A Genius at the Chalet School (13 page)

   "Not too far for you, anyhow!" Miss o'Ryan retorted. "I'm taking no excuses from you, Hilary."
   She marched them off to the hill which is crested by the great building and by the time they had arrived there, most of them were ready for the trip up the tower.
   "Is it very old?" Verity asked as they stood outside, looking up at the facade which replaced the original one.
   "It was begun about 1150," the mistress returned. "Unfortunately, as you can see for yourselves, they've done a lot of restoration. I believe the facade had to be seen to as the earlier one was perishing rapidly; but to impose a Greek form on a medieval building isn't
my
idea of what's fitting. That was done in the eighteenth century, though, and they were all mad over classical architecture at that time. Let's go in and we'll tackle the towers first. After that, you'll be wanting to see the stained glass which is very fine. By the way, they have a carillon between the two towers, but whether we'll hear it or not, I couldn't be telling you."

   She led the way in and the first thing they heard was the organ. Nina stopped dead as the music rolled down the aisles and her face lit up. The organist was playing great Bach B major fugue and she dropped down on the nearest seat, gazing up the length of the edifice with absorbed face. She was enjoying the sight-seeing and everything else, but with her, music would always come first.

   Verity shot a quick glance at her. "I'll stay with her if you don't mind, Miss o'Ryan," she said softly. "I'm getting rather tired and I love music, too."

   "Very well; but mind you wait here till we come back," Biddy o'Ryan said after a glance at her. Verity was rather a frail little mortal and no one wanted her to go back to school tired out.

   So they were left to enjoy their Bach while the rest made for the entrance to one of the towers. It seemed a tremendous way up, but when they had finally reached the top they were well rewarded for their efforts. Below them lay the city, and beyond gleamed the lake, still and beautiful, clear as glass without almost a ripple to disturb its mirror-like surface.

   It was calm enough below but up here, as Miss o'Ryan had warned them, there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing. The girls had pulled their berets well on to their heads, but Biddy had merely made sure that her hatpins were in and as they stood gazing down on the scene, an extra fierce puff tugged at it, lifted it and whirled it away while the loosened hairpins gave up their job and masses of black hair blew and swirled all round her to her hips.

   "My hat - my hat!" she cried, catching at her lengthy locks to keep them from blinding her. "It's gone!"

   "Here - have my beret!" Hilary exclaimed, pulling it off her short curls and holding it out. "Yes; it's all right. You can tuck your hair into it - I expect," she added doubtfully as she surveyed the tremendous mop which Miss o'Ryan was rapidly twisting up.

   "More than half my pins are gone!" she said in dismay. "See if you can find any of them on the ground, girls, or I'll never do anything with it."

   The obligingly scrabbled about and managed to find half-a-dozen and with these she had to be satisfied until she could go to the nearest shop and buy some. As for the hat, Prunella pointed it out, perched on a roof far below. Then another little puff lifted it and away it went again while the wind, which was evidently taking matters into its own hands, whipped the lake with long flaws which became waves with amazing rapidity so that by the time they had left the tower with the mistress ruefully making up her mind that she must buy some sort of head-covering if she wanted to look any way decent, the whole lake was tossing madly and Hilary was moved to being loudly thankful that they were not going back to Vevey by steamer.

   "I should be deadly seasick!" she proclaimed.

   "On an inland lake!" Prunella protested.

   "More likely there than on the sea," Miss o'Ryan said as she tried to repin a heavy strand so that it would stay up. "You get a nasty groundswell on a lake like this. "Oh, bother my hair! I've a good mind to go and have it bobbed to-morrow morning!"

   Shrieks of protest greeted this. The girls had been greatly impressed by their mistress's mane. It was Mary-Lou who, with her usual devastating common sense, put a stopper on it, however.

   "Oh, Miss o'Ryan, you simply can't! Just think what a sensation it would make!
Every
one would be simply stunned and "stare" wouldn't describe it when you came to take your lessons! No one would think of any
history
!"

   Biddy o'Ryan knew that this was quite true. She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I must do something about it. I certainly can't go through the streets like this. Hilary's beret isn't much help, I'm afraid."

   "Buy a head handkerchief," Vi suggested. "You have another had at Vevey, haven't you?"

   "Yes - at Vevey. I want something now. Well, it's the best thing I can do. I don't propose to buy a hat here. Now come along and collect Nina and Verity. The organ is stopping, so I expect they'll be ready to come."

