trennels | Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

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Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

Thanks very much to

coughingbear for writing the posts on The Cricket Term. I'm back in the saddle for this one, but if anyone is interested in a post on later chapters of this novel, on Run Away Home or the Players novels, please let me know below or by pm. Discussion proceeds here about exactly what order we're going to do things in: if you have feelings please let us know in comments at that post. Suggestions for themed posts are here.

So, forward to The Attic Term!

We pick up the story again at the end of the summer holiday that is beginning at the close of Cricket Term, leaving a swathe of unnarrated summer into which to insert fic. This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt. Ginty and Patrick's friendship has clearly developed, and they have privately continued their Gondal fantasy. I enjoy the detail that Ginty finds more opportunities for romance with Patrick's Hamlet in reading Horatio than she does in reading Ophelia, because it's so true! There are! Her continued nervousness around Regina is an ominous sign, though, and Patrick does seem as skittish as Catkin when things get a touch amorous. Ginty's disinclination to talk to Patrick about Monica and vice versa continues the series' theme of Home and School and never the twain.

We learn something of Patrick's school life, and its contrasts with Kingscote: it seems more academically pushy, with O-levels taken early, and with far less of a culture of compulsion around extra-curricular activities. There are hints of Patrick's dissatisfaction with reform in the Catholic Church and his school's enthusiastic embrace of that--Ginty presumably knows something of his views there, because she doesn't enquire why the 'trad' Christmas Play was hastily rejected, though we sense that perhaps Patrick doesn't discuss theology with Ginty very much. (Incidentally, I'm wondering what sort of details might make a Nativity Play seem too 'trad' in a post-Vatican II climate?) It is, in any case, a lot more satisfying to have him expound his beliefs to Nicola in the next chapter, because of the resonance with the ride from Wade Abbas in End of Term. The discussion of plays--whether Hamlet or Eugene O'Neill, furthers the theme of pretence. Patrick cannot act, but he can pretend to be someone--a nice and subtle distinction. This month's number of the Journal of Read It Somewhere Studies tells me that Forest's school put on Marco Millions, which must then have been a pretty new play, since it first appeared on the Broadway stage in 1928. Anyone ever seen it?

'Imagine asking. Suppose you got told,' says Ginty of Unity Logan's officious efforts on behalf of June White, demoted from Candle Angel in the Play in End of Term. Here Ginty asks, and very nearly gets told, but in the last sentence of the chapter decides that there are some things she'd better off not knowing. It's a wonderfully light-touch portrait of two young people who like the idea of being in a romance rather more, one senses, than they actually like each other. The moment at which Patrick shies from Ginty's 'tense, insistent' face and diverts the conversation to Claudie (oh, Patrick!) is brilliant. If he was conscious of what he was doing it would be cruel, but Forest switches point of view to show us he isn't, though I'm not sure that makes him any more likeable at that moment. What do others think of Ginty and Patrick's doomed friendship?

Nicola's awkward presence at cubbing uncomfortably reminds us of happier times she's spent with Patrick. Forest--rather cunningly--doesn't give us Patrick's viewpoint in this chapter, so we're left with the sisters as mutually resentful rivals. I'm also amused by her misunderstanding of the age and state of growth of their quarry, and her perking up when she realises they're not actually sending 'fubsy' cubs to their deaths. Is Ginty's 'resigned sisterly contempt' feigned? It's only just over a year ago in story-time that she was a fervent anti-bloodsports type, after all.

The breakfast-table conversation is notably malicious on Patrick and Ginty's part--I'm glad that Mr Merrick is there to stand up for Nicola. I rather wish that Patrick had got the telling-off he deserves for his bad behaviour at the hunt in Peter's Room, though. I like the oxymoron of '"Yup," said Nicola, automatically doom-laden, her spirits leaping up.' at the news of Ginty's being summoned away to packing.

Nicola's ease with Regina contrasts with Ginty's continued nerves, as the conversation which follows is surely intended as contrast: eccentric but revealing where Ginty's interactions with Patrick are bound by certain conventions and superficial.

'"Though I suppose she is quite used to strangers nowadays"' (ouch, Patrick!) is flagged by the authorial voice as significant; if it implies that Nicola is a stranger, it also suggests that Ginty is one too. Nicola's cheerful acceptance of the labour of sweeping out (the Merrick Boy displaying his extraordinary tact and charm again) eases the atmosphere between them, and their conversation becomes almost immediately quite profound, with Nicola's revelation of Edwin's researches into the farm log. Patrick's moment of reaffirmation in faith (and Nicola's initial misunderstanding of it) is quite touching, I think, the more so because it only makes emotional sense: his ancestor's courage on the scaffold doesn't render his beliefs (or Patrick's traddiness) any whit more true (as Nicola's later, private conviction that nothing is worth Tyburn acknowledges.)

