In the most inaccurate sense, The Girls of Priory Hall could be a workplace romance. Yes, it is a romance, but not the usual type—boy meets girl—full of deception, angst, and humour. Wheatley is not repackaging the usual rom-com as in TV programs such as The Office. But the novella has the elements of a true love story: loneliness, longing, isolation, admiration, seduction and, above all, vulnerability.
All human interaction happens in a setting or situation. Isla Owen, the twenty-year-old something heroine, arrives at Priory Hall, the semi-remote Quebec boarding school (women only)—at Pemberton—near Sherbrooke. Fiercely independent, Isla left her working-class family in Britain to forge a life and career in Canada. Like the Mississippi in Huckleberry Finn or New York City in The Catcher in the Rye, Priory Hall is the thread that integrates Isla into the rigours of teaching while interacting with the “old biddies,” other teachers (old and young), girl students, townsfolk, and men in this remote environment. We assume the third-person narrator is sympathetic to Isla and is not old. Wheatley’s referencing to the “biddies” throughout suggests an antipathy toward the aging women—by both Isla and the storyteller.
Like Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield, Isla ventures into a different world with new experiences and various characters. Unlike Holden and Huck, she encounters something different: passion, sensuality, and love. Love comes at unpredictable times and in the most unexpected places for Isla and most of us. You can meet someone crossing the street, in a coffee shop or workplace and fall head over heels. But as Tina Turner once crooned, “What’s love got to do with it?” In time, the answer to this question hits Isla hard, as it does for many; it’s reality. Love can catch you unawares, but can it keep you? Wheatley is skillful enough to make us empathize with Isla Owen—whether we want to or not. Sometimes, one feels that Isla is undeserving of our compassion, but the reader’s desire is irrelevant. Empathy is hard for any writer to elicit in the reader, and Isla’s self-absorption prevents us from connecting freely to her secret, unrequited passion—not love.
Miss Owen’s covert longing is for the school’s illustriously seductive but coolly reserved and self-assured administrator, Vera Annesley. The eventual affair happens in the confines of her boss’s boudoir—a boudoir like no other, replete with all the trappings of success: chic clothing, rows of expensive shoes, and a pink silk bedcover. Vera’s apartment (like her appearance) is orderly, imbued with a tastefully calm ambience but ripe for seduction.
There’s no doubt Vera is Isla’s boss. Because of this, Wheatley runs the risk—which she takes—of creating a power-over dynamic between the more mature Vera and the naive but not unwitting (or unwilling) younger teacher. Is Miss Owen truly that vulnerable? Is Vera as strong and committed as she appears early in the book? Is Vera approaching the old biddie stage and needing reassurance that she still has the power to attract her object of desire? Does she still have “it?” These are the questions Wheatley plants in the reader’s mind. Moreover, who is the dominant force—the older woman—or the ingenue? Who’s controlling who?
It’s difficult not to explore the underlying psychological (Freudian), sociological (class distinction), political (Rene Levesque’s Quebec liberation) and literary (Rowenna’s Difficult Term) themes that intersperse and encapsulate the storyline. Vera’s illustrious shoe collection is Freudian; Isla’s working-class Putney is leftist, and the various schoolgirl literary ghosts that recurrently haunt Isla’s unconscious surface and portray her, at times, as a drama queen. Wheatley’s referencing of Rene Levesque and the Marxist surge that morphed into the infamous and violent FLQ indicate Isla’s political convictions. Is the lowly Isla symbolic of the worker capturing the citadel of the swanky Miss Vera Annesley? Once captured, what next? The conqueror and conquered are not as straightforward as they may seem. And the politics become increasingly binding as the story evolves to its stark ending. But we can’t dismiss the psychological forces that impact Isla from within.
