The Island Mystery: Pauline M. James Spring Books
This starts off as a family story, very much in the vein of (probably influenced by) the Abbey Girls series, for instance, the family home is named Shirley. Diana (Di) Rayner is a famous girl concert pianist who, at the age of about twenty, is also responsible for bringing up her three younger sisters as she has been for a number of years since the death of their father. Interestingly, there is no older adult to back her up and when her best friend Rose returns to England after a time spent studying art in Paris, she is worried by how tense and tired Di is. Di’s sister Christine, also a musical talent (we never know if she is as good as or potentially better than Di, only that she’s less well balanced) is being difficult. She’s left school to concentrate on her music, is eager for her chance to perform, heedless of discipline, impetuous and terribly sorry afterwards, but liable to lose her temper rather than cry when she’s upset - which invariably leads to tears. Di is also responsible for schoolgirl Carol and Gill, whom I was surprised to learn was old enough to have left school and to be training as a secretary. But as Rose quite clearly sees and says as much, despite being nominally grown up, Gill is liable to go along with the flow and not back up her elder sister.
Rose arranges for Di to take a holiday in a mysterious island that Di inexplicably inherited off the west coast of Ireland. The mystery of why Di was bequeathed this island was never explored before, although she’s owned it for a few years because it all happened at the time of the father’s death. Chris wants to come too, and although it is pointed out that it wouldn’t be fair for her sisters who cannot leave, she runs away after a fight with a slightly stricter Gill. She also leaves behind Rose’s cousin Cecily, who is there to help out and spoils Di’s holiday. The reaction to Chris’s behaviour (in this instance and in general) was one of the things that irked me about the book. She is told quite clearly that she’s selfish and thoughtless (although people could go further, because she imposes and expects too much of Di) and apologises profusely and that’s it - she was allowed to have the holiday in Ireland without any consequences beyond upsets on the first day and having to send apologies. It’s as if her musical temperament excuses all. Not one character really lets her face up to the consequences of her actions - no wonder she is still very much a baby. One has some sympathies with Vivian’s later behaviour towards her.
On the island of Stormhaven, Di and co. start to investigate the mystery of why Robert Greystones - a stranger - left the island to Di. Given the clues that we have, it’s not that big a mystery to the reader, although the girls cannot solve it. Instead, now that “Miss Diana” has come to her inheritance, she decides she cannot just ignore the place, although she has a lovely and more convenient home in Sussex. Chris has the brainwave of establishing a school. Yes, it morphs into a Let’s Start a School book, a la Isle of Gladness, Princess Charming and The School At The Chalet, only without the financial imperative. In fact, it’s not clear why Di is so determined to do this and do it herself and AT NO POINT DOES A SENSIBLE BODY take her aside and say ‘you are a concert pianist who was finding doing that and bringing up three girls a bit much. How is starting a new school on top of that going to bee good for you?’ Giving her sisters more of an opportunity/focus is a consequence of her decision, but it’s more about doing something with the place. Having left school for a couple of years, to dive back in is a bit daft - that the suggestion comes from Chris is no surprise, but the second half of the book feels like playing at school, and so is hard to engage with. I think I would have preferred this book if it were a series: The Rayner Girls, The Rayner Girls on the Island, The Rayner Girls at School etc.
So, halfway through a story about a ‘family’ of girls, one is reading a school story where the mistresses are little more than girls themselves. It is meant to be a finishing school, with the youngest girls, who are aged about fifteen, becoming juniors. So girls who were probably Middles at least at their old schools, like Carol, seem to regress into doing the madcap things that the youngest in the school is expected to do.
Chris is also a student and her ways of being difficult are another matter entirely. She is a Senior, had assumed she’d be Headgirl (sic), but when she is thwarted, shows in her behaviour precisely why she shouldn’t have been head girl. The girl appointed in her stead bends over backward to see Chris’s point of view, but nonetheless, there are storms, literal and figurative, leading to high drama when one of the girls is revealed to be a runaway (to school!) who tries to escape off the island when her actions are discovered in a storm. All this leads to a breakdown for Di (and once again, Chris, who was accompanying her on her concert to Manchester...as a reward for being miserable, doesn’t step up to the mark as a Chalet girl or Abbey girl would, but has to have Rose suggest an adult relative to help). By the end of the book, when Chris makes her debut and shows some dim appreciation that her future life will be hard - although she’s picked this up from observing Di - she doesn’t thank Di especially for all that she’s done with her. Meanwhile most of the girls who are staff, including Di, are leaving their teaching posts.
As you can tell, I didn’t like Chris much, I didn’t like the way she was handled. She didn’t seem to grow up much, the story didn’t seem to expect her to, because she was a musician (but so was Di!) I know, when you write out all that happened out, the story is basically a series of fusses and mysteries and adventure, but with little character growth, and, as I said, the mystery of the title is easily solved. I liked the first half of the book more: I liked Rose - with half a schoolgirl in her still, trying to tackle her friends’ woes (although like Jenny Wren, whenever her biological family was mentioned, it was something of a surprise, as she was so invested in the Rayners), I liked Carol the schoolgirl complete, even Gill - who did have some growth. Di and her incredible selflessness (when did SHE practise? one wondered) and sensible Cicely were all fine but charmed Chris, no. If it had been written out as a series, Penny’s subplot would have got its own book and the school deserved to be more than a back of an envelope job magically come to life! There was no idea of its ethos. It was very much a story of wish fulfilment with things happening to suit the plot than anything, but, frustratingly, it could have been more.
Edited on 9/4/11 for typos etc.