A Genius at the Chalet School

A GENIUS AT THE CHALET SCHOOL

CHAPTER 1

Sir Guy Rutherford sat glaring at the schoolgirl sitting at the other side of the table with a good deal of impatience. She glared back and there was furious indignation in the dark eyes that fronted him.
  "I wish you'd hear reason!" he said suddenly. "You're - how old? Fifteen isn't it? Very well, then. You're still at an age when what you need is school and a jolly good school at that!"
   She straightened herself. "There is no need," she said. "I have read and I mean to go on reading. But at my age, and if I'm to make music my career as I intend, I simply haven't time to waste on algebra and geometry and science and all the other stuff you seem to learn at school. I ought to be doing six hours' practice a day. And there's all the theoretical side of it as well - harmony, counterpoint, thoroughbass; and on top of that, sonata and fugue form. I've done next to nothing at those and honestly, Cousin Guy, they are
necessary
!"
  "But bless me, what's to become of your education if you spend all your time on that sort of thing?" he demanded irritably. "No, no, Nina! A couple of hours a day at the piano - or even three, perhaps, if you want extra. But seventeen or eighteen is quite soon enough to begin to specialize like that."
  "You don't understand!" she retorted. "I want to be a concert pianist - and I don't want to mess about at it. I mean to be in the first rank if I possibly can. That means starting young - almost as young as the great ballet dancers have to start. My father," her lips quivered and she had to stop to steady her voice, "understood. I used to give three hours a day to lessons; but the rest of the time I gave to my music. Oh, don't you
see
?"
   To be perfectly truthful, Sir Guy did
not
see. To his way of thinking, an education of this kind was ill-balanced in the extreme. He had not seen his cousin Alan for nearly fifteen years, since the latter had been seized with an incurable restlessness after the death, when Nina was a baby of eighteen months, of the wife he had adored.
   He had gone off, taking the child with him, and from then on they had wandered over a good part of the inhabited globe, rarely pausing longer than a year anywhere. As a result the girl was meeting a relative for the first time and she did not like the experience overmuch. Sir Guy was given to plain speaking and he had let her see that he was horrified at the way her lessons had been treated.
   He spoke now. "I wish to goodness my wife had been able to come with me and was here to talk sense to you! Look here, Nina, your father left me your guardian and that means that I've got to do the best I can for you-"
  "And that means letting me go ahead with my training," she broke in. "Dad saw that it was necessary. It was what he had wanted for himself, but my grandfather wouldn't hear of it and pushed him into the business. When he met my mother and they fell in love, Grandpapa was furious and tried to put a stop to it just because she was a concert singer. Well, he didn't succeed. Dad went off with Mammina and if he hadn't had that accident to his hand, even then he might have made something of his playing. But you can't do much when you've lost three fingers on your right hand. That was why he turned to composition and he made good there. You needn't think you'll have to pay for me. Dad told me years ago that there was enough money to keep me, whatever happened. He always intended that I should have what he had missed and he's given it to me!" She stopped to swallow hard. Then she went on, "You can say what you like. His plans aren't going to be upset!"
   Sir Guy was silent from sheer amazement . He had come post-haste to the little village on the shores of Lake Maggiore where his cousin had been living with his daughter when the news came that Alan Rutherford had been drowned, in the lake, trying to save the life of a child which had tumbled in. He had arrived too late for the funeral, for Mr. Rutherford had held no communication with his family after the death of his wife and it had meant going through his papers to find someone who could come and take charge of Nina. Sir Guy had arrived only two days ago to find that the young cousin to whom he was guardian and trustee had very clear-cut ideas about her own future, and refused to entertain any suggestion about the good school where his own three girls were and to which he proposed to send her after Christmas.
   He looked helplessly at the girl. She struck him as needing care. The white wedge of a face under the heavy black hair tumbling about the broad brow looked too small for the enormous dark eyes that were glaring defiance at him. She was thin to the point of lankiness and the beautiful, long-fingered hands with their square-tipped fingers showed every bone.
