A Genius at the Chalet School (17 page)

   "Mrs. Maynard!" she cried. "Miss Chester said you weren't coming till this afternoon!"

   "I know," Joey said as Jack carefully lowered her on to the big settee and the nurse hurried forward to arrange cushions. "Do let me alone, Nurse! I really am quite all right for the moment. Come here and kiss me, Nina, and then you shall see the treasure I've brought back with me. Beth, give me my baby, please."

   Beth came forward and laid the pink bundle in her arms while Nurse, with a word to the doctor, stood back for the moment. Joey tossed aside the shawl in which the baby was wrapped and then turned to eager Nina, the tiny black-curled head nestled against her, her hand and arm supporting the wee body with accustomed deftness.

   "There! What do you think of my latest effort?" she asked proudly as Nina stooped to give her the requested kiss before kneeling down beside her.

   "Oh, how tiny! And oh! what a perfect pet! Mrs. Maynard, she's simply lovely!"

   "Isn't she just? Nurse, do stop
hovering
 about me like that! I really am quite all right. I'm not tired in the least and I'm not an invalid any more and haven't the least intention of being treated like one. I mean to have my lunch here and after that, I'll go to bed if nothing else will serve you; but that's all. Cecily is six and a half days old and I've been aching to show her to someone who isn't family and here's Nina all ready and to hand. Here; you can hold her for a minute, Nina, while they finish settling me. I can see in Nurse's eye she'll give me no peace till that's done. Here you are! Don't be afraid. She won't break and she won't wake for a while yet. She had her feed just before I left San."

   Nina took the small thing cautiously while Jack and the nurse between them got Joey properly settled on the settee.

   "You may stay there till you've had a meal and a rest," he said severely. "Then you go to bed and there you stay until Frank Peters gives you leave to get up. Can't have Cecily upset just because you choose to be pig-headed!"

   Joey made a face at him. "We'll see about that! I can manage Frank Peters any day of the week. Give her back, Nina. I'm safe now."

   Nina put the baby carefully into her mother's arms. "Thank you most awfully, Mrs. Maynard. I never held such a baby before. I'm just thrilled to know I'm the first in the school to do it!"

   "Except her sisters," Joey said laughing. "
They
 have each nursed her, of course. But they're accustomed to it by this time. You're the first
girl
 apart from them, though."

   Nurse and Beth had left the room now and Nina sat down on the floor by the settee.

   "The girls will be thrilled to know you're home again," she said. "Some of them have been planning to pay you lots of visits when you came back to Freudesheim. We couldn't do it with San three miles away. Here, we can see you and Cecily as often as we're let."

   "And that won't be at all for a day or two," Jack said with an eye on his wife. "What were you playing when we came, Nina? Something new, isn't it?"

   Nina reddened. "It - it's just - something I was composing for - Cecily," she said shyly. "A little welcome to her - at least, that's what it's called."

   "Not really?" Joey's eyes left the baby's face to rest delightedly on Nina's. Oh, my dear, how decent of you! Go and play it again so that we can hear it. And then - well, then I rather think they'll
make 
me rest, whether I want to or not, and you'll have to go."

   "It's still only in the rough," Nina said, getting up and going to the piano again. "There's lots to do to it yet. It won't disturb her, will it?"

   "Most unlikely at this stage. And anyway, all our babies learn very soon to sleep through anything," Joey answered, laughing. "As for telling the others I've come home, don't give me away just yet, Nina. I'd have been at the San for another four or five days if they hadn't needed my room so badly. But it was wanted - for your cousin, actually - and we've both got on so well, they said I might come home to-day. But just for the next few days we're going to be very quiet, Cecily and I, to give her a good start in life. In fact," she added with a sudden grin, "you're having the start of everyone unless any of the people staying on in Switzerland come along to see us in the hols. You break up on Tuesday and I shan't be having any ordinary visitors by then."

   "Oh, I won't say a word," Nina promised earnestly as she went to the piano and sat down.

