"There _was_," Flip persisted. "I saw him."
Paul sat down on the floor and helped himself to bread and jam. "Oh,
well, he was probably one of Thérèse's boy friends. She's always having
her boy friends in and feeding them things and then she pretends that
they weren't there and she gave the food to Ariel. Just think, Flip,
next Sunday you won't have to go back to school. You'll be living here."
Flip sighed, curled on the fur rug with Ariel licking her ear, and the
warmth from the fire flickering over her body. "That will be wonderful.
I can ski all day long and we can talk and talk and talk--" She had
almost forgotten her disappointment at not being with her father.
4
The last day before the holidays really was as much fun as Erna and
Jackie had told Flip it would be. The girls packed all morning and even
Miss Tulip turned a deaf ear when they ran shouting up and down the
corridor. Erna and Jackie chased Flip who crashed in to Madame Perceval
at the head of the stairs and apologised abjectly, though her face was
still flushed with pleasure and fun.
"Just a little more quietly, Flip," Madame Perceval said, but she
smiled with satisfaction as she sent Flip running back to the others.
After lunch they were all sent out for a walk. Signorina took the walk
and she didn't make them march in line but let them throw snowballs
and tumble about in the snow. And she, too, smiled as she watched Flip
catch up the snow in her scarlet mittens and hit Esmée Bodet square in
the face. Of course Esmée spoiled it by pretending there was ice in
the snow and trying to cry, but Signorina said briskly, "Now, Esmée,
don't put on. You know you aren't hurt in the least. You just wish your
aim were as good as Philippa's."
Esmée stuck out her lip and drew Gloria and Sally aside to read them
her latest epistle from André who was at school in Villeneuve.
After tea the term marks were read out in Assembly Hall. Flip was third
for her class with Solvei Krogstad first, and Maggie Campbell second.
Then there was a scramble to change for dinner and when they got down
to the dining room the huge fireplaces at either end were blazing and
there was a big lighted Christmas tree in one of the bay windows. There
was chicken for dinner, and all kinds of unaccustomed delicacies, and
the tables were lit by candle-light, and Erna and Jackie called to
Flip to come and sit with them so she didn't have to stand miserably
around looking for a vacant seat as she used to do whenever there were
unsupervised tables, and all through the meal they sang Christmas
carols of all languages. As each group started a carol of its country,
the others would try to join in, sometimes just humming along with the
tune, sometimes picking up the words of the chorus. And the big room
was full of warmth and light and happiness and Flip wanted to push back
her chair and go about the room and hug everybody.
If it could just be like this always, she thought.
After dinner the faculty gave their annual play. They had written it
themselves and in it they were all inmates of an Old Ladies Home. They
had chosen girls from the different classes to be matrons and maids.
Liz Campbell, Maggie's sister and one of the older girls, was the
nurse, and convulsed them all by telling Fräulein Hauser she was just
pretending to have a sore throat to get out of her walk. Kaatje van
Leyden with a black wool wig and a uniform borrowed from Miss Tulip was
the matron and scolded Madame Perceval for not making her bed properly
and having untidy drawers. The girls took off the teachers and the
teachers took off the girls and the audience screamed with laughter
during an all too brief half hour.
Then, while the actors got out of costume there was a wild game of
musical chairs played by the entire school, from the youngest to the
oldest. Flip astonished herself and everybody else by being left by
the last chair with Gloria, who had got there by the simple method of
pushing everybody else out of the way; but finally Flip sat down in
triumph while Gloria sprawled, defeated, but grinning, on the floor.
Then the phonograph was turned off and Mlle. Desmoulins, the music
teacher, took her place at the piano. They sang more Christmas carols
and the school song, during which Martha Downs and Kaatje van Leyden
went about quietly turning out all the lights until the room was lit
only by the fire and the candles on either side of the piano.
Mlle. Desmoulins started playing Auld Lang Syne and Gaudeamus Igitur,
and the girls all crossed their arms and joined hands, making three big
circles, one within the other, and sang in gentler voices than they had
used all evening. And it did not seem strange to Flip, standing between
Erna and Solvei, that tears were streaming down Erna's cheeks and her
mouth trembling so that she could scarcely sing, nor that there was a
quaver in Solvei's usually steady voice.
As they were getting ready for bed Erna turned to Flip and said with
serious eyes, though her voice was bantering, "Flip, do something for
me, will you?"
"Okay, what?"
"When you say your prayers tonight please pray that I won't have to go
home for the spring holidays. I know they won't let me stay with Jackie
but please pray that I can at least stay at school."
"Okay, Erna," Flip said. "If that's what you want I'll pray for it. But
I'll pray that the holidays won't be as bad as you think they will,
too, if you don't mind."
"It won't do any good," Erna said, "but go ahead and pray for it."
5
On the first day of the Christmas holidays Paul drove over with
Monsieur Laurens to get Flip. He would not come into the school but
waited outside, standing tall and straight beside the car, and as ready
to flee as a mountain chamois. Most of Flip's classmates were standing
with her in the Hall, surrounded by coats and parcels and suitcases and
when they heard Monsieur Laurens tell Flip that Paul was outside they
all made excuses to drift towards the window.
"What a dream boy," Flip heard Sally whisper to Esmée. "How did Flip
ever get to know someone like that?"
"He must be younger than he looks," Esmée whispered back, and Flip
repressed a grin.
Jackie and Erna came over to say good-bye to her. "Have wonderful hols,
Flip," Erna said, shaking hands with her.
And Jackie squeezed her arm and whispered, "See you next year, Pill.
Your Paul looks divine!"
Smiling and happy, Flip followed Monsieur Laurens to the car.
Paul took her up to her room in the gate house. It was a tiny cupboard
of a place across the hall from Paul's room, painted a soft blue, with
immaculate white curtains at the window. It was so small a room that
the four poster bed took up the entire space; there wasn't even place
for a bureau or a chair, and Flip was given a carved sea-captain's
chest in the hall in which to keep her things.
"And remember, don't close your door, Flip," Paul warned her. "The
room's so small I guess you wouldn't want to, anyhow, but the latch is
broken and you can't open the door from the inside."
"I'll remember," Flip promised.
As soon as Flip was unpacked she changed out of her uniform and into
her ski clothes. Madame Perceval, who had stayed at the school until
the majority of the girls were safely off on their various trains, had
arrived, and they spent the day skiing. They took a funicular up the
mountain and skied until dark, stopping at an inn for lunch. Then, at
Flip's favorite time of day when the sky was an intense green-blue and
the bare branches of the trees were a delicate filigree against it and
the first stars began to tremble above the mountain, they skied back to
the gate house.
"Are you having a good time, Flip?" Paul asked anxiously. "Is
everything all right?"
"It's wonderful!" Flip assured him. "I'm having a _beautiful_ time."
After dinner she brought her sketch pad and pencil downstairs with her
and sat in front of the fire, idly sketching Paul and Monsieur Laurens.
Monsieur Laurens was easy, with his peaked eyebrows, his long thin
nose, and his pipe and his carpet slippers run down at the heels; but
she could not caricature Paul.
"Let me see," Paul said.
She showed him the pad. "I can't do you," she told him. "I can do your
father but I can't do you. I can't do Madame either. Why is it, Madame,
that I can't do you and Paul?"
Madame Perceval did not answer the question. Instead she said, "Some
day you must try a real portrait of Paul. I'll let you use my oils."
"Oh, would you, Madame!" Flip cried. "I'd love to try. Paul would make
a wonderful portrait. Would you really sit for me, Paul?"