Georgette Heyer

by Jennifer Kloester

  Then, when he reads the book, he will experience natural sensations of relief that it isn’t as bad as you had led him to believe, and he will very likely publish it in a moment of reaction. Tell him that he would be very unwise to let me slip from his clutches, as this peculiar work is merely an erratic fit or start on my part, and I shall undoubtedly perpetrate many more of the light trifles he admires.

  Not long afterwards she realized that she “ought to have given it an eighteenth-century setting, and have ruled out the element of detection, but I can’t do it now: these people ARE, and it’s not a bit of good trying to alter them to fit another period.” The more the book took hold of her, the more she worried over its publication: “I don’t think that the book will be obscene, because I doubt if I could be obscene myself. It will be a bit outspoken here and there, but Uncle Percy must try to be his age.” Ronald’s initial view was that Percy Hodder-Williams would not get past the first sentence, let alone the first chapter. Reading on, however, he changed his mind. Although he agreed that it was “a bit coarse here and there,” he did not think that Hodder would turn it down.

  Ronald was a comforting counselor and Georgette felt greatly reassured by his certainty that the book was a good one. He was also doing his best to shield her from the worry and distraction of their continuing fight with the Tax Commissioner. She expected to “go down” when the case was heard in the Horsham Court and was doing her best to ignore it. Her days were taken up with the Penhallows and Richard. His health was slowly improving and Georgette had taken to reading Dickens aloud to him in the afternoons. Pickwick Papers was “going down very smoothly” with the ten-year-old, and she intended to “try him on David Copperfield next, believing that you can’t get on to the classics too early.” Richard developed a lifelong affection for Dickens’s novels.

  By May, Richard was almost well enough to return to school and Georgette’s saga was nearly complete. She was typing up the manuscript and was “not interested in anything outside of Trevellin. I am, in fact, completely rapt, and rarely leave this bloody machine.” After much discussion with Ronald (apparently his only input into the book) and Richard she had decided to call the novel, Penhallow—a simple title that had “the advantage of indicating pretty clearly that it isn’t one of my usual murders.” She often puzzled over the book, uncertain of what to make of it, where it had come from, and why it obsessed her. She described it as “a very peculiar, long and unorthodox story” and wondered “Why on earth did I have to write this disturbing book?” There was no clear answer, only the conviction that even if it was a mistake she had “got to write it.”

  Years later, Richard would speculate that Penhallow was a “catharsis of her family” (meaning her extended family), but the only hint in Georgette’s letters of what the novel might have meant was her conclusion that “Penhallow was a dreadful person, but he did hold the family together, and everything goes to pieces when he dies.” The fact that she was nearing her fortieth birthday may also have been a factor given the sorts of emotional crises and aberrations that so often come to men and women as they approach the mid-point in their lives.

  Notwithstanding its humorous moments, Penhallow remains a grim, fierce book full of angry, frustrated characters simmering with repressed emotions and silent suffering. It is not difficult to imagine it as a release for Georgette’s own unexpressed thoughts and feelings. She rarely gave voice to the deeper emotions in her personal life; she could articulate the more fleeting feelings of irritation, amusement, or frustration easily enough, but candid expressions of profound emotion such as pain, grief, joy, or love were much more difficult. Her outlet for these was almost always her writing.

  She finished the book at the end of May and sent it to Moore. Richard had suffered a relapse and his return to school was indefinitely postponed. Georgette was anxious about him and worried about Hodder’s reaction to Penhallow. In almost every way, this book was unique among Georgette’s novels and she fussed and worried over its publication as she had never done before. She begged her agent to read it. She thought the novel “A bit of a tour-de-force, but I may be wrong! Let me tell you that with the exception of a handful of passages first jotted down in pencil in a rough note-book, as you see it, so it came out of my head.” Five days after receiving the manuscript Moore told her that it was indeed a tour de force but that “he couldn’t see Uncle Percy touching it with a ten-foot pole.”

