trennels | Peter's Room read-through: Chapters one, two and three

Again, posting on behalf of

legionseagle, a little later than planned owing to some email glitches at my end, for which, apologies.

--L.B.

At the Antonia Forest conference in Bournemouth in 2006 someone observed:

"Trennels is basically a TARDIS. It has all these extra buildings which only materialise when the plot needs them." (And dematerialise, too, natch: hence Great-Uncle Lawrence and His Amazing Disappearing Hawkhouse.)

In Peter's Room it's the turn of the Old Shippen (available for general storage, coal- and coke-bunkering and winter hobby pursuits. Black Masses extra.) and the adjacent Old Yard, which has ten-foot high walls and a gate to match. (What were the Marlows who built it trying to keep in? Prize wallabies?)

For the first time since TMATT we have Peter foregrounded. While chopping wood in the Old Yard (so avoiding Madame Orly) he's also making the better acquaintance of Daks, who here makes his first on-screen appearance. Another inventive literary device, the infodump via pedigree poodle pup, and it works rather well, especially given the buttoned up nature of Marlows in general and their attitudes to animals by way of contrast (Mikes observed in How to Be an Alien that it's quite acceptable for the English to have a long walk with their best friend and never exchange a word with him; if one takes one's dog instead you must converse.)

Mrs Bertie – developing traces of a personality here, compared to the stereotype of Falconer's Lure – tells him to stack the chopped wood in the Old Shippen, a disused cowshed across the yard. Daks vanishes, then his barking leads Peter into a hidden room above: a place stuffed with junk and possibilities.

We get a first glimpse of Rowan at work. She, Mr Tranter and Ted Coulthard, the cow man, are building a lambing pen in a bitter wind when Peter arrives to ask if he can use the room for his own purposes. There follow two and a half pages of pure comedy shot through with nice flashes of observation (Rowan, having banged her thumb with a mallet is "concentratedly silent, sucking it").

Discussion of the Old Shippen's murky past leads into one of the themes of the book: the Marlow family's connections with the district and how the "present management" are coping with being simultaneously newcomers and a family with a long and colourful local history.

Harry Marlow, who built the Old Shippen, had a popular reputation for being in league with the Devil. The building's evil reputation lingers. Beasts put in it never do well, the previous vicar's refusal to carry out an exorcism remains a bone of contention, and Ted Coulthard's grandfather, when a boy, claimed to have encountered the Devil in person, sitting on the roof-tree and singing to himself (the best tunes, presumably).

One of the questions the book raises is whether the fault is in people's stars or in themselves. The debate's terms are outlined in the original discussion between Rowan, Peter, Ted and Mr Tranter. Is the building itself cursed or is it the choices people make with respect to it which causes things to go awry?

The light, up-beat tone of the chapter – it's the start of the holidays, Christmas is coming – is sustained even through the intended bombshell of Miss Keith's letter regarding the row about the twins, the match and the Play.

On which topic, Madame Orly's devastating comment that the twins had obviously shown greater artistic integrity than Miss Keith, so she should stop complaining, will never stop being funny.

This is a darker chapter than the first in several ways, only lifted in the last pages by the hustle and bustle of the others' arrival from Kingscote.

Forest paints an evocative picture of how the room above the Old Shippen looks at dusk. Furthermore, all the bits Peter choses to save from "the Viking's funeral" he makes of the junk are evocative of death: tropical butterflies pinned to cards, blown birds' eggs and a heap of antique swords and pistols.

Given Peter's spotty record with guns (series bag to date: one Kontenadmiral (intended); one goshawk (emphatically not)), his pointing the pistols nonchalantly down the stairs and firing them in the hope they're loaded makes my blood run thick with cold, especially with Daks running loose about the place (how on earth would Nicola have explained that to Esther???).

In a throwaway line, we learn that Trennels was built out of the proceeds of slavery (So far as fic goes, so far as I know only

ankaret in her brilliant piece Sugar has tackled this aspect of Marlow history).

Finally, Peter discovers farm logs in a trunk, going back at least to the 17th century (any historian want to comment about the plausibility of the ease with which Peter deciphers the older entries?) He learns of an ancestor, Malise, who broke with his family and rode away on his 16th birthday "to serve the Man of Blood Charles Stuart."

