02 Jo of the Chalet School (23 page)

Jo’s writing was not her strong point, and parts of the ‘book’ were almost illegible. Her punctuation was shaky, and her spelling frequently verged on the phonetic. But, for all that, the story was surprisingly good.

The characters in it were
alive
, and the young authoress showed a decided gift for description. Miss Bettany read on with chuckles, for the morals were all strongly pointed, and Jo as a moralist was rather humorous.

Dr Jem, dropping in casually as he often did now, demanded that a Chapter should be read to him. So, after some deliberation, Madge selected her Chapter and began to read. ‘”It was a calm and beautiful Sabbath Day. At Ion all were preparing to spend a happy day of rest – all, that is, save Harold Travilla. A sudden desire filled him to go swimming in the lake. He knew this would not be permitted, but, all the same, he longed to go. Suddenly, he wrenched open the window, flung himself out on to the lawn, and went racing across the velvety verdure to the lakelet that lay embosomed among trees and bushes, rich in summer dress.

On reaching the shore, he paused a moment, ere he dived into the cool, sparkling water -”‘

‘In his clothes!’ ejaculated the doctor.

‘I suppose so. There are no details given on that point,’ laughed Madge.

‘Go on; it’s most interesting. She’s caught the style of writing exactly.’

‘Yes; hasn’t she? – “Dived into the cool, sparkling water, and swam with strong yet graceful strokes to the other side, where he paused to rest for a while. Suddenly, on the other bank, he saw his mother. She had come to enjoy the beauties of Nature, and a pleasant smile lit up her beautiful face, which changed, however, to deep anguish as she caught sight of her second son. She could not fail to comprehend what he had been doing, and it grieved her unspeakably. ‘Oh, Harold, my son!’ she cried, while the tears rolled down her fair face, ‘how could you break the -’” Joey’s left a blank here. She evidently isn’t sure which it is,’ the reader interrupted herself to explain. ‘”‘how could you break the -commandment?’ Harold’s head drooped in shame and despair at having so grieved his mother. He flung himself into her arms-”‘

The doctor gasped. ‘How on earth did he manage it? I thought they were on opposite shores of the lake?

To say nothing of his being soaking wet. Miss Joey must learn not to scamp details like this, or she’ll spoil her writing.’

Madge gave a gurgle of enjoyment. ‘It
is
rather a rapid transition, as she leaves it! That’s like Jo, however; she rarely has patience for details. Shall I go on?’

‘Yes; please do. I am anxious to know if Harold’s mamma spanked him for spoiling his Sunday garb, or if she wept over his sins.’

‘Wept over his sins, of course! – “Her arms, sobbing bitterly. ‘Oh, Mamma! Mamma!’ he cried. ‘How could I be such a wicked boy as to grieve you like this? I deserve the very worst whipping a boy ever had, and I just hope Papa will give it to me! Please don’t cry, Mamma! I do love you so,
so
dearly.’ ‘I am glad to hear it,’ she said, smiling tenderly at him through her tears, ‘for I was beginning to be afraid my little son could care nothing for his mother’s love when he could hurt her like this and -”‘

‘Madge!’ Joey stood before them. ‘
Oh!
How mean of you! How
could
you!’

Madge lifted amazed eyes to the flushed face above her. ‘Why, Jo-,’ she began.

The doctor stopped her. ‘Joey, it was
my
fault. I very much wanted to see what you had made of it, so I asked Miss Bettany to read it to me. I am the one for you to be angry with – but I hope you aren’t going to be angry.’

The flush died out of Jo’s face; she looked at him in a puzzled way. ‘I don’t see why you want to read it,’

she said slowly. ‘Madge is different – she’s Madge! Why
did
you want to see it?’

‘Because,’ said the doctor, ‘I had read your fairy-tale in the
Chaletian
. It was very pretty, Joey; but any ordinarily clever girl might have imagined it – though she would not have expressed it in quite your way; that, I grant you. This is a totally different thing, and I wanted to see how you would tackle it. Even the little I have heard has told me what I wanted to know. You can vary your style to suit your subject, and that is a very great thing in story-writing. It’s early to prophesy – you are only, how old? Thirteen, is it?’

Joey nodded. She had never taken her eyes off his face once, and Madge was listening with the same tense eagerness.