  Georgette’s emotions ran high as she tried to work out Penhallow’s fate at the hands of her publishers. She agreed with Moore that “it isn’t a Hodder book at all, is it?” and finally decided “The more I think of it, the more I feel sure that we oughtn’t to hand Penhallow to H. & S. at all…I think that if we could honorably, & without giving offense, withhold Penhallow from H. & S., & send it up to Heinemann in the ordinary way, it would be good policy.” The idea grew and she encouraged her agent to convince Percy Hodder-Williams of the idea and to “hold out a tempting vista of bigger & better Hemingways to the old man! I’ll do him a lovely, sparkling one, without any bloodys at all!”

  Frere knew all about Penhallow and had written to say that “the very least you can do is to send me a set of proofs so that I can get at it before the reviewers start annoying me.” Georgette had given him “first refusal of the epic if Uncle P. decided it was too hot for him to handle.” When Percy Hodder-Williams turned down Penhallow, she was elated and instantly wrote to Frere to tell him “It’s all yours! Percy was shocked, & when he had the bait of a Hemingway ’tec novel held invitingly out to him he gave L.P. back the MS, mourning gently over my fall from grace.” Reveling in her temporary release from Hodder she sent the manuscript to Frere in Albany with instructions to tell her “whether it’s any good, or whether I am kidding myself. And if you think it isn’t any good, for God’s sake say so! I don’t say I shan’t offer it elsewhere, because I’ve got a Thing about it, and I undoubtedly shall.”

  A week later Frere confirmed all her hopes for the novel:

  You made me see that roaring old man with his beak nose & unquenchable eye. Of course it was right for Faith to do it & get out of it on all counts in the way she did…a triumph, Miss-detective-storywriter-Heyer, & completely credible—including a timely & satisfying vignette of old-Phineas… From all of which you may deduce, dear Madam, that I liked your book More than Somewhat…Your best? Don’t ask silly leading questions. You know it is. If Perc had published it I should have given up publishing altogether & become a permanent civil servant. Tomorrow I have an appt. with C.S. Evans & propose to deliver Penhallow to him with suitable words & phrases. He’ll eat it. You[’ll] see. Thank you, Miss Heyer, you have written the novel of your not unsuccessful career. There’s no blemish on it.

  Frere’s reaction was everything Georgette wanted: for the first time he had written to her at length about one of her novels and raised her hopes high by telling her that it was “a can’t-put-it-down book.”

  Jubilant about Penhallow, Georgette still felt a “moral obligation” to Hodder. She had no desire to leave the firm and planned to write a real Hemingway novel for Uncle Percy as soon as Penhallow was safely in Heinemann’s hands. She had removed her Hodder detective from the book and replaced him with a one-off character in Inspector Logan. But relations were soured when Percy Hodder-Williams, still keen to get hold of her period romances, decreed that he must have her next book regardless of genre. Georgette was incensed:

  Did you say that H. & S. “stipulated” that they should have my next book, whatever it was? I believe you did…But what infernal cheek! It seems to me that they’d better take a look at my contract. Technically, I am now released from any obligation to hand them any further books, so I should like to know where Percy gets his “stipulation” line of talk from? I don’t choose to leave his firm, but there’s nothing to stop my handing Heinemann three—or four—or five—straight off the reel. Seriously, I don’t think a lot of Uncle Percy’s business-sense. It is most unwise to pan authors whom you
wish to keep with you. And what a lot of nonsense, to run a publishing business on Sunday-school lines!

  But Georgette was wrong about her contract. The agreement which she had signed in 1938 was for four books of which Envious Casca was the first and Penhallow should have been the second. Although she could choose what she wrote and when, Georgette still owed Hodder three more books. She had no wish to leave the firm but Percy Hodder-Williams’s renewed attempts to get hold of her historical novels upset her at a time when (despite her bravado) she was deeply disappointed by his dislike of Penhallow—a feeling thrown into sharp relief by her mother’s and Frere’s reactions to the book: “My mother has read Penhallow in typescript & says Percy is mad. She likes it better than anything I’ve done. Frere says he might achieve a succes fou—but ‘what times you do pick to write your best books!’”

