03 The Princess of the Chalet School (13 page)

‘You sinful children!’ said Miss Bettany laughingly. ‘You are late, the three of you!’

She had not seen which way Elisaveta had come, and took it for granted that she had been with the other two. If she had known that the child had been alone she would have questioned her, and probably a great deal of what was going to happen would have not happened, and much worry and trouble would have been saved. As it was, she merely told the girls to set off at once, as they were rather later in starting back than she had intended, and saw them all set off at a good round pace.

‘Where
did
you get to?’ demanded Margia of the Princess as they walked rapidly back. ‘We couldn’t see you anywhere.’

‘I went along the stream a little way,’ replied Elisaveta. She said nothing about her meeting with Maurús Ternikai, because it never entered her head to do so. Margia was not a special friend of hers, and she could see no reason why she should mention anything so private as the sudden appearance of a bodyguard for her

– especially as he had said that Miss Bettany had asked for one for her. Elisaveta thought that she might perhaps tell Joey about it, but no one else. She felt a great liking for the Head’s sister, but Margia was not the type of child to appeal to her. Joey, who was outwardly so matter-of-fact and inwardly so highly imaginative, who was deeply poetical in feeling, made a great demand on her as an ideal kind of schoolgirl.

Joey, however, was interested in Frieda’s plans for the summer holidays. She kept with her, and Elisaveta had no chance of telling her new friend anything as long as they were in the woods.

When they were all sitting down to
Kaffee
and
Kuchen
, however, in the garden of the
Gasthaus
, Jo pulled the Princess into a seat by her. ‘Where did you go this afternoon?’ she asked in a friendly manner. ‘I never saw you till you came flying back along the path. I thought you were with Margia and Simone. You mustn’t go off by yourself! Why didn’t you come with us if you didn’t want to stick with them?’

‘They were trying to find gold in the river,’ explained Elisaveta. ‘I thought it was a stupid game, so I left them and went on a little way.’

‘Gold in the river?’ Joey was wide-eyed. ‘What on earth made them think of that?’

‘Margia said it looked like a river to have gold in,’ replied the Princess in a rather muddled fashion. ‘Joey!

Sit with me when we go back, will you? I want to tell you something.’

‘Righto!’ agreed Jo cheerfully. ‘We’ll try to get a corner to ourselves.’

But when they did get the corner to themselves and she had heard Elisaveta’s story, she looked serious. ‘I say! Have you told my sister?’

Elisaveta shook her head. ‘No; if she asked for him to be sent, she will know all about it, and she might not like to be worried about it. People
don’t
talk of such things, you know.’

Joey didn’t know, but she thought Elisaveta probably did, so she said nothing more, and the conversation turned on school subjects till they reached Spärtz and were getting into the little mountain train to go up to Seespitz. Then Elisaveta touched her arm. ‘Look, Joey! That man there! That is he!’

Joey looked. ‘It is? He’s got someone with him. See, Elisaveta! They evidently don’t want you to notice them, ‘cos they’re hiding behind that luggage. How funny!’

Elisaveta wrinkled up her brow thoughtfully. ‘I know that other man,’ she said. ‘I can’t think who he is, but I know him quite well, I’m sure.’

What Joey would have had to say on the subject was lost, for at that moment Grizel, Juliet, and the Robin joined them, and there was no further chance of private talk that night.

Afterwards, when everything was over and done with, someone asked the two girls why they had said nothing about the meeting and the two men’s behaviour on the station-platform at Spärtz. Joey’s reply that they hadn’t really thought it worth mentioning, since she knew that her sister expected a kind of bodyguard for the Princess, while Elisaveta knew that royalty has to submit to precautions of this kind, seemed to them to account for things quite satisfactorily. Their questioner, who was no less a person than the King of Belsornia himself, smiled. ‘As things have turned out,’ he said, ‘no real harm has come of it. But when there are unusual happenings, and you know that none of the elders know them, it is generally better to mention them to someone in charge.’

All that, however, came much later. At that time neither of the children said anything about it on the day it occurred, and the next day saw them all too busy preparing for the Guide tests, which came on the Saturday, to think of anything outside of Guides.

