03 The Princess of the Chalet School Read Online Free PDF Page A

keep house for a brother who had lost his wife, and was left with three boys and a tiny girl. Miss Bettany had had too much to do to go to England, and had engaged her new matron through an agency. Miss Webb had arrived two days before, and already the young Head was ruefully telling herself that she had mad a mistake this time. The new-comer was alittle, bustling woman, with a loud and unpleasant voice, a domineering manner, and an irritable temper. To the family four – Madge, Joey, the Robin, and Juliet Carrick, the headmistress’s ward – Miss Webb was everything she ought not to be.

    Matron ‘could not do’ with girls helping with the various duties. The three girls had always given a hand in the somewhat strenuous period of getting ready for the new term, and they were simply flabbergasted when one offer of assistance after another was refused, or else accepted so curtly as to take all the joy of helping out of everything they did. However, Joey and Juliet were Guides, and the Robin was a Brownie, so they did their level best to smile. The Robin was rather pathetic about it, however. ‘Zoë, I aren’t a nuisance?’ she said piteously, when she had had some tablets of soap taken out of her hands with the remark, ‘Oh, go away and play outside, you little nuisance, you!’
    Jo’s reply was not quite judicious. ‘Of course you’re not, darling! She’s a cross old cat, and you’re ever so much of a help!’
    Unfortunately for her, her sister heard hear, and read her a lecture on backing up authority to the juniors.
    ‘I’m sorry if I’ve let you down, Madge,’ said the culprit; ‘but she is cross, and it was horrid of her to call the Robin a nuisance when she isn’t. She was only helping, just as we always do.’
    ‘I cannot help that, Joey,’ said her sister gravely. ‘You had no right to call her names to the baby. You know how the Robin looks up to you and copies you in every way, and it was exceedingly naughty of you. If she tells the others, they will instantly take to all sorts of unpleasant names for Matron, and it will only make things more difficult.’
    ‘You do think she will give us an unpleasant term, then,’ said Jo shrewdly. ‘I am a beast, Madge! I didn’t think of that. I won’t call her names to the Robin anymore. But it was awfully mean of her to say such things to our baby.’
    Madge Bettany looked at her younger sister thoughtfully. In many ways Jo had been treated like a grown-up, and she was wondering whether it would be judicious to tell her that there was little likelihood of Matron’s staying after the one term. She decided that it would be better to say nothing; so, merely telling the little girl that she must learn to control her tongue, sent her out to the little shop at the Post Hotel to get some picture post-cards that were wanted, and let the subject drop. All the same, she contrived to impress on Matron that the girls were accustomed to helping in the house out of term-time, and requested her not to interfere with them if she or Mademoiselle, or Miss Carthew, who had spent the holidays with them, should use the children in any way.
    Matron heard her through to the end. Then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Very well, Miss Bettany. Of course, you are mistress here, and it must be as you wish. All the same, I am not accustomed to having girls messing about when I am busy, and I don’t like it. Also, I should prefer that they should not come into my province to carry tales about me.’
    Madge was furious. To begin with, there was a covert insolence in the Matron’s manner to which she was quite unaccustomed. She was very young, she knew, to be a headmistress, and she looked much younger than she was. Nevertheless, she had never yet met with anything but the utmost respect from anyone. Apart from that, she was wildly indignant that such a charge as tale-bearing should be made against the three, more especially as not one of them had ever been guilty of such