Georgette Heyer

by Jennifer Kloester

  In her own life, Georgette had never been particularly interested in religion, although she knew her Bible well—especially the Old Testament of which her father had the appreciation characteristic of the classical scholar. He could read the Greek of the Septuagint and the Latin of the Vulgate, while admiring the rich, sonorous language of the King James Version. George reveled in the drama of the scriptures and admired Job as “an exquisite poet,” but there is no sense that her father instilled in Georgette any form of religious belief. When she was a child, the Bible was a source of story and wonderful language rather than a literal text to be obeyed. As an adult, she showed little interest in attending church or in any form of organized religion. This lack of direct religious understanding and experience sometimes spilled over into her books.

  Simon the Coldheart consumed Georgette for most of the year. Apart from one short story and Small Maynard’s publication of Instead of the Thorn in America, she did not publish anything in 1924. The short story was a simple tale of love and luck entitled “Chinese Shawl” and it appeared in translation in the Danish periodical Tvidenskronder in March. Georgette’s decision not to publish a book in 1924 may have been partly due to her father’s work translating François Villon’s poems. He and Georgette discussed his work many times, and when Oxford University Press published The Retrospect of François Villon in December George acknowledged Georgette’s contribution to its success on the flyleaf of her copy:

  Over and over again

  You were appealed to, Georgette,

  “Comma before the refrain,—”

  Query:—delete it? or stet?

  You were appealed to Georgette,

  Ready, it may be to groan

  Query:—delete it? or stet?

  Pondering work of your own.

  Ready, it may be to groan

  “This,” you decided, or “that.”

  Pondering work of your own.

  Always you answered me pat.

  “This,” you decided, or “that.”

  Whether you’d thought the thing through,

  Always you answered me pat,

  Just as I wanted you to.

  Whether you’d thought the thing through,

  Often you gave me a hint,

  Just as I wanted you to;—

  Here is the outcome in print.

  Often you gave me a hint,—

  Phrases of which you are fond,—

  Here is the outcome in print,

  All of it carefully conned.

  Phrases of which you are fond

  Jostle with some you disdain,—

  All of it carefully conned

  Over and over again.

  By now the teacher had willingly become the pupil. George not only recognized his daughter’s superior literary talent, but was happy to seek her advice on points of expression, punctuation, and syntax. Theirs had become a sort of literary partnership in which they read each other’s manuscripts, discussed ideas and problems, and shared thoughts about dust wrappers and advertising campaigns.

  In 1923 Georgette had written an unequivocal reply to a query from her agent about whether her father might be able to assist with the advertising for Instead of the Thorn: “About Daddy as an advertising factor (Good God, what a sentence! Are you convinced yet?) No, no. And again, No, No! For one thing he hasn’t a moment to spare; for another, although he can do good advertising work, he hasn’t the necessary influence with the papers.”3 Two weeks later she wrote again to Moore to say that, while her father could not help with advertising, he did have some influence over distribution: “If Hutchinson is willing to put the book on Smith’s stalls, I think Daddy can do the rest. You see, he’s closely in touch with the firm, and I think they’ll do as he asks.” Her father was a vital factor in the early years of her career and Georgette knew it. Years later she acknowledged that she had inherited her “literary bent” from George.

  She finished Simon the Coldheart early in 1925 and it came out in America in May with a dedication to her friend Doreen Arbuthnot. For some reason Georgette had not yet secured an English publisher for this book. Her American publisher, Small Maynard, had previously published The Great Roxhythe and Instead of the Thorn in the USA. This latest novel received several good reviews in the States, where she was beginning to make a name for herself as a historical novelist. Almost from the first her novels stood apart from the usual offerings among historical fiction. As the reviewer in the Boston Evening Transcript wrote of Simon the Coldheart:

  Historical novels are of two kinds. They show how things were different in days gone by, or they show how they were the same. Sir Walter’s were of the first variety, Sabatini’s of the second. A few rare people accomplish the improbable, by showing us both. This is why we claim a certain greatness for Miss Heyer’s books, despite the many conclusions with which it is possible to quibble.

  Neither Georgette’s youth nor her lack of formal training prevented her from combining the two things which she had in abundance—a natural flair for storytelling and a vivid sense of the past.

  Ronald Rougier returned from Africa in the spring of 1925 and lost no time in reacquainting himself with Georgette and her family. His arrival from Nigeria after an absence of more than eighteen months marked a new phase of life for Georgette, rich in emotion and possibilities. She looked forward to renewing their relationship. She was not someone who could speak about such things easily, however, and so she did what she would always do when dealing with intense emotion in her life, and that was to write about it. Around the time of Ronald’s return, Georgette composed one last contemporary short story—a romance entitled “The Old Maid.”

