Last time on Gemma, Gemma was inexplicably feminist and sympathetic toward the lower ie filthy degenerate classes. Then she arrived at school, where presumably they’ll beat that nonsense out of her.

Gemma sees her classmates, including a bunch of attractive girls her age. One is super pretty and another one is normal pretty but apparently the leader.

Gemma is introduced to them all as being from India.

I am dying a thousand cruel and unusual deaths as fifty pairs of eyes take me in, size me up like something that should be hanging over a fireplace in a gentleman’s den. Any hopes I’d had of blending in and not being noticed have just been killed by Mrs. Nightwing’s little speech.

Gemma how did you not realize you’d get introduced. How could you think you’d blend in anyway after being told the other girls have been there for years and that someone your age joining at all is a special exception?

What’s worst here is that this scene could work with half a minute’s thought. Gemma was almost certainly homeschooled and there’s a lot to take in, so she could have just not thought about it enough to realize it’d happen until it did. But it should be “oh god of course she’d introduce me” and less “dammit why did the bitch introduce me”. There should be some suggestion that Gemma’s expectations are the product of her lack of experience and also that she’s bright enough to realize her error once it comes up.

Then she’s introduced to her roommate.

Ann Bradshaw is a doughy, plain girl, which is doubly damning. A girl without money who was also pretty might stand a chance at bettering her station in life.

The structure of that second sentence is physically painful. I had to read it so you do too.

They head to the chapel and it’s all creepy and foggy. Gemma has just come from India, as we’ve just been reminded. This should be way more alien to her than it would be to anyone raised in a temperate area. Instead she’s just “huh, it’s the stock creepy environment”. Speaking of which, she’s also not that creeped out.

“My father died when I was three. My mother had to work, but then she took sick and died. Her family didn’t want to take me in but they didn’t want to send me to the workhouse, either. So they sent me here to train as a governess.”

Gemma says she’s sorry, either for the dead parent thing or the getting sent to become a governess. Honestly, being a governess isn’t exactly the worst of fates, particularly compared to a workhouse, what with one being a slow and horrible death. It’s a middle-class occupation and by god did you want to be middle-class at this time. That said, it was certainly seen as a bad thing to people at the time.

Those dull eyes take me in. “Are you really?”
“Well . . . yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because people usually just say that to be rid of someone. They don’t really mean it.”

So you’re smart enough to notice that but not smart enough to notice that bringing it up is a bad idea. You know Luna from Harry Potter? That’s who she’s sounding like. The difference is Luna saying something like this could be explained as Luna not caring about the inevitable awkward silence, and also Luna’s entire life not being designed to mold her into a pleasant companion because it’s a woman’s only marketable skill outside prostitution.

Anyway, then Gemma trips on a tree root and swears. That’s a better issue – she hasn’t been raised to be properly ladylike and she’ll have to learn fast. She’s worried Ann will tattle, but instead Ann looks around to make sure no one else heard. Ann seems nice. Ann goes on to say that things aren’t as proper as they seem…

Gemma ASKS A FOLLOWUP QUESTION INSTEAD OF SAYING SOME SHIT ABOUT HOW NEVER MIND ANN CAN TELL HER LATER. Thank you Gemma. Ann of course says she shouldn’t talk about it, which is the way these conversations should go.

Ann is afraid of the Gypsies and says that the woman she met, Mother Elena, is stark raving mad. Was that a contemporary term? Because the meaning originally was about people stripping naked and running around shouting and it slowly lost that as it was overused as a description and people forgot what “stark” meant. She just seems a lot more coherent than the phrase should mean.

Gemma asks about classes and we discover that pretty girl and leader girl will be in her first class.

“Be careful around them. Don’t trust—”
From behind us, a husky voice cuts her off. “Talking too much again, Ann?”

See, this is how you do Mean Popular Girls. They are always on the ball.

Our alpha wolf duo immediately insults Ann, going on to say, “Don’t you know that’s a
most unbecoming trait?” Yes. Attack her for the very act of daring to point out you attack people! You are the most perfect vicious girls.

Anyway they look over Gemma, then back to Ann to remind her that she’s just a lowly scholarship girl.

giving the last two words a nasty emphasis. A reminder that Ann isn’t of the same class and shouldn’t expect the same treatment.

Yes Gemma we get it, you’ve only brought up class a half dozen times already.

