Acting on Impulse

by Georgette Heyer

  Heyer herself attended dances and parties of the kind that bored Cicely, and her four later contemporary novels would also depict heroines who struggled with aspects of the post-War London social scene. As a young woman Heyer enjoyed dances, although she disdained studio parties and had no time for bohemians. Cicely is bored with town life, dances and society, and has decided to go “into seclusion.” For an upper-middleclass girl enjoying all the delights of 1920’s London, this meant an escape to the country. She and a friend take a cottage in a “quaint village” where they will escape from city life.

  From here Heyer uses class difference as a driver for the rest of the story. Despite the destruction of so many mainstays of British life wrought by the Great War, England remained a strongly hierarchical society. Class still mattered and “A Proposal to Cicely” is the first of Heyer’s stories to reveal some of the attitudes prevalent at the time. These, initially subtle, class differences are first made known during Cicely’s exchange with a local farmer, Fred Talbot. In the secure knowledge that she is Talbot’s “better,” Cicely makes assumptions: “Come in to tea this afternoon, We’re fearfully bored. An’ then you can take us over the farm”. She receives “a shock” when he tells her he’s busy. Later in the story Heyer expresses the class differences more overtly: “Had he but known it, she was treating him as her inferior in that she still called him Mr. Talbot, and confined her conversation to farming.” He is simply a “diversion” from life in a small village where there “was no tennis and no society.”

  But there were dogs. “A Proposal to Cicely” is the first time that Heyer brought dogs into a story and Cicely’s “Pekinese” [sic], Chu-Chu San, may have been modelled on the Pekingese Heyer herself had owned in her teens. Richard’s bull-terrier, Bill, is also a breed Heyer would own, though several years later. Though neither dog is as developed as Heyer’s later canine characters, and serve rather as props, Bill does have a small dramatic role towards the end of the story. In this first short story, Heyer had not yet realised the full potential of the canine character, but it would not be many months before she did.

  A PROPOSAL TO CICELY

  CICELY hurled a cushion across the room.

  “That’s how I feel!” she said, and glared at her first-cousin once removed, Richard Spalding.

  “Good Lord!” he remarked, with a proper amount of sympathy in his lazy voice.

  “And you sit there—idling about in my room—laughing at me! I quite hate you, Richard!”

  “Oh, I say!” he expostulated, “I wasn’t laughing—honour bright!”

  Cicely looked scornful.

  “I’m absolutely sick of it all. Dead sick of it.” Cicely nodded so vigorously that her brown, bobbed curls seemed to jump. “I never want to go to another dance as long as I live.”

  “That’s bad,” said Spalding. “What’s brought on this sense of repletion?”

  “Everything. I've been trotted ’round till I want to scream! I feel like doing something desperate.”

  At that Spalding dragged himself upright and threw away his half-smoked cigarette.

  “Oh, splendid, Cis! I hoped that if I waited long enough, you’d melt. When shall it be? Be a sport, now, and—”

  Cicely covered her ears with her hands.

  “No, no, no! I don’t want to do anything as desperate as that!”

  Richard sank back again.

  “Thought it was too good to be true.” He pulled a leather diary from his waistcoat pocket and proceeded, gloomily, to make an entry.

  “What's that?” asked Cicely.

  “Diary.”

  “But what are you writing?”

  “‘Friday. Proposed to Cicely. Refused.’”

  In spite of herself, Cicely giggled.

  “Dicky, you are idiotic! When will you give it up?”

  “When we're married.”

  “We’re not going to be!” Cicely’s chin went up defiantly.

  “You can’t possibly tell. You never know what you may come to,” said Spalding cheerfully.

  “I’ll never come to that! And now we’ve got on to that subject I may as well tell you, Richard, that that’s another of the things I am fed up with. You ask me to marry you every day of the week, and I’m—”

  “No, I don’t!” Spalding was righteously indignant. “I’ve only asked you three times this week and three and a half last week. It’s down in the book, if you want to verify it.”

