03.5 Visitors for the Chalet School (9 page)

For the next hour and three-quarters the girls worked away with a will and, ten minutes before
Abendessen
, all the portraits were finished. Each bore the sitter’s name on the back, to avoid any future confusion.

Gertrud had meanwhile been busy compiling a mysterious list of names and numbers, which did not appear to be in any particular order.

They had all forgotten, for the moment, that Bette had originally announced a competition. It was not until they had almost finished tidying the classroom that Joey remembered this. The prefects were immediately besieged with questions: what would the competition entail? How would it be run? But they declined firmly to give any more information.

“It’s a shame not to include the mistresses,” Joey said suddenly. “Couldn’t you persuade them to join in, Bette?”

“We have thought of that, and Miss Durrant has very kindly offered to do portraits of all the staff; also of the juniors,” Bette informed her.

“How absolutely splendid! ” pronounced Joey. “Now we’ll have to the whole Chalet School in our portrait gallery. I say, I am looking forward to tomorrow; what you think the Grange House lot are going to produce for us?”

“Can you move along the row, please?” Veronica Cunningham was, to her intense embarrassment, late in arriving for Saturday afternoon’s concert. Veronica always made a point of being ready in good time, but she had been unlucky enough to trip just as the Grange House party was setting out from the Stephanie. The result had been a large hole with a rapidly spreading ladder in her best silk stockings. She had been obliged to rush back upstairs to her bedroom in order to find and change into another pair.

When, eventually, she arrived at the hall, the concert had already begun. The audience was enjoying a lovely three-part setting of “O Swallow, Flying South!”, sung by the Chalet School Seniors and Middles, with a beauty of tone and phrasing that did great credit to their singing master, the eccentric Mr Denny. This was followed by “Oh, How Should I Your True Love Know?” and, as a complete contrast, the lively

“Newcastle Dance”. Then the choir left the platform in an orderly line and went to swell the audience, while Mr Denny went to join the rest of the staff who, with Miss Bruce and Miss Mortlock, were sitting in the front two rows.

“That was terrific!” Joan Hatherley had been clapping away appreciatively.

“Well, I told you they would be pretty good,” replied Patricia. “Oh, sorry, Veronica! Yes of course, do sit here, push along one seat, everyone.”

They all hastily moved up and Veronica slid into the vacant place, just as Margia Stevens came on to the platform and sat down at the grand piano.

Veronica had not, of course, heard the announcements at the beginning of the programme, when the audience were told the name of the three choral items, and that these would be followed by Chopin’s

“Fantasie-Impromptu”. Unfortunately, from her own point of view, she was always rashly confident of her musical knowledge. As Margia played the first swirling bars, those nearest Veronica were startled to hear her murmer, “Ah,
Mozart!
” with an air of authority and wisdom.

Joan and Patricia, each unluckily catching the other’s eye, were seized with an almost overwhelming desire to giggle. Joan bit her lips fiercely, the thought going through her mind, “Even
I
would know this wasn’t Mozart”, while Patricia, holding her breath, with eyes tight shut, was thinking that poor old Veronica invariably managed to give herself away.

The compulsion to giggle faded away as they listened to the music. Margia played extraordinarily well for a thirteen-year-old. Herr Anserl had the reputation for being a hard task-master and remorselessly critical, but for the right pupil he was an inspiring teacher, and the Chopin piece suited Margia excellently. Although her hands were still small, her well-trained fingers easily tackled the brilliant opening and closing sections; and she played the central episode with not only romantic warmth but also a refreshing simplicity often lacking in performances of this well-known piece.

The applause afterwards was enthusiastic and prolonged. Margia had to come back twice and execute the sketchy little bow that was all she could ever manage in this line, despite all Mademoiselle’s coaching.

The Grange House girls would have like to hear more about Margia, but the Junior Choir was already making its way on to the platform and the questions had to be left until later.

Looking by turns touchingly solemn and unselfconsciously joyful, the Juniors were a huge success with their two contrasting folk-songs, one English and one German. The audience adored them.

