Title: Pillars of the House
Fandom: Chalet School
Rating: G
Length: 791
Content notes: set during Shocks for the Chalet School. 
Author notes: Am I picturing Hilda/Nell being a thing here? Yes. Does Rosalie textually think "the Abbess is missing Bill" in this book? Also yes!
Summary: Miss Annersley and Rosalie Dene decide their costume for the prefects' party. 


“Oh, is that the post at last? Thank you, Rosalie,” Miss Annersley said, taking the bundle of letters Rosalie Dene held out to her and looking at it with some disfavour. “Heavens, what an amount! What do you say to a cup of coffee before we tackle it? It's just about time for coffee, in any case.”

Rosalie cheerfully agreed, and before long they were sitting in two of the armchairs before the fire, cups in hand.

“What do you think of the prefects' idea for their party?” Miss Annersley asked. “It's certainly original!”

“Too original by half for me,” Rosalie replied with a grimace. “I'm bad enough at ordinary fancy dress, how I shall ever come up with something to represent a book title is more than I can say! Besides, I was thinking - should I dress up at all? Wouldn't it be better to have someone in ordinary clothes, just in case? One never knows what might come up suddenly at this school.”

The Head laughed and shook her head at her. “And disappoint the prefects? You wouldn’t do that. I do see your point, but there must be some book title that can be represented by one of your evening dresses, perhaps with some simple addition.”

“I suppose so,” Rosalie said dubiously.

“I shall have to think of something along those lines for myself, too, or some costume I can slip out of easily, since I’ll have to take Prayers as usual,” Miss Annersley continued. “Let’s hope we don’t land on the same idea!”

“Perhaps we should take a look in the library later… Maybe I can find something with ‘secretary’ in the title,” Rosalie suggested, chuckling.

“Oh, I’m sure you can do better than that! Besides, they did request we pick well-known books,” Miss Annersley pointed out. “They won’t thank you if you turn up as something none of them has ever heard of.”

Both women fell silent for a moment, sipping at their coffee and thinking hard. Then the Head suddenly laughed and looked at Rosalie with an expression full of mischief.

“I have it! What do you say to going as one book between us? No fancy dress required at all, we could go as we are this minute.”

“Well, what is it?” Rosalie demanded.

“Wouldn’t you say we’re the pillars of the house?” Miss Annersley asked, eyes twinkling.

Rosalie burst into delighted giggles. “The very thing! Although it should be you and Miss Wilson, really.” As soon as she spoke the words, she wished she could call them back, for much of the laughter faded from the other woman’s face. Idiot, she scolded herself. You know how much she’s missing Bill!

Miss Annersley was already smiling again, however. “You’re one just as much as we are, my dear. I see how much you do, and how much you lighten my workload. If Nell should happen to show up by some strange chance, we can always include her in it too, though I don’t imagine she will. And I’m not sure she’d think much of my idea, either! She’s always enjoyed dressing up. You’d already left school when we did Mrs Jarley’s waxworks, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, but I’ve heard about it. You were all in that, weren’t you?” Rosalie asked.

“We were, but the first idea was Nell’s, and she helped evolve a lot of the costumes. She talked me into being Maria Theresa of Austria, and how I suffered for those ringlets! I think I had about as many hairpins stuck in as Joey used to have when she was growing her hair. Well, there’s no time to be sitting around reminiscing, we should be attending to the post now we’ve settled our costume for the prefects’ party.”

Suiting action to words, the Head got to her feet and began gathering the coffee service, and Rosalie leapt up to help. They soon cleared the little table, and returned to the Head’s desk, Rosalie pulling up a chair.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything from Welsen?” Miss Annersley asked as she picked up the bundle of letters once more.

The question sounded matter-of-fact enough, but Rosalie hadn’t been Miss Annersley’s secretary all these years for nothing; she could see the faint wistfulness in her expression. Mentally kicking herself for having called it there, she replied, “I didn’t see anything, or I’d have said so earlier. I could have missed something if Gill Culver addressed it, though, I’m not nearly as familiar with her handwriting as I am with Bi - Miss Wilson’s.”

Miss Annersely gave her a laughing glance at the near-slip. “Well, if we go through these we’ll find out,” she said practically, and the two ‘pillars of the house’ turned their attention to their work.