girl!Darcy rambles (Regency) - inheritances
So, I’ve kind of fallen in love with the idea of girl!Darcy, and I’m trying to figure out how to write him. Her.
I mean, as I see it, there are two distinct sorts of issues to deal with - first, those which necessarily arise out of the particular genderswitch (and therefore hold true for any version of it), then, those which arise out of the particulars of your story.
So, let’s take the simplest possible diversion from P&P. Everything is exactly like canon, except that Darcy is a woman and Elizabeth is a man. I’ve never written this, planned it, even imagined it - it popped into my head (as an example) approximately two minutes ago. What do you suppose I immediately started thinking about?
The Longbourn entailment, that’s what. If Elizabeth is Mr ??? Bennet, he can bar the entailment upon coming of age. A good deal of the pressure on Mrs Bennet and the girls vanishes. Mr Collins is no longer the heir. On the other hand, the pressure that canon!Mr Bennet refuses to feel will be solidly on his son’s shoulders; he’ll have to diminish the estate to provide for his mother and sisters, let alone his own children.
Speaking of Mr Collins, how will this affect him? He’ll still go to university, grovel to Lady Catherine, decide to marry on her say-so. He’ll still have heard of his cousins’ beauty. It just won’t be charity on his part - rather the other way around. Canon!Mr Collins was heir to a large-ish estate. This Mr Collins is merely a poor relation - a minor country parson with no expectation of anything more. A Miss Bennet is rather a step up for him, as Lady Catherine, no doubt, will be only too glad to point out.
However, he does have a steady, genteel income, a connection to a very grand family - Mrs Bennet won’t be half so eager to marry him off to her pretty daughters, but she’ll be quite happy to foist him off on Mary. He’s quite good enough for her. Canon!Mr Collins won’t look at any of the Bennet daughters after Elizabeth, but of course he’s quite vain, and he’s already been rejected twice (the first time by proxy, admittedly, but I doubt that makes much difference to him). If it’s just Jane, and he doesn’t have his position as heir to bolster himself up, he might consider himself lucky to get Mary. (And vice-versa, of course, because he’s still Mr Collins.)
So, in the course of about four minutes, boy!Elizabeth has naturally progressed to writing a Mary/Collins ship into the story. And all this arose out of the basic premise. There’s quite a lot more in that direction - boy!Elizabeth’s relationship to his sisters, to his mother (it’s hard to believe he’d be “the least dear to her of her children” under these circumstances - though she might take him so much for granted that the genderswitch wouldn’t significantly alter their relationship), and especially to his father. Elizabeth is very nearly a surrogate son to Mr Bennet. Here, he’d be an actual one. Would a young man have the same tendency to stick his head in the sand; canon!Elizabeth can’t do anything about her father’s failings, so she tries to ignore them. Elizabeth couldn’t try and get Mr Bennet to restrain her mother or put aside money for her dowry (and her sisters’) - it’d be vastly inappropriate from her. But from a son? Not so much. Mr ??? Bennet could do a lot more than his canon sister; the question is less what he could do than what he would.
So, that’s a bare glimpse at the Bennet side of things. But I’m not actually doing this for boy!Elizabeth. For me, there’s no great challenge in that - it’s been done in fanfic, and since it’s been done well, I don’t feel the urge to “fix it” (this is one of my primary inspirations re: fanfic). Heck, it’s very nearly been done in canon. Henry is darling, but there’s not a lot of complexity there.
No, as I said above, my interest is in girl!Darcy.
So, what would necessarily result from a change in his chromosomes?
Well, it’d be the Darcys with no male heir, instead of the Bennets. Even if Pemberley isn’t entailed, daughters were usually co-heiresses of their father’s property. It wasn’t always equal - the Duke of Devonshire gave his daughter Lady Georgiana three times the fortune of her younger sister, but this distinction would be on a far grander scale. Would Daddy Darcy really leave one daughter thirty thousand pounds, and the other Pemberley?
