03 The Princess of the Chalet School (10 page)

She was put to bed early, for she was still tired and unlike herself, and Madge sat beside her till she had fallen asleep. It was indeed some days before she fully recovered from the shock. She was a sensitive child and inclined to be delicate, so that what would not have affected any of the others upset her badly. Joey was not in much better case for a day or two, but she recovered after a while. As for the S.S.M., its days were over – which was just as well. The members turned their attention to other things, and the Chalet School settled down to its old tranquility.

‘Elisaveta, are you ready?’ Joey Bettany looked excited as she came to the Princess, who stood alone behind the horse-shoe formation in which most of the others were drawn up. The only exceptions to the rule were the colour parties, which had just taken their places in front of the other Guides, and now stood like images, holding the flags. In front of the Guides stood the Brownies, very thrilled at this enrolment of a princess – the entire school knew who Elisaveta was by this time – and doing their best to look smart and workman-like.

Elisaveta, clad in blue jumper and skirt, with her yellow tie hanging loose – where the others had their pinned with the little metal badge that meant so much to them all – marched forward shyly at Joey’s side.

Between the flags stood Miss Bettany in her captain’s uniform, the other officer behind her, and, on one side, Crown Prince Carol of Belsornia, who had managed to snatch a week’s holiday to come and see his little daughter enrolled. He wore his white and silver uniform as colonel of the Royal Guards, and his medals flashed in the sunlight, even though he stood, erect and still, eyes front, hand resting on his sword-hilt.

He had been overjoyed at the difference in Elisaveta when he saw her. She was rosy with long hours in the open air, simple food, quiet sleep, and jolly friends, who teased her, laughed with her, and helped her to get into mischief as often as possible. She was losing her ‘only-child’ ways, and was becoming a thorough little school-girl. The Crown Prince thought that the doctor could no longer complain that her vitality was being sapped away!

She came with Joey, very serious, and full of the promise she was about to make. They marched up to where Miss Bettany stood, and then Joey saluted smartly and took two steps back, standing at attention, while the captain asked the simple questions:

‘Do you know what your honour is?’

‘Yes.’ Elisaveta’s reply rang out, full of confidence.

‘Can I trust you on your honour to be loyal to God and the King; to help other people at all times; and to obey the Guide Law?’

Up went Elisaveta’s hand to the half-salute as she replied in clear tones, ‘I promise on my honour to do my best to be loyal to God and the King; to help other people at all times; and to obey the Guide Law!’

‘I trust you on your honour to keep this promise. You are now one of the great sisterhood of Guides.’ The captain’s tones were very comforting. There was a quiet strength in her voice which Elisaveta found restful.

The new Guide gave her left hand in the Guide grip, and then she half-turned on the word of command and saluted the colours. Finally she saluted the company, and then she marched back to her patrol with Joey, the badge in her tie, and a deep resolve in her heart to do her best to keep her promise and to do the Guides honour by her behaviour.

Then the command rang out, ‘Company dismiss to patrol corners!’ and it was all over.

Prince Carol smiled as Miss Bettany turned to him. ‘It is a splendid movement, Mademoiselle. I hope, with his Majesty’s permission, to establish a branch in Belsornia. I have been reading the books you sent me very carefully, and it seems to me that it is just what is needed for our young girls.’

‘It is wonderful, sir,’ replied Madge quietly. ‘I am glad you think of doing so.’ Then she gave a short order to Miss Maynard, and the Guides gave an exhibition of company drill which impressed him very much. Not even the men of his own regiment, seasoned veterans as most of them were, could show greater smartness.

The girls were even and precise in their movements, timing it all beautifully. After the drill, the Cock and Poppy patrols showed the work they had done in ambulance and stretcher drill, and the Cornflowers and the Swallows gave a good display of signaling, with the Morse code.

The Crown Prince was deeply interested, and commended the work. They showed him the great doll’s house which was progressing, and begged him to come and examine their patrol corners.

Then it was the turn of the Brownies, and they gave a remarkable version of the work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, showing that they could make knots calculated to remain tied; that they knew quite a surprising amount about elementary bandaging; and signaling, slowly, of course, but accurately, in semaphore, with their arms.

