Publisher's Synopsis
The Princess of the School by Angela Brazil
This book is half school story and half family story, the first half being more successful in my opinion. There are the usual Brazilian touches (names, love of nature, crazy theories and chapters taken up by girls who write stories or poems and read them).
The school is selective, with about twenty boarders headed by a Miss Walters. The dorms are named after Colors and the girls in the Blue Dormitory call it the Blue Grotto. Two of its residents are Ingletons. Orphaned by the drowning Titanic (which dates the story from 1922-3 to 1923-4 by my calculations), they and their brothers were taken to nearby Cheverley Chase by their grandfather. Their cousin Clare stepped in to take care of them. Not only is he at home, but it is assumed that their older brother Everard will inherit. He assures his sisters that he will watch over them in a rather noble manner, but it turns out that "the young squire" was too presumptuous. Because when his grandfather suddenly dies, it turns out that Leslie, the only child of Mr. Ingleton's eldest son, previously easily overlooked as a baby in a photograph, must inherit. Everard, around seventeen, vows to leave the Chase when he finds out, without even staying for his grandfather's funeral.
But Leslie is truly Carmel - the titular princess - a half-Italian who is brought somewhat reluctantly to her English heritage by Cousin Clare. Homesick for Sicily and her family there, she makes no complaints and tries to befriend the Ingletons. Dulcie, at least, is happy to do so, while older sister Lilias feels a little bad for Everard's name ...
