Visitors for the Chalet School

by Helen McClelland

  VISITORS FOR

  THE

  CHALET SCHOOL

  BY

  HELEN MCCLELLAND

  Bettany Press

  1995

  First published in Great Britain by Bettany Press 1995

  8 Kildare Road London E16 4AD

  This ebook edition 2011.

  Text © Helen McClelland 1995

  Illustrations © Anne Thompson 1995

  The right of Helen McClelland to be identifiedas the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved

  ISBN 978-1-908304-04-9

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  FOREWORD: THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

  I. INTRODUCING PATRICIA

  II. AN UNCOMFORTABLE TEA-PARTY

  III. TERM BEGINS

  IV. JOEY’S HIKE

  V. GRANGE HOUSE ARRIVES

  VI. PATRICIA MAKES A FRIEND

  VII. A VISIT FROM MADAME

  VIII. RAIN STOPS PLAY

  IX. GERTRUD HAS AN IDEA

  X. THE CHALET SCHOOL CONCERT

  XI. SHADOW PORTRAITS

  XII. GRANGE HOUSE ENTERTAINS

  XIII. CONFLICT!

  XIV. ‘AN ABSOLUTELY TOPPING DAY!’

  XV. MANY A SLIP . . .

  XVI. RATTENBERG — A FAIRY-TALE TOWN

  XVII. MAYNIE AND THE MIDDLES

  XVIII. MORE MISCHIEF

  XIX. PATRICIA SHOWS HER METTLE

  XX. SUNDAY AT THE SONNALPE

  XXI. A PUZZLING PARCEL

  XXII. TWO LETTERS

  XXIII. A ROYAL SUMMONS

  XXIV. A NARROW ESCAPE

  XXV. GRANGE HOUSE RETURNS

  XXVI. THE CHRISTMAS PLAY

  XVII. GOOD-BYE TO THE CHALET SCHOOL

  EPILOGUE: A NEW BEGINNING

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I should like to express particular thanks to:

  HarperCollins Ltd. and Mrs Chloe Rutherford (joint holders of all rights in the Chalet School series) for kindly giving permission for the book to be published;

  Rosemary Auchmuty and Juliet Gosling of Bettany Press for the unflagging interest and enthusiasm they have brought to the enterprise;

  Joy Wotton for her meticulous yet always constructive editing;

  Anne Thompson for her delightful illustrations;

  All those who, at various times, have read the manuscript and made helpful suggestions;

  The many Chalet School fans around the world who have so heart-warmingly welcomed the book in advance;

  Above all, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer herself, for having created the world of the Chalet School.

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANNE THOMPSON

  The Tiernsee

  Briesau

  Joey’s map

  Farmhouse at Briesau

  A Tyrolean church

  Lake steamer

  The tiny white-washed church behind the Kron Prinz Karl Hotel

  Visitors For The Chalet School

  is affectionately dedicated to my daughters, C.M.K. and A.M.K.

  (because originally it was their book as much as mine)

  and to the memory of Hilary Maurice Bray

  in deep gratitude for his help with all my Chalet School writings

  FOREWORD:

  THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY.

  THE countless fans of the Chalet School will all have their different favourites among the stories, but many seem to share my special fondness for the Tyrolean period — those happy years beside the Tiernsee when Joey and Grizel, the Robin, Simone, Frieda, Margia and other members of the original cast were still among the pupils, and Madge had not yet been so completely swallowed by domesticity.

  As a child, I often wished there had been more stories about that early time. Then, many years later, when my children began to read the books — with general enthusiasm but a similar bias towards the Tyrolean stories — it struck me that another story could perhaps be written to fill one of the early gaps; a project that was viewed with warm approval by my family’s younger members (and with dignified resignation by my husband).

  However, the idea of simply concocting an imitation Chalet School book did not appeal to me. What I wanted was to write my own story, borrowing Elinor’s characters and setting. At first I planned to use one of the unchronicled terms that follow Jo of the Chalet School. But so little is known about that year that it was difficult to find a starting-point, and this project never really took off.

  By this stage (mid-1970s)I was already deep in researches for Behind the Chalet School (my biography of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer), and it was the chance discovery of some sketchy notes among Elinor’s papers that finally pointed the way. For that scribbled page indicated that, at some time, Elinor may herself have considered writing a retrospective book about another missing term, that between Princess and Head Girl. Elinor never seems to have dated her notes, but the most likely period would have been the late 1940s when, as well as producing the Chalet School stories in continous chronological order (viz. Mystery, Tom Tackles, Rosalie), Elinor was also returning to the Tiernsee days for some of the stories in the three Chalet Books for Girls.

  Obviously this particular book did not materialise. Perhaps because Elinor, unlike Elsie Oxenham, does not appear to have liked writing retrospectively (nor, judging by certain efforts in the annuals, was she ever at her best when doing so!). But her random jottings had set my memories whizzing round. In particular, references to: ‘English schoolgirls visit Briesau. Netball match. Hockey?’ For these sent me scurrying to Head Girl, where, in Rosalie Dene’s report to the prefects, I found quite a full, if basic, account of Chalet School events during that missing Christmas term.