They also treated him to a pow-wow ring, sang their verses – ‘There were two Sixes’ – and finished up with the Brownie howl. He was delighted in it, and when it was all over, and the school was racing to its dormitories to change into afternoon frocks before
Mittagessen
, he said so to the captain.

‘I like your father, Elisaveta,’ observed Joey as she struggled into a fresh blue-linen frock. ‘He has a lot of sense.’

‘He’s a dear!’ said his daughter fervently.

He was! Two days after he had gone there came a huge parcel, addressed to the school, and when they opened it they found inside – twenty new books for the library, two dozen of the best tennis-balls, and thirty gramophone records of good orchestral music. There was a gramophone in the school, and Mademoiselle gave lessons of musical appreciation with its aid, but they had only a few records, so the new ones were a tremendous boon. They had a concert at once, of course, and the girls sat enthralled by Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’ Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt,’ Debussy’s ‘L’Après-midi d’un Faune,’ and many others as beautiful.

‘You’ve got a splendid father, Elisaveta,’ said Grizel Cochrane after it was over. ‘I do think he is the kindest man I’ve heard of.’

‘Daddy always likes doing things like that,’ said his daughter, colouring with pleasure at the words. Grizel was a prefect, and a very lordly person, so her condescension in saying such a thing to a mere middle, and a new girl at that, was simply amazing.

Elisaveta had been long enough at school to realize
that
; and, in any case, it was quite in keeping with all the best traditions of her beloved books.

Joey, on the contrary, who had no illusions of the sort, sniggered. ‘We
are
gracious to-day,’ she said aggravatingly. ‘What is going to happen?’

Grizel looked angry for a minute; then she laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Jo!’ she said. ‘You really are childish, sometimes!’

This from a girl who was only two years older than herself was more than Joey was prepared to stand.

‘What price
heiliges Wasser
for rinsing water?’ she asked wickedly; and Grizel flushed angrily.

‘Joey Bettany! I wish you’d let things lie!’ she cried. ‘It’s jolly unsporting of you to rake up past things like that! It was a mistake anyone might have made!’

‘It was just as childish as I am!’ said Joey, who generally kept annoyingly cool over things, while Grizel was wont to ruffle up like a turkey-cock.

Grizel cast a furious look at her; then, knowing Joey of old, she turned on her heel and marched away.

Elisaveta turned to Jo. ‘What did you mean about Holy Water for rinsing water?’ she asked curiously.

Jo laughed. ‘Nothing. It was just a mistake Grizel made when we first came to the Tyrol. It’s quite true, anyone might have made it. I was rather a pig to haul it up like that, but she does so
rile
me at times!’

‘Because she orders people about?’ queried Elisaveta.

‘Partly that. I think it’s mainly ‘cos she’s Grizel.’ Jo laughed again, and then ran off. She had no intention of giving Grizel away to a new girl. There were one or two happenings in the past that Joey would rather not rake up, though she still held the time when the elder girl had demanded Holy Water for her final hair-rinsing in Innsbruck when they had first come as a good joke against her. Of the time when Grizel had set Miss Bettany at defiance, she intended to say nothing.

Elisaveta shrugged her shoulders, and put the whole thing out of her head. There was always plenty to think about at the Chalet School without worrying about a prefect’s past misdeeds.

On the tennis-court she found an agitated Margia waiting for her. ‘Well, you might have hurried a little!’

was the young lady’s greeting. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’

‘Nothing much,’ replied Elisaveta. ‘I’ve been talking to Joey – that’s all.’

‘Well, come on now, and let’s get started. If we hang about much longer we shall have the big ones coming, and saying we’ve had the court long enough. Will you toss for service?’

Elisaveta twirled her racquet, and Margia called. As she won the call, and with it the court with the sun behind her, she soothed down, and they were soon hard at it. They were very evenly matched. Elisaveta had sometimes played with her father, and had a very swift service for a small girl; Margia had a splendid fore-hand drive, considering that she was only thirteen, but her back-hand was weak. Neither could volley, and any attempt at it always brought about disaster. The games prefect, Grizel herself, strolled over to watch them presently, and with her came Juliet Carrick, the Head’s ward, and the head-girl of the school. Juliet was nearly eighteen, and was a very capable person. She had made up her mind to teach, and was working for a mathematics scholarship to the University of London. She wanted to go there, work for a science degree, and then come back and teach at the Chalet School. Miss Bettany encouraged her in this. She knew that they would not keep Miss Maynard more than a year longer, for she was going to be married in the following autumn. If they could get someone to do the work till Juliet was ready, it would be a good thing for her. Ultimately, Miss Bettany hoped she would become headmistress. That was looking a long way ahead, however, and at present Juliet was only a very jolly school-girl, who made a splendid head-girl.

