01 The School at the Chalet (24 page)

‘Where is Grizel, Margia? I should like with her to speak.’

‘Grizel’s in a row,’ replied Margia’s voice. ‘She vaselined the blackboards, and was awfully rude to Madame about it. So she’s not to be with any of us till she says she’s sorry.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry!’ said Wanda. ‘Poor Grizel! How unhappy she must feel at having been rude! But how did she dare?’

‘Goodness knows! She dares anything! She’s going to climb that old Tiernjoch some day, she says,’

floated up Margia’s clear notes.

‘Oh, but I do not think she can mean that!’ replied the young Viennese. ‘That is only talking, as Joey says.’

They moved on then, but the mischief had been done. Upstairs, in durance vile, the eavesdropper clenched her hands. So that was what they thought, was it? That it was all talk on her part? Well, she would jolly well show them! She would show them that very day! No, the next day! She would get up early, and when they came to find her she would be gone! She’d show them all what she dared to do and what she daren’t! She’d make them sorry they’d treated her like this!

Miss Maynard entered at that moment to tell her to get ready for a walk, and she had to change her shoes and find her hat. Throughout the hour and a half, during which they went round the lower end of the lake to Buchau, where they caught the steamer back to Briesau, she remained obstinately dumb. Miss Maynard made one or two remarks, then, finding her efforts vain, lapsed into thoughtfulness on her own part, leaving Grizel to herself.

When they returned, the young lady was taken back to her room, and Miss Maynard brought her a couple of books and her embroidery before she withdrew, closing the door quietly behind her. There was no question of locking her in; the door was merely shut. Naughty as she had been, it never dawned on Miss Bettany to think that the child would abuse the trust reposed in her; and in her normal frame of mind, Grizel would as soon have thought of trying to fly as of betraying that trust. But she was not normal at present. The one idea of ‘showing them’ filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else, and as she sat with
Henry
Esmond
open before her, Grizel was busily making plans for the morrow.

It would be an easy matter to get away. She must wake early-by four o’clock at latest. That would give her a start of four hours, since nobody was likely to come near her much before eight. By that time she hoped to be well on her way to the little Alpe or Aim half-way up the mountain, where herdsmen attended to the cattle who were grazed there in the summer. The question of food was rather a difficulty, for the one little shop the place boasted would not be open at that hour, and Grizel knew that bread and cheese was all she was likely to get from the herdsmen; and the bread would most likely be reeking of garlic, which she detested. Finally, she decided that she must save all she could from her supper. She hoped they would bring her plenty.

Leaving
Henry Esmond
on the table, she strayed over to the window, and stood with her head thrown back gazing at the great gloomy mountain. Joey Bettany, passing beneath with Simone on her way to tennis, glanced up and saw her, though she did not see Joey. Her mind was full of her adventure to come-for that it would be an adventure she felt sure.

Half-past seven brought Marie and her supper. Grizel’s spirits went up with a bound as she took in the bowl of soup, the rolls and butter, the large slice of
kuchen
, and the glass of new milk. The soup and the milk would do for the supper, and the rest she must put away for the morning. Perhaps there would be some apples in the kitchen. Things were going well for her.

Later, she heard the others coming back from cricket and tennis. Joey was talking. ‘Look! Alpenglück!’

she said, her words carrying easily on the still air.

‘Bother! ‘ Juliet chimed in. ‘No games to-morrow, then, and it’s Saturday!’

She heard no more, for just then the Head came in to say ‘good-night,’ and see that everything she needed was there.

Miss Bettany had meant to say something to her, but the hard, defiant look Grizel turned on her forbade anything of the kind. She realised that, in the girl’s present mood, discussion would be worse than useless.

‘Good-night, Grizel,’ she said quietly.

‘Good-night,’ mumbled Grizel.

Then the door closed and she was alone.

Chapter 22.

Grizel Runs Away

‘Saturday morning! Thank goodness, no lessons!’ And Margia heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Lazy bones!’ jeered Juliet from her cubicle, where she had been reading for the last half-hour.

‘The hols, will be here soon anyhow,’ said Joey Bettany. ‘Let’s hope it’s decenter weather than this! A horrid grey day! I do hate them so!’

‘There’s mist on the mountains!’ Margia had climbed out of bed, and was contemplating the Bärenbad, the Bärenkopf, and their fellows with pensive eyes. ‘Can’t see the top of old Mondy, and the Tiernjoch is lost!’

