01 The School at the Chalet (8 page)

And after that the good-natured Austrian felt he had nothing left to say for the present.

Chapter 8.

A First Prefects’ Meeting.

‘Gisela!’

‘Yes? Do you want me, Gertrud?’

‘I should be glad if you would summon a Prefects’ meeting.’

Gisela put down her pen, which all this time she had been holding, and lifted a surprised and inquiring face to her friend.

‘A meeting, Gertrud? Oh, but why? Nothing has gone wrong?’

‘No,’ agreed Gertrud, ‘but I am afraid something will go wrong very soon.’

In her earnestness, she forgot the school rule which said that, during school-hours, and save in French and German lessons, nothing but English was to be used, and dropped into her native tongue.

‘Oh, Gertrud! You have forgotten,’ said Gisela reproachfully.

‘I am sorry, Gisela! I was thinking about the meeting,’ apologised Gertrud. ‘Shall I enter my name in the Order Book?’

‘No,’ said the Head Girl firmly. ‘It is not good for the Juniors that they see a Prefect’s name there. You had better report yourself to Miss Maynard. And now, tell me, why do you wish this meeting?’

‘There is mischief going on in the school,’ returned Gertrud, perching herself on her friend’s desk. ‘It is partly that new girl, Juliet Carrick, but I think Grizel Cochrane is making it also.’

‘How tiresome!’ Gisela knitted her black brows at this information.

During the seven weeks that she had been Head Girl, there had been no real difficulty to meet. This was partly because of the novelty of things to all the girls; but also her own personal character had a great deal to do with it. Miss Bettany had chosen wisely in choosing her as Head of the girls. Bernhilda made a very good second, and Bette and Gertrud were rapidly learning their duties as Subs, but the most reliable person was Gisela. She now collected her papers together, and hastily stuffed them into her locker, while Gertrud stood, looking out of the window at the meadow-land, where half a dozen of the Juniors were playing cross-tag, with Joey Bettany as instructress.

‘Ready?’ she said presently, turning her head. ‘Then shall we call the others? They are by the landing-stage.’

‘Yes. Would you ask them to come to our room, Gertrud?’ said Gisela. ‘I will await you there.’

Three weeks previously, Madge Bettany, after a long discussion with Mademoiselle and Miss Maynard, who had been added to the staff as mathematics mistress, had given over to the Prefects a small room on the first floor for their own.

‘Even if they have just four chairs in it, it will give them a feeling of being a little different from the rest of the school,’ she said.

Miss Maynard, herself a High School girl, had agreed, and the four delighted girls had, accordingly, that possession of which they had read so much in their English school-stories-a Prefects’ room.

Miss Bettany had explained to them that, beyond chairs and a small table, she could give them no furniture yet; but they had promptly joined forces. While Gisela brought some pictures and a couple of bowls for flowers, Gertrud produced a set of bookshelves which she had induced her brother to make; Bernhilda contributed a pretty blue and white tablecloth and a fancy inkstand, and Bette presented a little clock and a bracket on which to place it. Among them, they had made a dainty little sanctum, and Gisela always felt a thrill of pleasure when she was in it. They were very anxious to have things as like an English school as possible, and many had been the consultations over the question. In one book Gertrud had read of the ‘

Prefects’ ‘ notice board. Careful questioning had soon drawn from Joey all there was to know about this, and now a similar board hung over the bookshelves, with notices of various kinds on it, all written in Gisela’s pointed Italian handwriting, which, by the way, was much less clear than it had been when she first came, the reason being that she was trying to copy her headmistress’s pretty High School script. The two big bowls were full of Alpen roses, and on this sunny afternoon, it was as charming a girls’ room as could be wished.

The Head Girl pulled up the four chairs round the table, and seated herself at the head, paper and pencil before her. Presently there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and then the other three entered. Very smart and businesslike they looked in their school uniform, which every girl now wore as a matter of course.

Gisela looked at them with approval. The most English of English Prefects could not have looked more or so, she thought.

“Gurtrud tells me you wish a Prefects’ meeting,’ began Bernhilda, as she took her seat on Gisela’s right hand. ‘What is it that you wish to discuss with us?’

‘It is Gertrud’s idea,’ replied the head Girl. ‘She thinks that things are going rather-’

‘Wonky,’ supplemented Bette, as Gisela paused to search for the right word. It was a mystery to them all how Bette contrived to pick up so much slang and to use it so correctly. All the foreign girls were far quicker at English than either Grizel, Juliet, or the two little Stevens had shown themselves at French or German.

