02 Jo of the Chalet School (13 page)

It was slender enough, but it was gracefully written, with a certain sense of humour to flavour it. All things considered, it was a remarkable thing for a schoolgirl to have produced. Madge Bettany read it with wonder. She had always known that her little sister was gifted in this way, but she had no idea that the gift was so unusual. In the years to come Jo Bettany was to astonish those who knew her, again and again, with her writings; but her sister never forgot that icy winter’s day at the Tiern See when she first discovered that the family baby was going to write.

The other story, and account of the adventures of an old trunk, had been written by Bette Rincini, and was quiet well done, though there was nothing to distinguish it from similar work by most clever schoolgirls.

Bette had a marvellous command over the English language, and the little tale ran easily, and was told with a humour and freshness which made it very readable.

The Poetry Corner came next, and the
Chaletian
discovered the interesting fact that the Chalet School contained quite a number of would-be poets. Like the stories, all the verses were unsigned, but it was a comparatively easy matter to name the writers.

Rosalie Dene, an otherwise undistinguished member of the school, had sent in some pretty lines on

‘Roses’; Gisela had contributed a couple of stanzas on Spring; and Gertrud had given a very charming work picture of the lake. The surprise of this page lay in four lines entitled ‘A Rime.’

Lilies in the garden; roses on the wall;

Apples in the orchard – there’s plenty for us all.

Some prefer the apples, and some prefer the rose;

But I always think the lily is the fairest flower that grows.

‘Who wrote that, Joey?’ queried her sister. ‘It’s rather pretty.’

Which is?’ demanded Joey, rousing up from her rapture at first seeing herself in print with some difficulty.

‘The little verse called “A Rime,”‘ replied Miss Bettany.

‘That? Oh, Amy Stevens sent it in.’

‘
Amy!
Jo! Are you
sure
?’

‘Of course I am!’ Jo sounded distinctly injured.

Miss Bettany made haste to apologise for her seeming doubt. ‘I’m sorry, Joey; but – well – it’s very good for such a little girl. She’s only eight!’

‘Yes; it
is
decent, isn’t it?’ observed the editor complacently as she turned to the Correspondence Page, and then, finally, the Head’s letter. ‘I say. I don’t want to buck, but don’t you think it’s a good mag. for our first, everyone?’

A chorus of assent answered her. They were all agreed; it
was
a good magazine for the first.

‘And,’ said Miss Maynard later on when she and Miss Bettany were alone, ‘it looks to me as though
two
of the contributors to the first number of the
Chaletian
will be writers some day.’

The head-mistress nodded. ‘Yes; at least I hope so. At any rate, we must see that they have every help and every encouragement.’

Miss Maynard collected her possessions and turned to leave the room. ‘When we are old women,’ she observed as she opened the door, ‘I expect we shall be proud to say that we helped with the education of Amy Stevens the poetess, and Josephine Bettany, the well-known novelist! There are a good many consolations in our profession!’

Then she went out, and left the sister of the future ‘well-known novelist’ to groan over a map of that young person’s, and wonder why Joey never seemed able to put in contour lines correctly.

‘Ow! You’ve upset my cards! You
are
mean, Grizel Cochrane!’

‘Well, you shouldn’t have them all over the place, then!’ retorted Grizel as she hastily stooped and began sweeping the postcards together.

She as stopped by a wild shriek from Margia. ‘Leave them alone! You’re muddling them up.
Oh!
and I’d just got them all sorted out!’

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Grizel impatiently, ‘but I couldn’t help it!’

‘Why don’t you pick them up in their sets?’ suggested Joey Bettany, looking up for a minute from her collection of crests. ‘It would save trouble later. I’ll help, shall I?’

She dropped on to all fours, and began gathering up views of Italy with great goodwill, while Margia, adopting her suggestion, collected Germany, and Grizel sorted out ‘pretty’ ones.

It was Saturday afternoon. All day, a fierce wind had blown from the icy north, and it had been impossible for any of them to go out. In England it is difficult to realise just how furious the great winds
can
be that in the winter sweep across the central plains of Europe from the Arctic regions. Even in Tyrol, with its mountain-ranges to protect it from the worst, the gales swirl down with devastating fury, and, of course, up in the mountains at the Tiern See, three thousand feet and more above sea-level, there as no such protection.

