I need some brainstorming help. (Deb, this is the bit we were already discussing from the last chapter I sent you--I thought I'd bring it up here, too.)

I'm working on a scene in the Lucy edit where she learns that her eldest cousin, the titular head of the family, has run up huge gaming debts, and that one of the consequences is that he can no longer afford to support Lucy's many younger brothers and sisters. (Lucy's mother married really, really poorly, and if it were all up to her parents, they couldn't afford to give the children good educations or establish them in any kind of genteel profession.) Lucy, naturally, is distraught over this, and when James, our hero, learns what has happened, he proposes to her. Even though she doesn't especially like or trust him at this point in the story, she accepts, because she feels she owes it to her family. Well, that, and she's very physically attracted to him, but I digress.

What I'm stuck on is her family's reaction. In the original version, everyone but her cousin Portia, who wants James for herself, is supportive, and I decided it needed more conflict. Much more conflict. What I'm stuck on is a good reason for her Aunt Georgiana (the cousins' widowed mother) to be unhappy about the situation. Georgiana is generally kindhearted, but she's also weak and ineffectual. In the current version, I have her angry because she'd hoped that James would elope with Portia--Portia is engaged to someone else that Georgiana thinks is wrong for her, but G. doesn't quite have the balls to put her foot down and forbid the match, which she technically could do since P. is under 21.

Anyway, Deb and I don't really think the new version works--it's just too over-the-top, and too hard to believe that a woman of her time would actually be rooting for her daughter to elope. And yet, I want G. to be upset about Lucy's engagement for some reason, because I want her to be isolated from her whole family at this point in the story. Any thoughts? And do the following facts give me anything to work with?

1. Lucy is the consummate shabby-genteel poor relation--her mother was a squire's daughter but had no fortune to speak of, while her father was an ambitious man from an impoverished and common background who never actually succeeded at anything he attempted. If it weren't for G. and her late husband taking Lucy in, she'd literally be nobody. Just before the story opens, G. had offered to help Lucy find a husband so she wouldn't have to work as a governess or a companion for all her life, but she had in mind something like a curate, a junior officer in Lucy's cousin's regiment, etc. Whereas James is an extremely rich baronet and grandson of an earl on his mother's side. So Lucy is marrying well above her station, and she pulled this off without any help from G. Might G. resent seeing Lucy so exalted when she and her own children are being shamed and humbled?

2. After James proposes to Lucy, she comes back looking like someone who's been thoroughly and passionately kissed while sitting/lying on the floor in a dusty, little-used room, because that's what happened. I've already got her male cousins seeing her all disheveled and treating her as if she's a bit slutty. Could G. be a part of this as well?

Oh, and it'd help if whatever G. does isn't so terrible that Lucy will never forgive her, because I want G. to be visiting Lucy and James in the next book when Anna comes home from Spain, since she's also Anna's MiL.

I react more positively to 1) than 2), Susan, FWIW. It sounds like a very natural reaction on her part (moreso than "shoot, I was hoping my daugher would elope with him instead!")

I like reaction 1 a lot better. It's a more conflicty conflict -- something that has to do with both characters, not simply one disapproving of a specific action of the other.

Now I just have to decide how to play it. It's not so much "How dare you?! Begone from my presence!" as "Marrying high, aren't we? Are you sure you're ready for this?"

I like number 1 too. It seems like a natural reaction that would also include envy. Maybe she doesn't believe that Lucy plans to help the other children. Maybe Portia told her that Lucy was just out for herself.

Deb, send it, please. I'll read and get back to you as soon as I can. It may be Monday, though.

Just back from catfeeding.

Susan, something that occurred to me: suppose Georgina's reason was a nice simple one? Suppose that, under the chilly good manners, Almont's formidable sister had been unable to hide her distaste for Portia, and for Portia's family? Suppose Georgina had felt herself snubbed, enough to where she'd come to hate the thought of having to deal with these people? Suppose she felt - on the kinder side of herself - that Portia would never be happy living in a family where she was so looked down upon?

Bev, sending. I'll attach the entire thing, rather than splitting it out; the new stuff is the last nine pages or so.

Suppose Georgina had felt herself snubbed, enough to where she'd come to hate the thought of having to deal with these people? Suppose she felt - on the kinder side of herself - that Portia would never be happy living in a family where she was so looked down upon?

Hmm. Would that take us back to her being angry with Lucy because she wanted James for her own daughter?

I think it would. Not the kind of over the top, crushing, unGeorgina-like anger she's presently displaying in that scene; if you do it in a particular way, it could be doubly illuminating, because a) Lucy could suddenly understand her aunt's reason and, even more telling, she could understand that Georgina herself isn't admitting the slap to her self-esteem the snubbing left her with. Does that make sense?

edit: not so much "I'm angry at you because I wanted my daughter to run off with the man you've just snagged", as "I'm miserable and upset and ashamed at being snubbed and I think I'll simply die if I have to keep dealing with these people, and how could Portia ever be happy here, but I don't even know that's why I'm upset, or at least I refuse to admit it to myself, so I'm going to transfer all the blame over to you!"

That makes sense. Especially if it's mixed with "I'm ashamed of my son for humiliating the family so much in front of this woman who's already snubbing us," and "My life is going to be so hard now, and here's Lucy getting her life made easy through marriage to a rich and handsome man." With even a small side of, "I meant to do such a good deed by finding Lucy some curate or gentleman farmer to marry, and here she manages to snag the most eligible bachelor in Gloucestershire all by herself! So now I feel useless as well as snubbed, ashamed, and bankrupt."

Problem is figuring out how to get all that across so that Lucy can pick up on it.

Bedtime for me. I should've been in bed half an hour ago. I have to get up extra early tomorrow. Rassen-frassen overambitious choir director picking ridiculously complex music requiring an extra rehearsal the morning we're to perform it.....