  It is an unexpected tale, rather different from most romantic short stories of the era. This one has an older, outspoken heroine whose assumed veneer of femininity temporarily masks a decidedly unromantic persona. A variation on Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, the story tells of the return, after many years overseas, of Maurice Parmeter, the man whom the heroine, Helen, has always loved. She is a successful author in her late thirties, renowned for her blunt manners, direct speaking, and sharp sense of humor—qualities which she elects to hide during a weeklong country house party at which he is also a guest. By the end of the week, Helen is unable to go on repressing her real personality and it bursts forth, to her great relief and to Maurice’s, who has spent the days wondering what has happened to the woman he has always loved.

  Reading “The Old Maid” it is impossible not to see the direct parallels between Georgette’s own life and her fictional heroine’s. It is typical of her that she chose to write out something of her feelings at the time of Ronald’s return, and also telling that she wrote the story under her old pseudonym of “Stella Martin.” The certainty that her readers were ignorant of the author in the text liberated Georgette, giving her the freedom to express her emotions and explore her view of herself and her world. In her twenties, these were things about which she cared deeply and about which she would continue to write in the contemporary novels still to come. “The Old Maid” appeared in Woman’s Pictorial but, given Georgette’s use of her pseudonym and the personal nature of the story, unless she told her family or friends about its publication, it is possible that no one but she ever knew that she had written it.

  In May 1925 Ronald proposed to Georgette and was accepted. They did not immediately send an announcement of their engagement to The Times. Ronald had not been in England for long and had yet to find employment, while she was content to enjoy a long engagement and to get on with her writing. This was a happy time. Georgette had published five novels and at least nine short stories in less than four years. She was beginning to make a name for herself in publishing circles and had received a number of positive reviews from literary critics. She had enjoyed the social cachet of being photographed by Hoppé and was now engaged to a man who regarded her writing as worthwhile and of whom her parents approved. The future was bright, she had several ideas for new books, and time to plan
her wedding.

  The family was now comfortably settled in Wimbledon and her father’s career at King’s College Hospital was prospering. George had recently had great success organizing a fund-raising dinner at the Savoy which had garnered nearly £20,000 for the new hospital, and he had plans for several future events. Georgette’s brothers were also doing well, with Boris due to complete his studies at Lancing College in July while Frank would start there as a boarder in September. Sylvia, meanwhile, had all the excitement of her only daughter’s wedding to look forward to. As for Georgette, she was thinking of moving to yet another publisher.

  Wanting an English publisher for Simon the Coldheart, Georgette considered giving the book to a new firm. Her experience with both Constable and Hutchinson had left her feeling dissatisfied and, while she had been happy to give Mills & Boon her hastily written pseudonymous romance, she had no plan to let them publish a “Georgette Heyer” novel. She always had an eye for the market and was quick to note what she perceived to be poor publishing or advertising decisions. She had not been pleased with Hutchinson’s handling of either The Great Roxhythe or Instead of the Thorn and they had incurred her resentment when they had advertised Roxhythe in the end-papers of Ethel M. Dell’s latest novel, Charles Rex. Georgette loathed this form of advertising and a year later was still infuriated by it: “I haven’t yet forgotten the appalling thing they wrote on Roxhythe,” she told Moore. The “appalling thing” was one of nearly ninety blurbs included at the end of Dell’s book in which the publisher recounted the entire plot of Roxhythe and gave away the ending.

  That spring Moore wrote to say he had found a publisher for the UK edition of Simon the Coldheart. Heinemann had offered a £50 advance with royalties beginning at twelve and a half percent on the first two thousand copies sold and rising through amounts of fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five percent on sales from seven thousand to fifteen thousand books. They had also taken an option on her next book. This, Georgette decided, would be the sequel to The Black Moth about which she had written to her agent more than two years earlier. At the time she had put the manuscript aside but now it seemed a likely novel for her new publisher. It was quite unlike Simon, but she thought it would please Heinemann. If the sequel were successful it was possible they would buy the rights to The Black Moth and reprint it—exactly as she had planned in 1923.

  Although she thought of it as a sequel, in terms of its story, the new novel had no direct relationship to The Black Moth. Instead, Georgette took the villain and several minor characters from the first book and recast them in the second with new names and backgrounds. In a humorous acknowledgement to those readers who had read The Black Moth and who would undoubtedly recognize “shades” of that book’s characters and plot she called the new novel These Old Shades. The title was also a reference to a poem by Austin Dobson (one of her father’s favorites) which she included in the front of the book. It begins:

  “What is it, then” some reader asks,—

  “What is it that attaches

  Your fancy so to fans and masks,—

  And periwigs and patches?”

  And ends:

  Whereas with these old Shades of mine,

  Their ways and dress delight me;

  And should I trip by word or line,

  They cannot well indict me.

  But—should I fail to render clear

  Their title, rank or station—

  I still may sleep secure, nor fear

  A suit for defamation.