Joey having merely to renew her acquaintance with these two languages, already spoke fluently and even colloquially! Bette’s accent, too, was, save for a slight trill to her ‘r’s’ and a trick of giving each word it’s full value, almost perfect. The other girls spoke with a fair fluency, but even Gisela was sometimes at a loss for a word; Bette, never.

The Head Girl mow made a little bow to her Sub, and continued:

‘Apparently Gertrud fears that Grizel Cochrane and Juliet Carrick are about to cause trouble. Myself, I have noticed nothing.’

“But I have, said Bette composedly. ‘I quite agree with Gertrud, and I think Juliet Carrick is at the bottom of it.’

“Why should you think that?’ demanded Gisela.

‘Because, until she came, Grizel Cochrane never rebelled against our authority. But now she is tiresome,’

replied Bette. ‘She is even rude.’

‘How so? She had not been rude to me as yet. How has she been rude to you?’

‘I told her to go and put her shoes away,’ said Bette, ‘and she said it was sickening having fussy foreigners always at you.’

‘That was very rude,’ said Gisela slowly. ‘What did you do?’

‘I said I was sorry she looked at it in that way,’ returned Bette, ‘but as I was a Sub-Prefect and one of my duties was to see that the cloakroom was kept tidy, I was going to see that it was kept tidy.’

‘What did she say then?’ queried Bernhilda with interest.

‘Said I thought myself everybody,’ replied Bette. ‘I told her not to be impertinent, and saw that she put the shoes away, and that was all.’

‘I think it was sufficient,’ said Gisela quietly. ‘And you, Gertrud?’

‘Talking after the silence-bell had been rung,’ said Gertrud. ‘I told her to be quiet, and she looked at Juliet and laughed.’

‘What did Juliet do? Laugh too?’

‘Yes, and shrugged her shoulders. It is not good for the Juniors to see that in a girl as old as Grizel or Juliet.’

‘I don’t think you need worry about the Juniors,’ said Bette. ‘Amy and Margia would never behave like that, and Maria is too fond of you, Gisela, to worry you that way. Nor would Suzanne and Yvette. Giovanna will be good, because she doesn’t want a fuss with me, and I couldn’t imagine either Frieda or Simone doing anything but keeping the rules. Joey, of course, will do as she’s told too. It really is only Grizel, and she wouldn’t if Juliet didn’t encourage her!’

‘Well, I must make a punishment,’ said Gisela. ‘I am sorry, but Grizel must not be rude to the Prefects.’

She thought deeply for a minute. ‘I shall send for her and make her apologise to you, Bette, and you, Gertrud. Then I shall say she is to learn some German poetry in her play-hours. Yes, that is what I shall do!

Will you fetch her, Bette?’

Bette got up and left the room, to return ten minutes later by herself.

‘She refuses to come,’ she said briefly.

‘Refuses to come?’ There was consternation in Gisela’s voice. ‘But did you tell her that the Prefects wanted her?’

‘Yes,’ said Bette. ‘She just laughed, and said if we wanted her we could go to her; she wasn’t coming to us!’

There was a silence. No one had foreseen that Grizel would go to quite such lengths as this, and they were uncertain how to deal with it. It was, had they but known it, the testing-point of the Prefect system in the Châlet School. Had they given way, or taken no notice of the English girl’s defiance, it would have been

‘good-bye’ to all hope of self-government. Luckily for the school, Gisela Marani was made of too fine stuff to throw up the game weakly. To her mind there was only one course to follow, and she followed it.

‘I must report the matter to Miss Bettany,’ she said quietly. ‘Bette, will you come with me? She will want to hear what you have to say.’

‘Shall we wait till you come back?’ asked Gertrud.

‘Yes, I think it would be better, if you do not mind. We will make haste.’

The two girls left the room, and went down-Stairs to the sitting-room.

Madge Bettany, enjoying a much-deserved rest, looked up with surprise when, in answer to her ‘Come in!’

they entered, closing the door.

‘Well,’ she said with a smile, ‘what is it that you want? Anything wrong, Gisela?’

‘I have come to make a report to you,’ replied Gisela steadily.

Madge’s face sobered. ‘To report a breach of rules? Must you, Gisela?’

All indecision had vanished from Gisela’s mind now.

‘Yes, I must,’ she answered firmly.

‘Well, what is it then, dear? Sit down, both of you, and tell me.’

They sat down, and then Gisela unfolded her story, looking every now and then to Bette for corroboration.

