02 Jo of the Chalet School (28 page)

Once they were past the white-painted fence, which showed by a mark half-way up where the water had reached, the broke rank, and the juniors ran, laughing, and chasing each other gaily up the lake road, while the middles wandered along in clumps, and the seniors, paraded along by the edge of the lake. The staff, with one eye on the younger girls in case of accident, were busily discussing the next term’s arrangements.

There would be a good deal to see to, for Miss Bettany had several new pupils in prospect, and one of her reasons for going home to England for the holidays was to engage another mistress and a matron. ‘I shall get another English mistress,’ she said. ‘Now that we are growing so quickly, I really need more time, and as long as I have to teach all the English subjects to the seniors, and history and literature to the middles, I simply can’t
make
the time!’

‘We shall be very big next term?’ queried Mademoiselle.

‘Between forty and fifty, at least. It is quite possible that we shall be more, because we may get a few day-girls from the summer visitors. Of course the Maranis, the Mesnches and one or two others cease to be boarders; and next term is the last for Gisela and Bernhilda. Still, we are doing very well. We need a matron too. We’ve managed quite well, so far; but it will be far better to have someone-Good heavens!

What’s that?’ as a splash and several shrieks rang out simultaneously. With one accord the staff threw its dignity to the winds and tore down the road, to find Amy Stevens, the Robin, and Simon Lecoutier scrambling out of the ditch at the side of the road. It was full of water and med, and anything more disgraceful that the three dripping objects that Gisela, Bernhilda and Juliet hauled forth on to the road it would have been hard to discover.

‘Girls!’ gasped Miss Bettany. ‘What
were
you doing? Back to school at once, you three.-Miss Maynard, will you take them, please? Hot baths, hot drinks, and bed at once.-Joey, come back on to the path! How on earth did you get there?’

She might well ask! The ditch which lay between the roadway and the mountain slope at this point was, normally, two feet wide at the most. Since the night before it had increased to four feet in width, and its waters washed up against a steep bank covered with young heather and curly fronds of bracken. How Jo had managed to get up without falling in was a mystery. How she was to get back seemed likely to prove another.

Jo evidently thought so herself. ‘I can’t!’ she said agitatedly. ‘It was a fearful scrum to get here. I can’t get back, ‘cos it’s too steep.’

Miss Bettany measured the distance with her eye. ‘You’ll have to jump,’ she said. ‘Come down as far as you can, and then jump hard so that you clear the ditch. I’ll catch you.’

‘No don’t!
Please
don’t!’ begged Jo. ‘Honest Injun, I’d rather you didn’t! I can jump it all right-
really
I can!’

‘I’m afraid you may hurt yourself,’ began her sister, but Jo waved her aside.

‘I won’t! I truly won’t! Please let me alone!’

Realising that the child was working herself up to a violent pitch of excitement, Madge yielded, much against her better judgment, and stood back, motioning the others to do the same. They obeyed at once, and stood watching a rather frantic Jo, who crept down as far as she dared, and then cautiously straightened herself. ‘I’m coming!’ she cried, as she braced herself for the spring. ‘One-two-three-
O-o-ow
!’ As she finished counting, she gave a mighty leap downwards. She cleared the ditch; she cleared the path-it was narrow just here-she went clean over, into the lake, and, with a terrific splash that quite outdid anything the others had accomplished in that line, she vanished under the water.

She was at the surface again in a second, and was swimming frantically for the bank. As a general rule, the water was not shoulder-deep here; but, then, you couldn’t go by general rules to-day, as Miss Maynard remarked later when she heard the full story. Miss Bettany was leaning over and catching her wrists as she clawed at the bank. Miss Durrant joined her, and between them they lifted Jo out just as Dr Jem appeared on the scene and took in the situation at a glance. ‘Hurry her home,’ he cried, not attempting to greet anyone. ‘Don’t let her stand for a moment! Here, I’ll take one side. Miss Durrant and Mademoiselle will look after the girls-and you, Miss Bettany, grab this awful infant with me. Now then, young lady, just buckle your stumps a bit!’

It was, of course, the end of the walk. Jo was raced home as hard as they could go, and obliged to share the fate of the other three. Mademoiselle, certain that the lake-path was charged with accidents to-day, and convinced in her own mind that it was tempting Providence to go any farther along it, marshalled the girls into ‘croc,’ and, with Miss Durrant at the head and herself at the tail, marched them back to school, uttering exclamations and ejaculations.

