Pride and Prejudice 51-55: “You Belong With Me”

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As we barrel toward the end of Pride & Prejudice, Lauren and Emily tackle the concept of belonging. Also included: guilty consciences, OTPs/NOTPs, and some musings on how fandom made this podcast happen.

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane S2E11 | Pride and Prejudice 51-55: '“You Belong With Me”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers,

Emily: and I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today we're reading chapters 51 through 55 of Pride and Prejudice with a focus on belonging.

Emily: We are so close to the finish line.

Lauren: I don't want it to be over yet.

Emily: I know.

Lauren: I'm not convinced we shouldn't just do like three chapters and then three chapters just to like eke it out a little longer. I just don't want to be done with Pride and Prejudice. I love this book so much.

Emily: I mean, there's nothing stopping us from rereading it.

Lauren: I mean, it's not as though we don't watch the movie on our own time, all the time, anyway.

Emily: I know, right.

Lauren: Like we had posted on Twitter the other day cause someone posted a meme about like, you've seen this 42 times and the person goes, yes. And then it's just a picture of the Pride and Prejudice poster from 2005. And I quote tweeted it and I said, 42 honestly might be an understatement.

Emily: That's pretty low, honestly.

Lauren: It's a good, it's just a good movie.

Emily: It is. It's one of the, the only movies that I paid apple for so that I have it on my iTunes.

Lauren: Right. I think I paid Amazon. I don't remember who I paid. I paid somebody to make sure I could own it forever and always, yeah.

Emily: I also have a DVD copy because of course.

Lauren: Right. As you do.

Emily: Yeah. Because it's Pride and Prejudice!

Lauren: Anyway.

Emily: Anyway.

Lauren: We're almost to the end.

Emily: And there's, there's feelings happening. And before I lose it, we've got to recap.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Before we just go into, we skip the recap and we just go into like raptures.

Emily: Yes. All right, Lauren, are you ready to recap?

Lauren: I do believe.

Emily: Excellent. Ready in 3, 2, 1, go.

Lauren: Lydia and Wickham are married. They come back. Lydia has no remorse whatsoever, much to the shame and irritation of her entire family. Lizzie and Wickham have like a little bit of a moment where she kind of lets on to Wickham, like, I know you've been lying, and he just kind of doesn't know what to say to her about it. But the biggest revelation is that Darcy was at [00:02:00] Lydia and Wickham's wedding and paid for everything. And Mrs. Gardiner, her aunt, is like, I thought you knew this. I thought he did this for you. I don't know why you don't know, but I'll tell you why.

And Elizabeth doesn't know what to think. And I left out a very important thing because that was so stuck on --

Emily: You did, that's okay. I was strategizing my recap earlier, so that, so that I could include everything because that's exactly what happened to me last time.

Lauren: Okay. Please fill in when I did not get to because oh my God, what happened in five chapters? So many things.

Emily: Right.

Lauren: Ready to recap in three, two, one, go.

Emily: Lydia and Wickham are married and they come back to Longbourne.

And Mrs. Bennet is the only person who is happy about this. Lizzie finds out that Mr. Darcy was at their wedding and finds out from her aunt that he was heavily involved in the affair, but then Lydian Wickham have to go off, the Bennets are alone for awhile. And then the news comes that Mr. Bingley is coming back to Netherfield.

So he and Darcy show up at Longbourne. Finally, finally, Bingley proposes.

Lauren: Yeah for a hot second there, I was afraid you weren't going to make it either. I was like, no, no. At least one of us has to say this.

Emily: I feel like that may be the best recap I've ever done. I'm real proud of myself. Oh my goodness. So yeah, when we closed the last section, it was confirmed that Lydia and Wickham were getting married.

That disgrace at least was averted for the family.

Lauren: Yeah, so they-- the day of their wedding incomes and then the Lydian would come, come back to Longbourne and be received as a married couple by the rest of Lydia's family.

Emily: Most of whom are not thrilled with this.

Lauren: Yeah. As Emily said, Mrs. Bennet is the only one who is excited that they are coming back, for the rest of them --

Emily: Kitty probably is.

Lauren: Kitty too. I guess it's just not really stated, but Lydia and Wickham, were only going to be there for 10 days. And for [00:04:00] most of the Bennet family that is 10 days too long, they do not want them to stay and it doesn't help that Lydia doesn't even have the good grace to like, be a little bit embarrassed of all the trouble that she's caused.

Emily: No, not at all. She has not a wh it of care in her, she is ready to go and show off to everyone in the neighborhood that she's married and showed them her ring. And talk about how she's marrying a military man. And...

Lauren: Lydia is thrilled to come back and brag to her sisters and now she's a married woman ahead of all of them.

Emily: And she's the youngest! Like I'm still, the mind boggles. She is barely 16. And as I think I've said before, we like to joke about how, oh, you know, people were getting married at 15 in ye olden days or whatever. That was not normal. So she is married shockingly young and in a very scandalous way. And yet she just has no awareness of this whatsoever.

No awareness of anything or any kind of caution, which is how the little tidbit slips out to Lizzie that Darcy was at their wedding.

Lauren: Yeah, I wrote while in the section, Lydia is still the worst. I would have smacked her because I would have lost my patience completely, but she comes up to Elizabeth. And is like, well, don't you want to hear about my wedding? Like, you walked away! Because Elizabeth was so frustrated with her at one point that she just gets up and leaves the table as Lydia is just yap, yap, yapping away.