Joan Hatherley did think with some amusement that no human children, surely, could be quite so good as these small Chaletians appeared to be. But, of course, singing did seem to produce this effect: it could even make choirboys look angelic … and everyone knew what absolute horrors they often were. No such cynical though troubled Pamela, who was enchanted with the little group and hoped she might soon get the opportunity to know some of them better.

The remaining items in the programme were enjoyable but not in any way remarkable, with the exception of a delightful French song about the shepherd Colin and his pretty Colinette, sung by Joey Bettany. Jo’s voice was beautifully clear and true and gave promise of a golden roundness, somehow unexpected in slightly-built Joey, who looked even less than her fifteen years.

The concert came to a rousing finish with one of Moszkowski’s Spanish Dances for piano duet, and the girls left the hall in a deafening burst of conversation.

“I say, that pianist girl’s an absolute genius,” enthused Evelyn Barclay to Bette and Gertrud as they made their way back to the school for
Kaffee und Kuchen.
”And only thirteen, too!” Evelyn herself was quite a promising pianist and the star performer at Grange House, but she was generously ready to acknowledge Margia’s unusual gifts.

Veronica, unwilling to be left out of a musical discussion, chimed in: “Why, she must be good enough for Advanced. Has she taken it yet?”

This remark completely baffled Bette and Gertrud, who had never met the expression before and were quite unaware of the importance attached at Grange House to passing music examinations. “Please,” Gertrud asked politely, “what is Advanced?” And this, in its turn, disconcerted Veronica, for she, like certain others among the girls, tended to regard examination grades as the only standard by which to measure any performer’s ability.

Luckily Grizel Cochrane had just caught up with the group and was able to solve the mystery. “Advanced is the name of a music exam,” she explained. “It’s the highest grade, as far as I remember. I’d have had a shot at it if I’d stayed on at Taverton, but we don’t do music exams here. I shouldn’t think Herr Anserl’s ever heard of them. (And she couldn’t help wondering to herself whether “Väter Bär” might not have dismissed the whole idea as “Rubbish” – one of his few English words, which he always pronounced “Rob-beesh” with a machine-gun roll of preliminary “r”s.)

“I say, let’s get a move on,” Grizel briskly changed the subject. “Everyone’s getting miles ahead of us.”

“What’s happened to Patricia?” Joan Hatherley looked round as they reached the door of the chalet. “She seems to have disappeared.”

“That the tall thin one, sitting between you and Veronica?” Grizel enquired. “I think she stayed behind in the hall, talking to Miss Denny for some reason. Does she know her?”

“Oh, yes,” Joan assured her. “They met in London, you know. Patricia probably wanted to ask about that friend of hers – the one who came from here. Sorry, I’m so hopeless at remembering names. Something like Catterick?”

“You must mean Juliet Carrick,” Grizel said. “Yes, of course. And I believe Miss Denny had a letter from Juliet quite recently. She’ll be able to give Patricia all the latest news. Right, then – it’s this way. Please follow me.”

Today
Kaffee und Kuchen
was being served in the Chalet School’s big
Speiseaal
to allow room for the extra numbers. At the door the visitors stopped dead for a moment, struck by the display of black-and-white pictures that had been pinned up round the room. The silhouette portraits, each of which now bore a large number in the bottom left-hand corner, had been placed at about eye level and covered a large area of the wall.

“You see,” Joey explained to a group of the visitors, as she helped to hand round cups of milky coffee and baskets of delicious creamy cakes, “after
Kaffee
we’ll be allowed a certain time to go round and identify as many of the portraits as we can.”

“Well, that’s all very well for you Chaletians,” Joan Hatherley said good-humouredly. “But what about us?

For one thing, we don’t know many of your names, and for another we don’t even know some of you by sight yet.”

Joey grinned. “That would seem just a little unfair, wouldn’t it? But we’ll all be competing in pairs. Each of you will have one of us as a partner, to help you. In any case that’s only the first round of the competition.

You’ll get your special chance in the second round; we shan’t be eligible for that. By the way, we’re all dying to know what you people are doing at the party this evening?” Joey, head on one side, looked round enquiringly; but the visitors only laughed an refused to give away any secrets.

