A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray

Mary L. Taylor
March 3, 2009
A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray

Settings:
First setting: A market place in India
Second setting: The Spence Academy in London, England

Characters: Sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle, Gemma’s mother, Sarita, their housekeeper, Gemma’s brother, Tom, the Indian men, Karik, Mrs. Nightwing, the headmistress, Mademoiselle, LeFarge, the French instructor, Miss Moore, an instructor,
Madame Romanoff, Inspector Kent, felicity, Pippa, Ann, and other young girls residing at the Spence Academy.

Gemma, her mother and their housekeeper are walking through the market place in India. They are attracted to the various wares, including the cobra snake that might be for someone’s dinner, that the merchants have on display. They are on their way to Mrs. Talbot’s where they plan to enjoy tea. Today is Gemma’s sixteenth birthday and she is in a foul mood. Her mother tries to assuage her temperament by allowing her to wear her special necklace. The girl allows her mother to place the necklace around her neck but she still behaves ugly. She expresses some nasty words to her mother, then runs further through the market place before she realizes that she is lost.

Upon realizing that she is lost, Gemma asks assistance or rather directions of one of a couple of Hindi men who were sitting cross-legged in the marketplace. When he sees the necklace around the girl’s neck, the man became alarmed and shooed her away. More than that, he hurries inside and shuts the door in her face. People were observing the activity from their windows.

It had started to rain and Gemma slips on the wet, stone street. Looking up she sees a boy whom she had seen in the marketplace. He was standing over her and her mind began to bother her. She thought about what she’d heard about what bad men could do to unescorted women. She wanted to run, but her body couldn’t move. She wanted to scream, but her voice wouldn’t assist her. The sixteen years of her life seemed to flash through her mind. Then she sees her mother. Her mother is not alone. A turbaned Indian man is behind her mother and his eyes showed fear. He pulls a dagger from his cloak. A dark shape moves from its hiding place and devours the man. Gemma’s mother picks up the dagger and plunges it into her own heart.

When Gemma realized it, she was back on the street in Bombay, as if she had never been gone. The young boy was pinning her arms against her sides demanding that she tell him if she had seen his brother. She kicked the boy in the tenderest of places and he crumples to the ground. She jumps up and runs. She kept telling herself that this was some kind of hideous dream, and she would soon wake up in her own bed.

Gemma wobbled as she saw her mother’s body on the ground. Those green eyes were open and unseeing. Her mother’s mouth parted slightly as if she had been trying to speak when she died. A deep pool of red blood flowed beneath her lifeless body, seeping into the dusty cracks in the earth Gemma thought of Kali. Kali the destroyer

Tom, Gemma’s brother escorted her to the Spence Academy. She began to get acquainted with the other girls. She observe the other girls and sizes them up in her mind as to their quality and social status. Mrs. Nightwing, , the head lady gets their attention and introduces Gemma. As the group go to prayers, Mrs. Nightwing introduces Gemma to Ann Bradshaw, her new roommate. Ann was to accompany Gemma during the evening to make sure she got along. Gemma thought Ann Bradshaw to be a doughy, plain girl. A girl without money with a runny nose which she dabbed at with a shabby lace handherchief. They try to exchange civilities. At the vespers Mrs. Nightwing gives a speech which the girls said was for Gemma’s benefit which made the girls glare at her. In her speech Mrs. Nightwing had them repeat the school motto: Grace, charm, and beauty, which they all stood and recited together. Exiting the chapel after the vespers, the girl at the door stuck out her foot and tripped Ann. On the outside, Gemma thought that there was movement to her right. She thought she saw a black cloak running through the trees, disappearing in the mist. She was told that it was only the fog.

Throughout dinner, Gemma felt that she was being watch and wondered who could be watching her except her school mates. After dinner, Ann disappears. Gemma finds a quiet corner, sits and reads her mother’s diary. Ann returns and takes out knitting from a basket. The girls who tripped Ann invites her to eat chocolate with them, slighting Gemma.

