01 The School at the Chalet (25 page)

‘It’s awfully jolly to have your breakfast in bed,’ grumbled Margia. ‘I wish I had! Worth being naughty for! I say! What’s that?’ as a startled cry reached her ears.

Before anyone could answer her, there came the sound of hurrying feet, and Miss Bettany flung open the door of the dormitory.

‘Girls! Which of you has seen Grizel Cochrane this morning?’

A startled silence followed her question. Finally Juliet answered.

‘I don’t think any of us have, Madame. Isn’t she in her room?’

‘No. The windows are wide open and her clothes are gone! Are you sure you haven’t seen her?’

You could have heard a pin drop as they digested this information.

‘D’ you mean you think she’s-run away?’ ventured Margia at last.

‘Of course she hasn’t!’ exploded Joey. ‘She’s broken bounds, that’s all! An’ I think she’s a beast!’

‘Hush, Joey!’ said Miss Bettany. ‘Of course she hasn’t run away, Margia! For one thing, she has no money, and for another, she hasn’t anywhere to run to. But it’s very trying! I did think I could trust you girls!’

She turned and left the room as she spoke, leaving a startled group behind her. They did not quite know what to think. Up till this moment they had felt a good deal of sympathy for Grizel; and her brilliant idea of vaselining the blackboards had rather captivated them. But this was quite another thing. It was untrustworthy, and, as Margia said later, ‘not cricket.’ With all her wilful-ness, Grizel had never yet failed to play the game, and the shock of discovering that she could fail rather stunned them. Presently Juliet went back to her task of bed-making, and they all followed her example in a deathly silence that said far more about their feelings than any amount of speech could have done.

When they had finished, Joey and Simone went to their practice, while the others got ready for their walk with Miss Maynard. Presently they set off, passing Madge and Mademoiselle on the way, the one going over to Buchau to make inquiries as to whether Grizel had been seen about there, while the other was going down to Spärtz by the mountain-path on the same quest.

For some forty minutes Joey worked away steadily at her scales, her mind anywhere but on what she was doing. Suddenly she jumped up.

‘The Tiernjoch! ‘ she gasped. ‘That’s where she’s gone! Up the Tiernjoch! Oh, she was looking at it last night! That’s what she was thinking of! I must go and fetch her back!’

With Jo the impulsive, to think was to act. She dashed along to the cloakroom, tore madly into her mac.

and tammy, dashed into Simone, who was struggling with one of Gurlitt’s
Kinderscenen
, and gasped,

‘Simone, Grizel’s gone up the Tiernjoch! I’m off to fetch her back! You must stay and tell Madge when she comes! Good-bye!’

Before the astounded Simone had taken in half the sense of what she said, she had gone. Thus it happened that a distracted and worn-out Madge was met some hour and a half later by a tearful Simone, who sobbed out that Joey had gone up the wicked Tiernjoch to find Grizel.

Chapter 23.

On The Tiernjoch

To go back a few hours to the time when Grizel awoke in the early greyness of the morning is now necessary. When she had got into bed, she had banged her head on her pillow four times, saying solemnly

‘Four o’clock!’ as she did so. This is the best recipe I know for early waking, and Grizel knew it too. She woke up just as the old grandfather clock below chimed four times. For a minute she listened for the breathing of the others, then she remembered. She was by herself as a punishment, and she was going to climb the Tiernjoch that day. ‘At last!’ she thought, as she climbed cautiously out of bed, and, stealing across the room on tiptoe, opened the jalousies carefully. Luckily, every hinge in the house was kept well oiled, and they made no sound as she swung them slowly back. The dawn wind blew in chilly, and, if she had only realised it, bringing with it a foretaste of the mountain mists. In the sky a star or two still lingered, but soon they would have vanished, for the light was brightening with every minute. Shivering a little with cold and excitement, Grizel began to dress in the half light. She was soon ready, and then, picking up her electric torch, she stole downstairs in her stockinged feet to the kitchen to see if Marie had, by chance, left any food about. She found the apples on the kitchen table and abstracted six, dropping five of them into her knapsack and beginning on the other. There was nothing else, however, and she dared not risk opening the cupboards in case any of the doors should creak. Still, six apples, two rolls of bread, and a slice of Marie’s
kuchen
were not so bad, and she had a few hundred-
Kröner
notes, so she would be able to get cheese and milk from the herdsmen. She crept back upstairs, tucked the rest of her provender into her knapsack, and slung it across her shoulders.

