During my recent re-reading of Bride Leads, the following bit jumped out at me:
[The staff are discussion Miss Annersley potentially having to expel whoever wrecked Bride’s study; bold text is my emphasis]
EBD wrote:
“It’s only happened twice in all these years.” Biddy O’Ryan ventured. “First that awful idiot Thekla; and then, years after, Betty Wynne-Davies – and I’ve always thought that Betty was more sinned against than sinning. The poor kid!”
The Head nodded. “Betty made good later, thank God! In her case of course, expulsion was inevitable. She would have suffered too heavily if she had stayed on. I’m hoping that whoever has done this disgusting thing, will prove to be repentant enough for us not to have to inflict the worst.”
The Head nodded. “Betty made good later, thank God! In her case of course, expulsion was inevitable. She would have suffered too heavily if she had stayed on. I’m hoping that whoever has done this disgusting thing, will prove to be repentant enough for us not to have to inflict the worst.”
Since the speaker, Biddy O’Ryan, is generally presented as a good, popular and well rounded character, we (as reader) are presumably supposed to agree with the statement in bold and accept that Betty got a raw deal whilst Thekla got her just desserts, but I don’t really understand why?
Thekla was badly behaved, had a bad influence on the younger girls, thought she was better than everyone else, skipped lessons (is this the only time this happens in the CS universe) and deliberately tries to hurt Joyce and get her into trouble. However we see later girls such as Diana Skelton and Margot Maynard who are at least as bad, for whom expulsion is considered but not taken up. Thekla is also told that had Mrs Linton died, she would have been a murderess
this seems awfully over the top and thankfully Jo's involvement averted this 
, but IIRC, this was not part of Thekla's plan, she merely wanted to hurt Joyce.Betty was also badly behaved (and had been ever since she joined the school), had a bad influence on the younger girls, was inclined to be a bully and in an attempt to get revenge over and deeply upset the McDonald twins, colluded with a German spy. Whilst again she isn't shown as having thought her plan through as far as assisting Germany against Britain during wartime, she was involved in actions which certainly at the time (1942ish) were considered to be a danger to national security - all because Fiona trapped her finger! The (school) authorities, Jo and Janie Lucy deal with the situation with great kindness, even going so far as to find her a new home and reccomend she join the WRNS and Mr Iron's reaction is seen to be callous and uncaring.
As Miss Annersley said, Betty later ‘made good’ but in fact both girls were later seen to have reformed and to have accepted that they were indeed 'in the wrong' during the relevant scenes at school, Betty in her meeting with Jo and Janie and Thekla in her letter to Mlle Lepattre (Simone?).
Although seemingly set in 1948, Bride Leads was published in 1953. Whilst this might have meant that the war was no longer at the front of everyone’s minds, I find it hard to believe that the GBP would have become so tolerant of ‘traitors’ (although obviously EBD doesn’t always represent what the GBP think – e.g. with the Peace League and distinction between Germans/Austrians and Nazis) that Biddy would overlook the reason why Betty was expelled, even if she felt sorry for her. Is this then, simply an example of EBD’s dislike for Prussian Germans (as opposed to Bavarian Germans or Austrians) or is something else going on that I am missing?
I'd add Joy Bird? She almost kills Lavender, and she not only never confesses to the staff, she never acts like she's particularly sorry about it. She's only worried that Lavender might tell - and Lavender, who has learned a harsh lesson about sneaking, would never do that.
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