Pride and Practicality

[ljwrites]

For the Pride Fanwork Prompt Fest on queerly_beloved, prompt is by fred_mouse. Posted here to be linked in a reply because of content warning (mention of marital rape/reluctant sex).

Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Pairing: Elizabeth Darcy/Charlotte Collins
Prompt: stepping out
Summary: Elizabeth's friend Charlotte's happy news leads to a less happy revelation and a long-overdue talk between the friends.
Bisexual Elizabeth and lesbian Charlotte, emotion, angst, and fluff. Lightly implied bisexual Mr. Darcy and former Darcy/Wickham.

"I wish you every bliss, dear Charlotte." Elizabeth covered her friend's hand with her own. "I will not tell you motherhood is an unadulterated delight"--she dimpled--"but I am at your disposal as one who is experienced in the state." She smiled to herself to hear her own boys shout and run in the parsonage grounds outside.

Charlotte grimaced. "Doubtless you arrived at it through a pleasanter path than I."

"Oh, Charlotte!" Elizabeth gripped her friend's hand before letting go, hovering and unsure.

"Do not mistake me, it would assuredly have been the same with any man." Charlotte patted Elizabeth's hand before she rose and walked about the drawing room, making small unnecessary adjustments and not looking at Elizabeth. "Mr. Collins and I did our duty, as English men and women do. I do not believe he enjoyed it much more than I did, but doesn't that make the performance all the nobler?"

The color rose in Elizabeth's cheekbones. "Forgive my saying so, Charlotte, but Mr. Collins could scarce have sunk lower in my esteem but with this contemptuous treatment of you, and I will have words with him when he returns."

"Oh, he is no more contemptuous than many a gentleman who would tip his hat to you in the street." Charlotte waved her hand at Elizabeth from her position by the window. "I implore you, speak nothing of it."

"But to think you could not have made a love match." Elizabeth rose and went to her. "It was my sole desire to see you happy, dearest, and I so feared Mr. Collins could not give you that."

"It was beyond his power, truly. I have known for long there can be no Mr. Darcy for me." Charlotte reached out and took Elizabeth's hand, drawing her close.

"Could there be a-" Elizabeth burst out, before she grew red to the roots of her hair.

"Could there be a Mrs. Darcy, do you ask?" Charlotte gave a slow smile, and touched Elizabeth's face. "Or an Elizabeth Bennet, my dearest and prettiest Eliza?"

"Charlotte, if the... the girlhood passion we shared was what prevented you from wedded bliss, I do not know how-"

"Eliza, you flatter yourself." Charlotte spoke close to Elizabeth's lips. "Our 'girlhood passion' did not prevent you from marrying for love, did it? Or do you fancy your effect on me so much greater than mine on you?"

"By all that is good, Charlotte, your effect on me has never ceased." Elizabeth held Charlotte's hand in a grip that made her wince. "Never, for a day."

"I would contest that, but I was the one who wedded first, was I not?" Charlotte's eyes filled with tears. "I wished to set us both free to find our places as grown women."

"As married women."

"Which is one and the same thing, in this world. And I was right--you found love where I knew I never could."

Elizabeth held her breath until Charlotte added the next words: "I never could, except for my very own Eliza."

They had been leaning closer and closer to each other, and with these last words from Charlotte they closed the small remaining distance as with one mind and their lips pressed together in a breathless, joyous embrace.

"Do you remember the poetry we used to read together?" asked Elizabeth, her forehead pressed to Charlotte's.

" ' Honestly, I wish I were dead.' " A sob burst out of Charlotte. Elizabeth took her in her arms, and with an arm around her guided her back to the table where they both sat down.

" ' Weeping many tears, she left me and said...' " Elizabeth took one of Charlotte's hands and handed her a handkerchief with her other hand.

" 'Alas, how terribly we suffer, Sappho.' " Charlotte pressed the embroidered cloth to her mouth and met Elizabeth's eyes over it. " 'I really leave you against my will.' "

They pressed forehead against forehead again, their hands squeezing each other's.

"Yet I recall that you did not leave so unwillingly." Charlotte gave her friend an impish look.

"I had no one to leave, for she left me first." Elizabeth traced a finger down Charlotte's jaw, making her shudder. "Do you find me faithless that my heart is given to two souls and not one?"

"No more faithless than that I am married yet my heart belongs to another." Charlotte turned her head to kiss Elizabeth's fingertip.

"And now that we are married, we have freedoms that we did not enjoy as girls." Elizabeth brought down her hand to cover their clasped ones. "Come away with me, Charlotte. Mr. Darcy and I will find a place for you."

"Mr. Darcy! Elizabeth, I dare not-"

"He was the one who suggested it, for he knows of our... special friendship." Elizabeth blushed and looked down. "I beg your pardon for revealing it without your leave, yet there is much that cannot be hidden after too many uncontrolled utterances."

"Oh, Eliza... and he loves you still the same?"

"He is only glad that my heart was given to one more deserving than his once was." Elizabeth gave an impish smile of her own. "That is a story for another time."

Charlotte brushed a strand of hair away from Elizabeth's forehead. "What must it be like, to be loved so wholly by the man whose name you bear?"

Elizabeth reached out and embraced her close. "If I could give an arm so that your husband were also your true friend, believe me that I would."

"I do believe you, dear Eliza." Charlotte caressed Elizabeth's back and gave her a tender kiss on the cheek before drawing away with a smile. "I also believe it would agree with me to go away in my delicate state to be cared for by my dearest friend--and to return less and less often to the Parsonage, as will happen from time to time with married women."

"Spoken like my wise Charlotte." Elizabeth took her hands and they giggled at each other like schoolgirls. After a furtive glance at the doorway and a moment of stillness to make sure none wandered without, they leaned forward to kiss each other again.

"Mama!" They were startled from gazing into each other's eyes by a shout from outside. "Look what Georgie's found!"

"A moment, darling," Elizabeth called back before looking at Charlotte. "This will be a frequent occurrence with children in the house, as you will find."

"Well then, I must start accustoming myself, should I not?" Charlotte stood up, drawing Elizabeth with her by a hand. "Let us go see what your sons have found."

Holding hands they walked down the hallway and stepped out the front door, squinting in the sunlight. They looked to each other before they laughed and ran hand in hand toward the children, their shadows merging into one in the melting brilliance.

Comments

[ljwrites]

I think one reason I like Austen is because it's a kind of antidote, for me, to the implicit misogyny common in genre fiction that girls can be cool and have agency only if they can fight with and turn on the boys. Austen's stories are very limited in scope and class, but they are really vivid portrayals of the small world she works with and I love how she affirms the values of stereotypically "girly" activities like caretaking and of female friendships.

Like one of my favorite parts of Persuasion was where the heroine's embittered ex-boyfriend (in modern terms) affirms his high opinion of her, despite their bad breakup, in her level-headed handling of an emergency where one of their friend group was seriously injured. The whole book has the heroine be, well, a heroine in how well she leads her household and takes care of people she loves, qualities that I love to see affirmed as positive and interesting in their own right. Obviously affirmation of traditional feminine virtues can backfire in their own way, so it's a nuanced issue.

[lb_lee]

It's interesting, because recently I've been watching Xena: Warrior Princess with a friend, and one of the things I enjoy is how Gabrielle, the plucky sidekick of the titular princess, is expressly stated to be a lousy fighter who talks her way out of everything. But she doesn't do it by batting her eyelashes and flirting; she's like Odysseus, or a used car salesman, in a, "wait wait wait, we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, you and I!" way, and that isn't a role I see women get to play very often, the kinda seedy persuader type. It's really enjoyable!