Visitors for the Chalet School

by Helen McClelland

  When Veronica, with what Joan had once called her ‘genius for stating the obvious’, paused on the hotel doorstep to declare, ‘This has been an absolutely topping day,’ no one, this time, would even have wanted to contradict her.

  CHAPTER XV.

  MANY A SLIP . . .

  ‘OH, dear, doesn’t the time just simply fly past? We seem to have been here no time at all and now there’s only one week before we shoot off to Salzburg. I’ve got fond of this place, too.’ Pamela Trent gave a small sigh as she closed the catches of her overnight case and looked round to see if Patricia was ready.

  Patricia nodded absently; she was busy packing her own case, her hands moving quickly and deftly. ‘Pam, could you pass me my sponge-bag and toothbrush, please? They’re on my washstand — no, the other side — thanks terribly; and my hairbrush is in the dressing-table drawer. There, that should be everything, I think.’ She checked the pile of belongings on her bed and, returning to her rapid packing, slipped a neatly folded pair of pyjamas into the case.

  It was unlike Patricia not to be ready first, but she had gone round to the Chalet School that morning to hear from Joey Bettany details about the forthcoming weekend party, and this had delayed her.

  Today was Monday, and this morning the Londoners were off for their last expedition in the Tyrol. It was to be a three-day affair; they were to visit first the medieval town of Rattenberg-am-Inn and then go on to Innsbruck, where they would remain until Thursday afternoon. There was so much of interest to be seen in and around Innsbruck that a one-day expedition would obviously not have been enough. It would also have been very tiring because the little mountain railway was now closed for the winter, and after a day’s sightseeing they would have been faced with the long climb up to the Tiernsee. Accordingly, arrangements had been made for the party to stay two nights at the Maria-Theresia Hotel in Innsbruck’s most famous street. This would give them nearly three days to enjoy Innsbruck at leisure.

  By half-past nine everyone was ready and the party set off briskly along the lake-path to Seespitz and down through the pine-woods towards Spärtz.

  ‘One thing about having done that climb up the Schneebergspitze, it does make an ordinary mountain-path seem like Kensington High Street,’ remarked Patricia, as they went downwards at a very fair speed.

  ‘Can’t say I see much resemblance,’ laughed Joan, glancing at the pine-trees and the stream rushing merrily down the mountain beside the path. ‘What’s happened to Derry & Toms? Oh, well, all right, Patricia; I do know what you mean, of course. Intelligent and quick on the uptake — that’s me!’

  ‘Now, really, Joan! You must mean “that is I”, don’t you?’ Patricia said with exaggerated primness. ‘Whatever would Miss Bruce say to her dear Joanie?’

  ‘Well, I always think it sounds odd to say “It is I”,’ Pamela commented, ‘even if it is correct. Oh, I say! Do watch out, Patricia; you nearly tripped over that tree-root.’

  ‘And a tree-root is something I’ve never noticed growing out of the pavement in Kensington High Street,’ Joan added sweetly.

  Patricia smiled, and gave more attention to the path.

  Pamela stole a quick glance in Patricia’s direction. She was very fond of her friend and was pleased to see how well and happy Patricia was looking now. ‘Thank goodness!’ she thought. ‘Her awful cloud of misery seems to have cleared away completely.’

  Pamela’s glance had been discreet, but it had not gone unnoticed by the observant Patricia. Many times in the past weeks she had felt grateful for Pamela’s tact and completely unobtrusive sympathy. It had taken Patricia some time to overcome the depression that overwhelmed her on the day of the netball match. But eventually she had remembered her old Scottish nanny’s often-quoted saying, ‘what can’t be cured must be endured.’ Patricia had no intention of giving up the battle, but she did decide to put the whole matter out of her mind, at least until her coming visit to the Russells at the Sonnalpe, and to enjoy her Tyrolean holiday to the full. And, because she had been gifted with unusual powers of concentration, she was able to put her decision into practice.

  The three girls paused for a moment to look at the view that had just opened up on their right; through a gap in the trees, green fields could be seen and, still far away below them, the church and houses of Spärtz.

  ‘It would have been fun if the Chalet School folk could have come with us to Rattenberg,’ Pamela remarked. ‘I thought they were going to.’