So, a lot is happening inside Isla’s psyche—with a struggle between her id, ego, and superego. The winner in this dynamic (and future ones) is the id when, on p. 136, Vera instructs Isla to remove her skimpy black panties and bra. “Take them off…slowly,” she urges while in the confines of her candlelit boudoir. The conflux of libido and impropriety (it is a girls’ school, after all) manages to appease the reader’s urge to peek at the erotic scenes for voyeuristic pleasure. Wheatley’s subtle and suggestive artistic depictions put the likes of Henry Miller to shame.
However, Isla’s desire extends beyond Miss Annesley. This union is in the making throughout the early pages as Wheatley cleverly sprinkles bread crumbs, leading to the inevitable climax. On p.108, Isla nearly succumbs to Vera’s charming advances inside her tiny, unkempt room. This contrast between the women grips the reader and confirms the truism that opposites do attract. Despite the mutual attraction, Isla’s superego (conscience) pushes her away from the snuggled warmth of her breasts. Vera wisely departs, climbs the stairs to her quarters, and awaits another day. At least she has laid the groundwork for the inevitable seduction on p. 123 and 136. Patience and restraint seem to be Annesley’s hallmark traits, but that wears thin later in the book. So what’s the issue? What causes the shift in both the narrative and within Isla?
Frankly, Miss Owen finds men as alluring as the older grand dame, the sophisticated administrator—full of grace and cunning. Perhaps Isla’s infatuation is wearing thin. Miss Annesley does not share the same appetite; men neither interest nor intrigue her. A nearby boys’ school, Braemar, supplied the unattached Priory teachers with available male teachers that proved hit or miss. Isla’s first date with Martin Dove (ironic name) ended with Isla using her working-class smarts to dig “her nails into the back of his neck” when he overrode her unconditional “no.” Dove’s an obvious miss, but the encounter shows Isla’s power to refuse and to affirm her authentic self as the source of her strength. To refuse, to say no, is fundamental to all human freedom in the true existential sense. But this inability to refuse, to say no, dissipates and entraps her in the end. Knowing one is attractive to both sexes might imbue anyone with a heightened narcissism and hubris, something rare but not uncommon. Maybe Isla’s hubris seals her fate, but the reader can become frustrated trying to unravel the psychical, political, sociological, literary and philosophical undercurrents. I did say this was not your ordinary sitcom nor a romance paperback available at the airport confectionary store.
The book’s artistic strength lies in Wheatley’s unflinching description of pretty well everything. The countryside, the old biddies’ activities, Montreal, the grimy handyman Dirk, and the girls’ rooms are both mundane and vibrant-—and explode in technicolour. And, as I’ve posed, the intimate goings-on are equally masterful. But I must reiterate. The reader feels the tenderness filling these encounters between the two women. And the fetishes of bras and panties and restitching of torn nighties “ sheer and delicate” remind us of those delights inside Vera’s inner sanctum, that top-floor apartment. Does the torn nightie suggest the lovemaking was both passionate and tender? Women aside, Wheatley’s male portrayals are as convincing and accurate as those of writers Norman Mailer and Philip Roth. At times, these portrayals equal and possibly surpass Wheatley’s characterizations of fringe players, such as her chum Esme with her stereotypical girlish series of “ugh-h-h.” The men, Ives, Andre—even Dove and the “horrid” Dirk—breathe masculinity. They are real.
At the book’s midpoint, things change with the introduction of Ives, a young pig farmer who whisks Isla off and sweeps her away on his motorcycle. This harmless but realistic escapade ends in a kiss that Isla savoured afterwards and— for whatever reason— related to Annesley. Did Isla know this would invoke jealousy in Vera? Here is the first glimpse of a fracture and insight into Vera’s vulnerability or fear of losing her source of joy, as she said, “my sweetest little thing.”
On p. 157, Wheatley paints a different picture of Vera, who is aging with “withered lips” and has bouts of indigestion that most oldsters experience. Vera is becoming less appealing but may also be tired of her ingenue when she brings another student to her “lovely big house in Boston.” Why not invite Isla, alone at Priory, over Christmas vacation? Good question.
