Mary-Lou Of The Chalet School
Key Facts (Possible Spoilers) :
School Facts:
Joint headmistresses:
Miss Annersley is head of the school proper; Miss Wilson is head of the finishing branch, which has moved this term from Welsen to a chalet nearer the main school on the Gornetz Platz. From now on the finishing branch will be known as St Mildred's.
The School is at the Gornetz Platz, Switzerland, with an 'English'
branch at Carnbach in South Wales.
Series Characters Whereabouts:
Jo Maynard - is living next door to the school at Freudesheim
Betsy Lucy - is head girl of the Chalet School
Mary-Lou Trelawney - is now a Senior girl, in Vb
Len Maynard - is in Upper IV B
Con Maynard - is in Upper IV B
Margot Maynard - is in Lower IV A and is beginning to win her struggles with her "devil"
Beth Chester.- is working as a nursery governess and mother's help to
Joey Maynard.
Emerence Hope - is in Upper IV B
Biddy O'Ryan - is history mistress at the Chalet School.
Mary-Lou feels she should do something to signify her new senior status and accordingly abandons her 'Kenwigses', the two plaits which hung down either side of her face, tying her hair into a single plait at the back. As well as creating a minor sensation, she also starts a fashion among her peers for more 'grown-up' hairstyles.
She is extremely reluctant to take on the role of 'reformer' that Joey Maynard has earmarked for her with regard to Jessica Wayne. Joey takes Mary-Lou into her confidence and explains that Jessica is jealous of her disabled - and recently acquired - 'sister-by-marriage'. Joey hopes that Mary-Lou's mature outlook will help Jessica and besides, she herself is busy compiling an anthology at present. She also lets slip - accidentally on purpose, surely - that her time is also taken at the moment since she is expecting the ninth addition to the long Maynard family.
Mary-Lou's kindness - in the immediate aftermath of her row with Plato, for example - begins to draw Jessica slowly out of her shell. Jessica finally breaks down and confides in Mary-Lou on a School ramble after the trip to the Falls Of Rhine. Plain-speaking Mary-Lou is able to show Jessica where she has been going wrong and she improves markedly after this.
Mary-Lou's next act of 'butting in' nearly proves to be her last in this world as she intervenes to stop Emerence from careering into a submerged pine tree when she toboggans from the top of the slope - having been expressly forbidden to do so. Emerence parts company with her sled, only to canon into Mary-Lou, who in turn is sent flying into a tree.
For some days, as Mary-Lou lies unconscious in the San. There are real fears that she has suffered brain damage, or permanently injured her spine. When she comes round, however, it transpires that deep bruising is her worst injury - that, and the indignity of having her head shaved. And even that turns out all right, when she realises that when the hair grows again, it will be curly. "Think of all the money I'll be saved, not having to have perms!" she tells Miss Wilson triumphantly.
Other news
Sir James and Lady Russell plan to move from the Round House to a
house nearer the Sanatorium in the Welsh mountains.
Dick and Mollie Bettany complete their family. Theresa Daphne Bettany
is born early on in the term.
contributed by Christina Erskine, London __ working from a hardback edition