Peter immediately identifies with Malise – his support for the loner, the rebel, trumps even his natural political inclinations (he's been a Parliamentarian since the first term of prep school, at least) and ignores the heartbreak of a family at war with itself. "O Absalom my son my son" is a cry of loss ringing across the ages, but falls, as far as Peter is concerned, on closed ears.

This book is the one with the most direct references to TMATT, so the echoes of the last time Peter found ancestral papers in a trunk are almost certainly intentional (there's even the "By Watch and Ward"/"Under Two Flags" thematic link of discarded, out-dated, jingoistic juvenile fiction.)

Lieut. Foley, too, identified with an ancestor who set himself apart from his community: Fabian the wrecker. It's an unsettling parallel, underscored when the sovereigns Peter thought he'd found on a beam turn out to be unused farthings.

"Fairy gold" is his immediate assumption, not his own will to believe causing him to overlook the direct evidence of his senses. Nicola, though, sees and appreciates the farthings for what they are, rather than what delusion turns them into.

The third chapter is almost as long as the first two put together and packed. It's at first kaleidoscopic (the vivid economy with which Forest gets Christmas over is breath-taking) and then slows down as Nicola re-encounters Patrick, is forced to face the prospect of hunting as well as fears about keeping hawks over the winter (Patrick is his normal tactful self about how she's been managing to date: "They say's the worst thing you can possibly do") and Doris is introduced.

Doris is a great improvement on Mrs Bertie – not least because she avoids the "Miss" and "Master" forelock-tugging and also has a lively style as a raconteur. Furthermore, she's not afraid to act as the voice of authority. When, in another flashback to Lieut. Foley, Peter twists Nicola's arms up behind her back and carries on doing it after she's told him "Don't , Peter. You're hurting" only Doris's decisive intervention stops it from going – where? It's an unexpectedly unsettling moment.

Patrick arrives, is shown the upper room, takes to the farm log (like a duck to water) and Peter tentatively raises the topic of Malise. Patrick is about to say something when they're all interrupted by Lawrie, in a high state of agitation and crying, "it's not fair".

Which, I have to say, for once I agree on. Catkin's an equus ex machina as regards large swathes of the plot, especially the Patrick/Ginty relationship. Patrick first really meets Ginty when she's on Catkin's back – calm, confident, in control and yet needing just a little help that only he, Patrick, can supply. It does, however, make no apparent sense why the Marlow parents choose at this point to give a gift which is not only disproportionate to the family finances but to any gift ever given to any of the other seven children. All suggestions gratefully received.

Anyway, the four younger Marlows, three dogs, one merlin and Patrick colonise the room above the Old Shippen (somewhat to Peter's suppressed resentment) and, when snow shuts off other options, we get the introduction of Gondal. Which I suspect will be a major point for discussion below the line, so on this point I'll simply flag up two issues – why is Nicola, the Polar Expedition, so visibly reluctant to engage with the proposed Gondal, and how does it tie in with other indications of her exclusion elsewhere in the chapter? Secondly, does anyone fancy writing Gothic fanfic in the style of the Misses Ramsey?

General discussion points – a few that spring to mind:

Superstition – from the "X" drawn across the water to avert a quarrel to the whole business with the shippen. The Devil on the roof-tree – yes, no or on the fence?
The Marlows in transition, from holiday visitors to members of the local community.
Rowan, working side by side with Ted Coulthard and Mr Tranter: can we say the relationship modelled here is, "Wet behind the ears but promising junior officer, very senior NCOs"?
Peter's character – bearing in mind earlier questions about Peter's judgement (of himself and others, and of situations). How does his obsession with Malise tie in? What about the Foley parallel?
Ginty and Patrick. Patrick and Nicola. Wedges, exclusion, serially monogamous friendships and awkwardness.
The Brontes as filtered through Marlow consciousnesses – a match made in Hell?
Gondal – again, so far as we've got, what issues are already developing? Do the hidden agendas (of Ginty, identifying with Emily Bronte, of Peter, identifying with Malise, of Lawrie, just wanting to act at any price) complement or conflict?

Anything else? Have at it!