_The Prisoner Freed_
Flip was lying at the bottom of the ocean and all the weight of the
sea was upon her, pressing her down into the white sands, and bells
were ringing down at the bottom of the sea, ringing and ringing, and
the tides came and went above her and the waves were wild in the wind
and the breakers rolled and she lay with all the waters of the world
pushing her down onto the floor of the sea and the bells rang and rang
until finally they were dissolved into icy darkness.
She opened her eyes and she saw Paul's white face. She turned towards
him and whispered weakly, "I didn't get the picture, Paul," and then
she moaned because the movement of turning her head seemed to bring
the waters of the ocean down on her once more. She tried to push the
weight of the waters away from her but her fingers closed on a handful
of cobwebs. She felt that she was being lifted and then again she was
drowned in darkness.
When the darkness finally raised it was a quiet and almost
imperceptible happening. She felt the bright warmth of winter sunlight
on her eyelids and she thought at first that it was a morning back at
school and in a moment the bell would ring and she would have to get
up. And then she remembered that now it was winter and it was dark
until after breakfast and if she had been in bed at school the sun
would not be warm against her closed eyes.
And then she remembered the night before, the man who said he was
Paul's father, and she remembered the chateau and the picture, and the
waters of darkness suddenly bearing down upon her and she was afraid to
open her eyes. Her lids still shut tight she stirred faintly upon the
pillow.
"You're all right, Flip. You're absolutely all right, darling."
Now she opened her eyes and there was Madame Perceval standing beside
the bed saying, "Everything's all right, Flip. Everything's all right.
Close your eyes and go to sleep, my darling."
So she closed her eyes and this time the waters were gentle and she
felt that she was slowly drifting down a river of sleep and when she
woke up she was no longer afraid to look.
She opened her eyes and she was lying in the big four poster bed in the
room in the gate house that Madame Perceval used; and Mlle. Duvoisine,
not in her uniform but in a tweed skirt and the sweater she had been
knitting the day of Flip's laryngitis, was sitting in a chair by the
window, reading. As Flip moved Mlle. Duvoisine rose and came quickly
over to the bed. She put her fingers lightly against Flip's wrist and
said,
"Well, Philippa, how are you?"
"I guess I'm fine. Where's Paul, please? Is he all right? I couldn't
get the picture!" Flip started to sit up in her anxiety but as she
tried to raise her head it felt as though a crushing weight were
holding it down and a wave of nausea swept over her.
"You'd better lie still," Mlle. Duvoisine warned her. "You'll probably
have that headache for a couple of days."
"Why? What happened?"
"A piece of one of the shutters blew off the chateau and gave you what
your roommate, Gloria Browne, would call a bop on the bean." Mlle.
Duvoisine smiled at her with a warmth Flip had never seen in her eyes
before.
"Is Paul all right?"
"Yes." Mlle. Duvoisine assured her. "You can see him in a few minutes.
You're a foolish little girl, Philippa. Did you know that?" But she
didn't sound as though she thought Flip foolish at all.
"How did you get here, please?" Flip asked her.
"I came to look after you till Madame Perceval gets back from Montreux.
I'm staying at the school chalet in Gstaad and I'm going back this
evening since you're all right and won't need me any longer. Now if
you're a good girl and promise to lie still and not get excited I'll
let Paul come in. He's been waiting at your door all morning."
"I'll lie still."
Flip lay very still while Mlle. Duvoisine was gone but she could not
keep her heart from thumping with excitement. Paul opened the door and
came in.
"Flip! Are you all right!"
"Paul! Are you all right!"
They spoke simultaneously and then they both laughed and Paul came over
to the bed and kissed Flip and then stood looking down at her. Flip
smiled up at him and strangely her eyes filled with tears.
"I thought he'd killed you," Paul said.
"No, I'm fine, Paul. Are you all right?"
"Yes, Flip. Yes, I'm all right and there's so much to tell you only
Mlle. Duvoisine from your school said that I mustn't excite you and of
course she's right."
"You won't excite me. Please tell me."
Paul climbed up onto the foot of the bed and sat there, leaning his
dark head back against one of the posts. His eyes were ringed with
black and his face looked white and tired and as though he had not
slept.
