And Both Were Young (8 page)

Flip retreated a little because it did not seem to her that he really was glad that she had come. “I didn’t find you,” she said. “Ariel found me. I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and he found me and made me come to the château.”

“And you came back today,” Paul said.

There was neither welcome nor rebuff in his voice, but Flip felt that she had been rejected and she said haughtily, “I’m sorry I’m not welcome. I’ll leave at once.”

“No, please!” Paul cried. “I said I was glad it was you. I was afraid it was someone I didn’t know. I came here to be alone and I didn’t want just anybody coming around.”

Flip said swiftly, “If you wanted to be alone, I won’t stay then. I know how it is to need to be alone. I need to be alone too.”

Paul reached out for her hand again. “No, don’t go, it’s good to see you. I know I sounded inhospitable, but come and sit down.” Still holding her firmly by the hand, he led her across the terrace to a marble bench half hidden by weeds. “Now,” he said, sitting down beside her. “Do you like your school?”

She shook her head. “No. I hate it.”

“And you really have to stay? You can’t ask your father to take you away?”

“No.” She looked down at Paul’s hand beside her on the
bench. It still held a warm tan from summer, and his fingers were very long and thin and at the same time gave an appearance of great strength. They were blunt at the tips, the nails square and clean. “I couldn’t be with Father while he’s traveling around,” she said, “and I had to be somewhere and Eunice suggested this school. Father always seems to do what Eunice suggests about me . . .”

“Is she still lusting after your father?” Paul asked.

“Well, she manages to let me know that they talk on the phone all the time, and she flies to meet him whenever she can. She condescends to write me once a week.”

“But she’s not like your mother,” Paul stated.

Flip shook her head vehemently.

“Tell me about your mother,” Paul suggested, “or would that hurt?”

Flip shook her head again. “I like to talk about her. Father and I talk about her. Except when Eunice is around.”

“What was she like? Was she beautiful?”

“Yes. Not like Eunice, the kind of beautiful that hits you in the teeth so you can’t escape it. Subtle. And it was inside beauty, too. And she saw inside people, saw all the good parts of you. If I was feeling sorry for myself because the kids at school made me feel dumb, she made me know I could paint pictures, and that being able to draw well was a good thing, and so I’d stop being sorry for myself. She made me glad I was who I was, not someone else.”

“But Eunice makes you feel not glad to be yourself?” Paul asked.

“Eunice expects me to be busy and popular and not notice when she”—now Flip smiled—“lusts after Father.”

Paul smiled, too. “My mother makes me feel glad to be me, too, and that isn’t always easy.” Again the dark look moved across his face, and he looked down.

Flip looked down, too, at Paul’s feet in their heavy hiking boots. He was silent, and she continued to stare at his right foot until it twitched slightly, the way she had noticed some-one’s foot would do if you stared at it long enough in a subway or bus or even the classroom at school. Then he reached down and patted Ariel.

“Ariel is a beautiful dog,” she said politely. “Where did you get him?”

“I found him in the street. He had been hit by a car and left there and his leg was broken. I set it myself and took care of him and now he is fine. He doesn’t even limp, and when I showed him to Dr. Bejart—a friend of mine—he said he was a very fine dog.”

“But that’s wonderful!” Flip cried, gazing admiringly at Ariel. “How did you know about setting a leg?”

Paul looked pleased at her praise. “I intend to be a doctor. A surgeon. Of course I must go to college and medical school and everything first. Right now I don’t go to school at all. I am trying to study by myself and my father is helping me, but of course I know I must go back to school sooner or later. I think that it will be later.” A shadow swept over his face and it seemed to Flip as though the day had suddenly darkened.

She looked up, startled, and indeed the sun had dropped behind the mountain. She rose. “I have to go. I didn’t realize it was so late. If I don’t get back quickly they’ll miss me.”

Paul stood up too. “Do go then,” he said. “If you’re caught they wouldn’t let you come back, would they? Will you come back?”

“Do you want me to?” Flip asked.

“Yes. When will you come?”

“I could come next Sunday. But are you sure you want me to? You don’t want to be alone?”

“I can be alone all week,” Paul said. “Come Sunday, then, Philippa.”

She started away but turned back and said tentatively, “At home I’m called Flip . . .” and waited.

But Paul did not laugh as the girls at school had done. Instead he said, “Good-bye, Flip.”

