Cricket Term, chapters 10-12

[coughingbear]

The final section of the book - the Play, the Match, and the End. Just about in time, but my apologies that it's so late; long day at work and trouble with laptop.

Chapter Ten: The Play

Everyone disperses from the Hall, and Nicola once again conceals her feelings sufficiently to congratulate Lawrie, explain what's going on, and show her prize to Rose and Chas. Latimer is 'quizzically scolding' with Kay, who then starts chatting happily to Latimer's don. Who had remembered Karen apparently with pleasure at the prize-giving, so presumably not as someone who was unable to cope with the work at Oxford? And Chas invents a saying 'Lawrie is Lucky, but Nicola is Nicer'. True?

Then Miranda comes to ask Nicola to have dinner with her father. As bridgetblood noted on the last discussion post 'True to form, Mrs West prioritises a rescheduled committee meeting over coming to see Miranda in the play. Do you think Miranda minds, or is she not bothered or even prefers to have her father there on his own? And what does Mr West think about it?' (At the time, Miranda seems more concerned that Nicola tell her the secret.) Ann apparently does mind a bit that she's missing the family picnic (what happens if Prizegiving is a wet day, I wonder? Picnics in the Assembly Hall?) - but still lends Nicola her boater to look smart in 'Wade Abbas's best hotel', eating lemon soup, grilled trout, and coffee mousse - suiting Nicola, who has not lost her love of trying new things from the beginning of Autumn Term. And champagne, because after all she does have a prize to celebrate. And the mourning ornament that Mr West tries to give her, neatly flowing the scene back to school and the Play.

Which Forest does not describe, jumping straight to afterwards and the audience's impressed reactions. Not just Nicola; Rowan agrees it 'really did have something', talking to Jan. Who makes a wholly characteristic unobtrusive exit. Nicola asks about her parents, and Rowan points out that the absence of a mother might not be 'clean and tidy' - another moment of learning.

Chas enjoyed the Play, with the 'pirates', and Rose didn't, finding it frightening, and feeling sorry for Caliban. "'There just are people like that and you can't like them-' Like Marie Dobson." What do people think of this as where Nicola's thoughts on Marie end up?

Finally, Mrs Marlow gets a chance to talk to Nicola, and tell her about Miss Keith's characteristic letter, and that she'd consulted Rowan and Karen about what to say about leaving Kingscote. And on her way back to school, encountering Miss Cromwell, finally a chance to unburden her conscience about the missed lesson. Cromwell and Miss Keith have tried, it turns out, to speak to Meg Hopkins's father - 'from time to time' implies to me that they've been doing it for a few years. But no information on who would have got the Prosser if Lawrie hadn't; and suddenly Nicola doesn't care any more.

Which at least means that she isn't joining miserable Lawrie and Ginty. Ginty exceptionally put out because she has been missing out on all the positive attention she thinks should have been hers, and Lawrie because of Caliban. And her prize being a facsimile First Folio, so Nicola suddenly makes the connection with Mask of Apollo and Crommie's conversation, and 'Richard Burbadge'. So when Lawrie offers swops 'for the separate kind and your share of The Idiot' she says yes, 'giving up without regret something she no longer much wanted'. I love the bits about Marlow family swopping rules (though I do wonder what Nicola would have done when she realised how much 'the separate kind' would cost); once agreed you can't take it back. And Lawrie bursts into tears over Caliban and accidentally reveals her bargain with Them to Nicola and they all go quarrelsomely to bed.

Chapter Eleven - The Cricket Final

But before the final, the Diving Cup, and Nicola refusing this time to hold Ginty's locket. Leaving her feeling guilty when Ginty, 'patently nervous and off form', comes seventh. Superstition again; having picked Terry Hunt and Monica to win, Nicola worries that she had better take her evil eye elsewhere so as not to make Lois lose. I do feel sorry for Ginty when her friends can't leave her alone about not winning the Cup, and can quite see why she invents something to put them off the scent, though still feel that suggesting she tried to give it up to Monica is fairly awful. 'It might have been better if she'd cried.'