   She played the little composition through and the Maynards listened in silence. When she had finished, Joey called her. "Come here, Nina! My dear girl, that's a lovely little thing and when Cecil's old enough, she'll thank you herself for such a jolly welcome. In the meantime, go ahead with your composing. You have the root of the matter in you. It'll be hard work. Often enough you'll feel as if you'd never get what you want. I
know
! It's often that way with my books. But it'll come some day and some day the school is going to be very proud of you."

   It was the first encouragement Nina had had from any outsider and she flushed and tears pricked the backs of her eyes. "Do you really think so? Oh, how glad I'd be! But I'm not the first Chalet girl to compose. There's Jacynth Hardy - and hasn't Margia Stevens composed some lovely songs?"

   "She has. I sing some of them. But I rather think you're going to go must farther than either of them," Joey said quietly. "You won't stop short at songs and short pieces. I think you have it in you to go much, much farther than that. Now you must go back to school. You're having Mittagessen, aren't you? Or will the sight of our fifth girl do you for to-day?" She had suddenly become her usual teasing self.

   Nina gasped. "Heavens! I forgot all about it! I'll be frightfully late if I don't fly at once!"

   She grabbed up her music, thrust it into its case, snatched up her coat and beret and made for the french windows. "Good-bye, and thank you more than I can say for being so awfully kind and understanding!"

   "Thank you for a lovely welcome home!" Joey said promptly. "Come and see Cecily later on during the holidays, Auntie Nina. I know you're staying at Montreux and you'll be coming up to see Alix, so don't pass us by!"

   Nina flushed again but a lump was in her throat so she merely waved and fled, so happy over Joey's comments and the title awarded to her so unexpectedly, that she was afraid of crying just then.

   Nurse arrived a minute later, bearing a tray and Beth came with her to move up a small table and take the baby with a kiss on the feathery curls that smelt so fragrantly of violet powder, and Joey sat up with a look of interest.

   "I hope you've given me something
solid
! I'm ravenous after all this! Roast chicken, no less, and very nice, too! Beth, when I've had my meal, I'll go to bed and when you've had yours, you can bring Mike and the twins to my room to see me. I shan't be asleep till I've seen them. Run along, all of you, and have your meal. You'll be seeing plenty of me now you've got me back and a meal is a meal, any day!"

   But that evening, when Nurse had finished her duties and returned to the Sanatorium and Beth, with shining eyes and happy smile, was writing a long letter to a certain young man, Joey looked up at her husband, who had just come in from his job and was having a peaceful last-minute chat with her before going to bed himself, and said, "You know, Jack, it's all rather marvellous. When I first saw Nina, I thought I'd never seen such a poor little misery in my life. Now she's happy, even thought the grief for her father is still there in the background. She feels that she isn't standing alone any longer. She's met with sympathy and understanding over her music which the Rutherfords, with all their goodness, couldn't quite give her. It's set her back on her balance and believe me, balance was what she needed when she first came."

   "You've said it!" he replied from the far side of the crib where he had been inspecting his new daughter critically. "Yes, you're right. Nina should go ahead now. But she has a heavy load to carry, poor girl! Genius is a gift I shouldn't like to think had been wished on this youngster of ours, for instance. Nina Rutherford is going to need all the help she can get from everyone."

   "Oh, well, she'll get it from the Emburys from what I can hear.
He
 is very musical and from what I remember of
her
, Winnie is a kind creature who will do her best. As for the Rutherfords, it's a jolly good thing the Emburys have turned up. With poor Alix in her present condition, the Rutherfords won't have much time to spare for a cousin they've practically only just met. Yes; I know the same thing applies, only more so, to Winnie and her Martin; but they haven't the awful anxiety Sir Guy and Lady Rutherford are enduring just now. I only hope Alix begins to pull up, once she's here."

   "I can't tell you that till we've seen her. However, that should be any day now. Meantime, as you say, they don't have to worry about Nina. She's provided for."

   "Thank goodness!" Joey rejoined.

   "As you say. And now, it's after twenty-two o'clock and this girl seems disposed to sleep, so suppose you follow her example. I know you're very well but if you overtire yourself, she;s going to make a nice fuss about it to-morrow. Good-night, sweetheart. Yell for me if you want me during the night."

