The New House At The Chalet School
Key Facts (possible spoilers)
School facts
The Headmistress is Mademoiselle Lepattre, with Miss Wilson head of St. Clare's
The school is still on the old site in the Tyrol
The new Middle School building is christened St. Clare's; the Petit Chalet becomes St. Agnes's, and the Main Chalet is renamed St. Therese's
The Annexe, Die Rosen and Sonnalpe characters are only mentioned in passing
Series Characters
Jo Bettany - Head Girl, living at St. Clare's
Robin Humphries - at the Annexe
Cornelia Flower - Fifth Form and in St. Clare's
Biddy O'Ryan - at St. Clare's
Daisy Venables - newly arrived, and up at The Sonnalpe with her mother and sister, Primula
Jo decides that after all she cannot leave Madge with 'all those babies', and will not be going to Belsornia as lady-in-waiting to Elisaveta after all.
Dr. Jem's new-found relative is Margot Venables, his sister, who eloped to Australia. She had five children, but the three sons and her husband are dead, leaving her two little girls, Daisy and Primula Mary. She brings them to the Sonnalpe and then breaks down - the doctors are afraid for her, but she recovers in time to be proposed as the new matron for St. Clare's when Matron Besly leaves at the end of the term.
The Middles roof top joke involves a 'baby' with a luminous face, nicknamed 'Baby Voodoo' that Jo accidentally leaves on top of the piano once she has consfiscated it.
The 'pranks' played on Matron include Epson salts in her early morning tea and a staring campaign that nearly drives the unfortunate lady into a nervous breakdown before it is spotted and stopped by Miss Stewart.
Biddy O'Ryan tells the story of the Banshee, and Alixe von Elsen sleepwalks as a consequence in the middle of a thunderstorm that sends Matron Besly into hysterics and seals her fate. Biddy is condemned to week sleeping in Miss Wilson's room as a punishment.
contributed by Julia Chantrell, England __ working from a paperback edition