‘Just as though she were a sky-rocket!’ said Grizel. And was promptly embroiled in an attempt to explain to Luigia di Ferrara just wherein the likeness lay.

‘What on earth made you do that?’ demanded Dr Jem of Joey later on when she was safely tucked up in bed. ‘Hadn’t you had enough of water for once in your life without pitching into it like that?’

‘Well, I never
meant
to do it,’ argued Jo. ‘It was Madge’s fault, really.’

‘My fault! How was it
my
fault?’ demanded her sister indignantly. ‘It was your own stupidity! If you’d let me catch you as I wanted-’

‘We’d both have gone in,’ Joey finished for her. ‘My weight would have sent you flying! O-o-oh!

Wouldn’t it have been priceless! You wouldn’t have looked very dignified, my dear, pitching into the lake with me on top of you!’

Madge shrugged her shoulders. Then she laughed. ‘That’s true for you, Joey, my child! But I don’t for one moment believe your weight could upset me to
that
extent.’

‘I was jumping,’ Jo reminded her. ‘I jumped for all I was worth.’

‘I rather think you did!’ laughed the doctor. ‘Well, “All’s well that ends well”; and it’s high time you were off to sleep. You four must stay in bed to-morrow till I have seen you. I don’t, for an instant, expect there will be anything wrong with you, but it’s just as well to be careful! Now, go to sleep. If you are very good, I may have something to tell you in the morning!’

‘Oh, what?’ Joey started up in bed.

He promptly laid her flat again, and tucked the clothes firmly round her. ‘You don’t hear till the morning; and only
then
if you’ve been good.-Miss Bettany, you shall report to me.’

‘I think you’re mean!’ grumbled Jo as she settled down. ‘Oh, all right, I’m
going
to sleep! Good-night!’

‘Good-night,’ replied the doctor. ‘Pleasant dreams!’

But Jo was buried in oblivion, and gave him no reply.

joey’s future career is settled

As might have been expected, the first person to wake that next morning was Joey. It was barely six o’clock when she stirred, opened her eyes to their fullest extent, and then sat up, wide awake. As Le Petit Chalet was far from fit for them to be in it, the juniors were still sleeping over in the Chalet, and were likely to remain there for two or three nights longer, so sleeping arrangements were, as Grizel had remarked the night before, rather on the crowded side. Joey stretched herself luxuriously, and then glanced down at the Robin, who lay in the profoundest slumber, her dark curls all rumpled, her lovely little face flushed with sleep. ‘Darling!’ murmured the elder child. ‘I hope we can keep her for ages! It’s just like having a wee sister of my own! She is a pet!’ It was not in Jo Bettany, however, to spend time over thoughts like these.

She had a horror of anything approaching sentimentality, and, except when she was well off her guard, never voiced her affection for other people. Now she slipped cautiously out of bed, and hunted for her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers. She wriggled into them with an eye on the couch where her elder sister lay sleeping as peacefully as the baby, and then, catching up her towels and her clothes, made for the bathroom.

Then minutes later she returned, dressed as far as her liberty bodice and knickers, and proceeded to give her golliwog mop a good hard brushing till it shone glossily. Then she got into her gym top and tunic, caught up her slippers from beside the bed, and tiptoed cautiously from the room, leaving the other two blissfully unconscious of her disobedience to Dr Jem’s orders of the night before.

Downstairs Marie was moving about already, intent on getting most of the day’s work finished, so that she might go over to Le Petit Chalet and help to set it to rights. Eigen was busily stoking the stoves in the form-rooms and Miss Bettany’s study, with Rufus accompanying him-apparently to see that he did his work properly. Marie looked up from her rolls with a cheerful ‘
Gruss Gott,
‘ as Joey dashed into the kitchen demanding something to eat; but Eigen was far too busy to pay attention to anyone.

Marie rose to the occasion with a roll left over from the night before and some cheese, and Joey wandered forth into the fresh spring air, munching happily. She was wildly curious about Dr Jem’s remarks of the night before, and spent her time in wondering what it was he had to tell her. Of his hint that she should only hear if she had been good-which, she supposed, meant if she had obeyed his orders-she took no notice. As a matter of fact she had forgotten it, and she only remembered when she went in to seek a coat, as the morning air was sharp. ‘Goodness!’ she gasped; and collapsed onto the lowest stair where she had been standing.