  ‘Well, you can understand why their Head wasn’t very keen on the idea,’ said Joan. ‘They’ve been allowed to miss no end of lessons this term already; I’m sure most schools wouldn’t be allowed all that extra time for games and expeditions.’

  ‘Of course there’s a good reason for their getting extra time,’ Patricia pointed out. ‘Apparently, when it starts to snow here it really does snow like anything; they all say they’re sometimes shut up in the house for days on end.’

  Patricia’s glance lingered for a moment on the strong jagged outlines of the pine-branches silhouetted against the sky. ‘It must look wonderful at the Tiernsee when there’s snow,’ she said dreamily.

  ‘Absolutely ripping,’ agreed Pamela. ‘And it’s just our rotten luck that there hasn’t been any snow yet this year. Deira O’Hagan was telling me that last year the snow had begun at least a week before this. And the year before she thinks it was even earlier, but of course she wasn’t at the Chalet School then.’

  ‘I wonder what it’s like going to school here,’ mused Joan. ‘It must be — .’ Here she broke off, for loud shouts could be heard coming from further down the mountain; a moment later Veronica Cunningham, crimson from indignation and running uphill, appeared at the next bend of the path, and began exhorting them crossly to stop dawdling.

  ‘You really are the pink limit! Miss Bruce and Miss Mortlock are simply livid; all the others are miles ahead. What in the name of everything have you been doing?’ And Veronica vanished down the path with an angry flounce.

  The three looked guiltily at one another before breaking into a run. It dawned on them that they must have been standing still for a considerable time, absorbed in their discussion. Conversation had to be shelved while they made all possible haste to follow Veronica.

  They did eventually return to the subject of the Chalet School, when they were sitting, hot and breathless, in the train to Rattenberg. The party had only just managed to catch the train, rushing wildly into the station with less than a minute to spare even although they had run the last quarter of a mile through Spärtz in a thoroughly undignified fashion. Fortunately the train had been standing at the platform nearest the entrance, so at least they were spared a dive through the subway to the far side of the station. Even so there had been no time to buy tickets. The station attendant assured the exasperated Miss Bruce that they could get tickets on the train. But he neglected to inform her that there is an extra charge on an Austrian train for doing this. It did not amount to a great deal, but nevertheless Miss Bruce was annoyed and spoke somewhat frostily to the three whose unnecessary delay had caused the party’s late arrival.

  Feeling rather subdued, they took their places on the hard benches of a third-class compartment, and for a while gazed out of the windows without speaking a word.

  Pamela was first to break the silence. ‘Do you think you would like to be at the Chalet School, Joan?’

  ‘Shouldn’t like to be at any boarding-school!’ was the prompt reply. ‘But if I ever did have to go to one, I must say it seems a decent enough school in lots of ways. I’d be pretty useless at all the foreign languages, of course, but there’d be plenty of chance to learn those. On the other hand, I do wonder what the standard of general work can be like in such a small school.’

  ‘Oh, I think the standard’s quite high,’ Patricia rejoined. ‘Everything I’ve seen and heard points that way. Take science — they’ve not got much in the way of labs, of course, but I’d say Miss Wilson is a top-notch teacher. And don’t forg
et that Juliet Carrick — their last Head Girl, you know — won some kind of maths scholarship to London University, and those aren’t easy to get.’

  ‘That’s true,’ acknowledged Joan. ‘It looks as though the teaching must be all right. I must say their Sixth Form are all very bright — heaps better informed about most things than I am, for one. It’s not that I want to criticise, you know, Patricia. It’s just rather difficult to compare their school with ours.’

  ‘I’d be happy to go to any school in such a beautiful place,’ said Pamela. ‘I hate London.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ Patricia’s astonishment was plain. ‘I’m very fond of London, myself. But I shouldn’t mind a scrap going to boarding-school. In fact I’d love to be at the Chalet School in lots of ways.’ And her lips tightened for a moment.

  The train, which had been chuffing unhurriedly along the broad valley that lies beside the River Inn, was now coming near the outskirts of a small town. Suddenly it plunged into a tunnel. When it emerged a moment later the girls exclaimed in delight, for it was as though the curtain had risen on some medieval drama. There was Rattenberg, spread out before them, with its castle set high on a hill, its many churches and spires, and the mountainside behind like a gigantic back-cloth.