When the coffee was finished and no one could be persuaded to eat even one more crumb of cake, the prefects arranged the competitors into pairs and handed out pencils and paper.

While the girls walked slowly round the exhibition gazing earnestly at the shadow pictures and industriously filling up their lists, a comparative quiet reigned. It was broken only by the whispered consultations between partners and occasionally smothered giggles, when someone suggested a particularly unlikely identification.

Jo had asked if she might be Patricia’s partner and when the had completed the rounds they retired to the big classroom next door, to rewrite their list. This was at Patricia’s suggestion. Joey’s knowledge of the school was obviously a tremendous asset but her list, written in a series of contorted squiggles, was almost illegible. Patricia felt that a fair copy would improve their chances.

“What on earth is this name at number 22, Jo?” she asked, as she sat at Joey’s desk, transcribing the list in her neat script. “Oh, I’ve got it, I think it must be ‘Marie von Eschenau’, is that right? Now, she’s the simply gorgeous-looking girl in you form, who sat next to us at tea-time –
Kaffee
, I mean – isn’t she?”

Jo nodded and Patricia wrote in Marie’s name carefully. “At least this gives me a chance of getting to know some of your names,” she said. “But, oh, glory be! Now I really am stuck. Surely there can’t possibly be
anyone
called ‘Pa Laven Rot’?”

Joey, with a disbelieving snort, leant over to scan her untidy original. “Oh, that’s Paula von Rothenfels,”

she said, unabashed. “I only put the ‘Rot’ part of Rothenfels; perhaps it does look a bit weird. I say, you’ve got jolly good writing, Patricia. My sister always says that doctors have illegible fists; perhaps you’re going to prove her wrong.”

“I wish I thought I’d get the chance to prove anything at all in that direction,” Patricia said grimly; and Jo, remembering the promise she had given her sister, hastened to turn the conversation.

“By the way, Patricia, is it all right for the weekend of the 25th? I’m supposed to let my sister know by tomorrow who’ll be coming.”

Patricia’s face lit up. “Oh, yes, Joey; Miss Bruce has given me permission and I’d simply love to come.

Sorry I forgot to say anything before; and please will you thank your sister for the invitation, it’s most awfully kind of her.”

Patricia finished writing the list; and when she and Jo rejoined the others in the
Speisesaal
they found the prefects had now prepared the second round of the competition. This was a test in quick observation. It had been designed specially for the Grange House girls and did not require knowledge of any names. The visitors were given chairs while they waited, wondering what was coming. The Chaletians gathered round, eager to see the fun.

“Gee, am I glad I don’t have to do this part!” Evadne whispered to Margia. “I guess it’s going to be just about impossible, don’t you?” But Margia, busy watching to proceedings, was not listening.

Eighteen of the shadows had been taken down from the walls, and the eighteen girls represented thereon given certain instructions. First, three prefects, standing at one end of the room, each held up one of the selected portraits; these were, of course, carefully numbered. The Grange House girls were given one minute to look at the pictures; during this time the appropriate three Chaletians were silently taking up positions at the far end of the room. At a given signal the competitors turned round and could gaze for the next minute at these three girls, standing in profile, each identified by a letter A, B or C pinned to her shoulder. Then the three slipped quickly out of the room, and one more precious minute was allowed for a last look at the pictures. Finally, the competitors had to write down the letters and numbers they thought should go together.

“Dearie me – if only we could be seeing the people and the pictures at the same time, even for a second, it wouldn’t be so hard,” Pamela Trent groaned.

“Oh, hush, for goodness’ sake, I’m trying to concentrate.” This was Joan Hatherley, her eyebrows performing gymnastics and her face twisted in mock agony.

Beside her, Evelyn Barclay was heard muttering: “Help! Whatever
was
that number on the left?”

“You can just be thankful we didn’t keep to our original plan,” Rosalie Dene assured them blandly. “We were going to show you
six
pictures at a time but Miss Durrant – she teaches us art – said that would make things too difficult.”

At this there were hoots of derision from the suffering competitors. And the competition continued to the accompaniment of their moans and the ripples of mirth from the onlookers.