trennels | Fairness in the Marlow household

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Fairness in the Marlow household

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the fair/unfair treatment of the Marlow young by their parents. I'm thinking specifically the treatment of Nicola by her parents/mother in Cricket Term. Is there anyway this could have been handled better? Should it actually have been Nicola who was going to have to leave? Should they have told her or dropped it on her in the summer holidays? Should they have removed all the girls, or perhaps just both twins?

For that matter, should Lawrie have been given the Prosser? (I know this wasn't her parents' decision, I'm just interested whether people think it was a good judgement call on the part of the staff.)

In a similar vein, what about the horse business in Peter's Room? Was it fair that their mother bought Ginty a horse for her birthday, and said no-one else was to ride it? Was it reasonable to buy herself one before ensuring the children all had equal access to a horse for hunting? In effect, she created a situation where one daughter was the only one in the family who was unable to go hunting (without hiring a horse), which seems harsh to me. But then, I'm from a small family where such unequality with gifts never happened - is this normal for a large family? Was Lawrie's reaction reasonable, or did other readers take it as just one more example of her throwing whiny tantrums?

These two occasions seemed to me to best illustrate Mrs. Marlow's failings as a mother (and also perhaps where the children got their selfishness) - I wondered if anyone else felt the same.

Can anyone else think of any other examples of this kind of thing? Or of fairer treatment?

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Nicola would not wreck her own life if kicked out of Kingscote. She would go to Colebridge Grammar, do very well (possibly, with a faint air of "showing them" do exceptionally well), go on to Oxford or whatever and pursue her own course.

Gin or Lawrie would howl about injustice to the n'th, and wind up drug raddled hard cases, equally to "show them".

Ann would conscientiously do well, overreact to the family crisis, and go to India just after O levels to "save anyone trouble", in the process driving everyone white with worry.

Nicola is the only one Mrs Marlow can in fact trust. That's what the letter says. That's what Nicola reacts to. Of course it's a slam in the solar plexus - but it's one Mrs Marlow has faith that Nicola (alone among the kids)is capable of handling. And she is absolutely and totally right in her judgement. Nicola plays a blinder in The Cricket Term- it makes Elinor in Sense and Sensibility look like a duster.

Have you ever seen pure unadulerated
heroism? If not, I suggest you read The Cricket Term.

Yes, I can't see any better way for Mrs. Marlow to sort that one out. One of those "'But surely there must be another solution!' except there really isn't" situations.

And Nicola coped with it significantly better than most people, I think. That bit where she's on the roof with Jan is actually one of my favourites in the whole series.

Is Giles' age compared to Kay's (considering the closeness in age of all the others) compatible with whatever rank he's got by the end of the books? I remember thinking that he seemed a lot younger in Run Away Home when I finally got to see him for an extended period.

I didn't think the conversation was creepy as such, just a bit ruthlessly pragmatic. A little Roan-ish, even. If the Navy is as vital to him as it seems to be, a potential Mrs Giles needs to be able to cope with that. I'd like it more if he'd considered the possibility that no-one would, and had taken that option into account.

Rowan ought to be getting a large salary. They'd have had to pay that to a famr manager who wasn't related to them. I think that's a bigger issue than Ginty's nag.

Was I the only one who thought that most of the Lst Ditch went on Chocbar and Catkin was just a super dip into the general birthday/Christmas fund? It only gets mentioned after someone asks, 'What's this nag doing here if Catkin's for Ginty?', IIRC.

I never thought about her wages before, except I guess to assume she wasn't being paid, but was just living at home and doing the job. And still getting necessities bought for her by the family like say, Karen, who was at uni, would get stuff bought for her as and when it was required.

Hmmm, interesting.

That could be the case - and raises the question (for me) of exactly how much Chocbar cost, and how much the Last Ditch did sell for. I wish we could find out!

And if that is the case, it makes Catkin being bought for Ginty a lot less of a problem for me - because then it's conceivable that the others could get an equivalent at some later date.

Rowan gives up school at 16 (Falconer's Lure). She drives up to school when she is in fact too young to do so (End of Term). Ready Made Family occurs the following Easter, the Cricket Term the following Summer, Attic Term the Autum after that, and Run Away Home that Christmas. At best Rowan is (barely) eighteen at the time of Run Away Home. Kay goes up to Oxford (eighteen) at the start of End of Term. She marries Edwin the following Easter (nineteen). By the next autumn (Run Away Home) she may (or may not) be twenty. If Giles is 22 it's the most he can be, and his rank is sub-lieutenant.

But she seems okay with the thought that she might have got engaged to someone nearer her age, to marry after Kay's finals.

Rowan's age wobbles a bit--she says she's seventeen in FL, but in EoT she's too young to drive (although she might have meant that she wasn't licensed, and that looking twenty-ish with the lipstick meant she's less likely to be asked to show a licence). Then Patrick thinks about her 'running the family farm at eighteen', some time in AT or Run Away Home.