   Meanwhile Nina, having made what she considered to be the full statement of the case, was silent, too. Music was her life. From her earliest days it had been her greatest joy. Even when she was a baby, her mother could hush her crying by playing to her. At three, she had picked out little tunes for herself on the piano and at four, her father had started her himself. At first, he had refrained from saying much about her undoubted gift. He had seen too much of child wonders who flowered early and then vanished from sight. But he
had
seen to it that she practised regularly and had the finest teachers he could manage.
   As the years passed and it grew more and more clear what her future must be, he had seen to it that she knew all about the hardships and disappointments she must meet if she went in for concert work. Nina had early understood that she must work hard and that there would never come a time when she might rest on her oars unless she meant to give it up for good. She also realized that it was a hard life from other points of view, with perpetual travelling in weather of all kinds, requiring great powers of self-control so that no matter how unhappy or poorly she felt she should not disappoint her audiences. All the same, it was the life she wanted. She had willingly spent hours on exercises, scales and arpeggii that she might gain the technique which would enable her to interpret the works of the great masters. Already, she was brilliant, with a mastery of her instrument that was amazing in a schoolgirl. Her passionate love of her art gave her an insight that had brought from one of her most recent masters the remark that when life and experience had given her the understanding, she might reach the first rank of pianists.
   At the same time, she had missed a great deal that is commonplace to the average girl. She had never known the fun of school-life, nor the joy of playing for one's side. She had never had a great friend, other than her father. Games were a sealed book to her, apart from tennis which her father had taught her.
   One thing she had been saved. He had always flatly refused to allow anyone to exploit her gifts. He had seen too much of what can happen and, though she was far too old and serious for her age, Nina was free from any self-consciousness or conceit over her music.
   Her cousin dimly felt this. He realized that the girl spoke from deepest conviction and, to be frank, he had not the faintest idea how to deal with her.
  "Well," he said finally, "we can't settle anything now. The first thing to do is to take you to England. How soon can you be packed up?"
   Nina started and looked round with a hunted look. "Go to England? But - my father said we should stay here till after Easter."
  "Yes," Sir Guy said as gently as he could. "But things are changed now.
I
can't stay here - I have a job of work of my own and I must get back by the end of the week and I can't leave you here alone."
  "Why not? Signora Pecci would look after me and I should have my work."
  "
No
- and I mean it," he added. "Sorry, Nina, but it's England for you."
   He had the wisdom to say no more about school. Besides, he was sorry for the girl who looked at him with such woe-begone eyes.
  "But I don't see how I can possibly be ready to go so soon. And how on earth are we to manage about my piano?"
  "No need to worry about that. We have a very good one at home - and there's the cottage piano in the schoolroom as well that will do for you to practise on."
   Nina drew herself up. "But this is my own - my very own. Dad gave it to me last Christmas when Herr Braun said it was time I had a good one of my own for practice. I can't leave that behind."
   Sir Guy whistled. "I didn't understand. And I don't know where you'll put it, even if we can manage to cart it half across Europe and up north to Northumberland."
  "I'm not leaving it behind," Nina said decidedly. "It's mine - Dad's Christmas gift - "She suddenly stopped, swallowed, and then rushed out of the room, leaving him to rub his head and wish again that his wife had come with him.
  "Alan must have been out of his mind to bring the girl up like this!" he ruminated as he went over to look at the piano. "A Bechstein! And for a schoolgirl to practise on! I don't know what Yvonne will say about it. Oh, lord! What a mess it all is!"
   In the end, he had to give in. Nina flatly refused to move without the piano and, in fact, it was five days later than he had settled that they did manage to leave and set out on their journey for England.
   One thing happened before then. He came in from a stroll by the lakeside one morning when Nina was playing for her own pleasure and was amazed to find how she could play. His own three all learned, though Anthea had been promoted to a violin at her own request. Alix, the eldest, was considered to be good; but beside the fire and brilliance Nina put into a Brahms capriccio, she sank to the level of a junior schoolgirl. As for Alison, she would come nowhere, and he said so frankly.
