01 The School at the Chalet (15 page)

It was such a pitiful existence the child had shown her in that little gasping, sobbed-out speech! She was furious at the letter, but she could not vent her anger on the girl kneeling beside her.

‘Don’t cry, Juliet. We’ll fix things up somehow. It’s very hard luck on you.’

With these few words she had won Juliet’s passionate allegiance, though she was not to find that out till afterwards. Now she turned to her host.

‘Herr Marani, I must think what to do. Perhaps you can help me. Meanwhile, Juliet ought to be at home-it’s getting late. Here is Gisela coming. I just want to know if you can tell me whether it would be possible to get on to Captain Carrick’s tracks. Could we wire them at Munich Station?’

Herr Marani shook his head. ‘I do not think he will have gone back to Munich. He is much more likely to have gone east to Wien, or else straight through to Paris. We can try, but I do not think it would be worth it.

Take Juliet home now, and I will think what is best to do. Yes, that is the best plan.’

Madge, seeing that it certainly was, got up, pulling Juliet on to her feet too.

‘Thank you, Herr Marani. We will do as you say. Come, Juliet, it is supper-time now. Stop crying, child, and come along.’

‘You will permit me to row you across the lake? ‘ said their host. ‘It is growing late, and the last steamer has gone.’

Madge thanked him with her prettiest smile. She was, as a matter of fact, thankful to have him with them, for he was right in saying that it was growing late. The walk along the lakeside road would be dark by now, and though, as a rule, the Tiernseer were a peaceable folk, little given to late nights or disturbances, still, there were many visitors now, and all of them did not bear the quiet character of the Tyroleans among whom she was living. The journey across the quiet lake to their own little landing-stage was distinctly preferable; more so, since she had been out all day, and was feeling tired out with exertion and the shock Captain Carrick’s letter had given her. So she fell in readily with the kind Austrian’s suggestion, and even meekly accepted the loan of a huge shawl belonging to his wife when he brought it to her with the remark that her gown was thin and that, on the lake at any rate, it would be rather chilly now. Juliet was muffled up in a similar wrap, and then they set off down the quiet road over which the occasional Châlets cast dark, gloomy shadows in the bright moonlight. Feeling the child beside her still quivering with an occasional sob, Madge slipped one hand from under her shawl, and clasped the thin fingers in a reassuring grip.

‘It is very good of you, Herr Marani,’ she said, addressing her host, ‘Indeed, I think everyone is kind in Austria.’

‘Oh,
bitte sehr
,’ he said, glancing down at her with a smile. ‘We should be a rude people indeed if we were not grateful to the lady who is doing so much for our girls. And we are not Prussians, you know!’

‘It’s funny,’ said Madge slowly, ‘but the only discourtesies I have met with have been from Prussians. The Bavarians I know are all delightful, and as for the Tyrolese, I cannot say how much I like them. But the Prussians seem to be filled with a hatred as bitter and venomous as vitriol.’

Herr Marani laughed. ‘We had a good example of that to-day. The little Grizel makes a worthy opponent.’

‘An opponent? Why, what do you mean? What on earth has Grizel been doing?’ demanded Madge with a feeling of dismay.

‘Oh, she was not really to blame,’ he replied. ‘It was a Frau Berliner who created most of the disturbance, and das Mädchen is patriotic-and hot-headed. Here is the boat, mein Fräulein. Will you sit in the bows, please, and steer?’

He helped them in, and pushed off from the land. When they were well away, he told them of Grizel’s encounter with the fat lady of Berlin, describing it with a good deal of humour, and glossing over Grizel’s behaviour as much as might be.

‘Oh, dear! I’m afraid Grizel has been dreadfully rude,’ sighed the young headmistress. Then, with a sudden change, she began to laugh. ‘I should like to have seen it, all the same! I can just imagine it! She is a thorough little John Bull-the result, I suppose, of never having left her own country before. Joey, my little sister, is much more of a cosmopolitan. But then, she has travelled fairly widely.’

‘It was very funny,’ agreed Herr Marani with a reminiscent chuckle, as he drew up by the Châlet boat-landing. ‘No, thank you, Fräulein,’ as Madge invited him to come in for coffee. ‘I must return. My wife is away, and the children will be expecting me. Auf wiedersehen!’

‘Auf wiedersehen,’ called Madge softly, as the boat shot out into the moonlight once more. Then she turned to Juliet. ‘Come, Juliet! It’s appallingly late, and you ought to have been in bed an hour ago.’

