04 The Head Girl of the Chalet School (16 page)

Simone regarded Jo very shyly. She had not been near her idol since that unlucky Friday when Johad quarrelled with everybody in her disappointment. Jo, with a feeling of reproach – after all, it hadn’t been Simone’s fault that she had caught cold – made a point of being specially nice to her, and Simone would have forgiven her beloved Jo any crime, so things were soon all right between them.

In the afternoon they passed the time in the usual way, and
Kaffee
was taken by themselves as usual, the staff having a much-deserved rest over at Le Petit Chalet. The prefects were in charge, and Luise was in the kitchen with Rosa, the sister next in age to her – a treat always allowed the maid on Sundays.

After a while the talk turned on to the legends which surrounded the place. The Tyrol is full of stories of various kinds, and Jo Bettany had learnt as many of them as possible, with an eye to the future, when she meant to use them in the books she was going to write. Frieda’s father had been born and brought up by the Tiern See, and he had told the future novelist many tales, rejoicing in the deep interest she showed in them.

This afternoon, when they had finished their
Kaffee und Kuchen
, and had carried the china back to the kitchen as was the rule, the little ones insisted that Jo should tell them some of the stories.

“Tell how the Tiern See became a lake, Joey,” pleaded Margia Stevens’ little sister Amy. “I love that story.

I’m going to make a ballad of it some day.”

Like Jo, Amy had resolved to be a writer when she grew up, but her bent was for verse, and she had written some very pretty things already. Their father was foreign correspondent to one of the big London dailies, and the two girls had lived in many places on the Continent, leading a gipsy life till they had been sent to the school four years before this. Both were clever children, and their wandering years had given them a wide knowledge, as well as a fairly full vocabulary in more languages than little girls generally attain. Amy was a great favourite at school, where she had been baby till the arrival of the Robin. So when she clamoured for the tale, the rest joined in, and Joey, nothing loth, began at once.

“Once upon a time,” she said, dropping her voice to a mysterious undertone, “there was a great city where the lake now is. Its streets were thronged with citizens; beautiful houses rose on either hand; and in the centre was a magnificent church. Every week-day the streets rang with the cries of the merchants and pedlars; the clinking of the hammers on the beaten gold and silver work, which was the chief industry of the town; the shrill voices of chaffering women, buying for the needs of their households; and the clatter of wooden shoon on the wide pavements. On Sundays the golden bells in the church steeple called folk to prayer, and the songs of sweet-voiced choristers rose to heaven from the heart of these mountains, where men lived in such wonderful surroundings. But the day came when the great prosperity of the people made them careless of what they owed to God. They forgot Him in their eager seeking after wealth and pleasure.

Sunday by Sunday the bells called them to come to worship Him in vain, and things got to such a pass that the young lads used to play skittles in the aisles of the church even while divine service was going on, and the very priests themselves never said them nay.

“A good old hermit who lived near warned them that a judgment must fall on them as it did on Sodom and Gomorrah if they continued in their evil course, but they only mocked at him and paid no heed to his warnings. There came a Sunday when the sun shone down brightly on the city, with its ways thronged with people – men, women, and children all going off on pleasure bent. Save for the priests who droned out the Mass so carelessly and badly that it was an insult to God, none had been near the church except the skittles-players. All seemed well, and they thought they had nothing to fear. Then, even while the streets rang with careless laughter, a terrible thing happened.” Jo dropped her voice a full tone, and some of the little ones crept nearer together. “Water began to rise above the paving-stones of the church, and to wash about the feet of the false priests. The skittles were overthrown, and the players scattered in terror. But still the water kept on rising. It flowed out of the church now, and the houses were soon awash to the sills of the windows.

Terrified, the people tried to flee, but there was no safety for them. The water rose and rose with appalling rapidity, and, ere the sun had sunk to his rest in the flaming west, there was no city left. Where it had been was a still blue lake, cradled amongst the mountains, and nevermore did anyon see the wicked peo0ple who had forgotten God in the days of theior prosperity. Only on fine mioonlight nights, when the summer stars are glowing in the skies, if you row across the Tiern See ina boat, you may see, of you look down through the water, the gilded spire of the church gleaming up from the depths; and if you listen, you may catch fdaintly the chime of its golden bells, rockd to and fro by the current.”