The next thing was to get out. It would be madness to attempt to open the doors. What she decided on was almost as mad. The window of the room opened on to the balcony that ran all round the house. Grizel clambered over the railings, hung for a moment from the ledge of it, and then dropped. Mercifully, it was only ten feet above the ground, and she had learned how to fall easily, so beyond a bumped elbow she came to no harm. She picked herself up with a rueful face, and then proceeded to put on her shoes. Two minutes later she was flying up the path towards the valley at a rate that would have caused an experienced mountaineer to exclaim with horror.

When she reached the fence, the cows that were pastured in the valley were coming along, led by the big cream-coloured bull who was lord of the herd. Grizel sat on the fence, the fresh morning air ruffling her curls, her face glowing with pleasure at the music made by the jingling bells. The boy who was herding them looked curiously at her, but made no comment. Probably he thought that she was waiting for the rest of a party. When they had passed, Grizel set off again, this time at a reasonable jog-trot pace, which she knew she could keep up for some time. By this time the stars had faded, and the light was rapidly streaking the sky. When she had reached the tiny hamlet of Lauterbach, the last remnants of the darkness had gone and it was broad daylight.

A man was chopping wood for the fires outside one Châlet, and he was whistling a gay tune as he worked.

Two or three goats, tethered nearby, bleated at the sound of her footsteps, and a baby kid came skipping alongside of her, its head cocked inquiringly on one side, its yellow eyes full of innocent inquiry which won her heart instantly.

‘Oh, you darling!’ she cried, trying to catch him in her arms. But Master Billy was as shy as he was curious. With a terrified ‘Ma-a-a!’ he made a side-dash away from her, and raced for home and mother.

Grizel threw back her head, laughing gaily at the sight. The peasant looked at her, and grunted ‘Grüss’

Gott!’ She answered him, and then went on. All remembrance of the fact that she was in disgrace and had no business to be there had faded from her mind in her enjoyment of the morning. Even the actual ascent of the great mountain that hung so threateningly over the upper end of the valley was forgotten.

Like a good many unimaginative people, Grizel possessed the gift of living in the immediate present.

Where Joey and Madge would have been dreaming of the mountain summits and the joy of the hard climb, she was simply wild with delight in her present surroundings. As she swung along, she began to sing one of the folk-songs she had learnt in her English school, and the words of ‘ High Germany ‘ rang through the quiet valley :

‘Oh, Polly love, oh, Polly, the rout is now begun,

And we must be a-marching at the beating of the drum.

Go, dress yourself all in your best, and come along with me ;

I’ll take you to the cruel wars in High Germany!’

‘Oh, Harry love, oh, Harry, you hearken what I say,

My feet are all too tender; I cannot march away.

Besides, my dearest Harry, though man and wife we be,

How am I fit for cruel wars in High Germany?’

Oh, cursèd are the cruel wars that ever they should rise,

And out of Merrie England press many a lad likewise,

They pressed my Harry from me, as all my brothers three,

And sent them to the cruel wars in High Germany.

She finished up with a wild nourish of her stick, and discovered herself at the foot of a narrow path that wound up and up between bushes and rocks. A tiny stream trickled down far above her, looking like a silver thread in the cold light.

Grizel stopped and debated with herself. Should she eat her breakfast where she was, or should she go on till she reached the Alm where she would buy her milk?

‘I’ll eat an apple,’ she decided, ‘then I’ll go on. Coo! What a scramble!’

She sat down on a convenient rock and bit firmly into an apple. The sight of some berries near at hand sent her flying across to see if they were fit to eat. They were blue-berries, but as yet they were more green than blue, so she reluctantly left them alone and returned to her stone and her apple.

‘Jolly it is, early in the morning!’ she thought, as she flung the core into nearby bushes. ‘Well, I must pull up my socks and get on with it!’

Accordingly, she shouldered her knapsack once more, picked up her stick, and set off gaily up the narrow path, whistling cheerily as she went. Presently, however, the track left the bushes, and twisted about round boulders and over heaps of broken stones which she found tricky to negotiate. She had been right. It was a scramble! Up and up she clambered, unheeding of her legs and shoulders, which were beginning to ache with the unaccustomed exercise.

‘The Sonnenscheinspitze was a circumstance to this,’ she thought, as she toiled onwards, ‘and as for the Mondscheinspitze, it was a baby’s crawl! I hope it gets better farther on!’

Far from getting better, however, it got worse, and Grizel was forced to stop more than once to rest. ‘Oof!