  The train drew up at the platform of the tiny station, and Joan jumped immediately to her feet: ‘Come on, you two, let’s nip out quickly. We jolly well don’t want to keep anyone waiting this time.’

  CHAPTER XVI.

  RATTENBERG — A FAIRY-TALE TOWN.

  THEY were to spend only a few hours in Rattenberg, so, once they were all safely out of the train, Miss Bruce looked round to see if arrangements could be made to dispose of their cases. Each girl had only one small case in addition to her handbag, but obviously sightseeing would be more enjoyable if these could be left at the station.

  At first sight there was nobody on the platform. Eventually an old man, in a uniform many times too large for him, looked out of a door and asked to see their tickets. While these were being examined, Joan, Pamela and Patricia kept carefully out of Miss Bruce’s sight, not wishing to remind her of matters best forgotten. They contrived to take an unlikely amount of interest in a tattered poster at the far end of the platform, which urged them to ‘Besuchen Innsbruck’. ‘It’s all right; we’re going to, anyway,’ Joan assured the poster conspiratorially.

  The old man, who apparently combined the offices of ticket collector, porter, station master and cloakroom attendant, was amiably prepared to let them leave their luggage in his tiny room. As Joan said, there wasn’t much space left for him, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  Breakfast that morning had been early, and it now began to seem a very long time ago. So, on leaving the station, they first of all looked round for a place to have coffee and something to eat.

  The girls were enchanted with the old narrow streets and the houses with their projecting alcoves and windows. The more imaginative began to feel as though they had strayed into some fairy-tale . . . a familiar sensation for visitors to Rattenberg.

  ‘Oh, please, Miss Bruce, do let’s go in there for our coffee!’ Pamela forgot in her excitement that they were trying to avoid Miss Bruce’s attention; she was pointing to a particularly attractive-looking old house, which had been converted into a café. It had a beautiful wrought-iron sign outside, with the name of the proprietor ‘Hans Kindler’, and a representation of some kind of animal, probably a chamois. There were also two ordinary printed notices, one saying ‘Café, Konditorei. Eis Spezialität’ and the other ‘Zimmer frei’. After nearly a month in Austria nobody needed to have either of these translated.

  Miss Bruce readily agreed to their going inside; they found their way along a rambling corridor to a pleasant whitewashed room, furnished with traditional Tyrolese wooden furniture. It was quite a large room with a vaulted ceiling, and the walls, judging from the depth of the window embrasures and of the entrance from the passage, must have been nearly five feet thick.

  A wooden statue of the Madonna and Child, beautifully carved and painted, stood in a niche in one corner, and the tables had gay Tyrolean table-cloths and mats. The whole impression was simple and delightful.

  Even Miss Bruce was charmed. ‘This is the real thing, Doreen,’ she assured Miss Mortlock. ‘Often they ruin these places . . .far too many ornaments. . . and tourist knick-knacks . . . usually in appalling taste . . . but this is most agreeable.’ She and her young colleague seated themselves at a table beside the huge tiled stove.

  The girls were especially impressed by a large painted cupboard and a carved chest; they were so interested in examining these that they were almost reluctant to sit down and drink their coffee.

  Meanwhile a waitress, dressed in Tyrolean costume, placed two large steaming jugs containing coffee and milk on the table in the centre of the room; each girl poured out for herself and then went to sit at one of the smaller tables. This arrangement pleased Patricia particularly, since she had a great liking for black coffee and did not often get the chance to drink it.

  ‘I don’t know how you can drink that stuff,’ Joan said, her left eyebrow topping her right by nearly half an inch. ‘I think coffee without milk is poisonous.’

  ‘And to think she doesn’t even take sugar in it!’ Pamela remarked with a shudder, as she dropped four cubes of sugar into her own very milky drink.

  ‘When you two have quite finished discussing my peculiarities, perhaps one of you would pass me a bread-twist,’ Patricia said, sounding just for one moment an unconscious echo of her mother’s lemon-and-ice-cream tones.