  Elinor’s skeletal notes also identified the visiting school as ‘Grange House in Kensington’ — a school-name so typical of its period that I decided to keep it, despite the rather disconcerting likeness to television’s Grange Hill! There were, too, some lists of names — ‘Patricia Davidson, Pamela Trent, Priscilla Doughty-Smith, Veronica Cunningham’ — presumably intended for the London schoolgirls; and a scattering of cryptic phrases: ‘medical studies — Rattenberg expedition — Juliet in London’, the significance of the second and third being fairly clear, but that of the first obscure.

  Not much to go on! But it did provide an outline. Even if the task threatened to resemble those paper-games, beloved of Elinor herself, where lists of unrelated people and events must somehow be built into a coherent story.

  The first step was to try and create an identity for Grange House School, with its pupils and mistresses, and to formulate a rationale for their visit to the Tiernsee.The next, which was fascinating though hard work, demanded an intensive study of the first three Chalet School books and, to some extent, the fourth. Every detail about any Chalet School pupil or member of staff ever mentioned at any point in these books had to be listed. Their names and ages (fortunately not too many discrepancies at this early stage); their appearances, forms, dormitories, tastes, personalities, mannerisms, friendships, etc. etc. — all had to be documented. Exact information about the school itself was also essential: its traditions, routine, timetable, customs, buildings, grounds, and so on (Elinor’s right to make mistakes did not extend to me!). Furthermore, the later books had to be combed for possible references to this particular Christmas term. Altogether, a mass of material had to be gathered and, before long, my dossier had filled two large school exercise-books — in using them for the purpose I was exactly following Elinor.

  Describing
the actual setting and the Tiernsee scenery was easy enough, since in addition to all Elinor’s own splendid local colour, our family holidays in Austria had by this time made Pertisau and the Achensee familiar territory. And, although some allowance had to be made for differences between the real-life Pertisau and Elinor’s Briesau, that wasn’t really a problem.

  In any case, I had throughout this period the willing assistance of two young ‘home-grown’ Chalet School experts. And it must be emphasised that originally Visitors for the Chalet School was very much a family effort, intended mainly for family entertainment, the book’s principal objectives being to convey some picture of what it was actually like to attend the Chalet School, and to provide (if we adapt the old tag about BBC Radio 4’s The Archers), ‘An everyday story of Chalet School folk’.

  High adventure was ruled out on two counts. First, no mention of anything spectacular appeared in either Elinor’s notes or Rosalie Dene’s report to the prefects (‘No floods. No kidnapped princesses’). Second, my children by this point were tending to greet the somewhat repetitive mountain-rescue scenes — especially in the later books — with groans of ‘Oh, no! Not someone else falling off a precipice!’. And although they remained fascinated by any small details about Chalet School life, they often expressed a wish that expeditions could just occasionally be undertaken where no basket of provisions was forgotten, and no truly horrendous disasters occurred. So, with this in mind, we agreed that there would be no happening in ‘our’ story that might not readily have taken place in real life.

  Unquestionably, the writing of a Chalet School book on these realistic lines presented a challenge. An obvious danger being that the result could become just a collection of episodes — or, even worse, boring. Hence I determined to build the story around the theme of a ‘double journey’: on one level the actual journey through Europe travelled by the London schoolgirls; on another, the different ‘journey’ one of their number was helped to make, in order, as the modern phrase has it, to find herself.

  Another matter that had to be considered was that of period background and language. This could have presented problems since, unlike Elinor, I was not writing about a time I remembered personally. But here I was lucky, family circumstances having endowed me with numerous long-lived elderly relatives who were all mines of lucid information about social customs and niceties of the relevant between-wars period (two of them even continued into the 1990s to use schoolgirl slang of the Angela Brazil type!).

  At no point did I try consciously to imitate Elinor’s writing style; and was later astonished to find how many ‘Elinor-isms’ had crept in. And this quite apart from the use of Chalet School language and terminology, which was of course deliberate, as was my decision to write the book in a way that fitted the early part of the series in character, length and for the most part, leisurely pace. Also, of course, in making frequent references to other Chalet School books, à la Brent-Dyer.

  In the end, though, my hope is that readers will enjoy the story for itself, not simply as a piece of reconstruction; and that they will find it essentially true to the spirit of the original books. If it gives half as much pleasure in the reading as it has in the writing, I shall feel more than rewarded.

  Helen McClelland, April 1995.

  CHAPTER I.

  INTRODUCING PATRICIA

  DEVONSHIRE Close was a pleasantly secluded London square, tucked well away from the hustle and bustle of Kensington High Street. Tall, smartly painted Victorian houses rose, cliffs of respectability, around the trim gardens in the centre. At the south-east corner stood number 28. The drawing-room was on the first floor and its huge balconied windows, with their elegant green brocade curtains, kept watch over the street and gardens below.