Esme persuades her to see Montreal, where they enjoy the city and the nightlife. There, Isla meets the attractive, natural and sensitive Andre. The tryst differs markedly from the sweet tenderness in Vera’s arms and the battle with Mr. Dove. Despite the contrast, Isla accepts the flip side of hetero sex: the bulging penis, the condom, and the aftermath of the dreaded douche which Esme insisted she take.
All does not end well because Isla later spots Andre with a tall, well-dressed blonde who sneers at her and chastizes Andre for fraternizing with the enemy—Les Anglais. It’s clear Andre had used Isla as a one-nighter despite his attempt to defend her as not your typical Anglo because she supports the Quebecois and their fight for liberation from the dominant English culture. Was Andre a good choice or a wrong choice?
On returning to Priory in January, Isla discovers that a maid, Nellie, whom she had befriended, had hurt her hand and was no longer employable, so the school fired her. When Isla addressed this with Annesley, asking about a pension for Nellie, Vera found her concern for the underdog tedious and Isla’s attitude a breach of protocol. For Annesley, worrying about your inferiors is inconsequential. Besides, Isla had shown her rebellious side earlier in her defence of spunky Bunty McIver, who had won the first girl election “fair and square.” The biddies tried to overturn the result with a rigged vote in favour of a more “appropriate” and mature woman. Still, Isla refuses to conform to the pressure of the establishment and casts the decisive vote in Bunty’s favour. The class consciousness ingrained in Isla and the British social welfare system parallels the liberation pursuit of the working-class French Canadians of the 1960s.
So, with the decreasing attraction between the two heroines and their disparate personalities and political leanings, the inevitable breakup surfaces. It was time for Isla to escape “the grip of her singular passion with Miss Annesley.”
Nurturing a friendship with the maid Suzette—frowned upon by the old biddies and Vera—she agrees to go dancing at LaLumiere hall, close to the US border, with American men frequenting the place in search of the fun-loving French Canadian women. By chance, Ives, the pig farmer, shows up, and Isla learns that the rural inhabitants do not support the leftist policies but harbour the traditional conservative values of church and family. Isla knows Quebec is less homogenous than she thought; perhaps worker solidarity is less intense than in urban Putney. The political ideologies of the metropolitan left and rural right vie for power globally. And some who rise from humble beginnings are the first to distance themselves from their comrades.
The Girls of Priory Hall is a novella, not a short story nor novel, but an exploration into the leading actor’s character and psyche. Wheatley’s book reminds one of Meursault in Camus’ novella, The Outsider. Isla’s ability to say no, to question or refuse, dissolves, and she winds up—not facing the gallows as Meursault—but with an unwanted pregnancy. Unsure of the father, Ives or Andre, but it doesn’t matter, Isla bitterly departs the school and heads into the uncertainty of her vast adopted country. She also leaves behind her jilted lover, Vera Annesley, who is still stylish with her “dark brocade material” shoes. Vera ignores Isla’s apologetic hand for a final touch of warmth—the same hand that had caressed Isla-—with tenderness and affection. The reader now understands the impact of the opening scene where another girl, another Isla perhaps, mutters the word “sorry” while acridly departing Priory Hall. Indeed, history might reverse itself—first as farce-—then as tragedy.
“Sorry won’t cut it,” Vera said to Isla and “stepped briskly inside.” No longer lovers, no longer friends, nor two ships passing in the night where the respective captains sound out blasts of acknowledgement and respect.
Is life tragic or absurd, or both? We all stumble to the final curtain in our dramas, clutching our bundle of choices. The ending is neither sad nor final because we are, as some say, the totality of those choices and nothing more. And life goes on. In a sense, we are all Islas, which raises this book into the world of universal human emotions. The Girls of Priory Hall is not a woman’s book or melodrama but one for everyone, regardless of gender. Isla is every woman or man facing the unknown, and we should embrace her humanity; we did it for Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield.