Well, let’s think about canon. DD’s canonical will leaves Pemberley etc to Darcy, and makes him co-guardian of Georgiana. What does that tell us? Aside of the obvious, I mean?
Oh, of course! That will was recent! Darcy was only twenty-two when DD died. Any will over a year old couldn’t possibly have named him guardian to his sister. He wouldn’t be of age yet. He’d have been somebody’s ward himself. Certainly the living wouldn’t have been left to a teenage boy, at the discretion of one. It was made between his twenty-first birthday and his father’s death.
Well, of course it was changed once he hit twenty-one. That changed everything. (Huh, now I’m imagining an AU where DD does die while FD is underage. Suddenly I’m sorry for whoever his prospective guardian was. Very very very sorry.) DD left the kit and caboodle to his son, except for thirty thousand pounds to his daughter, and assorted bits and pieces to whomever. Then he died.
So, same situation, only his son is a daughter. For twelve years, she was only-child-and-heir, a la her cousin Anne de Bourgh (oh, and of course there’d be no arrangement there - who would Lady Anne and Lady Catherine ship their daughters with, I wonder?). Then another one came along. Another daughter. And you just know that everyone was desperately hoping for a son after all that time. Poor Georgiana probably has even more issues than in canon - if that’s humanly possible.
This girl might not be incredibly thrilled at the baby sister who’s just totally screwed with her inheritance - or, if her father pulled a Duke of Devonshire, her relationship with Georgiana would be more or less the same. Or if she just doesn’t care.
But it’s not such an issue early on. Twelve-year-old Catherine Darcy (crap, I’ve already named her - those who are not yet addicted to chocolate plot bunnies, allow me to warn you: this is the first sign of danger. When it hits you, run, run away . . . if you can) would be little more equipped to deal with Pemberley etc than the infant Georgiana. But nine years later, when she comes of age? Especially if her father’s health is failing over a period, rather than a sudden event. She’d be this crazily efficient schemer, like an Emma Woodhouse whose plans were actually well-laid and successful and such.
Scary.
But, like Emma, it’d make her a very good mistress of an estate - pretty much, uh, girl!Darcy. Perfect for it, in fact, except that she’s a girl. So it can either go to the appropriate male relation, get divided between the sisters -
Oh, wait, wait! It could be, like, Cecilia meta! It’s widely thought that P&P was Austen’s take on Cecilia, sort of like NA on Udolpho only more polished and such. This would be like a Cecilia-ish thing that’s a take on P&P!
For those that haven’t read (about) Cecilia, the basic premise is this: Cecilia Beverley’s uncle leaves her quite a lot of money. The only condition is that her husband take the Beverley name. The man in question - uh - declines to do that. Much angst ensues. I think she gives up her name and loses her inheritance.
Suppose that Daddy Darcy considers the alternatives. There is a vastly unworthy male cousin, there’s his sweet younger daughter, and there’s brilliant, super-competent Catherine who’s devotedly nursed him. He has a lot of - er - "family feeling." The minor estates the family has picked up are one thing, but he can’t bear the idea of Pemberley falling out of the family.
Suppose that he comes up with a plan.
According to their marriage articles, Lady Anne’s settlement of thirty thousand pounds is hers for life, and then settled between any daughters and younger sons at the parents’ discretion. (I'm theorising this - we're told it's how Mrs B's settlement works, but we don't know about Ly A's.) DD decides that all of this will go to Georgiana upon his death. In addition, she will receive a third of the value of all the Darcy properties when she comes of age or marries, whichever is first.
Everything else, though, is all Catherine's - under two conditions. She must marry (before she’s thirty, say) and her husband must take the Darcy name. If she fails to fulfil the conditions, she forfeits her inheritance to the unworthy cousin.
Ooh, and now there’s a potential plot. But this came after a lot of extrapolation and interpretation and sheer surmise - it’s specific to this story and not (solely) necessitated by the exigencies of the general plot. Quite different from the Mr Collins/Mary of "Elizabeth’s" side.
