Book 17, by Helen Wells
Illustrated by Frank Vaughn
Grosset & Dunlap, 1955
"... being nurse to the students ... is sort of a double assignment. It won't be so much a question of medicines and temperatures as, well, being a good psychologist."
--From Cherry Ames, Boarding School Nurse, pp. 16-17
As school nurse at a reconverted chateau, Cherry seeks a perfume formula and the fulfillment of a dead man's cherished dream.
Chapter 1: Lisette
After getting off the train at Jamestown, near Hilton, where she will be the school nurse at the Jamestown School for Girls, Cherry shares a cab with a secretive early-arriving scholarship student, Lisette Gauthier.
Chapter 2: House of Roses
Cherry meets the headmistress, Alicia Harrison, an old friend of Cherry's mother. Mrs. Harrison takes her on a brief tour of the old chateau that has been converted into a school, and introduces her to the staff and teachers.
This book marks the return of Helen Wells to the Cherry Ames series. The change in authors is probably the cause of the most jarring continuity problem in the series. The previous volume, Country Doctor's Nurse, ended after a November election, with Cherry poised to take a job at the Jamestown Academy in Rhode Island. But Boarding School Nurse opens at the beginning of the school year in September, at the Jamestown School in Illinois.
Chapter 3: Something Is Missing
As the students arrive for the fall term, Cherry notices that Lisette is an outsider and seems overly interested in the chateau's garden. When one of the school's maids breaks her arm in a fall, Cherry meets Dr. Alan Wilcox. Cherry discovers Lisette snooping, and flamboyant Sybil Martin accuses Lisette of stealing her lapis lazuli bracelet.
Chapter 4: Secret Journal
While shopping, Cherry notices a bracelet she thinks is Sybil's in a jeweler's window and buys it. Though believing Lisette is innocent, Cherry confronts her about her snooping, and Lisette reveals that the chateau had originally belonged to her great-grandfather, whose journal tells of a secret hidden in the house.
Chapter 5: Search for the Doll
Cherry learns that the school is having severe financial difficulties. Cherry and Lisette search for a doll mentioned in the journal, and when Cherry finds it in an old fruitwood chest, they discover that a key has been secreted in its reticule.
This is one of two books in the series that discuss the making of perfume; the other is Cruise Nurse.
Chapter 6: Sibyl
Cherry shows Sybil the bracelet--which her boyfriend had found in his car and sold. Cherry tries to discourage their secret dating--but defiant Sybil climbs down a bedsheet to elope and limps into the infirmary with a sprained ankle, after waiting an hour for her no-show bridegroom.
Chapter 7: Surprises Lisette tells Cherry about her great-grandfather, and reveals that he had been working on a new perfume, but his little laboratory and notes had been walled over by careless relatives when the house was modernized. Lisette hopes to find it and re-create the perfume.
Chapter 8: Young Dr. Alan Dr. Alan Wilcox asks Cherry to help him deliver a baby on a remote farm. Back at the school, a passing car careens into a tree and flips over, badly injuring two men. Cherry responds quickly to the emergency, administering immediate care, which wins high praise from Alan and his doctor father.
Chapter 9: The Disappearing Window
Cherry and Lisette tap the walls of the old chateau, listening for hollow sounds. Cherry remembers seeing a small diamond-shaped window from outside that she can't find inside and deduces that it must be in the walled-over section--in the supply closet of the infirmary.
Chapter 10: Inside the Wall
Cherry asks Alan to help remove the plaster from the end of the closet, despite reservations about keeping the undertaking secret from Mrs. Harrison. They uncover the cupboard, open it with the doll's key, and find the perfume formula, though they are interrupted by the greatly dismayed headmistress.
Although Cherry seems to be caught up in the romance of perfume here, she disdains perfume in favor of no smell in Mountaineer Nurse.
Chapter 11: Experiment
Using the flowers from the school's conservatory, Cherry and Lisette rigidly follow the perfume formula--but the result is discouraging. Sybil starts a rumor that Lisette is Mrs. Harrison's niece--which is true--but the gossip backfires on Sybil, and she leaves the school.
Chapter 12: What Molly Recalled
Cherry and Lisette decide to try the perfume formula again, using healthier flowers from a local nursery and more of their own judgment. They find an old letter from a French perfume manufacturer that had been interested in the perfume formula.
Chapter 13: A Rare Perfume
Cherry is flustered when Alan admits how much he likes her. With Lisette, they open the bottle of perfume after it has aged for a week, and are thrilled to discover that an old man's devoted labor to create a lovely new fragrance had not been in vain. Lisette will share any profits with the financially strapped school. Alan, with a glance at Cherry, suggests naming the new perfume Bride's Bouquet.
Cherry Ames, Boarding School Nurse
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