{"id":5691,"date":"2018-07-15T00:46:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T14:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5691"},"modified":"2018-07-15T14:59:46","modified_gmt":"2018-07-15T04:59:46","slug":"peters-room-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/peters-room-part-five\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Nine: The Twelfth Day of Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n

The children are distraught because they\u2019re forced to have a three-day break from Gondalling over the weekend. Nicola thinks them \u201call quite mad\u201d but doesn\u2019t say so because she \u201cwas enough of an outsider as it was\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sixth of January \u2013 Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany \u2013 dawns and it\u2019s Ginty\u2019s fifteenth birthday. She celebrates with a long ride on Catkin, eagerly anticipating the hunt the next day, while madly Gondalling about Rupert\/Patrick dying in Crispian\/Ginty\u2019s arms (\u201cIt was odd how real it became after a while\u201d). Then she goes home to monopolise the bathroom, while everyone else is trying to get dressed for the Merricks\u2019 party, and suddenly she realises \u2013 she\u2019ll have to wear the Bridesmaid\u2019s Horror! It\u2019s her own fault for choosing to Gondal rather than go shopping for a new dress, but typically, she blames everyone else:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnn\u2019s crassness in saying she could: Doris\u2019s infamy in offering to do the dress when she couldn\u2019t: her mother\u2019s neglectfulness in not making<\/em> her go into Colebridge and get a new one\u2013\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Doris has brought the altered dress back and it\u2019s \u201cperfect\u201d. Mrs Marlow, as astonished as Ginty by Doris\u2019s skill, gives Ginty a necklace to wear, then they go downstairs to show it to Doris. It\u2019s probably because I was thinking of the slave thing, but this scene rubbed me the wrong way. Did they even pay Doris for her work in advance, or at all? Doris had to buy boning for the bodice and other materials, presumably with her own money. Mrs Marlow says, without saying please, that Doris should make dresses for all of them, and Doris says, \u201cI\u2019d love to. Thanks ever so,\u201d as though the Marlows are doing her a great favour. Doris is like Cinderella, doing all the work, but while she gets to go to the ball, she still has to slave away in the kitchen instead of getting to dance with the prince. Then when Ginty idly asks if Doris makes clothes for herself, Doris says,<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, Miss Ginty,\u201d said Doris matter-of-factly, \u201cit\u2019d be waste of time. I wouldn\u2019t repay the trouble. \u2019Sides, I\u2019ve got a cousin in service in Bristol. She always passes on the things her lady gives her when she\u2019s done with them herself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t need to read the (very interesting) biography of Antonia Forest in the front of this book to realise she was a \u201clifelong Conservative\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s so apparent in her writing. This scene in particular is so very \u201cThe rich man in his castle\/The poor man at his gate\/God made them high and lowly\/And ordered their estate<\/a>.\u201d Imagine how different it would have been if it\u2019d been written by Monica Dickens or even Noel Streatfeild. <\/p>\n

However snobby this chapter is, I still can\u2019t resist a party-in-an-English-country-house scene and this is a good one. When the Marlows arrive, the infants’ party games are still in progress and Karen and Ann go off to help, while the others \u201cstood rather stiffly and shyly against the wall and hoped no one was going to suggest they<\/em> should join in\u201d. Patrick is being his usual anti-social self and his mother is clearly fed up with him. She sends him off to check the chapel is locked before the Hide-and-Seek game starts and Ginty goes with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNicola looked after them, hesitating. But she hadn\u2019t been invited\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nicola would have been a bit of a third wheel, because when Patrick sees Ginty in the chapel, \u201cthe candlelight falling on Doris\u2019s dress and her mother\u2019s necklace, her bare shoulders and fair hair shining through the black lace of the veil\u201d, he offers her \u201cthe greatest compliment in his vocabulary at the moment\u201d, saying she looks like a Gondalian. So they decide to have a secret Gondalling session right then inside the locked chapel, with Rosina\/Ginty, the daughter of Alcona, in love with Rupert\/Patrick even though her father wants her to marry Jason. Of course, they can\u2019t tell the others about this Gondal development because the others are \u201ctoo young\u201d. Patrick expresses some doubts:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I can do this very well,\u201d he said after a moment. \u201cI don\u2019t really know how people talk when they\u2019re in love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But clearly he manages to work it out, because he and Ginty spend the entire night flirting with one another. Poor Nicola, in her unflattering dress, stuck with Oliver Reynolds as dinner neighbour and dance partner, notices Patrick and Ginty \u201cwere behaving\u2013oddly\u201d. Suddenly she realises that Patrick is wearing his \u201cRupert face\u201d, even when he\u2019s dancing with Nicola. Patrick denies he and Ginty are being \u201cRupert and Crispian\u201d (which is perfectly true, but misleading) and then Nicola overhears him calling Ginty \u201cRosina\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince she despised Gondal and all its works, it was hard to say why this discovery should make her feel hollow inside\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poor Nicola, she\u2019s having a terrible holiday. First she\u2019s forced into Gondalling, then Sprog dies, then Patrick, her friend, abandons her for her pretty older sister. The other Marlows are having a slightly better time at the party. Peter achieves his aim of dancing \u201cwith every passable female\u201d who isn\u2019t his sister; Rowan is offered a horse for the hunt the next day; Karen dances with Ronnie, a handsome young Merrick cousin; Ann is a wall-flower and chats with the elderly guests, which is probably her idea of a good time; and Lawrie gets drunk with a mob of disreputable young adults. At least someone spills coffee on Nicola\u2019s awful dress, so she probably won\u2019t ever have to wear it again.<\/p>\n

But then, as the party ends, Patrick and Ginty are discovered to be missing. Mrs Marlow takes her usual passive approach to parenting and decides \u201cto hope they would turn up by the time the rest of the family were ready to go\u201d. I pictured it as like the video for Avalon<\/em>, if Bryan Ferry had \u201cgolden eyes\u201d and Sophie Ward had been wearing peacock chiffon:<\/p>\n