. . . Hum. I'll try for a more linear version next time.
I mean, as I see it, there are two distinct sorts of issues to deal with - first, those which necessarily arise out of the particular genderswitch (and therefore hold true for any version of it), then, those which arise out of the particulars of your story.
So, let’s take the simplest possible diversion from P&P. Everything is exactly like canon, except that Darcy is a woman and Elizabeth is a man. I’ve never written this, planned it, even imagined it - it popped into my head (as an example) approximately two minutes ago. What do you suppose I immediately started thinking about?
The Longbourn entailment, that’s what. If Elizabeth is Mr ??? Bennet, he can bar the entailment upon coming of age. A good deal of the pressure on Mrs Bennet and the girls vanishes. Mr Collins is no longer the heir. On the other hand, the pressure that canon!Mr Bennet refuses to feel will be solidly on his son’s shoulders; he’ll have to diminish the estate to provide for his mother and sisters, let alone his own children.
Speaking of Mr Collins, how will this affect him? He’ll still go to university, grovel to Lady Catherine, decide to marry on her say-so. He’ll still have heard of his cousins’ beauty. It just won’t be charity on his part - rather the other way around. Canon!Mr Collins was heir to a large-ish estate. This Mr Collins is merely a poor relation - a minor country parson with no expectation of anything more. A Miss Bennet is rather a step up for him, as Lady Catherine, no doubt, will be only too glad to point out.
However, he does have a steady, genteel income, a connection to a very grand family - Mrs Bennet won’t be half so eager to marry him off to her pretty daughters, but she’ll be quite happy to foist him off on Mary. He’s quite good enough for her. Canon!Mr Collins won’t look at any of the Bennet daughters after Elizabeth, but of course he’s quite vain, and he’s already been rejected twice (the first time by proxy, admittedly, but I doubt that makes much difference to him). If it’s just Jane, and he doesn’t have his position as heir to bolster himself up, he might consider himself lucky to get Mary. (And vice-versa, of course, because he’s still Mr Collins.)
So, in the course of about four minutes, boy!Elizabeth has naturally progressed to writing a Mary/Collins ship into the story. And all this arose out of the basic premise. There’s quite a lot more in that direction - boy!Elizabeth’s relationship to his sisters, to his mother (it’s hard to believe he’d be “the least dear to her of her children” under these circumstances - though she might take him so much for granted that the genderswitch wouldn’t significantly alter their relationship), and especially to his father. Elizabeth is very nearly a surrogate son to Mr Bennet. Here, he’d be an actual one. Would a young man have the same tendency to stick his head in the sand; canon!Elizabeth can’t do anything about her father’s failings, so she tries to ignore them. Elizabeth couldn’t try and get Mr Bennet to restrain her mother or put aside money for her dowry (and her sisters’) - it’d be vastly inappropriate from her. But from a son? Not so much. Mr ??? Bennet could do a lot more than his canon sister; the question is less what he could do than what he would.
So, that’s a bare glimpse at the Bennet side of things. But I’m not actually doing this for boy!Elizabeth. For me, there’s no great challenge in that - it’s been done in fanfic, and since it’s been done well, I don’t feel the urge to “fix it” (this is one of my primary inspirations re: fanfic). Heck, it’s very nearly been done in canon. Henry is darling, but there’s not a lot of complexity there.
No, as I said above, my interest is in girl!Darcy.
So, what would necessarily result from a change in his chromosomes?
Well, it’d be the Darcys with no male heir, instead of the Bennets. Even if Pemberley isn’t entailed, daughters were usually co-heiresses of their father’s property. It wasn’t always equal - the Duke of Devonshire gave his daughter Lady Georgiana three times the fortune of her younger sister, but this distinction would be on a far grander scale. Would Daddy Darcy really leave one daughter thirty thousand pounds, and the other Pemberley?
Well, let’s think about canon. DD’s canonical will leaves Pemberley etc to Darcy, and makes him co-guardian of Georgiana. What does that tell us? Aside of the obvious, I mean?