Joey was to make an effort to get her Needlewoman’s badge. She had tried for it three times already, but her sewing hadn’t been up to standard the first time; the second time her mending had let her down. This time she had made a big effort, and her garment had passed muster with Frau Marani, who was the examiner for the test, and now she had only her patch and darning to do, and the cutting out and button-holes and setting of gathers into a band to get through.

Elisaveta was taking ambulance and child-nurse, and she wandered distractedly, murmuring the names of the principal bones to herself, till she finally made an idiot of herself, as Joey said, by replying when Miss Wilson asked her where the Carpathians were, ‘Oh, they are the bones that are in the hand!’

He agitated explanation, made after Miss Wilson had finished telling her what she thought of her, that

‘metacarpal’ was not
very
unlike ‘Carpathians,’ brought her no satisfaction. Miss Wilson gave it as her opinion that a girl of twelve who could make such a very stupid reply and show such a lack of concentration was not fit to be a Guide. Elisaveta felt very squashed.

It seemed to the excited children as if the day would never end. When, at last,
Kaffee
brought to a close the school-hours, there was a general sigh of relief to be heard from the various classes. Even the seniors were not above that.

‘Thank goodness! No more lessons till Monday!’ exclaimed Juliet Carrick in the privacy of the prefects’

room, where she was putting away her possessions. ‘I fell as if this term would
never
end!’

‘I feel rather that way too,’ acknowledged Grizel. ‘There’s a sort of
waiting
feeling in the air – you know what I mean?’

Juliet nodded. ‘I do! I feel it myself. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a restless sensation. I wonder if Madame is going to spring something on us.’

‘Such as what?’ demanded Bette Rincini, a very pretty Tyrolean, who was one of the original pupils of the school. Bette had learned to speak English almost perfectly, and her use of English slang was a source of mystery to her companions, who could never understand how it was that she never made mistakes.

Grizel looked across at her now and laughed. ‘I don’t know; and I’m not sure that Juliet can say either.

P’r'aps we’re going to have a new building erected.’

‘I hope not!’ Bette was quite decided on that point. ‘I should have to leave the Chalet! I’ve always been so glad that it was the babies who were sent to Le Petit Chalet, and not we!’

‘So have I,’ said Juliet, leaving her locker and coming over to the window where the other two were standing. ‘I don’t think it’s
that
though, Bette, so you needn’t get worried over that.’

‘Then what do you think it is?’ demanded Grizel.

Juliet shook her head. ‘Don’t know, I’m sure –
Herein
!’ as a tap sounded at the door.

The Robin appeared in reply, with an air of deep mystery on her face. ‘Juliette, will you come to Madame
now
, please? She wants you.’

Juliet glanced at herself in the mirror which hung on the wall, and then followed the school-baby out of the room.

‘The solution to the mystery!’ Grizel called after her as she went.

‘More than likely!’ retorted the head-girl, taking the Robin’s hand. ‘Come along, Robin.’

‘We’re going to have tea with Madame,’ the baby informed her as they walked to the study. ‘It’s a lovely tea, with
English
tea, and cakes!’

‘Who’re “we”?’ asked Juliet.

‘You, an’ me, an’ Joey!’ The Robin had just got over her difficulty with the English ‘J’s', and was very proud of herself. She still made mistakes if she was excited or in a hurry, but she remembered in time now.

‘How topping!’ said Juliet.

By this time they had reached the door, and there was Miss Bettany, waiting for them, with Joey standing beside her.

‘Come along, girls,’ she said. ‘We are going to take our tea to the pines, as the others are to have
Kaffee
in the garden. Juliet, take that basket, dear, and Robin can carry this one. Now, come along!’

They set out, Joey bearing the thermos flasks, and the Head herself with the basket containing milk and cakes. The others saw them going.

‘Tea with Madame!’ exclaimed Bette. ‘Well, there’s nothing to be gained there, then. It must be imagination.’

‘What
are
you talking about!’ demanded Grizel. ‘Of all the mixed sentences that is the worst I’ve ever heard. What do you mean?’

‘Our feelings,’ replied Bette vaguely.

