two minor queries

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Re-reading the beginning of Attic Term and two things struck me for the umpteenth time. And now that I have somewhere to niggle, quibble and poke...

One was that the Marlows and Merricks always have dinner in the middle of the day, or at least a meal which is referred to as dinner and which is clearly fairly substantial (involving in Nicola's case gammon and salad, followed by damson pudding, all wheeled in by Doris). In fact, midday dinner becomes a minor plot point in, I think, Run Away Home when the indefatigable Mrs Bertie, presumably weary of continually putting up sandwiches for various Marlows, says she plans to ask Mrs Marlow if they can have dinner in the evening instead.

Now, while I grew up on midday dinner as a working-class child in 1970s Ireland, I wondered about the (a) the logic and (b) the class issues surrounding midday dinner in the (admittedly sliding) timescale of the Marlow novels. Midday dinner, as distinct from midday 'lunch' and an evening dinner, has always been a working class arrangement for me, or, I gather, a regional designation for any kind of midday meal in some places. (But, I thought northern, so not Trennels, then.) Also, while I see the logic of active outdoor workers like Rowan having a substantial midday meal for energy purposes, but it seems deeply inconvenient for all at Trennels in the school holidays...? And while I am capable of appreciating the various factors that contributed to the moving around of the dinner-hour in the 18th and 19thc - fashion, snobbery, daylight vs artificial light etc - I realise I know much less about the moving about of mealtimes in the latter half of the 20thc.

Are the Marlows representative of their time and class in their meal times? (What do they eat at night and what do they call it? Am only recalling the much more informal meals, like the late-night omelettes of Run Away Home, and speaking of which - I've always been intrigued by the sweet and rum omelettes, of which I have never previously heard. My partner claims Forest must mean crepes or pancakes, but I say that if she says omelettes, that's what she means...)

Second question, which is actually just that, as I know little or nothing of hunting:

At the post-cubbing Merrick breakfast table at the beginning of Attic Term, Mr Merrick is unobtrusively defending Nicola against the mild-but-not-all-that-pleasant jibes of Patrick and Ginty about her riding skills. When Nicola retorts to some remark about a hunting fall she had the previous season by saying to Patrick 'And you jumped on me, near's no matter', Mr Merrick's eyebrows 'commented unfavourably on this breach of hunting etiquette.'

Now, is the actual 'breach of hunting etiquette' the fact that Patrick almost jumped on the fallen Nicola, or the fact that one or both of them has breached hunting manners by dragging up old scores from the previous year which should be put to bed politely by now?

Comments

[owl]

A U/non-U divide, and no-one can say the Marlows are non-U.