03 The Princess of the Chalet School (5 page)

She got up as she spoke, and went towards the door. Just as she opened it, there was the most surprising sound to be heard, coming along the passage. It was the sound of someone dragging someone else forcibly along.

The mistresses all turned to the door with deep curiosity, and through it came Matron, half-dragging, half-carrying Elisaveta, Princess of Belsornia.

‘Matron!’ cried Miss Maynard. ‘What does this mean?’

‘Mean?’ repeated Matron, releasing her victim, who stood with furious anger in her face. ‘Mean? It means Miss Maynard, that as Miss Bettany is out, I have brought this insolent child to you to punish as she deserves!’

‘Very well, Matron,’ relied Miss Maynard quietly. ‘You may leaver her, and I will attend to the matter at once.’

‘Not before I’ve told my story,’ retorted Matron.

‘Certainly, I will hear your side of the matter. What has Elisaveta been doing?’

‘She flew at me because I reproved Josephine Bettany for her untidiness and also for her impertinence to me, and she actually told me that I was no lady to speak as I did!’ declared Matron, who, truth to tell, rather bore out the validity of Elisaveta’s accusation by her present manner.

‘I see. Is this true, Elisaveta?’

‘Quite true, Madame,’ replied Elisaveta, standing with her head held proudly, and her eyes flashing.

‘Then you must apologise to Matron for your rudeness,’ said Miss Maynard.

‘I regret!’ Elisaveta was all princess now. ‘That I cannot do.’

‘You see!’ Matron waved to Miss Maynard. ‘She is thoroughly impertinent and insubordinate.’

‘Go to your room, Elisaveta,’ Miss Maynard waited, and Elisaveta meekly turned and went off to her room. ‘I will see her in private, Matron. In the meantime, I must go and attend to something. She will be better for being left alone for the present.’

‘Yes; if she is locked in!’

The mistress shook her head. ‘We never lock the girls in at this school.’ Her mind went back to an event which had occurred in the first term of the Chalet School, when Grizel Cochrane, the most insubordinate girl they had had there, had not been locked in. That had nearly cost her own life as well as that of Joey Bettany, but there had never been any question of deviating from the custom of trusting the girls to the very end.

‘There will be no thought of locking in Elisaveta or any other girl,’ said Miss Maynard. ‘Madame would not allow it. And while I remember, Matron, would you please call the headmistress “Madame,” as we all do. It is her own wish.’

Matron flounced out of the room, muttering something about ‘such rubbish!’

‘What a woman!’ exclaimed Miss Wilson. ‘What are you going to do with the child, Maynie?’

“Try to make her see reason,’ replied Miss Maynard. ‘I want her version of the story.’

‘Better get Joey’s as well,’ suggested Miss Carthew. ‘There must have been a scene of sorts to make Elisaveta go for anyone like that. She always looks as though she was scared of her own shadow.’

‘I might,’ agreed Miss Maynard. ‘Yes; I think I’ll do that first.’

She went out of the room, and up to the Yellow dormitory, where she was pretty sure of finding Joey, since Matron had been finding fault with her for untidiness. As she reached the door, she heard the harsh voice saying, ‘Put that drawer right at once, and you can take an order-mark for leaving it in such a disgraceful condition.
I
don’t make any differences for the Head’s sister, as you may just as well realize! Every time I find your drawers in a mess like this I shall punish you, so remember!’

The mistress entered the room, to find Joey with a mutinous expression on her face turning out the contents of a drawer that looked as if it had been well stirred up with a stick. There had certainly been some grounds for Matron’s complaint!

‘May I speak to Joey, Matron?’ asked Miss Maynard.

‘Yes, Miss Maynard. And I wish you would speak to her about her untidiness while you are about it!’

replied Matron vigorously. ‘Just look at that drawer!’

‘It is disgraceful,’ said Miss Maynard sternly. ‘When I have finished with you, Joey, you must come back and put everything in its proper place. I will come and inspect it myself before you go to bed. Now come with me.’

Joey followed her out of the room and into the little bedroom across the landing which was hers. Miss Maynard gave her a chair, and perched herself on the bed. ‘Joey, what was the cause of Elisaveta’s being so rude to Matron?’

Joey twisted her fingers together, and stared at the ground.

‘Come, Joey! I want to know. Elisaveta much apologise to Matron, of course, but I want to know why she was so rude.’

