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.....

"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."

Yes and yes and yes. If I an help with the getting-across bit, suggestions, let me know; it's a thing I do well.

Bedtime for me too. Reeling with the tired.

So, how does this drabble thing work?

Zenkitty, check out Teppy's rules:

[link]

I fear LiveJournal. Even now, I'd spend all my free time at the computer not writing my novel (clutches herself in giddy glee over actually having a novel in progress to be not-writing) and if I get into LJ, I fear I'll never do anything else.

Alas. So can I join?

Zen, yes, and you don't need to have anything to do with livejournal to do the drabbles. I just lnked you there because that's were the rules are listed.

We post the drabbles here. And Teppy announces the category every Monday.

Excellent! And since this is the last day for it, I'd like to contribute a drabble:

The End

If I had known how it would end, I would have stopped her.

But that’s not true. I did know, and I couldn’t have stopped her.

She didn’t say goodbye, or even look at me, as I helped her into the car. Standing alone in the empty yard after they left, feeling the world fall away under my feet, I knew: she wasn’t coming back.

It was far too late to change the ending. The inevitable was heavy around me, her death inescapable, and there was nothing to do but wait for night, and the ringing phone.

If I an help with the getting-across bit, suggestions, let me know; it's a thing I do well.

This is definitely helping, and I think I might even have an idea for how to do it.

Good one, Zenkitty. I love the last sentence.