‘It’ll rain later,’ observed Juliet, shutting her book with a sigh for her disturbed peace. ‘We sha’n't even get a decent walk.’

‘Frau Mensch asked Simone and Grizel and me to tea to-day,’ observed Joey in rather muffled tones, since she was buried beneath her plumeau. ‘ I suppose we’ll go, but it’s rotten for Grizel. I wish she hadn’t cheeked my sister!’

‘It is quiet without Grizel,’ observed Simone, who was sitting up in bed hugging her knees. ‘And it will be not nice-I mean horreed!’ as a groan from Joey reached her-‘to have to say Grizel is being punished.’

‘Don’t you worry! They’ll know all about it!’ Joey assured her. ‘I saw Frieda’s eyes nearly jumping out of her head yesterday when she answered Mad-my sister! Where’s my dressing-gown?’

She scrambled out of bed, wriggled into her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, and vanished in the direction of her sister’s room.

‘It’s rotten for Joey,’ said Margia, who had gone back to bed again. ‘Madame is her sister and Grizel is her chum. Whichever she sides with, it looks mean for the other! I do think Grizel is an ass!’

‘I think so also,’ remarked Simone, whose English was becoming much more fluent. ‘And Grizel is not Joey’s only chum, Margia.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ replied Margia. ‘You’re simply silly about Jo Bettany, Simone!’

‘She is good to me!’ Simone was much more self-controlled than she had been, but her voice sounded tearful now.

Juliet noticed it, and interposed tactfully. ‘Jo Bettany is a splendid kid! I wish we had heaps more like her!’

‘So do I,’ said Amy, joining in the conversation for the first time. ‘She tells the most gorgeousest stories I ever heard!’

‘Whose turn is it to go first to the bathroom to-day? ‘ inquired Juliet, just forestalling Margia’s remark that

‘nobody ever says “gorgeousest ” but babies.’

‘It is me!’ said Suzanne Mercier in her shy soft voice.

Both Suzanne and Yvette had very little to say at any time, and their voices were so seldom heard, that, as Grizel had once remarked, they might just as well never be there more than half the time. Now, Juliet nearly jumped.

‘I always forget you two are there,’ she said. ‘If you’re going, Suzanne, you’d better toddle along. I can hear Marie coming with Amy’s water.’

She got up as she spoke, and fished out her bedroom slippers and rolled up her sleeves, preparatory to giving Amy her bath. That she should do it had become quite a recognised thing by now, and to Juliet it was a great thing that she could help even in so little, as some return for her Head’s goodness to her. She could never help contrasting Miss Bettany’s quiet acceptance of the state of things with the behaviour of her Anglo-Indian headmistress under similar circumstances. That lady had been mainly concerned about the loss of her fees. Of Juliet’s feelings she had thought not one jot. Juliet had not suddenly become an angel as a result of her present Head’s treatment of her. She was a very human girl; but she was deeply grateful, and since she was thorough in whatever she did, she was making valiant efforts to become the same sporting type of girl as that to which her headmistress belonged. This bathing of Amy, which had been a self-imposed task, sometimes bored her very much, but Miss Bettany’s thanks had filled her with a determination to go on, and, as a result, she was learning that a duty undertaken for love of a person isn’t half so tiresome as one which is thrust on one.

As for Amy, she had quite overcome her fear of Juliet, and chatted gaily as the elder girl sponged her down and then rubbed her dry.

‘There you are!’ said Juliet finally, as she finished drying between the little pink toes. ‘Now buck up and get into your clothes! Who’s in the bathroom now?’ she went on, raising her voice slightly.

‘Simone,’ replied Joey, who had come back from her sister. ‘I’m next, an’ then you. Oh, an’ Madame says go past Grizel’s door quietly, as she wants her to get a good sleep ‘cos she seemed so tired last night.’

‘All right,’ said Juliet briefly. ‘Stripped your bed, Joey? I say, I don’t think we’d better put the
plumeaux
over the balcony to-day. It looks as though there was going to be a splash!’

‘ ‘Twon’t come yet,’ said Joey the weather-wise. ‘Prob’ly not till this afternoon. It’s going to be a beastly day,’ she added, shaking her pillow vindictively. ‘I jolly well wish it was over!’

‘Joey, I am returned! You had better buck up!’ said Simone’s voice at this juncture, and Joey had, perforce, to seize her towels and hurry off.

