Ella was blasted (offthetapestry) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-22 00:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | eurydice, prospero |
Who: Ella and Cassidy
What: A literary discussion
Where: A bookstore
When: Today
Warnings: None
If there was one place in town that Cass could be counted on to be found in, it was the bookstore. He’d gone there for something new after his conversation with Valerie on the boards. He would try to find something new for himself, but maybe he could find a wedding present for her. She’d never expressed too much interest in them, but he was of the firm belief that there was a book for everyone, and along with something off of whatever ridiculous gift registry Monarch goaded her into signing up for it would make him feel a touch better about attending a ceremony he didn’t agree with between two people he didn’t think should be married.
He wandered through the stacks. He was wearing a light black coat against the rain, and his hair was still a little damp from wandering in from it. He was wholly absorbed in the titles on the shelf, and in puzzling through what Valerie might actually enjoy, and so hardly noticed when someone else entered the aisle.
Ella loved the bookstore. She loved it more than the public library, because she could take the books home with her and keep them once they’d become her friends. Library books always had to be returned, and she always felt a pang at returning something that she’d grown so close to. It was selfish, she knew, to keep the books and not touch them for months at a time, but she couldn’t help herself. It was an extravagant luxury, given the fact that all her money was going to New York to support her father, but she allowed herself it. The bartender at Orpheum was always willing to share finger foods if she ran short, and even if he hadn’t been so inclined, she would always choose the books.
She noticed the dark haired man in the aisle immediately, because he was young and not at all the sort of man she expected to find in a store that sold used books. It didn’t occur to her that he might be looking for something vintage beneath a case, because she’d never looked in the glass cases herself. He looked refined in a way that was familiar, that made her heart ache from just standing close, and she reached just past his shoulder with a pale, long fingered hand and held the book in front of him - an offering.
She was dressed in a vintage day dress, white and tight at the waist while billowing to the knees, chaste and only a few shades lighter than her pale, freckled skin. The novel was Wuthering Heights. “I adore Catherine,” she told him as she waited for him to turn.
Cass didn’t look up until the book was in his line of sight, and when he did he looked to the woman before the title. She looked strange, like she’d just stepped from the pages of the books on the shelf, in a dress from another year and the simple sort of grace of carriage most women didn’t have anymore. He looked down to the title, and smiled involuntarily as he read it. “I’m looking for a wedding present for a friend, and she’s already aware enough that I think of her husband to be as a Heathcliff, so Wuthering Heights may not be the best choice.” What was it about bookstores that made women wander up to him unprovoked in them? There had been a time when his first reaction would have been to tell this woman exactly what he thought about Catherine - not much at all - but he took a different tack. “Why do you adore her?”
“She doesn’t think,” Ella said, looking at the old book cover wistfully as she answered. “She feels, and she doesn’t think, and we don’t all have that luxury in life. Even when her choices are bad ones, they’re completely spurred by feeling. No walls to hide behind, safe things that grow tall and keep her safe. She lives in a way most people don’t know how to,” she said, passion in the soft and feminine words. She held out a white gloved hand immediately after. “Ella Gainsborough,” she said, introducing herself, a long strand of brown hair slipping over her shoulder to tumble to her waist - just another indication of her traditional nature.
For someone talking to a complete stranger, Ella spoke rather passionately. He took her hand, and shook it, eyes on her face. Then he took the book from her, flipping the front cover open to check the print date. “Cassidy Moran,” he said. He didn’t fear recognition of his name, since not many people did recognize it, unless they followed society columns with a religious fervor. “She feels, but how much of that is her and how much of that is her affectation and cultured upbringing? How much of what she feels is beneficial? Just because you do something based on feeling doesn’t mean that it is right, or it isn’t hurtful, or that it’s a useful way to live. One might argue that she should have thought things through more, and that if her feelings were to be so weak then they were not a very good compass.”
Ella didn’t recognize the name. She’d barely been in Seattle and she didn’t move in any society circles before that, and he was just Cassidy Moran to her and nothing more. That didn’t mean she couldn’t tell he was refined. Experience had taught her what a good shirt was cut like, and how expensive shoes looked, and how cultured people spoke. He wasn’t from Boston, however, and she knew that as well. “Her affection is without question. She loves Heathcliff. It might be a silly, unhealthy love, but she loves him. That has nothing to do with culture. She always shunned culture, even as a child. And no, acting on feelings doesn’t mean things are right, but I respect her for it. Do you do things on feeling? I wasn’t referring to her compass. I was saying she lived in a way we seldom do,” she argued with a stubborn tip of her chin, even as her voice stayed soft and melodic.
