A Patriotic Schoolgirl

Angela Brazil wrote this school story while the First World War was still being fought, and published it in 1918. Marjorie Anderson, fifteen, and her quieter younger sister Dona arrive at Brackenfield College, a strict boarding school on the English coast. With their father serving in France and brothers in the Navy, the trenches, and a training camp, Marjorie burns to do war work herself: nursing the wounded, driving a transport wagon, anything but lessons. Her impulsive streak nearly gets her expelled. Then a spy scare runs through the school, suspicion settles on an unpopular mistress, and the trail leads somewhere much closer to Marjorie’s own friendships. Brazil writes from the girls’ side of the desk, in their slang and their quarrels, and the result is a period piece about patriotism curdling into suspicion.