03 The Princess of the Chalet School (2 page)

The Crown Prince did not answer his little daughter’s outburst immediately, and she began to be afraid that he minded her wanting to go away. She peeped at him from under her long lashes, and then she discovered that he was smiling. ‘Daddy!’ she cried, a sudden wonderful idea in her head.

‘Well, what?’ he asked.

‘Do you – am I – is it –?’

‘What a number of unfinished sentences!’ he laughed, as he took her hands in him. ‘And so that is your dream – to go to school?’

Elisaveta nodded dumbly; she was incapable of speaking at the moment.

‘Would it make you very happy to go, Carina?’

Again the little nod of the head.

‘Then you shall. I am going to send Signor Francesco to the Tiern See, where there is a good school, kept by an English lady, and he will make all arrangements for you to go there after Easter. Does it please you, my darling?’

‘Grandpapa?’ breathed Elisaveta.

‘He agrees. He thinks with me that you will be happier with other girls, and the school is a good one, with the highest testimonials – so he has consented. Alette must see to getting your clothes ready, and I think we will give
les gouvernantes
a little holiday. You won’t want to do lessons for the next few weeks, will you?’

‘Oh! It’s too good to be true!’ Elisaveta was squeezing her father’s hands so tightly in her excitement that he was surprised. ‘Daddy, it’s ever so good of grandpapa! I was so afraid that he would mind. All the girls of our family have just had governesses, and I thought he would say that I must, too. It is splendid that he doesn’t! I suppose he’s a very enlightened monarch!’

The last sentence of that speech would have decided her father if nothing else had done so. It was so utterly unchild-like. However, he said nothing about it, and Elisaveta was too much interested in her future to worry much about her grandfather, who had never shown much interest in her, the truth being that he had never really forgiven her for not being a boy.

‘What do we wear, daddy? Will it be gym tunics, like the girls in the books you give me? I do hope so! It must be so lovely to wear frocks that don’t really matter!’

‘Don’t you like pretty frocks?’ asked her father curiously.

‘Sometimes – when I come to a reception, or anything of that kind. But it’s just hateful to have to be careful of all my frocks!’

‘Well, I expect you will wear a tunic, so you needn’t worry about that any longer,’ said the Prince, laughing. ‘Here comes Alette with the tea. Will you pour it out, yourself?’

‘I’ll pour out,’ decided the Princess. ‘You must just be my visitor, daddy.’

She carefully poured out his tea, and saw him supplied with muffin from the dish Alette had brought into the room with the tea. Then she went back to the school. ‘Tell me all about it, daddy,
please
!’

‘I really can’t tell you very much, yet. I only know what the doctor told me. It is built on the shores of the Tiern See, where your mother and I spent part of our honeymoon. It is kept by an English girl – a Miss Bettany. She has a French lady for a partner, I believe, and she receives girls who want an English education. Dr. Tracy tells me that a friend of his has just sent his little girl there, so I hope she will be a friend for you. That is all I know about it. I have told Captain Trevillion to write for the prospectus, and we’ll know more about it when that comes. Aren’t you going to eat anything?’

‘I forgot,’ acknowledged the Princess, who, in her excitement, had taken nothing so far. ‘I think I’d like some of that spongecake, daddy, please.’

He passed it to her, and while she ate it her thoughts went back to her grandfather. ‘It seems so strange that I can really go,’ she said. ‘I was sure that grandpapa would always say “No,” so I never said anything about it. Are you
certain
he doesn’t mind, daddy?’

‘Certain. So you needn’t think of that any more. Only don’t talk too much about it before him,’ replied the Prince, his mind going back to the interview he had had with his father half an hour ago.

‘I don’t approve of schools for girls,’ the King had said. ‘Still, as you have reminded me, she is your child, so you have the right to dispose of her as you choose, I suppose. She is a girl – can never wear the crown –so I do not think it can matter much what you do with her. Send her, by all means, if you feel that it is your duty – I shall not forbid it. If she had been a boy it would have been different. As it is, I have to look forward to the fact that after you comes Cosimo. I wish you would marry again, Carol.’

The Crown Prince shook his head. ‘I regret, sire, I cannot do that. And Cosimo may yet reform.’

