01 The School at the Chalet (7 page)

Simone had remained glued to her side the whole afternoon, and it was beginning to dawn on Joey that she might have undertaken a friendship which was to prove rather tiresome on occasion.

In this order they reached the hotel, where kindly Frau Mensch was awaiting them with tea, accompanied by great platefuls of delicious-looking little cakes which, Joey knew, must have come from Innsbrück , since such things were unprocurable in the lake villages. She welcomed them cheerily, and soon they were all sitting round the table, while their hostess inquired, ‘Thee mit Citron oder mit Rhum?’

With a sudden shock Joey realised that she was being asked whether she would have tea with lemon in it or rum. She hated the one, and had no idea of taking the other, so she was not very sure what to do. Luckily, Bernhilda came to the rescue.

‘Oh, Mamma,’ she said, ‘I think Joey and Grizel prefer
Thee mit Milch
-do you not?’ turning to them.

‘Yes, if you please,’ replied Joey promptly.

Frau Mensch smiled kindly. ‘Of course, if that is what you desire, my children. Kellnerin,’ she called to the waitress, ‘bitte, Milch!’

The milk was brought and the tea was made, the Mensches taking it in the same way, though Frieda evidently disliked it. Towards the end of the meal Herr Mensch appeared. He was a big, jolly man, with fair hair and grey eyes, and, since he was in one of the big banks in Innsbrück , his English was much more fluent than his wife’s. His children obviously adored him, and he sat down, pulling Frieda on to his knee with a loud and hearty kiss.

‘What hast thou done to-day, Mädchen?’

‘I have studied my lessons for Monday,’ replied Frieda seriously, ‘and I have helped our guests to gather flowers.’

‘Such glorious flowers!’ put in Joey eagerly. ‘ I do think Tiern See is lovely!’

‘Thou lovest it already, Fräulein?’ He looked pleased. ‘It is my home-where I was born. I fished yonder’-he pointed at the blue lake waters-‘many a day ere I was thine age. I climbed the Tiernjoch when I was but eleven, and brought my mother home some edelweiss.
Ei!
But my father was angry! I had gone in disobedience, you understand, and his stick was ready for me; but my mother begged me off, and there was no punishment that time.’ He broke into a great roar of laughter, and the girls joined with him.

‘Why should you be punished for climbing the Tiernjoch?’ asked Grizel curiously. ‘Which is it, Herr Mensch?’

‘The Tiernjoch is dangerous for all but the most experienced climbers,’ he replied, ‘and the edelweiss grows only in one part, which is the most dangerous of all. Thou dost not know it,
mein Kind
? Come then, and I will show it to thee. We will walk to Buchau- canst thou walk so far? And Fräulein Joey, and the little one?-then we will go to Buchau, and from there I will name you the mountains, and all three shall see them.

Mamma’-he turned to his wife- ‘you will come too?’

Frau Mensch declined, however, saying laughingly that she was too old and fat for the walk there and back, and there would be no steamer for some time. So the others set off through the thick grass, listening eagerly while Herr Mensch told them about the time when he was a boy here, more than thirty years before, and the little lake had had no big hotels, but one simple Gasthaus to each little village, where the inhabitants of the Tyrolese towns used to put up for a night or two in the summer when they took their annual holiday, spent, for the most part, in climbing.

‘We did not then think of the hundreds of tourists from all countries who would come and visit our little lake,’ he said. ‘And now we have even a school!’

‘Papa, Grizel saw some English people come to-day,’ said Bernhilda. ‘They are at the Tyroler Hof, and there is a girl of our age. Perhaps she may come to the Châlet School.’

‘That would be very pleasant-another compatriot,’ he replied seriously. ‘But it is early yet for English visitors. They do not generally come till June is here. Now see, my children, there is the Tiernjoch, that large one who lifts his head into the clouds. In front of him stands the Bernjoch, and that one, to the side, is the Mittelberge-all very difficult to climb. That one that seems to watch over Briesau-see how he bends protectingly!-is the Mondscheinspitze, quite easy to climb, and there is a hut on the Aim where one can obtain milk and butter and cheese. We will climb there some day if Fräulein Bettany will permit it. It is a walk up the valley, and then it is very pleasant on the mountain, with flowers growing, and butterflies so tame, they will not flutter when one approaches.’

‘How topping!’ said Joey. ‘I should love that!’

‘I want to climb the Tiernjoch,’ said Grizel suddenly. ‘I like difficult things!’

The kindly giant-he really was almost a giant!-looked down at her with a smile. ‘Na-na, mein Kind! A good Mädchen will wait till there is time for a whole day and a guide. That cannot be until the summer.

