Hello new hatefriends!

Anyway, last time on Gemma, stereotypical India! Also, murder.

Gemma is now in London being sent to a finishing school to become a proper lady before being introduced to society and having a chance at proper marriage, so naturally she’s bitching nonstop about how stupid it all is.

This is just really clumsy. Gemma doesn’t give the sense she’s too shellshocked to care about any of this, or that she doesn’t want any of it because she knows the reason she’s there is that her mom’s dead, or even just that now that she’s in London she realizes it’s not the paradise she was promised. She’s just being peevish.

Newsboys hold the day’s papers in the air as far as their arms will stretch, screeching the most enticing headlines. Flower girls wander about, wearing smiles as hard and worn as the wooden trays that hang from their delicate necks.

London is getting drawn in rather broad strokes as well. But the details are more exact instead of a hodgepodge. The market in India was just people selling everything imaginable. I find the second sentence extremely questionable – this is first person and Gemma is a sixteen year old in a new country with a dead mom on her mind, I don’t buy that she’d be immediately conscious of the fact girls being paid to look friendly and appealing are miserable.

As they get off the train and she thinks she sees someone in a black cloak, but it’s just a regular guy with a dark jacket.

A posted bill promises a production of Macbeth starring the American actress Lily Trimble. She’s ravishing, with her auburn hair loose and wild, a red gown cut daringly low on her bosom. I wonder if the girls at Spence will be as lovely and sophisticated.

She tries to talk about the actress to her brother.

Tom sneers. “What sort of way is that for a woman to live, without a solid home, husband,
children? Running about like she’s her own lord and master. She’ll certainly never be accepted in society as a proper lady.”

I feel like Gemma should know this, especially when her description of the picture is all about sexuality and how it’s daring, ie, against propriety. If anything Tom is being restrained by not just jumping straight to saying that she’s a whore.

Gemma, naturally, is SHOCKED by this talk instead. She says her brother is arrogant but decides to ask him about what a proper lady is. Jesus, Gemma, how nonexistent was your education?

“A man wants a woman who will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music, painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and never call attention to herself.”
He must be joking.

…that nonexistent.

I suppose India meant you could get away with more, but it’s not like Indian culture is full of equality either, and certainly anything she read should have reflected this stuff. Gemma knows enough about London culture to be whining about the lack of having a season and her mother’s rant about her being treated like a horse at market came as saying “you don’t realize how much that would suck” and not “you don’t realize that would happen“. And people who are social equals aren’t treated as horses. So you should already get the basics, Gemma!

It would make sense for Gemma to have all sorts of minor improper behaviors because she wasn’t raised on strict London society norms, or to not expect how extreme the views are, but where is the feminism coming from?

It’s possible her mother happened to have some very strong opinions on all this, but that is so very far from the social norm, so even a very sheltered kid should have been getting it presented as mommy’s opinion on necessary social reforms, not mommy’s opinion on how society currently functions. Plus, she’s in correspondence with her apparently very traditional grandmother.

And to be honest, I just really don’t like this plot device. If you want to write story about how Equality Is Important, don’t set it in the past to have someone with modern opinions go up against now-discredited ideas. Either show a character expressing more muted views appropriate to the times to show how the movement itself developed or write a modern character going up against all the shit people still believe. This sort of thing just leads to smug congratulations about how sexism is over forever now and isn’t that peachy.

I am not about to take this insult in stride. “Mother was Father’s equal,” I say coolly. “He didn’t expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile.”
Tom’s smile falls away. “Exactly. And look where it’s gotten us.”

…nothing? She got murdered while out doing proper English lady shopping. Also your brother didn’t say jack shit about pining, he just said a good wife is seen and not heard.

Her brother asks her why she ran off that day.

My voice is a whisper. “I don’t know.” For the truth, it’s very little comfort.
“The illogic of women.”
“Yes,” I say, not because I agree but because I want to give him something, anything. I say it because I want him to forgive me. And perhaps then I could begin to forgive myself. Perhaps.