Emily: Better to leave than to physically assault her, so.

Lauren: Exactly. Where I would have smacked her, Elizabeth got up and walked away, like the mature person that she is. Lydia was like, well, you didn't hear it.

Like, dude, don't you want to know about my wedding? And Elizabeth was like no, not really.

Emily: What is it? What is it that she says?

Lauren: She says, Lizzie, I never gave you an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by when I told Mama and the others all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?

And Elizabeth says, no, really, I think there can not be too little said on the subject. [00:06:00]

Emily: Elizabeth "made of salt" Bennet does not want to hear a word of her sister's frivolous ill-advised wedding, but of course, Lydia completely ignores this because she never hears a word that anyone says besides herself.

And so she enumerates, every single thing that they did for the entire day and how, oh, she was worried that Mr. Gardiner wasn't going to be able to make it because he was supposed to give her away, being her uncle. But he had, was called a business at the last minute. And she only realized later that it might've been fine anyway, because Mr. Darcy could have given her away in a pinch. And Elizabeth just says, Mr. Darcy?!

Lauren: Well, you can just see the confusion and the shock. And if she were an anime character, like it just would have been like the whole freeze frame, like WHAAAAAT?!

Emily: The hair standing on end.

Lauren: 100 Percent.

Emily: Eyes bugging out, all of the teeth showing, whaaaaa??

Lauren: She glitches. She does not know how to handle this information. And then Lydia just says, "oh, yeah, you know, he was to come there with Wickham, you know, but gracious me. I quite forgot. I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully. What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!"

Emily: And then of course, Jane is like, if it's supposed to be a secret, talk, like, stop talking about it.

And Elizabeth, like despite the primal urge to find out what's going on is like, okay. Yeah. She recognizes that this is highly unusual. Absolutely the last place that she would have expected Darcy to be standing up in association with Wickham of all people who has done such horrible, horrible things to him.

And it's just such a, does not compute moment. He doesn't belong there at all. Like Lizzie is envisioning this scene and then someone says Darcy was there and she was like, no...

Lauren: That's not how the story goes.

Emily: But of course she's absolutely dying to [00:08:00] know, why was Darcy there? What is this about? And so she doesn't ask Lydia about it, which honestly is probably wise because Lydia probably doesn't know anyway, she doesn't care. It's like, it's just that, that weird man that we met last year. So she writes to her Aunt Gardiner instead for the tea.

Lauren: And her Aunt Gardiner is like, why the hell are you asking me? Like, basically in so many words, her first paragraph is like, I kind of thought you were the one who put him up to this. So I'm very confused as to why you're asking me. I'm sorry if I like assume too much, but like, girl, I thought you were in on this.

Emily: Yeah. She says, "I had not imagined such inquiries to be necessary on your side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence." Like the Gardiners are just the best. I just, I want to hang out with them. Like, can I be in their social circle please? But Mrs. Gardiner does indeed spill the tea. That Darcy was the one who leveraged his connections in the city through Georgiana's debacle to find out where Lydia and Wickham were, even before Mr. Bennet had returned to Longbourne.

And so Darcy was in London fairly soon after Lizzie and the Gardiners had left Derbyshire.

Lauren: It says, I think he left like a day after they did and went straight to London.

Emily: It sounds like he basically stayed long enough to like make his excuses to all of the guests that he had still had at home and his sister, and just hightailed it to London, to specifically look for Wickham and Lydia and went even to the woman who had so betrayed his trust by letting Georgiana be in contact with Wickham.

Like this is, this is some like reliving traumatic experiences for him. I'm sure. I, I can't even imagine.

Lauren: I'm glad that you were more serious about it because what I was going to say is I really want to read the fanfiction of what that encounter was [00:10:00] like. I want to know what that conversation looked like between Darcy and Mrs. Young, who was the person who had been in charge of, charge of Georgiana, because it says he has to ask her several times to tell him where Wickham is, because she knows. Because they stopped by that house when they got back into London, because apparently she and Wickham are still besties, whatever. But won't tell Darcy where they are.

And I just, I just really want to know what those conversations look like and how he convinced her to tell him where Wickham and Lydia were. I, you know, I'm sure like money exchanged hands at some point--

Emily: Mrs. Gardiner suggests that too, that there must've been bribery involved for him to get that information out of her.

Lauren: 100%.

Emily: Eventually he does find out. He talks to Wickham multiple times and talks to Lydia as well, which I think is, you know, kind of what pointed in his favor. Like he has no personal investment in this specific girl, but actually speaks to her in person, gets her side of the story essentially. And Lydia is convinced, but not particularly concerned that at some point they're going to get married, it's fine, whatever.

And Wickham very clearly has never had any intent to marry Lydia.

Lauren: He's literally just running because he's in debt to multiple people and was planning on resigning his commission and figuring out what he was going to do after that. But no, he just, he needed to get out. Lydia was obsessed with him. He wasn't going to say no to a young impressionable girl accompanying him to London.

So he was like, yeah, you can come. I don't really care that it's going to ruin your reputation. That sounds like a you problem.

Emily: I mean, that's literally like, yeah. The way that you put it, that like she ended up coming along. That's kind of how I imagine it must've happened too, like, maybe he let something drop that like.

