Читать книгу Swiss Sonata - Gwethalyn Graham - Страница 5

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Pensionnat Les Ormes stands on the hill which rises above Lausanne so that it seems to overlook the world. Beyond the town is the Lake of Geneva; beyond the lake, the mountains of France. Somewhere across that stretch of water which separates Switzerland from France, somewhere behind those high hills are the Atlantic, America and England; up to the right lie Holland and Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany; down to the left where the Rhone runs out is Italy, and at your back, across the Alps, are Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Each year the girls who come from all over the world to Pensionnat Les Ormes, perched on its hill-side, stand at their windows and look out over the lake, watching the autumn mists creep down from the Dent du Midi and obscuring the little villages of France. Then for months snow lies heavy on the world spread out beneath them, until at last the clouds come down from the peaks to float low along the shores and patches of green appear here and there; above the vague sounds of motor cars and lorries changing gear as they climb upwards come the cow-bells, clear and sweet. The boatmen of Ouchy, Montreux, Vevey and the little villages across the lake in France get out their barges, and once more the girls in Pensionnat Les Ormes linger at their windows watching them sail down the long broad lake from Geneva to the Rhone, or making their interminable lazy trips from Thonon to Evian.

They are in the heart of the world, yet curiously out of it, for no sound from Lausanne reaches them very clearly. Rather it is as though the town noises get lost in coming up across the playing fields and tennis courts, and by the time they reach the sloping terraces which flank the building there is nothing left of them but a suggestion that there is life and activity down in Lausanne, below this suspended little world on the hill-side.

The main door of the school is on the side away from the town. The drive leading to it is long, cutting straight across between the tennis courts after it leaves the big wooden gates, then curving round the extreme edge of the gardens until, after a long, straight stretch up the slope, it ends in the courtyard by the front door. It takes about five minutes’ fast walking to get from the gates to the grateful seclusion of the court during which you become thoroughly self-conscious as you notice the eyes watching you from the windows. Once you reach the corner of the house you are safe. You ring the bell, which is answered after a while by a young Swiss girl who shows you into a drawing-room filled with brocade furniture and lithographs of genteel young ladies. On the mantelpiece is an ormolu clock which says seven minutes past three; you hastily consult your watch which says a quarter to four, wonder rather vaguely if it has gained, and settle down to wait. Every little while you look at that clock which continues to say seven minutes past three, but when Miss Ellerton comes in to inquire your business you forget about it altogether, in your surprise at finding anyone who looks like that in a Swiss pensionnat.

If you were to say anything about the clock, Miss Ellerton would tell you that it had been bequeathed along with six teaspoons, a Pekinese dog and many volumes on tropical fish to Mlle d’Ormonde, cousin of Amélie Tourain the present headmistress, who had the school for twenty years before her, by her aunt who founded Pensionnat Les Ormes, and that it had stopped on its entrance to the school in the spring of 1884. Some day they are going to get it mended but at present they are too busy, for Mlle Tourain is correcting proofs for the second volume of her work on the history of Swiss independence, which will appear next autumn, and she, Mary Ellerton, has no time for anything, since she dismissed the housekeeper and has her job as well as that of assistant principal. Would you like to see the school?