Chapter 3:
CN: Racist/colonialist imagery, sexism, bullying, abilist language
The chapter starts with the children exploring the attic. It's full
of old furnishing and housewares and nautical items (a ship's
wheel, rope, canvas).
“It was like reading the story of somebody's life, Jane thought, as
she gazed at the tiny matchstick masts of the ship sailing motionless
forever in the green glass bottle. All these things have been used
once, had been part of every day in the house below. Someone had
slept on the bed, anxiously watched the minutes on the clock, pounced
joyfully on each magazine as it arrived. But all those people were
long dead, or gone away, and now the oddments of their lives were
piled up here, forgotten. She found herself feeling rather sad.”
That is some smashing prose. Five points to Gryffindor.
While Jane's getting introspective, Simon's characterization goes a bit off-balance (unless he's meant to be fickle). Within 6 lines we have Simon both complaining that “All the really interesting boxes are locked”,
and--after Jane reminds him, regretfully, that they “aren't supposed
to touch anything locked”--insisting that “There's a lot not
locked”. I suppose these could both be true (many boxes are not
locked, but all the interesting one are), but the emphasis and
presentation make it come across as inconsistency. Or perhaps, he's deliberately changing opinions to mess with Jane.
Barney
complains of hunger, and they sit down to a picnic. We get some more
(not at all) fun sexism/gender essentialism when Jane tries to get
her brothers to wipe the dirt off their hands before eating. This
time, it's from Barney, because apparently you can't only have one
sexist male character:
“Barney!” Jane squeaked. “Wipe your hand. You'll eat all sorts
of germs and get typhoid or—or rabies or something Here, have my
handkerchief.”
“Rabies is mad dogs,” Barney
said, looking with interest at the black finger-prints on his scone.
“Anyway, Father says that people make too much fuss about germs.
Oh all right,
Jane, stop waving that silly thing at me I've got a proper
handkerchief of my own. I don't know how girls ever blow their
noses.”
…
He sat down, pulled out his handkerchief, waved it ostentatiously at
Jane, wiped his hands, and began to munch another scone.
Well,
that's a bit to unpack. We, once again, have Jane doing/suggesting
something sensible (cleaning one's hands between a dirty activity and
eating), and her brother acting like she's completely unreasonable.
While the specifics are off (rabies), the idea is sound: they're
covered in dust, and it could contain anything from pulverized lead
paint, to arsenic leached out of old books or wallpaper, to mouse
droppings containing germs or parasites. Soap and water would be
more useful than a dry handkerchief, but no one's disputing the
method,
they're arguing over the need.
Barney even invokes
their father—who, we'll learn in a few pages, is a doctor—as an
authority to silence Jane. Yes, a male character who previously
seemed to be an ally is using a male authority figure to stifle and
contradict our main female character. It's like it's written from
life.
An alternative interpretation is that we supposed to be seeing a younger sibling resenting the interference of (/assumption of authority by) an elder, but the casting of Jane and Barney in the roles nonetheless evokes sexist silencing tactics. It's also consistent with the "child mother" characterization previously suggested for Jane, which carries it's own sexist baggage.
Barney's
apparently also the designated jerk in this chapter, so he proceeds
to throw an apple core into the corner, as is standard practice when staying in someone else's house. Simon has moved on from imagining racist
stereotypes of witch doctors and gaslighting his sister, to trying
scare the others by talking about rats. This actually bolsters
Jane's case that they shouldn't
leave food garbage in someone's attic,
and the two of them make Barney retrieve the core. While digging it
out from a gap in the corner, he discovers an old scroll.
There's lots of speculation about the scroll: how old it is, what it
says, what language it's written in, how it would up in the attic.
Simon thinks it's a treasure map, Barney's sure it was lost rather
than deliberately hidden, and Jane observes it's great age and asks the
really useful questions, finally conjecturing that part of the scroll
is written in Latin. Considering that Simon has studied it for two
years and she hasn't started yet--I'm assuming this means he's two or
more years ahead in school, though it could be that the boys and girl
are on different tracks--more power to Jane for being the one to
realize this (and for getting some revenge by goading Simon the Bully
for a translation).
