Lavender Laughs In The Chalet School (hardback)
Lavender Leigh at the Chalet School (paperback)
Links with other titles
Jesanne Gellibrand and Lois Bennett, key figures in "The Lost Staircase", have just come to the school and are in the Sixth. Sir Ambrose Gellibrand, Jesanne's cousin and the owner of the great Dragon House just up the valley, has recently died, and Jesanne is his heiress.
The two girls tell the story of the Dragon House's Lost Staircase to Jo Maynard, who promises to write it up as a book as soon as she "gets turned round" to it (after the birth of Stephen).
The book mentioned as being ready for the publisher in JO TO THE RESCUE, when Jo gives the first half-dozen chapters to a new friend and temporary neighbour, Phoebe Wychcote, to read and criticise while they are on holiday on the Yorkshire moors.
There are other fleeting references to Lavender or to the "Lavender Laughs" books in the series. For example, in THREE GO TO THE CHALET SCHOOL, Mary-Lou Trelawney (recovering in San.) asks Nurse if she may borrow "Lavender Laughs In Kashmir" from the school library, as it features a former pupil, Lilamani "who was here for a while", while in CAROLA STORMS THE CHALET SCHOOL where Mary-Lou likens Carola's nomadic life to Lavender's.
contributed by Angela Woodgates, England __ working from a hardback edition