Nicola and Patrick's shared dislike of being 'talked to' in ways they see as patronising by adults perhaps provides a further contrast with Ginty's horror of rows, and offers a distant fore-echo of Ginty and Nicola's later interviews with Miss Keith. I'm tickled and a bit appalled by Patrick's desire for 'masters to keep their distance and answer to Sir' (just like dogs in trouble, splendid bit of landed gentry arrogance from the Merrick Boy there). But he's clearly unhappy enough at school to want to leave before A-levels--I can't imagine that he struggles academically in the humanities, though I can quite believe his own estimate of his maths. Patrick's account of his school assemblies provides the irony that the trendier end of the Catholic Church is rather more low church (with extempore prayer and 'holy pop') than the Church of England solidities that Nicola is used to. In his reluctance to stand up and be counted we see Patrick's shyness emerging again, but perhaps also an ironic contrast with his illustrious ancestor. Later in the chapter, Patrick reflects sadly that there's no real danger involved in his modern sort of recusancy, only the sort of social embarrassment that a 'madly trad' assembly might bring. (I'd be inclined to regard this a very callow and silly sort of nostalgia were Patrick not the sort of bloke who brings an eighteenth-century throwing-knife to a showdown in a medieval dovecote, sees someone killed with it, hops into a stolen Rolls-Royce for a sexually-charged joyride with a teenage drug-smuggler who dies crashing it and then casually passes an ounce of uncut cocaine to his naval cadet friend as a souvenir of a crowded weekend. He's nothing if not a risk-taker.)

Mention of the Forty (Martyrs of England and Wales) places us presumably in summer 1971, since their canonization took place in October 1970. Anyone more up on matters theological than I care to comment on Patrick's views on the Vatican II reforms? How well do they represent traditional Catholicism in general, and Forest's own in particular?

I simply adore Nicola's persistent analogies of the Catholic Church with the Navy, by the way, and her reflections on Ginty's showing off to Patrick by affecting interest in Dante and medieval Latin are delicious. I first read Dante in Sayers' translation, and retain a fondness for it despite its terza rima being pretty cumbrous. (It's the only translation I know that bothers with a linguistic difference between Dante and Sordello, for example, for which I'll forgive it a lot--Sayers' Sordello speaks (rather kailyard) Scots.) But I also rather like The Constant Nymph, whose themes of rivalry and jealousy are obviously relevant here (also the source for Edwin's surname?) Forest seems associatively to connect The Constant Nymph with Sayers through Hilary's admiration of it as a bestseller with artistic merit in The Nine Tailors.

How do people read Nicola's interest in going to Mass? It's picked up again in Run Away Home, and I'm sure there'll be more discussion there, but what do you think her motivations are?

Though really, I think Nicola deserves better than the Merrick Boy, it is delightful to see them happy and self-forgetfully, adolescently earnest together; and by the time Nicola's recalled to Trennels, she's a good deal happier.

The differing reactions of the family to Nicola's arrival are nicely observed, I think, from Rowan's amusement, through Ann's worried humourlessness ('remindingly' is a good adverb), to Lawrie's immediate relating of the situation to her own concerns (the detail that Lawrie has developed a genuine fondness for the Idiot Boy, though, is charming--even if--typically Lawrie, she only does so when he is actually hers.) And oh dear, Ginty's jealous fury. Her anger at her mother betrays her into positively Lawrie-ish fantastic hyperbole ('suddenly famous and interviewed on TV'). Nicola's 'bubble of happiness' breaking as she realises that the conversation doesn't necessarily mean a renewal of her friendship with Patrick is rather heartbreaking though. But at least she's lucky at the dentist. I rather like the subtle difference drawn between 'smug' and 'cat-with-creamy', too: though 'unusually perceptive' is backhanded: Forest can't quite let Ann have her due.

We begin with a glimpse of Mrs Lambert's officious inefficiency, which will later produce some disastrous results. Causation and responsibility are important themes here--the novel is in fact full of 'coughing bears'--which is in its turn, I suppose, Forest's meta-narratalogical commentary on story-telling, its conventions and structures.

