Free 03.5 Visitors for the Chalet School by Elinor Brent-Dyer

aware, she knew very little. Girls found this side of Veronica intensely irritating at times. But they all recognized that, with a tennis racket or a hockey stick, Veronica was superb.
    The challenge to the Chalet School’s netball Seven, to meet Grange House’s team, was duly delivery that evening, and accepted the next morning. It was arranged for the match to take place the following Saturday afternoon.

CHAPTER 8
Rain Stops Play
    Unfortunately, the next day it started to rain, at first only moderately but gradually more and more heavily.
    During most of the day it continued with only short intervals between the showers. And on Friday morning the girls woke up to find the mountains wrapped in blankets of thick mist and the lake barely visible through the haze. The rain was still falling although it had now turned to a steady monotonous drizzle.
    In the Yellow dormitory at the Chalet School the girls were consulting Frieda Mensch about the weather prospects. They did not find her forecast very encouraging. Frieda was considered the expert in weather conditions at the Tiernsee, having lived all her life in the neighbourhood. In her opinion, once mist and rain settled down like this, it usually took three or four days before there was any real improvement in the weather.
    “This jolly well puts paid to the netball match tomorrow,” Grizel Cochrane commented morosely. She was surveying the misty prospect from a window of the Green dormitory, which was on the top floor of the house, immediately above the “Yellows”. “And it’s the very first chance we’ve ever had to play against another school. What an absolutely beastly, foul shame!”
    Bette Rincini, to whom the remarks were addressed, drew her brows sharply together at this use of forbidden slang by a prefect. But, since others were listening, the head girl did not think it diplomatic to draw attention to Grizel’s lapse. Her disapproval was nevertheless plain, and Grizel, seeing it, bit her lip in vexation. Although still thoughtless, Grizel was beginning at last to recognize her responsibilities as both one of the oldest in the school and one who had been longest there. Secretly grateful for Bette’s tactful forbearance, she resolved to be more careful.
    “I do not think you need to be so upset, Grizel,” Bette said quietly. “Mam’selle will certainly give permission for the match to be played next week, whenever the rain stops.” Bette then went off to strip her bed in the thorough way demanded by Matron, after which she departed downstairs for Frühstück .
    At the Stephanie, the Grange House girls were also discussing the weather rather despondently, over their breakfast in the hotel’s big dining-room. Normally there was a splendid view from here across the lake and mountains but today the prospect looked for all the world like damp cotton-wool, floating against a vaguely green background.

    Miss Bruce was beginning to feel rather apprehensive at the prospect of her charges being cooped up in the hotel for a second successive day. While many of the girls were content to spend their time reading, or writing, or just talking, some were apt to become restive when they had no active occupation.
    Accordingly, after breakfast, Miss Bruce put on her mackintosh, a sensible felt hat and sensible shoes, and set out to walk the short distance to the Chalet School, where she requested an interview with Mademoiselle Lepâttre.
    The two ladies put their heads together, and Miss Bruce told Miss Mortlock the resulting plans when she got back to the Stephanie about forty minutes later.
    “Mam’selle Lepâttre agrees with me absolutely … it would be foolish to take the girls out in this weather
    … most unsafe you know, wandering about unknown places in the mist – nasty accidents sometimes.
    Mademoiselle does think things may improve slightly by tomorrow.” Here Miss Bruce made an extra long pause and looked out of the window. “Better already, in fact …