   "Not very likely," Joey returned as they kissed. "I'm half asleep as it is and most of what I might say will be in my sleep." She released him and sighed deeply. "Oh, how nice it is to get back to my own room and my own bed again!
And
 with the duckiest baby I've had yet to show for everything! God bless you, my Jack!"

   Her long lashes fell and she was asleep by the time he had finished tucking her up. He chuckled as he went to his dressing-room. "Nice to be back again, bless her! It's even nicer to me to have her back. Heigh-ho! How I do miss the woman when she's out of the house! Even Freudesheim doesn't seem quite the happy home it is when she's in it with all her alarms and excursions!"

CHAPTER 17

   "Nan, Miss Annersley wants to see you in the study before Früstück - now, if you're ready, she says."

   Nan Herbert looked up from the handkerchiefs she was sorting to see if she could find one that was fitting for Sunday morning, and stared blankly at Nina who had been sent with the message. "She wants to see
me
?" she said blankly.

   "That's what she said."

   "Oh! Well, thank you, Nina." But when Nina had left the room to go down to the commonroom at Ste. Thérèse's whither she had been bound when the Head, emerging from her own private quarters, had caught her, she turned to the other three prefects who shared Wisteria dormitory with her to demand, "What on earth can the Head want with me at
this
 hour? I've done nothing that I'm aware of to be sent for with such a 'Dilly-Dilly-Duck, come-and-be-killed!' message! What's it all in aid of?"

   "You
sound
 as if you had a blackly guilty conscience," Blossom Willoughby grinned.

   "I can assure you I haven't. I've been leading the most blameless life possible lately - not that I ever did get into many wild scrapes, anyhow."

   "Perhaps you've murdered someone in your sleep and left the corpse in the study together with your name-taped hanky and the Head wants to know what you mean by it!" Hilary Wilson suggested with a deep chuckle.

   "Not so far as I know. This'll do, I think! - and -
Oh!
" A sudden idea had come to Nan. "I
wonder
! It just might be!"

   "What do you wonder?" Sybil Russell, the fourth member of the dormitory demanded. "Do stop being cryptic, Nan, and tell us what you think."

   "Never you mind! If I'm right, you'll hear all about it before long." Nan put the three or four handkerchiefs left out from packing back into her drawer, glanced round her little domain to make sure that everything was in order and then made for the door, saying sweetly, "Curiosity killed the cat, you know. You can possess your little souls in patience. Just
think
 what pretty faces you'll have as a result!"

   Then she fled before the other three could think of any fitting reprisals.

   Down the main staircase she went as was her prefect's privilege, across the entrance hall and along the passage to the door of the study where she paused before the old oak-framed mirror hung on the opposite wall to make sure that neither hair nor attire had suffered in her headlong flight. The Head had an unpleasant trick of raising her eyebrows at you if you appeared before her looking untidy. While she was twisting and turning, the door opened and Miss Annersley herself appeared, looking very trim and fresh in her charming gown of coral-pink woollen material. Every hair of the gleaming waves that framed her well-cut face was in place and she smiled broadly as she surveyed Nan's antics before the mirror.

   "There you are, Nan! You're quite tidy, my dear, so come along in. I've something here for you. You've just time to inspect it before the bell rings for Früstück."

   She led the way into the study and pointed to the ottoman couch standing across one of the windows. On it were set out piles of slim magazines with the school badge printed in crimson and silver on its bright blue cover, the words,
The Chaletian
, crowning the badge.

   "The magazine!" Nan cried as she ran across the room to pick up a copy and look at it. "My very first effort! When did they come, Miss Annersley?"

   "By the last train yesterday. You were all busy on the stalls, so I decided to unpack them and leave them here, ready for this morning. I knew you all had as much as you could do to get the stall ready before bedtime. As I told you yesterday, we can't have our own special service this morning as Mr. Lord has had to go to England on business, so that means attending the ordinary one at eleven o'clock. We needn't leave school till half past ten and the Catholics have Mass at the same time as our service to-day, so we can all go together. That will give you people plenty of time to have a 'first skim' between bed-making and Church. And there will be no service at all this evening, so you will have that time, too. I'm glad they've come in time for the Sale after all! We generally make quite a good sum out of them."