Esther's affection for Daks? Affected, babyish or 'scarey' [sic]? Her response to her mother's pregnancy does rather suggest the last, doesn't it? An echo with Nicola's 'one would always much rather it were one of the family', too, perhaps. Flats where they don't allow babies (as opposed to flats unsuitable for)? I can imagine some restriction of the sort in 1930s service apartments, possibly, but it seems a bit peculiar in the 1970s. But maybe people know of similar rules from their own or others' experience?

Ann gets her step to prefect, and is observed in her element with the Junior Side infants. Nicola's expectation of saccharine gratitude for taking Ann's trunk tray down gets a rebuke that is both enjoyable in itself and for the equanimity with which Nicola receives it. I'm also delighted by Nicola's observation of the carpenter's filling in a gap with spare parquet. I always rather enjoy that sort of thing myself.

Miranda's continued devotion to Jan--aw! Complete with illogical wish for her to have failed but not failed her A-levels. Miranda's holiday in Venice (tempered by the realisation that it would be 'gaudy' to send Jan a gift or card alluding to it) contrasts with Jan's postcard ('written small', oh Miranda) from her Norfolk or Lincolnshire home. A Wool Cross works well for either--I like the detail that while Forest is inconsistent about which side of the Wash Jan's hometown is on she has a clear idea of what sort of country she hails from. In case anyone has missed it, here is fic, by

legionseagle, exploring Jan's past, and the slight mystery that seems to surround her mother.

Comments on Wendy Tredgold's anti-semitism? Interestingly, both Wendy's implied remark about Miranda's father, and her articulated one about Miranda not knowing about the existence of Oxfam shops are tacitly supported by Nicola. Forest is characteristic in leaving it to the reader to decide whether Wendy really is anti-Semitic or whether she simply resents Miranda's wealth and (it has to be admitted) slight tendency to snobbery: the comments of hers that we hear are insinuating, but only of Miranda's wealth and privilege, not her Jewishness. There's a similar entwining of issues of class and anti-Semitism in End of Term, with the 'common little soul with the perm and the Jaguar'. Miranda is embarrassed, however, by her remark about the 'dreggy uniform dress', which draws attention to the Marlows' relative poverty. It's a very effective and understated sketch of the ways in which wealth does, and does not, map onto social privilege and status.

We see Miranda's unpleasant side in her dealings with Sandra Grigson, who is harmless if rather prolix--Miranda's putdown is startlingly vicious--if again, as Nicola is forced to admit, accurate. Miranda appears as an edgy and unsettling presence here, I think, with Nicola finding herself in agreement both with Miranda and her antagonists. The moment when Nicola wonders if her hurt at Patrick's rejection of her shows in similar ways to Sandra's by Miranda is actually painful to read. I'm mildly surprised that no-one but Sandra recognises Sara Crewe--if Cousin Jon had sisters (and perhaps even if he didn't, though it's perhaps not one that boys would be as familiar with as girls might be), there must surely be a copy of A Little Princess in the Trennels playroom, and Rose would have no trouble identifying the reference. Perhaps this is the flexible timeline coming into play, but I read A Little Princess in the 1980s, and indeed played the rat in a stage version. Burnett's novel, with its reversals of fortune and status and its emphasis on the power of imagination and storytelling, resonate subtly and slightly uncomfortably with this scene and the previous chapters.

Miranda's family, like Patrick's, has an au pair (in fact, 'one of our idiot au pairs' suggests a multiplicity, or a sequence at least, thereof). I'm not really familiar with au pairing and how it worked in practice in the 1970s--but Miranda seems to regard Elsa as a kind of servant, which I thought was very much not the idea. Anyway, it seems unlikely that Miranda has the sort of frisson with Elsa that Patrick has with Claudie, more's the pity.

The Disaster! The coughing bear! I love, 'Nicola meditated briefly on the disastrousness of being not merely rich, but an only child and never having to wear your sisters' outgrown gear.' And Miranda is notably cavalier about the garment, reflecting that ruining it will be no hardship. This passage is growling with potential coughing bears--from Miranda's anger at Wendy's 'nudging voice' to Avril's fear that chickens may come home to her roost.

I think that's enough from me for now. Over to you!

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These chapters are chock full of foreshadowing of various kinds.

I think the renewal of Patrick and Nicola's friendship is quite important structurally in that they have clearly had little contact since Christmas, and I think there needs to be some kind of reminder so that when, later, Patrick is thinking that he would have trusted Nicola not to read the exam paper whereas he isn't quite sure about Ginty, there's some recent grounding for it. (I hope that makes sense.)