The doctor looked at them. ‘You are very young, Joey; but I’m going to take it upon myself to prophesy after all. If you go on as you have begun, and work hard at grammar and literature, and all your other lessons, then, one day, you will write something really worth while.’

Joey’s eyes widened, and the slow colour flushed her face. ‘Do – do you really mean that?’ she asked in a breathless sort of way. ‘
Really?
‘

‘Yes; I mean it. It will be hard work, Joey, and hard work all the time; but if you go on you will do it.’

There was a little silence in the room. Then Jo, the undemonstrative, suddenly flung her arms round the doctor’s neck, and gave him a vigorous hug. ‘Oh – oh! Dr Jem! I love you!’ she gasped. -‘Madge, I
will
work – I’ll be an angel of goodness at my lessons!’ She released the doctor and collapsed into her sister’s arms. ‘Madge!’

‘You silly child!’ Madge scolded her gently. ‘You mustn’t get so excited, Joey baba. -Yes? Come in!’ as a tap sounded at the door.

Gisela Marani appeared. ‘Excuse me, Madame, but Miss Maynard wished to know if Joey had told you that pap is here, as he has to hurry back, and would be glad to see you if you can spare him the time.’

Madge looked at Jo speechlessly.

‘I quite forgot!’ said the future authoress.

joey and rufus to the rescue

January had faded into February before Grizel returned to school. She was a somewhat subdued Grizel, for her grandmother had died only the week before she came back, and the long days spent in the old lady’s room had helped to soften a certain hardness in her character.

She had also come back full of the Girl Guide movement. A company had been begun in the High School which she and Joey and Rosalie had attended when living in England, and most of the members of their old form had joined. Grizel, always interested in anything new, had learned all she could about the Guides, and she was very keen for Madge to start on in the Chalet School.

Mr Cochrane had bought his small daughter two of the handbooks,
Girl Guiding,
and
Girl Guide Badges
and How to Win Them
, as well as half-a-dozen story-books on the same subject, and she lent them all round among the seniors and middles in her desire to make the others keen. Many of the badges appealed to them.

Living in a mountainous district where ropes were in constant use, they saw the value of learning the various knots. The making of fires in the open, as well as the cooking and housewifery knowledge demanded for many of the tests, seemed matter-of-course to girls whose mothers did a great deal of the house-keeping and house-caring themselves. The Nursing tests did not appeal to them quite so much; but the Arts and Crafts they hailed with joy. Wanda wanted to take Artist’s Badge; Gisela felt a yearning for Basket-Worker’s and Embroiderer’s; Joey plumped for Book-Lover and Authoress.

The upshot of all this was that, finally, a deputation waited on the Head in her study and begged that she would let them start a Guide company.

Miss Bettany surveyed them consideringly. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘It’s such a fine thing, Madame,’ said Grizel eagerly. ‘It bucks you up and makes you smart!’

‘Also, I like the idea of learning to do so many useful things,’ added Gisela. ‘It appears to me that to be a Guide makes one also capable of much.’

‘And it will make for oneness,’ put in Juliet. ‘That is a big thing.’

Miss Bettany nodded. ‘Yes, Juliet; you are right. A sense of unity is one of the biggest things in life. So is all-roundness and smartness. But the Guide movement seems to me to hold even more than that – it gives you a big outlook, and strengthens one’s ideas of playing the game and being straight. And those are very big things indeed.’

‘Will you help us, then, Madame?’ asked Grizel. ‘May we have a company?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Head. ‘I had intended speaking to you about it before we broke up – which we do in three weeks’ time – so it is only anticipating things a little. We cannot do anything about it this term, I’m afraid. You must all work up for your Tenderfoot badge, and you can begin to learn Morse for your Second-Class. Next term we will begin in real earnest.’

There was a little pause. Madge could see that the girls wanted to ask her something else, but that they felt shy about it. ‘What else?’ she said, looking straight at Gisela.

‘Will – will you be our captain, Madame?’ said the head girl in response to the look. ‘We would wish it if you would.’

Miss Bettany flushed with pleasure. ‘I should like to be your captain,’ she said quietly. ‘Joey and I are going home to England for these holidays, and I hope to be able to go to an instruction course for Guiders while we are there. It will be difficult for me to get training otherwise, I am afraid. By the way, Jo does not know of my arrangements. Will you please say nothing to her till I give you permission. I would not have told you, but, you see, you have rather forced my hand.’