   They found the pair where they had left them. Nina was just waking up and Verity had realized that a cathedral was a cold place and was swinging her arms to warm herself. She stopped as the party approached them and stared at Miss o'Ryan who, it must be confessed, was an untidy sight. Hilary's beret would not cover the great bun at the back of her neck, and that was twisted up so precariously, that one tail was already slipping loose from its moorings and falling over her shoulder.

   "Yes," that lady said, getting in first. "I've lost my hat and most of my hairpins. I shall have to do something about it when we reach the shops. Meanwhile, you two have sat here quite long enough. Come along, all of you, and when I've managed to do something about it, we'll go to the Jardin d'Anglais and have English tea.

   She spoke with a certain crispness that warned the girls to say no more about the accident. To tell the truth, she felt extremely foolish and if it had not been for Mary-Lou's warning, the chances are that she would have dived into the first hairdresser's and had her mop cropped. As it was, she stopped short at that, but she was a thankful creature when they were able to stop at a shop and buy hairpins. The obliging girl at the counter, grasping what had happened, offered the use of a cubicle and Miss o'Ryan vanished for a few minutes to return with her hair clamped to her head by every pin in the two packets she had bought and looking unnaturally tidy. Another shop provided a gay handkerchief and when that had been securely fastened Biddy was able to take her party to the Jardin d'Anglais for English tea feeling fairly comfortable again.

   Repercussions came when they met the rest of the crowd in time for the postal coach, when Miss Wilmot gave her colleague a startled look and exclaimed, "But I thought you were wearing a
hat
!
Why
are you got up in a head handkerchief?"

   "And where, then, is your hat?" Mdlle added, her black eyes widening.

   "Anywhere, so far as I know!" Miss o'Ryan told her. "Probably in the lake by this time. The wind blew it off when we were up one of the cathedral towers. And I may as well tell you," she added, "that if I hear one more word about it, 'tis having me hair cut to the bone, I'll be and sorra one of ye can stop me!"

   When Biddy o'Ryan became richly Irish like this, they all knew that it was serious. The comments stopped there - for the time being. The postal coach came up then and the girls were hustled in and they were whirled away to Vevey for their last evening there and even Nancy Wilmot said no more. As for the girls,
they
had to wait for the story until they were back at school next evening, when it lost nothing in the accounts given by Hilary, Vi and Lesley and one more legend was added to the many the Chalet School had already accumulated.

CHAPTER 14

   "Do you mean to tell me that Aunt Joey's new baby has arrived
already
?" Sybil Russell, very brown and fit after the week-end the prefects had spent at Davos, "winter-sporting", to quote Katharine Gordon, stared incredulously at her young sister Josette who had just come to her, primed with all the news.

   Josette nodded. "That's what comes of staying till the last minute as you people did. We were back almost the first - only the kids were before us - and we met Uncle Jack at the turn above Freudesheim. He said he'd been on the look-out for us as he wanted to tell us himself. I suppose he couldn't wait around for you folk. You were most awfully late, Sybs!"

   We were having such a gorgeous time and Miss Burnett said we'd stay till the afternoon.
We
weren't sorry, I can tell you! But never mind all that, We can talk it all over later on. In the meantime, tell me all you know about Aunt Joey."

   "Don't know an awful lot more. The Head knew all about it, by the way. Uncle Jack rang her up early on Monday morning, but he told her to say nothing to us as he wanted to tell us himself. Talk of yells! We just about roused the echoes at the Auberge when we heard!"

   Mary-Lou, who was with them, heaved a sigh. "I'm glad it's all over, but it definitely spoils her for our Sale." She stopped and made a grab at a twelve-year-old who was passing. "Hi, Con! Just a minute! You three will know all about it, of course. Tell us how Aunt Joey is
and
the baby. Have you seen them yet?"

   "Rather!" Con beamed. "We came back earlyish from Basle and Papa was waiting for us three and took us straight off to San to see them. We were
thrilled
!" And Con, the second of Joey's triplet daughters, heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction.

   "Who's she like?" Sybil asked eagerly. "Oh, but I don't suppose you'll know."

  "Don't I just! Everyone says she's the image of ME!" Con literally swelled with pride.

   "If you go on like that, you'll end by bursting if you're not careful," Sybil warned her young cousin with a chuckle.

