Into the Wardrobe

Well, as some old-timers around her know, Miss Hardcastle is one of my favourite Lewis characters -- she is such a "refreshing" standout from the otherwise dreary and "careful" characters in and around the NICE. Of course she is a very nasty character and not at all one of the "good guys", but to me, she stands out as "distinct" and "recognizable" and is therefore appealing for that distinctness and recognizability as other typical Lewis favorites like Reepicheep and Puddleglum. I've started many a thread over the years with the Fairy as a topic in some way!:-)

In fact, my fascination with her as a character has in past years, in these forums, generated the rumor that I was infatuated with her (jokingly supported by comments from me here and there), and I once ran across the image below in a magazine ad that struck me as the perfect picture of Fairy going to the prom (as my date of course:-)



--Stanley

On second thoughts, this cannot really be The Fairy. Her lipstick is not at all smudged - and where's the leather? (if it's underneath, please don't specify)

Those are great observations, Stanley and Galion. The idea of her as a 'fairy' in the old sense fits in extremely well, I think - thanks for helping me define what is so (bizarrely) appealing about her! True to form, she isn't behaving herself *at all* on paper and keeps changing shape every time I try to get a proper outline

I'm trying to find physical details of her in the text. So, a combination of the ferocious, cold and ethereal? I'm apprehensive about combing the text for every little mention of her as I plan to re-read the Trilogy soon - and Lewis has this very annoying quality of sucking you to the story even when you just skim a page. So far I have:

- iron-grey hair, cropped short. Is this hair Sinead O' Connor kind of short, or scraped back in a more rigid, Victorian style?
- a black, short skirted uniform (Mieow!)
- a cheroot hanging out the side of the mouth.
- a square kind of face - but I imagine her as having very sharp and defined feature - sharp cheekbones, heavy jaw, etc.
- pale, smudge of lipstick - impish smile or stern look?
- I'm not sure if her eye colour is mentioned in the text, but she has a very piercing, knowing gaze, doesn't she?
- age??

Right, Moondroog. Let's see if we can answer some of your questions.
1. hair: not Sinead O'Connor. Straight, and brushed back severely in a style that was not, as I believe, beloved of the Victorians (except possibly Jane Eyre, and she was a weirdo anyway).
2. uniform: definitely black. Short-skirted: Lewis was writing in the days before the miniskirt, so I don't thisnk he mean around the navel. More likely the WW2 women-in-armed-forces type of skirt.
3. The cheroot: NOT, I think, hanging out of the side of the mouth, or as I think Lewis wites somewhere "seccotined to the lower lip". I imagine more at the sort of agggressive, challenging angle that Stanley portrays so well.
4. sharp features: well certainly firm. Nothing soft about the Fairy!
5. smudged lipstick: well, I think this means that she was making a contemptuous gesture towards fashion without taking any care as to how she put it on. As I've already mentioned, that's one of the few things that I think Stanley gets wrong - his Fairy's lipstick is too neat.
Stern look: at times, yes, in spades. "Impish" smile: probably more like "wolfish".
6. Eye colour: who knows? Perhaps, after a heavy night, bloodhsot?
7. age: well, she has to strike Mark as being "sexual", so given that he is a fairly stupid young man, I'd say nto much over 40, if that. More likely mid-30s.

Also, I don't really see anything "ethereal" about her - that was just Stanley's view of the WAIPs, whom I see more as the sort of fluffy blondes out of the joke book (Q: how do you know that your secretary is really a blonde? A: when you see Tippex on the PC screen. And please don't analyze that one!!) - or perhaps more like a Barbara Cartland heroine - terribly pretty, and like unto the proverbial three short planks.