"Oh, yes."
"You aren't afraid of bats and mice and rats and beetles and spiders
and things, are you?"
"Why?"
"There are a great many inside."
Flip _was_ afraid of bats and mice and rats and beetles and spiders and
things; but she was more afraid of Paul's scorn so she said, "I don't
mind them."
Paul looked at her as though he knew that she minded very much indeed;
then he slipped behind the shutter into the chateau, laughing back at
her and calling, "Come on, Flip."
Flip followed him into a great hall with a fireplace the size of a
room. The hall was bare and colder than outside.
"There are rooms and rooms," Paul said. "I've tried to count them but
each time I come out with a different number. There are so many little
turns and passages. There are all these dozens of rooms and only one
bathroom and it's as big as our living room in the gate house. And the
tub is the size of a swimming pool. But if you want hot water you have
to build a fire in a sort of stove under the tub. Oh, come, Flip, I
want to show you something."
Flip followed Paul down a labyrinth of passages into a small round
room that must have been in one of the turrets. It had stained glass
windows and, unlike most of the rooms, was not completely empty. In the
centre of the room was an old praying-chair with a monogram worked into
the mahogany. Something was moving in the red velvet of the cushion
and she leaned over and there was a tiny family of mice, the babies
incredibly pink and soft.
"Oh, Paul!"
"We mustn't disturb them but I thought you'd like to see them. I only
found them yesterday," Paul said. "In the spring I'll show you birds'
nests. Last spring in Paris I found a sparrow with its wing broken and
I took care of it and helped it to learn to fly again and after that it
came to my window every morning for crumbs. I kept them in the drawer
of my desk and it used to fly in the window and fly over to the desk
and jump up and down and squawk until I opened the drawer. I had a cat,
too, who'd lost his tail in a fight. The concierge in our house is
keeping the cat for me till I come back."
Flip bent over the mice again. "They're so terribly sweet. I don't see
why people are afraid of mice."
"They don't know them," Paul said. "People are always afraid of things
they don't know. This room used to be the private chapel of the lady
of the chateau, Flip, and that prie-dieu is where she used to kneel to
pray."
"How do you know, Paul?" Flip asked.
"My father told me. For a man who spends hours just sitting and
thinking about philosophy he knows a tremendous amount about anything
you can think of to ask him."
Flip crossed to one of the windows and looked out through a pane of
blue glass onto a blue world. The sun was beginning to slip behind the
mountain and she said, "I have to go now, Paul."
"Will you come next week?" Paul asked.
"Yes, I could come on Saturday next week. I could come earlier in the
afternoon if you'd like."
"I'd like it very much," Paul said. "Do you really have to go now?"
"I think I'd better."
"There are so many things I want to ask you. Do you like to ski?"
"I don't know how, yet. But I'm going to learn this winter. Do you like
it?"
"More than anything in the world. I never can wait for the snow and
they say it will be late this year. Do you like to read?"
"I love it."
"I do, too. Do you like the theatre?"
"Oh, yes."
"So do I. We seem to like a lot of the same things. Maybe that's why I
can talk to you. Usually with other people I feel strange and as though
there were a wall between us, or as though we were speaking a different
language, even when we're really not. I can speak four languages yet I
can't talk at all to most people. But you're different. I can talk to
you so easily, and this is only the third time we've seen each other."
"I know," Flip said, looking at the mice again instead of at Paul, at
the tiny pink babies and at the little grey mother with her bright,
frightened eyes. "I can talk to you, too, and I can't talk to anybody
at school."
Paul turned away from the mice. "We're disturbing her. She's afraid we
might take her babies. Come on. We'd better go downstairs. I don't want
you to get into trouble at your school. They'd be very unpleasant if
they knew you'd been here."
"You seem to know a lot about girls' schools," Flip said.
Paul started to lead the way back through the maze of corridors.
"Institutions in general are similar," he said loftily. Then, "you
really will come on Saturday, Flip?"
"Come hell or high water," Flip promised, feeling very bold.
Paul held out his hand to say good-bye and Flip took it. She felt that
Paul did not realize that he was shaking hands with the most unpopular
girl in the school.