Oh, of course! That will was recent! Darcy was only twenty-two when DD died. Any will over a year old couldn’t possibly have named him guardian to his sister. He wouldn’t be of age yet. He’d have been somebody’s ward himself. Certainly the living wouldn’t have been left to a teenage boy, at the discretion of one. It was made between his twenty-first birthday and his father’s death.
Well, of course it was changed once he hit twenty-one. That changed everything. (Huh, now I’m imagining an AU where DD does die while FD is underage. Suddenly I’m sorry for whoever his prospective guardian was. Very very very sorry.) DD left the kit and caboodle to his son, except for thirty thousand pounds to his daughter, and assorted bits and pieces to whomever. Then he died.
So, same situation, only his son is a daughter. For twelve years, she was only-child-and-heir, a la her cousin Anne de Bourgh (oh, and of course there’d be no arrangement there - who would Lady Anne and Lady Catherine ship their daughters with, I wonder?). Then another one came along. Another daughter. And you just know that everyone was desperately hoping for a son after all that time. Poor Georgiana probably has even more issues than in canon - if that’s humanly possible.
This girl might not be incredibly thrilled at the baby sister who’s just totally screwed with her inheritance - or, if her father pulled a Duke of Devonshire, her relationship with Georgiana would be more or less the same. Or if she just doesn’t care.
But it’s not such an issue early on. Twelve-year-old Catherine Darcy (crap, I’ve already named her - those who are not yet addicted to chocolate plot bunnies, allow me to warn you: this is the first sign of danger. When it hits you, run, run away . . . if you can) would be little more equipped to deal with Pemberley etc than the infant Georgiana. But nine years later, when she comes of age? Especially if her father’s health is failing over a period, rather than a sudden event. She’d be this crazily efficient schemer, like an Emma Woodhouse whose plans were actually well-laid and successful and such.
Scary.
But, like Emma, it’d make her a very good mistress of an estate - pretty much, uh, girl!Darcy. Perfect for it, in fact, except that she’s a girl. So it can either go to the appropriate male relation, get divided between the sisters -
Oh, wait, wait! It could be, like, Cecilia meta! It’s widely thought that P&P was Austen’s take on Cecilia, sort of like NA on Udolpho only more polished and such. This would be like a Cecilia-ish thing that’s a take on P&P!
For those that haven’t read (about) Cecilia, the basic premise is this: Cecilia Beverley’s uncle leaves her quite a lot of money. The only condition is that her husband take the Beverley name. The man in question - uh - declines to do that. Much angst ensues. I think she gives up her name and loses her inheritance.
Suppose that Daddy Darcy considers the alternatives. There is a vastly unworthy male cousin, there’s his sweet younger daughter, and there’s brilliant, super-competent Catherine who’s devotedly nursed him. He has a lot of - er - "family feeling." The minor estates the family has picked up are one thing, but he can’t bear the idea of Pemberley falling out of the family.
Suppose that he comes up with a plan.
According to their marriage articles, Lady Anne’s settlement of thirty thousand pounds is hers for life, and then settled between any daughters and younger sons at the parents’ discretion. (I'm theorising this - we're told it's how Mrs B's settlement works, but we don't know about Ly A's.) DD decides that all of this will go to Georgiana upon his death. In addition, she will receive a third of the value of all the Darcy properties when she comes of age or marries, whichever is first.
Everything else, though, is all Catherine's - under two conditions. She must marry (before she’s thirty, say) and her husband must take the Darcy name. If she fails to fulfil the conditions, she forfeits her inheritance to the unworthy cousin.
Ooh, and now there’s a potential plot. But this came after a lot of extrapolation and interpretation and sheer surmise - it’s specific to this story and not (solely) necessitated by the exigencies of the general plot. Quite different from the Mr Collins/Mary of "Elizabeth’s" side.
. . . Hum. I'll try for a more linear version next time.