Lizzy is Distressed: Owls

[fine_eyes_lizzy]

The letter is smudged in several places, and very hastily written. The signature is almost illegible from tear-stains.

Mel- 
I beg your forgiveness, (the rest of the line is obscured by an ink spill) 
You were right about Mr. Darcy. Please, may I speak with you? I have never felt so wretched in my life. 
-Lizzy

This letter was written with equal haste

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[fine_eyes_lizzy]

"I feel very sorry then, that I could not even think well of him when he confessed it to me," Lizzy replied softly, looking down a moment. "You are very lucky, though, to have loved someone who loved you back. I am deeply sorry that you should have lost him. I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been." She offered a melancholy smile at Lily. "But I do not think you ordinary in the slightest. You are capable of greater compassion for a relative stranger than some people are with their families, and I cannot help but admire you for it."

Once her thoughts were in order, she looked back at Lily with a slightly calmer smile. "It must have been very difficult for him, then. I was not insensible to the compliment, but it did not mean as much until now." She laughed a bit. "I think Mr. Darcy has risen a little in my estimation, with all due credit to you. I still think him disagreeable, and I think it very wrong of him to interfere when he should not and I am still offended by his constant insults, but it took great courage to admit what he did. I only wish- I only wish that I could have spared him the pain he must feel now. I have never wanted to injure anyone, even Mr. Darcy at his most offensive." Lizzy hesitated a moment. "Well, not entirely. When he insulted Jane I must confessed that I slapped him for being so unfeeling and for being so unconcerned for my sister's happiness. I am very ashamed of it, though."

[lilypotter60]

"Oh, I hated him at first," Lily hastened to tell Lizzy, a delighted smile tugging at her lips. "Thought he was a right prat. Arrogant, belligerent, always strutting about like he was something else. Spent most of his time showing off and the rest chasing after me, for Merlin knows what reason. Intelligent, yes, but annoying as hell. I couldn't stand him." A spasm of some deep pain crossed her eyes but Lily's smile didn't falter. "It took me years to figure him out, to see what lay beneath all the bluster and the cocky smiles. And he grew up, too, became more of a man. I - I loved him more than I thought I was capable of loving anyone or anything. I...I miss him."

She fell quiet for a second, gaze dropping to her fingers wrapped around the mug. Then she laughed again and looked back up at Lizzy. "I am the luckiest woman in the world," she said simply. "Because he loved me. Because I wasn't too proud or blind to miss it. I honestly don't know if I'll ever find that again - maybe it's something you only get once - but I did have it, once, I was loved."

Then she laughed again, a bit freer, and shook her head ruefully. "Oh, no, mate. Don't admire me. I thank you for the compliment, but... No. I'm not anything special; I don't do anything that anyone else wouldn't."

Her gaze turned admiring and she grinned. "Good on you, Elizabeth. Sounds as if he could have used a good slap - or a bit of a shout, which is my preferred method. And any pain he feels is, sadly, simply a byproduct of being in love. There's no way you caused it or can make it less, not if you don't love him in return. But it's a delicious sort of pain - a torture, yes, but something you almost want. Because it's a small piece of something you're not worthy of, something you can't ever hope to attain. Or," she gave a short laugh, "so I hear. I have, unfortunately, not been on that side of things. I knew James loved me before I realized I loved him. I had no doubts. And now..." Lily hesitated and blinked, a thought occurring to her, something twisting in her gut before she pushed it away and looked away, expression a bit lost. "Well, it's all different, isn't it?" she murmured, half to herself. Then, taking a sip of tea and composing herself, she looked back up at Lizzy.

"Forgive my ignorance," she smiled, "but...why does Darcy insist on insulting your family? Or interfering with your sister and Bingly? What could he possibly have against you?"

[fine_eyes_lizzy]

"Please do call me Lizzy," Elizabeth said, with a friendly smile. "I think that this only proves my admiration is well- founded. But to answer your question- I am not entirely sure. Mr. Darcy is excessively proud. I suppose he considers my relations beneath him. I am at a loss as to what he could have against me, though, as he just confessed that he loved me. Since I do not return his affections, I see why he has cause to dislike me now, but I do not see why he disliked me before. I thought he did. I was quite mistaken." She was extremely puzzled.

[lilypotter60]

"Beneath you?" Lily asked before a dawning comprehension lit her eyes and she scowled. "We have something that lends itself to that in the Wizarding world as well. It's rubbish, the lot of it. I had thought I'd taken a better measure of Darcy than that - I would not have guessed him for someone that something that asinine could matter to."

Leaning forward, Lily gestured with her hands as she tried to explain. "Now, see, that I do understand. At least, as much as one might understand complete insanity. All blokes, when they find themselves in love, are continually stuck at twelve years of age. The age of pulling girls' pigtails and stealing their books. If they like someone and they can't express it, they act out. It's to get attention, I suppose, or perhaps to convince themselves that they don't feel how they know they do. He never disliked you - or, if he did, it was soon overcome by love and all that. But, because of whatever odd idea he's gotten fixated on that something about your situation isn't good enough, he's treating you like shite - more than likely to try and drive you away so he doesn't have to deal with his feelings; it could also be so he might remind himself continually that he can't be in love with you." Lily snorted slightly and rolled her eyes. "Men, Lizzy, are idiots. All of them."

[fine_eyes_lizzy]

"I believe Mr. Darcy perfectly showed that," Lizzy said, shaking her head in amusement and laughing. "He considers my relations inferior, and, of course, he cannot disgrace his family name by bestowing it on someone like myself, with a dowry of merely 50 pounds a year."