Marie Pfeifen, who ruled in the kitchen at the Chalet, shook her head as she listened to the howling of the wind round the house, and prophesied a hard winter. Even – it was possible – the wolves might come!

Certainly they would appear on the plains.

With the weather like this, the girls had to content themselves indoors as best they might. They had done country-dancing in the morning under Miss Durrant’s instruction, going through all they had learned, and then joyfully making the acquaintance of two new ones -‘Pop Goes the Weasel,’ a longways dance for as many as will, and going on to ‘If All the World were Paper,’ with its sung chorus and pretty figures in between the ‘arms to the centre,’ ‘siding,’ and ‘arming.’

In the afternoon Miss Bettany, with an eye to the needs of her staff, had suggested that the girls should bring their hobbies into the big double school-room, and amuse themselves quietly, while the mistresses retired to their own room for a well-earned rest. Nearly everyone ‘collected’ -in fact, there was quiet a craze for it this term. Most of the younger girls went in for postcards or stamps. Jo’s crests were unique, and so was her other craze -‘Napoleoniana,’ to coin an expression to fit it. She begged postcards, cuttings and photographs of the famous man, also of his possessions, his battles, and his family.

Grizel collected photographs of notable sportsmen, and also owned forty-seven postcards of the Prince of Wales and other members of Britain’s Royal Family. The elder girls went in for autographs, pressed leaves, and flowers; and Gisela collected feathers of various kinds of birds. Pretty Bette was quite a keen geologist, and was very proud of her ‘rocks.’ Wanda von Eschenau possessed a very good collection of copies of famous pictures; and Bernhilda Mensch had a large exercise-book into which she copied all her favourite quotations and extracts, a hobby in which her younger sister, Frieda, shared. Marie von Eschenau collected tiny models of animals, and at the present moment her corner of the huge trestle-table, at which most of them were sitting, looked rather like a zoo and a farmyard combined. The Robin, who adored these playthings, was curled up beside her, helping to arrange them.

It was left to Simone, in many ways the most colourless and unoriginal of them all, to have the funniest collection.
Her
craze was for paper dolls. She had over one hundred of these: some, the variety bought in boxes with their various garments all ready to slip on; others, figures cut out of magazines and books, and pasted on to cardboard. Many of these were celebrities, and Simone’s favourite game was to pretend that one was holding a reception, to which the others came. On this afternoon the host was General Pershing, and he was entertaining a large and widely-assorted crowd, amongst whom might be seen Queen Alexandra in her bridal robes; the late Emperor Franz Josef of Austria; Mr Charles Chaplin; Madame Sarah Bernhardt; Molière, the great French playwright; and Charles Dickens, a new acquisition, presented by Joey. The conversation of this very mixed assembly was funny in the extreme, when one realised from whom the various speeches were supposed to come.

These, with Marie’s animals, were decidedly the most popular of all the collections with the juniors, who would listen for hours to Simone’s plays if she would only let them.

Jo finished helping Margia gather up her postcards, and then strolled over to Simone’s corner, where an interesting interview was taking place between the two Charleses.

‘I’ve got a new one or you, Simone,’ she said, carefully extracting it from her crests album. ‘See! Isn’t he beautiful? King Richard II on his horse telling the peasants
he’ll
be their leader.’

‘Oh, Joey! How ravishing!’ cried Simone. ‘I have now
two
on horses; this one, and Tom Meex on Tony!’

‘Why not get a lot?’ suggested Joey. ‘Then you could have riding parties instead of these everlasting receptions.’

Simone looked rather indignant at this description of her beloved parties, but, before she could speak, Grizel made a suggestion which thrilled them all to the point of forgetting everything else. ‘I say,’ she remarked, ‘why don’t we have a Hobbies Club?’

A Hobbies Club!

There as an instant hubbub, for everyone wanted to give her views on this magnificent idea, and nobody was at all disposed to listen to anyone else.

‘What a tophole scheme!’ cried Joey, her good resolutions with regard to slang completely forgotten.

‘Grizel! But how charming!’ remarked Bernhilda.

‘
Splendid!’ ‘Wunderschon!’ ‘Epatant!’ ‘Magnifico!’
The various exclamations rose in a perfect babel of languages.