9
She was so excited by the afternoon's happiness that she ran almost
all the way back to school. At the clearing of the woods she stopped
because she knew that if she went into the Common Room, still panting,
her cheeks flushed, someone would notice and try to find out where she
had been. She wanted nothing more than to tell someone about Paul; she
had always wanted to share her happiness with the world; but she knew
that if she was to see him again she had to keep him a secret.
And he wants to see me again! she thought exultantly.--He's not
frightening the way I always thought being alone with a boy would be.
It was just like talking to anyone, only nicer, and he wants to see me
again!
She had seen a tapestry once, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York,
of a young page standing with a unicorn. The page was tall and slender
with huge dark eyes and thick dark hair, and Paul reminded her of him.
He had the same unselfconscious grace and when his hand rested on
Ariel's collar it was with the same self-assured nobility that the hand
of the page rested on the unicorn's neck. She was pleased and excited
that she had thought of the resemblance.--And I can imagine that
Ariel's magic like the unicorn, she thought.--After all it was he who
brought me to Paul.
10
Tuesday was fine, so Flip's class was taken by Fräulein Hauser and
Madame Perceval on the promised trip to the Col de Jaman. From the
playing fields at school they could see the Dent de Jaman rising high
and white above the Col, and Erna said that in the spring they would
climb the Dent itself. It looked very high and distant to Flip and she
was just as happy that they were to start with the Col which was the
flat high ridge from which the Dent pierced upwards into the sky. It
was to be an all day trip. They were to be excused from all classes and
would start right after Call Over.
"It's almost worth having new girls," Erna shouted to Jackie, "to get
an excursion like this!"
They lined up on the cement walk under the plane trees while Fräulein
Hauser called the roll. They did not have to choose partners and this
was a relief to Flip because even the most polite girls in the class
seemed to her to look annoyed when they were stuck with her, and on
Thursday when one of the girls had been in the infirmary with a cold
and there had been an odd number in the class, Flip had been left
without a partner altogether; and Miss Armstrong, who was taking the
walk, had had to say, "Philippa, go walk with Solvei Krogstad and
Margaret Campbell."
Fräulein Hauser blew her whistle and they started off. At first they
walked along the road that wound up the mountain past the school,
passing chalets and farms and an occasional villa. Madame Perceval led
the way, with two of the new girls. Fräulein Hauser brought up the rear
with Erna and Jackie. Flip straggled along with Gloria and Sally and
Esmée Bodet, not particularly wanting to walk with them, wanting even
less to walk alone. After a while Madame Perceval turned off the road
and they plunged into the shade of the forest and now Flip was able to
pull aside and walk by herself without feeling conspicuous. Her feet
were almost noiseless as she walked over a deep layer of fallen pine
needles and moist leaves and she noticed that even Gloria and her group
were walking more quietly. Gloria saw Flip and beckoned, but Flip no
longer felt any need to straggle along beside anyone, and continued
quite happily to walk by herself, Philippa alone with the forest.
Here the trees were taller and of greater girth than the trees in the
woods behind the school and the sun came through them in delicate
arrows, piercing the dark iris of Jackie's left eye, bringing out the
ruddy lights in Madame Perceval's hair, striking the gold of the braces
on Erna's teeth. Then at last they emerged beyond the forest and came
out into pasture land. Now, as they climbed, the trees would be below
them; when they were high enough the trees would seem like a girdle
about the mountains. The rough grass was broken here and there by
rocks and the girls would climb onto them and leap off, laughing and
shouting. Sometimes they passed cows or goats; constantly Flip could
hear the faint ringing of the animal's bells.
Fräulein Hauser blew her whistle. "We will stop here for lunch," she
announced.
They sprawled about on the largest rocks, opening their lunches. They
had bread and cheese, an apple and an orange, some sweet biscuits, and
a little twist of paper containing salt and pepper for the hard-boiled
egg in the bottom of the bag. Madame Perceval carried a canteen of
coffee and a flask of brandy in case of emergency, and they each had a
canteen filled with fresh water from the school.