‘It was my fault, I suppose,’ said Jo at length. ‘My drawer
was
untidy, and Matron was angry, and she said

– things. Then Elisaveta got angry too, and she said Matron hadn’t the – the instincts of a lady, or she wouldn’t have said such things – it was only
canaille
who spoke so. Matron was
wild
, and she carted her off to Mad – I mean, my sister, and – and that’s about all.’

‘What did Matron say that made Elisaveta interfere?’ asked Miss Maynard, her eyes on Jo’s face.

Jo suddenly flushed. ‘I’m not going to repeat such a thing,’ she said. ‘It’s an insult to Madge to even think of it!’

‘Was it the same sort of thing as I heard her saying when I came to find you?’ asked the mistress.

Joey sat dumb.

‘Tell me, Joey,’ insisted Miss Maynard. ‘I mean to know – or leave it to Madame!’

That told at once. Joey had no idea of letting her sister be dragged into the affair. She lifted her head, and Miss Maynard almost gasped at the fury in her eyes as she said, ‘She said that my sister favoured me because I
was
her sister, and the Robin and Juliet because they were her wards, and
she
wasn’t going to, and we should all see that, and -‘

‘That will do,’ said Miss Maynard very quietly, though inwardly she was rather horrified by the storm that had been raised. ‘You must try to control yourself, Joey. You will only upset yourself and Madame if you give way to anger like this.’

‘I-I’d like to
kill
her!’ burst out Joey.

‘Nonsense, child! You wouldn’t do anything of the sort, and it is very silly of you to say so.’ Miss Maynard paused. Under the circumstances, she did not think it would be very wise to let Joey go back to her tidying. She made up her mind quickly. ‘I want you to go over to Le Petit Chalet for me,’ she said. ‘I will give you a note to Mademoiselle, and you must wait for an answer.’

Going to her table, she opened up her letter-pad, and hastily scribbled, ‘Keep Joey with you for the present.

She is upset.’ Folding this up, she gave it to Jo, and saw her trotting off to the other house, already a little calmer. Then she turned away, and went downstairs to the Blue dormitory on the next landing.

There was no defiance to meet here. Elisaveta was lying on her bed, crying heartbrokenly. She never heard the mistress enter the room, and only looked up when a hand was laid on her shoulder, and a quiet voice said, ‘Elisaveta, get up.’ She tumbled to the floor, and stood there, a piteous little object, for she had scrubbed her eyes in a way that would have made Alette shriek with horror. ‘You have been a very silly child,’ said Miss Maynard gently. ‘Whatever Matron said to Joey, you had no business to interfere. I know you only did it through friendship, but that is the sort of thing that friends must not do. Now, you have been rude to Matron, who is many years older than yourself, and in authority over you as well. I am sorry, Elisaveta, but you must come with me and apologise to her.’ Then, seeing that Elisaveta was about to refuse, she added, ‘You
must
. You were in the wrong in that way, and it is what a lady would do.’

Elisaveta gave a final scrub to her eyes with a very damp pocket-handkerchief, and then said with a hiccup,

‘I-I’ll come.’

‘Wash your face first,’ said Miss Maynard kindly.

Elisaveta did as she was told, and splashed vigorously with cold water till the tear-stains were fairly well washed away. Then she went with Miss Maynard to Matron’s room, where she said, as if she were repeating a lesson, ‘I am sorry I was rude to you, Matron, and I beg your pardon.’

She had barely got the words out before Miss Maynard bundled her through the door, and Matron was left with words of admonition on her lips

‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said afterwards to her colleagues in the staff-room. ‘I remembered what happened when Joey had to apologise to her, and I felt I couldn’t stand it.’

To Miss Bettany, to whom she gave a strictly unofficial account of the affair, she said, ‘
Do
relieve our curiosity! Who is that child?’

Miss Bettany looked a little shamefaced. ‘I supposed it was idiotic of me not to tell you all in the beginning. She is the only child of the Crown Prince of Belsornia!’

‘Good heavens! And Matron has been pitching into her as if she were just anyone. No wonder she told her she wasn’t lady-like!’

They both laughed. ‘Tell the others, ‘ said Miss Bettany as the mistress got up to go. ‘But don’t let the girls know.’

The S.S.M is Formed

After all the fuss of the trouble described in the last chapter, Miss Bettany had Matron into the study, and informed her that no girl was ever to be forcibly dragged to any mistress; nor was any girl to be accused by any member of the staff of taking advantage of the Head. Matron listened to her with a sniff. ‘Very well, Miss Bettany,’ she said when Madge had finished.