He was going to go to London or he was going to resign his commission. And Lydia was like, oh, we should go together. It'll be so romantic. And he's like, okay. I'm like, I guess, whatever. But now, now he's stuck with her irrevocably.

Lauren: Forever.

Emily: No way out of this one, buddy. [00:12:00]

Lauren: See, when you do clownery...

Emily: But through Darcy's influence, he manages to convince Wickham, basically, like you have to marry this girl. And presumably I would think that like Darcy probably has enough influence to wreck Wickham's reputation if he actually shared publicly everything that has gone on. So he probably has a little bit of leverage there.

You know, Wickham has treated him abominably but still like this thing he can, he can do. Say, you know, you're trying to find yourself a place in society. I can make sure that never happens.

Lauren: Which I imagine is the card that he played when they were going back and forth about that. Because given that Wickham has such intimate knowledge of Darcy's financial status, he knows exactly how much he can ask for.

And Darcy can use that as his way to say like, no, I'm not. You can ask for that, but I'm not giving you this much money. That's ridiculous. And this is why you're going to be reasonable. Like, yeah, I'll help you. But to a point.

Emily: So when. He's found Lydia and Wickham and started kind of these negotiations with Wickham.

Darcy does go and see Mr. Gardiner being Lydia's nearest, responsible relative that he knows of. Ms. Gardiner also mentions that he had initially come to the house while Mr. Bennet was still there. But...

Lauren: basically he shaded Mr. Bennet because he didn't want to speak to him. He wanted to speak to Mr. Gardiner.

Emily: Oh yeah. He did not judge your father to be a person who he, whom he could so properly consult as your uncle and therefore readily postponed seeing him until after the departure of the former. Which like part of it, it kind of reads like shade, but at the same time, Darcy has actually had some kind of acquaintance with Mr. Gardiner. Whereas with Mr. Bennet, it's probably just [00:14:00] been handshake and names exchanged. So I kind of get that too. Like he, he has a better understanding of Mr. Gardiner's character and probably feels more confident in presenting all of this information to him.

Whereas there's no way for him to know how Mr. Bennet might react. You know, he could run out the door, grab a gun and go after Wickham, but he can be a little more assured of, of Mr. Gardiner's character, I guess. But it could also very well read as a little shade against Mr. Bennet.

Lauren: Both and?

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: I think too, the Gardiners have seen him and Elizabeth together, which is also the only reason that they let him be involved.

I mean, we could see in the past chapters, both her aunt and uncle kind of look in between the two of them, like something is going on here, and it hasn't been defined yet, but like the two of you are not just acquaintances. Like there's something deeper that's happening here, which is the only reason why they let Darcy get involved, because it would be completely inappropriate to let a stranger be involved in this kind of like intimate family business.

And so they clearly think that there's something going on with Elizabeth. And I wonder too, if that would have been part of why he was like, let me speak to Mr. Gardiner instead.

Emily: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, because Mr. Bennet had only seen him while he was at Netherfield. And even then probably not very often because Lord knows Mr. Bennet is not going to be dragged out of his library lightly. So anything that he is begrudgingly at, he's not going to be looking with any particular favor on other attendees and I'm sure whatever big to-do that was, Darcy probably wasn't very happy about being there either. So he has to be aware to some extent that like, okay, I probably haven't made a very good impression on this guy.

Maybe it's better to go directly to the person who still has some significant responsibility where Lydia is concerned or at the very least could act as middleman.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: But it turns out [00:16:00] that Darcy ends up taking care of everything financially. So he pays off Wickham's debts. He also sells some money on Lydia, incredibly. Because that's. That's so far out of the range of anything he could possibly be responsible for, but--

Lauren: he's not responsible for any of this.

Emily: No, he's not responsible for any of this. He expresses to Mrs. Gardiner that he feels responsible for it because he could have aired the dirty laundry at any point and, you know, let society at large know the kind of person Wickham was.

So he feels responsible much in the same way that Lizzie does, because she had that information as well. But he also purchases Wickham's commission in the regular army, which is a chunk of change as well. So he has laid out, God only knows how much money to salvage Lydia's reputation, basically.

Lauren: And that's another thing where even though it's less than the 10,000 pounds that Mr. Bennet had estimated,, it's still significant, like at least a thousand dollars to Lydia enough to purchase Wickham's commission, you know, all of this other stuff to where --

Emily: it's far more than the Bennets could ever have imagined laying down on one of their daughters. Like that's probably just infinitely out of their budget.

Lauren: 100%. And this entire letter is just Mrs. Gardiner telling Lizzie, like, will you please get it together?

Emily: I absolutely love it.

Lauren: My God, because she says again, you know, he says, emphasis on the 'he says,' that he did it because he felt as though it was his fault. And this was his way of putting things at ease. But I don't actually know that he's telling the truth, for the record.

I mean, that might be part of it. But I don't think he's telling the whole story here.

Emily: Yeah. She, she emphasizes that they had all agreed among themselves basically to kind of keep the secret, especially from Mr. Bennet. But that Mr. Gardiner is [00:18:00] really relieved to be able to divest some of that what he calls borrowed feathers.

And Ms. Gardiner continues from that and says, in spite of all this fine talking, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would never have yielded if we had not given Mr. Darcy credit for another interest in the affair. So, like, their personal and familial sense of honor and duty would never have allowed them to have functionally a stranger step in and cover all the financial responsibilities of their niece getting married.

