Visitors for the Chalet School

by Helen McClelland

  ‘Really, Simone, what a complete and utter baby you are!’ she cried in scornful tones. ‘Just because it stung your hand a little bit. Grip your stick more firmly and don’t be such a muff.’ She turned and addressed them all militantly: ‘It’s useless softies and molly-coddles trying to play this game. You simply must be prepared to get the very dickens of a whack from time to time when you’re playing hockey.’

  ‘Oh, lawks, how unbearably hearty Grizel can be,’ muttered Joey to Rosalie Dene. Indeed, it was not an unfair comment.

  Simone, very pink in the face, looked ready to weep; but she had learned a lot since her early days in the Chalet School, when she had been prone to crying with alarming frequency for the most trifling reason. Tears were very near, but she caught Joey’s eye fixed fiercely on her and this, combined with her own growing self-control, helped her to keep them at bay.

  The game continued in a wary silence. Grizel, realising that she had been too sweeping, moderated the tone of her criticisms, with the result that gradually everyone began to enjoy the game and to play much better.

  And then, when there remained only about three minutes of games time, it happened. Grizel, wishing to illustrate some point of style, stepped forward behind Marie von Eschenau.At exactly the same moment, Marie, having no idea that Grizel was there, turned and gave the ball a firm wallop, and Grizel was in just the right place to receive the full power of Marie’s stick across her shin. She gave an exclamation and, in the midst of the general consternation, stood rubbing her leg, fighting for control.

  It was lucky that she did not hear Joey’s sepulchral whisper: ‘Dear, dear! The very dickens of a whack!’ Jo was not really unsympathetic, but she simply could not resist quoting the unfortunate phrase that had boomeranged against its perpetrator.

  Marie, deeply distressed, kept apologising to Grizel and trying to comfort her. The others all stood awkwardly waiting.

  Now Grizel had many faults, but she did not lack courage and she did increasingly try to be fair. As soon as she could trust her voice, she said curtly: ‘All right, Marie. Do stop fussing, I’ll survive. It wasn’t your fault. Another time just don’t hit quite so hard.’ The words sounded brusque but were obviously well meant, and Grizel rose several notches in the estimation of all present, including Joey and the unfortunate Simone.

  After this, the ordered peace of afternoon lessons was positively welcome; but there are days when some Middles seem compelled to keep breaking out of line, and after Kaffee there were once again plots of mischief in the air.

  The Middles had about forty minutes of free time between Kaffee and the beginning of prep. They felt suddenly tired of all their usual occupations, and Evadne had the bright idea that they should liven things up by playing a game of Forfeits. It must be said that their exploits were on the whole harmless. Had they confined themselves to the common-room, probably no one would have noticed anything amiss. However, when it came to Margia Stevens’ turn to decree the forfeit, she had the colourful idea of demanding that Evadne and Elisaveta should race each other down the corridor and back, on all fours and barking like dogs.

  All the Middles lined up at the common-room door, eager, not unnaturally, to watch this undignified spectacle. They took care not to speak a word, as talking was forbidden in the hall and corridors. But the amount of noise that can be made by a group of schoolgirls, all struggling to suppress their laughter and to be ‘terribly quiet’, is really formidable, and they were lucky not to attract the immediate attentions of the staff.

  Evadne, emitting a final frenetic ‘bow-wow’, reached the common-room door first; close behind was Elisaveta, hair in a glorious tangle, brown eyes sparkling with amusement; the sounds she was making would have come more suitably from a strangulated Hound of the Baskervilles than from a princess of Belsornia.