   "I begin to see what you mean," he said slowly as he came to stand beside the piano. Nina looked up at him, her eyes alight and her cheeks glowing.
   "But you see, Cousin Guy," she said simply, "it is part of me as much as my breathing is. I couldn't live without it. I suppose for my cousins it is just another lesson they learn at school."
   Sir Guy sat down. "Play me something else, Nina. The men are coming to-morrow to box the piano, so it's your last chance for a few days."
   She turned back to the keyboard. "I don't know what you like. Beethoven - Bach - Scriabin - what would you prefer?"
   "Whatever you please."
   She played the first movement of the Moonlight sonata and followed it up with a Bach toccata and Debussy's "La Cathedrale Engloutie". He was more and more amazed for this was no schoolgirl playing but something of a far higher order. Under her fingers, the piano sang the lovely legato of the Moonlight and the Toccata called for an execution that even he could see was out of the ordinary. Of the Debussy, he made very little, since he was not educated, musically, to such music; but he recognised the sweep and thunder of the sea through it.
   "Oh, lord!" he ejaculated mentally. "What on earth are Yvonne and I to do with such a girl?"
   Then she suddenly lapsed into a minuet, slight, but very dainty and fresh. When she had finished, she turned to look at him again and he saw that her eyes were full of tears.
   "That was Dad's," she said with difficulty. She got up and closed the lid down. "I shan't play again until it is in England. I wanted that to be the last I played, here in Italy where we have been so happy."
   "Thanks a lot," he replied; and said no more.
   But he had plenty to say next day when she appeared at breakfast in a black frock. Signora Pecci had helped her to get it and it was the deep mourning of the Latin races. It would have been trying for even his own Alison with her fair, rosy colouring. For Nina it was simply dreadful, turning her pallor into a sallowness that made her look even plainer than usual.
   "Oh, my dear girl!" he protested. "Why
have
you got yourself up like this? Where's that grey thing you've been wearing? For goodness' sake go and change after breakfast. You look a complete sight in that and it isn't necessary. People in England don't go in for such mourning these days."
   Nina's eyes flashed. "And let everyone think I don't care!" she exclaimed. "I should have had it much sooner, but Signorina Cavaletti was taken ill and was only able to finish it last night."
   She stuck to it and completed it by appearing for the journey in a black beret and coat which put the finishing touches to the awfulness of the get-up. He had to yield. Nina was as obstinate as a mule when she chose and he could only be thankful that she had spared him the long black veil she informed him she should have worn.
   "Only I thought it would be so horribly crushed after all those days of train travel," she added.
   Sir Guy said no more, and they set off for Basle where they were to join the Wien-Paris express in the evening. Nina had insisted on bringing everything with her and the array of trunks and cases made his heart sink into his shoes. He was going to have a bad time with the Customs. And what his wife would say about it all, he shuddered to think!

CHAPTER 2

"Hello! Here's Berne!" said Sir Guy. He pronounced it "Burn" with a good British accent and Nina was roused to wonder for a moment what he meant.
   "Do we change here?" she asked anxiously, looking round in apprehension at the cases and boxes piled up between them, under the seat and on the rack.
   "No, no!" he replied. "Change at Basle. Don't worry, Nina. Why, bless me! There's a school waiting here!" as the train swept into the great station and, obviously waiting for it, stood four ranks of girls of all ages from ten to eighteen, all very trig and smart in their long coats and berets of gentian blue. Each had a small case in her right hand and an umbrella and other oddments in her left.
   Nina looked at them curiously; but already the train had stopped and, at a word from one of the ladies with them, the blue ranks had turned and were marching in an orderly fashion along the platform, up the steps and into the long carriages. It was clear that they were well-drilled for there was little confusion and the girls filled compartment after compartment with the minimum of fuss. Their chatter rose as they settled themselves and Sir Guy broke into a laugh.