But we're pretty sure he's going to be our nephew pretty soon. And so like that's...

Lauren: whatever!

Emily: Acting on assumed imminent familial connection.

Lauren: Just to backtrack to the commission part too. I know we had mentioned this when our theme was military, but just as a reminder, so to be in the more desirable, regular army, not the militia, you had to purchase a commission.

So Wickham is not in a militia he's in the regular army, which was a higher like status of military.

Emily: It sort of assures that you're a gentlemen, because you had the money to get in at that time.

Lauren: And so my handy dandy annotated copy of Pride and Prejudice says that the official rate for Wickham's commission at the time was about 400 pounds, but the actual price could have been higher because the scarcity of commissions created an active private market in which those already possessing commissions would sell them for more than the official rate.

So basically the black market of commissions.

Emily: Which is wild.

Lauren: Which is nuts.

Emily: But Hey, if, if you want to put a little honor on your name and you got the money for it, why not, I guess

Lauren: The story of capitalism, honestly, if you have the money for it, then why not?

Emily: Just like, I cannot even fathom, like, this is, this is what comes with growing up middle-class. I'm like, why. What are you doing?

Lauren: Everything is possible if you have enough zeros in your bank account. [00:20:00]

Emily: And boy does Darcy have zeros. But it seems like even with the extremes of the situation, Darcy was perfectly amiable with the Gardiners. He even dined with them the day after Lydia and Wickham's wedding.

So he, he's treating them as acquaintances, even possibly his friends, despite class differences and their implicit association with this scandal that has just happened with their niece, running away with a rascal.

Lauren: Which your standard reasonable, ordinary stranger would attempt to distance themselves from.

Emily: Your standard reasonable, ordinary stranger would have heard Lizzie say, my sister's run away with Wickham and been like bye. Adios!

Lauren: So sorry for you. That sucks for your family.

Emily: That's rough, buddy.

Lauren: You know, maybe I'll see you in 20 years. I hope, I hope that you marry better than she does, good luck to you.

Emily: But Ms. Gardiner, never one to miss a shot, finishes her letter like, I might be making some assumptions, but like, you can't be mad at me. Or at least let me come back to Pemberley like, when you're the mistress of it, just a...hint hint.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: I love it. I love Mrs. Gardiner so much.

Lauren: Like even before that, she goes, will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzie, if I take this opportunity of saying what I was never bold enough to say before, how much I like him. I'm like, girl, go get your man.

Emily: Get that man. He was here for a reason and the reason is not Wickham.

Lauren: Look, people are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And he's trying to tell you, he wants to be here for a lifetime.

Emily: Take the hint. I mean, even the fact that he dines with the Gardiners after the whole affair is concluded. Like if you were really just there to ease his own conscience with regards to Wickham, Why would he not have just hired, hightailed it back to Pemberley or like dined with someone else [00:22:00] that he knew in town, because surely he's got business contacts or whatever, but he, he took up the Gardiners on their invitation and went and talked with them again.

So that's significant and Mrs. Gardiner knows it.

Lauren: Oh yes, she does.

Emily: And it seems like Lizzie is beginning to sort of let those suspicions back into her own. Because she's been so violently suppressing that urge to assume that he's still in love with her because he, he was perfectly friendly at Pemberley, he was even friendly to her at Rosings, in front of his horrible aunt.

And what I really loved was just this one little short line as Lizzie is considering what Mrs. Gardiner has said and all the applications of this letter and why Darcy was there and it says, "her heart did whisper that he had done it for her," but then she's like, that's ridiculous. No, absolutely not. Can't be. Impossible.

Lauren: It's one of those things where it's like, you don't want to allow yourself to hope because if you do, and then you turn out to be wrong, the pain is even worse. And so you just ignore all of the really obvious signs because it's safer just to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That can't be. I must be interpreting this entirely the wrong way, because there's no way that one, he could still love me.

And two that he would humble himself so much as to ask me again. Because she also is like, there's, there's not a man on earth that would propose to the same woman twice. It's just not happening.

Emily: Yeah. It's not wanting to get her own hopes up, but also I think unwillingness to presume that much because it could very easily come off as just thinking really highly of yourself, like, oh yeah, I'm so good he would propose to me twice. But yeah. She has a little meditation on like absolutely not proposing to the same woman a second time is the last thing any self-respecting man would do.

Lauren: [00:24:00] Exactly. Yeah.

Emily: But she, she does acknowledge how deeply grateful she is for the compassion and the honor that he showed in the way that he handled the situation with Wickham. And it actually says, "for herself, she was humbled, but she was proud of him." Like, Lizzie. Get your man!

Lauren: We're, like, slow motion running to the obvious conclusion.

Emily: Running through the airport.

Lauren: Oh my gosh.

Emily: Before he gets on the plane.

Lauren: You know, what that makes me think of is the scene from Monty Python, where the person's running over the hill and it just keeps cutting back to the same shot of the person running over the hill and they never get any closer.

Yeah. And in the same chapter, Then she has a little encounter with Wickham.

Emily: Oh my God, the awkwardness of this. No time to breathe.

Lauren: She's just trying to go on her walk, mind her business.