   "Think we ought to take her to Matey for a hat five sizes larger?" Mary-Lou asked wickedly. "It'll take all that, won't it?"

   Nothing could upset Con to-day, however. "I'm not swelled-headed," she said calmly, "how could I be?
I
didn't make the baby. It was God Who made her like me, so what is there to get swollen head about?"

   "Well, tell us just what she
is
like," Sybil ordered, giving it up.

   "Oh,
sweet
! She's wee - not so wee as Felix and Felicity were when they first came, though; but there were two of them. She has black hair in curls all over her head, just like Auntie Robin's was. Her eyes are blue, but navy-blue. Mamma thinks they'll be black when she's a little older, so that's really darker than me."

   "'Than
I
'," Sybil said automatically. "You mean, 'darker than I am', Con."

   "Oh, well! She's got a tiny nose - Mamma says it's a shadow of a nose at present. But her mouth's a good size to make up. And she has black eyelashes - long ones - and you can just see black eyebrows."

  "Gosh!" Josette exclaimed. "She sounds as if she was going to be a little nigger!"

   Con laughed. "That's where you miss the bus! She's pinky and I never heard of a pinky nigger. It's her little hands that
I
like. They're all dimpled and she has lovely little fingers."

   Nina, who had been standing with Mary-Lou's arm thrust through hers, laughed. "Well, she sounds like you, Con, but not a bit like either Len or Margot."

   "That's where Aunt Joey scores," Mary-Lou said pensively. "No one could say her family were monotonous! Len's chestnut red and Margot's golden red; Steve and Mike are fair and the twins are milky fair; Charles is between colours and Con's dark and now there's this new baby who's going to be even darker! I call it very satisfactory."

   "What are you going to call her?" Nina asked curiously.

   "We're not quite sure. She'll have Cecilia after Auntie Rob for one of her names. Auntie Rob's her godmother, you know. But none of us like it very much for every day so we've got to think up something else to go with it and we all want something different. Len wants Juliet, and Margot's all for Francesca. I
think
I'd like Monica. We can't wait for the boys, and Mike says he doesn't care."

   "You could call her Cecily - or Cecil, if you liked," Sybil said.

   "I hadn't thought of that. I'll tell Mamma when I see her again," Con said, rather impressed by this idea! "She'll be Mary, too, of course. All of us girls are except Felicity, and that's 'cos
she's
Felicity Josephine."

   "I rather like it," Mary-Lou put in. "What do you think, Nina?"

   "I think it would be very pretty," Nina said promptly. "Mary Cecilia Maynard - it runs like a brook. And Cecily Maynard is just as pretty."

   "I'll tell Mamma," Con repeated, moving off. "It's a jolly good idea, Sybs."

   And, to anticipate a little, that was what they did in the end. The baby was baptized Cecilia Marya - the two names of her godmother - and known as "Cecily" thereafter.

   "Thank goodness," Joey said when they laid her new little Christian in her arms two days later, "she hasn't got a name that'll
date
her! I'm always so sorry for the various Joans and Pamelas and Susans and Annes. People will always be able to guess their ages from their names. I call it most unfair!"

   The school at large learnt of the decision next day when the Head came back from her visit to the Sanatorium.

   "I like it," Mary-Lou said in fairly fluent German and with great decision. "When is she to be baptized?"

   "Saturday morning at ten o'clock and we're all to be there if we like," Hilary said. "I met Len in the corridor and she told me. The Head's putting up a notice in Hall."

   "She's gone awfully near being an April Fool!" Rosemary Lamb giggled.

   "Still, she did escape it," Vi said cheerfully. Then, with great urgency, "Be quiet, everyone! Here comes Miss Derwent!"

   The talking ceased promptly. Miss Derwent was usually a pleasant creature, but one thing did madden her and that was to find her form all chatting gaily and nothing ready when she came for a lesson. But Vi had another reason besides that for hushing them. Miss Derwent seemed to have started the day in a bad mood. She had snapped at one or two people earlier on and when Emerence Hope, calmly forgetting rules, went tearing wildly along the corridors and bumped into the mistress, she had received a tongue-lashing that amazed her, coming from that source. She had passed it on to Vi when they were changing after the early walk and Vi remembered now. Accordingly, Miss Derwent entered to find a very proper Va awaiting her and tried to forget the tooth which had ached at intervals all night.