Visitors for the Chalet School
Synopsis
VISITORS FOR THE CHALET SCHOOL is described as "the first new Chalet School story for over 25 years". It has been written by Brent Dyer's biographer Helen McClelland, using notes left by Brent Dyer herself. The story is set immediately after THE PRINCESS OF THE CHALET SCHOOL and has managed to capture a good deal of the original Chalet spirit. There are two strands in the story, one dealing with the usual Chalet School life and the other with the career and ambitions of the most prominent of the "Visitors" Patricia Davidson.
Juliet Carrick who had gone up to London to join Oxford when term begins makes friends with Patricia Davidson, a student of Grange School. The Grange School students are planning a trip to the continent and Briesau is one of their halting places. Juliet writes to Mademoiselle and requests her to assist the visitors in any possible way. In due time, Juliet finds out more about Patricia's problems. She is a serious and studious girl with a real vocation to become a doctor, but her mother is a typical social butterfly, who thinks of her daughter's ideas as ridiculous and wants her to "come out" in the London Season and be a belle! Juliet sympathises, but has no idea how to help though she does write to Madge about it.
The Grange school people arrive at Briesau, where they quickly make friends with the Chalet girls and have hockey and netball matches with them. A deep friendship develops between Joey and Patricia and Joey is most indignant over the flippant attitude of Patricia's mother.
The visit to Briesau settles one problem, as Patricia had been afraid that she wanted to be a doctor only to flout her mother and did not have a real vocation. A kitchen maid at the hotel cut her hand severely with a meat knife and Patricia single-handedly manages to apply tourniquets, bandages etc and saves the situation as the doctor is delayed. This confirms her in her conviction. She writes to her godfather, who is a professor at a famous university, and what is of more importance to her mother, a peer of the Realm, married to Rumanian Royalty. He assures her that he will have a talk with her mother.
Patricia is invited to spend a few days with the Russells, and gets a chance to visit the Sanatorium which she is deeply interested in. It is a very different and optimistic Patricia from the troubled girl who had come to Briesau who leaves for London and she feels she owes a lot of it to Joey and the Chalet School.
contributed by Sindhu Menon, India __ working from the HarperCollins edition
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