Emily: Read her letter in private. And Wickham, I mean, he wasn't like out looking for her. He was just also out walking and they just run into each other and have like the most awkward conversations. It's like, we're going to try to be civil, but Wickham's also trying to find out how much she knows about the truth.

And she, she really doesn't give him anything like the vaguest inclination of things that she's heard or people she's met. Like she says that she met Georgiana, but doesn't say anything about other information she may have gathered about wickham.

Lauren: She gives him enough to make sure he understands that she no longer believes his version of the truth.

Emily: Enough to make him uncomfortable.

Lauren: And that she knows that there was more to the story than what he's telling her.

Emily: And I understand that she doesn't want to go that far for the sake of her sisterly relationship with Lydia. I mean, it might not be much of a relationship, but they're [00:26:00] stuck now. He is her brother-in-law for good.

So there's no use in perpetuating that kind of antagonism that would come along with just how deeply uncomfortable every, I mean, all of their interactions are going to be uncomfortable anyway, because she has this information and he kind of knows that she has this information.

Lauren: Also, they had a flirtation before!

Emily: They did.

Lauren: So it would have been awkward anyway.

Emily: Right. But yeah, I understand why Lizzie is not content, but she is resigned to dropping the matter, because they're connected now for better or worse. And why throw that kind of rift into the family. It's already a miracle that they've salvaged this much face.

Lauren: Amen to that. But then we have a different turn of events.

One door closes and another door opens because...

Emily: And this is a very nice door.

Lauren: A very nice door. Lydia and Wickham finally leave. Mrs. Bennet, of course, is in histrionics, but she happens to pull herself together when she finds out that a certain someone is coming back into town.

Emily: Mr. Bingley is expected at Netherfield again!

Lauren: Let's say, which of course Mrs. Bennet finds this out from her sister, who's just as much of a gossip as she is. And I heard from so-and-so that they saw the housekeeper from Netherfield in the market the other day. And she said that her masters coming back.

Emily: He's, he's coming back for the shooting. It is hunting season. I, I don't know of what, some kind of bird, it doesn't really matter, because you know, this is just a pretense, right? He's not really there for the shooting.

Lauren: He's there to shoot Jane's heart with an arrow of love.

Emily: Aww, our little Cupid.

Lauren: And who has he brought with him, but the very person Elizabeth can't decide if she most or least wants to [00:28:00] see.

Emily: Honestly, I commiserate, but he is there nonetheless and Bingley is there and he looks to be just as much in love with Jane has he ever was before.

And as much as she denies it, Jane is also pretty well gone.

Lauren: Swearing up and down to Lizzie, any chance she can get, I'm not in danger anymore. We'll meet as perfectly indifferent acquaintances.

Emily: The lady doth protest too much.

Lauren: And Lizzie at every point, it's just like, okay, if you say so.

Emily: Of course, Mrs. Bennet uses every opportunity to throw them together alone. She's like by God, if I have to put him down on one knee in front of her and hold his jaw and make him say the words, he is going to propose to my daughter.

Lauren: I could not deal with her winking at Kitty and Lizzie trying to get them out of the rooms.

You know, they're gathered, Mrs. Bennet is trying to get only Jane and Bingley alone in the room together. But Lizzie and Kitty are there. Lizzie is ignoring her mother. She can see that she is trying to like make eyes at her to get her to get up. And Elizabeth is just like, no, I don't think I will. Whereas Kitty doesn't get it at all.

And is like, why are you winking at me?

Emily: Mrs. Bennet's like, "I'm not winking at you, come on!"

Lauren: I think the other thing is that, you know, Mrs. Bennet receives Bingley with like all the love and warmth in the world, but is still super cold to Darcy when he shows up.

Emily: Which Elizabeth is just agonizing over, because she can't say anything about anything, obviously, but she's also just like, do you have to be so passive aggressive?

Just because he wasn't friendly the first time around and like, okay. Maybe he said that I wasn't pretty enough to dance with that one time, but it's been a year, come on.

Lauren: And like, if you only knew how much he had done!

Emily: If you only knew. Yeah. That, that [00:30:00] really gets her. And I, I get the sense that she's relieved that at least Jane knows.

So Jane can kind of back her up in like trying to not be cold to Darcy, but of course, Jane is totally enraptured with Bingley. So she has her priorities. Yeah. Oh my God. They're so enraptured. Bingley's there, like all the time.

Lauren: Oh, just keeps showing up.

Emily: They're so sugary sweet. If you threw water on them, they would melt.

Lauren: It's ridiculous.

Emily: So ridiculous.

Lauren: The purest couple you ever did see... that's not technically a couple yet.

Emily: Right. They're basically a couple, I mean, at this point with him coming around to their house all the time and they're, they have, you know, their little private moments, like they're pretty much a couple by the standards of the time, that's basically a couple.

Lauren: Bingley comes back all the time, Darcy really only comes like once or twice. And in the first visit, he doesn't really say much. Elizabeth doesn't know what to say, because she doesn't really know what is a safe topic of conversation.

Emily: Cause she's not supposed to know that he did anything.

Lauren: Nope.

Emily: For Lydia. She's not supposed to know that he was even in town.

Lauren: And it's much harder for them to have that same like easy rapport that they did at Pemberley because now the situation is different and obviously the focus is on Jane and Bingley, because Darcy also knows why he and his friend are back in town. Like there is a clear object there.