Juliet clung to her arm a moment, her face gleaming white in the dusk.

‘Miss Bettany, you’ve been awfully good to me! I’m so sorry I was ever horrid to you! If you’ll keep me, I’ll do my level best to help you and-and not be a nuisance! I promise you I will!’

Madge looked down at her with a little smile. ‘I shouldn’t turn you out even if we were in England, Juliet.

Certainly not in a foreign land. Your father guessed rightly when he guessed that!’

Juliet looked at her with an expression in her eyes which made the elder girl exclaim sharply, ‘Juliet! What are you thinking?’

‘I was thinking-oh, Miss Bettany, do you think they are really my father and mother? Do you think perhaps I am a foundling, and that’s why?’

‘Nonsense,’ replied her headmistress firmly. ‘That’s all rubbish, my dear child. Of course they are your father and mother! Now come along in, and then you must have some hot milk and go to bed and to sleep.

Come!’

She turned towards the house as she spoke, and Juliet, her mind set at rest on this point which had troubled her for long, followed obediently. At the door they were met by Mademoiselle, who was looking anxious.

‘I had begun to have fears for you,
ma chérie
,’ said the little Frenchwoman as they entered. ‘It is so late, and Juliet will be so weary. Go straight upstairs to bed,
ma petite
, and I will bring thee a cup of warm milk.

Go quietly, for all are now asleep.’

‘Yes, Juliet, go,’ said Madge. ‘Goodnight, child! Sleep well, and don’t worry!’

‘Good-night, Miss Bettany,’ replied Juliet. ‘And-and thank you.’ She turned and vanished up the stairs, while Madge and Mademoiselle went on to their sitting-room.

‘There is a cablegram, Marguérite,’ said Mademoiselle, as the English girl dropped limply into the nearest chair. ‘ Drink this coffee,
ma mignonne
. Thou art weary.’

‘I’m completely done,’ replied Madge candidly, as she opened the cablegram.

She read it aloud. ‘ ” Have nothing to do with Carrick, Writing.-Dick.” Oh, well, it’s done now! Read this, Elise, and see what you think of it.’

She tossed Captain Carrick’s letter across to her friend, and then turned her attention to the coffee, eggs, and rolls Mademoiselle had provided for her.

Meanwhile, the Frenchwoman read the remarkable communication with many ejaculations, but of horror and surprise. When she had finished it, she turned back to the beginning and read it over again.

‘But,
ma mie
,’ she cried in her own language, ‘it is villainy, this!’

‘Villainy pure and simple,’ agreed Madge. ‘As for that poor child Juliet, what do you think she had got into her head? That she was a foundling, and that was why they had done it. Apparently it isn’t the first time either. They did it once before in India, she says.’ And she repeated Juliet’s pitiful story, while Mademoiselle uttered little cries of sympathy.

‘Of course he is quite right,’ finished the girl soberly. ‘I shall most certainly keep her! But imagine the poor child’s feelings! Of course it’s a silly, morbid idea, and there is no foundation for it except this abominably callous treatment of her; still, that’s what she was thinking.’

‘Oh, there can be no truth there,’ agreed Mademoiselle. ‘There is a most clear likeness to both parents. But, my Marguerite, have you thought that there will be now another mouth to fill and another body to clothe?

Soon it will be winter-already it grows colder at nights-and she has no winter garments at all.’

‘Well, what do you propose I should do?’ demanded Madge. ‘Follow the delightful suggestion he offers as an alternative to keeping her, and place her in an institution? You know you wouldn’t hear of it! No, I shall keep her. Next term I shall let her help with the little ones, so that she need not feel under too great an obligation to us. She can do quite a lot without interfering with her own work, and as she will be the oldest of our boarders, it need surprise nobody. Now I vote that we go to bed. It’s eleven o’clock, and I’m dead tired. What a blessing to-morrow is Sunday and we can take things easily! Light the candles and come along. I’ll put out the lamp.’

At the head of the stairs she turned before going to her own room.

‘Don’t let the others know about this,’ she said earnestly. ‘It would make it so dreadfully uncomfortable for Juliet. I will go and see her to-morrow early, and warn her to say nothing.
Bonne nuit
, Elise.’

‘Bonne nuit, ma mie. Le bon Dieu te garde,’ responded Mademoiselle.

