Lotte wrote:
jennifer wrote:
Yeah, everyone falls down on this one. Jack is leading a targeted bullying campaign against a new girl, that starts with group ostracism, progresses to verbal harassment and then to physical violence. Everyone who sees what's going on is tenderly concerned with Jack's feelings and making sure she doesn't get into trouble, but they're surprisingly indifferent to poor Jane.
I don't actually blame Len that much - she's been burdened with responsibility from a young age, and has ended up believing that it's her duty to keep other people out of trouble, to avoid worrying the adults. She does it with Margot over and over again, and then with Jack, and both of them have issues that are way above Len's pay grade. And the spilling personal information is something she's seen her mother do repeatedly, to general praise. The mistresses, on the other hand, should know better. And even after this book, people are scared of Jack's jealousy, and indulge it.
Moving Jack away from Len's dormitory was a very sensible move, and probably should have been done after the first term or two. Jack is way to dependent on having Len as a personal mentor, and Len deserves to be able to go to bed in peace, particularly once she's got school prefect duties.
That's one of the things that bothered me about Mary-Lou's speech to the triplets in Theodora, that and how nasty she is to Con, though that's another thread. Len is neurotic and over-responsible. But is it surprising? She's got her family constantly dumping responsibilities onto her, even for her own sisters who are
the same age as her, and the school. They constantly expect Len to be responsible, and go on about how sensible and mature and how like Joey she is one minute and the next, she's being told off for it and being told she'll be a 'fussy old maid' if she doesn't stop doing what people have expected her to do her whole life.
Yes, Len enables Jack. But Len's been pigeonholed as the Responsible One since she was literally a toddler.
How do we know that Len did not enjoy the responsibility? She's only human. I know it makes me feel good if people depend on me. It must have been great for Len. I never get the impression she doesn't like it apart from when she mentions to Joey in A Future Chalet School Girl that she does not want to be a prefect the next term.
Regardless of what happened at home though, if she really didn't like responsibility, she could have shied away from it at school so no-one would have considered her for a prefectship until her last year.
In Bride Leads, I think it is Nancy Chester who says the person chosen to be HG must be very sure of herself so we can take it that Len must be sure of herself.
I think EBD regretted Mary-Lou ticking Len off in Theodora which is why, in the next book, we have Joey telling Len she has never been anything but a joy to her and Jack since the day she was born.
I feel sorry for Con and Margot having to live in the slipstream of this perfect sister.