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feather_ghyll) wrote2017-08-02 08:00 am
feather_ghyll) wrote2017-08-02 08:00 am
REVIEW: Dimsie Goes Back
Dimsie Goes Back: Dorita Fairlie Bruce Spring Books, published as part of the Halycon Library
This is set during that brief period that surprised me in the story ‘The Skeleton Key’ in the Dimsie short story anthology. Several years after leaving the Jane Willard Foundation, with her herb garden and a fiancée at home in Loch Shee, Dimsie returns to school to work as Miss Yorke’s secretary for a term. Miss Yorke has been unwell, and although she said she wanted Dimsie for a term to see how the arrangement of having a secretary worked with someone she knew and trusted, it soon becomes apparent that she wanted her former head girl for other reasons.
The mere fact of Dimsie’s return sets the members of the First Div (i.e. the Senior girls) who remembered Dimsie’s day thinking. One of them is Hilary Garth, who has taken life rather easily, but she suddenly starts thinking about what things at Jane’s will look like through Dimsie’s eyes and how unfavourable current arrangements come off when compared with what was. This is music to the ears of two of the prefects, Ruth and Nan, who haven’t been able to get their fellow prefects or seniors to take an interest in the juniors.
The slackness at Jane’s has been worrying Miss Yorke too, and that worry has checked her improvement. Dimsie soon realises that the heart of the problem is the influence of Coral Danesbury, a new girl since her time, who is now a prefect and as influential as Vi (the head girl) and charismatic Hilary, perhaps more so, because she exerts that influence. Rich and spoiled, she likes being treated differently to other schoolgirls and, indeed, resents the restrictions of a schoolgirl life, even though Miss Yorke allows the girls a lot of trust.
But in dealing with this problem, aided and abetted by Hilary and Co. and new girl Linite Gordon, known as the Lintie (I presume she appears in a previous Loch Shee-set story), her chums in the juniors and her dog, Dimsie is assailed by a new experience for her: self-doubt. Her position as ‘not quite a mistress’ but ‘merely an O.G.’ gives her less sway over Coral, and after failing to handle her well after early encounters, she has to depend on more indirect influence and leave it those girls who decide to revive the Anti-Soppists. But it becomes clear something had to be done, for the lack of engagement between the older girls and younger girls leads to the juniors putting themselves in situations fraught with physical danger and other harms being done.
All this was very interesting, with conversations feeling more to the point than when the Abbey girls try to improve their characters and handle trials. The relationship between Dimsie and Miss Yorke is rather touching, and the dangers of ‘letting things slide’ for one’s character i.e. it snowballs, are examined, with some discussion of the spiritual and lifelong ramifications.
But the dog – I am not a dog person – irritated me as is often the case with DFB’s canine characters, and I don’t care if that aligns me with an unsatisfactory mistress. Lintie brings Jeems to school, although he might have been better served going to an obedience school. But he is so adorable that Lintie, her friends and most of the school melt. He gets into trouble and drives the plot, which is one thing, but DFB anthropomorphises him, pretending that he can talk (and that Dimsie almost comprehends him!) That was too much for me.
Two more old girls of Dimsie’s vintage are get engaged like Dimsie. I found it odd that Derrick thought he could marry Erica, his father’s secretary, without his father subsequently discovering that he was still alive, but Dimsie and Jeems sort it out.
This is set during that brief period that surprised me in the story ‘The Skeleton Key’ in the Dimsie short story anthology. Several years after leaving the Jane Willard Foundation, with her herb garden and a fiancée at home in Loch Shee, Dimsie returns to school to work as Miss Yorke’s secretary for a term. Miss Yorke has been unwell, and although she said she wanted Dimsie for a term to see how the arrangement of having a secretary worked with someone she knew and trusted, it soon becomes apparent that she wanted her former head girl for other reasons.
The mere fact of Dimsie’s return sets the members of the First Div (i.e. the Senior girls) who remembered Dimsie’s day thinking. One of them is Hilary Garth, who has taken life rather easily, but she suddenly starts thinking about what things at Jane’s will look like through Dimsie’s eyes and how unfavourable current arrangements come off when compared with what was. This is music to the ears of two of the prefects, Ruth and Nan, who haven’t been able to get their fellow prefects or seniors to take an interest in the juniors.
The slackness at Jane’s has been worrying Miss Yorke too, and that worry has checked her improvement. Dimsie soon realises that the heart of the problem is the influence of Coral Danesbury, a new girl since her time, who is now a prefect and as influential as Vi (the head girl) and charismatic Hilary, perhaps more so, because she exerts that influence. Rich and spoiled, she likes being treated differently to other schoolgirls and, indeed, resents the restrictions of a schoolgirl life, even though Miss Yorke allows the girls a lot of trust.
But in dealing with this problem, aided and abetted by Hilary and Co. and new girl Linite Gordon, known as the Lintie (I presume she appears in a previous Loch Shee-set story), her chums in the juniors and her dog, Dimsie is assailed by a new experience for her: self-doubt. Her position as ‘not quite a mistress’ but ‘merely an O.G.’ gives her less sway over Coral, and after failing to handle her well after early encounters, she has to depend on more indirect influence and leave it those girls who decide to revive the Anti-Soppists. But it becomes clear something had to be done, for the lack of engagement between the older girls and younger girls leads to the juniors putting themselves in situations fraught with physical danger and other harms being done.
All this was very interesting, with conversations feeling more to the point than when the Abbey girls try to improve their characters and handle trials. The relationship between Dimsie and Miss Yorke is rather touching, and the dangers of ‘letting things slide’ for one’s character i.e. it snowballs, are examined, with some discussion of the spiritual and lifelong ramifications.
But the dog – I am not a dog person – irritated me as is often the case with DFB’s canine characters, and I don’t care if that aligns me with an unsatisfactory mistress. Lintie brings Jeems to school, although he might have been better served going to an obedience school. But he is so adorable that Lintie, her friends and most of the school melt. He gets into trouble and drives the plot, which is one thing, but DFB anthropomorphises him, pretending that he can talk (and that Dimsie almost comprehends him!) That was too much for me.
Two more old girls of Dimsie’s vintage are get engaged like Dimsie. I found it odd that Derrick thought he could marry Erica, his father’s secretary, without his father subsequently discovering that he was still alive, but Dimsie and Jeems sort it out.