Anyway, they get Simon reading the first paragraph, and Barney uses
his encyclopedic knowledge of the Round Table to conclude that
“Marcus and Arturus” are Mark, King of Cornwall and Arthur, the
High King. The boys immediately leap back to the treasure map
hypothesis, and Jane spends the next page and half as the designated
party-ender, trying to argue (without having a specific reason) that
they should tell their parents of the find. This is the weakest writing in the chapter, in my opinion, possibly because I'm firmly 'Team Jane' and she's being made to argue a position without little reason to support it. In fact, neither side seems to have concrete argument for why their option is right--the boys want an adventure and think adults will spoil it (believable enough), and Jane just has a feeling that they should tell adults. There is, admittedly, some acknowledgement that they may be out-of-bounds and that the map isn't theirs (and thus, the adults would make them put it back). Nonetheless, I wish Jane had been given the chance to argue that adults could be useful (preserving the delicate artifact, translating the words the kids can't read, using a larger knowledge-base to figure out what is being referenced, having the resources to investigate further), or that they deserved to know (it being Captain Tom's property, he may be interested in it and happy that it was found).
You know who else would be a good person to talk with? The
Great-Uncle who is a professor interested in antiquities, has made
historic finds in the past, and knows the guy whose house they're in.
Anyway,
Jane capitulates, on the basis that they can always put the scroll
back later when they're done, and advises caution in handling this
artifact of unknown age and apparently fragile condition. Simon continues to give her
grief for it. [New headcanon: Jane grows up to become a archival
curator specializing in document preservation and restoration.]
It's getting dark, so they leave the attic, and try to tidy up before
dinner so they're parents won't ask questions. Jane is once again
thrown into a motherly role of getting dust out of Barney's hair, so
their real mother won't notice.
At dinner, their parents are in bad moods (attributed to the weather
and to unsuccessful work), and there's a fair amount of sniping
between them and their children, and among the kids themselves. After
dinner, two unexpected guests arrive while Merry simultaneously vanishes. Mr. and Miss Withers, who met Dr. Drew earlier in the day,
claim to live near the family in London, and invite them all to visit
the mysterious yacht tomorrow. The invitation is accepted by the
group, though individual members demure (Mrs. Drew to work on her
painting if the light's good, Jane on account of her seasickness).
While making small talk, the Witherses manage to throw in a number of
peculiar inquiries about the Captain's books and whether the children have gone
exploring and found secret passages in the house.
Nope, not suspicious at all.
Simon gets one more jerky exchange, trying to persuade Jane to come
on the yacht and saying that “you must be nuts” when she
continues to refuse. In a rare show of support, their father tells
Simon to “Leave her alone...She knows her own mind. No, they'll
understand, Jane. No-one would want you to be worried about getting
ill. See how you feel about going in the morning, though.” Stuck
the ending a bit, but I'll give Dr. Drew 4/5 for supporting Jane's
opinions and acknowledging her expertise on the subject of herself.
His sons could really do with some lessons on that score.
The chapter ends with an ominous note that Jane actually felt
uncomfortable about the Witherses (with the seasickness as an excuse
because she couldn't figure out why she felt that way), and a
reminder that Uncle Merry had vanished again. Possibly it's ominous foreshadowing that they're evil and want the manuscript for nefarious purposes.
Scratch that: they're definitely evil and want the manuscript for nefarious purposes.
New Characters:
Mr. Norman Withers—From the mysterious yacht, sells antiques in
London.
Miss Polly Withers—Sister to Norman, several years older than the
children
Vayne—Yacht skipper
Captain Toms—“The Captain” who owns the Grey House, master of
Rufus the Dog
Updated Characters:
Jane Drew-- Hermione Granger
Dick Drew (Dad)--A Doctor, lives in Marylebone, London
Mrs. Drew (Mom)--Apparently likes rum babas.
Professor Lyon—Aka Great-Uncle Merry, aka “Gumerry”, somehow
known to Mr. and Miss Withers but disappears when they show up. Adding Houdini to his Gandalf/Indiana Jones dual class.
Barney Drew—Less a feminist ally than previously thought, rather
untidy
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