Miss Bettany grew more and more serious as they progressed, and when, finally, they had finished, she sat for a minute or two without speaking. As a matter of fact, she had herself noticed a change in Grizel’s manner of late. She realised, of course, that after four years of such rigorous training as the child had had, reaction must follow with the greater freedom; but she had not expected anything quite so bad as this. She had no desire to punish Grizel, but this sort of thing could not be allowed. As for Juliet, she sincerely hoped that September would see her far enough away from the Tiern See.

‘I will send for her,’ she said at length,

‘Where are you? In the Prefects’ room? Very well, then! I will come back with you, and she shall come and apologise for her rudeness to you. I am sorry this has occurred, Gisela.’

‘I, too, am sorry,’ replied Gisela. ‘I wish it had not been necessary to trouble you with it, Madame.’

‘You were quite right to report it,’ returned her headmistress. ‘We cannot have this sort of thing occurring.

Will you find a Junior, Bette, and send her for Grizel? Then I will follow you upstairs.’

Thus dismissed, they left the room. In the passage they met Amy Stevens.

‘Please tell Grizel Cochrane that Miss Bettany wants her in the Prefects’ room at once,’ said Bette, while Gisela passed on in silence.

‘Yes, Bette,’ said little Amy. ‘In the Prefects’ room? All right.’

She ran off, and Bette followed Gisela upstairs. They were greeted by a duel of ‘Well?’ as they entered the room.

‘Miss Bettany has sent for Grizel, and she is coming here herself,’ replied Gisela.

A minute later the headmistress appeared, looking sterner than they had ever seen her before. She had just taken her seat, when there was a tap at the door, and Grizel entered with an air of somewhat forced defiance.

Left to herself, she would never have behaved as she had done. But there was a certain weakness in Grizel’s character, and she was easily led. Juliet Carrick was just the type of girl to exercise a good deal of influence over Grizel. In the first place, the child’s generous pity had been aroused by what she had seen and heard of Juliet’s family life. There was no doubt that Captain and Mrs Carrick found their daughter a good deal of a nuisance, and the girl had a most unhappy time. Then again, Juliet had grown up in the class of Anglo-Indian society that considers the English the only nation worth mentioning, and her training in a Hill school, where nine-tenths of the girls were Eurasians who looked down on their native cousins with a bitter contempt, had helped to foster this feeling. She had sneered at ‘foreigner Prefects,’ asserting that they could not possibly act adequately. Grizel was feeling sore at what she considered Joey’s extraordinary fancy for Simone Lecoutier-and all the time poor Joey would have given much to be rid of this friendship!-and she therefore followed Juliet’s lead, with disastrous results to herself, and to others later on.

Madge wasted few words on her when she appeared.

‘You have been rude to the Prefects, Grizel?’ she asked.

A mumble was the only reply. Madge took it as meaning ‘yes.’

‘You will apologise at once,’ she said coldly. ‘ I will allow no rudeness from you younger children to my Prefects. You had better understand that at once. Ask their pardon, and then do whatever they give you for punishment.’ There was a silence. ‘Come, Grizel!’

There was that in the headmistress’s voice which compelled Grizel to obedience.

Without raising her eyes, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry!’

Miss Bettany was wise enough to realise that it would be well to accept this. She waited till Gisela had accepted the apology, and had set the culprit a short German poem to learn. Then she said, ‘You may go, Grizel!’ And when the child had dashed away, she left the room.

As for Grizel, she had rushed off to the pine-woods, where she vowed, amidst her tears of shame and anger, that she would pay them all out for treating her in this way.

Chapter 9.

Simone’s Exploit.

If any of the girls had been inclined to defy the Prefects, Miss Bettany’s prompt action over Grizel Cochrane’s behaviour had put an end to any such ideas. The school was rapidly settling down, and the twenty girls who made it up already felt a great pride in it. All the day-girls stayed for dinner now, arriving at the Châlet by half-past eight in the morning and staying till six o’clock in the evening. Lessons began at nine and went on till twelve, when there was a break for the midday meal. At two o’clock they started work again, and went on till four. Tea was at ten past four, and then, from five to six, the Seniors did preparation and the Juniors practised. Twice a week Herr Anserl came up from Spärtz and gave music lessons to the more advanced pupils, while the others learned with Mademoiselle. Miss Maynard taught mathematics and geography through the school, and Miss Bettany herself undertook the English subjects. French, German, and sewing were Mademoiselle’s department, and she was form mistress of the Junior form. At present they had only the three forms- Senior, Middle, and Junior; but already Madge was looking joyfully forward to the time when she would be able to have at least five forms.