I also feels Mrs M changes during the series - that at the start she is much more of a stock story book mother - fairly deferential to her husband, slightly fussing over her children, very domestic, rather bland in other words. It's just "darling" this and "darling" that. And so in keeping with that maybe bundling her off in M and the T is just yet more story book convention (I agree with you it seems pretty irresponsible).

By contrast I think from End of Term on she comes much more alive - for a start she is much more (realistically to my mind) ratty with her children. She can really be pretty snarly, plus she has her interesting tension-filled relationship with her mother, plus back story of elopement, hunting etc - really comes to life.

But then that's probably just me - I'm not crazy about the earlier holiday books generally, maybe because I didn't own copies until recently (I did read them once from the library as a child) and so the more old-fashioned family I find there seems alien to me. I know lots of people on Trennels adore Falconer's Lure in particular.