   "And English school, by all that's good! What's an English school doing over here in the heart of Europe, I wonder?"
   He got no further, for the doorway to their compartment was darkened by the figure of a pretty young woman who exclaimed, "Oh, excuse me, but there has been some mistake and they haven't booked enough seats for our girls. I wonder if you would very much mind if four of them came in here with you?"
   "By all means," Sir Guy said with alacrity. "Shove that basket under the seat, Nina and give me that case. Plenty of room," he added to the lady, who smiled and thanked him before she turned and went off.
   She was back in a minute or two with four girls, all clearly English, and all much about the same age as Nina.
   "Thank you very much," the lady said to Sir Guy as the girls packed themselves in. "Hilary, I put you in charge. Remember, all of you, that we change trains at Basle. Don't forget anything and don't lose either your tickets or your passports."
   "I'll look after them, Miss Derwent," the girl she had addressed as Hilary said cheerfully. "Anyway, it's only to Basle. I don't think any of us could lose anything in that short distance."
   Miss Derwent laughed and left them and Hilary, having disposed of her belongings, sat down and beamed on her friends. "Well, that's that! For goodness' sake, all of you,
glue
yourselves to your tickets and passports. Thank goodness we haven't young Verity to worry about!
She
could lose anything anywhere in less than five minutes if she gave her mind to it."
   The other three laughed and a fair, curly-haired person remarked, "It's not really much use settling down in this train. We change so soon."
   Then the train started and, as they rolled slowly and majestically out of the station, the girls crowded to the window to wave to another mistress who was left standing on the platform and who waved gaily back at them. Nina could just see her between the heads that bobbed about and was seized with a desire to know more of this school which had such pretty mistresses and where the girls seemed so happy and friendly and on such good terms with everyone.
   She was too shy to speak, but she was saved any trouble by Hilary shifting the umbrella she grasped firmly in one hand and digging her foot with it.
   "Oh, I'm frightfully sorry!" exclaimed the culprit. "I do hope I didn't hurt you or hit a pet corn or something!"
   Nina smiled shyly. "I haven't any corns, thank you, and you didn't hurt me at all."
   "That's as well for you," observed a girl who was so enchantingly pretty with her violet eyes and bronzy hair with glints of gold in it, that Nina already felt glad she was in the opposite seat so that she might look at her without being obvious. "Hilary's a hefty wench and she can give you quite a jab with that everlasting brolly of hers! Do put the wretched thing up on the rack, Hilary, and don't be such an ass!"
   "Not me!" Hilary eyed the "brolly" with exceeding dis-favour, but clutched it firmly all the same. "I'm sticking to it until we've changed trains. Then it can go where it likes till we get to Paris. But if I lose it, Mummy said I must buy the next myself after losing last term's on the boat going home. With Christmas half-way over the horizon, I haven't a sou to waste on things like brollies!"
   Nina listened delightedly. Sir Guy gave her a quizzical look from behind his paper. Then he buried himself in it and left her to pursue her acquaintance with the girls. He was quite as much attracted to them as she was and he fully intended that when they changed trains at Basle, he would get hold of Miss Derwent and ask her to let them join himself and Nina in their compartment again.
   Until they school had come aboard the train at Berne, Nina had sat silently in her corner, looking the picture of misery, and the soft-hearted Sir Guy had begun to feel almost a criminal for taking her to England against her will. But the influx of jolly girls had roused her and she already looked several degrees happier.
   Hilary had been doing some looking on her own account.
   "That kid looks awfully down," she thought, calmly ignoring the fact that "that kid" was at least her own age if not older. "Mary-Lou would be safe to do something about her if she was here. I suppose it's up to me to do it. What a ghastly lot of black! I didn't know people every dressed girls of our age like that, however much they might be in mourning."
   Aloud, she said, "Are you going home for the Christmas hols, too? What school do you go to?"
