REVIEW: That Boarding School Girl
Feb. 5th, 2018 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThat Boarding School Girl: Dorita Fairlie Bruce (Oxford University Press)
‘But that was not the way of the Lower Fifth, who did nothing by halves, except, perhaps, their lessons’ (p. 153).
It amuses me that OUP published this when Girton gets name checked.
I enjoyed this much more than I expected, more than the Dimsie books by DFB that I’ve read of late. This is set after the first world war, when women went to Girton...and came out of it to be a chauffeur to nieces and assorted schoolgirls, and then got married. It was a time without telephones, which would have resolved one plotline.
It’s got an unusual premise: what happens to a schoolgirl after she’s been expelled? Nancy Caird used to attend island-based St Bride’s, but has been sent to live with her grandmother and young aunt and will now attend a day school. Before leaving for a job in Africa, her father warned her that she had to make good on this second chance (or she’d come with them and have a governess), while her mother unwisely made her promise not to tell anyone at her new school that she’d been expelled.
Aged 15, she’s quite an old new girl at Maudsley Grammar School, and placed in VB, which counts as the last form in the Middle School. One of its girls, artistic and cheerful Desda Blackett is a near neighbour. She and Nancy become friends, but the rest of the form is more wary, for Nancy seems bent on going for her studies, doing all her prep, not just that given by the strictest mistresses (the form’s usual approach). It is noticeable that Nancy is morbidly anxious not to get into trouble with the head, but the more perceptive girls see that she’s subduing her natural personality. To all of the girls, she’s something of a mystery.
As a former boarding-school girl, with strong opinions, Nancy has a fresh take on the funny/horrifying feud between the Maudleians and the Skylarks, who are the girls of the town’s other school for girls. The girls treat the feud, which started before any of them can remember, with a reverent attitude, for them it is a Tradition with a capital ‘T’. The games captain may secretly decry it, because it means the schools will not challenge each other for matches (!!!) but most of the senior girls refuse to rock the boat, because the younger girls take the feud so seriously. Prefect Phyllis, the most Dimsieish character, is the exception.
As another of Nancy’s neighbours, Angela, is a Skylark of the same age as her and Desda, Nancy thinks that it’s ridiculous that she isn’t even supposed to talk to her, let alone befriend her. She insists they have a clandestine relationship, involving tramping where nobody can see them and other extremities. Eventually they find a neutral ground through the Girls Guild – an organisation that pre-dated the Guides, apparently, although it seems to have shared many of its aims and practices, taking the Biblical wise virgins as models.
Can Nancy and Phyl’s Guild help get rid of the silly feud? The feud’s darker side emerges as Desda and Angela find out that the juniors from both schools have been using it as an excuse for some very bad behaviour.
The story ends in a rather traditional way – guess who helps save the day in a cricket match on the same day as she passes a music exam with honours? But it takes an interesting route to get there. There’s humour to it. VB’s warped logic and the sarcastic prefects reminded me of Nancy Breary’s books. DFB counters their attitude by showing that (her) Nancy, applying herself to her work because of family pride, starts to benefit from being so conscientious. She does make good on her second chance.
I liked the characterisation in general. It covers secondary characters: intuitive Bertha and Charity, the prefect who claims not to care about her juniors’ morals, but is roused from indolence. There are telling moments that are there to allow us to develop an appreciation of character, rather than directly fuelling the plot, like Nancy realising how much Desda’s younger sister takes advantage of her sister’s goodwill and kindness.
I’m glad to learn that there are more stories about the Maudleians, and Nancy’s boarding school. I hope I come across them.
‘But that was not the way of the Lower Fifth, who did nothing by halves, except, perhaps, their lessons’ (p. 153).
It amuses me that OUP published this when Girton gets name checked.
I enjoyed this much more than I expected, more than the Dimsie books by DFB that I’ve read of late. This is set after the first world war, when women went to Girton...and came out of it to be a chauffeur to nieces and assorted schoolgirls, and then got married. It was a time without telephones, which would have resolved one plotline.
It’s got an unusual premise: what happens to a schoolgirl after she’s been expelled? Nancy Caird used to attend island-based St Bride’s, but has been sent to live with her grandmother and young aunt and will now attend a day school. Before leaving for a job in Africa, her father warned her that she had to make good on this second chance (or she’d come with them and have a governess), while her mother unwisely made her promise not to tell anyone at her new school that she’d been expelled.
Aged 15, she’s quite an old new girl at Maudsley Grammar School, and placed in VB, which counts as the last form in the Middle School. One of its girls, artistic and cheerful Desda Blackett is a near neighbour. She and Nancy become friends, but the rest of the form is more wary, for Nancy seems bent on going for her studies, doing all her prep, not just that given by the strictest mistresses (the form’s usual approach). It is noticeable that Nancy is morbidly anxious not to get into trouble with the head, but the more perceptive girls see that she’s subduing her natural personality. To all of the girls, she’s something of a mystery.
As a former boarding-school girl, with strong opinions, Nancy has a fresh take on the funny/horrifying feud between the Maudleians and the Skylarks, who are the girls of the town’s other school for girls. The girls treat the feud, which started before any of them can remember, with a reverent attitude, for them it is a Tradition with a capital ‘T’. The games captain may secretly decry it, because it means the schools will not challenge each other for matches (!!!) but most of the senior girls refuse to rock the boat, because the younger girls take the feud so seriously. Prefect Phyllis, the most Dimsieish character, is the exception.
As another of Nancy’s neighbours, Angela, is a Skylark of the same age as her and Desda, Nancy thinks that it’s ridiculous that she isn’t even supposed to talk to her, let alone befriend her. She insists they have a clandestine relationship, involving tramping where nobody can see them and other extremities. Eventually they find a neutral ground through the Girls Guild – an organisation that pre-dated the Guides, apparently, although it seems to have shared many of its aims and practices, taking the Biblical wise virgins as models.
Can Nancy and Phyl’s Guild help get rid of the silly feud? The feud’s darker side emerges as Desda and Angela find out that the juniors from both schools have been using it as an excuse for some very bad behaviour.
The story ends in a rather traditional way – guess who helps save the day in a cricket match on the same day as she passes a music exam with honours? But it takes an interesting route to get there. There’s humour to it. VB’s warped logic and the sarcastic prefects reminded me of Nancy Breary’s books. DFB counters their attitude by showing that (her) Nancy, applying herself to her work because of family pride, starts to benefit from being so conscientious. She does make good on her second chance.
I liked the characterisation in general. It covers secondary characters: intuitive Bertha and Charity, the prefect who claims not to care about her juniors’ morals, but is roused from indolence. There are telling moments that are there to allow us to develop an appreciation of character, rather than directly fuelling the plot, like Nancy realising how much Desda’s younger sister takes advantage of her sister’s goodwill and kindness.
I’m glad to learn that there are more stories about the Maudleians, and Nancy’s boarding school. I hope I come across them.