Emily: Yeah. At the beginning of chapter 54, Elizabeth was kind of frustratedly musing to herself, "why, if he came only to be silent, grave and indifferent, did he come at all?" It's moral support. He's trying to be there for Bingley!

Lauren: He's a wing man!

Emily: Because Bingley's made out of cotton candy. He can't do it. He doesn't have a backbone.

Lauren: Not the gumdrop buttons.

Emily: Yeah, Darcy to, to anyone, but Elizabeth, who is so, so preoccupied with all of these other things, understandably. [00:32:00] He's friends with Bingley, and we've seen that Bingley really relies on him. He's just there for moral support. He's there to give him the punch in the arm and be like, go get them, buddy.

I actually made a note about the fact that because Bingley is back and Darcy is with him, Darcy must have admitted something to Bingley, probably not the whole, you know, intentional separation thing, but at least, "I was talking to Elizabeth and it turns out that I was wrong about the way Jane felt. So maybe shoot your shot after all?"

Lauren: Try it again?

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: My b!

Emily: I doubt that, you know, he, he would risk his own pride enough to be like, actually, yeah. We decided that to save you from marrying this woman we were all just going to jet. So I can't imagine that conversation going down because I feel like Bingley would be really hurt and it would probably take a while for him to recover that kind of trust.

Lauren: Agreed.

Emily: Even though he leaned so heavily on Darcy, but yet there had to be some kind of, at least the tiniest admission of a mistake on Darcy's part to convince Bingley that like, yes, you should go and do this.

Lauren: This human golden retriever.

Emily: I know, right?

Lauren: So sweet.

Emily: Sweet summer child. He's a, he's a cinnamon roll. He's, he's too good, too pure for this world.

Lauren: I do apologize for setting up Edward Ferrars on our Twitter poll, asking Austen hero would out-nice the other cause Bingley decimated him.

Emily: Bingley! Bingley! Bingley does not have a malicious or deceptive bone in his body, like in the tip of his pinky finger, he has more good will for the world than like entire nations, I swear.

Lauren: Not an exaggeration, I don't think.

Emily: Right? Like he's just [00:34:00] really golden retriever Bingley is... it's just so accurate.

Lauren: But should we talk about the absolute sweetest moment of this section?

Emily: Yes, please.

Lauren: Oh my goodness. Okay. Amidst all the scheming of Mrs. Bennet, trying to get Jane and Bingley alone. At a certain point, it actually happens. And they are able to spend some time alone together, which Elizabeth accidentally interrupts by walking into the room unaware. And they're very close together and clearly even having a conversation.

And then Jane throws herself on Lizzie saying that she's the happiest person who ever was and why can't everyone in her family be so happy because of course Bingley has proposed and she instantly accepted, even though she was in no danger of falling in love with him, again mind you.

Emily: Of course. No, never.

Lauren: And she is now Mrs. Bennet's favorite daughter.

Emily: Oh my God. They're both just like. Brimming. And I mean, I can only imagine Elizabeth is like, "but I interrupted this!" Like, "continue, I will leave, pretend I was not here," but as soon as like, the moment is broken, Bingley runs off to officially ask Mr. Bennet. And like it takes no time at all. Mr. Bennet is happy to give his permission. Jane runs off to tell her mother.

Lauren: And it's so cute because she's still talking to her mother when Bingley comes out from talking to Lizzie's father and he runs into Lizzie and he's like, where's Jane?!

Emily: Perfect. Precious. Although, Jane does have a couple stinging moments. One is when Mr. Bennet is congratulating her and saying basically, you're, you're both just so nice that all of your servants are going to cheat you, and you're always going to spend beyond your income. And Jane's response is, "I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me."

Okay, your daughters are not going to be left penniless, huh?

Lauren: Not on her watch. And she also gives her most unforgiving speech yet with regards to Caroline Bingley.

Emily: And [00:36:00] I mean, honestly, for Jane it's savage.

Lauren: If we have to put it in on a Jane scale, because for everybody else, it's like very nice. But for general--

Emily: Oh yeah, for anybody else that would be like, can, can you be a little bit angry? But for Jane, this is evisceration. When she tells Elizabeth that Bingley had said, he actually had no idea that she had been in London at all the last spring when Jane was staying with the Gardiners. So Elizabeth asks whether there's an explanation. And Jane says it must have been his sisters' doing, they were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects.

But when they see, as I trust, they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented and we shall be on good terms again, that we can never be what we once were to each other.

Lauren: Jane actually admitted that somebody might not have had her best interest at heart when relating to her?

Emily: Jane just said, they're not going to like it, but they're going to get over it. A round of applause for Jane.

Lauren: Well done, Jane. You done did it.

Emily: I'm so happy for her. They're so cute. Theyr'e so tooth achingly sweet. Like I've never had a cavity in my life, knock on wood, but this couple just might do it.

Lauren: Honestly, though, that's the high note that we end on.

Emily: Yeah, of course everyone in the neighborhood is like, y'all hit the jackpot.

Lauren: Just, you know, a month ago, they were talking about how that family was disgraced beyond repair because of Lydia. And now with Jane's engagement to Bingley, how their fortunes have changed.

Emily: Started from the bottom. Now we're here. Oh, but it's such a classic happy ending for Jane. It's so wonderful.