Then, perhaps, it may be possible. But the little expedition up the Mondscheinspitze can be made on a Saturday, and we will take the herdsmen some tobacco, and drink of their milk, which is very rich with cream, and so come back. To climb the Tiernjoch one must start very early in the morning before the sun has risen, and climb for six-eight hours before one reaches the summit. But the Mondscheinspitze, that is a nice little climb.’

Grizel said nothing further, but her lips set in obstinate lines, and Joey, looking at her, felt assured that it would take more than Herr Mensch’s speech to make her change her mind.

‘I wish we hadn’t said anything about it,’ she thought to herself. ‘ I know Grizel will think of nothing else now, and I shall have to spend half my time trying to persuade her not to!’

How heartily she was to wish this thing before the summer was over Joey did not then know-which was, perhaps, just as well. Now she turned her attention to Herr Mensch, who was pointing out the mountains behind them, and naming them: ‘Sonnenscheinspitze, Alpenglückjoch, Maria-Theresienspitze, Wolfkopf, Schneekoppen. But these are not such mountains,’ he went on,’ as the Dolomites. Some day you will doubtless see those too.’

‘Papa took us there two years ago,’ observed Bernhilda. ‘We stayed in the Gasthaus at Primiero, and our cousins came too. It was very pleasant there, and they have many lovely flowers. You would like those, Grizel.’

‘Did you climb any of them?’ asked Joey.

‘Oh, no! The Dolomites are very difficult to climb,’ explained her young hostess. ‘But Papa and Onkel Paul used to go for days. Once or twice they took my brother with them–’

‘Brother! I didn’t know you had a brother!’ interrupted Grizel, somewhat rudely, it must be admitted.

‘Oh, yes; my brother is eighteen, nearly nineteen. He is at the University of Bonn,’ replied Bernhilda. ‘He will be a doctor some day, and perhaps I shall be his Hausfrau till he marries.’

‘Perhaps he won’t,’ suggested Joey. ‘I ,know Dick, my brother, says he won’t. He says the Deccan is no place for women, and he loves his work too well to give it up.’

‘Oh, I hope Gottfried will marry some day!’ said his sister earnestly.

‘We all hope that,’ said her father. ‘And now we must be returning, for there is quite a long walk, and the little one looks weary.’

He reached out a big hand and pinched Simone’s cheek as he spoke.

She blushed, and edged nearer to Joey, who felt suddenly cross with her. If Simone was going to be so idiotically shy, and stick to her like glue all day, Joey felt things were going to be tiresome. And why, oh, why didn’t she talk instead of standing there deathly silent?

‘It’s been awfully jolly of you to show us all these things, Herr Mensch,’ she said, with a surreptitious poke at Simone. ‘It makes it seem twice as nice to know the names of all the places; doesn’t it, Simone?’

‘Yes,’ replied Simone faintly.

‘We are going to go up the Bärenbad Alpe some Saturday soon and have cream,’ went on Joey. ‘Marie-Marie Pfeifen, who does the work for us, says that it is awfully nice cream; and it’s an easy climb, so we shall all be able to go, even the new little boarders. Did you know we were to have two new boarders on Monday, Bernhilda?’

‘No, I had not heard of it,’ responded Bernhilda.

‘Well, we are-Margia and Amy Stevens. Margia is eleven, and Amy is about the same age as Maria Marani. That makes five of us boarders, and p’r'aps we shall get some more.’

Suddenly Grizel caught her arm. ‘Look!’ she cried. ‘There are those people I told you about this morning that I saw going to the Tyroler Hof! See-coming this way!’

They all looked with interest at the trio who were walking in their direction-a tall, bronzed man, with erect, soldierly bearing; a small, slight woman, sallow of skin and fashionable of dress; and a schoolgirl of fifteen or thereabouts, whose most noticeable features were a pair of enormous dark eyes, and a long, fair pigtail swinging to her waist. She was walking slightly behind the others, and there was a sullen, unhappy look in her face. Just as the two parties met, the woman turned to her, saying sharply, ‘Juliet! Hold yourself up!

Good gracious me, child, you look positively deformed! Put your shoulders back at once!’

The sharp, scolding tones brought back her stepmother to Grizel, and involuntarily she shivered. Joey, noticing, slipped an arm through hers with a little squeeze. The girl Juliet looked at them curiously as she passed them. She had made no effort to straighten herself, and Bernhilda commented on this when they were out of hearing.

‘But how disobedient!’ she remarked.