Amazon tells me that this book is rated 12 and up, and god does it show.

Incidentally:

“Terribly sorry,” she says, and bursts out laughing. If I were a man, I’d flatten her. But I’m not a man. I’m here to be a lady.

No you wouldn’t because if you were male you’re not supposed to hit women. If anything you should have more social room to slap her around than if you had a Y chromosome. Otherwise you can’t beat her until you’re lawfully married.

Then they finally get to the church. It’s lovely and full of stained glass and all the good dramatic stuff. Thank god for centuries of Catholic hegemony, they really knew how to build cool stuff.

It’s the first time Gemma’s been to an actual Anglican ceremony in a long time. Her mother just took them out for picnics on Sunday and said that would be their church. That’s an interesting little suggestion her mother might have been pretty radical, but it doesn’t seem likely to be the answer.

Before they begin Mrs. Nightwing gives a very, very long speech because of Gemma. Well, so much for blending in. Every girl in the school will hate her for that.

Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am waiting eagerly for the vultures to begin their work and end my misery.

Gemma keeps failing at being consistently upset about her mother. Even if she had flippant thoughts like this, it should remind her that oh right her mom is actually dead.

On their way out Ann is tripped and Gemma thinks of how much she wants to cut the hair off the girl who did it. She may not be a character that makes much sense, but at least she’s displaying positiveish traits.

Gemma thinks she sees a guy in a black cloak outside, but Ann says she’s probably just seeing things.

“It’s cold,” Ann says. “Let’s walk faster, shall we?”

So either Ann knows that there are people who might be lurking in the dark, or Gemma’s talk has just spooked her. Or it’s just a coincidence, because she speeds up and outpaces Gemma, so she’s really walking alone.

The sixth chapter opens with dinner. They’re eating kind of late, aren’t they? I mean, when Gemma was traveling in London people were already huddling under the lights, and it seems to be dark when they head back to the school now.

The alpha pair, Pippa and Felicity, are being queen bees.

In the best possible corner, Pippa and Felicity are holding court with a few other girls. Felicity has cordoned off a sitting area and turned it into her own fiefdom complete with exotic scarves that make it seem like a sheik’s tent. Whatever she’s telling the others seems to have them hanging on her every word.

Gemma feels a bit sad to not be part of the group. That’s dumb, Gemma, they are a crazy pair of wolves, but it’s a common sentiment. She sits down by the fire to read her mom’s diary. She flips to the last entry which is about the fact Gemma was fighting with her mom about London, and Gemma starts to tear up.

Ann appears and sits next to her. Ann also likes to read and mentions a title.

“No. I can’t say that I have.” I know the type of book she means—cheap, sentimental claptrap about
put-upon girls triumphing over adversity without ever losing that sweet, kindhearted, feminine softness everyone seems to prize so highly. The kind of girls who would never cause their families to worry and suffer. Girls nothing like me. The bitterness is too much to contain.
“Oh, wait,” I reply. “That’s the one where the heroine is some poor, timid girl at boarding school who gets bullied by everyone for being such a sap. She reads to the blind or raises a lame brother or perhaps even a blind and lame brother. And in the end everyone discovers she’s really a duchess or some such who goes off to live like a queen in Kent. All because she took her punishment with a smile and a sense of Christian charity. What poppycock!”

Gemma you are all kinds of a dick.

Ann starts protesting that maybe it could happen and Gemma refuses to take the hint until Ann’s about to cry.

“Yes,” I say, my voice hoarse and quiet. “Yes, I suppose it could happen.”
“Those girls, the ones who misjudged . . . Lucy. They’d all be very sorry one day, wouldn’t they?”

If Ann doesn’t snap and go on a killing spree at some point I’ll be disappointed.

Anyway, the alpha wolves head over to invite Ann to their coveted special section!

Okay, no. I can buy Gemma wanting into the popular kids club because she hasn’t learned that they have only one setting, and it’s maul. But Ann? Come on, she’s been bullied here for what, half her life? More? They’ve never pulled “oh Ann we’ve suddenly realized we want to be your friend HAHA FROG IN YOUR SHIRT” before?

And I’m not really up on Victorian school literature but certainly this setup is a common plot in everything more modern.

Anyway the real insult is to Gemma, because they’re conspicuously not inviting her.