But…she ran off because she had a fight with her mother. That’s a reason. It’s an emotional one so her brother might still dismiss it, but she knows exactly why she did.

Her brother says he heard she was going on about visions and boys. She’s about to tell him everything that happened when he explains that what he’s trying to say is, is she a filthy ruined whore like that actress lady?

You know, I sort of like her brother just for how over the top this is. If the narrative was a bit less LOOK HE’S SEXIST I would be more GRRR HE’S SEXIST but when it’s doing all the work for me I just can’t take it seriously.

Also, this really doesn’t make sense. If no one else knows about Gemma being alone with some random boy, then even if Gemma was raped her brother would just say they’d have to be sure no one ever knows. And if other people do know, then Gemma telling her brother that it’s fine, nothing happened won’t matter because her virtue is still compromised. If people were willing to take a girl’s word about this, there wouldn’t be the need for chaperones to verify that nothing happened.

I guess he might be asking if she had sex because he’s worried she’ll end up pregnant and everyone will find out, but in that case he probably should have brought it up before they’re on their way to the school.

Anyway apparently getting murdered by a crazy Indian is a scandal so they’re going to say it was cholera. Is murder really that scandalous? I mean, it’s not like this is assumed to involve either a jealous lover or a suicide.

Anyway her brother says the lie is for their own good and when she’s all is not just to be petty he says that their dad is enough of a mess can she not make it worse.

It turns out their dad had tendencies toward drug use even before the death. Gemma then gets mad because her brother’s the one supplying the bottles of laudanum and her brother’s like no that’s totally different and anyway dad’s not an addict but he just said he was? I mean I get that her brother’s supposed to be kind of hypocritical here but he either is or isn’t able to see that their dad’s using drugs.

The driver warns them they’re going through the slums. Her brother draws the curtains on his side and Gemma doesn’t because she’s seen slums in India.

Then she sees the slums and the hungry kids and is very, very D: So…are Indian slums less depressing? Is it just that she’s not used to seeing miserable white kids? Why isn’t she sneering about how filthy they were? We open with her saying she’s seen it in India and then she describes the scene without making any comparison to India.

Several women huddle together under a gaslight, sewing. It makes sense for them to use the city’s light and not waste their own precious candles for this thankless work.

Seriously how is Gemma up on the plight of the impoverished worker? How is this immediately obvious at a glance?

Also the place stinks. Apparently slums in India smell like flowers and candy.

Then a drunk couple get in the road. Gemma again makes no comparison to India and just quietly observes, then suddenly she’s hit by another fainting spell. This time she finds a little, filthy poor kid with a ragdoll who apparently can see her

Creepy kid asks if her dolly is pretty, then says that Mary’s looking for Gemma, and creepy kid was sent by her, but that something else is looking for her too.

Quick as liquid silver the dark rises and takes its hideous shape, the gleaming bone of its skeletal face, the hollow, black holes where eyes should be. The hair a tangle of snakes. The mouth opens and the rasping moan escapes. “Come to us, my pretty, pretty . . .”

Gemma, to her credit, shouts to the girl to run. But it seems this time it’s not interested in collateral damage and just seems to focus on her. Although I’m not quite sure.

The little girl turns her flat brown eyes to me. “Too late,” she says, just as the creature turns its unseeing eyes toward me.

Because this could just be that the girl is some hollowed-out zombie kid who accepts her death. But the way it’s described seems like the thing is ignoring the kid and going straight for Gemma.

Gemma bounces back into her body and flips out at the couple, ordering the horse forward. She looks to the alley but not only is there no sign of the kid and shadow, there’s a bunch of other urchins doing urchiny stuff.

Her brother is very much O.o and wants to know what the hell just happened, and Gemma tries to pretend she just suddenly really wanted to get going. He tells her that she’ll need to avoid any outbursts like that at the school.

Next chapter they actually reach the grounds.

