And Both Were Young (16 page)

Flip finished her still life of a plaster head of Diana, a wine bottle, a loaf of bread, and a wineglass, early during the next art class.

“That’s good, Flip,” Madame Perceval said. “Really very
good, though your perspective is wobbly—everything’s going uphill at quite an alarming angle and poor Diana looks as though she were about to fall on her ear. But the color and texture are excellent. That’s really bread, and the transparency of your glass is a great improvement over your last still life. That’s good work, Flip.”

Flip blushed with pleasure, partly at the praise, and partly because Madame was calling her Flip. Several of the girls looked up at the name and Gloria actually winked at her.

“You have time to start something else,” Madame was saying. “Here’s a clean sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal. Just draw anything you like. Either from something in the room or from your imagination.”

For the past two days Flip had been thinking of three things, Paul, skiing, and Madame’s daughter. She had not had another opportunity to ask Paul about Denise, how old she was, or whether she was alive or dead. Somehow Flip felt that she must be dead and that perhaps that accounted for the sadness in Madame Perceval’s eyes. She wondered what Madame’s daughter would look like and, almost without volition, her hand holding the charcoal moved across the paper and she began to draw a girl, a girl about her own age sitting on a rock and looking out across the valley to the mountains.

The likeness was stronger than she could possibly have guessed. She was trying, more or less, to draw a girl who looked like Madame and who had short hair like hers. But the girl who appeared on the paper did not look like Madame and Flip felt discouraged because she knew the perspective was wrong again and the mountains were too small and far away and the girl’s feet weren’t right. She sighed and tried to erase the mountains and the feet and correct them.

Madame Perceval stood behind her and looked over her shoulder down at the paper. Flip almost jumped as the art teacher’s strong fingers dug into her arm.

“What are you doing?” Madame Perceval’s voice was calm and low, but Flip felt the strain in it.

“Just—just a girl looking at the mountains,” she stammered. “The—the feet aren’t right.”

“I’ll show you,” Madame Perceval said, but instead of explaining what was wrong, and then telling Flip what to do to correct it, as she usually did, she took the charcoal and swiftly put the feet in again herself; and then she took the thumb-tacks out of Flip’s board and took the paper and walked over to the cupboard with it and Flip saw that her hands were trembling.

In a moment she came back with a fresh piece of paper. “Why don’t you try drawing one of the girls in the class?” Madame suggested, and her voice was natural again. “Erna, you’ve finished, haven’t you? Will you sit still and let Flip sketch you?”

“Yes, Madame. How do you want me to sit, Pi—Philippa—uh—Flip?”

Madame Perceval smiled as Erna stumbled over Flip’s name, and Flip said, “Oh, the way you are now, looking over the back of your chair is fine, if you’re comfortable.”

She took up the charcoal and sketched quickly and then she laughed because the girl on her paper was so out of proportion and funny-looking and at the same time she
was
Erna. In trying to get a likeness, Flip had over-accentuated and the braces on Erna’s teeth were ridiculous and her chin jutted out and the barrette pulled the hair back far too tightly from the forehead.

“What are you laughing at?” Erna demanded.

Flip looked at her drawing and thought, Oh, dear, now Erna will be mad.

But Madame Perceval had come over and was laughing, too, and showing the paper with Erna on it to the class, and everybody was laughing.

“I think you have a flair for caricature, Flip,” Madame said.

And Jackie bounced up and down on her chair, crying, “Draw me, Flip, draw me!”

“Hold still then, Jackie,” Madame said, handing Flip another sheet of paper.

Flip’s hand holding the charcoal made Jackie’s curly hair fly wildly about the paper; the enormous, long-lashed black eyes took up half the page, and the mouth was a tiny bud above the pointed little chin. Erna had been watching and as Flip laid down the charcoal for a moment she grabbed the paper and held it up, shouting, “Look at Jackie! She looks just like a cat!”

“Draw me! Draw me!” All the girls were shouting at Flip until Madame Perceval stopped them, saying, “Not now, girls. The bell just rang. You can get Flip to draw you anytime. I know she’d like to, wouldn’t you, Flip?”

“Oh, yes, Madame!”

So they besieged Flip in the common room with requests for caricatures to send home, and Flip went to her locker, her face bright with happiness, to get her sketch book and pencils.

