_The Escape from the Dungeon_
Paul saw her almost at once and quickly shook his head, and Flip heaved
a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, oh, thank goodness, Jackie and Solvei
had their backs to the door and had seen neither Paul nor his signal.
But Jackie said, "What's the matter, Pill? You look as though you'd
seen a ghost."
Flip pretended to choke and said, "I just swallowed the wrong way. May
I have the butter, please, Solvei?"
2
On Thursday Flip received one of the proprietary letters from Eunice
that always upset her. Luckily she was assigned to Madame Perceval's
table that day, and this special stroke of luck cheered her a little,
for Madame Perceval's tact and humor seemed to act like a magnet
drawing everyone into a warm circle of friendliness and sympathy. Erna
was with her again and said as they sat down after grace, "We seem to
stick together like glue, don't we, Pill?"
Flip nodded and grinned, because Erna's tone had been friendly.
During dinner they began discussing their parents. Esmée Bodet's father
was a lawyer. Erna's father was a surgeon and had done operations on
the battlefields. Polly Huber, an American girl from Alabama who had
been at the school for three years, had a father who was a newspaper
man, and Maggie Campbell's father taught Greek at the University of
Edinburgh.
"And your father's a painter, isn't he, Pill?" Erna asked.
"Yes."
"Well, our house needs painting. Do you think he'd do it cheap for us
since I know you?"
All the girls laughed loudly except Flip, who colored angrily and
looked down at her plate with a sulky expression.
After dinner when everybody stood up, Madame Perceval said quietly to
Flip, "Please wait, Philippa." And all the girls exchanged glances,
because that was the tone Madame used when she was not pleased and
intended to say so. Flip stood nervously behind her chair and looked
down at the table with the empty dessert dishes and the crumbs
scattered about and at Madame Perceval's coffee cup with a small amount
of dark liquid left in the bottom.
"Philippa," Madame said gravely when they had the dining room to
themselves except for the maids who were clearing away, "I haven't
seen you a great deal with the other girls but several of the teachers
have told me that you are always off somewhere sulking and that your
attitude is unfriendly in the extreme."
"I don't mean to sulk," Flip said. "I didn't know I sulked. And I don't
mean to be unfriendly. I don't, truly, Madame." If I had been thinking
of Paul instead of Eunice I wouldn't have behaved the way I did, she
thought.
"When Erna suggested that your father paint her house she was making a
joke and you took it seriously and looked hurt and wounded."
"I know," Flip said. "It was stupid of me."
"But you always do it, don't you?"
"Yes," Flip admitted. "I guess I do, most of the time."
"I know you're not happy here, Philippa, but when you make it so easy
for the girls to tease you, you can't blame them for taking advantage
of it. Girls can be very cruel, especially when they get the idea that
someone is 'different'."
"But I _am_ different," Flip said desperately.
"Why?"
"I'm so clumsy and I'm the tallest girl in the class. I'm as tall
as lots of the seniors. And I fall over things and I'm not good at
athletics, and I wasn't blitzed or underground or anything during the
war."
Now Madame Perceval sounded really severe. "I didn't expect to hear you
talk quite so foolishly, Philippa. You are tall, yes, but you can turn
that into an advantage later on. And perhaps right now you're a little
awkward, but you'll outgrow that. Incidentally, have you forgotten
that Maggie Campbell's sister, Liz, has a brace on her leg? and she's
one of the most popular girls in her class. And as for being blitzed
or underground, remember that the girls who are in the difficult and
defensive position are the German girls. They've had a hard time of it
here, some of them. It wasn't easy for Erna, for instance."
"Yes," Flip persisted stubbornly, "but they were all in it and I wasn't
in it at all."
"Neither were the other Americans," Madame said sharply. "I'm beginning
to realize what the other teachers meant."
Flip looked as though Madame Perceval had struck her. She pleaded,
"Please don't hate me because I've been the--the way I've been. Please.
I'll try not to be. I'll try to be different. I do try. I just don't
seem to know how. But I'll try harder. And I know it's all my own
fault. Truly."
"Very well," Madame Perceval said. "Go on back to the Common Room now
until time for Study Hall."
"Yes, Madame." Flip started to leave but when she got to the dining
room she turned and said desperately, "Madame, thank you for telling
me. I--I guess I needed to be told how awful I am."
For the first time Madame Perceval smiled at her, but all she said was,
"All right, Philippa. Run along." And she gave her a little spank.
3
Flip spent the rest of the week waiting for Saturday and sighed with
relief when Paul was at his usual place by the shutter when she reached
the chateau. Ariel ran dashing to meet her, jumping up and down and
barking. I feel as though I'd come home, Flip thought as she waved at
Paul.
"Hello, Flip!" Paul called. "Down, Ariel! Down! Come here this instant,
sir!"
Ariel went bounding back to Paul who held him by the collar and Flip
thought again how much he looked like the page in the tapestry.
"Hello," she said, her heart leaping with pleasure because Paul was
so obviously glad to see her. She had dug Eunice's discarded gift of
Chanel No. 5 out of her bottom drawer and put a little behind her ears,
and had brushed her hair until it shone.
"Come on," Paul urged. "I want to show you something." He went into
the chateau and Flip and Ariel followed. They went across the empty
hall and up the wide stairs, then down a broad corridor and up more
stairs, and it seemed that every time Paul led her down a dim passage
there was another flight of stairs at the end. At last he opened a door
and started up a very steep, circular iron stairway. Openings were
cut in the thick stones of the walls and through them Flip could see
the sky, very blue, and puffs of snowy clouds. The stairs were white
with bird droppings and Flip could hear the birds just above their
heads. A swallow sat on the stones of one of the openings and watched
them. Ariel laboriously climbed up three steps, then sat down to wait,
a patient expression on his ferocious bulldog's countenance. Flip
followed Paul on up. At the top of the stairs was a small platform and
more openings looking out over the country on all four sides. The birds
flew in and out, scolding excitedly. Flip rushed to one of the windows
and there was the valley of the Rhône spread out before her, Montreux
and Territet, Vevey and Lausanne, lying in a pool of violet shadows,
and the lake like melted silver and across the lake the mountains
rising proudly into the sky, with the snow descending further and
further down their strong flanks in ever-lengthening streaks.