Jo wandered along, and joined them after a while. ‘Margia is really good, isn’t she?’ she remarked.

Juliet nodded. ‘She is shaping very well,’ she said. ‘That new child, Elisaveta, is going to be good, too. She hasn’t anything like Margia’s strength, of course, but she’s got a very decent service already. Margia’s drives are something out of the common for a kiddie of her age.’

‘She says it’s all the practice she does,’ said Joey. ‘She says her arm-muscles are so developed that she can hit harder than most people.’

‘Her back-hand strokes are frightfully weak, though,’ put in Grizel. ‘Look at that attempt! “Rotten” simply doesn’t describe it!’

‘No wonder, when you notice the way she holds her racquet!’ said Juliet. ‘The wonder is she can do anything with it. What’s the score, anyone?’

Elisaveta answered her as Margia missed a return on the back line. ‘Forty-thirty! Send that ball back, Margia, will you, please? I have only one at this side.’

‘The hopes of their side,’ said Joey with a grin. ‘Isn’t it a pity we can’t play against any other schools?’

‘It is – rather,’ said Juliet. ‘There! That’s game to Elisaveta. Hop across and tell Margia about holding her racquet properly, Grizel.’

Grizel strolled across the court, and proceeded to give a lecture on how to hold one’s racquet for the back-hand drive, illustrating with wide sweeps of Margia’s racquet. She herself played well, and she knew it. It showed in her manner, and it must be confessed that there was slight justification in Joey’s murmured

‘Swish! Isn’t she I-T? I loathe frills!’

In earlier years there had been a friendship between the two. It had never been very violent, for they were too unlike in their tastes to find much common ground. Grizel was matter-of-fact, and almost entirely without imagination. She could, as a rule, see only one side of any question – her own. Joey, on the contrary, was imaginative to a degree; possessed of a craze for anything historical, and given to seeing all round any question. She was unsentimental, but intensely sympathetic by nature, and unselfish where the people she loved were concerned. The two had gradually drifted apart, and since Grizel had been promoted to the post of prefect they had very little to do with each other.

Grizel was inclined to be a little swelled-headed over her promotion, and Jo resented her attempts to lord it over herself, and showed it in her manner.

As Grizel swaggered off the court – there is no other word to describer her gait – the younger girl turned away.

The tennis match went on between the two, but Joey marched off into the house. There she encountered her sister, who was holding an open letter in her hand, and looking more disturbed that Joey had ever seen her before. ‘Madge! What’s the matter?’ she asked in startled tones.

Miss Bettany looked at her abstractedly. ‘I wish you wouldn’t use my name like that, Joey,’ she said.

‘Anyone might hear you.’

‘There isn’t anyone to hear,’ replied Jo, slipping her hand through her sister’s arm. ‘What is the matter, old thing?’

‘It’s nothing you can help, Joey.’

‘You never know. Don’t shut me out, Madge; we’ve always shared things.’

‘I know.’ Miss Bettany looked at the clever, sensitive face at her shoulder. ‘Sometimes I think, Joey, that we’ve put too much on you. I don’t want to spoil your childhood.’

‘It won’t spoil my anything to share your fusses. There’s only us – and the Robin. Dick seems so far away since he married Mollie.
You’re
going to get married next. I – I hope it won’t be like that.’

Madge pulled the child into the study. ‘Joey-Baba, you don’t really think that? Jem will only be like an extra brother. It’s different with Dick and Mollie. We’ve never even seen her; we don’t really know her.

Don’t think of it like that, Joey, or I must put off the wedding till you are grown-up!’

Joey flung her arms round her sister in a tempestuous hug. ‘I’m a
beast
to say such things! I know it’ll be all right! Jem is a dear, and I hope you will be married soon! So don’t be silly, old thing!’