"I said jure et crâche, didn't I?" And Jackie spat over the balcony
again. Unfortunately in her excitement she had not seen Miss Tulip
walking below, and the matron jumped as a wet spray blew past her face.
"_Who_ is up on the balcony!" she exclaimed.
"Please, it's only us, Miss Tulip," Jackie called down meekly.
"I might have known it," Miss Tulip said, craning her neck and looking
up at them. "Naturally it would be Jacqueline Bernstein and Erna Weber.
And _with_ Philippa Hunter. I am sorry to see you keeping such bad
company, Philippa. Get back indoors at once, girls, or you'll catch
your deaths of cold, and you may each take a deportment mark."
They retired indoors, Erna sputtering, "the old hag! On the first day
after the hols, too. No one else would have given us a deportment mark."
But Jackie was giggling wildly. "I spit on her! I spit on Black and
Midnight." Then she said seriously, "Percy would never have given us a
Deportment Mark for that. I don't know how we'll ever get on without
her. School won't be the same. Go on about what you were going to tell
us about her, Erna."
"I can't in here. They'd see we were having a secret and all come
bouncing about. We'll have to wait till Gloria goes to brush
her teeth," Erna said, looking around as a girl with beautiful
honey-colored hair curling all over her head opened the glass doors and
came into the Common Room, looking diffidently about her.
"Can you tell me--" she started.
Gloria, anxious to prove that _she_ was an old girl, went dashing
across the room to her. "Hello, are you a new girl? The seniors'
sitting room is on the next floor, just over the Common Room."
"I'm Miss Redford, the new art teacher," the girl said, smiling warmly.
"I was looking for someone by the name of Philippa Hunter."
"Oh. That's me. I mean I." Flip stepped forward and Gloria retired in
confusion.
"Oh, hullo, Philippa. Could I speak to you for a moment?"
Flip followed Miss Redford into the Hall, and the teacher smiled at
her disarmingly. "Madame Perceval wrote me that you were the best art
student in the school and that you'd show me around the studio and give
me a helping hand till I get settled. I feel terribly new and strange
coming into the middle of things like this and this is my first job.
I'm just out of the College of London and I'm afraid I shall make a
terrible muddle of things."
She laughed, and Flip thought,--Well, if someone _had_ to take Madame's
place, this one couldn't be nicer.
"Would you like to see the studio now?" she suggested. "I have about
half an hour before the bell."
"I'd love to," Miss Redford said. "I've been up there, poking around.
It's really a wonderful studio for a school. I looked at some of your
things and I see that Madame Perceval was right." She paused and
panted, "I wonder if I shall ever get used to all these stairs!"
Flip was so used to the five flights of stairs that she never thought
of them, but Miss Redford was quite winded by the time they reached the
top.
"Of course my room is on the second floor so I shall always be trotting
up and down!" she gasped.
Much as Flip liked Miss Redford she was glad the new art teacher was
not to have Madame Perceval's rooms.
"Now, Philippa," Miss Redford said, "if you'll just show me where
things are kept in the cupboards I'll be tremendously grateful. I
thought we might do some modelling this term, and maybe if any of the
things are good enough we'll have them fired. I found the clay but I
would like to know where everything else is kept."
Flip opened the cupboard doors and showed Miss Redford Madame
Perceval's places for everything. She had just finished when the bell
rang, and she said, "There's my bell so I'll have to go downstairs or
Miss Tulip will give me a Tardy Mark. I'm glad Madame Perceval thought
I could help."
"You've been a great help." Miss Redford said warmly, "and if you don't
mind I'll probably call on you again. Good-night, and thanks awfully."
7
The others were in the room when Flip got downstairs. "Was I
embarrassed!" Gloria exclaimed. "What did she want?"
"Oh, just to have me show her where Madame kept the things in the
studio. Golly, I'm hungry. We always had something to eat before we
went to bed during the hols."
"Honestly," Gloria said, "I think she might have let us know she was a
teacher and not just come in like a new girl."
"She didn't have a uniform on," Jackie said reasonably.
"Well, lots of girls don't when they come. I think teachers should look
like teachers." Gloria was not ready to be pacified.
"Percy didn't look like a teacher."
"Yes, but she didn't look like a girl, either. What's she like, Pill,
this Redburn or whatever her name is?"
"Redford," Flip said, "And she seemed awfully nice."
"If you think she's nice she must be, you were so crazy about Percy."
"She said we were going to do things in clay," Flip said. "Aren't you
going to go brush your teeth, Gloria?"
"I've brushed them."
"You have not," Erna cried. "You just this minute finished getting
undressed."
"I brushed them before I got undressed."
"Oh, Glo, you fibber!" Jackie jumped up and down on her bed.
"You're just plain dirty," Erna said rudely but without malice.
"I am not!" Gloria started to get excited. "I did brush my teeth before
I got undressed. So there!"