I thought I remembered Nick telling Esther or Miranda at some point that Giles had been promoted? To lieutenant would really be the only thing.

she seems okay with the thought that she might have got engaged to someone nearer her age, to marry after Kay's finals.

But does that mean Mrs. Marlow saw Karen as being of marriagable age, or that that would have been the lesser of the two evils (the greater obviously being Edwin!)?

Ginty does cause a lot of her own problems, however. And Peter is probably at least as badly damaged as she is by the events in Traitor.

BTW, does anyone else find it odd that the Marlows go from Swallows-and-Amazon types in Traitor, with Commander Marlow owning a boat (as opposed to commanding a destroyer :D), and then in Peter's Room it's all horse-and-hound, and the parents even got engaged at a Hunt Ball.

She whines and vacillates until Peter and Nick have bought the Idiot, and then throws a giant strop because she's lost her chance.

Really it's Nicola who comes off worst in the horse thing; she buys half a pony, then swops it with Lawrie in return for the complete works of Shakespeare. Lawrie's already extracted a number of valuable items (eg his radio) from Peter, in return for what, I don't know.

Was Peter's and Nicola's purchase of the Idiot subsidised by the adults? That would partly make up for Catkin.

And after Rowan it's pretty much baby-a-year until it rounds off with the twins. And from Ginty => twins can't be more than 18 months or so. Eoch! Think of poor Mrs Marlow's reproductive organs. The woman deserves Chocbar :)

Oh, and Commander M. must have had frequent leaves at that time :)

Engage-able age, maybe, but not marriagable, was what I was saying.

She whines and vacillates until Peter and Nick have bought the Idiot, and then throws a giant strop because she's lost her chance.

Heh. That pretty much encapsulates Lawrie for me, bless her.

Not sure about the subsidising - did Nicola still have her money from the hawking book? But where did Peter get his half?

Hmmm, just looked it up - The Idiot Boy was 50 guineas, and their mother suggested they cash their Savings Certificates to buy him (referring to Peter and Lawrie).

Completely off-topic - I couldn't remember in which book they buy him, so I was just checking through The Ready-Made Family; I started reading the last bits with Nicola and Rose and got such a lump in my throat. Nicola is so brave in that.

That'd mean she was pretty much permanently pregnant between starting with Ginty to having the twins, because Peter's between them, isn't he? Which, ow.

Commander M. must have had frequent leaves at that time

I wonder if he was posted at home (maybe a position somewhere in the Admiralty) when the children were younger? Or at Portsmouth or Southampton? Presumably he wasn't in command of his own ship at that time.

Fair enough; I just don't see "willing to let her get engaged, to marry after her Finals" as being the same as "preparing her for marriage". I meant that I didn't think they were actively displaying her to the county as being open to offers, so to speak. But I see that wasn't your point; someone else said that higher up the thread, and I was conflating the two. :)

I do wonder what happened to their boat, though quite possibly it was something they had while their father was stationed in the UK and he sold it/passed it on to another officer when he was promoted and sent overseas, since there was no one to look after it. Thinking about Ransome, in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea the children are told they'll probably have access to various boats that belong to the Navy/naval officers, so it may have been similar for the Marlows, and only 'theirs' temporarily.

The combination of country gentry types and Navy doesn't seem odd to me, though it's interesting that of the holiday books Traitor is very much about the sea and the RN, then they become much more countryside until Run Away Home which switches back again.

I just read the first chapter of The Thuggery Affair, and in it Lawrie is (remembering) complaining about Nicola going off for a weekend with Miranda. Nicola says, but what if it were Tim who asked you for a weekend.

Lawrie: Yes, but that's different!

Hmm.

Oh yes, I'm sure if she'd got the horse she wouldn't have been complaining on behalf of Ginty or Peter. But it would still be uneven treatment of the children, even if she didn't mind it that way round.

Yes, I suppose that the boat must have been got rid off, otherwise it would have been heard of again in Run Away Home at least.

Well, maybe 'odd' was the wrong word. of the holiday books Traitor is very much about the sea and the RN, then they become much more countryside until Run Away Home which switches back again. Yes, that's exactly what I meant. In FL there's a bit more boats with the Regatta or whatever it was. Possibly they were doing more boat stuff in the summer holidays between CT and AT that we never see.

He probably would have had to have been posted at home to be around that frequently.

Ginty is born on 6 January; the latest the twins can be born is July the following year (Nick tells Patrick she's 13 in FL, which is August 1948. Ginty at that point is 14 1/2). Even given the fact that twins are usually slightly premature, the latest point they could have been conceived is December or so of the same year Ginty was born, and there was Peter in between! Ow, indeed!

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Fairness in the Marlow household

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Lawrie and 'fairness'

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