"That's all right," Flip answered, embarrassed, but making an effort to sound friendly.
Jackie heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, I've got to go now," she almost shouted. "The others are waiting for me." She tore off and Flip was left standing under the napkin racks.
10
Saturday afternoonsthey had free time. Most of the girls clustered in the Common Room, talking, shrieking, laughing, playing records. Flip stood by the balcony window thinking that she had been at the school only a few weeks and yet it seemed as though she had been there forever. She felt in her pocket for her father's latest letter that she had already read several times in the peace of the chapel. When she read his letters, those wonderful wonderful letters, full of little anecdotes and sketches, she would look at the drawings of forlorn waifs, ragged and starving, and feel ashamed of her own misery which for the moment at any rate seemed completely unjustified. She had had a letter that morning from Mrs. Jackman, too, written on heavy expensive paper saying that she hoped that Flip had settled down and was happy,and signed, affectionately, Eunice. Flip had read it in the hall by the mail boxes, torn it up and thrown it in the trash basket.
"I love you—u—u—" the phonograph wailed.
"And then he said to me, 'your legs are fascinating'," Esmée was saying.
"He was the most divine boy," she heard Sally saying, "until I heard he had a whole set of false teeth and a toupee."
"During the holidays," Gloria screeched, "I smoke atleasta pack of Players a day."
Flip turned away from the window, slipped out of the Common Room, tiptoed through the big lounge, and slipped out the side door when the teacher on duty was busy talking to someone. The air was crisp and a light wind was blowing. She took deep breaths of it and walked swiftly, exulting in the unaccustomed freedom. She climbed the hill behind the school, knowing that as she got into the pine trees clustered thickly up the mountainside she would be safe from detection. She ran until she was panting and her weak knee ached, but soon the trees got thicker and thicker and she dropped down onto the fragrant rusty carpet of fallen pine needles. As soon as she had regained her breath she walked on a little further, rubbing her fingers lovingly over the rough, resiny trunks of the pines. She felt free and happy for the first time since she had been at school. The air was full of piney perfume; the needles were soft and gently slippery under her feet; high above her head she could see the blue sky shining in chinks and patches through the trees; and the sun sifted down to her in long golden shafts like the light in a church. She lay down on her back on the pine needles and looked up and up and it seemed that the trees pierced the sky. Oh, trees, oh, sky, oh,sun, something in her sang. Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And she was happy.
After a while she stood up and brushed and shook the pine needles off her uniform and climbed still further. There was a small clearing where the railroad track cut through on its zigzag way up the mountain. She crossed the track and climbed higher. She did not know where the school bounds ended and forbidden territory began; she had forgotten that there was such a thing as a boundary line, and she kept on pushing up, up the mountain.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, rushing in her direction with the most hideous baying she had ever heard, bounded a wild beast. Her heart leaped in terror, beating frantically against her chest, then seemed to stop entirely, before she realized that the beast was Ariel.
"Ariel!" she cried. "Oh, Ariel!" as the bulldog knocked her down in the ecstasy of his greeting. "Ariel, please!" The dog began bounding about her, barking wildly, and she lay quietly on the fallen pine needles until he stopped and stood at her feet, sniffing her anxiously.
"Where's Paul?" she asked, and she was amazingly pleased to see the dog's hideous face with the drooling, undershot jaw.
Ariel barked.
Flip sat up; then, as Ariel waited quietly, she stood up, and looked around, but she could see no sign of the boy she had met down by the lake on the morning of the day she came to school.
"Paul!" she called, but there was no answer except from Ariel, who barked again, caught hold of her skirt, releasedit, bounded up the mountain, then came back and took her skirt in his teeth again.
"But I can't go with you, Ariel," she said. "I have to go back to school."
Ariel barked and tried again to lure her up the mountain.
"I have to go, Ariel," she told him. "I'm sure I'm out of bounds or something, being here. I have to go back to school." Then she laughed at the serious way in which she had been trying to explain to the bulldog, turned away from him, and started back down the mountain. But Ariel pranced along beside her, always trying to head her back up the mountain, catching hold of her skirt or the hem of her coat, tugging and pulling, gently, but persistently.
"Ariel, you can't come back to school with me, you just can't!" Flip tried to push the dog away but he barked, reached up, and caught hold of the cuff of her sleeve.
"Oh, Ariel!" she cried, half exasperated, half pleased because she knew the dog was going to win. "All right!"
And she turned around and headed back up the mountain.
Ariel bounded ahead of her, running on a few yards, then doubling back to make sure she was following. Soon she saw grey slate roof-tops through the trees and as Ariel led her closer she saw that the roof-tops belonged to a chateau. When the trees cleared and Ariel began to crash through the heavy undergrowth she realized that the chateau was old and deserted, for the shutters hung crazily by their hinges; some of the windows were boarded up; and at others the boards had come off and the glass was broken and jagged. Grass and weeds grew wild and high and late autumn flowers bloomed in undisciplined profusion. Birds flew in and out of thebroken windows and as she pushed through the weeds they began calling to each other, screaming, someone is coming! Someone is coming!
Her heart beating with excitement Flip pressed forward, following Ariel, who suddenly leaped ahead of her, bounded across the remaining distance to the chateau, and disappeared. Flip pushed after him, calling, "Ariel! Ariel! Wait!" but there was no sound, no sign of life about the chateau except for the birds and the banging of a shutter against the gray stones. She crossed what had once been a flag-stoned terrace to a row of shuttered French windows. One of the shutters was open and hung by one hinge, and all the glass in the window was gone. It was through this opening that Ariel had disappeared. Flip peered in but could see nothing through the obscurity inside.
"Ariel!" she called, then "Paul! Paul!" There was no answer and her words came faintly echoing back to her. "Ariel! Paul! Paul!"
At last she turned and started back to school.