She thought that she had lost the man that she loved and then out of nowhere he comes and everything's just perfect and magical again.

Lauren: Because they belong together! What a theme for this week! Where did you see belonging in the section other than the obvious of Jane and Bingley being OTP meant for each [00:38:00] other, Jane and Bingley five ever?

Emily: I saw it kind of in first off kind of assigning responsibility blame for things. Does the guilt for Wickham's continuance in society belong to Darcy for not exposing him to the world? Does it belong at all to Lizzie for not telling her family, especially when Lydia was running away with Wickham. Yeah, where does all of this belong?

And I don't think that's something that anybody ever works out for themselves, much less with fictional characters. And then the, the other thing that stood out to me was just how jarringly Darcy didn't belong in that vignette of Lydia and Wickham's wedding and how that shocked Lizzie so much. That it just seemed completely out of place to her.

It made sense at the same time, but it just came up so quickly and unexpectedly that her initial reaction is just, "he doesn't belong in the story what's going on."

Lauren: He's sticks out like a sore thumb.

Emily: Yeah. So my mine was a little vague, I guess, especially with assigning blame. Who does guilt belong to? But what about you? Where, where did you see belonging?

Lauren: I like that you took it somewhere different than I did because my first thought was that it's not lost on me, that we chose belonging for a section that starts with a man who does not belong. And, you know, you can be tricky with the word for that because technically he does belong because he's part of their family, but at the same time, he's an aberration in the family, you know, he's not supposed to be there. That was never part of the plan. He doesn't particularly get along well with the rest of the family, he also sticks out, but for a different way.

And you know, I don't know what kind of husband Mrs. Bennet had inevitably been envisioning for Lydia and maybe a nice military man was what she had in mind, but I don't think any of them, even when they were thinking about like nightmare scenarios would have dreamt up this, you know? And this [00:40:00] first meeting doesn't belong, he's out of place.

The person himself is out of place. Everything just feels off. And off-kilter even though in a sense he does belong to their family, but he also feels as though he's a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And you get the sense through Lizzie as well, that maybe it'll just kind of feels like play, acting like this.

Can't be real. It feels like it's just, off.

Lauren: Thinking about it that way too, now that we're opening that conversation, it makes me think of. We say like belonging together in a way where it's a, meant to be a fated type of thing, where it's like two people are like equally yoked in the relationship, but there's also the ownership, connotation of belonging, where, especially in marriage, a woman's possessions now belong to the man.

So, like Lydia in a sense just belongs to Wickham, even as he doesn't really fit in with her family and like doesn't belong in that situation.

Emily: But doesn't necessarily want her to belong to him.

Lauren: No, but he will certainly accept, you know, any cash that she brings with her. So I was thinking about that too, and that connotation of belonging and all of that sense here. Like we can say belonging with a positive thing. Like, are they belong together? Blah, blah, blah. It's fate. But then there's also like the, the flip side of belonging where it's oh, who, who really belongs to who? Because that implies a kind of ownership over another person that isn't healthy.

Emily: Yeah. And actually phrasing that way of two people belonging together. That flip side I feel like is when you say, oh, they deserve each other. Yeah. And that's the sense that I get Lizzie thinks the Lydia and Wickham. Like they deserve it. They deserve each other. They deserve to be miserable together.

Lauren: Yeah. Jane and Bingley get the positive. They belong together. Lydian Wickham. Get the, they deserve each other.

Emily: I'm so glad that we got end this section on the, [00:42:00] the high point of Jane and Bingley.

Lauren: It just makes you believe in some kind of divine plan, you know, or just excellent plotting by Jane Austen.

Emily: But yeah, I mean it's, and it's completely arbitrary that it's these five chapters that we open with just the complete dissonance of "how on earth did Lydia and Wickham end up together?" To that perfect harmony of Jane and Bingley are finally together, the way it was always meant to be.

Lauren: Yeah. Cause I mean these five chapters aren't really like specifically grouped together in the book either. It just happened.

Emily: It's literally just our five chapter break.

Lauren: I didn't even think about that symmetry, that works out so well.

Emily: It's very symmetrical. I like it. I'm a big fan of symmetry.

Lauren: Same. I love most romance tropes, to be honest. And I feel like people like to turn their nose up at tropes because they're things that are done all the time. And I get it.

Emily: But they persist for a reason.

Lauren: It's because they're fun. And because we connect to them and because they're fun to read about like let people enjoy things.

Emily: It's about the journey, not the destination.

Lauren: Exactly. I know that what awaits me at the end is a happily ever after, which is why I picked up this book because I don't want misery. I want happiness.

Emily: I want a rollercoaster on the way, but I want everyone to arrive safely back at the station, hand in hand, probably making out.

Lauren: Yeah. Who doesn't?

Emily: Yeah.

So Lauren since, as I said before, I, I have no history at this time. Do you have a pop culture connection?

Lauren: I do, which I think is a little bit more meta, I suppose, this time.

But when I was thinking about belonging, I was thinking about why we started this podcast in the first place, because so often, like BIPOC fans or queer fans, or, you know, whoever feels that they don't belong in like the Janeite or the Austen fandom.

Emily: Anyone who's not a [00:44:00] straight cisgender white woman.

Lauren: Exactly. That made me think about, you know, even though everyone belongs in the fandom, the difference between belonging and feeling welcome. And I think sometimes there's a kind of. Tension, I suppose that occurs when people who aren't in the typical fan mold of a Jane Austen fan assert that we also belong in fandom and that we're part of it.