As I understand from newspapers memoirs of both sides*, au pairs had a mother's help type role and were not meant to be treated as servants, their duties being childcare and a little light housework**. In practice, they often were, and are, expected to do almost all the housework, including cooking, though the Wests might employ a cleaner as well, and take major responsibility for children. Since Miranda clearly doesn't need much on the childcare front, it would fit in with the general pattern for Elsa and her predecessors to be expected to basically work as a very badly-paid cook-housekeeper and then be criticised for doing this poorly because they didn't actually have the necessary experience. Claudie has the advantage that she is IIRC a family connection, taken for that reason and not because that's what the family always does about housework, and therefore is situationally much more likely to get the official good experience. Basically, it's the classic servant problem, where the problem doesn't lie with the servants, but employers' expectations of 5* service for 1* wages.

*Here's a recent example from Ireland, based on academic research: http://www.thejournal.ie/au-pair-research-exploitation-uk-ireland-1736486-Oct2014/

**The Wikipedia article describes my understanding of the official duties very accurately.

I think it must vary tremendously in practice, depending on how many other staff the family employs, and -- as you say -- whether there's a connection between the au pair and the family. And also things like how privileged the au pair herself is, in various ways. I was a short-term au pair in '06: the family had some other staff who did 98% of the housework, and I was effectively just minding the children a bit and acting as an English tutor. I wasn't exploited because -- owing to language skills/qualifications/the university I was about to go to -- I was in a privileged position, and had lots of time to work on my pre-university reading list, think, wander about, &c. But I don't for a second think that's the universal experience, especially for au pairs from less privileged backgrounds. :(

I feel for Elsa, subject to Miranda's barely-suppressed scorn, and what we're told of Mrs West doesn't really suggest that she'd be terribly understanding of novice errors in domestic matters. Mr West would probably be OK, but I sense he spends a lot of time in the Shop. Claudie's duties do include cooking it seems, because we're told by Patrick via his mum she does it 'so easily it isn't true' (so they can't be exploiting her!) Improbable as it is, I can never quite free myself of the suspicion that Claudie has been introduced to the household to further Patrick's, erm, social education, (which it is of course ridiculous in the case of any young man, good as the raw material might be, to leave to chance). So in some ways I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer Miranda's contumely and drudgery while Mrs West attends innumerable committee meetings, though it's a pretty invidious choice.

I get the impression that Mrs Merrick genuinely likes and enjoys spending time with Claudie -- maybe a break from the menfolk?

Yes, on reflection, they do seem to get on--swapping convent school stories, maybe...

A good recent work on domestic service in the C20th, Lucy Delap's Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth Century Britain includes significant discussion of au pairs in the context of the mutation rather than disappearance of domestic service. See also Kath Holden, Nanny Knows Best

A couple of things I really don't get - why is Nicola suddenly a full blown agnostic/atheist wanting to give up church going, and how would Patrick - who hasn't spoken to her seriously in yonks - know this? She doesn't say anything about thinking religion is all rubbish in End of Term, where they have their big Wade Abbas religion conversation. Is Forest actually confusing her with Rowan, who does say in EofT that she doesn't believe?

(And when Patrick says he's almost had it with the church - do we reckon he means he's flirting with agnosticism too or is it just the Roman Catholic Church he's fed up with?)

And did anyone, ever, by choice, sit as bookends? So uncomfortable and unnatural! Feel that signifies a lot about Ginty and Patrick's relationship in itself.

Isn't there an earlier mention - I think it's in Peter's Room - where Nicola picks up on Ginty talking knowledgeably about hunting and thinking back to the Unity Logan Anti Blood Sports (if not actual Hunt Saboteurs) era mentally commenting that now Ginty is talking to (with a subtext of wanting to impress) Patrick (the Ginty as chameleon theme).

It's clear that Nicola is AF's favourite character and also clear that AF dislikes Ann as much as Nicola does (and is perhaps as unfair to her on occasion as Nicola is?). I started wondering whether Nicola and AF always share the same opinions about people. Can AF really admire Giles as much as Nicola does? How does she really feel about Patrick who can be almost unbearable at times but who is fascinating to Nicola? And it's so clear from the way she writes her that AF finds Ginty as shallow, self absorbed and irritating as Nicola does herself.

The sitting-like-bookends sounds consciously ornamental by both of them. They are very Rupert-and-Rosina; it is position designed to look picturesque and to avoid any possible eye contact, which might make the conversation more real.

