02 Jo of the Chalet School (20 page)

Two or three people, who were standing hear, heard, and turned to look. They all shouted with laughter as they did so, for a bigger contrast than Simone’s neat little black head like a well-polished boot-button, and Joey’s tousled, gollywog locks could not be imagined.

‘It certainly isn’t tidy for you, Joey,’ chuckled Juliet. ‘As for Simone, I couldn’t imagine
her
hair ever looking like yours. There’s no comparison!’

‘Oh, it is tidy – on occasion,’ returned Jo casually.

‘I should think it
was
“on occasion”! Pty it isn’t that oftener!’

‘No,’ said Gisela, who had overheard the last part of this conversation, ‘but neatness is a virtue that one may acquire. Therefore, my Jo, go upstairs and brush your hair, for the bell for
Kaffee
will ring very soon, and it is not polite to Madame that you should appear looking like that.

‘Oh, bother!’ grumbled Jo. ‘You Austrians
do
insist on your twopence-halfpenny worth of manner! My sister wouldn’t mind first day!’

‘No; but I do. Come, Joey! Make haste, or you will be late.’

Gisela spoke firmly, and Jo knew better than to disobey her; so she vanished upstairs, grumbling loudly all the time at the bother of having to do her hair.

‘Why don’t you get it cut like a boy’s?’ suggested Margia, who had accompanied her on the same errand.

Joey laughed and shook her head. ‘I tried that on last year. I went to a new hairdresser’s in Exeter when we were staying there, and told him I had been sent to have an Eton crop. He believed me – silly flop – and did it! If you’d seen Madge’s face when I got back to our hotel, you’d have died! It really was a treat!

Unfortunately, she took it awfully badly, and made me promise on my word of honour that I’d never do such a thing again. So I can’t. I’ll just have to grin and bear it!’

‘Get one of those round comb things, then,’ propose Margia, who was engaged in putting a gloss on her brown tresses.

‘Yes, that might do it; it’s a jolly good idea!’ Joey laid down her military brushes and regarded her head with approval. ‘It’s heaps better now, but goodness known how long it’ll stay that way. There’s the bell.

Come on!’

They fled downstairs, Jo with her hands clasped over her head so that she might arrive in the
Speisesaal
reasonably tidy. Unfortunately, she forgot the narrowness of the staircase, and banged her funnybone, which drew a low howl from her.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ demanded Margia, stopping short.

‘Banged my elbow!’ was the brief reply.

Margia turned back. ‘You poor old thing! It’s a simply sickening thing to do, isn’t it? Almost as bad as biting your tongue!’

Jo got up from the stair on which she had been sitting. ‘Come on – we shall be late, and Gisela is sure to say it’s rude to Madame!’

Margia wisely held her tongue, and they reached the big dining-room in silence.

By this time everyone had come except Grizel, whose absence seemed to make a huge gap. She was by no means one of the oldest there, but she certainly was one of the leaders. Miss Bettany had not yet made her a prefect, nor given her much responsibility; but there could be little doubt that she was one of the people who counted in their little world.

Gisela Marani voiced the fact for them. ‘It seems strange without Grizel,’ she said, as she poured out the last cup of coffee. ‘I hope she will return soon, Madam.’

‘I don’t know when she will come,’ replied Miss Bettany. ‘We must go on with the games without her, Gisela.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Gisela. ‘We shall have to appoint a new games captain for the time, until she returns.

‘There’ll be skating, too,’ put in Joey, now quite recovered. ‘The lake is bearing, and they say there will be no more snow for a few days. Marie says that if it’s still all right they’re going to have an ice carnival on Saturday night. They light up the Seespitz end with torches, and have huge bonfires burning on the banks.

One of the Tzigane bands comes up and plays, and there is dancing and feasting and heaps of fun. People come from all round to see it – from the plains, and up the valleys, and even from Bavaria. It’s fairly near the frontier, and everyone who lives round the lake takes in those who can’t get back, and they have Mass in the chapel here on the Sunday morning, and then go home after it. Marie says that sometimes the chapel is so full that people have to stand outside the doors. Doesn’t it sound
thrilling
?’

‘Yes,’ replied her sister, ‘it certainly does. – Mademoiselle, you have no coffee. -Joey, fetch Mademoiselle some more; and Miss Maynard hasn’t any cake. -Margia, bring the cakes, dear.’