And some of that comes from, you know, even as we to want to belong in these stories with the happy ending, like, we also want to be like a Jane who gets Bingley at the end, or we want to be the Lizzie or the Elinor or the Marianne, you know, we want to belong in these stories too.

And there's sometimes tension that comes from that when not only do you not see yourself represented in the book, like in a physical way, but it's compounded when not only do I not see myself represented in the book, but then when I try and engage with other fans, they make it clear that I'm not wanted there either. And then that just compounds the well, do I actually belong as a fan in this space?

Is it for me? Or should I just like this on my own, and not even try to engage with the wider fan community.

Emily: There's so much about fandom that provokes those issues of whether or not you belong here because you're doing or not doing a certain thing, or because you look a certain way or identify in a certain way.

I dunno, I don't have anything significant to add to, to what you said because yeah, I mean, that, that really was the, the driving force behind this podcast is you don't have to be a straight CIS white woman to enjoy and engage with Jane Austen, whether that's critically, as we often do or just, you know, with the sheer joy of seeing a really cute couple get together, like everyone [00:46:00] deserves to be able to enjoy that.

And everyone deserves to see themselves represented. This is something that we talked about a really long time ago, and very briefly in the race episode of Sense and Sensibility, which we recorded after Bridgerton. And we had a little bit of conversation about their inclusion there of like an in-universe explanation for why there were black people in high society.

And I think we kind of came to a consensus there that it felt unnecessary. Like this is fantasy Regency England. Can you not just have black people without there being trauma behind it?

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Because that's what white people, we get to enjoy that all the time. You know, we don't have to have an, an universe explanation for why the queen of England is white in any given story.

And there was so much potential there. Like if they just hadn't had that, and if they had just let it be, and also, you know, filled out the ranks of their fictional society, a little better with more diversity, I feel like it could have been a much more satisfying experience for the people who were looking to that kind of media to see themselves represented unrestricted in that romance setting.

Lauren: Right. Yeah. And I think part of why shows like Bridgerton are so popular is because in this instance, like the fans of color, specifically, like always knew these stories can belong to us, but it felt like an affirmation, like, yes, we to get to participate in these stories. And it was like, somebody was saying, okay, yes, we see you and we see that you exist and you also get to have this type of story or this type of experience, or get to see yourself on screen, because you also belong in this world. We knew that already, but having that affirmed felt like something that had been so long overdue.

You know, like [00:48:00] yes, our real and uncomfortable stories exist and deserve to be told, but also we deserve escapism. We deserve happy stories. We don't need to just be reminded all the time of "this was what the struggle was," like yeah, we know! We lived it, slash are living it.

Emily: Yeah, we got it. And I feel like part of the reason that those real historical lives are so important to be remembered is because as white people, a lot of us, we don't learn that kind of history, whereas people of color are confronted with it every single day.

And so not to be like, oh, "but you need to cater to the white people who need to learn the history." Like we need to do our own work in learning that kind of history, but. Yes, those things should exist because we shouldn't forget them, but they should exist alongside the same kind of media for...

Lauren: for general entertainment. Yeah. Like I totally, like, I think those stories still need to be out there. I just want there to be more of a balance between trauma porn, pretty much, and like the types of stories where you can escape into a different world and unplug your brain for 90 minutes.

Emily: Take the pure escapism and make the protagonists not straight cis white people.

Lauren: That's it. That's all I want!

Emily: That is, we are begging for that. Hire production teams who are invested in telling these stories well, without the trauma.

Lauren: And for the love of God, hire a black person who can do their hair correctly. Get a natural hairstylist on set. And a makeup artist while you're at it.

Emily: That is our plea. Oh, just yeah. Do, do right by the joy that everybody deserves to have in media.

Lauren: That's it. That's all we want. But anyway, that has been my pop culture connection for today. Just thinking about belonging and who feels welcome. And just [00:50:00] a reminder that not only do all of you and any of you listening to the podcast belong here, but you're also welcome here.

Emily: Yes. And we're thrilled that you were here and we hope that you're able to take this kind of energy out beyond just this podcast and that you're able to find and create other spaces within fandom where you feel like you belong without caveats.

Lauren: Shall we do final takeaways.

Emily: Oh yeah. I was ready to outro, but yes. Final takeaway. Oh no, I have to go first.

Lauren: You do indeed.

Emily: Oh, I don't even know. Honestly. I think my final takeaway is just that Jane and Bingley are really cute. They're adorable. And they do belong together. Lauren, what's your final takeaway?

Lauren: There's so many different things to focus on that I'm not sure.

Emily: We covered so many different topics.

Lauren: Yeah. I think my final takeaway is that people should spend more time thinking about the difference between belonging and welcoming.

Emily: That's excellent. I like that. And those are huge difference.

Lauren: Yeah. Those are two very different things that seem similar. They can go together really well, but are not the same. So especially when thinking about like intentionally creating spaces, Sure. Okay. Everyone belongs, but how do you make sure that everybody is welcome?

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll look at chapters 56 through 61 of Pride and Prejudice through the lens of identity.

Emily: To read a full transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find show notes, the full back catalog and links to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy and our [00:52:00] show art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: We'll see you next time.