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How to Read “Inez of the Upper IV”
Banner of “How to Read Inez of the Upper iV”The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
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Introduction
In which an Old Girl writes, and luncheon invitations become articles of surrender.
Most Fourth Form girls, after receiving a tawsing, a detention, and a caning, learn to keep their heads down. Inez de Vries, however, reached out to her mother. Her account of the affair travelled through the post as a stowaway, arriving at Hollingwood Hall with the stealth of a midnight feast.
Lady Honor de Vries — Head Girl by record, an Old Girl to her fingertips — writes on monogrammed blue paper, her words as precise as they are perilous. They reach Saint Clare’s Headmaster like a perfectly timed volley on the hockey pitch: elegant in delivery, devastating in effect.
Poor Mr. Lewis, veteran and Headmaster, responds on cream bond, summoning every Edwardian circumlocution to defend his flank. He insists that Saint Clare has “ever been jealous of its reputation” — a dangerous protestation, given that his previous post at a boys’ school ended, rather suddenly, and without fanfare. Here there lingers scarcely more than the whisper of a whisper, yet Lady de Vries has contrived to hear it.
The duel proceeds with the utmost courtesy: “your obedient servant” meets “with every good wish,” and each line conceals more sting than any prefect’s detention book. Meanwhile, Inez herself is counselled by Mummy in terms worthy of a field manual: play for position, win gracefully, reform from within, and, above all, guard your hands if you value your skin.
Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the simple font version.
Lady G. Honor de Vries
15 June 1955
Dear Headmaster Lewis,
I hope this letter finds you well and that St. Clare continues to uphold its fine tradition of cultivating young ladies with discipline, character, and common sense. I am writing in connection with an incident involving my daughter, Inez.
I have received a somewhat dramatic letter from her which I have chosen—very deliberately—not to share with our solicitor.
According to Inez, she received not one but two separate rounds of corporal punishment over the matter of a late essay, along with a most curious document involving the exchange of caning for academic credit.
While I understand and respect the School’s codes, I sincerely hope this “contractual” arrangement was not sanctioned at the administrative level. If discipline is now to be treated as a competitive sport, I trust the girls are at least being awarded points and prizes accordingly. I need hardly remind you how swiftly such matters, once whispered, can alter the tone of a Headmaster’s tenure.
Please reassure me that your staff understand the distinction between correction and coercion. Further, that Inez is studying the violin at my request. To strap a budding musician’s hands seems uncalled for, though perhaps your present geography master prizes percussion above bowed instruments.
Yours sincerely,
Honor de Vries née Randolph
P.S. Inez also mentioned interrupting a lesson on the Marshall Plan, which she appears to have found illuminating. If nothing else, thank Miss Clark for me.
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
The 
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
This first exchange between Clarissa and her father captures her earliest days at Saint Clare—tentative, observant, and already sharpening into something unmistakably her own. Clarissa’s letters home are notable not only for her frank admiration of one Inez de Vries—already firmly on the staff’s watch list—but also for the affection and respect she shows her father and his public life, and for introducing a private code between them: their “Jelly Baby Ledger.”
Clarissa left the ledger on her father’s desk the morning she departed for school—a small, deliberate gift in her careful handwriting. Its pages are marked with doodled sweets in the margins and a hand-drawn scale that ranges from “catastrophic” to “triumphant.” In her letters home, each Jelly Baby count is shorthand for how she is faring—socially, strategically, and in terms of her all-important tuck supply.
The paradox is part of the charm: Clarissa is still young enough to count her sweets in Jelly Babies, yet already capable of nuanced political metaphor and a subtle, sidelong interest in the de Vries family. Something is awakening here—not a rebellion exactly, but an alertness. She is watching Inez. She is watching the adults. And, increasingly, she is watching herself.
They were tucked away in a locked tuckbox, behind an embroidered handkerchief, a Latin vocab book, and three boiled sweets (two of them fuzzed). She cursed the book so no one could read them. Naturally, you may read them anyway –but on your own head be it.
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