"Tell me, Paul, please," she asked gently.
"He's not my father." Paul closed his eyes and a look of relief came
into his face. "He's not my father, Flip."
"He _couldn't_ have been your father," Flip said. "Not that man."
Paul opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. "After you locked me
up in your room I shouted and banged and my father--I mean Monsieur
Laurens--never even noticed." Flip opened her eyes wide because it
was the first time Paul had corrected himself when he called Monsieur
Laurens his father. He continued, "He said he heard something but he
thought we were having some kind of a game with Ariel. He'd forgotten
Aunt Colette had Ariel with her. Then Aunt Colette came home and let me
out and I told her everything and we ran downstairs and roused father
and then we went to the chateau. Father took his gun. Sometimes he can
be a very active man, Flip. It's only when he's writing that he seems
to forget the world. We saw the man who said he was my father coming
out of the chateau and father captured him and the man told us a piece
of shutter had struck you on the head and he thought it had killed you
and he had put you in the chateau to protect you from the wind and he
kept crying out that he did not want to be a murderer. And Aunt Colette
and I rushed into the chateau and found you and--" Paul paused for a
long time. Then he said, "I thought you were dead. But Aunt Colette
said you weren't and then you said something and moaned and we carried
you home and called the doctor and Mlle. Duvoisine from your school."
"Where's Madame?" Flip asked him.
"She's down in Montreux with the man who said he was my father. They're
at the police office. You see, Flip, that's what he's been doing. I
mean, it's his profession. He went around finding out about people who
didn't know who they were and then he pretended he was related to them
and got money from whoever had become their new families. Aunt Colette
said he was ill and not right in his mind. He admitted that he wasn't
my father but it wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't because when I saw
you lying there all in a little heap inside the chateau in the dark and
I thought you were dead, I remembered. I remembered who I was, Flip."
Flip lay very quietly on the bed. She didn't dare move, partly because
it hurt her head to move, but mostly because it was another of those
times when she knew it would be best for Paul if she was very still and
very silent.
Paul put his head down so that his cheek pressed against Flip's feet
and a lock of his dark hair fell across his forehead. "I'll try to be
clear, Flip," he said, "but I want to say it as quickly as possible
because it's a hard thing to say. My father was a writer. We lived in
an old chateau--something like _our_ chateau, Flip--that had always
been in our family. During the war my father worked with the maquis.
He was the editor of one of the most important of the underground
newspapers. I had an older sister, she was fifteen, then, and she
helped. So did my mother. Sometimes they let me run errands. Everybody
helped who could possibly be used and sometimes I could do things
without arousing suspicion that an older person couldn't do." He paused
for a moment, and then went on. "One evening I was coming home after
dark. I went in through one of the French windows. The room was dark
and I stumbled over something. It was my sister. She was lying there
just the same way you were lying in the chateau last night when I
thought you were dead. I saw you lying there and you _were_ my sister
and it wasn't last night at all but the night my sister was shot. It
was shortly after that that all of my father's work was uncovered and
we were sent to a concentration camp.... I think if you don't mind very
much I'll have to let Aunt Colette tell you the rest."
Again Flip wanted to say something that would give Paul comfort, but
she knew that she was unable to. She lay there and felt the pressure of
his cheek against her feet, until he lifted his head and stared up at
her and his eyes were the grey of the lake and seemed to hold in their
depths as much knowledge and suffering as the lake must have seen.
He stared up at her and now Flip knew that she must say something.
She pushed herself up very slowly on one elbow, raised herself up and
beyond the pain that clamped about her head, and reached down and
gently touched Paul's dark hair. She suddenly felt much older, and
unconsciously, she echoed Madame Perceval's words. "It's all right,
Paul. Everything's going to be all right."
2
After a while Mlle. Duvoisine came back into the room and sent Paul
away and Flip slept again. When she awoke Madame Perceval was in the
room and she took Flip into her arms and held her as her mother had
held her.
"You were very brave, little one," Madame told her.
Flip started to shake her head but stopped as the abrupt movement sent
the pain back again. "I wasn't brave. I was scared. I was--I was like
pulp I was so scared, Madame."
"But you went on for Paul's sake, anyhow. That was brave."