“Who goes there?” A woman comes around to my side of the carriage and peers in. An old Gypsy woman. A richly embroidered scarf is wrapped tightly about her head and her jewelry is pure gold, but otherwise, she is disheveled.

And then she says crazy mysterious things because she’s one of them crazy old Gypsies! She thinks she recognizes Gemma and is happy she’s “come back” but wants to know where “Carolina” is.

I think it’s the author thinks she’s cleverly mimicking the quaint, charming stereotypes of Victorian literature. Who could be offended by this? Gypsies are just a fictional species of large pixie that the Victorians believed in.

“Now, it is very important that you conduct yourself in a manner befitting your station while at Spence. It’s fine to be kind to the lesser girls, but remember that they are not your equals.”
Station. Lesser girls. Not your equals. It’s a laugh, really. After all, I’m the unnatural one responsible for her mother’s murder, the one who sees visions.

Gemma for fuck’s sake you know what “lesser girls” means. If anything you should know even better than the Spence girls because that phrase summarizes every single time you interacted with the overwhelming majority of the country you spent your life in.

She’s expecting a friendly housekeeper but instead she gets a mean-looking one. God damn Gemma have you never read a book.

a craggy-faced, thick-waisted bulwark of a housekeeper with all the warmth of Wales in January.

Also you have never been anywhere near Wales in January why is that a metaphor you’d use.

“That will be all, Brigid,” she says, dismissing the warm and embracing housekeeper.

…I’ve reread the section a few times and I still can’t figure out what happened here. Either Gemma’s changing her mind after saying that or, more likely, this is a really bad example of sarcasm since it’s just a flat statement.

Also the housekeeper really hasn’t done anything textually nasty. All she’s said to Gemma is that Gemma was late and a warning about stairs.

Anyway, now it’s time to deal with the headmistress.

The beast attempts a beatific look that could be mistaken for a bout of painful wind.

Beauty = goodness again.

Anyway, the headmistress explains they don’t usually take girls as old as she is but that they’ve made an exception because of what happened to her mother. She also says that she wants Gemma in a usual uniform instead of the traditional black mourning clothes.

“It is important that you get on here and be on equal footing with the other girls. After all, some of them have been with us for years, far longer than they’ve been with their own families. Spence is rather like a family, one with affection and honor, rules and consequences.” She emphasizes this last word. “Therefore, you will wear the same uniform everyone else wears. I trust this will be acceptable to you?”

That actually seems like a good idea, and Gemma thinks as much because she doesn’t want to stand out, but it doesn’t seem to change her opinion of the woman in the slightest.

“I think you shall be very happy here, Miss Doyle.”
Translation: That is an order.
“Spence has turned out many wonderful young women who’ve gone on to make very good marriages.”
We don’t expect much more from you. Please don’t embarrass us.
“Why, you might even be sitting here in my position someday.”
If you turn out to be completely unmarriageable, and you don’t end up in an Austrian convent
making lace nightgowns.

I was expecting Gemma to be more sympathetic by now. I mean, she’s being a brat in the opening chapters but it’s a very believable brattiness, and then she has this horrible thing happen to her. And it’d be easy to have the headmistress actually be an awful person.

Also, what else would they expect from her but marriage? What does Gemma think she’s aiming for? How is that a huge insult? And getting a good marriage is actually hard. There’s a very limited pool of men all the girls are competing for.

Anyway she’s then led to her room and discovers she’s rooming with a scholarship girl. On the way back she sees that there’s a locked door, and finds out it leads to the East Wing, and that the East Wing was burned and they never go there now. I wonder what cool stuff she’ll find when she inevitably sneaks in? This story seems less ghosty so I’m betting pagan artifacts as part of a magic cult.

For a second, Gemma thinks she sees a moving shadow. But she closes her eyes and it’s gone when she opens them again.

It’s hard to say this is written better than the Summoning. It’s a lot more childish in its style. But there’s stuff happening to comment on and Gemma is showing signs of curiosity and reacting to her environment, and a lot of things are going on, so it’s more enjoyable.