  Praise from those whose opinion mattered to her inevitably raised her expectations, not only of good sales and popular success, but also of the yearned-for critical response. When Charles Evans declared his dislike of Penhallow, Georgette was devastated and wired Frere who immediately telephoned to ask, “What the hell C.S. [Evans] was up to now?” “‘He’s trying to grind my face,’” she told him. On describing Evans’s reaction to Penhallow

  Frere said, “He hasn’t read it.” I said I thought he had, & had been quite polite, but thought it “an unpleasant book.” To which Frere replied “Good God!” After that gratifying expression of stupefaction, he became once again The Perfect English Publisher, & said, “Look, dear, don’t worry! Lunch on Friday at the Escargot, & tell me just what Charlie’s been doing.” So I shall no doubt be given some Good Eats & Drinks, & shall end up by practically giving Penhallow to the firm.

  Frere assured Georgette of Penhallow’s merit and reminded her that Evans had recently lost his youngest son in a night raid over Bremen and was taking it badly. Within weeks, Heinemann had bought Penhallow for £600 and scheduled the book for October publication.

  Satisfied at last that her precious novel would be properly handled, Georgette took Richard to London to see his godfather, Dr. Harris, the child specialist. He greatly relieved her concerns about her son’s indifferent health, telling her not to worry any longer but to send Richard back to school, “& refuse to let him see any more doctors.” It was an enormous weight off her mind. She was also cheered by the possibility of a London apartment.

  She and Ronald had been looking for some time, and had become quite disheartened after viewing a number of service flats and finding them too expensive. Georgette still wanted to live in Albany and in September had found a set “which we definitely want…Up two flights of stairs, but with the most superb sitting-room, panelled in old pine, & with a huge bow-window.” But getting chambers in Albany was a complicated business. Alterations and permission for a new kitchen would be needed before A.11 would be ready to move into. In the end it proved too difficult and they got F.3. Albany instead. They were to move in at the end of November, but before that would come the long-awaited publication of Penhallow.

  By early October, Georgette was on tenterhooks. Her hopes for a big success with Penhallow had been buoyed by the Heinemann Sales Director, Leslie Munro, who had written her a “gratifying letter”:

  He was awfully glad to have the selling of it (“it is a damned good book”) & [said] that I needn’t worry: it would beat all my records, in his judgment. That he was overjoyed to learn that I had a second Penhallow book in my head, & that if Jimmy the Bastard was responsible for the book’s having come to Heinemann, “Here’s to Jimmy!”

  Ten days before publication she learned that the first 12,500 copies had sold out and Penhallow was being reprinted. She wrote ecstatically to Moore: “is this good, or is this good?” His response was dampening: he did not think the presales so exceptional given that Envious Casca had subscribed 14,000 copies. Nor did he think booksellers would be encouraged by Jimmy the Bastard.

  Georgette was now in a “deplorable state of nerves over this book” and told Moore:

  I expect to see some notices of Penhallow on Sunday—& dread seeing them. Oh, how absurd it is, after all! I have never been so stupid about any of my books before, not even the Army. I can’t think what’s the matter with me. Frere says he never knew a self-critical author who didn’t suffer from irrational jitters, but it’s no use, nothing serves to soothe my alarms. And yet I don’t really care what any of you think. Perhaps this is the decay of a once noble intellect. Or did Percy saying it had no sparkle get under my armor?

  Although she had poured herself, heart and soul, into An Infamous Army and The Spanish Bride (for which she had also craved acclaim), Penhallow had taken something more and Georgette desperately wanted the reviews to reflect this. It was not the first time that she had found herself assailed by self-doubt in one moment, then reassured by her own view of a book in the next, but the Penhallow experience was different—it was unique—and it would prove a turning-point in her career.

  Toward the end of her letter to Moore Georgette suddenly cast all doubt aside and told her agent exactly what the book meant to her: “How dared you say Penhallow was ‘a grotesque’? Carola Oman calls it my ‘Lear,’ & says my characterisation is ‘brilliant.’ So damn you! You’d better not say anything at all about Penhallow. You don’t know anything about it. Nobody knows anything about it. You couldn’t any of you say the right things about it.” She never wrote in this way about one of her books again.