This is some climb!’ she sighed, as she sat down for the third time to mop her streaming face. ‘However they get the cows up here is beyond me!’

As a matter of fact, the cows reached the Alm by a path which came over the shoulder of the mountain, and was much easier; but Grizel could not know that. Presently she set off again, and this time she succeeded in reaching the Alm. She nearly came to grief over the last few steps. The Alm itself overhung the path, and, in order to get on to it, she had to catch at a tree root and haul herself up. She was almost there when her hand slipped and she nearly fell. If she had gone, it would have meant a fall of twenty feet or more, for just here the rock had broken away. Luckily, she managed to scramble to safety somehow, and reached the short, sweet turf, where she lay with beating heart for the next few minutes.

Presently she got to her feet. With all her faults, Grizel was no coward. A weaker character might have given in at this point, but she simply set her teeth and went on. The Alm is a long one here, and the herdsmen’s hut is built in a crevice in the rock, so it was a good ten minutes before she reached it. The men had long since gone to their day’s work, and there was only a lad of sixteen or seventeen in the hut. He stared at her, but made no comment. When she asked for milk in her best German, he brought it to her in a big earthenware mug, and stood watching her while she drank it. Never had anything tasted so delicious to her as that draught of sweet milk, rich with yellow cream. When she had finished, the boy took the mug, saying in curiously hoarse, thick tones something of which she caught only the last words
ein Nebelstreif
.

Grizel did not understand, but she was not going to let him know that if she could help it; so she looked as intelligent as she knew how, nodded her head, and said, ‘Oh, ja-ja!’

Again the boy spoke, this time saying something about
keine Aussicht
. This, Grizel knew, meant ‘no view,’

so she shook her head this time, saying, ‘Nein, nein! keine Aussicht 1′ which seemed to satisfy him, for, with the usual ‘ Grüss’ Gott! ‘ he turned and went back into the hut.

Grizel looked after him doubtfully before she turned and went on her way. Walking over the short, springy grass was a treat after the hard, toilsome scramble over the rocks and shale. She had got her second wind, and went on joyously, munching an apple as she went. It struck her that it was getting rather misty, but she had no means of knowing the time, as she was not wearing her watch, and she supposed it to be the morning mists, which would soon disappear. It was then about eleven o’clock, as a matter of fact; and at the foot of the mountain Joey Bettany was eyeing the path up which her friend had come with dubious eyes. Ten minutes took Grizel to the far edge of the Alm, and once more the path began to wind upwards. It was easy going at first, but soon became more difficult. The mist-clouds closed in round her, and presently she found herself struggling upwards, surrounded by white walls of mountain fog, which hid the path from her and deadened all sounds save those of her own footsteps. She was plucky enough, but the deadly silence and the eeriness began to frighten her. Some of the terrible stories Herr Mensch and Herr Marani told them came back to torment her now. She was worn out, and the climb was becoming more and more difficult. Over and over again she was obliged to sit down and rest, and after each halt she felt herself becoming stiffer and stiffer. Then suddenly her foot struck a loosened stone and set it rolling. She heard it go a little way, then there was an awful silence, and at the same moment the clouds lifted just sufficiently to show her that she was standing on the edge of a precipice!

As the realisation of the fact came to her, Grizel felt the last remnant of her courage oozing away, and clutched at it desperately. If she had followed the inclination of the moment, she would have flung herself down on the ground and screamed. Luckily, she did nothing of the kind. More, she even tried to take a step or two forward. Then, as the mists came swirling back once more, she gave it up. She knew where she was, for Herr Mensch had described the ascent to her more than once. She had reached the worst bit of all. Here, for one hundred and fifty yards, the path, barely three feet wide in most places, and even less in some, crawled along the edge of a precipice which went sheer down to the valley below. On the other side a wall of stark rock rose, also sheerly, giving no hold of any kind. This was the part where anyone in the least degree nervous was roped, and it was where the worst accidents always occurred. What made things worse was the fact that she had no idea how far along she had come. With a pitiful attempt at self-control, she sat down, slowly and carefully, curling herself up against the rock-wall. Little shivers, partly of cold, partly of terror, ran up and down her. Lying there, with only a narrow shelf of rock between her and instant death, Grizel prayed as she had never prayed before. At first the words would not come. Then gradually the old familiar ‘Our Father’ rose to her lips. That comforted her. ‘Our Father, which art in heaven,’ she prayed aloud, the sound of her own voice helping to steady her. ‘Our Father, oh, send someone! Please send someone quickly. Our Father-’