She smiled at them, and then dismissed them t go and tell the others that it was all right, and they were going to have their Guide company.

‘But what about
us
?’ demanded Amy Stevens. ‘
We
can’t be Guides, we’re not eleven yet.’

‘You can be Brownies – if Madame can get someone to be your Brown Owl,’ replied Grizel, finishing rather dubiously.

‘Probably Miss Maynard or Miss Durrant will do that,’ suggested Juliet. -‘I say! It’s half-past five and we ought to be at prep. Get the room ready, you people. Who ought to be practising?’

‘Me! Oh my goodness! Where’s my music got to?’ and Margia made a wild dash to the music-lockers, and then fled to the music-room and Czerny’s studies, while the other middles put up desks, and the juniors raced across to Le Petit Chalet where Miss Durrant was awaiting them.

Silence presently reigned over the big school-room, where thirteen people sat struggling with algebra, and French essay, and history; with Juliet, the duty prefect, sitting with them, and striving to prove something complicated in conic sections. Joey Bettany, taking a peculiar attempt at a simultaneous equation up to her for explanation, thanked goodness that
she
hadn’t such awful things to work out. She hated mathematics, and considered equations of all kinds an ingenious form of girl-torture.

Juliet, who
was
mathematically inclined, was rather horrified at the muddle Joey had made, and set to work painstakingly to help her to unravel it. Jo listened to her explanations with about half an ear, and then, having said she understood, went back to her seat, and proceeded to make confusion worse confounded, which resulted in her work being returned the next day, so that she was kept in after
Mittagessen
to have an algebra lesson to herself while the others went out for a romp along the edge of the lake.

Before the younger Miss Bettany fully understood what she was supposed to have done, both she and Miss Maynard were hot and weary; and finally the pupil remarked that she loathed maths.

‘Because you can’t do them – or, rather, won’t try,’ replied Miss Maynard scathingly. ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t understand them, Josephine, for that is all nonsense. Half your mistakes are the result of carelessness; and two-thirds of the rest are caused by inattention. You can do the straightforward simultaneous equations perfectly well – you got full marks for them last lesson. But as soon as I ask you to use your brains and set you a problem, you are thoroughly careless, and then say, “I can’t,” just as Robin Humphries might. Please try to remember that you are not a baby now! Take your book back to your desk and work out that example and the next
correctly
. And do think about what you are doing, child! You can work well enough when it suits you!’

This was so true that Joey was left speechless. She took her untidy exercise-book back to her desk, and flounced down on her chair with a scowl that said what she daren’t speak aloud. Miss Maynard ignored her little exhibition of temper, and went on with her corrections.

It was a glorious March day. Outside the sun was shining brightly, and a fresh wind was blowing the cobwebs away. Joey could hear the distant voices of the girls as they raced about on the lake-path. She could hear Rufus and Zita barkign too – Zita’s a deep bay; while Rufus still gave tongue with puppyish yaps. It was
mean
of Miss Maynard to keep her in like this. And Joey lifted her head to glare and the unconscious Miss Maynard, who was rapidly ticking Juliet’s beautifully-worked-out geometry with a sense of relief that, at any rate,
one
girl listened to what she said.

There was no hope of being let off; Joey knew that very well. She heaved a deep sigh and returned to
x
and
y
.

‘Finished?’ asked Miss Maynard, looking up for a moment.

‘Not quite,’ said Joey truthfully.

‘Hurry up, then! Ten minutes steady work will do it!’

Jo heaved another sigh, and then suddenly gave up the struggle, and went at it. Twenty minutes later she was racing along the lake-path like a mad thing, her coat flying open, and her hair tossing wildly in the wind. Grizel joined her just opposite the Kron-prinz Karl, where already there were signs of activity in preparation for the coming season.

‘I’ll race you,’ she said. ‘Come on! Over the foot-bridge and up to the fence and back!’

Joey shook her head. ‘I mustn’t race. My ankle’s still wonky – worse luck! I promised my sister I’d be careful, and she’s been so decent about it, I’d be a pig if I broke my word!’