"All right, all right!" Jackie said hastily. "Don't get in a fuss. I'm
going to go brush _my_ teeth, though," and she looked meaningfully at
Erna and Flip, who echoed her and followed her out into the corridor.
"I bet she hasn't brushed her teeth," Erna whispered. "She just knows
I have something to tell you that I'm not going to tell her. My father
said I wasn't to go around telling people, but you're so crazy about
Percy, both of you, I thought it would be all right."
Miss Tulip bore down on them. "Girls! No talking in the corridors! What
are you doing?"
"We're just going to brush our teeth, please, Miss Tulip."
"Go and brush them, then. I don't want to have to give you another
Deportment Mark. Step, now."
"Yes, Miss Tulip."
"We'll meet in the classroom before breakfast," Erna whispered.
As she lay in bed that night, propped up on one elbow so that she could
look down the mountain side to the lake, Flip had a surprising sense
of homecoming. She had missed, without realizing that she had missed
it, being able to see the lake and the mountains of France from her
bed, and they seemed to welcome her back. And when she lay down, the
familiar pattern of light on the ceiling was a reassuring sight. As
she began to get sleepy she sang in her mind, _On the first day of
Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree_, and
reached up to feel the silver pear on its slender chain about her neck.
8
"At last!" Erna said the next morning as the three of them slipped into
the classroom.
"Go on, quick, before someone comes in." Jackie stepped onto the
teacher's platform and climbed up onto the table, sitting on it cross
legged.
"Yes, do hurry," Flip begged, sitting on her desk.
"Well, I have to begin at the beginning and tell you how I found out."
"Is it tragic?" Jackie asked.
"Yes, it is, and Percy was a heroine."
"What did she do?"
"Stop asking questions and I'll tell you!" Erna exclaimed in
exasperation. "First of all, I had perfectly wonderful holidays. I
stayed most of the time with a nurse from the hospital. My mother and
father are getting a divorce and I'm glad." And she stared at Flip and
Jackie defiantly.
"Oh, Erna," Jackie cried.
"Well, mutti's not a bit like your mother," Erna said, "and she's
never liked me. But my father was just wonderful and Marianne, she's
the nurse, was awfully nice, too, and took me to the movies when she
was off duty. And she told me my father was a great surgeon and a
wonderful man and I saw an operation and I didn't faint or anything
and my father told me he was very happy I was going to be a doctor and
he'd help me all he could. And he talked to me lots and lots and said
he was sorry he never had time to write me or anything but he loved me
just the same and he'd try to write me more. And then he told me he and
mutti disagreed about many things and they disagreed about the world
and Germany and people and things in general. They'd disagreed about
the war and the Nazis only father couldn't say anything because of my
brothers and mutti and me and everything. He said all the injured and
wounded people needed to be taken care of and it wasn't their fault,
mostly, not the fault of--what did he call them? the--the little
people. So he felt all right taking care of them and he was glad I was
here at school because he thought it was the best place in the world
for me right now. And it was really wonderful, kids, because he'd
always been so kind of stern and everything and I'd never really known
him before or felt that I had a father the way you two do, and now I
have, even if mutti still doesn't love me."
Flip and Jackie listened, neither of them looking at the other or at
Erna because there was too much emotion in the room and they both felt
full of too much pity for Erna even while she was telling them how
happy she was. But they caught the sorrow in her voice when she spoke
of her mother, and Flip felt that having your mother not love you would
be the bitterest way of all to lose her.
"Well, I expect you're wondering what all this has to do with Percy,"
Erna continued, her voice suddenly brisk. "My father's brother, my
uncle Guenther, is a doctor, too, and he used to know Percy's sister,
the singer, and he knew about this school and that's how I happened to
come here. He was a Nazi for a while and then he wanted to stop being
one and they put him in a prison but they needed surgeons and so they
let him out and he had to pretend he was a Nazi but all the time he
was trying to work against them. Really he was. I know lots of them
say that now because it's--what's the word father used--expedient--but
Uncle Guenther really did try, and then he just took care of the hurt
people like my father did because hurt people should be taken care of
no matter who they are."
"It's all right," Jackie said. "We believe you. Do go on about Percy."
"Well, Percy's sister sang in Berlin for the Americans and Uncle
Guenther came to see her and they got to talking about old times and
everything and then they talked about the war and how it was awful that
friends should be enemies and they each said they'd wanted to be on--on
the side of life and not on the side of death. And Percy's sister said
she hadn't been able to do anything but sing. Madame and her husband
had been living in Paris where he taught history at the Sorbonne
and Percy taught art at one of the Lycées. They were both wonderful
skiers and they left and came to Switzerland, to the border between
Switzerland and Germany, and they became guides who helped people
escape into Switzerland. Their daughter had died of pneumonia just at
the beginning of the war and it made Percy very serious. Uncle Guenther
said that before that she had been very gay and used to love to go to
parties and things. Anyhow, they became these guides, I mean Madame and
her husband did, and once when they were bringing a party over the
border they were discovered and Percy's husband was shot just before
they got into Switzerland."
