Choices
Mary Margaret waited, breath held. She knew, thanks to her earlier conversation, that going to Switzerland was something very much in the cards, what she wasn't sure about was how Reg would react to Maddy's suggestion. She needn't have worried.
"You'd like to do that?" Reg asked, a small smile on his face.
Maddy nodded. "Speaking to them on the phone isn't as good as seeing them in person...an' I'd like to go to Switzerland."
"What would you say," Reg continued carefully, "if I were to tell you Granddad Jack has offered me a job interview and that, if I go, you'll come with me?"
"To the Görnetz Platz?" Maddy asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. Reg nodded. "Really?" Reg nodded. "Smashing!"
Mary Margaret felt a twinge at the reaction. So much like Len -- but so different too.
"Are we really going to Switzerland?" Maddy asked.
Reg nodded again. "I have to go for a job interview..."
"With Granddad Jack?"
"With Granddad Jack," Reg agreed, smiling. "So I thought -- if you wanted to go -- that would be our summer holiday."
Maddy actually started to bounce in her seat, a wide grin splitting her face. "Yay!" Then suddenly her face fell and she looked. "Daddy will...will we be moving to Switzerland permanently?"
Reg sighed a little. "That sort of depends."
"On?" Maddy prompted.
"Well..." Reg looked a little helplessly in Mary Margaret's direction.
"There's a lot to think about, Maddy," Mary Margaret began. "A job interview doesn't automatically mean daddy has the job." Although if Mary Margaret knew her father, Reg had only so much as to turn up and the job was his -- something that Reg probably knew. Maddy was oblivious to that, though, as she nodded. "Then, assuming he does get the job, he has to decide whether or not he wants to take the job, and if he does, what will happen to you."
"To me?" Maddy looked puzzled. "Wouldn't I go with him?" Then a knowing look crossed her face. "Ooh. School."
Mary Margaret nodded. "You have to go to school." She glanced at Reg, who nodded. "There is a girls' school on the Platz that you could go to."
"There is?" Interest lit Maddy's face.
"You remember I told you that Auntie Madge began a school in Austria?" Reg put in. Maddy nodded. "It's that school. The Chalet School." Excitement began to return to Maddy's expression. "It's the school that your mother went to."
"And you, Auntie Nun?"
"And me," Mary Margaret agreed.
Maddy now looked cautiously excited. "It would be really fun...but I wouldn't know anyone there...and wouldn't they all speak Swiss?"
Reg coughed and hid his face before his daughter realised he was actually laughing at that reaction. Mary Margaret gave him her most haughty nun-like glare and answered Maddy, "You mightn't know anyone for a start -- but, don't forget, you would have been starting a new school in September anyway." Maddy looked abashed -- she had forgotten that detail. "As for the language, that part of Switzerland speaks German, but the school is international. A lot of the pupils there are English or English speakers -- one of my best friends while I was there was Australian!" Maddy's eyes widened at that revelation. "So English is one of the three languages the school uses. The others are German and French."
"That doesn't sound too bad," Maddy agreed cautiously.
"We'll hold off that decision," Reg said, having regained his self-control, "until we know what I'm doing, and until you know if you'll like it there."
"OK." Maddy nodded. "When can we go?"
It was Mary Margaret's turn to laugh surreptitiously while Reg glared. When he realised his glare was having no effect on his sister-in-law, he said, "Well, if you're agreed that you want to go, we'll be going at the end of next week."
"Why so long?" Maddy asked.
"The interview isn't until the first of next month -- which is two weeks away," Reg explained. "Plus, there are things to arrange here, and," he added, "you need some new clothes."
The 'I'm not having your grandmother think I've neglected you' was palpable to Mary Margaret and she winced a little. Reg must have caught her reaction, to judge by the slightest of shrugs he offered. Maddy, on the other hand, was ecstatic at that.
"Shopping!" she exclaimed, bouncing once more. "Daddy, will you be coming with us, or will it just be Auntie Madge?"
"You'll have to see," Reg answered, a smile and a wink. "And speaking of 'have to see', Margot, what time was your train?"
Mary Margaret glanced up at the clock and gasped. "Oh no! It's at six o'clock -- and I've missed the last bus."
Reg nodded. "Half past four -- plenty of time if we go now. I'll drive you -- that way you can tell Maddy more about the school. You know more about it than I do."
Mary Margaret gave Reg a shrewd look. "If I didn't know better, Reg Entwistle, I'd swear you somehow contrived to make me miss that bus on purpose." Reg gave a 'who me?' look. Mary Margaret shook her head and smiled. "Well, if you're happy to do that -- Maddy you'd best go and get ready."
Once Maddy was safely out of the room and could he heard stumping up the stairs to go and sort herself out, Reg said, "Thank you, Margot. For coming today -- and for being here."
Mary Margaret gave Reg a warm smile. "You're family, Reg. Whenever you need me, I will be there for you."
More than that she couldn't say, for at that moment, Maddy returned and for the whole of the whole of the journey to Hereford, Mary Margaret kept both Reg and Maddy amused by tales from her school days. From the Dawbarns' feast-gone-wrong in the last days on the Island, to Con's star turn in the St Mildred's pantomime; Jack Lambert's steady stream of questions which had pursued Len's latter school days to Len's vicarious revenge by way of Felicity; from the infamous stand up quiz where Con had answered "Daniel bit the lions" to the demise of the tug-o-war rope one sports day. Many of the stories were new to Reg; all were new to Maddy. By the time they arrived at Hereford station, Mary Margaret was quite hoarse from story-telling, and she had a feeling that both her niece and brother-in-law were far, far happier than when she'd arrived at three that afternoon.
More, she realised, as they waved her out of Hereford station at the start of her journey back to the convent, perhaps both were now ready to start again. Even if Reg chose not to accept the job, Mary Margaret had a feeling that the trip to Switzerland could only be good for them both.