I love the moment with Lower IV.A and Janice not wishing each other luck, and the heroic chorus. Meanwhile Lois attempts to set up her usual alibi with a pulled muscle, and Val has yet another weep over leaving school. I am always a bit suprised at the notion of Val on demos; it doesn't fit my preconceptions of her at all, but perhaps that's just not wanting especially to share a banner with her.

Nicola choosing the team, and Lawrie being reassuring about putting them in as openers. And the 'never explain, never apologise' quote - which I think we've discussed before, and which the internet says has been attributed to many people, including Disraeli and Jowett.

And finally the match starts, and Lois is bowling to Nicola, hard and straight. 'Giles's bowling must have been even more so, but at least there had been nothing personal behind it.' But Gina French starts to let the byes pile up, and Janice is no worse than Nicola, and the runs begin to come. Nicola makes a very respectable 39, and then Pomona and Berenice manage to stick at the end, and cause Lois and Janice endless trouble getting them out - as commentators often say, bowling out tail-enders is a special skill. Lois isn't prepared to admit this or stop trying to get a last wicket, and in the end Janice lures Berenice out. Two hours to score 106 runs; no indication of over-rate.

After tea, Lois and Jan in to bat, and Nicola bowling, gets Jan caught & bowled; lucky, but lucky because she has trained herself and her team to go after everything possible. And a second wicket at the end of the over - but after that Lois starts to score, and at 40 for 2 Nicola brings Esther on. Nothing can happen, and suddenly it does; Cathy out, Gillian Hendry, Gina French. 'It was Lawrie's catch, it was stupendous, it was fantastic' and Esther has a hat-trick. I love the way Forest gets the rhythms of cricket, and the way that excitement can come out of nowhere like this. And the line 'petrified by success, Esther's remaining balls could have been safely hit by an energetic seven-year-old.'

As the rabbits come out to the crease Lois is extremely clear that she wants to do all the batting. And is closing in on the target when Val Longstreet comes in and finds herself facing the bowling by mistake. What do people think about Nicola feeling she can't 'sling down some fast ones or dolly Val out as she'd dollied Gin'? Lawrie takes the next over, and Nicola runs to save the boundary, gets the ball and turns to throw, and Lois has come back for the third but Val hasn't. 'Mr Tallboy, thought Nicola, almost an invocation, as her arm went back. The ball bounced and took the leg bail: and Val was scuttling desperately still.'
I love this moment for so many reasons, including of course the obvious Defeat of Lois, but also the way it invokes, not merely Murder Must Advertise, but Rowan and Nicola's conversation at the beginning of the book, and Rowan's advice that Nicola has followed to success, including most especially the fielding practice, without which this could not happen. An invocation is just right.

And Lois sits in the Sixth sitting room and plays again and again the moment when she tried to get Val to run, 'and after that, the three runs still hers for the making-'. I think one of the obvious contrasts here is Nicola's ability to accept that she didn't get the Prosser. Interesting that she never turns up for Old Girls events in the future. What did happen to Lois Sanger?

Chapter Twelve - Breaking-Up

The last day of term, and Nicola can savour the Cricket Cup and not having to leave Kingscote. 'The long hour of Mark Reading' does sound pretty miserable, but does include being awarded the Cricket Cup and resisting the urge 'to turn and hold it high'. Set-up for Attic Term with the news that equable Miss Carter will be going away for a year and be replaced by Mrs Lambert. And Edwin's letter - Nicola not wanting to read it in case it's news that Nicholas is dead, but instead 'N writes that he is married to Bess Burby', ie Burbage. (Reading this now, I am finally thinking 'Ark Royal AND Burbage' - but, perhaps because they are at each end of the book, it's never bothered me before. And somehow it works that each twin has a connection to Nicholas.)

