great expectations fic: i claim proud kinship with your race and blood (pip/estella)
Written for and cross-posted to 31_days.
I CLAIM PROUD KINSHIP WITH YOUR RACE AND BLOOD.
Great Expectations copyright Charles Dickens.
It was under the shade of great yawning oak trees in parks that they sometimes sat after having thieved from Herbert his bent-up poetry texts, where they read passages to one another, though never completed stories. (They liked to make up their own endings.) Pip thinks phlegmatically for a moment that his fingers could have been suited to deftly pilfering fruit from the merchants' stands, a skill that might have been honed and cultivated had he ever had the chance--but, he thinks, another life, another time. For now he is content in laying his head on Estella's lap and gazing up sharply through the branches of the oak tree that Estella has been resting against (their oak tree, actually, Pip thinks fondly, for it is theirs now, theirs) and sighs. He fingers softly the scribbled notes that Herbert writes in the margins of the text, he focuses on the white stillness all around them, he speaks suddenly and elegantly to Estella about the speech of Antinoüs as he begins with his favorite line in the text:
"To all she offers hopes, has promises for each, and sends each messages, but her mind has different schemes."
Pause.
"Here is the last pretext she cunningly devised. Within the hall she set up a great loom and went to weaving; fine was the web and very large; and then to us said she: 'Young men who are my suitors, though royal Odysseus now is dead, forbear to urge my marriage till I complete this robe--its threads must not be wasted...' Such were her words, and our high hearts assented. Then in the daytime would she weave at the great web, but in the night unravel, after her torch was set."
Then at once Estella sighs listlessly and moves to tuck a lock of her beautiful brown hair behind one ear.
Pip raises his head from where it lies. "Do you not wish me to continue?" he asks.
It is debatable as to whether or not Estella hears his question, however. "Yes,"--she speaks haltingly--"I know what happens next. But if it were me (though it is not), I should not allow myself the luxury of getting caught. I do not know why Penelope insists upon fidelity--of all the things--toward her husband, but be that as it may, she has insisted--only to blunder shamelessly and suffer. If she is to be sneaky about such a thing (which she is), I ask only that she be sneaky the correct way and, at the very least, not be caught.
"Otherwise," she says, "I commend her for allegedly leading the suitors on. An admirable act, certainly."
--But Pip's eyes are soft when he looks at her like this. Softer, still, she finds: his mouth over her own. Ah.
END.
Version quoted from is here.
I CLAIM PROUD KINSHIP WITH YOUR RACE AND BLOOD.
Great Expectations copyright Charles Dickens.
It was under the shade of great yawning oak trees in parks that they sometimes sat after having thieved from Herbert his bent-up poetry texts, where they read passages to one another, though never completed stories. (They liked to make up their own endings.) Pip thinks phlegmatically for a moment that his fingers could have been suited to deftly pilfering fruit from the merchants' stands, a skill that might have been honed and cultivated had he ever had the chance--but, he thinks, another life, another time. For now he is content in laying his head on Estella's lap and gazing up sharply through the branches of the oak tree that Estella has been resting against (their oak tree, actually, Pip thinks fondly, for it is theirs now, theirs) and sighs. He fingers softly the scribbled notes that Herbert writes in the margins of the text, he focuses on the white stillness all around them, he speaks suddenly and elegantly to Estella about the speech of Antinoüs as he begins with his favorite line in the text:
"To all she offers hopes, has promises for each, and sends each messages, but her mind has different schemes."
Pause.
"Here is the last pretext she cunningly devised. Within the hall she set up a great loom and went to weaving; fine was the web and very large; and then to us said she: 'Young men who are my suitors, though royal Odysseus now is dead, forbear to urge my marriage till I complete this robe--its threads must not be wasted...' Such were her words, and our high hearts assented. Then in the daytime would she weave at the great web, but in the night unravel, after her torch was set."
Then at once Estella sighs listlessly and moves to tuck a lock of her beautiful brown hair behind one ear.
Pip raises his head from where it lies. "Do you not wish me to continue?" he asks.
It is debatable as to whether or not Estella hears his question, however. "Yes,"--she speaks haltingly--"I know what happens next. But if it were me (though it is not), I should not allow myself the luxury of getting caught. I do not know why Penelope insists upon fidelity--of all the things--toward her husband, but be that as it may, she has insisted--only to blunder shamelessly and suffer. If she is to be sneaky about such a thing (which she is), I ask only that she be sneaky the correct way and, at the very least, not be caught.
"Otherwise," she says, "I commend her for allegedly leading the suitors on. An admirable act, certainly."
--But Pip's eyes are soft when he looks at her like this. Softer, still, she finds: his mouth over her own. Ah.
END.
Version quoted from is here.