“Good-bye,” she said, and started down the mountain.

When she got back to school they had noticed her long absence. Gloria turned from the group by the phonograph and demanded, “Where’ve you been, Pill?”

“Oh, out for a walk,” Flip answered vaguely.

“Out for a walk, my aunt Fanny,” Esmée Bodet said. “You’ve probably been mooning down in that chapel again. I think it’s sacrilegious.”

“Or maybe she was out on a date,” Sally suggested. “I bet she was. That would be just like our Pill, wouldn’t it, kids? Were you out on a date, Pill?”

“I have to wash my hands before dinner,” Flip said, and as she started up the stairs she thought, Maybe you’d call it a date at that, Sally!

And she grinned as she turned down the corridor.

By the next Saturday all of the five other new girls in Flip’s class had done deeds. Two of them had short-sheeted all the seniors’ beds. One had wangled a big box of chocolates into the common room with the help of a cousin who lived in Montreux. Only Flip had done nothing.

Gloria tried to help her. “Maybe you could put salt in Balmy Almy’s tea. I have it! You could fill all the sugar bowls with salt!”

Flip shook her head. “Where would I get the salt?”

“Well, let’s think of something else then,” Gloria said. “You don’t know, Pill! That initiation’s going to be something terrific! Maybe you could trip the Dragon up when she comes into assembly. You’re on the end of the line.”

Flip shook her head again.

“Well, whatever you do,” Gloria warned, “don’t do anything like short-sheeting a bed or making a booby trap for anyone in
our
class. They wouldn’t like that.”

“I won’t,” Flip assured her. “But I can’t think of a deed, Gloria. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t seem to think of anything.” If only I could produce Paul and Ariel, she thought. That would bowl them over all right.

“I thought you were supposed to have such a good imagination,” Gloria said. “I’ve done everything I can to help you, ducky, so there’s nothing else for it. You’ll just have to be initiated.”

“I expect I’ll have to,” Flip agreed mournfully and with trepidation.

“I’ll do what I can to keep it from being too awful,” Gloria promised her magnanimously.

But she was, as Flip had known she would be, one of the most violent of the initiators.

The entire class met after lunch behind the playing fields. It was almost out of sight of the school there; only the highest turrets could be seen rising out of the trees. Erna, Jackie, and Gloria had Flip in tow.

“Don’t be scared,” Jackie whispered comfortingly. “It’s only fun.”

“I’m
not
scared.” Flip was vehement. Even if she knew she was a coward she did not want anyone else to know.

It was a grey day with little tendrils of fog curled here and there about the trees. The tips of the mountains were obscured in clouds that looked heavy and soft and like snow clouds. Erna said it was too early for snow as far down the mountain as Jaman, though there might possibly be some in Gstaad, a town farther up, where the annual ski meet was held. Behind the playing fields was the most desolate spot around the school. It was rocky ground with little life; the grass was neither long nor short; just ragged and untidy and a dull rust brown in color. The only tree was dead, with one lone branch left sticking out so that it looked like a gibbet. Most of the girls clustered about the tree. Flip heard one of them asking, “What do we do?”

“Well, we put Pill through the mill first,” Erna said. “Come on, peoples. Line up.” She shoved and pushed at the girls until they got into line, their legs apart, then she gave Flip a not unfriendly shove. “Through the mill.”

Flip bent down, held her breath, and started. With her long legs she practically had to crawl on her hands and knees as she pushed through the tunnel of legs, and her progress was slow and her bottom smarting from the slaps. She gritted her teeth and pressed on until she passed between Erna’s legs at the head of the line. Erna gave her a resounding smack.

“Good for Philippa,” Solvei said. “She didn’t yell once.”

“She has tears in her eyes,” Gloria shouted.

“I have not,” Flip denied.

“What are they if they aren’t tears?” Esmée Bodet asked.

“It’s the wind,” Flip said.

“Are you ticklish?” Esmée asked.

“Yes.”

Esmée rushed at her and started tickling her.

“Stop! Oh, please, stop!” Flip cried.

Esmée tickled even harder and Flip fell to the ground, laughing and gasping hysterically while all the girls shouted with amusement. But although Flip was laughing, it was the laughter of torture and she cried out whenever she could catch her breath, “Stop, oh, stop—” She laughed and laughed until she could scarcely breathe and tears were streaming down her face.