Nicola runs to find out, and Janice tells her who Burbage was. But first offers her assessment of the Prosser decision - that Lawrie was 'a useful gimmick' to help other parents accept it going to the same family twice running. And - bearing out Miranda's comment that Jan notices Nicola more than other people - they talk about what Jan will be doing and the possibility of becoming a solicitor. And Nicola almost tells her about Nicholas, only Miranda arrives to ask for Jan's address. And despite the ironic look, Jan gives it.

The last encounter with Lois. 'In some odd way, we do rather seem to have got across one another...' It's interesting to speculate what has brought Lois to saying this - hardly an apology or even an admission of guilt, but at least an admission that things should have played out differently. (Could they? What if Lois had told the truth to the Court of Honour?)

It's hard to imagine what Kingscote will be like next term without Jan or Lois or indeed Marie Dobson.

Comments

What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

She dies.

"They could not conceive how much it mattered.
'Oh come on, Lois! It's only a game! Not a matter of life and death.'
But they were wrong."

She goes home, and dies. I generally presume she kills herself, since dying of a broken heart is rare, but she dies: Forest says so.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[coughingbear]

I did think about that this evening but I don't know - for one thing it seems wrong structurally after Marie's death, and for another, surely that's the kind of news that would make it back to school and therefore Old Girls?

But it would make sense of her making a not-quite-apology to Nicola.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

*all the thumbs up*

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

ankaret, as ever, provides, marvellously plausibly (http://archiveofourown.org/works/28564). (Best if you have read Miss Pym Disposes, but quite readable without.)

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I have to say, I've always read "But they were wrong" as simply Bill Shankly's famous aphorism translated into a girls' school context, rather than as a literal statement either of fact or intent.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I always read that as metaphorical - that it really does feel like life and death to Lois, not that she will actually die of it. But the fact that it feels like that matters, and also ties into Nicola's invoking not simply brilliant act of fielding, but a murderer, to deliver the death-blow.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[kinkymobster.livejournal.com]

I never saw that at the time. But how very creepy of AF if that is what she meant.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

but lucky because she has trained herself and her team to go after everything possible.

I adore the cricket final. I love that Lower IVA's luck is earned, I love that the Sixth is finally done in by Lois's character flaws, and I especially love Nicola being Nicola and totally unable to cope with the emotions of winning.

Would people have seen Nicola bowling Val as unsporting? Nicola sees it that way, and expects that everyone else would. But she's still fourteen to Val's... let's assume eighteen, so I doubt the spectators would have seen it in the same terms as Upper VB slaying the Seconds.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I love that the result of the cricket match essentially comes down to character and leadership. Esther is looking nervous so Nicola gives her an encouraging smile and Esther bowls a hat-trick. Meanwhile Lois snarls at her team-mate causing her to do a 'work-to-rule', costing them a few runs, and then panics Val into doing the wrong thing. If Nicola had been captaining the Sixth, they would have won ! (although I expect Lois would have had no scruples about bowling out Val.)

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I don't think it is unsporting in the context, but it makes a nice contrast with her ruthlessness towards Ginty.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I always assume Val on demos is meant to be sarcastic - they're cheering her up by imagining an unlikely future. Although perhaps her smug's service stripe was for a genuine cause that she's likely to carry on.

Belatedly, and apologies if this was previously discussed, my internet is too poor to go back and check, why can't Nicola have Lower IVa in the cup AND be on the Prospects list? Surely if she gets them further on she's even more worthy of extra coaching herself?

[coughingbear]

I think on the Cup vs being a Prospect it's just a matter of time - if Nicola is still busy coaching her form she's not really available for extra coaching.

Val

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

That was my thought, too: an attempt to cheer Val up by the sheer incongruity. Also, I got the impression here that the Sixth genuinely like Val; she's a bit earnest and a wee bit pompous and not up to getting social cues much (I think her alertness to "typical lower form cheek" is because she can't tell the difference between friendly teasing and actual defiance, so steps on them all), but she genuinely tries to do the right thing according to her lights (see, for example, her stepping up to the plate to call cheers for the Lower IV when Lois fails to do so). And, of course, she finally roused herself to tick Lois off for being "so obsessive about winning." Which I suspect made the more socially acute types exhale and go, "Well, if even Val's noticed..."