They two did as they were told, but Joey’s face wore a mutinous expression which deepened as Madge quietly turned the conversation on to some other subject. Later on in the evening she had to go to the study with some books. Madge was alone, writing letters at her desk. Joey closed the door quietly, set the books down on a conveniently near chair, and went and stood beside her sister.

‘Madge,’ she said.

Miss Bettany looked up. ‘Well, Joey baba, what is it?’

Jo dropped down beside her. ‘Madge! Be a gem and say we can go to the carnival,’ she coaxed. ‘I want to see it ever so much!’

Madge laid down her pen and leant back in her chair. ‘Joey, I can’t say anything definite till I know more about it. I don’t intend for one instant to allow any of you actually to join in. There will be far too many strangers there, and I am sure it will be noisy and rough. But I will go over and see Herr Braun to-morrow, and ask him if it will be all right for you to go to Seespitz and look on. If he says that it will, then you shall go for an hour – all the seniors and middles shall, at least. But if he says
not
, then I’m afraid you’ll have to content yourselves with looking on here. If it were only our own lakeside people, I shouldn’t hesitate at all.

As it is, I’m very doubtful that I shall be able to let you go, even to look on.’

‘Oh, Madge!’ Joey’s voice was full of disappointment. ‘Nothing could happen to us! Why should it? And I do so want to see it.’

‘I’m sorry, Jo. I’ll let you go if it’s possible; but I can’t promise.’

‘If such crowds of people come, p’r'aps they’ll want the whole lake,’ suggested Joey hopefully.

‘Then you’ll be able to see from the dormitory windows,’ replied her sister. ‘Now I’m busy, and you must run away. Will you find the other mistresses and ask them to come and see me in half-an-hour’s time?

Gisela and Juliet can go over to Le Petit Chalet and take charge there. The juniors will all be in bed, so it will simply be a case of sitting over there till Mademoiselle returns. Now, trot!’

Joey left the room and devoted the next ten minutes to delivering her messages. Then she turned back into the little class-room where her own clan were roasting chestnuts – brought by Paula -and talking nineteen to the dozen.

‘Nothing doing,’ she reported gloomily as she flopped down on the floor between Simone and Margia. ‘At least, if Herr Bran thinks it’ll be all right, we may be allowed to go and watch; but if not, then we mayn’t!’

A chorus of groans arose. ‘Oh, what rotten luck!’ – ‘Would Madame agree if we all went and asking her?’

– ‘
Schrecklich!’ – ‘Pfui!’ – ‘Tristo!’ – ‘
Oh, Joey!’

‘It’s no use fussing,’ declared Joey as she accepted the chestnut Frieda dropped into her lap. ‘Once my sister says a thing, she jolly well sticks to it. But I think it’s mean. I want awfully to see the carnival!’

Finding her next chestnut difficult to peel, she put it in her mouth to bite a hold in it. The next moment there was a lout ‘Pop!’ accompanied by yells. The thing had burst in her mouth.

‘Ow! Water! Water!’ shrieked Joey, whose tongue was badly burnt.

‘What on earth is the matter?’ demanded Juliet from the doorway. She had been passing at the time of the mishap, and, hearing the noise, hurried to the rescue, quite convinced that someone was badly hurt.

They enlightened her, all talking at once, and she laughed when she understood. ‘Poor old Joey! No; don’t drink cold water! I’ll go and get some baking soda from Marie, and that will take ht stinging out of it.’

She hurried off, and presently returned with the soda, which she put on Jo’s tongue.

‘It’s got a
beastly
taste!’ said the patient disgustedly.

‘Never mind. It’ll help the burning. -The rest of you clear up that mess of shells,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock, and you can’t go to bed and leave the room like that. Better now, Jo?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ said Joey, who was beginning to recover from her fright.

‘Then I must go now. Gisela is waiting for me. Your tongue will be a bit sore tomorrow, I expect, Joey, but it’ll soon be all right again. There’s the bell. Finish tidying, and then run along to bed. -Frieda and Simone, you’d better come with us.’

‘And I only had that one chestnut!’ mourned Joey as Juliet went off, accompanied by the two middles who slept at Le Petit Chalet.

‘Never mind,’ said Margia consolingly. ‘There are heaps left, and you can have your share to-morrow –can’t she, Paula?’

‘Please, yes,’ said Paula shyly.

