but - and maybe this is where I noticed it - my sisters most certainly wouldn't have known either. Perhaps it is significant here that there are lots of sisters (and brothers). It isn’t that Ann and Rowan always notice things about one, but that sometimes Ann does, Karen sees something else, on another occasion it’s Giles etc. There are six siblings to notice things about Nicola and Lawrie against Mrs Marlow’s one.
Also as slemslempike pointed out above, sometimes it’s just closer knowledge of a particular experience that matters – Ann knowing about the Court of Honour, but also Rowan knowing from her own experience what it is like to come home for the summer holidays and find that one isn’t going back to school. It isn’t Rowan necessarily being incredibly alert to Nicola’s feelings when her mother isn’t, but being able to extrapolate from her own experience on to her knowledge of Nicola’s character, whereas Mrs Marlow has never been to Kingscote (or even to school? I can’t remember whether she had a governess) and lacks that personal perspective of what it’s like in September when everyone else goes off to school again and she didn’t.
no subject
Perhaps it is significant here that there are lots of sisters (and brothers). It isn’t that Ann and Rowan always notice things about one, but that sometimes Ann does, Karen sees something else, on another occasion it’s Giles etc. There are six siblings to notice things about Nicola and Lawrie against Mrs Marlow’s one.
Also as slemslempike pointed out above, sometimes it’s just closer knowledge of a particular experience that matters – Ann knowing about the Court of Honour, but also Rowan knowing from her own experience what it is like to come home for the summer holidays and find that one isn’t going back to school. It isn’t Rowan necessarily being incredibly alert to Nicola’s feelings when her mother isn’t, but being able to extrapolate from her own experience on to her knowledge of Nicola’s character, whereas Mrs Marlow has never been to Kingscote (or even to school? I can’t remember whether she had a governess) and lacks that personal perspective of what it’s like in September when everyone else goes off to school again and she didn’t.