Jo told the story well – it was one that appealed to her. When she had finished a deep sigh arose feom the listening throng of girls, and there were cries for more. So she told them the story opf the Barenkopf mountain, whoich was rather similar, and which taught the same lesson; only, in the case, it was a wicked baron who was punished by the earth on which his castle was built being raised upo to its present height, so that castle, caron, and all were flung down again into the valley, and some of the earth with them, till they were covered from sight.

It was very dark in the room, for someone had switched off the lights to give the tales more dsramatic value., and the fire in the stover had sunk to a red glow, which made the shadows big a fearsome. In their interest in Jo’s narrative, no one noticed that the dorr had opened and shut again, and it came as a terrific shock to everyone when someone came across the room asking on astonished tones, “What do you do, then?”

Wild screams arose at the shock, and Gertrud made a mad dive across the room to switch on the electic loight. When they could see once mpre, Marie von Eschenau stood before them, hjer eyes like saucers in her astonmishment. Never had she been welcomed like this!

“Marie!” cried Margia, characteristically the first to recover herself; “when did you come?”

“Just now – with papa,” replied Marie. “What is the matter with you?”

“It’s Jo’s fault,” returned Evadne. “She was telling us bogey-tales of round here, and we never heard you till we did.”

Marie laughed at this Irish speech, and kissed Jo, who was standing looking rather pale. She had succeeded oin frightening herself as well as her audience, and was slow to recover. “
Marie?
” she said. “I thought – I thought it was the wicked Baron Reinhardt.”

“Me, I thought it was the Devil,” remarked the Robin, who was still standing clutching Grizel, on whose lap she had been sitting.

“Well. It is me only,” returned Marie. “Papa has to go to Munchen, and she said that he would bring me with home today instead of waiting till tomorrow, as Tante Sofie does not wish to go home yet. Paula, I have here a box of bonbons for you from amamma, and some confitures from Tante Sofie.” She held them out to her cousin, who took them rather dazedly. “Also, Wanda had two betrothal cakes, and I have one for us. It is outside ion the auto.”

“Was it a decent show?” asked Jo, who was recovering from her shock rapidly now.

“But yes; it was very nice, and Wanda had on a new gown of white satin. There was a great feast and many speeched, and Wanda’s
Brautigam
has send chocolate for us all. I had a new frock, too – blue silk, and we were very merry. Mamma made Wolfram and me go to bed two hours before the end, for she said it was not fitting we should stay up all that time; but it was very nice. Wanda had many betrothal gifts, and she is very happy. They will be wedded in July, and Paula and I are to be her maids. Wanda wants as many of us to be there as possible. She and Frieda will come to see us next term.”

Having scattered this information on them all, she sat down by the stove and warmed her hands at the blaze which Grizel had just made. The otheres now came round her and poured out questions, demanding details, and wanting to know just how Wanda had looked and what had been said.

“Wanda would look like a princess from Madame d’Aulnoy,” murmured Simone sentimentally.

“Well, that’s nothing fresh for her,” said Jo amiably.

The rest agreed with her. Marie von Eschenau occupied the place of school beauty now, but everyone who had known her sister was agreed that Wanda far outdid the younger girl. She had passed into a sort of legend as far as the school was concerned, and was regarded as a real fairy- tale princess, of the good, old-fashioned kind-hair like gold, eyes like violets, and a rose-petal skin. The picture of her in her white frock with her wreath of myrtle, and the string of pearls her uncle, the Graf von Rothenfels, Paula’s father, had given her, was lovely enough to please the severest critic.

Herr Hauptmann Friedel von Gluck came in for a very second share of the interest, though Marie had assured the girls that he was very amiable, and handsome as a prince out of the
Marchen
.

