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Eliza and her friend   Written by Bridget D (10/10/2009 4:08 a.m.) in consequence of the missive, Doling out the Blame, penned by Robbin
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I think that the phrases used by Brandon, "ranging over town" and "Making acquaintnaces where they chose" showed a picture of two girls behaving in a way that they should not have done? We only know of their friendship with WIlloughby, but it was not really "on" for young women of their class to go about meeting young men who were "not properly introduced"....and who were not "checked out" by their chaperones or family...

It seems as if the father just let them go out alone when they should surely have had a maid or an older woman with them, not absolutely every time but as a general rule. If they made freinds with some young man at the library or the Baths or whatever, he should have confined his acquaintance to a brief few words here and there, or come to call on the girls' family/friends who were looking after them? So I do blame "friend's father" very much.. he should have known what they were up to...
Im not saying "Eliza was out to be seduced" but I do think she was behaving in a way that Im sure she knew Brandon and the lady who brought her up would not approve of. Being young and foolish she probalby saw no harm in it..but Im sure that she knew all the same that Brandon would not have permitted it.

But if Willoughy then made improper advances, I think that Marianne for example woudl have been shocked and disillusioned forever and rushed back to her home, but Eliza evidently didn't react in this way... We dont know the details of the seduction but unless she ran away iwht him before she actually became his mistress, it would not have been at all difficult for her to refuse his advances, slap his face and go back to her friend's home and write to Brandon to take her back home? Even if she had been taken away - perhaps with a promise of marriage - before she gave in to him, she must have had some money or she would nto have been able to go searching for Willougby later, so I imagien that if she didn't liek what was happening, again she could have left him and gone back to Brandon..

And again the fact that "friend" refused to tell Brandon the details of what had happened so as to help him find Eliza, surely showed thtat she "had not a proper way of thinking" and was a far from proper young woman....IIRC in P&P Kitty soon broke down and told the Bennets what she knew about Lydia's relationship with Wickham... So if she was Eliza's best friend and E was easily influenced, then she may well have been liable to behave in teh same wrorng minded way...


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