Theodora And The Chalet School
Key Facts (Possible Spoilers) :
School Facts:
Headmistress: Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson are co-heads
Both the main School and St Mildred's, the finishing branch, are at the
Gornetz Platz, Switzerland.
Series Characters Whereabouts:
Jo Maynard - is living next door to the school at Freudesheim.
Len Maynard - is in Vb
Con Maynard - is in Vb
Margot Maynard - is in Vb, and still struggling with her devil.
Mary-Lou Trelawney - is Head Girl
Emerence Hope - has been told that this will be her last term at the
Chalet School
Theodora Grantley - is a new girl this term.
Ted begins to make real progress when she, Len and Rosamund spend weeks in the isolation ward at the San because they have been exposed to smallpox. Ted gets extra coaching from Len in Latin, German and algebra while they are in quarantine, which helps her studies enormously. She quickly finds her days are too full and too interesting to spend plotting disobedience and evil deeds.
After the evening of the cockchafer swarm, Ted wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers Con Maynard sleepwalking. Ted gets a further shock when she tries to rouse Len to help her calm Con and then finds the sleepwalker has settled in Ted's own bed.
Then her appearance is taken in hand when she submits to a most unlikely hairdresser - Miss Annersley! The head has sent for Ted to tell her that she has indeed earned her remove to Vb by half-term. One look at Ted's bushy locks has Miss Annersley reaching for the brush and comb to tie it back off her face.
Margot eavesdrops on her mother and Rosalie Dene discussing Ted's past history in the garden at Freudesheim. The triplets quarrel badly during a trip to Zermatt over Emerence Hope's giving Margot such an expensive clock, with the result that a raging Margot tells her sisters and Rosamund Lilley that Ted has been expelled from three schools. Indeed, Margot is in such a fury that Len has to slap her face to cut her short. Mary-Lou overhears most of the worst of it and intervenes.
When her father hears about the clock and the row, he is deeply disgusted by Margot's conduct; indeed, by refusing to have anything to do with her for a full fortnight, he nearly breaks her heart. But since the girls have largely resolved the trouble themselves, it is decided that Joey will be spared the details of the quarrel and its causes. Joey, in any case has her hands full with the two new arrivals in the long Maynard family: twins Geoffrey and Philippa.
Interesting note: Some very oblique hints about Margot's plans for the future are given in a 'flash forward' passage when Margot is talking to Miss Annersley towards the end of the book.
News of Other Old Girls - and teachers
Miss Carthew - has moved back to Dorset after the death of her husband,
Bob Walton
Biddy O'Ryan - now Mme Courvoisier, gives birth to twins, Marie and Pat.
Herr Helfen - is teaching violin in the school on a part-time basis
again as he did in Tirolean days.
Christina Erskine, England __ working from a hardback edition