03 The Princess of the Chalet School (9 page)

For these reasons, Miss Bettany was always careful to impress on the girls the necessity for good behaviour out of doors, and they generally were very good. To-day, however, they shrieked and talked and laughed at the tops of their voices, and, as Mademoiselle disgustedly told them, made as much noise as the peasants at carnival time.

‘But it is not
gentile
,’ she expostulated. ‘You must not shout thus, but speak in gentle tones, and softly. It is not well for you to make visitors think that we of the Chalet School are rude – rough – noisy.’

They stopped at once; their plan was never intended to harm their school. All the same, Mademoiselle was thankful when she had tem safely behind the fence. She kept a sharp lookout on them for the rest of the day, and as they saw no reason for moderating their tones once they were away from public view, she heard enough to satisfy her that it was a general infection.

There were more lines given, or course, but little the members of the S.S.M. cared for that! They went to bed, rejoicing in the knowledge that every single one of them had lost most of her free time on the morrow, and not only they, but a good many other people who had nothing to do with it. The force of continual example was too strong for most of the other middles and the juniors.

Miss Bettany listened in dismayed silence to the reports that met her when she returned from Innsbruck the next day.

‘I fear,
chérie,
that it is Matron whom we must blame,’ wound up Mademoiselle. ‘Would it not be possible to send her away at the half-term?’

Madge shook her head. ‘Not unless we pay her salary in lieu of notice.’

‘Then I think we had better do so,’ said Mademoiselle with unexpected firmness. ‘I would rather spend a few pounds and rid ourselves of her, than keep her and let her spoil the whole school.’

Miss Bettany said nothing. She rather thought so herself.

Mademoiselle had plenty to say on the subject, but what she was about to remark she never did, for at that moment Elisaveta passed the study door, and the two mistresses heard her say to the full pitch of healthy lungs, ‘I’ll go and bag the whole caboodle, Joey, old peach.’

Joey, shouting as if she were an irate skipper on the quarter-deck, replied, ‘All sereno, old fruit! Carry on, and I’ll follow!’

Miss Bettany looked petrified. ‘How
dreadful
!’ she gasped. ‘I must put a stop to this at once. Such language I will not allow; and as for the tones, I feel inclined to put them both in silence for the day.’

She stalked over to the door, opened it, and called the pair to her.

They came, looking as angelic as they could.

‘Did you want us, Madame?’ inquired Joey in flute-like tones.

‘Yes!’ said her sister. ‘I wish to remind you both that
no
gentlewoman ever shrieks her remarks for the whole world to hear. Also that slang of most kinds is forbidden here – most certainly vulgar slang of the kind I heard you using just now.’

Elisaveta looked at her with limped pansy-brown eyes. ‘Is “caboodle” slang?’ she asked. ‘I thought it was all right; I have heard it here.’

Madge fell into the trap. ‘You have heard one of the girls using such a word as that?’ she asked incredulously.

‘Oh no, Madame,’ replied Elisaveta; ‘it wasn’t a
girl
.’

Miss Bettany then realized what she had done, but she merely said, ‘Then please do not use it again. You may both go, now; and you may write out for me what Shakespeare says is an excellent thing in woman, thirty times. Perhaps them you will realize the truth of his saying.’

They went off, not noticeably damped by the punishment, and she shut the door behind them.

‘You are right, Maddle,’ she said; ‘Matron must go.’

Miss Bettany having come to the momentous decision to get rid of Matron at half-term, made up her mind to speak to her in the afternoon. She was busy all the morning teaching the seniors; seeing to the re-marking of the two tennis-courts; and discussing Margia’s music with Herr Anserl, who demanded an interview with her for that purpose.

The old Austrian was of the opinion that Margia ought to give at least another hour a day to her practice.

She was unusually gifted, and already showed signs of becoming a genuine artiste in future years. Madge expected that the Chalet would be proud to own her as one of its pupils when she went out into the world; but at present she was strongly of the opinion that what the child required most of all at the present was a thorough general education. Mr. Stevens was foreign correspondent to one of the big London dailies, and for the eleven years of her life Margia had wandered about Europe with her parents and her little sister Amy, who was now ten. During those years she had picked up knowledge where she could, and Miss Bettany felt that until she was sixteen, at any rate, she must not begin to specialize in music anymore than she was already doing.

