Chapter 24
Marie ran through the corridors and out of the main school. Making her way back to St Clare's and up to the bedrooms, she found Jo, as she had expected, huddled up in a corner of her bed and staring out of the window.
Marie closed the door behind her and then dropped into a chair near the bed.
"Why Jo?" she asked simply.
"I don't know what you're talking about," growled Jo. "Leave me alone, can't you!"
Quiet Marie looked at Jo and spoke with decision.
"All right then Jo, I will speak more plainly. You will probably be angry with me for doing so, but you are behaving in a most unfair way towards Lucy Pevensie and her sister. They are both nice girls and I can see no reason why you should treat Lucy the way you do. Probably," added Marie with a flash of insight, "I have not been a very good friend to you, for if I had been, I should have spoken sooner and not let it go this far."
Jo jumped up from the bed and glared at her friend, most astonished that Marie should speak to her in this way.
"How dare you!" she cried. "You call yourself a friend and you come in here and talk to me as though I were a Middle. Perhaps you had forgotten that I am Head Girl!"
Marie whitened at her tone, for the interview was proceeding much as she had feared. Nevertheless, she pressed on, determined to finish what she had come to say.
"I do dare, Jo, because I am your friend and hate to see you destroying friendships the way you have been. Oh yes you have," she added as Jo opened her mouth to deny this. "Surely you have noticed the way some of the others have been avoiding you for the last week or so? And I cannot bear to someone whose friendship I have always treasured, behaving so badly. You are rude to Lucy, you turn your back on her, you take every opportunity to show her and all of us how much you dislike her. If we were all Middles, it would probably be seen as bullying."
Jo had had enough.
"All right!" she cried "I've heard enough Marie von Eschenau. "You can go. It's obvious that you don't consider me good enough to be your friend any longer, so I won't inflict my company on you in future!"
Marie sighed and made for the door. She turned and looked back at Jo.
"We will still be friends Jo, when you want to be," she said gently. "I will go now" and she vanished from view. Outside she stood in the corridor, tears streaming down her face, for the conversation had cost her a lot and she feared that Jo would never want to be friends with her again.
Marie spoke to no-one of this conversation, not even Frieda, but the results of it were soon plain to everyone. Jo would barely speak to Marie, addressing her with icy politeness when it was absolutely necessary. The rest of the school were ago with curiousity but after Kitty Burnett had nearly had her head bitten off by Marie for asking about the coolness between the two girls, nobody dared mention it to either.
"And no-one knows what to do," said Carla to Gillian, Anne and Lucy a few days later. "Prefects' meetings are so uncomfortable now. Poor Marie barely opens her mouth and Jo snaps at her when she does. Frieda and Simone are caught in the middle of it all and neither of them know what to say, half of the time."
"It's dividing the whole school," said Gillian sadly, as she caught sight of Jo striding over the playing fields ahead.
"We should do something," said Lucy.
"What can we do?" objected Anne.
"I don't know," said Lucy. "I wish As…," she stopped suddenly and the other three stared at her.
"What were you going to say?" asked Gillian curiously.
"It's nothing," said Lucy. "Just forget it."
Not for the first time, Gillian and Anne had the feeling there was something their friend was not telling them. Lucy guessed what they were thinking and went pink. She was thankful when Cornelia came tearing over to them.
"Hi," she gasped. "Bill has sent me to tell you all that we're going up to the Mondscheinspitze, for a long walk. Frau Mieders has said we should collect strawberries. I was sent to tell everyone to go and get ready and we're to meet out the front in ten minutes."
"What a topping idea!" cried Anne in delight.
Lucy privately agreed. The walk might prove to be a welcome distraction for all of them. She was not alone in this belief. The tension in the school had not gone unnoticed by the staff and it was Miss Wilson and Miss Stewart who had come up with the plan of taking the Seniors and the Middles on a long walk "to shake the fidgets out of them," as Miss Stewart had put it. Of course, if she had known what was going to happen up on the Mondscheinspitze, she might have suggested a quiet afternoon of reading out in the gardens.