A fic quandary!

[anghraine]

I was contemplating some of my future plans for Love, Pride & Delicacy (my f!Darcy/Elizabeth femslash fic) that I'm undecided about, and thought of just asking people what they thought made the most sense, maybe in a poll or something. But the particular quandary I'm wrestling with is dependent on knowledge of a plot development that's a significant spoiler, so I'm putting it under a cut instead.

If you don't care about spoilers, or at least ones for that particular fic, feel free to read below the cut and weigh in on The Quandary. If not, that's cool too, I'm just putting it out there.

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OKAY so what happens in the Rosings section of LP&D is that Catherine (f!Darcy) falls in love with Elizabeth (duh). Elizabeth has a major chip on her shoulder about Catherine because of Wickham, but also because of Catherine's own behavior at Rosings, and also because she's correctly getting the distinct impression that Catherine does not approve of her for Colonel Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth presumes for entirely snobbish reasons. The reality, of course, is that Catherine disapproves for snobbish reasons and because she's jealous and because she thinks Fitzwilliam is being cavalier about Elizabeth's feelings when she(Catherine) knows he has no serious intentions. Catherine considers Elizabeth her friend (Elizabeth is not aware of this!) and her(Catherine's) conflicted feelings eventually lead her to try and warn Elizabeth not to expect anything from Fitzwilliam. Elizabeth would not be receptive anyway, but Catherine's complicated motives and real classism lead her to deliver this in the most obnoxious way possible. There's an altered but recognizable version of the Hunsford scene+letter as a result.

Elizabeth, as in canon, feels pretty terrible once she accepts the truth. But there's a big difference from canon. Elizabeth and Catherine are women & acquaintances. There's nothing preventing Elizabeth from trying to make things right with Catherine in some way, through the power of song letter writing! She responds to Catherine's letter, expecting either silence or a chilly reply. But Catherine's eventual reply is more gracious than expected and pretty clearly allows for (without at all demanding) another reply. Elizabeth responds again. Catherine writes back. Etc. There's an epistolary gal pals section!

I'm set on that happening. What I'm unsure about is how open this would be. There's nothing really improper about Elizabeth carrying on a correspondence with Catherine. But it's a bit awkward given how much everyone in her social circle has bought into Wickham's story (how much she herself did previously!), especially while he's still in the area. If, say, Lydia knew about it, she might well be indignant on Wickham's behalf and wouldn't be shy about calling Elizabeth out for betraying!!! poor Wickham. If that happens, Elizabeth and Jane's decision not to reveal Wickham's real character would be more strained. Possibly, even, Elizabeth reluctantly does try and explain herself somewhat. Lydia probably wouldn't listen and maybe it wouldn't change anything in the long run. Then again, if Lydia were moderately warier of Wickham, maybe running off with him wouldn't sound as fun to her and she'd stay in Brighton.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm wholly convinced as to the probability of that. Maybe it's more likely that Elizabeth (as in canon) would be daunted by Wickham's reputation, and figure that, since he's leaving anyway, correcting the household opinions on him isn't particularly urgent and she'd downplay the significance of corresponding with Catherine. Or she could find her relationship with Catherine so impossible to explain that she doesn't really try all that hard. Or (etc etc) - this could go various ways, but I'm just not sure that Elizabeth would be inclined (or perhaps even able) to alter Lydia's opinion by enough to change the outcome at Brighton.

I genuinely don't know what I think! (Not a situation that often besets me.) If you're still reading, what do you think?

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Lydia still thinks the best of Wickham when she has clear evidence of his wrongdoing, I think there are very low odds of Elizabeth persuading her to think any less of him, especially if it's just based on the say-so of Darcy.

Elizabeth might try harder if she had more information from Catherine thanks to their correspondence. But as I recall (It's been a while) she was already plenty convinced of Wickham's dangerousness by that point in canon, she just had no reason to think convincing anyone else was worth the hassle, since he was leaving/had left town. I don't see anything in your premise that would change that.

As for hiding her correspondence with Catherine, I can see a number of plausible approaches, but would personally lean towards "don't actively hide it and unashamedly admit it if confronted, but don't cause trouble by pointing it out if noone notices".

Hmm maybe she'd start carefully trying to steer people towards a better opinion of Catherine without bringing up the correspondence, both out of a sense of fairness and not wanting things to blow up as badly if the correspondence/their burgeoning friendship is discovered.

[anghraine]

Elizabeth might try harder if she had more information from Catherine thanks to their correspondence. But as I recall (It's been a while) she was already plenty convinced of Wickham's dangerousness by that point in canon, she just had no reason to think convincing anyone else was worth the hassle, since he was leaving/had left town. I don't see anything in your premise that would change that.

Yes, I think you're right! It just isn't enough of a change on the Bennet end to alter Lydia's subplot wrt running off with Wickham.

"don't actively hide it and unashamedly admit it if confronted, but don't cause trouble by pointing it out if noone notices".

Yeah, that makes the most sense to me, too! I can't see her being actively deceptive about it, but trying to handle private matters privately is very much part of Elizabeth's characterization.

Thank you! :)

[beatrice_otter]

I don't know that she'd want to announce her correspondence, but I also don't know how easy it would be to conceal it. Unless she asked the servants to give her her post separately and not mention it to anyone, the family would know that she's maintaining a correspondence with SOMEONE. Maybe she could just sort of imply she's writing to Charlotte more often than she does? I don't think she'd lie about it. She'd also have to make sure Catherine didn't write a return address on the outside of the letter. But what about Elizabeth's own letters? She can't just leave them in a pile with the rest of the post to go out, not if she doesn't want people to see the address; she'd have to either enlist the servants or take it to the post office herself. Which means she'd be paying the postage, which means it would be coming out of her pin money. I don't think she can entirely conceal it even if she wants to.

I think Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are unlikely to notice unless someone else brings it up. I don't know if there's any way to defuse the Lydia bomb, but Mrs. Bennet might start angling for Elizabeth to be invited to stay with Miss Darcy (hopefully along with one of her sisters!) because there are sure to be rich men in Miss Darcy's circle.

[anghraine]

I don't think she'd lie about it.

Yeah, I agree. I don't think she'd even go to that much trouble to conceal it; thinking about it, I feel the most likely scenario is that she doesn't make a production out of it or anything, but she's not going to try and be super sneaky or whatever. It might well escape Mrs Bennet's and Lydia's notice, anyway, as you say. And yeah, I think you're right that there's no real way in this scenario to defuse the Lydia bomb without breaking the premise by adding other stuff, which I prefer not to do.

Mrs. Bennet might start angling for Elizabeth to be invited to stay with Miss Darcy (hopefully along with one of her sisters!) because there are sure to be rich men in Miss Darcy's circle.

Oh, if she knows about it, I could definitely see that. And it's not like there aren't eligible men in Catherine's social circle!