“Don’t make my nose
too
big!” “Should I take my glasses off, Flip?” “Oh, Pill, don’t put in my freckles!” “Flip” and
“Pill” came indiscriminately, and somehow quite suddenly and surprisingly Flip knew that she no longer minded the “Pill” because it sounded friendly; it was being said to her, not at her.

I’m liking school, she thought. I’m liking it. Now it will sound better when I tell Paul I like it.

Only Esmée Bodet was discontent with her picture. “I don’t look like that!” she said, and tore the page across, tossing the pieces into the wastepaper basket.

“She looks exactly like that,” Erna said in Flip’s ear. “Come on up on the billiard table and let’s play jacks.” The entire school had a jacks craze on. Even the seniors were playing, though Esmée turned up her nose and said it was a child’s game, and continued to play very bad bridge.

“Oh, jacks! Let me play too!” Gloria cried, clambering up and sitting cross-legged on the green felt of the billiard table; and Flip realized that one reason Gloria never lacked for partners, or a place in the common room games, was that she never hesitated to ask.

“Come on, Jackie,” Erna called. “Climb up.”

Flip was quite good at jacks and Gloria bounced up and down impatiently. “Come on, Pill, miss, can’t you? I want a turn.” And she gave Flip’s elbow a jog, but Flip caught the ball and laughed triumphantly.

“Good for you, Flip,” Erna cried. “You can’t play if you’re going to cheat, Glo.”

“It’s Erna’s turn next, anyhow,” Jackie said. “By the way, Pill, I think it’s a dirty shame Hauser made you drop skiing.”

“Me too.” Erna nodded so violently that her hair came out of the barrette and she had to fasten it again.

Flip thought of the progress she had already made on her skis, and smiled to herself. Then she shrugged. “Well, if she thinks I’m too impossible to teach, I guess that’s that.”

“The mangy old arachnid,” Gloria muttered. “I say, Pill. What’re you going to be when you get out of this place, an artist?”

Flip nodded. “I’d like to be. The way my father is. I’d like to paint portraits and do illustrations for children’s books.” She reached wildly for the jacks ball, which was this time an old golf ball Gloria’s mother had sent, but it bounced off the table and Erna scrambled after it.

“At last,” she said, bringing it back and collecting the jacks. “I’m going to be a doctor like
my
father. I think it must be wonderful to cut people up and put them back together again.” Underneath her joking words Flip could tell that she was serious.

“The trouble is that you can’t always put them back together again,” Jackie said.

“I will.” Erna swept up her jacks with a confident gesture. “If people have their legs and things blown off, I’ll discover a way to put them back or give them new ones off dead people.”

Flip started to tell Erna that Paul wanted to be a doctor too, but Gloria, who didn’t mind when she herself talked about glass eyes or false teeth, put her hands over her ears. “Oh, stop! Stop!”

“Well, dead people can give their eyes so blind people can see,” Erna said, “so I don’t see why they shouldn’t give their legs and things too.”

Gloria clapped her hand over Erna’s mouth. “You go talk about your old operations somewhere else.”

“Who asked you to play jacks anyhow?” Erna mumbled from behind Gloria’s hand. “Let go and let me play. I’m on fivesies, eggs in the basket.”

“Foursies.”

“Fivesies.”

“It’s fivesies,” Flip corroborated. “Are you going to be a movie actress, Jackie?”

Jackie laughed and waved her arms. “My father says I’ll be an actress over his dead body. I haven’t thought about it much. Maybe I’ll just be a wife like my mother. She says that’s a career in itself, only lots of people forget it.”

“Love,” Gloria sighed, “that’s what I’m cut out for.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Flip asked and blushed.

“I believe in love.” Gloria placed her hand dramatically over her heart. “It’s love that makes the world go round.”

“Have you seen Maggie Campbell’s brother?” Jackie asked. “He’s the handsomest man I ever saw. Maggie’s going to give me a snapshot of him for Christmas.”

Flip sat with her legs stuck out in front of her on the old hotel billiard table, because her stiff knee kept her from sitting cross-legged or on her heels, and watched, and listened, and occasionally said a word, and she felt so excited that she could feel the excitement like hunger in the pit of her stomach. She was excited because for the first time she felt on the inside, and underneath the new warm sense of being one of them was the glorious secret knowledge of Paul—and tomorrow she would see him again.