‘Oh, I see! Well, Juliet is Madame’s ward, and the Robin is something of the same kind, I suppose, and Joey is her sister. They like to be together I know, and they very seldom are. There’s Rosalie. Let’s join her!’

They went over to join Rosalie Dene, and forgot the conversation before the Robin had come to the prefects’ room with Miss Bettany’s message.

The three who had gone with the Head were seen no more that night. The Robin was always sent to bed very early, as she was delicate and needed a good deal of rest. Juliet vanished out of sight, and was only found when the others went to bed, already between the sheets. Her cubicle curtains were tightly drawn, and when Grizel would have opened them to ask where she had been she was sternly ordered to ‘Go away, for goodness’ sake, and leave me in peace.’ Much wondering, she did as she was told, for Juliet’s tone warned her that there was to be no trifling.

As for Jo, she was in the study, helping her sister to turn out a drawer that needed it badly! She was sent to bed too, for, like the Robin, she was not a robust child, and the long day of the picnic had tired her. Also, she was rather excited by what her sister had told the three of them, even though she had known part of it before.

The next day brought the tests, and the girls all turned up to breakfast, looking especially neat and trim, with their uniforms very smart and all their accoutrements polished to the last degree.

‘Thank goodness it will be soon be over now!’ sighed Margia, who was taking Naturalist badge and was very nervous in consequence. She was an unobservant young person, and this test had meant hard work for her.

‘It’s far worse to have to play for Herr Anserl!’ declared Frieda, who was going in for Musician’s and was frightened of the great shaggy music-master, whose lessons could be joys, but were frequently sources of deepest woe to those who learnt with him.

Frieda played the harp, and her own master, a man from Innsbruck, was gentle in the extreme, willing to go over and over the work till his pupils saw their faults, and never losing either patience of temper. Herr Anserl frequently lost both.
Frühstück
over, however, the girls fled to the school-rooms to be sure that everything was ready, and then went off to their morning tasks before returning to the big school-room for prayers. Once prayers were over, they were settled at their tests and there was quietness in the school until half-past twelve saw the end of the morning’s work, and they ran out into the garden for a rest before
Mittagessen
.

‘What was the matter last night?’ demanded Grizel of the head-girl, as the latter joined them. ‘Was anything wrong?’

‘No,’ said Juliet briefly. ‘What did you think of the Health test, anyone?’

Several people had taken the test, and there was an instant chorus of answers. The general opinion was that Dr. Jem, who was responsible for it, had gone out of his way to make the questions unpleasant. In the chatter over it Grizel’s questions was forgotten, and the tests discussion lasted them through the break and the meal as well. After
Mittagessen
, as it was a hot day, they all went to lie down for an hour before beginning work again. The tests were always finished within one day, and it meant that that day was pretty well occupied. At half-past two those who had not yet finished went back to the school-rooms, and the others lazed about the garden with books and work and puzzles. It was too hot for games, and Miss Bettany considered that, after the really strenuous brain-work of the morning, it was just as well for them to be idle, at any rate until the cool of the evening.

Joey and Juliet both had tests in the afternoon, and it was late before they were finished. The Head appeared at
Kaffee
, and informed them all that she was going to let them go bathing later on.

‘It has been so hot to-day,’ she said, ‘that the water ought to be just right. You can all get undressed in half-an-hour’s time and be ready to go in by six o’clock. Little ones may stay up until seven o’clock to-night.’

There was a buzz of joyful chatter when she had gone, for they all loved bathing in the evening, and it was not often allowed. The Tiern See is partly fed by springs in its bed, and they tend to keep it very cold. Miss Bettany was always rather afraid of cramp from this, and preferred that they should bathe during the day when the sun was on the water.

They were all at the meeting-place at the time she had named, and they went joyfully down to the lake, talking and laughing all the time. Nearly every one could swim, even the Robin being able to manage breast-stroke, though she had not got as far as side-stroke, and she hated being put on her back. As she was small and very light she was in great request as a ‘body’ for life-saving, and she loathed it. To-night, as usual, she was surrounded by several people all anxious to ‘life-save’ her. Luckily for her Miss Durrant refused to allow it. ‘Go and life-save someone of your own size!’ she laughed to Grizel. ‘The Robin is going to learn to dive to-night.’