REVIEW: A Queen among Girls
Oct. 14th, 2012 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI haven't read that many books over the last month, and of those books, none have been particularly Girls Own-y, but this weekend, I managed to read this one:
A Queen among Girls: Elinor Adams Davenport Blackie & Son
Said ‘Queen and Empress Augusta’ isn’t actually a queen, which I considered a possibility for a few pages, but a clever and respected 16 year old student, who is expected to continue an academic career and win scholarships and prizes at the boarding school she’s attended for many years. However, unlike her best friend Madge, Gussie’s home life is not a happy one. Orphaned, her guardian is her uncle Erle, who is a cold man, unlikely to make a house a home, which is a heavier burden for Gussie’s younger brother Adrian, who doesn’t have her sangfroid and is educated at a day school. His terror of his uncle, seems to make it worse, although Erle doesn't see that he is being cruel.
Erle’s habit of offering unfair ultimatums means that Adrian is given the chance of going to boarding school if Augusta doesn’t return to hers and stays at home. But where Augusta rose to the top because of her abilities, Adrian is prey to a bullying fifth former and ends up wrongly accused and expelled becauseeen of it. Erle’s response is to assume the worst of Adrian and plan to send him away to be schooled in Germany in disgrace. Augusta won’t have any of that, and executes one of the best runnings away I’ve come across this type of fiction - I know that the authors are usually making a point about running away from boarding school or wherever being BAD and the children being better off where they were, and unprepared for harsh reality in most cases, but this was refreshing - ending up at a seaside town with Adrian looking for work as a governess to young children. It goes reasonably well, until it doesn’t, and Gussie’s worn-down strength and savings can’t withstand an influenza outbreak.
Fortunately, the Pembrokes are related on their father’s side to Lord Barscombe of Barscombe park (the Erles and Pembrokes have been feuding for generations for reasons nobody remembered, so Godfrey Pembroke’s marriage to Patricia Erle led to both being disowned and their children being claimed by one family and unknown to the other. In looks, Gussie takes after her mother, while Adrian looks like a Pembroke, which may have fed their uncle’s prejudices.) Fortunately, the living Pembrokes are good people and take their relations in, providing them with the refuge they needed, reinstating them to their proper class and giving them, for the first time in many years, a home.
It’s an early twentieth century book* with quite a lot of what one could generally term Victorian sensibilities eg Erle and the family feud. Augusta is an interesting heroine – although Girton is dangled in front of her, it’s perpetually postponed, so that she can go through trials that make her a more loving sister (okay, fine, even if I didn’t see why all her ambitions had to be sacrificed in the end for her male relations to get their way) and make her both more mature and the girl she never was (there really is a tension here that’s never resolved). But her faults of being too self-dependent, isolated and pushing herself too hard are different from your usual girls own heroines. School life is in the background for both, mainly happening off the page, although it influences both character and plot. I’m not saying this was particularly well written, but there were interesting things about it and how it struggled to straddle different requirements about what kind of story was appropriate for girls.
* Googling threw up the date 1900, but in the context of a reference about girls and day schools, which I didn't fully understand, as Augusta and Madge go to a boarding school. Gussie does end up as a governess to two girls who go to a day school in the morning, but that's incidental.
A Queen among Girls: Elinor Adams Davenport Blackie & Son
Said ‘Queen and Empress Augusta’ isn’t actually a queen, which I considered a possibility for a few pages, but a clever and respected 16 year old student, who is expected to continue an academic career and win scholarships and prizes at the boarding school she’s attended for many years. However, unlike her best friend Madge, Gussie’s home life is not a happy one. Orphaned, her guardian is her uncle Erle, who is a cold man, unlikely to make a house a home, which is a heavier burden for Gussie’s younger brother Adrian, who doesn’t have her sangfroid and is educated at a day school. His terror of his uncle, seems to make it worse, although Erle doesn't see that he is being cruel.
Erle’s habit of offering unfair ultimatums means that Adrian is given the chance of going to boarding school if Augusta doesn’t return to hers and stays at home. But where Augusta rose to the top because of her abilities, Adrian is prey to a bullying fifth former and ends up wrongly accused and expelled becauseeen of it. Erle’s response is to assume the worst of Adrian and plan to send him away to be schooled in Germany in disgrace. Augusta won’t have any of that, and executes one of the best runnings away I’ve come across this type of fiction - I know that the authors are usually making a point about running away from boarding school or wherever being BAD and the children being better off where they were, and unprepared for harsh reality in most cases, but this was refreshing - ending up at a seaside town with Adrian looking for work as a governess to young children. It goes reasonably well, until it doesn’t, and Gussie’s worn-down strength and savings can’t withstand an influenza outbreak.
Fortunately, the Pembrokes are related on their father’s side to Lord Barscombe of Barscombe park (the Erles and Pembrokes have been feuding for generations for reasons nobody remembered, so Godfrey Pembroke’s marriage to Patricia Erle led to both being disowned and their children being claimed by one family and unknown to the other. In looks, Gussie takes after her mother, while Adrian looks like a Pembroke, which may have fed their uncle’s prejudices.) Fortunately, the living Pembrokes are good people and take their relations in, providing them with the refuge they needed, reinstating them to their proper class and giving them, for the first time in many years, a home.
It’s an early twentieth century book* with quite a lot of what one could generally term Victorian sensibilities eg Erle and the family feud. Augusta is an interesting heroine – although Girton is dangled in front of her, it’s perpetually postponed, so that she can go through trials that make her a more loving sister (okay, fine, even if I didn’t see why all her ambitions had to be sacrificed in the end for her male relations to get their way) and make her both more mature and the girl she never was (there really is a tension here that’s never resolved). But her faults of being too self-dependent, isolated and pushing herself too hard are different from your usual girls own heroines. School life is in the background for both, mainly happening off the page, although it influences both character and plot. I’m not saying this was particularly well written, but there were interesting things about it and how it struggled to straddle different requirements about what kind of story was appropriate for girls.
* Googling threw up the date 1900, but in the context of a reference about girls and day schools, which I didn't fully understand, as Augusta and Madge go to a boarding school. Gussie does end up as a governess to two girls who go to a day school in the morning, but that's incidental.
