"I'm the--uh--I'm the new janitor. I'm going to keep the furnace going
so you'll be warm enough all winter. I live--uh--I live up the mountain
and I didn't have a chance to eat breakfast this morning because I
overslept. Are you sure you haven't even a crust of bread?"
"I haven't anything. Won't the cook give you something in the kitchen?"
"She's in a bad mood this morning. What are you doing out here all
alone? Shouldn't you be in the school?"
"Not till Call Over at a quarter to nine."
"But why are you here all alone?" the man asked her, and she was afraid
of the hungry look in his dark eyes.
"I'm skiing."
"But why do you ski here all alone every morning?" he persisted.
"I like it."
Now at last he let go her arm. "Well, I'm off up the mountain," he
said, and without another word or a backwards glance he struck off
across the snow.
The thought of him troubled her until she went in to get the mail
before Call Over. Then she had a letter that made her so angry that she
forgot all about him. The letter was from Eunice, and it ran,
"My dear Philippa, I am glad to hear from your father that at last you
are getting along better at school. But I must admit that I am rather
hurt that you choose to spend the holidays with some strange boy you
have just met rather than with me. However, you have always been an
odd child so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I do want to say,
though, Philippa dear, that I know your poor father would be happier
if you came to Nice, and I assure you that I would see that you had a
pleasant vacation. As I said in my letter to you last week, there will
be a number of charming young people nearby, and I am sure it would do
you good to know them. Just remember that all you have to do if you
change your mind is to let me know, and don't forget that you have your
father's peace of mind to think of as well as your own choice. It is
very hard on him to be laid up in the hospital, poor darling, and I
shouldn't think you'd want in any way to add to his worries. I'm afraid
this will make you angry, Philippa dear, but do remember that I'm just
thinking of your best interests and that I'm very fond of you and
devoted to your father. Affectionately, Eunice."
Quivering with rage she tore the letter into as small pieces as
possible. Madame Perceval, on duty behind the desk, finished
distributing the mail and asked with a smile, "What's the cause of your
fury, Flip?"
"It's that Eunice again," Flip said. "A woman who's always after my
father. She thinks I ought to spend the holidays with her and I'm
afraid she'll try to convince father that I ought to, too. There isn't
time for that, is there?"
"No, Flip, there isn't. Anyhow, Mlle. Dragonet had a cable from your
father this morning giving his permission for you to stay with Paul.
She supplemented Georges' cable by one of her own saying that she
thought it far better for you to stay with her nephew than for you to
make the difficult trip to Nice. So I don't think you need worry."
"Thank goodness," Flip said. "I think I'd die if I couldn't spend the
holidays with Paul. I just wish Eunice hadn't written the letter and
tried to spoil things for me."
"Just forget it and enjoy yourself," Madame Perceval advised.
"I will," Flip said, and she ran upstairs to throw the scraps of
Eunice's letter in the classroom waste paper basket. Erna was there
before her, sitting glumly at her desk.
"What's the matter, Erna?" Flip asked shyly.
"I can't spend the holidays with Jackie," Erna answered and put her
head down on her arms.
Flip perched awkwardly on her desk and put her feet on the chair. "Oh,
Erna, why not?"
"My mother wrote Mlle. Dragonet and said she wanted me home for
Christmas. She doesn't want me home at all. She sent me away to school
because she didn't want me home."
"Oh, Erna," Flip said, her voice warm with sympathy.
"Both my brothers were killed in the war," Erna said in a muffled
voice. "And I know mutti wishes it had been me. She always liked my
brothers better. I was the baby and so much younger and I always got in
the way."
"Oh, no, Erna," Flip protested. "Your mother wouldn't feel like that."
"She does," Erna said. "If my father would be home and be all funny
and nice the way he used to be before the war when I was tiny it would
be all right. But he's always at the hospital. He says the only thing
he can do to help people's souls is to try to give them strong, well
bodies for the souls to grow in, and most of the time he sleeps in the
hospital. I think he likes me and I think he's glad because I want to
be a doctor, too, but mutti doesn't like me to be around because I
laugh or sing or make noise and that disturbs her unhappiness."
"Oh, Erna," Flip whispered again.
"I don't want to go home," Erna said. "I thought it was going to be so
wonderful to be with Jackie. Her mother tells wonderful stories and she
wrote me the most wonderful letter saying how much she would love to
have me for the holidays and she wrote my mother and the Dragon saying
she'd take good care of me and everything and we were going to go to
the theatre to see a play and to the opera, but my mother wrote the
Dragon and said I couldn't and the Dragon called me to her living room
after breakfast and told me. I don't want to go home."
The night before Flip had heard Maggie Campbell talking to Solvei
Krogstad in the Common Room and almost crying because she was going
to have to stay at the school during the holidays, but Erna was
continuing, "If I could stay at school it wouldn't be so bad, it would
be all right. Lots of girls stay at school. Gloria's going to stay, and
Sally, because her parents have gone back to the United States, and
lots of them are going to stay. The Dragon takes a chalet at Gstaad for
the holidays and Sally stayed last year and said it was wonderful. I
love school. I just love it. I wish I could stay here always."
Flip sat quietly on her desk and let Erna talk. This miserable girl
was very unlike the brash gamin she was used to, and she ached with
sympathy. "I'm sorry, Erna, I'm awful sorry," she said softly.
Erna took a tight ball of a handkerchief out of her blazer pocket and
dabbed at her eyes. "Don't tell Jackie I almost cried."