  “Can’t you be serious for one moment? That’s one of the things I hate about you. You're too beastly flippant! You don’t do anything. My husband’ll have to be a worker!”

  “He will be,” murmured Richard.

  Cicely disregarded him.

  “I know you think you do a lot—standing for Parliament, and—and all that sort of thing—but you’re just—flabby!”

  Richard, an athlete and an amateur boxer, blew another cloud of smoke.

  “Have you ever done a day’s work—hard, manual work—in your life?” demanded Cicely.

  “The complete park-orator? Four years in the trenches, that’s all.”

  Cicely was slightly mollified.

  “I don’t count that,” she said.

  “No, I didn’t think you would. What next?”

  “You’re too civilised. Too drawing-roomified. I’d want to feel that I could rely on my husband—not just that he’d be a great success at any party I took him to. All you think about is clothes and racing and whether your tie’s on straight. It’s not good enough for me.”

  “In five minutes’ time I think I shall propose to you again,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re so sick of everything.”

  “I’ve found a remedy,” said Cicely. “I am going into seclusion.”

  “What? Into a convent?”

  “No, silly. I am going into the country. I’ve taken a cottage.”

  “Cottage? You? D’you mean to say Uncle Jim's mad enough to let you go off on your own?”

  “Daddy knows that I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, thank you.”

  “Where is he?” demanded Richard, preparing to get up.

  “He's out. Besides, it’s nothing to do with you. As a matter of fact, I'm not going by myself.”

  Spalding looked slightly relieved.

  “I’m going with a great friend of mine, Maisie Duncannon.”

  “What, that fat, stolid girl who’s been hanging round here lately?”

  “Y–es. That’s one way of describing her. Are you satisfied?

  “No, I’m not!”

  Cicely reached out her hand to stroke her diminutive Pekinese. “Chu-Chu San is going, of course.”

  “That puts quite a different complexion on it,” he said. “He’ll look nice in the country. Stir the villagers up a bit.”

  “He’s a lot pluckier than your rotten bull-terrier!” said Cicely fiercely.

  Spalding brightened.

  “I say, will you take Bill? Do, Cis! I’d feel a lot happier about you if you’d got a decent sort of guard.”

  “Chu-Chu is a good guard!”

  “Oh, rather!” said Richard hastily. “But you must admit, he’s a bit small, what? Take old Bill—please! I’ve been wanting to get him out of town for some time.”

  Cicely hesitated. She knew that the last statement was entirely without truth, but she reflected that Bill would bring with him a certain sense of security.

  “He’d miss you,” she said, uncertainly.

  “Not a bit of it. Besides—” Richard checked himself. “Do take him, old girl!”

  “It’s awfully nice of you,” Cicely thanked him. “If you think it ’ud do him good—”

  “I do, most decidedly. By the way, where is this cottage?

  “Bly—I’m not going to tell you! No one’s going to know ’cept Daddy, and he’s promised not to tell a soul.”

  “Bly. I’ll remember that.”

  “You’ll never find it!”

  Richard recognised the challenging note.

&
nbsp; “Like to have a bet on it? An even bob?”

  “I don’t mind. My money’s safe.”'

  Richard smiled, and made a note in his pocket-book.

  “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” he said.

  THE pony trotted down the village street in a leisurely, abstracted way, paying no heed to his mistress’s voice. The excited barking of Chu-Chu San he took to be an encouragement to him to proceed. He ambled on.

  “Whoa!” said Cicely, sharply. She tugged at the reins. “Whoa!” she repeated, more as a request. The pony still ambled on. “Oh, please, whoa!” begged Cicely. “Timothy dear!”

  Timothy waggled one ear to show that he was attending to her. Chu-Chu-San yapped again and he waggled the other, accelerating his pace.

  “Shut up, Chu-Chu! Whoa, you! Stop!”

  Farther down the street a man stood, watching the pony advance. He was dressed in rough tweeds and riding-breeches, with stout leather gaiters, and he carried a short riding-crop. He observed Cicely’s struggles without a smile. When the trap drew alongside he stepped forward and caught the rein. Timothy halted obediently and looked round.