The first thing Paul asked Flip the next day was, “Have you been practicing your skiing?”

Flip nodded. “Every morning.”

“How’s it going?”

“Better.”

“Well, come on and let’s go. Is Aunt Colette coming over?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, come on, Flip,” Paul said impatiently. “I want to see how much you’ve improved.”

They went out, Ariel rushing madly about them, digging up the snow, running and jumping against them, until Paul had to send him in.

Paul was visibly impressed with Flip’s progress, and when Madame Perceval appeared on skis, Paul flew over to her in great excitement. “Flip’s a natural born skier, Aunt Colette!” he cried. “She’s magnificent!”

Madame Perceval smiled at Paul and held out her hand to Flip. “Let’s see what you’ve accomplished, little one.”

She, too, was impressed. “You must have been working hard!” she said.

“Oh, Madame, do you really think so?”

“Just keep up the practicing, Flip, as you’ve been doing, and I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“She’ll be quite a shock to everybody at the ski meet, won’t she?” Paul asked.

Madame laughed. “She certainly will.”

And Flip went to bed that night to dream of soaring through the air on her skis, watched by admiring throngs of girls; of executing the delicate loops of telemarks; and when she woke up in the morning her mind was still a happy jumble of snow conditions and stems.

Flip had thought as she slipped out the ski room door after
breakfast each morning that the girls would become curious about her hurried breakfasts and ask what she was doing; but they were used to her disappearances and absences and were too hungry and sleepy and hurried in the cold dark of the mornings to pay much attention to anything besides getting themselves out of their warm beds and then eating as much porridge and rolls and jam as possible with their hot chocolate.

Flip was out practicing intently one Saturday morning when she noticed someone watching her. She looked up, fearful that she was being discovered, but it was no one from the school. It was a man with a dark, wild face, and the look in his eyes frightened her; but he waved and grinned at her cheerfully and moved away. He wore climbing boots and carried a stick and he struck off up the mountain, walking very rapidly. She watched after him until he was lost in the trees, wondering what a strange man was doing on the grounds of a girls’ school. Then she thought he might be a new gardener or perhaps someone to help with flooding the hockey field for ice skating, though that was not to be done till the Christmas holidays.

Oh, well, she thought, there’s never anybody around who isn’t meant to be around, so I guess it’s all right.

And she kept on working at the skiing until time to get the mail before call over.

Most of the girls were already at the desk in the hall when she arrived, flushed from her early morning exercise, and Signorina, who was on duty, was giving out the mail. Since she had begun noticing other people besides herself, Flip had learned a lot from the mail. Hardly a day went by that Jackie did not have a letter from her mother. Erna always came
rushing eagerly to the desk but seldom received anything. Gloria frequently didn’t even bother to come and if she had a letter someone took it to her. Esmée had already begun to get letters from boys and read them aloud to anyone who would listen. Solvei’s letters came as regularly as Jackie’s, and Sally received hers every Wednesday and Saturday. Eunice’s letters, on grey stationery with green ink, usually came on Thursday. From the point of view of the other girls, at least Flip was getting regular mail, but Eunice always said something that galled her.

“Philippa Hunter,” Signorina called.

It was not from Eunice. Flip took the letter from her father and opened it eagerly. There was one sheet of writing, and no sketches. Something was wrong.

“My darling baby,” he said, beginning the letter as he had not done in years.

Here I am in a hospital in Shanghai, as yellow as any banana. Don’t be worried—it’s not the bad kind of jaundice, I’m promised, but it’s a great nuisance because I have to stay here in bed and rest. It’s a horrid nuisance because the doctor says I won’t possibly be able to get to you for your Christmas holidays. Flip-pet, Flip-pet, don’t be too terribly disappointed and don’t weep that sweet face into a pulp. Eunice will be delighted to have you for your holidays, and she is in Nice, and the weather will be wonderful, and I know she’ll do everything she can to make you happy. Your letters have sounded so much more contented recently and I feel that you are growing up and that you try to
enjoy yourself without your yellow old father. I expect to be in Germany and Switzerland shortly after New Year and I promise you that
nothing
will interfere with our Easter.