Maeve Bettany
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#1: Maeve Bettany Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 7:51 am


Please discuss Maeve here...

 


#2:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:18 pm


As a young child, there's some interesting discussion involving Maeve's difficulty settling into being the youngest of a large family, after it having just been her and Maurice for years, which is interesting, and other than that she seems to be a normal mischevious junior.

After that, you don't get much insight into Maeve. She's described as a cheerful featherhead, a complete dud at lessons, rather lazy, and athletic. Then, suddenly, she's magazine prefect, and then headgirl!

It's interesting that Maeve goes to train as a lady courier, and early discusses P.T. and working in a shop [the latter as she's terrible at exams]. There's no discussion of the possibility of her going home to help mother, as was always the plan for Peggy. You think that would be natural, as her mother still has a little one at home, and Peggy is married and in a different country.

 


#3:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:04 am


The early/mid Swiss books seem to revolve around either Mary Lou's gang or the mixed age group who are in Inter V in "New Mistress", so Maeve kind of gets missed because she's in between the two. It was interesting in "Bride leads" etc when the Bettanys were trying to adjust to living together as a family after Dick & Mollie & Maurice & Maeve came back from India, but then that storyline died off and we never even really saw Maeve's reaction to Mollie's illness.

I like Maeve though - she's one of the few people who never seems to have any major problems/issues/hang ups: she's just "normal"!

 


#4:  Author: SugarplumLocation: second star to the right! PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:04 pm


Alison H wrote:
she's one of the few people who never seems to have any major problems/issues/hang ups: she's just "normal"!


that's the reason EBD sort of forgets about her!

 


#5:  Author: mohiniLocation: india PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:49 pm


I somehow liked Maeve a lot and she judts fades into backgroud with few lines about her here and there.I do not remember how much years she is older then th etrips but I seem to have a vague idea that she may be more than 3 or 4 yeears.She comes in "Tom when the trips are mentioned to be three and bit.
So how can she be with them in later books while Jossette and Mary lou have left?

 


#6:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:09 pm


Actually, Maeve's ages aren't that bad. Using the timeline from the master spreadsheet (which assumes one year between Gillian and Exile, and two between Rosalie and Three Go)

Mollie is pregnant in Jo Returns, the kids presumably being born in the late summer, 1936. The triplets are born in the fall of 1939, making them just over three years younger.

Maeve is seven, almost eight, in Tom, which is fine, the triplets should be just turned four at that point, which matches the books.

She's ten in Peggy, and eleven in Wrong - the triplets are said to be nine. Based on the timeline above, in Wrong Maeve should be 11 turning 12 and the triplets 8, but there are all sorts of age problems between Rosalie and Three Go, with people's ages changing from 1 to 4 years.

She's headgirl in Jane, and her age should be just turning nineteen, which is consistent with someone who is described as a 'dud at lessons'. The triplets are almost 17 (should be almost sixteen), but are in a form older than their years. Both Peggy and Bride become headgirls when they're 16, and leave school at just 17, so Maeve does stay at school longer than her sistes.


So the only real discrepancy is the variation in ages in the gap between Rosalie and Three Go - they end up a year close in age than they should be.

 




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