Herr Anserl, whose whole life was bound up in his profession, did not see things in at all the same light, and he raved up and down the little study, proclaiming aloud that it was wrong to waste the child’s time with history and mathematics and darning when she was a heaven-sent genius.

Madge Bettany, who thoroughly understood him by this time, sat in her chair and waited smilingly for him to talk himself out. This he contrived to do in about half-an-hour’s time, and then she said what she thought.

He sighed deeply, but there was no moving the headmistress, and he finally went off, rumbling heavily in his boots.

She was about to send for Matron and get the unpleasant – she knew it would be unpleasant! – interview done, when the door burst open and Princess Elisaveta, with her face scarlet and her long brown hair flying wildly, literally tumbled into the room, followed by Jo, who looked worse.

‘Children!’ exclaimed Miss Bettany severely. ‘What does this mean?’

‘It’s the Robin!’ gasped Jo.

‘She’s locked her in!’ Elisaveta could scarcely get the words out.

‘Who had?’ demanded the Head, looking as if she could have shaken the pair of them with pleasure.

‘Matron has! In her room! She’s crying like anything!’ was the incoherent answer. ‘
Do
go and make her let her out!’

At this moment Miss Maynard appeared on the scene, looking angrier than anyone had ever seen Miss Maynard look.

‘Matron has locked the Robin into her own room, she said in hard tones, ‘and refuses to open the door for me or Miss Durrant. Will you please come at once, Madame, and make her let her out at once? The child will cry herself into a fit if it lasts much longer.’

Miss Bettany sped past them and up the stairs, where the few girls who happened to be in the house at the moment were clustered round the door, with shocked faces, while Miss Durrant, kneeling at the keyhole, called comforting words through to the child. The Robin was sobbing terribly. She was obviously quite hysterical, and Miss Bettany could heat the pitiful catches in her breath as she cried.

Matron was standing by, a key in her hand, a grimly determined expression on her face. Even when she saw the headmistress she made no attempt to move.

‘The key, if you please, Matron,’ said Miss Bettany.

Matron held it down. ‘Robin had been very impertinent and troublesome,’ she said. ‘She deserves her punishment, and I must insist that you leave her to me. I cannot possibly keep order if you interfere with my punishments, Miss Bettany. I am a much older woman than you, and I have had far more experience. I must beg you to uphold my authority.’

‘The key, if you please,’ said Miss Bettany in icy tones. ‘As for your authority, Matron, in this school, you cease from this moment to have any. I am waiting for the key.’

Matron had gone red, but there was something in the dark eyes fronting her that made her give up the key.

The next minute the door was open, and the Robin was safe in the arms of her ‘Tante Marguerite.’ She was a nervous, excitable child, and the experience had completely upset her. In all the seven years of her life she had never been treated like this. Miss Bettany carried her off to the study, and set to work to console her, but it was a long time before she could get the heavy sobs hushed and the child reduced to something like herself. When at length she lay on the couch, quiet at last, with only an occasional catch of her breath to show how violent the attack had been, the Head sent for a drink of water for her, and then carried her upstairs to her own room, quite worn out. She soon fell asleep on the bed, and then Miss Bettany descended the stairs, to find Joey and Elisaveta waiting for her at the bottom. ‘Come into the study and tell me what you know of this,’ she said. They followed her into the room. ‘What began it all?’ she asked, when they were sitting down.

‘Miss Wilson had forgotten her ref’s whistle,’ explained Joey. ‘She had left it in our dormy this morning when she came in after games with us. I banged myself, and she came upstairs to see that I put something on the place, ‘cos Matron was busy over at Le Petit Chalet. She asked the Robin to go and fetch it for her, and the babe said she would. Then Miss Wilson remembered that you had said that the little ones were not to go into the dormies at all, so she sent me after her to send her back and get the whistle myself. I was too late, though, ‘cos the Robin had run, and I couldn’t, ‘cos my knee’s rather stiff. When I got there Matron was shaking her and calling her a bad girl to break the rules like that. The Robin said she had been sent, and Matron told her not to tell lies. The kid was wild – she’s a Brownie, and, anyway, she never tells lies. She told Matron that she was rude not to believe her. It made Matron wild, and she shook her harder, and said she would lock her up in her cupboard to teach her to speak the truth. The Robin began to cry and said she
had
spoken the truth, and Matron lugged her along and locked her into her room, and then the Robin began to cry ever so hard. Elisaveta came along then, and we begged Matron to let her out. I said Miss Wilson had sent her, and she said, “A likely story!” ‘ Joey flushed darkly at this point, and the Princess took up the tale.