  Penhallow came out on 26 October 1942 and The Times Literary Supplement printed a good review of it five days later. Sales were also good. But it was not enough. The fact that all of her novels sold well, that nearly all of her titles were still in print, that her sales ran into the hundreds of thousands, and that she was consistently well reviewed in all the major papers in both Britain and America was not enough. Georgette wanted more: she wanted critics, academics, and the literati to sit up and take notice. The books that mattered to her most—An Infamous Army, The Spanish Bride, and now Penhallow—all received positive and, in some cases, glowing, reviews. But still she was not satisfied. The critical recognition she craved continued to elude her.

  Georgette had nurtured great hopes for Penhallow, and its reception from reviewers was a huge disappointment. In the Observer, Frank Swinnerton was blunt: “Miss Georgette Heyer, who usually flies in good spirits, falls in ‘Penhallow.’” Though there were several positive reviews none of them judged the book the tour de force she, Frere, and Moore had thought it. She had hoped that Penhallow would be the novel that would finally enable her to shift the focus of her writing:

  The end may possibly be in sight—the end to having to write detective novels, I mean. Once Ronald gets firmly established—& if I should do really well with Penhallow—I shall close that chapter in my life—& with what thankfulness! The truth is that I cannot keep up the two-novels-a-year pace. I think I never have kept it up. Penhallow knocked me up—just as the Army did, & the Bride. If I liked writing detective stories, it might be better; but I don’t, & that means that they are a strain on what I sometimes feel to be an ebbing vitality. Ronald asked Frere which of the two classes he, as my publisher, would like me to write—Historical or Penhallow, Frere replied, Penhallow, of course. But I said, One day I shall write a biography, all footnotes. Will you publish that? To which he replied, simply: “Yes.” Now, that is something to dream about! What fun I should have—shall have! such leisured fun! Not a selling proposition at all, just a wish fulfillment.

  She never did write the biography, for Penhallow marked the beginning of a change in her writing life. The novel passed into Rougier family legend as her Hodder & Stoughton “contract-breaking book” and in time she accepted (possibly even encouraged) this retelling of Penhallow’s creation. But it was not the truth. She meant to go on writing for Hodder and was even considering a sequel to Penhallow—“Bart’s book.”

  But Georgette would never write for Hodder & Stoughton again. The breach caused by Penhallow proved
irreparable and her association with the firm gradually dissolved. Percy Hodder-Williams attempted to restore relations by taking her to lunch at the Ritz, but Georgette found him pompous and patronizing and left feeling aggrieved. It also rankled that Uncle Percy’s view of Penhallow—so diametrically opposed to her own—was shared by others. In December 1942 the Irish Censorship of Publications Board banned Penhallow “in all its editions” on the basis that it was “in its general tendency, indecent” (the ruling eventually expired in 1967). Georgette’s writing had been censored before, but where there was a kind of kudos in being “banned by the Nazis” (she thought that “Grand!”), she found none in being banned by the Irish.18

  Georgette did not write for over a year after Penhallow and 1943 was the first time in fifteen years in which she did not publish a book. She seems to have been unwell for much of the year. In August she and Ronald went to Cornwall for six weeks. They stayed at the St. Enodoc Golf Hotel, which Georgette thought the ideal spot to “laze about till I can’t laze any more.” Richard, now eleven, went with them; he no longer needed a governess and increasingly his parents were finding pleasure in his company. Georgette took him to see a local production of As You Like It and was stunned when, on seeing the throng of people ahead of them “Richard said casually: ‘What a crowd! You’d think it was a second crucifixion!’” She told Frere: “When I had got my breath I thought it well to say that I didn’t find that funny (which was a lie, because I crowed inwardly!).”

  The only blight on her lovely holiday was having her fellow guests discover her identity after Heinemann inadvertently forwarded a letter to her at the hotel: “With ‘Georgette Heyer’ emblazoned on the envelope. So all the inmates here Know, & O God, O God, O God! Frere, without exception they LUV These Old Shades. It’s true. And if I write a letter, they say archly: ‘Hard at work?’” Ten months after the publication of Penhallow she wrote to Moore from Cornwall to say: “Health better, pen still idle.” A fortnight later she wrote again: “I return to town on Wednesday, & must then apply myself to literary production—if I haven’t forgotten how.”