"I won't."
"Sometimes I dream my mother is like Jackie's mother," Erna said, "and
comes in and looks at me after I'm in bed to see that I'm covered, and
comes in and kisses me in the morning to wake me up. Was your mother
like that, Flip?"
Flip nodded.
"It must have been awful when she died."
Flip nodded again.
"I don't think Gloria's mother loves her too much, but Glo doesn't
seem to care. Well, it must be almost time for Call Over. Come on.
We'd better go down and get in line. The holidays won't last too long
and then I can come back to school." Erna gave her desk lid a slam and
walked briskly to the door.
2
While she was brushing her teeth that night Flip thought more about
Erna. It somehow had never occurred to her that anyone could really
love the school. She herself was learning not to hate it, and was
beginning to have fun, and to lose some of the dreadful shyness that
had tormented her; but she hadn't even thought of really loving school
so that she would be miserable whenever she had to leave. She felt a
sense of warm companionship with Erna, now that each had witnessed and
tried to comfort the other's unhappiness.
When she got back to the room Erna was already in bed, rubbing
mentholatum on her chapped hands; Gloria was combing the snarls out of
her hair; and Jackie was wrapping a towel around her hot water bottle.
"Hi, Pill," Jackie greeted her. "We've been wondering something."
Flip hardly noticed any more whether they called her 'Flip' or 'Pill.'
When Jackie said 'Pill' it sounded like an affectionate nick-name, not
a term of contempt, and only Esmée continued to use it in a derogatory
manner. "What have you been wondering?" she asked.
"Well, you've been seeing Percy every Sunday for a while now. Have you
learned anything about her private life?"
"Jackie has a crush on Percy, Jackie has a crush on Percy," Gloria
droned.
"If you want to call it that," Jackie said. "I admire her more than
anybody in the world except my mother and I'm not ashamed of it."
"Needn't get huffy, ducky." Gloria threw her comb down in disgust and
tried to get her snarls out with her fingers. "I must need a new perm.
My hair's just awful. It's the way Black and Midnight washes it with
that beastly old soap. I'm just as curious about Percy as you are.
Where do you suppose _Mr._ Percy is? Come on, Pill. You must have found
out something."
"I haven't," Flip said. "Not a thing. Nobody's ever said anything about
her husband." She thought of Denise, but said nothing.
"Couldn't you ask?" Gloria rubbed a camphor stick over her lips as
though it were lipstick.
"Good heavens, no!" Flip cried, aghast.
"Of course she couldn't ask," Jackie exclaimed. "What are you thinking
of, Glo?"
"Well, I'd ask if I wanted to know."
"Oh, yes you would!"
"Well, I would!"
"Well, maybe _you_ would," Erna said, "but Flip wouldn't, and neither
would I."
This would have crushed Flip, but Gloria merely took her nail scissors
out of the manicure box her mother's Emile had sent her for her
birthday, and started to clip her toe nails.
"Sometimes when Percy thinks no one is looking at her she gets the
saddest look in her eyes." Jackie said, "It's as if she hurt deep
inside."
"Maybe her husband died on her wedding night and she's mourned for him
ever since," Erna suggested.
"Gee, I wish I could put nail polish on my toe nails," Gloria sighed,
"but Black and Midnight would spot it somehow ... maybe he was killed
in the war."
"Switzerland wasn't in the war, dopey," Erna said.
"Well, maybe he was French or something, dopey," Gloria retorted. "Or
maybe he ran away and left her."
"Hah," Jackie snorted. "I bet if anybody left anybody Percy would do
the leaving."
"Well, maybe he was an awful drunkard and she left him. I bet she's
divorced."
"She wears a wedding ring," Jackie said. "She wouldn't wear her wedding
ring if she were divorced."
"Well, maybe he has amnesia and he's just wandering about."
Jackie snorted again, then said, "I used to think that when she went
out every Sunday afternoon maybe he had T.B. or was insane or something
and in a sanitarium and she went to see him. But now we know she just
goes to see this Paul." The bell rang and Jackie tucked her hot water
bottle carefully under the covers and got in after it.
Lying in bed after Miss Tulip had turned out the lights, and after she
had said her prayers, Flip, too, wondered about Madame Perceval. Often
she had noticed the sad look in her eyes and thought perhaps it had
something to do with Denise. And she was worried because sometimes at
night when she dreamed about her mother, her mother's face would be
interchangeable with Madame Perceval's. But this night she fell asleep
and dreamed that she was running to meet her mother down a long path,
and just as she got up to her, her mother turned into Eunice Jackman,
who was saying, "Really, Philippa, you're too clumsy for words. Can't
you get out of my way?"
3
Flip saw the dark man once again on the Sunday before the holidays. She
was at the gate-house and Paul had sent her out to the kitchen to ask
Thérèse for some bread and jam. When she opened the kitchen door, there
he was leaning against the sink and drinking a cup of coffee. As Flip
pushed open the door he put the cup down quickly and slipped out.
"What do you want?" Thérèse asked crossly.
"Some bread and jam, please, Thérèse."
Thérèse gave her the bread and jam and when Flip got back to the living
room she asked Paul, "Who is that man?"
"What man?"
"I don't know. There was a man in the kitchen drinking coffee but he
went away when I came in."
"I'll go see," Paul said.
Flip waited, gnawing away on a chunk of bread and jam while Ariel tried
to scramble onto her lap and share it with her.