‘Never!’ retorted the King. ‘Well, if you refuse, I cannot force you; I can only point you to your duty to the realm. But with regard to Elisaveta you may do as you please. She will never come to the throne, and we are only a very negligible kingdom now. It can make no difference to use when she is of marriageable age.’

‘Thank you, sire.’ The Prince rose. ‘I am deeply grateful to you for your consent, and if I could do anything to thank you, I would do it. But what you have asked is more that I can do.’

The King bent his head. ‘So be it. Yet I may ask again, Carol. Yet I will not press you.’

Prince Carol looked at his father. Then, greatly daring, he spoke once more before leaving the room. ‘Your Majesty will be the last one to press such a thing on me, even for the good of the realm. I remember my mother.’

The he had left the room to bring the glad news to his little daughter, leaving his father thinking of the lovely English wife who had taken most of the sunlight from his life when she died. The Crown Prince was right. The King would never force is son to remarry, and Elisaveta had no need at present, anyhow, to fear a step-mother. As a matter of fact, such an idea had never entered her head. She was very childish, and no one had ever even hinted at such an idea to her. At least, she was very far from thinking of anything of the kind that rainy afternoon in February when she discussed so eagerly the question of her school with her father.

At about five o’clock by English time – seventeen, by continental measures – Dr. Tracy made his appearance, and was literally startled by the change in his little patient. Gone was the listlessness of the morning, and a merry, flushed child greeted him with eager exclamations. ‘Oh, Dr. Tracy, I am so glad to see you! I want to thank you for saying I ought to go to school. I was so kind of you, and to think of a school, too!’

‘Kind, was it?’ queried the doctor as he looked at her. ‘Well, I don’t know. I think it was the best thing to do when all my medicine and all Nurse’s care weren’t helping you to get well as quickly as you ought. You like this medicine, do you?’

‘Oh, ever so much!’ And the Princess held out her hand to him. ‘It is lovely, and I think you are a dear to have though of it!’

‘Good! Well, if you can look like this after only a short while of it, you ought soon to be out of my hands now. You must eat and sleep, and make haste to get well as soon as possible, for Alette will need you to make your new outfit, and I want to see you all ready for school before the end of next month.’

‘Does the term begin at the end of March?’ asked Elisaveta, astonished.

‘No; not till the beginning of May, I believe. But I want you to have a holiday first, and you must go to Elmiano for a few weeks before you make the long journey to the Tyrol.’

‘How lovely! I love Elmiano!’ sighed Elisaveta, who associated the lovely seaside village with summer holidays spent in getting herself into as much of a mess as possible, with only Alette to raise her hands in horror, and the Baroness Salnio, who was her lady-in-waiting, to say, ‘Oh, Princess, how you have dirtied yourself!’

‘Then that’s settled,’ said the doctor. ‘In three weeks’ time you are to be ready for the little trip, and then it will be hey for school and dozens of girls!’

‘Ooh!’ The Princess sighed a deep sigh of rapture. ‘It is just gorgeous. I’m longing for it!’

‘Excellent! Well, now we must have Nurse and Alette to get you back to bed, and to sleep. You will be tired after all this excitement, and I don’t want you to be poorly to-morrow as a result of al your joy to come.’

‘I’ll go to bed, of course,’ replied the Princess, ‘but I’m sure I shall never be able to go to sleep. I shall just lie and think of it all.’

‘We’ll see,’ said the doctor, who knew better than to upset her by contradicting her. “I’ll ring for Alette, and then you must say “Good-bye” to his Highness for a while. He shall come to say “Good-night” when you are safe in bed.’

‘May I tell Alette, daddy?’ pleaded Elisaveta.

‘I will tell her myself,’ promised the Prince. ‘I want to tell Mademoiselle myself as soon as possible, and if you tell Alette, she might say something before I could do so.’

The Princess nodded submissively. She was too well-trained to murmur. The doctor rang, and presently Alette appeared, and was sent for Nurse, who came at once, and the two men left the room.

Nurse and Alette were startled at the improvement in their little charge since they had last seen her. Nurse, especially, was surprised. ‘Well, Princess,’ she said, as she laid the little girl in bed and tucked her in,

‘getting up
has
done you good! You don’t look like the same child!’

Alette, who had been Elisaveta’s nurse until her small mistress had gone into the schoolroom, and who adored the Princess with her whole hear, was overjoyed. ‘You look more like my bambina,’ she said in her soft pretty Belsornian. ‘It rejoices my heart to see you so, madame.’