  “Oh, thank you!” sighed Cicely. “I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t stopped him. He’s frightfully pig-headed. It takes ages to make him start, and when once he’s got going he simply won’t stop—oh, no, Bill, don’t go and fight that dog, please!” She dropped the reins and hauled the departing bull-terrier back into the seat.

  Her rescuer half-raised his cap.

  “Glad to be of use. Dan Brown's pony, I think?”

  “Yes,” nodded Cicely. “But I’d no idea how tiresome he was, or I’d never have hired him.” She smiled, and ran her eyes over him appraisingly.

  He was fairly tall, and thick-set, with very broad shoulders, and a tanned face. Quite good-looking, she decided, and with a wonderfully square chin. Dogged and purposeful. And a grim mouth, too. Blue eyes that looked straight at you—almost steely. Cicely felt quite thrilled.

  Under her frank scrutiny the man had flushed little, but his eyes held hers unwaveringly. Cicely was unabashed.

  “Well, thanks very much,” she said. “And if you wouldn’t mind turning us round, I might get Timothy to walk back to the butcher’s.”

  For the first time a hint of a smile crossed his face.

  “I’ll lead you to the butcher's if you like.”

  “Thanks awfully,” she said.

  For a few minutes they proceeded in silence, while Cicely studied the back of the man’s head. Then he looked over his shoulder.

  “I reckon you’re the girl who’s taken Miss Fletcher’s cottage?” he said.

  Cicely nodded. “Yes. Do you live near?”

  “Mortby Farm.”

  “Do you really? Why, that’s just at the back of our cottage! Do come in and see us some time! And, oh, I should like to go over your farm. George—that’s the gardener, you know—say’s you’ve got the sweetest little pigs. Are you Mr. Talbot?”

  “Fred Talbot. And you’re Miss Duncannon, I daresay?”

  “No, that’s my friend. I’m Cicely Carruthers.”

  “Oh!” said Talbot, and relapsed into silence. He spoke no more until they came to the butcher's shop. Then he released the pony’s rein, and again touched his cap.

  “You’ll be all right now. Mean what you said about my coming in to see you?”

  “Oh, rather!” said Cicely. She descended gingerly from the trap. Talbot made not effort to help her, but watched her with an amused air. “Come in to tea this afternoon. We’re fearfully bored. An’ then you can take us over your farm.”

  She received a shock.

  “Can’t manage it this afternoon, I’m afraid. Can I drop in tomorrow if I have time?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Cicely, not too pleased at this cavalier treatment. “Whenever you like. And. thanks so much for helping me with Timothy. Good-bye!” She extended a slim, gauntleted hand. It was crushed in a grip that made her wince.

  “Not at all,” said Talbot. “Pleasure. Good-bye.”

  Half an hour later Cicely walked into the living-room of her cottage, and nodded briskly at Maisie Duncannon, who was flipping over the pages of a novel.

  “You missed something by not coming with me, Maisie,” she announced.

  “Mr. Spalding hasn’t turned up, has he?” inquired Maisie, a sudden gleam of interest in her eye.

  Cicely blushed ever so faintly.

  “’Course not. He won’t either, thank goodness! I’ve been talking to an aborigine.”

  “Oh!” yawned Maisie, and returned to her book.

  CICELY rather wondered whether Talbot would come at all, but he did, and stayed for over an hour. Maisie objected strongly to him, but then, Cicely reflected, Maisie was in the mood to object to anything. She was “bored stiff” with the country. So was Cicely, but she would not admit it.

  For a fortnight it had been glorious. They had gloated over the quaint old village and told one another that they could live here content for months. At the end of the next week the simple life had begun to pall on them. There was no tennis and no society. The atmosphere began to be rather tense between the girls.