  Absorbed in their idiotic performance, the two did not notice that a sudden genuine silence had fallen on the spectators. Evadne, struggling to be first on her feet to claim the victory, was frozen with horror at finding herself face to face with Mary Burnett, the prefect on duty that afternoon. Mary was looking exceptionally stern, which was partly, had they but known it, because she was secretly dying to laugh. She managed to conceal this and scolded them all severely for their childish behaviour:

  ‘And just look at your stockings, Evadne, and you, Elisaveta!’ she admonished them. ‘Those must be mended tonight. If that means you aren’t able to finish your other mending, well, you must give up half an hour of your free time every evening until it is all finished. Now, go at once and change your stockings; and the rest of you go to your class-room in silence and begin your prep.’

  Mary confessed, when she was describing the incident later to Bette Rincini, that she had nearly been floored at this point, because Elisaveta, looking at her with a melting expression, had said courteously: ‘But please, Mary, were we breaking any rule?’

  ‘Now, Bette, I really couldn’t imagine a school rule that expressly forbade crawling along the corridors and barking; and I could hear Evvy muttering, “Guess we weren’t talking, you know, Mary, we were just barking”, and I simply didn’t know where to look.’

  ‘What did you say?’ the Head Girl enquired with interest.

  ‘Oh, I just told them not to make matters worse by being cheeky; and that they all understood perfectly that the rule against talking in the corridors would also apply to making any noises; and that it was high time they all tried to behave like Fourth Formers and not like babies in a kindergarten.’

  Bette laughed outright and added approvingly: ‘I think you did very well, Mary. Of course they were being very silly, but it was not bad naughtiness and you were wise to treat it as you did.’

  Now it might be thought that the Middles, having so far avoided serious trouble, would have been wise enough to chance their luck no further. But wisdom is not a quality usually to be found in Middles, and the happenings of this particular Monday were still far from over.

  It was Rosalie Dene’s turn to supervise the Middles during prep that evening. On looking up from her French essay she was astonished to see that three pictures on the class-room wall were all hanging at extremely odd angles. She was about to get up to straighten them when a smothered snort aroused her suspicions. Rosalie was naturally of a placid temperament, but she was not stupid. Without giving the smallest sign of having noticed anything amiss, she continued with her own work. When she glanced up a moment later, sure enough the pictures had returned to their normal positions; after another short interval she looked up once more, and there they were, hanging wildly askew.

  Rosalie looked thoughtfully at the class; they all immediately became ostentatiously absorbed in their work. With great deliberation she took off her watch, laying it on the desk in front of her; then she addressed them conversationally: ‘When I give you the signal, will whoever is responsible for moving the pictures about please get up and remove their apparatus. Provided everything is finished in three minutes I shall not look to see who is involved. And just so long as there is no further nonsense this evening, we will say no more about the matter. Otherwise . . . ,’ here she let her voice trail off menacingly.

  Rosalie was as good as her word, burying her head in her book; so she never knew exactly who had rigged up the ingenious system of threads and strings for moving the pictures about. And throughout the rest of prep, the Middles behaved like angels.

  As soon as Abendessen was finished, all the Seniors and Middles went off to the big class-room where Matron was waiting to hand each girl a small pile — in some cases not so small — of stockings and other garments in need of repair.

  ‘When the bell rings at twenty o’clock, put your finished mending on the table beside that door; leave anything you have not finished tidily folded on your chair.’ So saying, Matron departed; and Gertrud Steinbrücke, who was to help pass the time by reading aloud, opened her copy of Sohrab and Rustum and began:

  And the first grey of morning filled the east,
>
  And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.

  Miss Annersley had suggested Gertrud read this piece, since she felt it would extend their knowledge of English literature.

  Evadne, Margia Stevens and Suzanne Mercier had chosen seats together near the back of the room. Suzanne was an excellent needlewoman and Margia sewed reasonably well, but Evadne, even after two years at the Chalet School where needlework was compulsory, remained hopelessly inefficient with a needle. Moreover she utterly detested any form of sewing.

