
right now, this very minute," she said. "And if I could always be happy
the way I am now I shouldn't mind school so much."
"Do you 'mind' school so very much?" Madame Perceval asked.
Flip realized that she had expressed herself far more fully than she
had intended. "Oh, no," she denied quickly. "I don't think I've ever
been anywhere that was so beautiful. And at night I can look down the
mountain to the lake and it's like something out of a fairy tale. And
when there's a fog and sometimes you can see the Dents du Midi and then
they disappear and then you can see them again--that's like a fairy
tale, too. And the kids say we go to Lausanne and Vevey and Gstaad
and places at half term and we're going to climb the Col de Jaman on
Tuesday as the New Girl's Welcome and I expect that'll be beautiful
only I'm not very good at climbing...." her voice trailed off.
"Fräulein Hauser says there's something wrong with one of your legs,"
Madame Perceval said abruptly. "What is it?"
"I broke my knee."
"How?"
"In an automobile accident."
There was something strained and tense in Flip's voice and Madame
Perceval went quietly into the kitchen and poured water from the
now-hissing kettle into a small earthenware teapot. She brought the
teapot into her living room and two delicate Limoges cups and saucers
and placed them on the low table in front of the fire by a plate of
small cakes.
"Tell me about the automobile accident, Philippa," she said.
Flip took a cup and saucer and stirred her tea very carefully. "It
was New Year's Day," she said, and then she didn't say anything for a
long time. Madame Perceval sat looking quietly into the fire, her feet
on the low brass hearth-rail, and waited. At last Flip said, "Mother
and father and I were driving over to Philadelphia to have New Year's
dinner with some friends and it began to snow and sleet and rain and
everything all at once, and another car was passing a truck and skidded
and there was an accident. The people in the other car weren't hurt
badly and it was all their fault, but the truck driver was killed." She
paused again. Then she said, "and my mother was killed."
Madame Perceval continued to look into the fire but Flip knew that she
was listening.
"Father was cut and bruised," Flip continued, "and my knee cap was
broken. It's really all right now, though, except it gets sort of stiff
sometimes. But I never was any good at running and things anyhow."
The gong for tea began to ring. It reverberated even back into Madame
Perceval's room as the maid rode up and down in the skeleton of the
elevator. Flip put her cup and saucer down on the table and her hand
was trembling. "There's the gong for tea," she said.
"Do you want to go down?" Madame Perceval asked.
"No."
Madame Perceval reached for a telephone on one of the bookshelves;
Flip had not noticed it before. "One of the advantages of the school's
having been a hotel," Madame said, "is that all the teachers have
telephones connected with the switchboard downstairs. I'll call
Signorina del Rossi--I think she's in charge today--and tell her to
excuse you from tea. We won't tell anyone and we'll have all the girls
wondering where you are and that ought to be rather fun."
"Oh--that's wonderful!" Flip cried. "Oh, Madame, thank you."
"Hello, Signorina," Madame said on the telephone. "Madame Perceval."
Then she launched into Italian, which Flip did not understand. There
was a good deal of laughter, then Madame hung up and took Flip's cup.
"All right, little one. Let me give you some more tea."
So Flip sat there and drank tea and ate Madame Perceval's cakes and
felt warmth from far more than the fire seep into her.
Madame passed her the cake plate. "Have another. They come from
Zürcher's in Montreux and they're quite special. I blow myself to them
every once in a while. What do you want to be after you leave school,
Philippa? An artist?"
Flip bit into a small and succulent cake, crisp layers of something
filled with mocha cream. "I think so. But my father says it's probably
just because he paints and he doesn't want me to do anything just
because he does it. Anyhow he says he's not at all sure I have enough
talent."
Madame laughed and filled Flip's tea cup for the third time. "I like
your father's work. Especially his illustrations for children's books."
"Oh, do you know them?" Flip was excited.
Madame reached up to the bookshelves and pulled down a copy of _Oliver
Twist_.
"Oh!" Flip said, "Oh, that's one of my favorites!"
Madame replaced the book. "Mine too. I keep your father's things next
to Boutet de Monvel, which shows you how much I think of him."
It was one of the most beautiful afternoons Flip had spent in a long
time. She did not once think a dreary or bitter thought, such as,
"I'm the most unpopular girl in the school. That ought to make Eunice
happy." When the bell rang for dinner and Madame sent her downstairs,
for once she was almost eager to get to her place in the dining room.
Tables were changed on Thursday, and she was at an unchaperoned table
with only Erna from her room this week, but all the girls in the class
whispered excitedly as she came in, "Philippa!" "Pill!" "Here she is!"
"Where have you been?" "What happened to you?"
She stood decorously behind her chair and waited for Mlle. Dragonet to
say grace. Erna burst out as they sat down, "Pill, we've been frantic!
We thought you'd been kidnapped or something. If you hadn't come to
dinner we were going to tell Signorina you were lost. What on earth
happened to you?"