  So Cicely welcomed the diversion in the shape of Fred Talbot. Maisie complained that he brought mud into the house. Cicely told her that she needn’t speak of Talbot as though he were a dog. Maisie retorted that that was just what he was—a shaggy, uncouth sheepdog.

  As Talbot came more and more frequently to Rose Cottage, Maisie, to show her disgust, retired either to her room or to the neighbouring woods.

  So engrossed was Cicely in Talbot’s farm that it never occurred to her that she was encouraging Talbot to fall in love with her. She was not at all flirtatious, and not one of her numerous adorers would have taken her frank, unaffected friendliness for anything other than it was meant to be.

  But Talbot was not a society man; neither was he used to the ways of a Cicely Carruthers. The girls he knew belonged to the village of Blythe, or its environs, and were fifty years or so behind the times. This was his first experience of the modern girl. At first he was a little shocked at the free and easy way in which she wandered into his place, or invited him into hers; then he was no longer shocked, but thought he understood. He came still more frequently to Rose Cottage.

  Another fortnight slipped by. Maisie had sunk into a sort of sullen apathy, but Cicely, tanned by the sun, and pulsing with energy, was on the road to becoming the complete farmer. She had come to associate Talbot merely with his farm. Had he but known it, she was treating him as her inferior in that she still called him Mr. Talbot, and confined her conversation to farming.

  She had a rude awakening. She came into the cottage one afternoon, her hair dishevelled by the wind, and her shoes caked in mud, and collapsed into a chair.

  “Oo! I am tired!” she remarked.

  Maisie raised her eyes from the inevitable novel.

  “I don’t wonder at it if you will go mucking about a dirty farm,” she said.

  Cicely was roused to wrath.

  “It is not a dirty farm! It’s a beautiful farm! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “All right.” Maisie shrugged her shoulders and went on reading. After a short pause Cicely continued:

  “The last incubator lot are hatching themselves. Isn’t it wonderful? And Mr. Talbot’s coming here to-day, and afterwards he's going to take me to see the chicks coming out of the eggs. You’ve no idea how interesting it is, Maisie! It’s simply—”

  “Is that man coming here to tea?” demanded Maisie.

  “Yes, he is. And I do think you might be civil. He’s not at all a bad sort—underneath his extraordinary manners.”

  “Then I’m going over to see the Frasers,” said Maisie, disregarding her.

  The Frasers were friends of hers, living some three miles away.

  “All right, you can,” answered Cicely. “I don't care.”

  She waited until Maisi
e had left the room, and then added: “And I hope Timothy runs away with you.”

  TALBOT tramped in at a few minutes past four. “Hullo!” said Cicely. “Sit down and I’ll make the tea.”

  Talbot lowered himself into a chair. It did not occur to him that he might help his hostess. It did occur to Cicely, and she sighed. With all his faults, Richard—. She set the kettle down smartly, and came to the tea-table.

  Talbot seemed rather thoughtful. Tea over, she lit a cigarette and saw that he was frowning.

  “I don’t like to see a girl smoking,” he said heavily.

  “Really?”

  “I’d not allow my wife to smoke.”

  “Really?” said Cicely again. “But I am not your wife.”

  He looked full into her eyes in that bold, dogged way that had first intrigued her.

  “Seems to me, my girl, we’d best come to an understanding,” he said.

  Indignation robbed Cicely of words. Fred Talbot to address her as “my girl”! With an effort, she controlled herself.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said icily. “Will you have a cigarette?”

  “No.” He brushed it aside. “Reckon you know all right. I want you to marry me.”

  “What?” Cicely gasped. “To—” Again, she controlled herself. “Thanks very much,” she said lightly, “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry you should think—think—”

  “Reckon I think what I’m meant to. I don’t pretend to understand you town-girls, but I know what I want, and I get what I want.”

  Cicely drew herself up.

  “Mr. Talbot, you forget yourself. Please don’t say any more! I had no idea you were—you had—you wanted to marry me, or I shouldn’t have—well, anyhow, don’t let’s talk about it. It’s a pity to spoil a very pleasant friendship, isn’t it?”