Which ties in with two other things, actually; first, I think that explains Nicola's sympathy in the match and it sort of links her to Ann, as someone who's appreciated more by her peers (the other Guides, in Ann's case, and Authority) than by those to whom she's in a different role.

Lawrie is Lucky but Nicola is Nicer.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

If you had just seven words to precis all ten Marlow books, you couldn't do better than Chas's saying.
It's one of my favourite bits of all the books.

Re: Lawrie is Lucky but Nicola is Nicer.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Yes; it's a splendid motto for the series.

Jan's parents / Prospero.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

It's only struck me on this readthrough that Jan plays the MAIN part in her school play and no-one comes to see her! (I suppose it's struck me more this time than it ever did as a child because I am now used to attending plays where one of my offspring is being a sheep or a frog.)
Presumably the mother is dead or disappeared, and the father lives a long way away - and that's a hell of a journey - but even so? I wonder if Janice didn't tell her father much about the play in letters home because either she knew he wouldn't be able to come and see her, or because she didn't want him to come and see her. I suppose I'm just wondering about her home life and her relationship with her father, and also her attitude to acting.
She was reluctant to be Prospero at the start, but is clearly very good at acting him. Having just been reading Vilette I can't help comparing her to Lucy Snowe who is pushed into acting a part in a play, surprises herself with the passion and ability she has in the part but is determined never to act again.

Re: Jan's parents / Prospero.

[coughingbear]

And her unobtrusive exit, not hanging around to receive endless congratulations.

We know she has at least one brother, and can quite happily contemplate working with her uncle, but I think that's all we get on her family apart from Rowan's comments.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

I am always tickled by Miss Cromwell's phrasing to Nicola: something like "Miss Keith saw fit to tell me..." which suggests, to me, that Miss Cromwell feels the information flow between headmistress and staff is not all it might be.
Tangent to follow, fair warning: I am very fond of Miss Cromwell as a character--I think she'd have reduced me to indignant tears when I was Lower Fourth age, but I would have loved her as an older teenager. And I like the way she seems to enjoy Miranda's cheeky remarks rather than squashing them. (On Miranda's part, this reminds me of Miss Pym's take on Beau Nash, as someone whose well-to-do family background moves to speak to her form mistress as an equal.) I had a professor in grad school who was even fiercer, or at any rate more explosive, than Miss Cromwell, but who loved it on the rare occasions when someone got up the nerve to talk back (assuming that the backtalk was accompanied by proper preparation)... .

Wouldn't somebody like to write a fic showing Cricket Term from the point of view of the staff? Miss Cromwell, Miss Kempe, even Miss Craven or Miss Latimer... I think it would be absolutely fascinating.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting that Miss Cromwell has immediately worked out the timing of it all - that Miss Keith said that one of the girls would have to leave because of financial problems, and Miss Cromwell has figured out that there must have been a letter telling Nicola that she was the one (or at least, telling Nicola about the problems - maybe she wondered why Lawrie wasn't also told, or if she was, why she wasn't making a huha about the possibility, if they were keeping it general about one of them needing to leave but not who). I wonder when Miss Keith said all this (in discussion about the Prosser perhaps? Did they ever really consider Nicola for that? Did they know it was Nicola who was worried about leaving - or just that one of them might, so giving it to Lawrie was, to them, just as good a solution?). I didn't think any of the staff knew that it was Nicola who'd been chosen to leave. I got the feeling that the discussion with Miss Keith must have been quite a while after the missed lesson, so making the connection between it all is insightful of Miss Cromwell.

-res23

The play - absolutely stupendous?

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

As a child, I took Nicola's evaluation at face value. As an adult, who's had to endure many of my offsprings' plays, I'm slightly more sceptical. Could a school like Kingscote (ie as discussed, not amazingly academic)*really* pull off a play as complex as The Tempest? So is this a school girl view? Reading Mr West's response "It was wonderfully well done" I see it as rather evasive, rather than stonking adult endorsement. I know Rowan was "madly impressed" and "it really did have something" but again - much as Rowan is glorified - she is only 18 and living on a farm without many cultural reference points.