"Can you be brave and scared at the same time?" Flip asked.
"That's the hardest and the biggest kind of braveness there is."
"Oh," Flip said, and then, because the thought of being brave somehow
embarrassed her, she asked, "Madame, will this make me miss any skiing?
I'm all right, aren't I?"
"Yes, dear, you're fine. It's a miracle, but you didn't have a
concussion. You're just a bit bruised and battered. The doctor will
look in on you again later this evening but he says you'll be up and
about in a couple of days and I'll work with you every minute the
rest of the holidays to make up for the time you'll miss. Now. Paul's
asleep. Georges is writing and Mlle. Duvoisine's gone back to Gstaad.
How about eating something? Chicken soup and a poached egg? Thérèse
will be miserable if you don't eat. She blames herself for last night's
episode and she was very upset about losing her new boy friend."
"I'll eat," Flip promised. "Madame ... Paul told me about himself ...
about having remembered...."
Madame Perceval looked at Flip gravely. "It will be better for him now,
Flip," she said, "in spite of the pain of the memory. Before, he had
lost his parents completely. Now he can never lose them again."
"And Madame ... there was more that Paul said you would tell me."
"All right," Madame Perceval said. "I'll just run down and get your
tray from Thérèse first. I won't be long."
When Madame returned with Flip's tray she sat down beside the bed and
said, "Mlle. Duvoisine thought I should wait till you were up to tell
you about Paul, but he has already told you so much and he's anxious
for you to know everything so that the knowledge won't be between you.
I think you're strong enough to hear. But eat your supper first."
"Yes, Madame."
When Flip had finished Madame said, very quietly, "Paul's parents were
put into the gas chamber. He saw their bodies dumped with a pile of
others afterwards. The following month his little brother died in his
arms. It happened not only to Paul, you must understand. It happened to
thousands of other children."
After a long silence Flip said, "We don't know, do we, Madame? We
can't know. I mean none of us at school who haven't been through it. I
thought it was awful when my mother was killed and they didn't tell me
for a week and I couldn't understand why she didn't come to me, but it
wasn't like that. And even Gloria losing her teeth in the blitz. She
doesn't know."
"No, Flip. Gloria doesn't know."
"I feel it deep inside, Madame. But I don't know. How can you do
anything to make up, Madame? How can you help?"
"Just never forget," Madame Perceval said. "Never take it for granted."
"I don't see how anyone _could_ forget."
"It's far too easy," Madame Perceval told her. "But it's important for
us to remember, so that we can try to keep it from happening again.
That's one reason I'm not going back to school after Christmas."
"You're not going back!" Flip cried, and almost upset her tray.
"Steady," Madame Perceval said. "I hadn't meant to tell you so soon."
"Oh, Madame," Flip wailed. "_Why_ aren't you coming back!"
Madame got up and walked over to the window, looking out at the fresh
white world, swept clean by the wind the night before. "I feel that
I've outlived my usefulness at the school. After the war when my aunt
started it up again she needed me to help her, because she's not as
young or as strong as she once was. But the school's reëstablished now.
Everything's running smoothly. I'm not really needed any longer. As a
matter of fact," Madame Perceval turned towards Flip with a half smile,
"you're partly responsible for my leaving."
"Me? How! Why!" Flip cried.
"I think if I hadn't seen your father's letters with their drawings of
forlorn and frightened children I might not have been quite so ready
to accept when a friend I worked with during the war wrote and asked
me to come and help her in a hostel for just such children. So that's
where I'm going after the holidays, dear. It's on the border between
Switzerland and Germany, right where I was during most of the war, so
it will be good for me in many ways to make myself go there. Now, my
Flip, I've talked to you far too long already. You're supposed to be
resting. Mlle. Duvoisine will be angry with me if I've excited you."
"You haven't excited me," Flip said, and her voice was low and
mournful. "Only I don't see how I'll bear it back at school if you
aren't there."
"I'm surprised at you, Philippa." Madame Perceval spoke sharply. "I
didn't expect to hear you talk that way again. I thought that was the
old Philippa we'd left behind. Bear it! Of course you'll bear it!
Things won't be any different without me than they were with me. I've
never shown any favoritism at school and I never would."