Then they went to their own rooms, and presently darkness and silence reigned over the Châlet.

Chapter 15.

Sunday.

The boarders of the Châlet School always declared that Sunday was quite one of the best days of the week. To begin with, they could stay in bed until nine o’clock if they were so minded. Then, after their breakfast of coffee, rolls, and honey, they all assembled in the meadow which ran up from the lake edge to the pine wood, and Madge read aloud to them for an hour. The Catholics generally attended High Mass, when it was celebrated, in the little whitewashed chapel which stood near the Kron Prinz Karl; but as the priest had also to minister to Torteswald and Buchau, the service was held only once in three weeks. After the reading, they were allowed to wander about as they liked, so long as they kept within call, and they were summoned to dinner at twelve o’clock. In the afternoon, they generally took books and lay outside, reading, or talking quietly, or sleeping; and in the evening, Madge took the English Church girls, and Mademoiselle the Catholics, and they had quiet talks which never lasted more than an hour. Then they were once more free to do as they pleased until Marie’s bell called them to supper and bed.

‘We have such gentle Sundays,’ Margia Stevens had once written in a letter to her mother, and the quaint epithet exactly expressed the feeling all the girls had for it.

On this particular Sunday, the first person to awaken was Jo Bettany. She had a funny trick of opening her eyes to their widest extent and then sitting bolt upright, wide awake in an instant. This morning, as she sat up in her little wooden bed, gazing straight out of the window, she suddenly remembered Madge’s expression as she had read Captain Carrick’s letter the night before, and her hands clenched.

‘If he’s worried Madge, I-I’ll take it out on Juliet!’ she thought. ‘I hate him- horrid man! Poor old Madge! I wonder if I could wake her? What time is it? ‘ She burrowed under the pillow and found her watch. Seven o’clock, and much too early to disturb anyone on a Sunday! Joey tucked it back and turned her attention to the book at the bedside. It happened to be Lockhart’s
Life of Napoleon
, with which Dick had presented her just before he had departed for India. The little girl was reading it slowly, a chapter at a time in order to make it spin out. Usually she became buried in it at once, but this morning she could not fix her attention on the woes of the great Emperor. The sight of the green covers of the book recalled her brother’s cablegram to her memory, and she began to wonder what news it had contained. Obviously it had been nothing serious, or her sister would have let her know before this. Perhaps the English mails had been late, and Dick had begun to worry about them. That had happened once before, and he had cabled them to know if they were all right.

‘I don’t expect we can cable from here,’ mused the little sister. ‘Someone will have to go into Innsbrück, I should think. Herr Marani or Herr Mensch would perhaps take it for us on Monday, but that would make it a long time for Dick to wait.’

At this point the sound of a light footstep aroused her, and, turning her head, she saw Madge come in, moving cautiously as she skirted the other beds. Her face lighted up as she met Joey’s gaze.

‘So you are awake!’ she said in low tones. ‘I thought you might be. Fetch your things along to my room, and we’ll dress and go out. I want to talk to you.’

Noiseless as any ghost, Joey slipped out of bed, clutched at her garments, and then tiptoed along to her sister’s room. Miss Bettany was standing in front of the mirror brushing out her long curls. She turned round as her small sister entered, and smiled involuntarily at the funny little figure in the yellow dressing-gown.

Joey’s hair, rumpled with sleep, stood bolt upright, and her clothes were crumpled up anyhow in her arms.

Her wide, dark eyes intensified the startled air this gave her, and so did her parted lips.

‘You do look a fright, Jo!’ she said in true sisterly fashion. ‘Now hurry up and get dressed. I had my tub before I came to fetch you, and I’ve filled it up again for you. Hurry! It’s all ready, and if you’re quick, we’ll have a jolly time together.’

Joey deposited her clothes on the bed and departed, to return in five minutes fresh and glowing from the sting of the icy mountain water. Madge was almost ready by that time, fresh and dainty in her plain white frock. She gave her little sister’s wild locks a thorough brushing, and then left her to make a raid on the larder. When she came back, bearing two large chunks of currant cake, Jo was ready, and her bed had been stripped and the
plumeaux
hung over the balcony. The Bettanys were not demonstrative as a rule, preferring to show their affection by deeds rather than words, so Madge understood what that act was intended to convey, though all she said was, ‘Here, catch! That’s all I could find. There isn’t any milk either, so if you’re thirsty, you’ll have to drink water.’