‘I can tell you their name,’ said her father. ‘He is a Herr Captain of the Indian army-Captain Carrick. He came into the bank this morning to change some money.’

‘I don’t think he looks kind,’ said Joey. ‘What a pretty name the girl has-Juliet! Don’t you think so, Grizel?’

‘I thought she looked dreadfully unhappy,’ replied Grizel. ‘And how funny to have fair hair with those dark eyes!’

‘Do you think so?’ asked Bernhilda. ‘There are a great number of people living in Wien who are like that.

But as for unhappy, she did not do as she was told.’

Herr Mensch approved of this. ‘The young should always obey,’ he said. ‘Is it not so, my little Frieda?’

Frieda, who would as soon have thought of flying as of disobeying her parents, said in her shy, soft voice,

‘Yes, Papa!’

Grizel made a little impatient movement, but Joey’s hand on her arm checked any remarks she might have made, and they went on to the
Gasthaus
, talking about the mountains. The girls went in, and the three boarders got their flowers and said ‘good-bye’ to Frau Mensch, who was sitting placidly knitting some stockings for Frieda. She kissed them all, and told them to come back whenever they liked. Then, accompanied by Bernhilda and Frieda, they went out, to find Herr Mensch waiting for them at the boat-house.

‘Come!’ he said. ‘It is a long walk, and
die Kleine
looks tired! I will row you across to your own landing-stage. Bernhilda and Frieda, you may come too. Run, Frieda, and tell Mamma!’

Frieda ran quickly back, and presently returned, and they pushed off.

It was glorious on the lake. The day had been very warm for mid-May, but now, with the evening, had come a little cool breeze that ruffled the surface of the water into tiny ripples, and set the curly ends round Grizel’s face dancing gaily.

They rowed out into the centre, and then Herr Mensch rested on his oars, and nodded towards the mountain he had named for them -Alpenglückjoch.

‘Look! ‘ he said. ‘Alpenglück to-night!’

They turned and looked. As they did so, they saw the grey limestone crags flush into rosy life with the reflected light from the setting sun. All along the westward side of the Tiern See the peaks caught the glory.

It reflected on the silver thread of a mountain cataract high up in the Sonnenscheinspitze, and even cast a faint glow over the lake. For five minutes the wonder lasted, then it began to fade, and Herr Mensch took up his oars again and rowed them in leisurely fashion to the Châlet landing-stage.

‘It is beautiful!’ said Joey in low tones. Her imaginative temperament had been fired by the loveliness of what she had just seen. ‘I have seen it once or twice from the windows, but never from the water before.’

‘Yes, it is a glory,’ replied Herr Mensch; ‘but it always brings bad weather with it. We shall have rain tomorrow.’

He brought the boat up to the landing-stage as he spoke, and helped them out. Madge had seen them coming, and came running down the path to meet them. When the Mensches had gone and were beyond calling range, she turned to the three.

‘Girls,’ she said, ‘I have news for you! We have another day-girl. She is an English girl, whose people are Anglo-Indians. They have just come to Tiern See. When they heard of us, they came at once, and she starts on Monday. She is fifteen and a half, and has only been to school in the Hills. Her people are army people, and her name is–’

‘Juliet Carrick!’ burst out Grizel impatiently. ‘Oh, Miss Bettany, is it-is it? Do say it is!’

Madge looked at her in amazement. ‘Yes, it is,’ she answered; ‘but how do you know?’

They explained to her about the meeting near Buchau, and Grizel enlarged on the way Mrs Carrick had spoken to the girl.

‘I believe she’s her stepmother!’ she concluded.

‘No,’ said Madge, ‘she isn’t. Don’t get wild ideas into your head, Grizel. If they only came to Tiern See to-day, I expect they are tired, and that is why Mrs Carrick scolded.’

Grizel said nothing further, and Madge thought no more of it. But when Herr Mensch heard, he looked thoughtful.

‘I hope things will go well with Fräulein Bettany,’ he said to his wife. ‘I did not like that man-I do not trust him.’

And he resolved to advise Madge to write to her brother at the earliest opportunity, and see if any information could be gathered about these people who had come so suddenly.

However, when he spoke about it some days later, he found that she had done that very thing already.

‘I know it seems mad to take anyone so abruptly,’ she said, ‘but they were so anxious, and-well-somehow he persuaded me. And they have paid a term’s fees, of course, and if I find from my brother that she is not a desirable pupil, I can get rid of her quite easily by saying that we are full up. Anyhow, it is probably for this term only, as they expect to go to England in September; but they had heard of Tiern See, and thought they would like to see it, so they broke their journey home.’