‘She was horrid to Joey, and when Miss Durrant heard us, and came and told Matron that you never let anyone be locked up, she was rude to
her
. Then Miss Maynard came and tried to make her let Robin out, and Jo and I came for you – and that’s all.’ Elisaveta suddenly ran down and wriggled in her chair.

‘I see,’ said Miss Bettany quietly. ‘Thank you, girls. That is all I want from you just now. You may go, and send the others to me.’

They got up and went to the door. She called them back. ‘You will, of course, say nothing about the affair at present.’

‘Yes, Madame,’ replied Elisavata.

Jo waited till she had gone, then she turned to her sister. ‘Did you mean what you said to Matron just now, Madge?’

‘Yes; I meant it, Joey,’ replied Miss Bettany gently.

‘I’m glad!’ Jo dropped on her knees by her sister’s side. ‘Honestly, Madge, if she stayed on, I don’t believe I could say my prayers.’

‘Joey! Joey-Baba! Do you realize what you are saying?’ Madge caught her sister in her arms.

‘I realize all right,’ said Jo. ‘I – I hate her, you know! I feel all sick when I think of her – I could have
killed
her this afternoon for treating the Robin like that and saying that I was telling lies! I never tell lies; and only a beast would be so piggish to the Robin!’

For once Madge made no attempt to check her for her language. She felt that it would be better for Jo to get it all out. The child was actually trembling with rage as she knelt in her sister’s arms, and she looked as no one had ever seen Joey look before.

A tap at the door interrupted them, and Miss Bettany got up and went to tell the others that nothing was to be said to the school at large about the afternoon’s occurrences until she gave them permission. ‘Matron will be leaving us shortly,’ she said. ‘Let that be sufficient for just now.’

Then she went back to her sister. Jo was still kneeling by the chair, and she looked ghastly, with her black eyes like saucers. Madge knew her to be over-wrought, and almost as worn out as the Robin. She let the child talk for a little longer, and then sent her off to the flower-garden with a book and strict injunctions to keep herself quiet for the rest of the day. ‘You can come and have tea with the Robin and me at sixteen o’clock,’ said Madge. ‘I shall take you both out on the lake after that, and you need not see Matron at all.’

Joey went off, feeling better for her outburst, and then Miss Bettany sent for Mademoiselle, told her what had occurred, and asked her to make out a cheque for the term’s salary for Matron. When that was done they sent for her, and after a most unpleasant interview sent her off to pack. It was too late for her to leave Briesau that day, but she was to go to one of the hotels for the night. Miss Bettany had decided that ths should not spend another night under the roof of the Chalet School. Herr Braun, of the Kron Prinz Karl, would put her up and see her to the first train down to Spärtz in the morning, and they would be finished with her.

Miss Webb made herself as nasty as she knew how, but even she was rather subdued by the tone in the young Head’s voice; and, finally, she took the generous cheque they gave her and departed to her room to pack up her boxes. Eigen would go and fetch his elder brother Hans from the Kron Prinz Karl to help him carry them to the steamer in the morning; and by six o’clock – eighteen by continental time – Matron had shaken the dust of the Chalet School off her shoes, and they were rid of her.

It would mean doing without a proper matron for the rest of the term, but Miss Bettany felt that she would rather go back to the first days of the school, and manage with just Mademoiselle and Miss Maynard to help her, than go on as they had been doing. During the two brief weeks of her reign the girls had been trying and naughty in the extreme. She had set them a bad example in respect to the mistresses, and their language and English accent had shown signs of deterioration.

Very little was said to the Robin that night. She was told that Matron had gone away and would not come back. Then Madge and Joey set themselves to amuse her and make her forget what had happened.