‘Dear Alette!’ said the Princess, smiling at her.

Alette finished her work of tidying up the room, and the nurse made up the fire and saw that the night-light was in its place.

‘I’m not
really
sleepy, Nurse,’ said Elisaveta pleadingly.

Nurse smiled. ‘Not yet; but I expect you soon will be. I will leave the light a little longer, however, and I will sit by the fire and finish my book. But you must not talk, madame; you must lie quietly if I do so.’

‘I will,’ promised the Princess.

So Alette went downstairs to the great kitchens to rejoice the hearts of the other servants with the news of their little Princess’s improvement, and Nurse sat down with her book by the fire.

Elisaveta lay very still and watched her, turning over in her mind all that she had been told and all the splendid time that was coming to her. It seemed too wonderful to be true. Then she knew that it was; for she was there already, and was assuring a quite serious headmistress that she never went on a lake with other girls unless they had an elephant in the boat.

It was just at this point, though she did not know it, that Nurse lit the night-light, and switching off the electric-light, stole out of the room. Elisaveta was sound asleep.

An Honour for the Chalet School

‘Joey – Joey!’

‘Coming!’ Joey Bettany swung herself down from the big tree in which she had been sitting, and raced across the grass towards the house where her elder sister, Madge, was standing waiting for her.

‘Where on earth were you?’ demanded the latter as her small sister reached her side. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’

‘I was only in the chestnut-tree,’ explained Joey, holding out her handsj in corroboration of her statement.

‘Why didn’t you call before? I’d have shouted, and then you wouldn’t have had to look for me.’

‘I though you were practicing,’ replied Madge. ‘How you do love to climb about, Joey! You must have been a monkey in your last incarnation, I should think!’

Joey chuckled. ‘
You
can’t talk, my dear! Who was up in the chestnut only last Saturday? And you a headmistress at that!’

‘It was only to see if I could see Jem coming along the path,’ said her sister defensively. ‘None of the girls saw me.’

‘I should hope not! They were all out for a walk – except the Robin.’

‘Oh! So that’s how you know! I
thought
you were with the others! I must tell the Robin not to tell tales out of school.’

Joey laughed. ‘She thought it was a splendid thing for you to do. She told me all about how Tante Marguerite had climbed up as well as Grizel or I could do. She seemed to think it was an additional gift of yours. I don’t believe she thinks any grown-up can climb trees.’

‘I hope she doesn’t tell the others about it!’ exclaimed Madge.

‘Don’t worry, old thing,’ replied Joey, slipping her hand through her sister’s arm. ‘I told her that it wasn’t the sort of thing to talk about with the others – just a family affair between ourselves and we must keep it a secret.’

‘Good for you, Joey! I
don’t
want the others to think that they have a tomboy for a headmistress! The Robin, bless her, would never think of that side of it!’

‘I don’t suppose she would,’ agreed Joey.

The two sisters began to stroll down the path to the high gate in the withy fence which kept summer visitors from gazing in at the girls during school-hours, and acted as a deterrent on girls who preferred to see what people outside were doing to getting on with their work. It had been build during the previous Easter to take the place of the one which had been swept away by the flooding of the mountain stream that flowed into the lake from the great Tiernjoch, and helped to divide the triangle of Briesau where the Chalet School was situated. Herr Braun, the landlord of Miss Bettany, had had the fence erected again while she and the school were having holiday, and it was a good substantial affair now, with strong iron staves driven into the ground at frequent intervals for supports, and with a double interlacing of the withes.

The two Bettanys walked down to the gate, opened it, crossed the little bridge the kindly Tyrolean had put over the deep ditch he had had dug to carry off the water in case such a thing should happen again, and turned down the lake road in the direction of the Post Hotel, one of the largest there.

‘Where are we going?’ demanded Joey.

‘To the Post. Herr Sneider is ill, and I am going to fetch the letters – if there are any.’

‘There ought to be one from India. Dick is awfully regular. He’s a jolly decent brother that way,’ declared Joey. ‘Mollie isn’t bad, either. Isn’t it funny?’ she went on; ‘we’ve got a sister-in-law – had her more than a year, and neither of us has seen her. At least, you can’t count photos really, can you?’