Finally Erna said, “For heaven’s sake, stop, Esmée. You’ve done enough.”

Esmée stood up while Flip lay prostrate on the ground, gasping and trying to get her breath back. She felt that now she knew what it must be like for a fish when the fisherman decides it isn’t good enough and finally throws it back into the sea.

“Get up,” Erna said.

Flip rolled over weakly.

“Come on. Stand up. You’ve got to prove yourself if you want to pass the initiation.”

Flip staggered to her feet.

“All right,” Erna said in a businesslike manner. “Now the inoculation. All the new girls have to be inoculated, not just you, Pill. Did you get the matches, Jack?”

Jackie nodded vigorously, so that her black curls bounced up and down. “Yes, but I only got six, one for each
of them. No extras in case of emergencies. Mathilde was in a bad mood and told me to get out of the kitchen or she’d tell Black and Midnight. She acted awfully suspicious. She wanted to know what I wanted with the matches and I told her Balmy Almy wanted them for the Bunsen burners in the lab, but it didn’t seem to satisfy her.”

Sally Buckman gave one of the hoarse snorts that made her sound as much like a pug as she looked. “I bet she thought you were going off to smoke. Old stinker. If we could get cigarettes we could get matches.”

“What’re you going to do with the matches?” one of the new girls asked Erna.

“I told you. Inoculate you.”

Jackie elaborated on it. “You might catch all kinds of dreadful things if you didn’t get inoculated. Erna, have you got the antiseptic?”

“Right here.” Erna pulled an old tube of toothpaste out of her blazer pocket. Jackie turned up the hem of her skirt and removed a needle which she handed solemnly to Erna.

“Hold out your arm, Gloria,” Erna said. “You’d better take off your blazer first.”

Gloria’s freckled face had turned a little pale, but she rolled up her sleeve gamely and held out her arm. Erna smeared on a little of the toothpaste.

“Now.” Erna waved the match. “I’ll sterilize the needle.” She struck the match on the sole of her shoe (“I know a boy who can strike a match on his teeth,” Gloria said) and held the needle in the flame until the point became red. Then she let it cool, brandishing it in the air until the red point disappeared and there was only the black left from the carbon. Gloria turned her head away.

“It’s not so bad, Glo,” Jackie reassured her. “Erna’s going to be a doctor, so she knows what she’s doing.”

Erna gave a quick, professional jab, squeezed, and a round drop of blood appeared on Gloria’s arm. Gloria gave a little scream and tears came to her eyes.

“There!” Erna cried. “Now you’re all immune. And it’s beautiful blood. Look, peoples. Look, Gloria.”

But Gloria hated the sight of blood. She glanced quickly at her arm and the small red bead, then turned away. “I have a dress that color,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Next,” Erna said briskly. “Come on, you, Bianca Colantuono.”

One by one the new girls were inoculated until it came to Flip’s turn. Then Gloria, completely recovered, cried, “Oh, let me do Pill.”

Erna hesitated a moment then said, “Well, all right, if you want to. But be careful,” and handed her the needle and the match.

Flip bared her arm. Gloria struck the match, but it flickered and went out.

“Oh, Glory, you sap!” Sally cried.

“I told you to be careful,” Erna said, rubbing toothpaste on Flip’s outstretched arm.

Jackie’s face puckered into a frown. “There isn’t another match. Now what should we do?”

Esmée Bodet shrugged and ran her fingers through the reddish hair she wore in a glamorous long bob. “Do it without sterilizing the needle, that’s all.”

Jackie hesitated. “Maybe it isn’t safe. Maybe we’d better do Pill another time.”

“I sterilized it good and thorough for the others,” Erna said. “It ought to be all right.”

“Oh, sure, it’s all right,” Sally cried. “Go on, Gloria.”

Flip turned her head away as Gloria took her arm and jabbed at it gingerly with the needle, exclaiming with chagrined surprise, “It didn’t go in.”

“Try it again,” Esmée urged.

Gloria jabbed again. “Oh, blow.”

Erna took the needle from her. “Here, stupid. Let me do it.”

“Wait a minute, Erna. She’s had enough,” Solvei said.

“No, she has to be properly inoculated,” Erna insisted. She took the needle and punched. This time she didn’t have to squeeze to draw blood. “I did it kind of hard, but it’s very
good
blood, Pill,” she said.