In The Beginning, Part 2

[sonetka]

In which Philip begins the pursuit, and Norman Urquhart slithers back into his life. (Part 1 is here.) I may change the title at some point, since this one isn't particularly inspiring (and while something like, say, Fifty Shades Of Boyes would definitely stand out more, I wouldn't want to be responsible for the resulting mental scars). As before,

Comments

[persephone_kore]

Oh, Harriet.

[sonetka]

Depressing, isn't it? Between Harriet's confirming Peter's guess that she had been "bewitched by him, sorry for him, even badgered to death by him" and her own previous statement in court that she gave in because she was "worn out" by Boyes, it's not exactly the culmination of a great romance.

[nineveh_uk]

Just dropping in to say I am really looking forward to reading this and the preceding chapter in a day or so when my parents have gone home and work project done!

[sonetka]

Thanks! I hope you like it. I took the liberty of naming Philip's latest novel after you, as a tribute to all the fantastic fic you've written (which is, needless to say, much more entertaining than anything Philip could produce).

[lopezuna_writes]

But of course Phil would persuade her to live with him by telling her marriage was bad for women. The manipulative little so-and-so!

I was just googling around and it seems that the Boyes-prototype wrote his version of the story and it was recently reprinted. But $20+ seems rather a lot to pay....

[sonetka]

I've read a few of Cournos's short things (not his Sayers-inspired novel, though) and I don't know if I'd pay $20 to read more. However, I just looked at the UW catalogue a moment ago, and they have it! I'm in the area twice a week and now I absolutely must borrow it -- maybe I can do a write-up, I certainly have enough experience reading really atrocious fiction.

Boyes's line about the disadvantages of marriage was largely cribbed from Marriage And Morals, though I couldn't have him quote directly since that book didn't come out until 1929 (although of course the ideas and arguments in it had been floating around for some time). And he's very good at keeping Harriet off-balance -- he starts off not just by trying to justify free love but by presenting it as being practically a favour that he'd like to do her, and demanding that she justify her own desire for marriage -- which of course she can't manage to do on two seconds' notice after an exhausting evening. Their age gap makes a difference as well -- he's ten years older than she

[lopezuna_writes]

If you manage to get hold of the Cournos book, please do report back!

Whatever about anything else, Harriet definitely has a thing for older men, which, given the war, is likely to leave her with a thin market of poor specimens. What's wrong with a nice ordinary fellow her own age??

[sonetka]

I know! So many more of them and with a lot fewer issues as well. Though who knows, if Philip and then Peter hadn't come along, maybe she would have decided to take the Pomfret Option eventually :).

[nineveh_uk]

Harriet, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't do it! But she will. Of course, she ought to just sleep with him, find out he's terrible in bed, and then get on with life. He is so convincingly awful here

[sonetka]

Even if Philip was the latter-day heir to Casanova, living with him would still be a terrible idea -- there would be so many hours out of bed that you still have to get through! And while Harriet is fairly isolated, you're right that a big part of her problem is that she tends to cut herself off. It's pretty clear in canon that she (a) hates asking anyone for help and (b) hates being felt sorry for. She's also still pretty young -- the best I could work out, if you ignore the statement that she's twenty-nine in SP, which could be a slip-up on the judge's part, she was probably born around the beginning of June 1903 and is twenty-four years old at this point in the story. Admitting that she's in over her head with the Boyes situation and needs outside help/advice would be especially hard for someone who's become used to relying entirely on her own resources, has likely had to fight to be taken seriously as a detective writer, and who doesn't want to be pitied. I think she also overestimates the degree to which people like the Dean or

[nineveh_uk]

Really, she just needs to get out of the house more and realize that Boyes is not the only male creature on earth who will ever be interested in her.

She really does. And that whatever his good points, other people have those too without the terrible ones.

[witchwestphalia]

Bewitched, sorry for, badgered to death. Poor girl. Her loneliness/isolation definitely comes across. The only people she has to talk to don't really understand and are wrapped up in their own business, and the people who might be able to give her sensible advice, she doesn't feel she can talk to.

And a late bloomer, experiencing her first crush long after her friends did. She may feel she can't talk about it with her friends, so she doesn't discuss it with them. She could write, or go visit, after all. And she may well feel it's this man or none, given that she seems to have not had other men pursuing her prior to Boyes.

I ran across this fic on LJ's front page, and as a huge Harriet and Peter fan, I'm delighted!

[castiron]

I'm really glad that nineveh_uk recommended this; it's in-character and entirely & depressingly plausible.

[sonetka]

Thank you! The third part has slowed me down a bit but I'm hoping to have it up soonish.

[witchwestphalia]

I'm looking forward to it. You've captured Sayers' language and tone very well in the first two parts.