Then they all trooped off to bed, but that chestnut had helped on something that was beginning to simmer in Joey’s brain; and that something was to have direful results.

The fiat had gone forth. There was to be no ice carnival for the pupils of the Chalet School. Herr Braun’s horror when he heard Madge’s queries on the subject quite settled that.

‘But the ice carnival for
die Mädchen
!’ he had exclaimed. ‘Oh, no,
gnädiges Fraulein
– it can never be! It is not becoming for young ladies. People come from far and near, and with them they bring beer and
Schnapse
. That is bad, for they take to much, and there is much roughness and horseplay on the ice.

Sometimes there are quarrels, and then we have fighting. Oh no,
mein Fraulein
! But you and
die Mädchen
must lock the doors, and shutter the windows, and go not out at all!’

Madge looked troubled. ‘Do you think it possible that our part of the lake may in use?’ she asked.

Herr Braun waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I cannot say. It is probably, I think. But I will speak to those who build the bonfires, and ask that one is not placed near the Chalet. That will keep the skaters away. Also, I will have the fencing of the land finished, and we will put very strong padlocks on the gate; but it is all that I can do. At least,
mein Fraulein
, this occurs but once in the year, and it is quite possible that the better people only will come to your side of the lake. The wilder ones will stay at the Seespitz end, where there will be many bonfires and much light.’

‘You are very good, Herr Braun,’ said Madge gratefully. ‘I shall certainly not allow the girls to go outside after nightfall on Saturday, and the fence will be a great protection.

Then she had skated back across the lake to issue her commands, while Herr Braun sent his men to get on with the fence, with which he was enclosing the Chalet School and its ground. The posts had been driven in before the snow came, and a part of the wither-weaving, which was to build up the fence, had been done.

Now the men were set to continue the weaving; and by Friday it was finished; and the Chalet, Le Petit Chalet, the shed, and the cricket-ground and tennis-courts were safely enclosed within a six-foot barrier, which not only shut the school out from curious eyes, but also cut off interesting sights from inattentive pupils – a rather necessary thing.

Miss Bettany issued her commands; but she omitted to give any reason for them, which was a mistake where one or two of her pupils were concerned. People like her own small sister are usually quite contented to obey orders if a reason is given to them; and Jo had been in many ways treated from a grown-up point of view. Because Madge had chosen to give no explanation of her edict, Joey became restless, irritable and, finally, downright rebellious.

‘It’s a mean shame!’ she declared to her own special coterie of friends, which consisted of Margia, Simone, Frieda, Marie von Eschenau, and Paula von Rothenfels.

‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t go!’

‘But it is Madame’s desire that we do not,’ said Marie, who was a law-abiding little soul.

‘I don’t care,’ retorted Jo angrily. ‘I’m going! And I don’t care who says what!’

The others gazed at her in awe-stricken silence – all except Margia.
She
flashed a funny little look at the recalcitrant one. Joey flushed pink.

‘I mean it,’ she said defiantly.

‘It won’t be running away, will it?’ queried Margia.

‘No; of course not. We’re only going for a short while – just to see what it’s like -then we’ll come back and own up.’

‘But – will not Madame be very angry?’ asked Marie doubtfully.

Up went Jo’s head. ‘Of course, if you’re
afraid
!’ she said scornfully.

Marie was; but she had her fair share of pride, so she retorted, ‘I have
not
fear!

But Madame will be very angry, and she will also be hurt, and that I do not like!’

If Jo’s tongue had been all right, the chances are that the last part of Marie’s final remark might have carried weight. As it was, she had nearly bitten it in her last speech, and as it was still sore, it hurt considerably. So, instead of yielding, she merely snapped, ‘Don’t come, then! We can manage without you!’ Then she faced on to the others. ‘Any more funks here?’

‘But I am
not
a funk.’ Marie was nearly in tears. ‘I will come with you, Joey,
of course
!’

The ‘of course’ slightly mollified Jo, and as the others all agreed without further argument, she calmed down considerably.

‘Right! Then we’ll fix up our plans and go. It’ can’t do any harm just to be on the ice for an hour or so; and we’ll own up the minute we get back, so it’s straight enough.’

It
was
straight – up to a point. What Joey wouldn’t and the others didn’t see was that it wasn’t straight right through. It was all very well to say it was a ‘sporting’ thing to do – this was one of Jo’s arguments –but they all felt more or less uncomfortable about it.