Ann glances at me guiltily and I know what her answer will be. She’s going to sit and eat chocolates with the very girls who torment her. And now I know that Ann is as shallow as the rest of them.

That’s not really shallowness. It could be, but what Ann really wants here is belonging and not getting bullied further. She’s not actually doing it for the chocolates.

Gemma decides to be nice and tell her she should go, because Gemma’s so busy with this very important book really it’s fine.

Despite the fact she’s looked through the whole book, she somehow missed a piece of paper hidden in it. This is really a longstanding weakness of the book-as-plot-device, where somehow a person just didn’t notice a particular thing about it before now. It’s an old newspaper clipping, all about secret scandals in girls’ boarding schools – suicides! Satanic cults!

I’m about to put it away when I see something near the bottom about the fire at Spence twenty years ago. But it’s too worn for me to read.

So that’s a yes on the satanic cult at Spence. Fuck yes.

Gemma just assumes her mom was a worrying worrier.

Anyway, right then the Ann drama explodes. As expected, they’ve hidden something in her basket, then making a big production of “losing” the item and accusing her of theft. Gemma helpfully reminds us that classism is still a thing. Gemma, we get it.

The housekeeper shows up and doesn’t take the bait, instead saying they should just look for it, but again, it’s obviously been planted on Ann. You know, this can’t be the first time a housekeeper at a girl’s school has seen this song and dance, and the fact she’s avoiding blaming Ann strongly suggests she’s not overlooking the obvious just because of Ann’s background.

But no, she totally falls for it when the ring – it’s a ring, how would Ann even get it off her finger unnoticed – happens to be in Ann’s basket.

Gemma immediately realizes what to do. She tells Ann to tell the truth about how she found the ring earlier but didn’t say anything because she wanted to do so privately and not embarrass her dear friend Felicity by letting everyone know she’d been so careless.

I mean, nice save but how would Gemma know what to do? She’s barely socialized at all. She was homeschooled and spent almost all her time with her mother.

Anyway, Felicity fights back by being all smiles and friendiness and thank you Gemma for pointing that out aren’t you such a helpful dear.

My mother runs a salon in Paris, and when Pippa and I are graduated, we’re going to Paris, where Mama will have us outfitted by the finest couturiers in France. Perhaps we’ll take you along as well.”
It’s not an invitation. It’s a challenge. They want to know if I have the means to keep up with them.

Okay, that’s useful info to keep the reader up on what’s going on, except again, how does Gemma know this stuff? I’d be willing to accept any justification here, just give me something. Maybe Gemma devoured boarding-school literature and is just crazy genre savvy. Or we could have social savant Gemma who just learns really fast, being in her head would be fun.

Afterward, Gemma demands to know why Ann didn’t try to defend herself. Ann is defeatist.

She shrugs. “What’s the point? There’s no winning against them.”

But if she feels like that, why did she get near them the way she did? It’s just not consistent.

Then the alpha wolves appear again.

“I shall have to think of a way to repay you for finding my ring tonight. We have a bit of a private club, Pippa, Cecily, Elizabeth, and I, but there might be room for you.”

Gemma is a quick learner and is all LOL NO.

But lots of girls would love to! You can be part of something important!

Ahem, says Gemma. I said LOL NO. I saw what happened to Ann.

“It’s not that we don’t want Ann involved. It’s just that her life isn’t going to be like
ours. You think you’re being so kind to her when you know very well that you can’t be friends with her
on the outside. It’s much crueler to make her think otherwise, to lead her on.”

…which is what they just did?

She’s right. I don’t trust her farther than I can run full-steam in a corset, but she is right. The truth is hard and unfair, but there it is.

Gemma, the fact there’s class prejudice doesn’t mean it’s inevitable to pretend to be a lower-class girl’s friend just long enough to frame her for stealing from you.

But somehow Gemma is convinced to join their special late-night group. That’s not stupid, that’s just nonsensical.

The plotting here has really taken a turn for the worse, and it’s not like it was doing all that great of a job in the first place. Gemma is upset about her mom’s death except she barely thinks of it. Gemma is tactless except when she is a social juggernaut. Ann knows the alpha wolves have all the niceness of spiders except when they’re inviting her into their parlor. Gemma is all for modern norms except when she isn’t. Gemma learns the alpha wolves are dangerous and then forgets it seconds later – and this after she ruined their plot and upset them both.