First of all, I think Mrs Marlow has a pretty tough time, being left sole in charge of such a large family while her husband is at sea for so much of the time. And she tries hard in order not to flap too much, not to criticize one child in front of another, not to be hypocritical (for example when Karen announced her wedding plans...) Considering she can only have been in her early 40's, I feel she does pretty well !
Concerning the fee-paying situation, I suppose they could have looked around for another (slightly) cheaper school for all four girls. Taking just one out does, on the surface, look rather unfair - although Mrs Marlow's reasons for Nicola's 'it's you' letter seem totally reasonable. I must admit that having been in a similar situation myself, I did have one daughter in private school and one in public for a year - it just happened to be the most convenient way to do things when financial changes meant we couldn't keep them both at the private school.
For the Prosser, it does sound, to me, like the sort of thing a school would do - to find a rather 'cheeky' way to give the award twice to the same family. Kingscote must have done quite well out of the Marlows over the years, and that does tend to count. I was at boarding school with some very large families, where 5 or 6 girls had all gone through the school, and it became noticeable that 'solutions' were sometimes found for them that would not have been reached for others...
I must admit that I've always been rather shocked by Ginny and her amazing birthday/Christmas present, especially as it does not seem to compare with other things we have heard about (how much would two reworked party frocks cost, for example, compared to a horse ? And didn't Nicky's penknife have to last her until her 21st birthday ?)
However, I suppose we're not getting all the information here ... perhaps Ginny's been asking for a horse on a weekly basis since she was small ? Perhaps she was the only one to kick up a fuss when the girls stopped riding lessons at school because they could ride at home (if I remember that bit correctly) and was promised a horse to make up for it ?
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First of all, I think Mrs Marlow has a pretty tough time, being left sole in charge of such a large family while her husband is at sea for so much of the time. And she tries hard in order not to flap too much, not to criticize one child in front of another, not to be hypocritical (for example when Karen announced her wedding plans...) Considering she can only have been in her early 40's, I feel she does pretty well !
Concerning the fee-paying situation, I suppose they could have looked around for another (slightly) cheaper school for all four girls. Taking just one out does, on the surface, look rather unfair - although Mrs Marlow's reasons for Nicola's 'it's you' letter seem totally reasonable. I must admit that having been in a similar situation myself, I did have one daughter in private school and one in public for a year - it just happened to be the most convenient way to do things when financial changes meant we couldn't keep them both at the private school.
For the Prosser, it does sound, to me, like the sort of thing a school would do - to find a rather 'cheeky' way to give the award twice to the same family. Kingscote must have done quite well out of the Marlows over the years, and that does tend to count. I was at boarding school with some very large families, where 5 or 6 girls had all gone through the school, and it became noticeable that 'solutions' were sometimes found for them that would not have been reached for others...
I must admit that I've always been rather shocked by Ginny and her amazing birthday/Christmas present, especially as it does not seem to compare with other things we have heard about (how much would two reworked party frocks cost, for example, compared to a horse ? And didn't Nicky's penknife have to last her until her 21st birthday ?)
However, I suppose we're not getting all the information here ... perhaps Ginny's been asking for a horse on a weekly basis since she was small ? Perhaps she was the only one to kick up a fuss when the girls stopped riding lessons at school because they could ride at home (if I remember that bit correctly) and was promised a horse to make up for it ?