#lettice prestwich my beloved

[deepdeanvsweston]

lettice prestwich headcanons?

This might be biased because Lettice is my girl. She's wicked and spiteful and filled with comphet and I love her. Call her a projector the way she projects my insecurities. Lettice Prestwich has done Nothing Wrong Ever in her life <3

Lettice's secret was that she spent the previous summer in a psychiatric hospital, instead of finishing school like she said. Now when I read this I couldn't quite work out if Robin Stevens meant the summer a whole year before Jolly Foul Play, or if she had meant the immediate previous summer right before Jolly Foul Play. I choose to believe the latter because it fits with my version of canon :).

This of course meant that Lettice's secret must have been about the last to be discovered as they're all horrible right from the first term - Hazel mentions something along the lines of 'this year is different' at the start of her casebook, so Lettice must have been afraid of the leverage that Elizabeth had over her at that point.

I think, timewise, this makes the turn around of Elizabeth knowing her secret and then Lettice being cruel quite short, as she'd gotten home from the hospital over the summer and then immediately been in Elizabeth's cohorts.

As mentioned in my Enid headcannons, Lettice sort of takes her on as a project (sort of like in Emma)

- Life is fine for 14 year old Lettice Prestwich, brilliant even.

- she's got 2 parents who love her, the sweetest 4 year old brother, and good grades

- apart from she likes girls. oh god she can't stop looking at them, their lips and fingers and jawlines and legs. She feels sick sick sick and she thinks she deserves it. She deserves to feel sick. Nothing! Absolutely nothing, life is fine.

- she practically becomes third form's shining star overnight when they all find out she's going steady with a boy from Eton, son of a duke no less!

- and life is still fine! And Lettice truly does like it when he visits her for exeat, and holds her hand and kisses her. Just not for the reasons she should.

- There are no fireworks and there are no butterflies and there are no sparks. There is only the proof that she's desirable to boys, which fills her with a guilty delight that feels shameful in its origins.

- if Lettice tried hard enough, she can convince herself she's attracted to him.

- sometimes it's not even that hard, because after all, who doesn't like to be called beautiful, and be bought chocolates?

- to distract herself, she throws her energy into helping new girl Enid. She likes that Enid is a blank slate who doesn't know her, doesn't yet know she's popular because of a boy.

- it's now the summer after fourth form, and the duke's son wants to go further with her.

- they're in her garden, but far from prying eyes, and they're kissing like they usually do. It isn't so bad if Lettice closes her eyes.

- One of his fingers slip under the blouse and then he leans back, a silent question on his face.

- Lettice nods. She can't think of a good reason to not let him do it. 'just get it over with' she thinks. 'you might even like it'

-She's not even scared of him, he's such a gentleman he'd stop the moment she'd even thought the word no. And that makes her guilt rise like bile in her throat. Any other girl would kill to be unchaperoned in a garden with a duke's son, his hand up their shirt, whispering how gorgeous they are.

- the night after it happens, Lettice can't sleep and goes to her window and spies a shooting star

- "I wish he'd just go away. Please."

- a couple of weeks later, news reaches her that he'd been killed in a car crash.

- and the world crashes around Lettice. Her first thought is her dreams for the future, how she'd settled and accepted a life with the duke's son, marriage and children and a house now gone, and then she feels a deep shame. How could she think that, when his body is lying cold in a morgue?

- Lettice is convinced it's her fault. How could it not be, she wished him gone and now he is and she's dealing with the consequences. She half believes she's the devil incarnate, she thinks she's evil and wicked.

- She despises herself, and when she looks in a mirror, she wants to and thinks she deserves to waste away.

- her appetite is gone anyway because she is also grieving. Archibald, that was his name, even though he hated it and everyone called him Archie, was first and foremost her friend. He'd made her laugh.

- the entirety of fifth form passes in a blur, not even Enid can reach her. And her parents grow worried, so worried about her.

- Lettice doesn't even realise how bad everything's gotten until her brother, now about 6, refuses to greet her because "that's not Lettice, mummy, that girl looks like a ghost..."

- she agrees to go to the psychiatric hospital for the summer before sixth form, just to stop her brother crying, though she thinks she doesn't deserve saving.

- she pens a note to Enid, because she trusts her and they're friends.

- it doesn't really help, but as absence makes the heart grow fonder, she's glad to be back with her family, and maybe even just a little excited to be back at school with Enid.

- the very first day back, Elizabeth grabs her wrist, pulls her close and says "How was finishing school, Prestwich?" in a tone that tells Lettice that Elizabeth absolutely knew where she was.

- her heart freezes. "What do you want, Hurst?" Lettice has always been a bit unsure about her, but Enid somehow was pulled into her circle so she never questioned her. There's something almost dangerous in her eyes now though. Possessive.

- the events of Jolly Foul Play happen, and Lettice cries out of relief nearly every night for 2 weeks after.

- as for after Deepdean, she doesn't break through the comphet. She meets a nice man, and after years of miscarriages, finally has a daughter, Pearl.

- she keeps in contact with Margaret and Astrid who make her feel ok about being lesbian.

- she visits Enid sometimes, but Enid never tells Lettice it was her that told Elizabeth about the her stay at the hospital

- Lettice's husband runs off with a French woman he'd met on the front lines, and she couldn't be happier. Pearl is too young to remember him, and Lettice thinks good riddance.

- when Pearl is older, she starts to attend Deepdean, though only as a dayboader, her mother wouldn't allow otherwise.

- Una is now headmistress there, and when she smiles at her, Lettice thinks she can learn to love again.

Also just quickly because I didn't know where to fit in, Lettice absolutely was IN LOVE with King Henry