   "I don't go to school at all," Nina replied, drawn despite herself to this jolly girl with her mischievous blue eyes and wide smile.
   "You don't?" Hilary exclaimed. "Oh, what a pity!"
   "A
pity
?" Nina stared.
   "Well rather! Think of all the fun you miss!" Hilary said briskly.
   "What's your name?" asked the pretty girl. "We can't go on calling you 'you'. It sounds so offish. I'm Vi Lucy and the thing that tried to maim you is Hilary Bennet. These other two are Barbara Chester and Lesley Malcolm. Barbara's my cousin, by the way, and we both live in Guernsey."
   "Nina Rutherford," Nina replied, giving her name the proper Italian pronunciation so that Lesley promptly asked, "Do you spell it with an E or an I?"
   "N-I-N-A," the name's owner explained.
   "Oh, Lesley, you gump, have you forgotten Nina Williams?" Hilary exclaimed.
   "Not exactly. But we were Third Form in those days and she was a pree and we didn't have an awful lot to do with her," Lesley returned, unperturbed. "
Why
don't you go to school, Nina? You miss an awful lot, as Hilary said."
   "Because I'm going to be a concert pianist and I haven't time," Nina explained.
   "Oh but that's rot," Vi told her severely. "Everyone has time for school - or ought to. As for being a concert pianist, well, we've had Margia Stevens at the Chalet School in the Dark Ages and I suppose you'd call
her
a concert pianist?"
   Nina looked startled. "I've heard her play - several times. She's marvellous! Do you really mean she was at school with you?"
   "Oh, not us," a chorus told her, Hilary adding, "Vi
said
it was in the Dark Ages - when the school was in Tirol, as a matter of fact. That's where it began and Margia was one of the first pupils. And Jacynth Hardy, the 'cellist
was
in our time and a prefect into the bargain."
   Nina gasped. "But - but how did they manage?" she cried. "You've got to put in
hours
of practice if you mean to do anything worth while. How did they do it?"
   "Oh, if you're as good as all that you get extra time off for it, of course," Hilary explained. "And they knock off unnecessary things like drawing and science and so on, and you get those times for your extra prac. Rather you than me!" she added feelingly.
   Nina looked thoughtful. "Surely yours must be a - a very extraordinary school?" she said when she had digested these facts.
   The four ruffled up like young turkey-cocks.
   "Oh, no, it isn't!" Barbara contradicted her flatly.
   "Except in being an extraordinarily decent school," Vi added. "It's
that
all right and I ought to know - I'm the third of the family to be at it."
   "Oh, no, you're not!" Hilary said. "Counting all the Chesters and the two Ozannes you're the seventh."
   "I meant of our own crowd The rest are cousins," Vi responded with a grin at Barbara who grinned back.
   "Oh, I see." Hilary turned to Nina. "
Squads
of them if you count the three families," she explained. "Besides these two, there were Barbara's sister Beth and Nancy - Nancy's at the finishing branch now and Beth's left, of course - and the Ozanne twins who've also left, and the two kids, Barbara's kid sister Janice, who's further along the train with the babies and Vi's young sister Kitten who hasn't gone anywhere so far."
   "She's going to Carnbach to the other branch the term after next," Vi said. "She'll be eight, then, and she's the last of us, so Mummy wouldn't part with her sooner."
   "However many branches have you?" Nina demanded. She was looking, as her cousin thankfully noted, thoroughly interested and bright.
   "Well, there's us - the school proper, that is - and the finishing branch which is St. Mildred's House. We're up on the Gornetz Platz above Interlaken. The Carnbach branch is outside of Carnbach which is a little town on the South Wales coast."
   "I'll tell you what it is," Lesley said thoughtfully, "you ought to ask your people to let you come to us. Then you'd have school
and
all the time you needed for your music. Why don't you?"
   "Yes; why don't you?" Barbara echoed her. She glanced at Sir Guy who seemed to be immersed in his paper but was secretly listening with all his ears.
