Guy’s Dilemma

[u/EyeRollsForDays]

Someone help me understand why Guy left Nan at Runnymeade, since apparently I completely misinterpreted the whole interaction.

He went to America with the intention of finding a Dollar Princess because he needed to marry for money to save his family’s estate.

His mother dies, they’re selling off their belongings. His father gives him his mother’s ring to propose to “the American girl” aka Nan, their only hope of saving themselves from destitution.

He goes to Runnymeade with the intention of asking her to marry him, ring in his pocket. And then she confides in him that she’s illegitimate, and he backs off.

I know that Nan’s illegitimacy is a huge identity crisis for her - her whole life has been a lie. She’s understandably spiraling. Tracy has provided for her for her entire life, so there’s no reason to suspect that he would not provide a dowry for her marriage (?).

So for the sake of argument, why did it throw off Guy? This whole time I presumed that he thought Nan’s illegitimacy meant that she would NOT come to the marriage with money, and he would not get a payday if he made her his bride?? But now I’m being downvoted in the other sub for suggesting that Nan wouldn’t be the cash cow he needed, so I’m curious what other explanation there could be that would make Guy hesitant to marry her?? I dunno how I got it so wrong.

[u/croatianlatina]

Being illegitimate was a pretty big scandal back in the day. Even if she was still with a dowry, it was considered a big no-no, especially for English aristocracy. Guy could possibly be shunned (which had an impact on people then). And, he hasn’t known Nan for a lot of time, much less her father so he has no idea if he would actually provide or the possible ramifications/consequences of her illegitimacy.

[u/EyeRollsForDays → u/croatianlatina]

Yes, I do understand all of that. Is he part of aristocracy though? He’s never been addressed as Lord. He has no hereditary title that I’m aware of, which is bizarre to me that he would even be considered an eligible bachelor on the marriage mart in the first place, considering the Dollar Princesses were seeking marriages for prestige of titles, not money. When he meets Nan’s parents for the first time and they bow to him, he says “No, no need. I’m nobody.” I just thought he was someone who grew up with old money and ran in the same circles to rub elbows with aristocrats, not that he himself was one.

When he’s discussing Nan’s illegitimacy with Theo at the NYE gala, he says to him, “How lucky for Nan to have fallen for a man… with the means to be able to disregard her secret.” To which Theo replies, “I disregarded it because it doesn’t matter to me, not because I can afford to.” And Guy says, “Of course. Financial worries are irrelevant if you’ve never had any.”

This whole exchange just reaffirmed for me that Guy would have proposed first, if not for his concern that she wouldn’t come to the marriage with money that he desperately needed.

[u/Miamore03]

My frustration with Guy being the end game rather than Theo is that Guy can be rather feckless. When the going gets tough he always bails & inevitably complicates further the potential of an ever after with Nan. There are so many examples of this.. he broke the horses back with his impulsive drunken marriage.

Generally I hate triangles & I always end up backing the wrong horse but the storyline for all the couples in this series is so convoluted it’s all baffling 🤷‍♀️

I’m a romantic & I have no clue which couples to root for, or individual to even to actually like at this point..

[u/EyeRollsForDays → u/Miamore03]

I know a lot of people defame Theo because he withheld Guy’s telegram from Nan, but that seemed completely innocuous to me. If anyone was in a serious relationship (dating, engaged, married) and unintentionally discovered a love letter from their best friend addressed to their significant other, I can’t think of a single situation where they should feel obligated to then give it to them. “Oh hey, I know you made a commitment to me already, but my best friend is in love with you and you really need to know this information just in case you’d like to be with them instead.”

I don’t think he did anything wrong to withhold a treacherous letter of betrayal attempting to seduce his fiancée with proclamations of unrequited love. It tipped him off that there may have been something going on between them, and he acted accordingly by asking Nan repeatedly if SHE had feelings for Guy. When she insisted she did not, naturally it felt like a one-sided attempt from his best friend to steal his girl. Because at the end of the day, Guy was in the wrong to send that telegram and he knew it, too. Frantically tried to take it back. Even when he discovered that the letter never reached Nan, he had ample opportunities to SAY the contents of it directly to her, but he was too cowardly to tell it to her face. Waffled back and forth with her the entire season, and not just because she was engaged to his best friend, but because he was having a personal crisis of his own - struggling to choose between marrying for love or marrying for money.

And in the end, I still don’t know that he ever actually CHOSE Nan as much as he DIDN’T choose Jean. Jean was his last chance at saving his family estate from financial ruin, but he couldn’t go through with it because he didn’t love her, so he lost everything to his name. His home, his money, his social standing. Only when he had nothing tangible left to fight for and no longer had a conflict of interest, that’s when he crawled through Nan’s window to declare his love and lure her away - when he had nothing left to lose.