Patrick

[charverz.livejournal.com]

Patrick's romantic life provides a lot of scope for speculation.  The canon only provides Ginty, Claudie, and Nicola.  I'll state up front that, of the three, Nicola is obviously the best match, in my opinion.  Claudie is a non-starter, and unless Ginty gets a massive dose of maturity or Patrick goes off the deep end, we can rule Ginty out.

On the other hand, I see other possibilities.  First Rowan, for all that there's an age difference.  They certainly interact well together at the Nativity play in End of Term.  And I can see each providing the other with something each lacks - a romanticism that would be a nice break from Rowan's constant level-headedness, and a practicality that might help Patrick go somewhere in life.

The other, surprisingly enough, is Ann.  She is the only religious Marlow, and surely between low church Anglican and conservative Roman Catholic they could find some common ground. With the Anglican communion having its own turmoil, Ann might decide she doesn't want a woman vicar or blessings of same-sex unions.  One suspects that Antonia Forest would have found today's religious landscape very interesting (and would have been very happy with the new Pope).

Comments

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

This would never happen, but - Patrick/Lawrie would be hilarious.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Patrick and Nicola together romantically. I've never even been sure that her feelings for him had anything romantic about them - I've always thought that she cares about his friendship in the same way that she cares about Mirandas; she is upset in Cricket Term at the thought of Miranda having traditions with someone else, just as she is upset when Patrick goes off with Ginty.
I can see Patrick and Rowan because of the proximity when both of them will be at home running neighbouring estates. However, as you say the likelihood of any of them marrying each other rather than all the new people they'll meet in the navy, nursing, at university and beyond is extremely low. I'd like to imagine Ann meeting a lovely doctor while doing VSO - in my imagination he's Scandinavian and probably a Quaker...
Nicola with her sympathy for both Edwin and Miranda's dad I can see with someone quite unlikely and non-Naval although the glamorous Naval officer is also a possibility..