Tender-hearted Jackie had tears in her eyes and Flip's face was pale.
"Well," Erna said, "I just thought you'd want to know and you were the
only two people in school I could tell it to."
"Oh, Erna!" Jackie cried. "Oh, Erna! How awful! And it's just like an
American movie, Percy helping people to escape and everything."
"Golly, it's going to be awful without her the rest of the year," Erna
said. "I'm glad this Miss Redford seems nice."
"Thank you for telling me, too, Erna." Flip slid down from her desk as
the breakfast gong began to ring.
"Oh, well, I knew you were crazy about Percy. Come on, kids, time for
food." And Erna hurried them out of the classroom.
9
The days really began to go by as Flip had never thought days at
school could go. She remembered in the movies how the passage of time
was often shown by the pages of a calendar being turned in rapid
succession, and it seemed now that the days at school were being
flipped by in just such a way. She would get up in the cold dark of
early morning, dress, shivering, make her bed, and rush out to practice
skiing.
"Where _do_ you go every morning, Flip?" her roommates asked her.
"It's a secret," she finally had to tell them, "but I'll tell you as
soon as I possibly can."
"What kind of a secret?"
"Well, I _think_ it's going to be a nice secret," Flip said.
She spent Sundays skiing with Paul and usually stayed at the gate house
for the evening meal.
"Flip, have you ever seen the others ski?" Paul asked her.
"No. Sometimes on walks we pass the beginners and you can see them from
the windows of the gym. But the others usually take the train up to San
Loup and I haven't seen them."
"Then you don't really know what you're up against?"
"No."
"So you can't really tell how you'll stand the day of the ski meet."
"No."
"Well--" Paul threw out his arms and pushed back his chair. "There's no
use worrying about it. Aunt Colette said you should definitely sign up
with the intermediates and she certainly ought to know."
There was a letter one day from her father. "I'm sketching at the
hostel where your Madame Perceval is teaching," he wrote. "She's doing
amazing work with the children here and they all adore her. She speaks
affectionately of you and sends you her regards."
And Paul told her, "My father had a letter from Aunt Colette. She's met
your father."
One Sunday while they were at the table Flip said to Paul, "Why don't
you ski back down to school with me if your father will let us, and
then I could sort of show you around and he could come and get you."
"No," Paul said.
"Why not?"
"I just don't want to."
"Why don't you go, Paul?" Georges Laurens put in. "It would do you
good."
"Please, Paul," Flip begged. "School's been lots of fun since
Christmas."
"You've certainly changed," Paul said, looking down at his plate.
"Yes, I have. And it's lots nicer. I'm not the most popular girl in
school or anything but they don't hate me any more, and Erna and Jackie
and Solvei and Maggie are nice to me and everybody likes it because I
draw pictures of them. Anyhow, you don't have to come in or say a word
to anybody if you don't want to, you can go on avoiding institutions.
But I want to ski back to school and I can't unless you go with me
because I'm not allowed to be out alone."
"There you are," Paul said. "Rules again."
"Honestly!" Flip cried, and for the first time in speaking to Paul her
voice held anger. "Prisons and concentration camps and things aren't
the only place where you have rules! You have to have rules! Look at
international law."
"You look at it," Paul said.
Flip was getting really furious. "All right, I will! And I'll see what
happens when nations go against it! You have wars and then you have
bombs and concentration camps and people being killed and everything
horrible. You _have_ to have _some_ rules! Hospitals have rules and if
you're going to be a doctor you'll be working in hospitals. It's just
plain common sense to accept some rules! It's just plain courtesy! I
never thought I'd see you being _stupid_, Paul Laurens! And if you're
going to tell me you're afraid of a few girls I won't believe you."
Paul stood up, knocking over his chair, and walked out of the room.
Flip sat down and she was trembling. She looked across the table at
Georges Laurens, her eyes wide with dismay. "I've upset him. That was
awful of me. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Georges Laurens said. "Losing your temper that way
was the best thing you could have done. Finish your tart."
Flip picked up her fork and began eating again but now the tart that
had looked so delectable when Thérèse put it in front of her was only
something to be forced down. She had just swallowed the last bite when
Paul came back and stood in the doorway.
"All right," he almost shouted at Flip. "Get your skis. Please come for
me in an hour, papa."
"An hour it shall be," Georges Laurens said.
It took them less than half an hour to ski back to the school. Flip
took Paul into the ski room while she put her skis in the rack. "I
didn't mean to make you angry," she said. "I'm sorry, Paul. Please
forgive me."
Paul shook his head. "No. You were quite right. Everything you said. I
don't know what's the matter with me."
"Would you--" Flip asked tentatively, "would you mind if I brought
Jackie and Erna down for just a minute? They're dying to meet you and
it's--it's strictly against the rules."