And Both Were Young: Chapters 5–6

She supplanted Georges’s cable with one of her own, saying that she thought it far better for you to stay with her nephew than for you to make the difficult trip to Nice.

This miserable girl was very unlike the brash gamin she was used to, and she ached with sympathy.

When Jackie said “Pill,” it sounded like an affectionate nickname, not a term of contempt, and only Esmée continued to use it in a derogatory manner.

When Jackie said “Pill,” it sounded like an affectionate nickname, not a term of contempt, and only Esmée continued to use it in a derogatory manner.

“I admire her more than anybody in the world except my mother and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Needn’t get huffy, ducky.”

Jackie snorted again, then said, “I used to think that when she went out every Sunday afternoon maybe he had T.B. or was insane or something and in a sanitarium and she went to see him. But now we know she just goes to see this Paul.”

Madame Perceval, Philippa realized, had a zest for living that was enlarged rather than diminished by whatever had happened to her husband and daughter.

Erna and Jackie chased Flip, who crashed into Madame Perceval at the head of the stairs and apologized abjectly, though her face was still flushed with pleasure and fun.

Esmée stuck out her lip and drew Gloria and Sally aside to read them her latest epistle from André, who was at school in Villeneuve.

There was chicken for dinner, and all kinds of unaccustomed delicacies, and the tables were lit by candlelight, and Erna and Jackie called to Flip to come and sit with them so she didn’t have to stand miserably around looking for a vacant seat as she used to do whenever there were unsupervised tables.

Liz Campbell, Maggie’s sister and one of the older girls, was the nurse, and convulsed them all by telling Fräulein Hauser she was just pretending to have a sore throat to get out of her walk.

And it did not seem strange to Flip, standing between Erna and Solvei, that tears were streaming down Erna’s cheeks and her mouth was trembling, so that she could scarcely sing, nor that there was a quaver in Solvei’s usually steady voice.

As they were getting ready for bed Erna turned to Flip and said with serious eyes, though her voice was bantering, “Flip, do something for me, will you?”

They took a funicular up the mountain and skied until dark, stopping at an inn for lunch.

Then, at Flip’s favorite time of day, when the sky was an intense green-blue and the bare branches of the trees were a delicate filigree against it and the first stars began to tremble above the mountain, they skied back to the gate house.

After dinner she brought her sketch pad and pencil downstairs with her and sat in front of the fire, idly sketching Paul and Monsieur Laurens.

Now the man came a step closer and Flip felt as though she were going to be sick from distaste and loathing of him.

Thérèse came in and stood arms akimbo in the doorway, announcing, “Lunch is on the table and it's good onion soup, so come and eat it while it’s hot.”

She did not see the man staring at her limp body in horror, nor know when he picked her up and went into the château with her and dumped her there in the dark, a small inert bundle on the stone floor.

When the darkness finally rose it was a quiet and almost imperceptible happening.

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.

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.

I did get you off that one post card while I was in Paris having twenty-four hours of gaiety with Eunice and now I am in Freiburg in Germany and will be traveling about for a month or so around here and across the border in Switzerland.

A group of them congregated in the corridor, since Miss Tulip was downstairs and could not reprimand them.

Esmée announced languidly, still with a baleful eye on Maggie, that she had gone out dancing every night and worn a strapless evening gown.

Esmée announced languidly, still with a baleful eye on Maggie, that she had gone out dancing every night and worn a strapless evening gown.

“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, glancing diffidently about her.

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.”

And she stared at Flip and Jackie defiantly.

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.

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.

"Hauser won’t give us permission. The basement at this time of night is streng verboten.”

Paul laughed obligingly, then said, “It’s time for me to meet my father now, but I’ll see you all at the ski meet. It’s pretty soon now, isn’t it?”

And you won’t say anything about its being Madame Perceval who found me the skis and helped me, please? Because she said it would be better not to, only I didn’t think she’d mind if I told you under these—these—imperative circumstances.

“Paul Laurens, Madame Perceval’s nephew, taught me every weekend, and he’s a wonderful skier, and we skied during the holidays all the time and I’ve practiced an hour every morning after breakfast. Please, Kaatje, please, believe me!” Flip implored.

“I’m just dying to see Flip ski,” she said, smiling provocatively at Paul.

Flip stood poised at the top of the hill and launched herself forward at the signal.

...I am happy that the judges were unanimous in their decision as to the girl who deserves it. I don’t think there’s any question in anybody’s mind that this girl’s improvement in skiing has been almost spectacular.

Erna and Jackie pushed her forward and all her long-legged clumsiness returned to her as she crossed the blazing expanse of snow between the girls, and the judges’ box.