Nobody seemed in a particularly happy mood this morning. The girls were subdued under the consciousness of Grizel’s disgrace. The staff was worried for the same reason. In the kitchen, Marie was accusing her small brother Eigen, who came to help with odd jobs, of having helped himself to the apples she had left in a big dish overnight.

‘Sixteen apples I leave,’ she scolded, ‘and now there are but ten! Where are the others, rascal? Thou hast eaten them! Thou hast stolen!’

Eigen, a stolid person of eleven, looked at his sister solemnly. ‘
Nein
, Marie,’ was all he said in answer to her accusations.

‘But I say thou hast! Who would take them if thou didst not,
junge Taugenichts
?’

‘
Nein
, Marie,’ said Eigen serenely. All he knew was that he hadn’t touched the apples, whatever his sister might say, and he cared for nothing else.

Madge, hearing the disturbance in the kitchen, went to discover what it was all about.

‘Why dost thou scold, Marie?’ she inquired in fluent German.

‘This rascal, Madame, he has stolen six apples-six.’

‘Good gracious!’ observed Jo, who had followed her sister. ‘He’ll be ill!’

‘
Nein
, Marie,’ observed Eigen, still as placidly as ever.

Marie turned to her mistress with outflung hands of helplessness. ‘You hear him, Madame! That is all that he says! He who has stolen!’

‘
Nein
, Marie!’ was the parrot-like response of the accused youth.

‘Wait, Marie,’ said Miss Bettany, checking the flood of exclamations which she could see to be on Marie’s tongue. ‘He is a good boy. If he says he did not touch the apples, then I do not think he did. Eigen, hast thou seen the apples of which Marie speaks?’

Eigen looked at her hopefully. He had quite given up expecting any sense from his sister. She had made up her mind that he had taken the fruit, and no amount of argument would persuade her differently. But das Fräulein with the kind eyes and the pretty hair was another matter. She had often shown herself to be very understanding. So he said, ‘Nein, gnädiges Fräulein.’

‘Very well!’ Miss Bettany turned to Marie. ‘I am sure he speaks the truth, Marie, and one of the young ladies may have felt hungry during the night and taken them. I will inquire, and, meantime, say no more about it.’

‘Bitte, mein Fräulein-’ began Marie, but Miss Bettany’s upraised hand stopped her, and she turned to go down to the cellar to fetch more apples, grumbling under her breath; while her young mistress left the kitchen, followed by Jo, who was wondering rather miserably how things would go that day.

‘It’s going to be simply horrid!’ she decided, as she attacked her roll and honey with considerably less appetite than usual. ‘Oh, I wish it was over!’

Inquiries about the apples did not solve the mystery. No one had touched them, and Juliet, who was a light sleeper, and who had, in any case, awakened early, was positive that no one had left the dormitory till the rising-bell had rung. ‘Except Joey,’ she added.

‘Joey came to see me,’ said Miss Bettany, ‘so that’s all right. Well, I’m sure that if Eigen says he hasn’t touched the fruit, he hasn’t. I imagine Marie didn’t count very carefully when she put them out. That’s more likely than that Eigen should have taken them when he says he didn’t. Now, go and make your beds and then get ready for a good walk. It’s going to rain later on, so you won’t get games this afternoon, I’m afraid. Jo, you and Simone are going to Seespitz to the Mensches, so you’d better not go with the others. Get your practising and mending done this morning instead of going for the walk, and change before
Mittagessen
.

Herr Mensch rang me up last night to say he was going to take you all for a motor ride up the Tiern Valley, and would be at the fence gate for you at two o’clock, so you must be ready. What he will do if it rains I can’t tell you!’-thus forestalling the question on Joey’s lips. ‘Now run along, all of you, and get on. Please go quietly.’

She had said grace previously, so they all got up and went upstairs in subdued manner. As she passed the door of Grizel’s prison with Simone close beside her, Joey heaved a little sigh.

‘What is it then, Joey? ‘ demanded Simone.

‘I don’t know. I feel as though something horrid was going to happen,’ returned her friend. ‘Sort of foretelling, you know! Spooky and awful! ‘ she added incoherently.

‘I do not understand,’ said Simone, who might well be forgiven for not understanding.

‘Oh, well, I can’t explain!’ replied Jo impatiently. ‘Come and make your bed!’

They were half-way through, when the chink of china on a tray and the sound of careful footsteps told them that breakfast was going to Grizel.