Shrieks came from the chocolate-eating girls. Ann was accused of stealing Felicity’s ring.
Ann’s knitting basket is searched. When the sapphire ring is found in Ann’s basket, Gemma took it as a warning to watch her step. She surprised herself as she spoke up to help Ann. She stated that Ann had found the ring at vespers and was waiting for the proper time to return it to Felicity in a private moment. Miss Moore accepted the story

While Ann sleeps, Gemma hears noises: a branch scratching the window pane, the creaking of the floorboards in the room. It is Felicity telling Gemma to come with her. They meet up with Pippa. The girls go up the hill toward the chapel for what they say is for a little initiation . For her initiation, the girls wanted Gemma to take communion wine from the chapel. Steal it! When she goes to the altar, Gemma hears the doors closing behind her. She realizes that the girls have played a trick on her. She is locked up in the sanctuary. Then she hears a cough and footsteps. A hand clasps her mouth and she bites it. Katrick!

“We’ll be watching you,” he said to her.
Gemma feels or experiences forboding and cryptic messages and warnings.

She feels herself arguing with a spirit. Someone hurries her. Mary

She seems to hear her mother say “Run!”

Ann tightens the strings of Gemma’s corset helping her to get dressed for class. Gemma looked like her mother. Mademoiselle LeFarge’s French lesson. Felicity’s little clique was already seated in back of the room, causing Gemma and the other girls to have to walk the gauntlet to get a seat. Felicity sticks out her foot stopping Gemma in the narrow row between her wooden desk and Pippa’s.
When asked how did she get out of the chapel, Gemma retorted, “I have hidden powers.” When asked about the wine, she retorted that she had placed it in their room.
Gemma feels doomed when she’s in French class and Mademoiselle LeFarge asks her to have Felicity to help her.

In time, the girls seem to get along better. They realized, too, that Gemma has a sharp quick mind. They do things together. Excursions, trips, etc. On one occasion, Pippa began to shiver and shake. Dr. Rhomas was called. They tried to keep her quiet. The girls were warned not to ever speak about it.
Gimma still experience visions, having had a brief one just before Pippa’s seizure.
Dr. Thomas pronounce Pippa fully recovered. Church school has been dispensed with. Pippi is embarrassed by her loss of control brought on by the seizure. She was concerned that she might have soiled herself of made vulgar (I think flatulent) noises.
Pippa hopes that the surprise her parents have promised her will be a corset.
Gemma received a letter from her grandmother implying through the lines that she expects her to help
with the load of caring for her father when she gets home
The girls, dressed in their finery, are entertained by a séance. Madame Romanoff, Grand
Seer of St. Petersburg conducts the séance. She goes through the motion of helping people get in touch with their dead loved ones. She asks a general, broad question and the participants burst out and tells pertinent information themselves and the Madame just takes the credit for doing the work.

Gemma and Felicity go on stage and Gemma gives the madame wrong information asking about rosebushes that were supposed to have been in their back yard in Surrey. The Madame bit into it as if she saw the roses in Surrey. They had never lived in Surrey, so Gemma blew her cover. The woman was an actress pretending to be a seer. Her real name was Sally Carny. However, somehow when Gemma touched her, the madame seemed to be a conduit that connected the girl to another plane.

Gemma finds out that she has magical powers.
Gemma saw Karik after the show. When questioned he told Gemma that he was there watching her.

Assembly Day- A boarding school tradition in which the family of the school girl is allowed to visit, resulting in the mortification of all and the enjoyment of none.
The girls are dressed and coiffed. Gemma’s mind reels on the experience she’s had with her mother (or her mother’s spirit). She wished she could tell her family that she had seen her mother. That some where beyond here in another world, she is alive and loving and as beautiful as they remembered her to be.

Tom came bringing Grandmama dressed in her best black crepe mourning clothes. So did their father whose mind seems to get Gemma mixed up with his wife Victoria .

The surprise that Pippa’s parents had for her was to tell her that they had arranged to marry a fine suiter, Mr. Bartleby Bumble, Esquire
The girls meet Mr. Bartleby Bumble, Esquire, Pippa’s fiancé, who looks down his nose at them. He was fifty –four, even older than Pippa’s father. Pippa never married her fiancé, however. She was drowned while the girls were on a boating excursion. So she didn’t have to marry the man she detested, Mr. Bartleby Bumble, Esquire.
Tom came bringing Grandmama dressed in her best black crepe mourning clothes. So did their father whose mind seems to get Gemma mixed up with his wife Victoria .


Forgiveness… Gemma would hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each person lies good and bad, dark and light, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. Each person is of his own chiaroscuro, his own illusion, fighting to emerge into something solid and real.
Gemma was forced to face her own frightening, yet exciting destiny . . . if only she oould believe in it.