War Among Ladies by Eleanor Scott

Expectation is a powerful thing. It alters your perspective, often imperceptibly. If reality does not match up with the figment you created, it can take some getting used to. Reality might even feel a tad disappointing, if only at first. That, I am afraid to say, was my experience reading Eleanor Scott’s 1928 novel, War Among Ladies. 

I had heard this book described as a school story told from the perspective of the teachers. And while this sums up the novel accurately, it misleads one into thinking this is going to be a bit of fun. Sure, it’s called War Among Ladies, but there are always feuds in school stories, with lots of fun to be had in between the tiffs, with field hockey or lacrosse practice, girl guides meets, midnight feasts, etc. I expected to find much of the same in this book, only with teachers having misunderstandings and disagreements on teaching methods and whatnot, but, overall, having a lovely time. Boy, was I wrong! Thankfully, once I managed my expectations, I started to appreciate this book for what it is, which is a novel that is a whole lot smarter than the one I had envisioned.

Besley High School for girls works on a graduation system, which means that the failure of a student in one subject makes for a fail overall. When even Miss Cullen’s best student fails the public examination, the other teachers are out for blood. Because it is not just the girls of this school that are judged harshly. The future of the teachers and the school itself, is at risk, if the girls fail their end of year exams.

"Oh, I don't expect it's as bad as you think, you know," she said with her nervous half-laugh. "May I keep this just for to-night, Nellie? I have a collection of papers, and I should like to copy this out to add to it." Nellie handed it over, quite willingly, but without enthusiasm. Miss Cullen recognised the difference from her usual manner and sighed.

"Well, cheer up, girls. I'm sure you've all done better than you think," she said as she turned away.

But it was a lie, and she knew it was; and the girls knew it too, and she knew that they did. For the paper was a modern one, and Miss Cullen taught by the methods of thirty years ago. The collection of papers was a myth, too; she wanted time, time to study those conundrums that demanded original thought and not the reproduction of textbooks. Not that it mattered now. Nothing could help her. She had failed, and she knew it; and she also knew that, for her, failure meant—the end. (42)

Things go downhill from here for Miss Cullen. Because there is nothing to be done. There is no retraining plan in place for teachers to update their methods, and there is no option for most of these women to do anything besides teaching. Certainly not for Miss Cullen, who is so close to retirement, but not close enough to retire early as that would mean losing everything she has put into her pension. Getting another placement is not an option for many of the other teachers either. For what school will hire them if their last job was at a school so notorious for its poor performance it had to be closed?

It would have been good if I had read the back cover copy of this one before reading the book. It would certainly have set me straight on my whole “fun school story” expectation. The last line on the back cover of the newly republished edition best describes this novel, “This is a quietly devastating novel about the realities of life for single working women in the 1920s and the systems that failed them”.

The devastation may be quiet, but it is all but relentless. It was the relentlessness of this book that made it a difficult read for me. I don’t intend that to be a criticism. Although, it does sound like one. What I mean is that it is hard to be in the mood to read about someone who has reached the end of the line and is out of options. You cannot really hold it against them when they are willing to do what they have to to ensure their own survival, but it does not exactly endear them to you either.

Miss Cullen’s colleagues go to the Head to request her dismissal and Miss Cullen feels as thought it is only a matter of time before she is asked to leave. So she writes a letter to the school inspector. 

She signed it with a distinct feeling of pleasure. It was, she told herself, true—true in every word. No one could deny what she had written. All she wanted was justice, impartial justice, and that she would never get, either from her colleagues or the Head... And she liked the tone of the letter, it seemed to her to be both independent and courteous, warm and yet restrained.

She felt a glow of triumph, almost of virtue, as she dropped that epistle, heavy with the fate of the school, into a pillar-box. (116)

It is difficult to feel that an injustice is really being done to Miss Cullen. Her students are doing abysmally in her subject. Still, I found myself feeling very sorry for her, as does one of her fellow teachers. Viola Kennedy, who is in her first year of teaching, approaches the start of school with all of the naive optimism that one would expect of someone who is eager to educate and inspire their students. However, before too long teaching, and all the profession entails, begins to wear on her. Her head is a sea of questions concerning things she has no control over.

Like most of her profession, Viola was fast losing her sense of humour and proportion. She felt that these questions filled the whole horizon, so that nothing else, no question of State or religion or personal relationship or anything whatever, was of the smallest importance in comparison. […] Suddenly she realised, for one sickening second, the tortures that a bad disciplinarian (Miss Cullen, for instance) must feel when she dreads, not for an instant, but for hours every day, the coming of a new day. ... How perfectly horrible. ... (153)

Viola Kennedy and Miss Cullen are in contrast to each other. For one, as Simon Thomas points out in the Afterword, Viola is never diminished to “Miss”. She retains her first name throughout the book. Viola, who is young and is just starting out in teaching, still has options. One of her fellow teachers recommends that she get out, before teaching has left its mark on her, and while she still has the option to marry, and, as we might imagine, before Viola's identity has been completely overshadowed by "Miss Kennedy" and she is Viola no longer. In comparison, we are lead to believe that Miss Cullen, even as a young woman, never had the option of marriage, or a life outside of teaching.

Still, this book is not without glimmers of light, and my favourites are those moments of optimism that Viola finds while in the natural world.

Viola felt that touch of excitement that the romantic young often know with the coming of misty evenings—that sense of adventure, of suspense almost, of a dream coming true, as if something were suddenly to be revealed....

She turned into the wet grass. How still it was in the hushed, dewy field, shrouded in the autumn mist. How remote it was from the lights and sounds of the town. How real, how true, it was in its chill aloof silence. She stood and listened to her own hushed breathing. Softly, like a magic bell, the church clock sounded. It was like the prelude to adventure. ... 

With a sigh she realised that that note of enchantment was no more than a call back to the world of duty. She walked on up to the school. (180)

Viola is able to find some respite in nature, and contemplate the possibilities of her future, because she is of the “romantic young” who still have adventures and dreams within their grasp. While at the end of this quotation, Viola is brought back to the “world of duty” by the church bell reminding her of the time, there is the suggestion that she could travel along the line of wherever those tantalising asterisks are headed, instead of answering the call to go back to school.

It is these glimpses of future possibilities for Viola that kept me reading, despite how much Miss Cullen’s narrowing future was causing me worry. 

I am so thankful I pushed through my discomfort! This book provided a perspective of what teaching was like for women in 1920s that I had not been exposed to before. The throughly researched Afterword provides a helpful explanation of the systems women would have been up against at this point in history.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of War Among Ladies for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.