A Fourth Form Friendship by Angela Brazil

First published: 1911

Type of work: Moral tale

Themes: Friendship, education, and emotions

Time of work: The first decade of the twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Birkwood Grange, a girls’ boarding school near the English Channel

Principal Characters:

• Aldred Lawrence, fourteen, who is eager, impulsive, sensitive, and artistic, with a great need for friendship and recognition
• Keith Lawrence, her sober and matter-of-fact sixteen-year-old brother, whose approval she values deeply
• Mabel Farrington, a popular and idealistic schoolgirl of a wealthy family, who befriends Aldred Lawrence
• Miss Drummond, the headmistress of the Grange, who is a strong believer in practical knowledge

The Story

A Fourth Form Friendship tells the story of fourteen-year-old Aldred Lawrence. Her mother dead seven years and her father often away in London, Aldred has been reared mostly by her aunt and a governess. Neither understands her sensitive, creative nature or her need for affection. They chiefly see her impetuous and wayward side. Her governess, believing herself a failure at teaching Aldred responsibility, has recommended the girl be sent to school.

The problems Aldred encounters at school are presaged at the beginning of the book, when Aldred is praised by the Vicar and his wife for a watercolor. She takes full credit for the work and conceals the fact that the best portions were painted by a prominent artist, a family friend, while assisting Aldred’s understanding of technique. Aldred’s rigorous and honorable brother, Keith, expresses outrage at her deceit and warns that her desire for popularity and her conceit will cause trouble for her at school.

Trouble comes soon for Aldred. Though initially an outsider among the schoolgirls at the Grange, she is quickly befriended by Mabel Farrington, the school’s most popular girl. The mystery of Mabel’s sudden attachment is solved when Aldred discovers that Mabel has confused her with another girl with the same last name who had rescued a small child from a fire the previous summer. Mabel has never seen the girl; the suspicions expressed in a letter from her cousin and Aldred’s seemingly modest silence convince Mabel that Aldred is the girl. Mabel’s great esteem for all honorable and heroic actions leads her both to befriend and worship Aldred, who, fearing loss both of Mabel’s friendship and the esteem of the other girls, cannot bring herself to correct Mabel’s misconception.

Aldred’s career at school becomes a long, guilt-ridden, and increasingly complicated attempt to conceal her true character. Mabel’s friendship inspires Aldred to improve her character, but it also leads her into further deceptions as she attempts to conceal her failings. Her periodic displays of conceitedness are tolerated by her schoolmates because of her friendship with Mabel.

Aldred is finally redeemed from her life of falsehood and guilt when a fire breaks out at the school. Mabel, asleep in an upper room, is left behind and Aldred risks her life to save her friend, thus performing an act nearly identical to the one for which she has falsely taken credit. While recovering from minor burns, Aldred confesses to Miss Drummond, who, at Aldred’s request, tells Mabel. Mabel realizes that she, too, is to blame for Aldred’s lies because of her overly demanding expectations. Their friendship continues, now fortified by understanding and truth.

Context

In the general tradition of the British school story, A Fourth Form Friendship derives more from such works as F. W. Farrar’s Eric: Or, Little by Little (1858) than from Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), largely because of the concern in Brazil’s novel with an individual’s moral development rather than with moral character building in the service of a group. Although this type of school story can be identified as an outgrowth of the moral tale, A Fourth Form Friendship shows a marked departure from the puritanical moral exhortation characteristic of Farrar’s novel. In My Own Schooldays (1925), Brazil recalls her childhood reaction to a particular moral tale as one of delight at the very behavior the tale condemned. A Fourth Form Friendship seems deliberately composed to avoid such a reaction, neither condemning Aldred’s character flaws nor rewarding her for her wrongdoing.

In terms of the specific tradition of the girls’ school story, Brazil’s schoolgirl novels mark a departure from earlier examples of the genre. The sentimentality and sweetness that characterized the works of authors such as L. T. Meade (1854-1914), the writer credited with creating the genre, are replaced with a more robust and exuberant quality. Her novels offer what her readers perceived as modern schoolgirls, girls whose friendships evolve in a world of vigorous outdoor sports and lively dialogue.

Viewed as more realistic in many ways than their predecessors, Brazil’s novels do, however, resemble earlier schoolgirl stories in their exclusion of certain themes. The focus on friendship in A Fourth Form Friendship is in keeping with a tradition that disallowed any portrayal of romantic attractions to the opposite sex. Moreover, Brazil, like her predecessors, reflects no support for contemporary movements toward female emancipation. In A Fourth Form Friendship, Miss Drummond’s emphasis on practical knowledge is largely represented by her establishment of a classroom in a small cottage so that her students can learn domestic management: Aldred’s studies at the Grange may also include history, language, natural science, mathematics, and the arts, but there is no evidence that these are meant to provide anything more than an enhanced background for a domestic career.