Villette starts the next section by trying to make me not like Ginevra Fanshawe by having her be really snobby to Lucy Snowe. Joke’s on you, Villette! I never liked Lucy Snowe that much to begin with — except very occasionally when she starts blitzkrieging truth bombs — and I do like Ginevra Fanshawe because although she is a twit, she does not have conversations with Reason. (As far as I know.)
It’s lucky I do like Ginevra Fanshawe, because everybody else in this book is horrible. Let’s do a rundown.
Dr. John, having spent ignored Lucy completely since Paulina come to town, sits next to her at a party and speaks to her for the first time in three months, and you know what he says? He tells her that she’s as “inoffensive as a shadow.”
You know who else is bullshit, though? Goddamn Lucy! She keeps promising things I want, and then not delivering them. First she made me believe that she was going to do a scheme to make Ginevra look bad, and then there was no scheme, there were no contrivances. Absolutely nothing happened at that damn party. And then, and then, at the party when Dr. John’s trying to Miles-Standish his way into Paulina’s heart, and Lucy’s about to give him a piece of his mind as regards his flightiness as a friend and what he can do with his bullshit flirting-by-proxy requests (truth-bombs Lucy is, as I say, my favorite Lucy), she instead doesn’t fuss at him and fusses at Ginevra Fanshawe instead.
I am quite sure she went to bed that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
Okay, Lucy. If you’re sure. Also: REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU PROMISED US A SCHEME AND THEN DIDN’T DO THE SCHEME?
However, nobody does as much shitty stuff in this section as M. Paul. It was him going through Lucy’s stuff last time, and he keeps on doing it, and Lucy’s fine with it apparently because he leaves her books to read? Or something? Another way he might give her books if he wanted her to have new books would be to just give her the books, but okay. He also hisses rude things in her ear when she’s trying to talk to other people. He talks smack about England until Lucy yells at him. After that he badgers her to try and get her to admit that she speaks Greek and Latin (she does not).
Which — these appear to be courtship strategies? And although the correct response would be along these lines:
Lucy’s more like this:
even though her version of waving cutely is dicking M. Paul around by refusing to give him a present on the day everyone is giving him presents, even though she has a gift for him and he’s clearly hurt that she didn’t get him anything. Way to go, Lucy. You would do awesome as a seventh-grader.
Oh, and that’s not even to mention the fact that M. Paul apparently has a secret office that overlooks the garden, and he pretends the office is for studying but actually it’s for spying on all the students.
M. Paul has failed to live up to his early promise. He is the worst, and Lucy Snowe is the worst, and Dr. John and Paulina are the worst (oh, yeah, the other thing that happens is that Dr. John tells Paulina he loves her, snoooooore), and I’ve decided that this book needs to just be about Ginevra instead.
Head over to Alice’s place to see if I am the only member of the readalong who wants to punch everyone in this book.