  Her charming little face looked a picture of discontent as she sat struggling with the hated mending. At first she did try her best and worked with a fair amount of good will. But restless spirits were still bubbling away inside Evadne that evening. Matthew Arnold’s poem did not appeal to her very much, and she soon began searching for a distraction of some kind. She looked across at Suzanne sitting on the far side of Margia; her neat French fingers manoeuvring the needle in and out of an incredibly beautiful darn in her petticoat. Then she looked down at her own distorted efforts and her square-fingered hands where the needle somehow never looked at home. An evil inspiration came to her that a very good duel might be fought with needles. After all, that was what silly old Sohrab and Rustum were doing, having a fight, and everyone seemed to think it was mighty noble.

  They were well out of Gertrud’s sight, tucked away at the back of the room. No other prefects were present, as it was considered they were sufficiently sensible to deal with mending on their own. So, bending over and hiding behind the row of girls in front, Evadne proceeded to whisper her plan to the other two. To her astonishment Margia declined to take an active part, and Evadne was unable to persuade her. Margia was usually ready for any nonsense, but she had, young as she was, the musician’s built-in resistance to anything that might hurt her hands. However, Suzanne was also beginning to feel bored; she had now finished her mending, and she was quite willing to cross swords, or rather needles, with Evadne. Margia was happy to encourage their imbecile scheme and offered to act as referee. They hastily agreed some rules and battle commenced.

  About ten minutes later, Matron unfortunately had the idea of returning to see how the mending progressed. And it so happened that she entered very quietly by a door at the back of the room. Thus she was well placed to observe the antics of the naughty Middles.

  Blissfully unconscious of her presence, they continued with their game. The rules — so far as any existed — were simple: each player tried, using a mixture of speed and cunning, to touch the back of her opponent’s right hand, while evading the enemy’s needle. Margia, in her position of buffer-state, was acting as score-keeper; she was also timing the bouts and urging the players on.

  All three knew only too well that they were behaving badly. That the duel also involved a certain amount of risk did not strike them; there was no malice in their contest and neither duellist intended to hurt the other. But, inevitably, as excitement grew, the jabs sometimes became rather wild.

  It was really only the danger of being discovered that made the game amusing. To be obliged to sit almost motionless, swallowing their laughter — not to mention the odd involuntary squawk — and trying to appear as prim and solemn as a Victorian tract, somehow made the whole thing seem unbearably funny.

  By the time that Matron arrived to stand, waiting like some grim avenging Fury, the tension had mounted to a point where the contestants were weak and helpless with suppressed laughter; tears of mirth were pouring down Margia’s face; and — so mortally infectious is the schoolgirl malady of ‘giggles’ — the girls in the rows nearest to the wicked trio were also beginning to shake.

  Matron simply waited for the bell to ring and for Gertrud to finish her reading. Then, in a voice of doom, she informed the three that she wished to ‘speak to them’ after all the others had left the room.

  The icy shock of seeing Matron materialise from nowhere brought the three Middles rapidly back to their senses, and they waited in apprehensive silence to hear what their fate was to be. Matron, under her brisk uncompromising exterior, concealed one of the kindest hearts imaginable; many of her patients would have agreed about this. But she often gave as much outward evidence of kindness as a sergeant-major on parade.

  On this occasion, Evadne, Margia and Suzanne had to endure not only many extremely unflattering comments about their childish behaviour but also the prospect of giving up the whole of next Saturday afternoon to sewing under Matron’s personal supervision.

  ‘And if any of you has not sufficient mending of her own to occupy the time — although I’m bound to say that seems most unlikely, with you two, any way’, she glared ferociously at Margia and Evadne, ‘I shall be delighted to supply her with more.’

  Finally she dismissed them with strict orders to apologise to Gertrud and then go straight to bed. This meant they were deprived of the folk-dancing session the others would be enjoying until bed-time.

  Five minutes later, three subdued girls might have been seen taking their way slowly upstairs to their dormitories. Even Evadne’s effervescent spirits were quelled. And Matron’s firm action had the effect of discouraging the Middles from further transgressions for a considerable time to come.

