Vanity Fair
Good grief, those upper class twits are complete maniacs. Alas, this is no Dangerous Liaisons, truly evil is vanquished but there’s an happy ending anyway.
Our hero is a pauper, raised in some kind of boarding school for orphans, or similar poors. But they how to entertain, speak French, play the piano. All the hallmarks of proper ladies, ready to marry some moneyed lordship.
Her friend is to marry some rich merchant’s son, and she leaves to be governess of a small noble family. Little does she know that family are noble but don’t have a penny to their name. She befriend an old rich aunt, and gets taken away to London, where she meets the love of her life: the boss’ heir. After they marry in secret, they have to live on his army salary and gambling wins, which sets up the fall.
Their debts catch up to them, and when the bailiff comes to seise their belongings, a passing nobleman pays off the debt. He does want payment, and only takes it in kind, her most precious and intimate organ. That guy is evil, puts her husband in debtor’s prison, does a big party inviting the King, but then he wants his pound of flesh.
Luckily, the husband gets to them before any fluid is spilled. The evil guy gets thrashed, but she is a whore in his view anyway, and is dumped unceremoniously. Alas, the upper class twat is still resentful, so reassigns him to Coventry Island, leaving to die on a godforsaken island.
There’s also the beta couple plot, with out hero’s friend. The guy she is to marry is a complete idiot and treats her like shit, but she is infatuated and lives for him. His friend has the hots for her, but she does not notice nor does he says anything. His father wants him to marry some Jamaican slaver negro, but he gave his word to the girl he despises, so they are cut off from his father’s money. He is eventually killed in Waterloo, the kid is taken away by the grandfather and she keeps pining for him, while the friendzoned guy keeps silently pining for her.
Our hero has the whore fame, might as well have the money. Years later she is found as a gambling den operator in Baden Baden, and finally meets her girl friend. Only after all this time, she says her friend’s husband was a self-centred idiot who hit on her, at which point her friend sees the light and marries the guy being friendzoned for decades.
Out hero runs away with some fatcat to India, marrying yet another guy who wanted to fuck her but never got around to saying anything.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.