"I didn't mean that!" Flip cried. "Madame, you know I didn't mean that!
It just helps me if I know that you're there, and it's _because_ you're
so fair and--and just."
Madame Perceval took her hand quickly. "I apologise, dear. Please
forgive me. I've been very unjust to you. I know you'd never expect
favors of any kind. I should have been accusing myself, not you. I said
that because I've been afraid that I might show how particularly you
interested me--and I've always prided myself on complete impartiality.
But you remind me so much of Denise--my daughter.... She died of
pneumonia during the war. You look very much like her and she had
your same intense, difficult nature and artistic talent.... I said
we weren't going to talk any more and I've been going a blue streak,
haven't I? Take your nap and Paul will come in when you wake up. Mlle.
Duvoisine and the doctor both say that security and happiness are the
best medicine he can have, and you can give him a great deal of both.
By the way, his real name was Paul Muret. Its nice that we can go on
calling him Paul. Of course it's a common name, but Paul says he's
always felt _right_ being called 'Paul.' It was my husband's name."
As Madame Perceval bent over her to put the covers about her, Flip
reached up and caught her hand, whispering, "I can't imagine anybody
who would make a more wonderful mother than you."
3
During the remainder of the holidays Madame Perceval took Flip and Paul
on long skiing expeditions every day. Once they got on the train in
the morning and traveled all day and then took two days to ski home.
Flip was beginning to feel more at ease on her skis than she was on
her own feet. When she put on her skis her clumsiness seemed to roll
off her like water and her stiff knee seemed to have the spring and
strength that it never had when she tried to run in a relay race or on
the basket ball court or on the hockey field. Flip and Paul grew brown
and rosy and the shadows slowly retreated from Paul's eyes and Flip
looked as though she could be no relation to the unhappy girl who had
moped about the school and been unable to make friends. Now when they
met other young people on their skiing expeditions she could exchange
shouts and laugh with them, safe in her new security of friendship with
Paul, confidence in her skiing, and Madame Perceval's approval and
friendship. She tried not to think that someone new would be taking
the art teacher's place at school.
"By the way, Flip," Madame Perceval said once. "When the question comes
up at school about the ski meet, don't mention my part in the surprise.
Just say that it was Paul who taught you to ski."
"All right, Madame," Flip said, "if you think it would be better that
way."
"I do." Madame Perceval looked after Paul who had skied on ahead of
them. "After all, the credit is really Paul's anyhow."
In the evenings after dinner they sang Christmas carols. Flip had
taught them her favorite, _The Twelve Days of Christmas_. She had loved
it when she was very small because it was such a long one, and when
she was told that she could choose just one more song before bedtime,
that would be it. So she loved it for its memories and now for its own
charming tune and delicate words, from the first verse,
_On the first day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree,_
to the twelfth verse when all the twelve gifts are sung with a glad
shout.
On Christmas Eve Georges Laurens stirred himself from his books and
they all went out and climbed up the mountain and brought home a
beautiful Christmas tree. Flip and Paul had been making the decorations
in the evening after dinner, chains of brightly colored paper, strings
of berries and small rolled balls of tinfoil; and Flip had carefully
painted and pasted on cardboard twenty delicate angels with feathery
wings and a stable scene with Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus,
the kings and shepherds and all the animals who gathered close to keep
the baby warm. When the tree was trimmed they sang carols, ending up
with _The Twelve Days_. Paul took Flip's hand and threw back his head
and sang,
"_On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a'leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a'milking
Seven swans a'swimming
Six geese a'laying
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!_"
4
On Christmas morning they sat in front of the fire and opened their
presents. Paul saved his gift to Flip till the last and then held out
the small square box shyly. Flip opened it and lifted out of pale blue
cotton a tiny silver pear on a chain.
"I couldn't find any of the gifts from the carol," Paul said, "but this
is a pear from the tree the partridge was in."
Flip looked up at Paul's eager face and her own was radiant. She wanted
to say something to express her happiness but she couldn't, so she
just flung her arms wide as though she wanted to embrace them all.
"Why Miss Philippa," Georges Laurens said, "I never realized before
what a little beauty you are. We should have Christmas every day!"
"Do you like the pear?" Paul asked.