  Thus ended the day that inevitably became known as ‘Mischief Monday’.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  PATRICIA SHOWS HER METTLE.

  THURSDAY afternoon saw the Grange House party arriving back from Innsbruck, very cheerful and delighted with the success of their expedition.

  ‘Only three more days till we leave Briesau,’ Joan Hatherley said sadly, as they waited in the Stephanie lounge for Abendessen to be announced. Her round, normally cheerful countenance looked a picture of melancholy.

  ‘Isn’t it four days?’ objected Veronica.

  ‘Well, my dear Miss Cunningham,’ Joan, gazing primly over her glasses, assumed a professorial manner. ‘It could indeed be argued that since, this evening, it is still Thursday and our departure does not in fact take place until Monday, your point of view could well be considered literally correct. On the other hand, I would point out that our departure has been arranged for such an unholy hour on Monday morning that we shall not be able to profit from . . . Ouch! That’s my toe!’

  ‘You surprise me,’ Patricia withdrew her foot. ‘And no, I don’t apologise. At least it’s shut you up for the moment.’

  ‘But you have to agree there really is something special about this place,’ Joan continued, quite unabashed. ‘Oh, I know we’re going to heaps of splendid places — Vienna and Buda-Pest and all that. And I’m simply useless at describing things, but don’t you think the Tiernsee is somewhere one’s always going to want to come back to?’

  The chorus that greeted this left no room for doubt that all the girls felt the same.

  So naturally there were great rejoicings at supper-time, when Miss Bruce announced an addition to their original plans. Instead of travelling straight back to London from Munich, they were going to return to Briesau for the last weekend of the term; Mrs Russell and Mademoiselle Lepâttre had invited them all to stay at the Chalet School and to see a special performance of the school’s Christmas pageant.

  ‘The journey back here from Munich appears to be simple . . . and quite short,’ Miss Bruce continued, when the first buzz of interest had died down. ‘And we can travel to London just as easily from here . . . only a small alteration in the arrangements . . . Most kind of Mrs Russell and Mademoiselle to give us this invitation . . . I felt sure you would all wish to accept and to attend the Christmas play . . . a fitting way to round off our tour.’

  ‘And,’ Pamela rejoiced, ‘we’ll be able to see this place in the snow after all, which we shouldn’t have done otherwise.’

  ‘Not unless it snows before we leave on Monday,’ said the ever-practical Veronica.

  ‘And that’s not likely, with only three days to come and not a sign of snow yet — or so I’m informed by those who should know best,’ Joan retorted.

  Everyo
ne now viewed the inevitable arrival of next Monday far more cheerfully, and they were able to enjoy making plans for a long farewell walk on the Saturday morning. After a lot of discussion, they decided they would go round the Tiernsee and right up to Scholastika at the far end, where arrangements could be made for the hotel to provide lunch.

  Patricia excused herself from this conference, saying that she must get started with her packing. Joey Bettany’s birthday celebrations were to take place at the weekend and, as one of Jo’s guests, Patricia would be off to Innsbruck soon after breakfast on Saturday, going on with Joey and the others to spend the weekend at the Sonnalpe. All her packing had therefore to be finished by Friday night; she would take only a small case with her since, on the Monday morning, she would have to walk down to Spärtz to rejoin her party.

  Patricia had become particularly attached to the Tiernsee district during the weeks they had spent there. But, in her case, the sadness of leaving had been tempered by the prospect of this coming weekend. She had looked forward to it enormously, and most of all to meeting Dr Russell and seeing the hospital on the Sonnalpe. And yet, as the day came near, she found to her surprise and dismay that her feelings were now mixed. It was dreadfully puzzling.

  On the Saturday morning Patricia woke very early in the room she shared with Pamela. Sleep refused to return. She did not like to put on the bedside light and read, for fear of waking her room-mate. At last, wearing a thick jersey and her dressing-gown over her pyjamas, she slipped out on to the balcony, closing the door quietly behind her.