“Friedel’s father is very kind,” said Marie presently. “He asked many questions of me about us here, and says he thinks it is a very good school. Oh, and Joey, he knows all this part, for he used to climb the mountains round here when he was a boy, and he says he knows there are some wonderful caves near. He says you reach them through a narrow opening in the mountains, and you go down and down till you come to them, and they are all glittering inside as if they are made of diamonds. He thinks they must be under the lake, for he says they pass on to another cave, where there are stalactites, very beautiful. But no one knows about them, for people are afraid to venture, lest the water should break through.”

“I say! How interesting!” Jo’s fancy was enchained at once. “What else did he say about them, Marie?”

But the others were not very enthusiastic, and refused to listen to chatter about caves. What they wanted was to hear more of the betrothal feast. So Marie and Jo had to put this piece of news on one side while the former told them all they wished to hear. Herr Rittmeister von Eschenau came to say good-bye to his daughter before they were satisfied, and Marie had to stop her tale, to kiss him, and listen to his commands for good work and behaviour. Then he had to say a few words to Jo and Grizel, whom he knew quite well, and pat Maria Marani on the head before he went off, for he wanted to reach Munich as soon as possible.

When he went out some of them went with him to rescue the spoils of the feast from the car, and then the bell for
Abendessen
rang, and after that the juniors were packed off to bed, and the middles had to follow half an hour later, for Sunday always meant early bed for everyone.

However, once they were undressed and in their pyjamas and dressing-gowns, Jo went through to Marie’s cubicle, and, sitting on the bed with the plumeau tucked round her, proceeded to extract all that had been said about the caves. It was not much, but it was quite sufficient to excite the imagination of the future novelist. “I wonder where the opening is,” she remarked, sitting with her knees hunched up, and her hair all on end as usual. “Wouldn’t it be a topping thing if some of
us
could find it? Just think! They might make a show place of it, and then they would need guides, and ever so many people would come, and the peasants would be able to make lots more money in the summer, so that they wouldn’t be so poor!”

She spoke with fervour, for four years in the Tiern valley had taught her how pitiably poor the peasantry were. They had only the summer in which to garnish their harvest. In the winter they had to live on their summer earnings, and often that meant hard living and being on the verge of starvation for most of them. In the mountainous regions the Tyrolese pray for a short winter, and a mild one. Otherwise, life is a bitter thing for them. In the summer most of the men are cowherds, taking the cows up to the pastures on the grassy alms which run like shelves along the lower slopes of the mountains, and live up there with them, many never coming down till the cows come down in the autumn. When winter comes they have to return to their homes in the villages, while the cattle are safely housed in sheds and byres, where one man can do the work that three or four do from May to September or thereabouts. They have no other means of livelihood, and in the little wooden huts, which are their homes, tragedy stalks near during a long or hard season.

Jo knew this. She had come near it herself one year, when a poor family had been obliged to drown the pups of their great St. Bernard, Zita, and had even spoken of shooting Zita herself. Joey had managed to rescue one of the poor puppies, and Madge had bought him for her. He was now a magnificent fellow, living up on the Sonnalpe, where he had more freedom than at school. The young headmistress had also taken care of Zita for the winter months, thus relieving the family of a heavy charge. After that, she had told them that if ever they were in such straits again, the big dog might winter at school. Since Zita’s pups, when they arrived in the summer, were a source of income, the people had gladly accepted this offer, and Zita had been at the school part of the previous winter. So far, she had not come this year, for the snow had come late, but if it continued for long the girls knew they might expect their great guest. Hence Jo’s eagerness over the caves.

Marie, however, was a girl of very different kind. She was by no means adventurous, and rather shrank from the idea of going down into the bowels of the earth to hunt for caves. “I would rather not, Jo,” she said.

“But perhaps some of the men might go.”

“Oh, but it would be gorgeous if our girls did it!” declared Joey. “It – it would be like saying ‘thank you’

for all they have done for us here.”

“Well, I don’t suppose we should be let,” said Margia, who had strayed into the cubicle to listen to the conversation. “Think of the fuss they made when Grizel went off up the Tiernjoch, and that wasn’t half so dangerous as this would be!”