Grizel stood trying to look modest, and failing utterly. It really was a good idea, and she knew it.

They made so much noise that Miss Bettany came across to them from the study to inquire what it was all about. She was almost overwhelmed by their explanations, but at length she managed to gather something of what they were saying.

‘Start a Hobbies Club?’ she repeated, as she accepted the chair Gisela was offering her. ‘Well, I don’t know. Whose idea is it?’

‘Grizel’s!’ replied Joey.

‘Mine!’ said Grizel at the same moment, swelling with pride.

‘How do you propose to run it, then?’ queried Miss Bettany. ‘What are your aims?’

Grizel looked rather floored over this. Finally, ‘I – I don’t know,’ she said.

Joey’s black eyes flashed. ‘
I
do, though. You want us to have jolly times together with our c’llections, don’t you? An’ do proper swopping an’ see who can get the best, an’ have shows -’

‘Yes! And do all kinds of work too!’ Grizel knew what she wanted
now
.

‘Gisela and Bernhilda are awfully keen on embroidery, and some of the others make lace, and some of us wood-carve.
I’ve
always wanted to do leather-work,’ she added reflectively.

The Head nodded. ‘I see! Well, it’s a very good idea, and I see no reason why you should not carry it out.

You may have definite meetings from four till five one afternoon in the week, and, in bad weather, on Saturday afternoons if yo like. I propose that you all choose some handcraft, and work during the winter months -’

‘Oh! And have a show at the end of next term!’ cried Joey eagerly. ‘It’s a top –
splendid
idea!’

‘Oh, yes, Madame! We shall all like that!’ said Gisela enthusiastically.

Miss Bettany glanced at them. There was no mistaking their feelings. One and all, they were longing to begin. ‘Very well,’ she said briskly. ‘You may do it. We can’t do much this term, of course! Exams begin next week, and then we shall break up. But next term you shall begin in real earnest, every one o you, and I hope we shall have a good show!’

‘But what can
we
do?’ demanded little Amy Stevens.

‘You can make scrap-books,’ replied Miss Bettany without an instant’s hesitation. ‘We’ll get raffia as well, and you can learn to make mats and baskets and napkin-rings – oh, there are plenty of things you can do!’

The juniors, who had been hanging on her words, heaved sighs of satisfaction, and forthwith departed to the other end of the room to discuss their views on the subject. The head-mistress strolled out, and the seniors and the middles gathered together to decide what crafts they should take up.

‘Leather-work for me!’ declared Grizel. ‘I’ll make bags, and book-marks, and moccasins!’

‘I’m going in for fretwork,’ decided Joey. ‘I’ll cut jigsaw puzzles. It looks easy, and they make jolly presents. What’s anyone else going to do?’

There was a variety of ideas. Two or three of the elder girls meant to stick to embroidery; Gertrud Steinbrucke and Vanna di Ricci could both make pillow-lace, and had their pillows with them; some were interested in wood-carving, and others in sketching. Wanda von Eschenau proved to be the most original here, for she decided to take up painting on china. ‘A friend of mamma’s has painted a most beautiful dessert-service,’ she said. ‘I should like to do a similar one. I know it would not be so beautiful, but I think I could make one look very pretty.’ Wanda spoke with charming modesty; but, as a matter of fact, she was extremely artistic, and the others were quite convinced that she could easily paint anything she tried.

‘I wish there was something one could do with
music,
‘ said Margia Stevens discontentedly, ‘but there isn’t. I shall have to stick to knitting.’

‘Couldn’t you write a song?’ suggested Joey.

‘Oh, talk sense, Joey Bettany! Of course I couldn’t – not one that would be worth while, anyways. O

course, if I could compose anything like “Summer is icumen in,” or “Flora brought me fairest flowers,” I’d have a shot. But I can’t; so I’m not going to waste my time doing rubbish!’

‘All right; keep cool!’ said Jo soothingly. ‘I didn’t say you
had
to, you know – only
couldn’t
you? I thought as you were so swish – I mean
grand
– at music, you ought to be able to do something in the composing line. And I say, if you like, I’ve got a
real
musical idea for you.’

‘What?’ asked Margia unbelievingly. ‘If it’s anything like that toshy, song-composing idea of yours, I’d advise you to keep your brains for something else. -Maths, for instance!’