Then, ‘Oh, but he
couldn’t
be such a mean! He just wouldn’t!’

A little doubt as to whether the doctor would really keep his word crept into her mind. Finally, she put her coat away again, took off her slippers, and stole upstairs in her stockinged feet. A minute later, Madge was rudely awakened from a thrilling dream by a scarlet-faced Jo shaking her.

‘Madge! Madge! Wake up, do!’

Madge sat up in bed, pushing back her hair from a startled face. ‘Joey, what is it? Are you ill?’ She stretched out her hand and felt Joey’s.

‘Oh,
no
!’ said Jo promptly, as if she and illness of any kind were utter strangers. ‘I’m not ill in the least!

Only I got up, after Dr Jem said I wasn’t’ to until he came, and now perhaps he wont’ tell me what he said he would!’

‘Hush-sh-sh!’ warned Madge, glancing across at the bed where the Robin was sleeping. ‘Don’t wake Robin! Here, sit down on the edge here! You are an idiot, you know, Joey. You seem all right; but I do think you might have remembered!’

‘I’ll go back to bed if you like,’ suggested Joey in very subdued tones.

Madge considered the idea for a moment. ‘No; I don’t think you need this time, as you are fully dressed.

You certainly
look
as though there was nothing wrong with you!’

‘I’ve just eaten a roll and cheese,’ said Jo, as if this were a guarantee of her all-rightness.

The elder girl relaxed, and bit her lips to stop herself from laughing. ‘You really are
awful
, Joey baba! All right! I’ll tell the doctor I said you might.’

‘Madge! You gem!’ Joey hugged her sister vigorously. ‘Then he will tell me what he was going to tell me! I do wonder what it is!’

‘Well, it’s no use asking me, for I haven’t the least idea. He hasn’t said a word to me about it,’ declared Madge as she threw back the
plumeau
and got out of bed.

‘Reach my slippers over, Joey, there’s a good child. Thanks!’ She put them on, and then went across to the bed and bent over the Robin. News from Russia was very scarce, and Madge could not forget the pretty Polish mother who had died in decline. She was almost more careful of her youngest pupil than she was of her delicate sister. Luckily, the Robin was sleeping healthily, and they had been very quick in getting her home.

‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’ queried Jo.

‘Yes; I think so. Now you can trot. I’m going to dress; then I’m going round to see the others. Put on your big coat if you want to go out. Tell Marie I shall be down presently, will you?’

Jo nodded, and left the room. Going downstairs she started whistling the Nonesuch air, and was promptly caught by Miss Maynard, and fined. Whistling was forbidden in school, and Jo had simply asked for trouble, as the mistress reminded her in somewhat caustic language.

Jo had nothing to say for herself, and listened meekly to Miss Maynard’s strictures on her behaviour, shooting away downstairs as soon as she was free, and giving Madge’s message very briefly to Marie, before calling to Rufus and Zita to follow her out of doors.

Through the gaps where the fence had been she could see the Kronprinz Karl, the Post, the Zeidler, and the other hotels. The little valley was full of people working to repair the damage done by the flood. Already workmen were busy rebuilding the verandah of the Kronprinz Karl. The Villa Adalbert was receiving a fresh coat of paint. And along the banks of the stream were men busily engaged in deepening the bed.

Jo was so interested in what was going on that she paid no attention to footsteps behind her, and was considerably startled when a strong arm swung her round and she found herself facing Dr Jem.

‘Now then, young woman,’ he said sternly, ‘what did I say about bed?’

‘Madge said I might-’ began Joey. Then she stopped. She knew, better than anyone else, that if she had not been up and dressed before her sister woke up she would have been kept in bed until the doctor’s arrival. Jo was nothing if not honest. ‘I mean-I was up, and she said I might stay up,’ she finished.

Dr Jem scowled at her portentously. ‘Mutiny in the ranks, eh? Why can’t you be obedient, you scaramouche? How do
you
know you’re not sickening for something awful?’

‘Like-like thrush?’ said Jo unexpectedly.

‘Well-er-no; not quite that. Still, that’s not the point.’

‘I know it isn’t! I forgot, you see. I
did
offer to go back.’