‘Another thing, Matron,’ replied the Head. ‘I notice that you do not call me “Madame,” as the rest of the staff do. I shall be glad if you will follow their example.’

Matron bowed her head, but she said nothing, and got herself out of the room as quickly as she could.

‘Oh dear!’ sighed Madge when she had gone. ‘
What
a term we are in for!’

The girls were quick to seize on Miss Webb’s peculiarities. She was unlike anyone they had ever had to do with in the school, and they proceeded to give her a bad time of it. The ringleader was Margia Stevens, who combined musical ability and original sin in a remarkable manner. Her followers were Evadne Lannis, an American child, Paula von Rothenfels, Ilonka Barcokz, Sophie Hamel, and Suzanne Mercier. This sextette managed amongst them to give Matron a time of it.

Margia, possessed of a good deal of originality, thought out the most unheard-of things, and the others helped her to carry them out.

A week after Elisaveta’s scrape with Matron, Margia approached her during the twenty minutes’ break in the middle of the morning. ‘I say,’ she said, ‘would you come to the pine-woods after
Mittagessen
?’

‘Why?’ demanded Elisaveta, whose mind had leapt back to her beloved stories, and who therefore suspected something. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘You’ll see when you get there,’ replied Margia mysteriously. ‘I may say,’ she added, ‘that’s it’s something to do with our unnatural tyrant.’

‘Matron?’

‘Thou hast said rightly, oh damsel.’

‘All right, I’ll come,’ agreed the ‘damsel’; and Margia went off, satisfied that she had secured another member for her band.

It was scarcely to be expected that Elisaveta could settle down to ordinary lessons after that, and she reduced Miss Maynard nearly to fury by her vague replies in the geometry lesson which came immediately after break.

‘Have you made any attempt at all to do your geometry preparation?’ demanded the mistress at length. ‘If you cannot do better than this, you had better come to me after
Mittagessen
, and have a lesson by yourself.’

That helped her to pull herself together – that, and Margia’s disgusted face. She contrived to get through the rest of the lesson without disgracing herself too badly, and as Frieda Mensch made a complete hash of her theorem, Miss Maynard’s attention was diverted to her, so Elisaveta got off with nothing further. History came next, with Miss Carthew, and as it was a ‘spot’ test there was no time for dreaming, for they were all kept busy writing during the whole lesson. When finally
Mittagessen
was over, and they were dismissed for the hour’s free time which they always has in the summer at this hour, most of the middles decamped with the utmost speed. Margia and her satellites made for the pine-woods, where they were allowed to go during the afternoon and early evening. Several of the others wandered off to the lakeside with one of the prefects in charge, and the rest settled themselves down in various nooks and corners of the garden. Elisaveta waited till most people had disappeared, and then she went slowly down the playing-field to the pine-woods which covered the mountains behind the house, keeping in the shade of the hedge of thorn-bushes which Herr Braun had had set there in order to keep off inquisitive people. She found the little wicket-gate at the bottom of the field open, and in the distance she could hear the voices of the others coming from among the trees.

She followed the sound, and presently came upon Evadne Lannis, who was standing at attention, a long willow-wand in her hand.

‘Halt, maiden!’ said the sentinel. ‘Whither wouldst thou go?’

‘Margia told me to come here,’ replied the maiden, with an involuntary giggle.

Evadne usually spoke the most picturesque American slang, and, despite nearly two years at the Chalet School, where slang was taboo, she was always coming out with some unheard-of expression, so this prim mode of address was very funny from her.

Evadne frowned at the giggle, but she held out her wand, and said, ‘Hold, and I will lead thee to the Presence!’

Elisaveta took hold of the wand, and was towed through the trees towards a little corner specially affected by the middles.

‘Mind the roots, or you’ll go a flopper,’ the sentinel warned her as she nearly stumbled over a fallen bough.

Elisaveta gave her attention to her feet, and presently found herself ushered into ‘the Presence.’ Margia was seated on a heap of twigs, over which was thrown the remnants of an old cubicle curtain. It was only possible to know that she
was
Margia by her pink cotton frock and the thick curly mop of hair that caused her despair every time it had to be combed out. Her face was hidden by a hideous paper mask, and this was crowned by a wreath of alpen roses. Elisaveta stopped short and stared at this hideous vision, as well she might. Margia suppressed an evident tendency to giggle, and said in a deep voice, ‘Hail, maiden! Who art thou?’