Flip sprawled on a small rock near Madame Perceval, who was laughing
and joking with a group of girls. She smiled warmly at Flip and tried
to draw her into the conversation, but Flip sat there shyly, afraid
that if she spoke she would say the wrong thing and someone would laugh
at her. One of the girls was missing salt and pepper from her package,
and Flip offered hers. At the careless "Thanks, Pill," Madame Perceval
looked at Flip intently, not missing the quick flush that always came
to her face at the use of the nick-name.
After they had finished eating they started to climb again. Now the way
became rockier and steeper, and Flip and several of the less athletic
girls were panting and ready to flop down on the turf long before they
reached the flat plateau of the Col. Flip's throat was dry and aching
and her heart thumped painfully against her ribs.
But when they finally reached the summit, she realized that the climb
was more than worth it. She dropped on to a patch of rust colored
grass; the sky was incredibly blue above her and the Dent de Jaman rose
out of the Col like a white castle, like the home of the Snow Queen in
Andersen's fairy tale. A small wind blew across her hot cheeks and the
ache in her knee dwindled and the sunlight made the old, rusty grass
seem almost golden. She closed her eyes and the sunlight flickered over
her eyelids and the grass pricked through her uniform into her skin
and she rolled over and laid her cheek against a flat grey rock and
somewhere, far off, she heard a bird singing.
Although it was not anywhere near tea-time according to the school
clock, they had eaten lunch shortly after eleven and Madame Perceval
and Fräulein Hauser started handing around packets of marmalade
sandwiches. At the sound of the whistle Flip rose and straggled over
to the girls surrounding the teachers. She stood on the outskirts,
still looking about her at the sky and the mountains and the snow, and
feeling that wonderful surge of happiness at the beauty that always
banished any loneliness or misery she might be feeling.
Somehow a miscount had been made in the school kitchen when the tea
was packed and Solvei and Jackie, and of course Flip, the last one on
the outskirts, found themselves without anything to eat for tea. A
small chalet stood across the ridge and Madame Perceval said, "I know
Monsieur and Madame Rasmée. They're used to serving meals to amateur
mountain climbers and I know they could take care of these girls.
Suppose I take them over."
"It seems the only thing to do," Fräulein Hauser agreed.
So Flip found herself walking across the rough ground with Madame
Perceval, Solvei, and Jackie, her pleasure in this unusual adventure
marred by her awareness of the longing glances Jackie cast at Erna, and
Solvei at her best friend, Maggie Campbell.
Madame Perceval said a few words to the pleasant woman who met them at
the chalet and in a few minutes the girls found themselves sitting at a
small table in front of an open fire. They stripped off their blazers.
"All right girls," Madame Perceval said. "Have a good tea and come back
as soon as you've finished."
"Oh, yes, Madame." They smiled at her radiantly as she left them. Only
Madame Perceval would have allowed them to enjoy this special treat
unchaperoned.
"I wish Percy taught skiing instead of Hauser," sighed Jackie. "She's
much better."
Solvei nodded. "Once, last winter when Hauser had 'flu, Percy took
skiing and it was wonderful."
"She's always one of the judges at the ski meet," Jackie continued,
"and then there's Hauser, and the skiing teacher from one of the other
schools, and two professional skiers. It's wonderful fun, Pill. There
aren't any classes, like today, and we all go up to Gstaad for the meet
and have lunch up there and there are medals and a cup and it's all
simply magnifique."
Flip thought of the skis Eunice had given her and somehow she felt that
she might be good at skiing. And she was happy, too, because suddenly
Jackie and Solvei seemed to be talking to her, not at her and around
her, and she opened her mouth to tell them about the skis Eunice
had given her, skis that had belonged to Eunice but which she had
discarded; Eunice did not really care for skiing. Because she doesn't
look her best in ski clothes, Flip thought unkindly. "My skis--" she
started to say to Solvei and Jackie when suddenly she closed her mouth
and she felt the blood drain from her face and then flood it, because
there, coming in at the door, was a tall stooped man, and with him,
slender and dark, was Paul.