Re: The play - absolutely stupendous?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

"Wonderfully well done" could be entirely sincere without it actually being good by higher standards ;-)

I don't think Kingscote needs to be academic to pull off The Tempest - plenty of successful actors and directors are not academic. But I think the question that really matters is the directing. A lot of university student drama is awful because the directors don't know about directing, but if Kempe does know a bit, and is good at dealing with the child actors she's got, she might be able to come up with something that is pacey and engaging enough to hold the attention of an audience that isn't expecting much, especially if her leads can speak the verse reasonaby enough. Though ultimately it's school-story convention.

Miranda and her mother

[coughingbear]

What do people make of this? Miranda always seems pretty unconcerned to me that her mother doesn't turn up, and I have read her 'automatically discounting at least half of this' to include her mother being sorry she missed it as well as her father's judgement of the play.

Re: Miranda and her mother

[fengirl88.livejournal.com]

I read it as Miranda not believing for a moment her mother would be sorry she missed the play, but also being slightly sceptical about her father's praise.

Ginty's lie.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Although Ginty telling her friends that she had deliberately dived badly was an awful thing to do, I wonder how people view it?
The Kingscote/Marlowverse code of honour seems to suggest that you should never, ever cry in public. Her friends are banging on in the most insensitive way, and unlike Nicola in EOT Ginty doesn't have helpful Janice to distract them and make them leave her alone. So in desperation Ginty blurts out the first thing she can think of, which is intended as a joke, but is suddenly taken more seriously than she meant it. She clearly feels appalled and guilty, and she still feels bad about it in Attic Term. So far, so good, I've persuaded myself to feel nothing but sympathy for her; but, I then think what would Nicola have said or done in that situation, and all my sympathy dissolves. Partly because I don't think Nicola would want to cry over having performed badly, and even supposing she did, she would deal with it quite differently.

Re: Ginty's lie.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I think it illustrates very well one of the flaws in Ginty's character: her tendency to romanticise, which actually keeps her from being the noble person she'd like to imagine she is. But I think her friends (with the exception of Monica) perhaps rather bring out the worst in her: they seem a fairly catty crew (again, Monica excepted) to whom--even setting aside Forestworld conventions of never showing emotion ever--it would be impossible to admit feeling a bit glum about not having done your best. It's ironic, then that it's Monica, the only friend in the group who might be sympathetic to such an admission, becomes the one who the lie rebounds on.

Never explain, never apologize

[joyfully82.livejournal.com]

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has "Never contradict, Never explain, Never apologize." attributed to John Arbuthnot Fisher 1841–1920. British naval officer and First Sea Lord.

Which would fit Nicola very well...

(Apparently in a letter to Times, 5 September 1919. Also has cross references with Disraeli "Never complain and never explain." and Elbert Hubbard "Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.")

Re: Never explain, never apologize

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

If that quote's Jackie Fisher's, then it's got to go up there as "most un-self-aware comment" since Ginty said whatever it was to prompt Rowan to comment, "My dear girl, have you looked at yourself recently?"

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I still want to know what the story about "stand like kine in the gateway" was.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

So do I!

The letter from Edwin

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Why does Nicholas marrying Burbage's daughter have to be kept *such* a big secret from Lawrie? Presumably the current Trennels Marlows aren't descended directly from them as Nicholas's elder brother had several sons of his own.

Re: The letter from Edwin

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I don't think it would have to be a direct line of descent for Lawrie to be insufferable about it...

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it quite ludicrous that they could be such distant cousins and still in touch in the 20th century. But all the males of Geoffrey's descent getting killed in the Civil War would work.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

They don't even have to be killed; just dropped out of Royal favour & the lands awarded to the other lot. But there was also the Plague and various outbreaks of sweating sickness and the like.