   "It's such a frightful pity you should miss all the fun of school and friends and games and so on," Hilary put in. "Do think it over, Nina!"
   Barbara began to speak. "When I was a kid," she said dreamily, "I was ghastly delicate. I never did any lessons - not to
call
lessons - until I was about twelve. I was always at home with Mummy before that. I was dying to go to school with Beth and Nancy and the rest, but they daren't risk it. How I used to howl when the hols were over and they went off and left me at home! Then I got measles and was awfully ill, only when I got better, they found that it was
really
getting better. I got fitter and fitter until at last, a year past September, the doctors all said I could go. And was I glad! I've enjoyed every minute of the time and if you go and lose all the fun I've had, Nina, well - I'll be sorry for you! That's all!"
   Nina looked unconvinced but, as a matter of fact, she thought more than she either looked or said. Vi took up the tale as she remained silent.
   "You'd never think, to look at her now, that everyone in the family expected Babs - oh, well, Barbara, then, Fussy! - to pass out if a draught so much as looked at her, But we did! And now look at her! That's what school has done for her!"
   Nina naturally stared at Barbara who went scarlet and turned on her cousin with "Really, Vi, you're the utter
edge
!"
   "That'll do! Pipe down you two!" Hilary felt that this had gone far enough. "Change the subject!"
   Lesley changed the subject to a certain extent. "We have gorgeous excursions at the Chalet School. This term, we went to Zurich and then on to see the Falls of Rhine. That was marvellous!"
   "And the term before," added Vi, who was never easily squashed, "we spent Whit weekend above Lac Leman - that's Lake Geneva," she added kindly.
   Nina laughed outright. "I know that, thank you. I've stayed there myself."
   "Basle - or very nearly!" exclaimed Lesley who had been looking out of the window. "Make sure you've got everything, folk." She turned to Sir Guy and Nina to add, "Can we help you at all? Anyhow, Vi can hang out of the window and grab a porter. Barbara, you take Vi's things and I'll keep an eye on her case. Go on, Vi!"
   As a result of these manoeuvres, the change from one train to another was made quite easily. Sir Guy settled his young cousin in a corner of the Paris train, saw all their belongings and then hunted out Miss Derwent and arranged for the Chalet School quartette to come in with them, pointing out that it would enliven the long night journey for his young cousin. Finally, he presented them each with a box of what he called "goodies".
   "Now you're all OK," he said. "I'll fetch you at dinner time." With which he departed for a smoke.
   Nina had dreaded the journey, for she had been miserable to leave Maggiore and she felt desperately unhappy about her music. However, thanks to the effervescent four, it turned out quite differently and by the time they had reached the Gare de l'Est where the Chalet School dispersed in various directions, many of its members being met by relatives or friends, while the Guernsey bunch went off in charge of Barbara Chester's eldest sister Beth and the rest were shepherded off by the escort mistresses to seek breakfast before joining the train for Calais, she had made firm friends with all four. They said good-bye with promises to write - "if it's only postcards", Vi added cautiously - and Sir Guy whirled her away to Le Bourget for breakfast and the morning plane to London, whence a train from King's Cross carried them north to Newcastle.
   It is true that once in the northbound train, she lost most of her animation, but at least the look of intense misery did not return to her face. In fact, part of the journey she spent in wondering whether she should ask her cousin to let her go to the Chalet School if go to school she must. And this, for Nina, was something of a wonder!
   Not that she mentioned it to Sir Guy. She still had hopes that when he came to think it over, he would realise that a girl who meant to go in for concert work and was aiming at the first rank at that could hardly be expected to spend time on subjects that, to her way of thinking would be of little or no use to her.
   At Newcastle, they were met by the car from Brettingham Park. The morning which, in Paris, had been bright, had changed as they came north and the drive north-eastwards was made through a thick drizzle so that, even before darkness fell, little could be seen of the country, though Sir Guy assured his young cousin that once they had left the suburbs of the great city it was as beautiful as anything she had ever seen.