  ‘Sorry, do have one.’ Pamela passed the basket to Patricia and then to Joan. ‘I love these things, don’t you?’

  The pretty waitress returned at this moment to see if anything further were needed, then disappeared to the kitchen. ‘Why do you think it is,’ Joan wondered, ‘that a girl like that looks so gorgeous in Tyrolean dress and those tourists we saw the first week all looked such utterly ghastly sights?’

  Pamela and Patricia both giggled at the memory; on one of the early expeditions of their visit they had met a large group of tourists, mostly Germans, who had ill-advisedly got themselves up in Tyrolean garb; on them it had looked neither suitable nor, in the case of the men crammed into Lederhosen, comfortable.

  When they had finished their Kaffee and the bill had been paid, Miss Bruce gave permission for the girls to form into small groups and go off to explore the town. They were to return to the same café at half-past one for lunch. After that there would be time to look at some of the shops; Rattenberg is famous for its glass, and there were numerous shops near the café where this could be obtained.

  Patricia, Joan and Pamela set out down the winding cobbled street, deciding that they would first visit the parish church and then walk up the hill to look at the castle. The church was impressive, although Patricia regretted that the original Gothic building had so many Baroque additions both inside and out. Joan pronounced it all more interesting than beautiful; and Pamela declared that the painting behind the High Altar, depicting one enormous wide-open eye, positively gave her the creeps.

  ‘Perhaps it’s meant to symbolise God the Father,’ Joan suggested. ‘ “Slumbers not, nor sleeps” — you know.’

  ‘And how do you like these?’ Patricia drew the others’ attention to a display of reliquaries with somewhat gruesome contents.

  They left the church and toiled slowly up the steep path to the castle. Here they were at first a little disappointed, for they found that there were only some ruined walls and a tower remaining of the ancient castle. However the view from the ramparts, over the town with its many spires and towers, and across the River Inn to the mountains beyond, was magnificent and quite made up for all the exertions of the climb.

  Joan got out her Kodak and took a photograph of Patricia and Pamela, standing side by side on what had once been the battlements, and looking out at this panorama. Then Pamela offered to take Joan and Patricia in the same position. ‘
It makes a splendid setting for a picture,’ she remarked, holding the camera rather gingerly. ‘Hang on a mo,’ Joan. Which one do I press to take the snap?’

  ‘No, not that one, Pam, that’s for time exposures; the one on the right of the view-finder.’

  ‘Oh, I see now. Well, can you both look pleasant again? Right you are . . . and I hope it comes out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll be a masterpiece.’ Joan took the camera and put it carefully back into its case. ‘Of course, photos aren’t like the real thing, you do miss the colour,’ she remarked as the three started slowly down the road back to the town. ‘But they’ll give me some sort of reminder of the trip. I’ve taken quite a lot since we came to Briesau.’

  ‘Perhaps one day someone will invent something and we’ll all be able to take snaps in colour,’ Pamela said.

  ‘Oh, but they already have — it can be done now, you know,’ Patricia, the scientific member of the trio, was quick to point out.

  ‘Well, I know you get them in magazines,’ Joan said, pausing for a moment to remove a pebble from her shoe. ‘Oh, gosh! That’s better. But I’ve never seen ordinary snaps in colour.’

  ‘It’s probably a jolly complicated process,’ Patricia suggested. ‘And terribly expensive. But anyway, Joan, I’d still like to see your photos when they’re ready.’

  ‘And so should I,’ Pamela chimed in. ‘In fact, you’ll probably have to set up a photographic service. Everyone’s sure to want copies.’

  ‘Well, girls, I expect something just might be arranged . . . if the money’s good enough to tempt me, that is. Although it is most unlikely — unlikely, you might say, in the extreme — that you poor lowly beings . . . Oh, all right, Pam!’ Joan broke off with a splutter, for Pamela had rolled her handkerchief into a neat ball and lobbed it accurately at her friend’s mouth. Joan returned the hanky good-naturedly and went on unperturbed, ‘Have you two seen any of Priscilla’s sketches? Now they’re going to be a wonderful record of our trip. You know it would be rather an idea for Prissy to have a show of her pictures at the Stephanie when we get back. Then we could all see them.’