  The nearly completed sequel was another eighteenth-century historical romance. It was inspired partly by The Shepherd’s Fairy and partly by Charles Rex, an Ethel M. Dell romance which Georgette had originally read in serial form in The Red Magazine in 1922. Like thousands of other young women she was a fan of Dell’s hugely popular angst-ridden novels with their breathless heroines and cruel heroes. In Charles Rex the heroine spends the first part of the book masquerading as a boy, in which disguise she is rescued by the hero, the cynical Lord Saltash. She becomes his servant and he takes her from Italy to England where she becomes a girl again and falls in love with him. There are at least half-a-dozen points of close similarity between Dell’s book and Georgette’s before the plots diverge and the two stories become quite different: where These Old Shades is a compelling historical novel, brimming with action and enlivened with humor and several enduring characters in Léonie, Rupert, and the Duke of Avon; Charles Rex is a modern book heavy with description, with several false endings and a language and style that has not survived beyond the 1950s.

  While Georgette clearly took inspiration from Dell’s heroine-in-disguise, she also knew that “at the close of literally dozens of English Renaissance plays the cross-dressed page doffs her doublet and hose and reveals herself to be a woman—usually a well-born and marriageable woman.” Among Georgette’s favorite Shakespearean plays were Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice. In each, the heroine masquerades as a male for part of the story. And the ruse was no less popular in twentieth-century literature: Dell was not the only contemporary author to use disguise, deception, or masquerade to liberate her heroines from the social constraints of the day, or to find in such concealment the ideal opportunity for a grand transformation scene.

  Young though she was when she began writing the sequel, Georgette was well aware of the popularity of masquerade and how much readers reveled in finding that beneath their disguise the hero or the heroine was in fact well-born, rich, and destined for a life of happiness. As she explained to Moore in 1923, her unfinished sequel “Deals with my priceless villain and ends awfully happily. Tracy becomes quite a decent person, and marries a girl about half his age! I’ve packed it full of incident and adventure, and have made my heroine masquerade as a boy for the first few chapters. This, I find, always attracts people!” Her assessment was extraordinarily accurate because These Old Shades, which was eventually published in 1926, remains a perennial favorite among Heyer fans and one of her bestselling books. It has never been out of print.

  On 15 June 1925 Georgette signed the Heinemann contract for Simon the Coldheart and for a second book. The following day Ronald came to call, as he often did, to spend time with her before going to play tennis with her father. The two men returned to the house after the match and joined Georgette inside. George was glad to come indoors and rest, for he had been feeling unwell. There was no warning when his eyes suddenly glazed over, he lost consciousness and collapsed. Georgette rushed to his side but there was nothing she could do. Within seconds her beloved father was dead.

  3 Calling her parents “Daddy” and “Mummy” was typical for a woman of Georgette’s age, class, and generation. Unusually for the time Georgette often called her father “George.”

  8

  Writing oils one’s wrist.

  —Georgette Heyer

  Her father’s death from heart failure was the great cataclysm of Georgette Heyer’s life. She was never the same again. Completely unprepared for the finality of death and unable to express her feelings easily, Georgette struggled to come to terms with her loss. Throughout her life her father had been by her side, advising and encouraging her, her closest ally and the guiding light who would show her the way. Now the light had gone out and she found herself under a pall of unspeakable grief.

  Two years later, in Helen, she would write of “a grief so huge, so devastating, and so terribly dumb” that Helen becomes numbed and mute in the weeks following her father’s sudden death. Like Georgette, the fictional Helen’s temperament makes it difficult for her to talk about or show her innermost feelings. It is only when her closest friend, Richard, comes to comfort her that she finds some kind of momentary release: “Suddenly, as though something had snapped within her, she seemed to collapse. ‘Daddy, Daddy!’ she said chokingly. ‘He’s dead! He’s dead! I shall never see him again! Never, never, never! I can’t, I can’t…’ She clasped her hands to her head; a rending sob broke from her. ‘He’s gone–gone–g
one!’”

  Helen’s histrionic outburst is brief, for she quickly regains her composure and forever afterwards endures her grief in private. Richard is one of the few people in the novel to comprehend her sorrow and even he admits that he “never saw her break down again. What tears were shed, what agony was endured in the long night-hours he could only guess.” Helen’s grief is not lessened by her apparent fortitude, it is rather that it becomes essential for her to hide her feelings from the world. This was the stoic attitude which, in Georgette’s mind, was de rigueur for a well-bred English girl. A controlled response was the most important thing in the face of suffering and she clung to this principle when confronted with her own devastating loss.

  In the real world, it was Ronald who understood her deep reserve and knew best how to respond to her suffering. He did not fuss over her but talked instead of ordinary things, just as he always had. He was a calm, rational, and reliable friend who made no “misplaced attempt to console” and demanded nothing more of her than that she should be comforted. A month earlier Georgette had agreed to marry him at some future date and he had been content to wait until he was better established and she was ready to leave her home and family. Her father’s death changed everything. Ronald could see that the best thing for Georgette would be to begin a new life, removed from the home where her father’s absence was felt most keenly, and separated from her mother, with whom she did not always get on.