"But all men behave in such a manner? Is there any one of them who would freely express their feelings, or avoid driving away the objects of their affections? It is quite sad if that is indeed the case."

[lilypotter60]

To say Lily's jaw dropped would not have been an understatement. "This...it's all... Money?" Voice incredulous, Lily sat back, absolutely gobsmacked. "The whole thing is about money? Merlin's wand, at least Wizards have the common decency to hate someone based on their blood. Money is...it can be made or lost by the turn of chance. It's nothing that matters, not really, not in the end. That is why you're not acceptable to him? He considers you poor?" A short, bewildered laugh and Lily was shaking her head. Again. "He's a bloody idiot, he is. And I'd like to tell him that, myself."

Lily stretched out in her chair and then reached for her mug again, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. "Men," she said with a fond snort of amusement, "have a logic and reasoning all their own. And most of them are sodding terrified of any sort of emotional vulnerability. Think if they open themselves up a wee bit, they're going to get ripped to shreds. A woman could be longing for just a few words, could almost be starving for them, dying for the lack of them, and a bloke won't be able to choke them out. It takes some great emotion or upheaval to force them to realize the importance. Once they feel safe, secure, than some of them can be brave enough to let some of it out. But others are... They're broken. Been hurt once too often; hex-shy and wary of any intimacy."

Lily's eyes flickered away for a moment before returning to Lizzy. "That's the hardest. To not know. And to have to...to figure things out on your own. James was - well, he was quite open. I was lucky in so many ways with him. I don't anticipate myself being that lucky again." Meaning she never thought to hear someone say 'I love you' again; never thought she'd find someone who would, or, at least, someone who would feel it enough - to whom she was worth it enough - to get break past the normal tethers that held such emotions back. "Darcy seems to me to be quite a usual bloke. Holds things in until he can't bear it any longer; lets out his emotions in odd and inappropriate ways. Can't hold it against him, against any of them. That's just the way they are, mostly."

[fine_eyes_lizzy]

"I expect so," Elizabeth said wryly. "My poverty, however genteel, and my supposedly low social connections offend his sense of pride and respectability. I suppose I should be honored he loves me despite all that, but I cannot think well of him for looking down on my connections and lack of funds enough to insult me about them, however unintentional the slights may have been."

Sufficiently cheered enough to come out of her concern with her own pain, Lizzy began to sense the near- longing in Lily's words. "I am sorry to have plagued you with something like this." She was silent a moment as she tried to sort out her thoughts on the subject. "But I think-I think, perhaps that anyone is lucky to hear someone say that they love them." She smiled ruefully. "For all I know, no one may ever say that to me again. But you have the great consolation of having loved, and been loved in return. I hope that is some comfort, even if your husband is here no longer."

[lilypotter60]

"He's an idiot. But..." Lily hesitated, mulling it over, then leaned forward, chin resting on her knees and eyes intent. "But no one is perfect. Everyone - everyone - has flaws. I couldn't be too fond of your Darcy, myself, if he'd insisted on insulting my family and the like, either, but the pride he's showing is a fault, nothing more. And it's not a mortal one, not something you cannot live with. It's simply...how he was brought up, I expect. I have a mate, my best friend, more like my, my brother," the slight falter went unnoticed by Lily, " - he was brought up to think that people like me, people who weren't pure blooded Wizards, were less, unworthy to study Magic. Or even really live, actually, at least according to the more fanatical of them. Sirius, my mate, he chucked off all of that. A more twisted, horrible family you can't imagine, and he's...he's brilliant. Amazing and kind and he takes care of me," she laughed a little, "even though it really should be the other way around. He was my husband's best mate, too. The point being, Lizzy, that you can't fault a man where he comes from. And that thinking does impact how they see the world. But what you have to judge them on is how they choose to behave beyond their families. Perhaps...perhaps the fact that he loves you, that he told you he loved you, is his way of starting to throw off all that rubbish about 'worthy' and 'family names'."

At Lizzy's concern a small but brilliant smile lit Lily's face and she sighed. "No, Lizzy. Don't ever be sorry - you needed someone to talk to and I'm always more than happy to do so. I'm sorry. I've just been...trying to figure some things out. And, unfortunately, missing my husband is just a small part of it. I'm...seeing someone. Someone I care about very much. But love is..." she sighed again, a rueful half-smile on her face, and shrugged, toying with her mug. "I know I love him. But I don't know if I'm in love, if that makes any sense at all. He's become one of the most important people in my life. But...he's not...I don't know. It all was so different with James and I'm afraid I'm very much in over my head." Then Lily waved all that off with a small flick of her hand. "Bah. Again, I apologize, Lizzy. We're here to talk about you, not about the muddled mess I fondly refer to as my brain."

[fine_eyes_lizzy]

"You're very lucky to have such a friend," Lizzy murmured, with a smile. "And I do not mind in the slightest. It is quite terrible that people behave in such a fashion- limiting one's acquaintance and society for purely reason of birth. Surely there should me more meaningful considerations? Brilliance of mind, liveliness of intellect, breadth of accomplishment... and all falls short of birth and status. Our worlds are not much different then, though I may reasonably say that anyone with enough cleverness or luck to amass a large fortune will not be shunned the society I am familiar with. Considered a bit more lowly than the well- established wealthy, perhaps, but there is some means of changing one's status." After mulling this over a moment, Lizzy sighed. "Perhaps I have judged Mr. Darcy too hastily then. I should hope not, for I pride myself on my ability to sketch characters. I know you do not know him, but can you give any sort of opinion on Mr. Darcy? My own opinion of him is so confused that I should dearly like to hear an opinion from someone else's perspective."