"But she eventually acquiesces to the man who represents culture instead of the one who represents nature, the one she loves, and she is fallible to being on the wrong end of the romantic conflict. They would have all thought she made the wrong choice, as do I." He flipped the book closed again. "When you make decisions based just on feeling and not at all on reason, those are the sort of choices that create tragedy," he said, not really answering her question. He moved away from her a little, toward the front, clearly expecting her to follow.
She didn’t follow. She did, however, raise her voice the smallest bit. “Marrying Linton was logic, sir. You have proven my point.” There was a hint of smugness there, along with a small smile on ample lips, if he turned to see it.
He turned back to look at her. "You said all her decisions were made based on emotion," he pointed out. "There was no caveat for Linton. And at any rate, I find it difficult to support a character who falls prey to that kind of weakness. If you like her as much as you say, you should be equally disappointed in the decisions she made."
“I like her, flawed as she is, without disappointment,” Ella pronounced with that same tip of her chin, but her voice softer now he’d turned to look at her. “She is imperfect, and that makes her better. She tried to do the logical thing, but in the end she chose her heart, even though it killed her to do so.”
Cass shook his head, looking at the cover of the book. "We'll have to agree to disagree," he said. He turned the cover of the book out to face her. "This is a twenties printing, and it's in good condition. Do you own the book already?"
“I believe you need it more than I do,” Ella said with a soft smile.
He smiled faintly. "I already own a copy," he said. "Do you usually argue the merits of characters from books with strangers in bookstores?"
“I believe in defending my friends,” she replied, glancing down at the book between his fingers.
“That is a feeling I think I know,” he said. “Even if your friends may not be mine.” He set the book on the shelf. “So you didn’t come here for Wuthering Heights, then?”
She shook her head. “You simply struck me as a Linton,” she said, the smile going a little warmer at the realization that they were talking at each other from opposite ends of an aisle in an old, dusty bookstore, as if they owned the world. It was a good setting, she thought. One worth writing.
"Then you think me to be a better and quieter man than I am," he said, with a touch of amusement. He could think of more than a few people who would tell her how wrong she was, Wren amongst them, most likely. "Have you been here before?" It wasn't as shallow a question as it seemed. Considering that he was in the store several times a week, she couldn't have been in town long, or logic dictated that he would have seen her there before. If she dressed this way all the time, he couldn't possibly have missed her, far too striking to pass beyond his notice.
“I just moved to town,” she admitted. The Orpheum’s doors had just opened, but she didn’t tell him she was from there. “I am like Heathcliff in an entirely new place,” she said. “Do you think Seattle will treat me better than the Heights treated him?”
"You don't strike me as much of a Heathcliff," he said, more than a little amused at the idea of this pretty woman in white as a byronic hero. She might have a touch of the appropriate pride in the lift of her jaw, but that was all. "And I think it would be hard to be treated worse." He looked down the aisle behind her, where dust motes were caught the dim light coming in through the windows. "Seattle is just a place. It is no more hateful or vindictive than any other place is."
“But it was a two-sided dice, Mr. Moran. He found Hindley, and the tortures he wrought, but he also found Catherine, who he loved for his entire life. Perhaps the very good always comes with the very bad,” she suggested, walking toward the front of the store.
"And what a love that was," he said, clearly thinking aloud, thoughts elsewhere. He fell in step with her as she walked past. "True, but it shouldn't. The good should sometimes just come with the very good, not that it often does. Really, most of the time, the bad simply comes with the very bad, and that is the way of the world."
She didn’t pick anything up or buy anything on her way out, though she did gaze at a few things wistfully on the way. “Always the optimist?” she asked, turning and looking at him as she walked backward toward the bus stop, where the bus was just pulling in, the line one that headed toward downtown and the Orpheum. She set one foot on the step of the open bus door, and she had to raise her voice very loud to be heard above the wind. “Sometimes, Mr. Moran, the good comes with the very good,” she called out to him as the bus pulled away.