Does Nicola ever prefer a mother to a father? Is any mother sympathetically portrayed in the whole canon? She even seems to be leaning quickly towards preferring Edwin to Kay (I know she's a stepmother but still ...)

I really feel for Ginty here. It is easy to forget how intensely you feel things as a teenager, and how powerless you are. Spending time with Patrick before they are separated for weeks and weeks is incredibly important to her, and here her mother is barging in with trunks and dentists and ruining it all; and not only can she not do anything about it, but she can't even talk about how she feels to anyone. Fantasizing that one day you will be powerful enough to get a sympathetic hearing for your heart-break feels so natural.

And desperately watching the driveway in case she can have a 10 minute chat with Patrick, and not have to spend the entire day visualizing him shmoozing with Nicola, feels right as well.

Claudie is a daughter of friends of the Merricks, and although she does do some cooking and light housework, she is not a servant. I think there is no suggestion that she is expected to sleep with Patrick, and the Merrick parents would probably be horrified if they knew she effectively suggests it. Also, it is canonical that Patrick struggles with at least some humanities as well as maths. He has trouble with foreign languages, and his Latin also appears to be quite weak.
Lizzzar

Yes, I was very struck by the discussion abouttaking off from school "because you were in a fearful row." Foreshadowing future events involving Gin, Nick and Esther - and Patrick too, very nicely

Very true. Esther's mother is horrible, Miranda's goes to meetings instead of seeing her daughter, Tim's is invisible, Pomona's is an ass (though it is hinted that her father is not), even Patrick's aunts are a dull, bossy nightmare. And the Marlows themselves seem to have no relations that they are fond of, though Cousin Jon was presumably all right.

So mean about Ann sometimes! Her sin this time is that she talks 'cheerfully', the swine.

I do wonder where Ginty's hunting knowledge comes from--presumably in the case of cubbing Patrick's told her what to expect, but, yes, the earlier instance of her being knowledgeable? Books? Chats with Fred Studdart in the stables?

If nothing else, I think Patrick's parents are aware that he's pretty isolated and hasn't made friends at the new school, so bringing Claudie into the household does have an element of providing company for him.

I like the way that Mr Merrick makes it perfectly clear that he likes Nicola and wishes she and Patrick were still friends.

She's said (in EoT I think) to have hunted with a friend with whom she stayed in a previous holiday - presumably one of the Jocelyn/Isa etc mob.

I find the first couple of chapters quite hard to get into, especially having just finished Cricket Term. The first chapter is rather dull. As a child I just found it a bit boring; reading it now I feel desperately sad for Ginty - telling Patrick she loves him, only for him to immediately pretend that she is someone else ('Rosina') and then not be sure if he loves her back. I'm not convinced at this point that Ginty is pretending to be Rosina, I think this is Ginty as herself, effectively giving herself away. And she's so pathetically submissive to Patrick.
Ginty being submissive is one thing, but then Nicola is too, and I feel like giving her a good shake. Compare her casual acceptance of Tim's renewal of friendship with her pathetic eagerness to sweep out the hawkhouse and generally follow Patrick around. It doesn't seem to occur to Nicola when she gets annoyed with Ann for being willing to do her job of clearing the table, that she has just done the exact same thing for Patrick. (without the additional reason that Ann has, which is to help her mother get them all to the dentist on time.)

Whle I can understand changing for supper and even that it had previously been some sort of uniform dress, surely they can't be expected just to have one supper outfit? The'd need at least 2-on on,one off.

I always really liked Patrick. I was surprised to read here that people didn't.He seems very real, faults and all.

I think it's Peter's Room when she starts talking to Patrick and Peter reflects that she'd only hunted about twice when staying with a friend in Leicestershire.

No, I agree that Claudie probably benefits from her privilege as a friend of the family, though that doesn't mean necessarily that Helena doesn't exploit her a bit for her culinary skills...

His French is certainly fairly dodgy and unidiomatic, though that seems to be lack of speaking practice rather than a lack of aptitude in itself: shyness is a problem. I have a headcanon that he drives his Latin master bonkers with medievalisms, but I confess I don't remember anything about his Latin.

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Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

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Religion and sitting like bookends

Ginty and blood-sports

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liked Patrick's father, but she wasn't all that keen on his mother

'There's one thing I can never forgive my mother'

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foreshadowing

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Being submissive to Patrick.

"dreggy uniform dress"

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