  One sunny September afternoon, at about a quarter-past four, a girl was sitting at one of these windows, her long legs doubled up awkwardly on the narrow window-seat. Patricia Davidson was seventeen, very tall and very thin. She had dark grey eyes and brown straight hair, tied tightly back from her face, which tended in repose to have a look of strain, even severity. But she had an exceptionally charming smile and, from time to time, it would light up and transform her expression.

  At this moment she was not smiling. Her brows were knitted anxiously as she waited for her new friend, Juliet Carrick, to arrive. ‘Oh, dear! I do hope Juliet won’t be late,’ she thought; ‘that would be a black mark against her from the start.’

  Through her thoughts came her mother’s voice, gently insistent: ‘I presume, Patricia, that your — friend — can at least speak English?’ (There had been a subtle hesitation before the word ‘friend’.)

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Mother? Of course she can speak English. She is English, you know, so whatever makes you think she wouldn’t?’

  ‘But you said, dear, that she comes from this place in Germany . . . whatever it’s called . . . the one you are going to visit with the school. I’m quite sure that is what you told me.’

  ‘Juliet doesn’t come from Briesau, Mother, she just went to school there, that’s all.’ Patricia spoke quietly, but there was an edge to her voice. ‘Anyway Briesau isn’t in Germany, it’s in Austria.’

  ‘Isn’t it all much the same thing?’ Lady Davidson’s languid tones managed to suggest that the difference, if any, would be of no interest to a well-bred English person. She returned to the shiny pages of The Queen.

  Patricia hunched herself up still further into the corner of the window-seat and watched the street below with worried eyes. On the pavement opposite a cat was stalking a non-existent quarry through the scattering of fallen leaves. Patricia’s thoughts, like an aching tooth, continued to nag. ‘I do hope Mother will be decent to Juliet. And I hope Juliet won’t say too much about going to university. If Mother got the idea I was being encouraged in that direction, things could be jolly sticky.’

  ***

  Meanwhile Juliet Carrick was slowly making her way through the tree-lined Kensington streets. She had left the hotel where she was staying in plenty of time and was in no hurry. So, at the gates of Grange House School she paused for a moment to look through the railings. Juliet was interested to see this school, for she had been hearing a great deal about it recently and Patricia Davidson, with whom she was now going to tea, was a pupil there.

  This afternoon the school was deserted: buildings and grounds slumbered in holiday peace. As Juliet moved away from the high wrought-iron gates, she was thinking that Grange House sounded rather an unusual school. And (in more ways than Juliet realised) it was unusual.

  Having begun in only two rooms, the school had now grown to fill a site in Grange Avenue that originally contained six large houses and gardens. It had, moreover, become extremely fashionable. The headmistress, herself a titled lady, could claim many cousins among the aristocracy, and her school always had a large contingent of girls from London’s most exclusive society families.

  Not that this in itself was unusual, for there were plenty of other fashionable schools in and around London. But few of these offered much opportunity for serious study. They were convenient places where society girls could pass the time until they were old enough for the London season — that ceaseless whirl of parties and dances, culminating (as Miss Denny had explained to Juliet) in the grand occasion when each girl, splendidly arrayed, would be presented at Court and make her curtsey to the King and Queen.

  The Grange House headmistress knew well that this was the only path awaiting many of her girls. Nevertheless she was determined that her school should, in the mean time, offer its girls as excellent an education as was taken for granted in the top boys’ schools. She had ensured that a wide range of subjects was always available at Grange House; and her highly qualified staff were instructed to demand serious hard work from their pupils. Woe betide any girl, however well bred, who failed to hand in her essay on time, or to learn her daily quota of French irregular verbs. A hundred relatives in Burke’s Peerage could not avail to save her.


  ‘It must be an enormous school,’ Juliet mused, as she crossed the road and turned into Devonshire Close. ‘Heaps bigger than ours. Lucky things, going off travelling for a whole term! I wonder how they’ll like the Tiernsee?’ She looked round for number 28. It was perplexing the way that house-numbers in London seemed to be arranged differently in every street. Now, after a few minutes’ fruitless search, she realised she was on the wrong side of the square.

  There were a great many things about London that Juliet found confusing, for this was her first visit to England. She had spent her entire early life in India until, at fifteen, she was sent to the Chalet School in the Austrian Tyrol. Shortly after this, the death of both parents in a motor accident left her an orphan and the Chalet School had become her home. She was deeply devoted to the school and to its former headmistress, Mrs Russell, who was her legal guardian.

  Juliet was eighteen now, and about to begin an exciting new chapter in her life, studying for a B.Sc. degree at London University. Already her schooldays seemed a long way off, but in fact it was barely ten days since she and Miss Denny, whose eccentric brother taught singing at the Chalet School, had arrived in London where they would be staying until the university term began. A friend of Madge Russell’s had recommended the Leighton Hotel in Kensington, and it was here that Juliet first met Patricia Davidson.

  The hotel was quite small, and, among the few residents, one stood out — a handsome, rather formidable-looking woman, somewhere in her early forties, who appeared punctually each day at breakfast and again at dinner-time.