"Like it?" Paul asked.
"Oh--yes!" Flip breathed. "Oh, Paul--"
"This is my place," Paul said. "I never thought I'd bring anyone here.
But I knew you'd feel about it the way I do."
Paul leaned back against the cold stones of the turret wall, his
scarlet sweater bright against the grey stone. "Still worrying about
that Eunice?"
"I can't help it," Flip said.
"School any better?"
"No."
"Still hate it?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't blame you. It must be very unpleasant living in an
institution."
"I don't think it's the school," Flip told him with unwilling honesty.
"I think it's just me. Lots of the girls love it."
Paul shook his head. "I don't think I'd ever like a place where I
couldn't leave when I chose."
"I'd like it better," Flip said with difficulty, "if anybody liked me.
But nobody does." She leaned her elbows on one of the ledges and stared
out over the valley towards the Dents du Midi so that she would not
have to look at Paul.
"Why don't they like you?" Paul asked.
"I don't know."
"But I like you."
Flip did not insult him by saying "do you really?" Instead she asked,
"Why do you like me, Paul?"
Paul considered. "I knew right away that I liked you so I never
bothered to think why. I just--well, I like the way you look. Your eyes
are nice. I like the way you see things. And I like the way you move
your hands. You could be a surgeon if you wanted to. But you want to
be an artist."
"Yes," Flip said, blushing at his words. "I want to paint and paint.
Everything in the world. Mostly people, though.
"Paul--" she asked, hesitantly.
"What?"
"It doesn't make you like me any less because--"
"Because what?"
"Because the girls at school don't like me...."
Paul looked at her severely. "You can't think much of me if you think
I'd stop liking you just because a few silly girls in school haven't
any sense. If they don't like you, it's because they don't know you.
That's all."
"It's funny," Flip said, "how you can know someone for years and years
and never know them and how you can know someone else all at once in no
time at all. I'll never know Eunice. I'll always feel funny with her.
But the very first day I saw you I felt as though I knew you, and when
I'm with you I can talk.... I'd better go now. It's getting awfully
late. See how dark the towns are getting down by the lake."
"Can you come back tomorrow?" Paul asked.
"Yes. I know they'll catch me sooner or later and then it'll be awful,
but I'll come till they catch me."
"They wouldn't give you permission to see me if you asked?"
"Oh, no! Nobody except seniors are allowed to see boys--except
brothers."
"Well--I'll think of something." Paul sounded so convincing that Flip
almost believed he really would be able to work out a plan. "Come on,"
he said. "Ariel and I'll walk as far as the woods with you but I think
it would be dangerous if I went any further. We mustn't run any risk of
being seen together."
As she followed Paul down from the tower Flip felt so happy over their
friendship that she almost wanted to cry, it was so wonderful. She said
good-bye to Paul at the edge of the woods and was nearly back at school
when something terrible almost happened. She had cleared the ring of
trees and was scurrying across the lawn, when Martha Downs and Kaatje
van Leyden came around the corner of the building. Flip saw them and
started to hurry towards the side door, but Martha called her. Flip
was awed by both of them at the best of times--Martha, the beautiful
and popular Head Girl of the school, and Kaatje, the equally popular
and formidable Games Captain and Head Monitor; and Flip knew that this
was anything but the best of times. She felt as though her guilt were
sticking all over her like molasses.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" Martha asked.
"Nowhere," Flip answered. "I just went for a walk."
"All by yourself?"
"Yes."
"Couldn't you find anyone to go with you?"
"I wanted to be by myself," Flip said.
"That's all right," Kaatje interposed kindly. "We all like to be by
ourselves once in a while. She wasn't breaking any rules."
Flip was sure that they would ask her where she had been, but Martha
said instead, "You're Philippa Hunter, aren't you?"
Flip nodded.
"I'm glad we bumped into you," Martha told her. "I've been meaning
to look you up. I had a letter a few days ago from a friend of my
mother's, Mrs. Jackman."
"Oh," Flip said.
"And she asked me to keep an eye on you."
"Oh," Flip said again. Why did Eunice have to pursue her even at school?
"She said she was a very dear friend of your father's, and that it was
through her you had come here."
That's right, Flip thought. It's all because of Eunice.
But she knew she couldn't really blame Eunice and anyhow, now that
there was Paul, being miserable while she was actually at the school
didn't matter so much any more.
"Everything all right?" Martha asked. "You're all settled and
everything?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Anything I can do for you?"
"No, thank you."
"Well, if you ever want me for anything, just come along and give a
bang on my study door."
"I will. Thank you very much," Flip said, knowing that she wouldn't.
And she went back into the Common Room and sat at the big billiard
table, a legacy from the days when the school had been a hotel, and
tried to write a letter to her father. But she could not concentrate.
Images of Eunice kept crowding themselves into her mind. Eunice. Eunice
and her father. Once Eunice had even said to her something about her
father being young and probably marrying again--but not Eunice! Please,
not anybody, but especially please, not Eunice!
4
The next morning when she woke up, Flip's throat was raw and her head
was hot and when she opened her mouth to speak her voice came out in a
hoarse croak.
"You'd better report to the nurse," Erna told her.