Georgette Heyer

by Jennifer Kloester

  This may have been a disappointment, for Moore was growing old and Georgette was increasingly frustrated by her agent’s continuing absence from London. “I hope you’re coming back to town now that the war is as good as ended,” she told him. His refusal prompted a frank letter:

  If it is progressive to carry on a literary agency at a distance from London I have certainly learned something new…The very fact that a call to your office necessitates the utterly wearisome & daunting business of dialing TOL, & hanging on for anything up to ten minutes (when you give it up)…makes your continued sojourn at Gerrards Cross a Class A bore… if I want to see you I have to make a date with you at least a week ahead…the number of times I’ve thought, “I’ll go & ring L.P. up, & ask him…” & then decided that I wouldn’t bother, or would ring Frere instead.

  Even the arrival at Christy & Moore of a new, younger man in John Smith had not halted Georgette’s growing dissatisfaction. Yet, despite knowing Peter Watt, she appears not to have considered changing agents. Instead she turned more frequently to Frere and by extension to his wife.

  Georgette and Ronald often invited Frere and Pat Wallace up to their set for dinner or a drink and enjoyed many reciprocal invitations. They and the rest of Britain celebrated on 8 May 1945, when the war in Europe officially ended and Victory in Europe (VE Day) was proclaimed. Adjusting to the peace took time and a month later, Georgette’s pen still lay idle. It was nearly a year since Friday’s Child had been published but for once she seemed unperturbed by the long gap between books. The end of the War meant so much and she wanted time to absorb the fact that both her brothers had come through unscathed, her family was safe, and there would be no more blackouts or bombing raids.

  There were still hardships, however, though Georgette and Ronald were fortunate in being better-placed than many to withstand the postwar deprivation. Rationing would continue in one form or another until 1954 but Georgette’s growing income meant they could afford to shop regularly at Fortnum’s and Harrods, eat at the Savoy or other restaurants, or dine at Ronald’s club. Although most of the population suffered from the shortage of things like butter and oil, Georgette thought it wrong to complain about a lack of food. She had the added advantage that Richard’s adolescent appetite was mainly catered for at school.

  He had turned thirteen in February and was due to finish at The Elms in July before going to board at Marlborough College. Although his mother had occasional concerns about things like his spelling—“I asked him for the measurements of his trousers, & this is what I got: ‘Waste (loosly) 27’”—and sometimes wondered if she had “bred an illiterate,” Richard was intelligent with a prodigious memory and a taste for literature, poetry, and music. Georgette proudly told of one occasion when “my mother asked me if I remembered a play, saying: ‘Do you remember The Great Lover?’ Richard looked up and said: ‘Oh, quite one of my favorites! You mean, “There you have loved”?.’” When Georgette finally began writing again her new book had an engaging character in the hero’s adventurous adolescent brother. She would dedicate the novel to Richard.

  But, as she confessed to Pat Wallace in June, she had not begun a new novel yet. Her friend was in a nursing-home impatiently awaiting the birth of her third child and Georgette had written her a long letter after telephoning Frere for the latest bulletin. She had received an “acid, over-wrought, & generally jaundiced discourse” from the expectant father and told Pat Wallace “you have all my sympathy. I had little for Frere. I told him it was far worse for you, & he uttered a sound which I should write down in a novel as Ha!” After four pages of humorous “nothings,” Georgette asked:

  You are wondering (Dear Miss Wallace) why I do not apply my energies to the task of writing a book for Frere instead of drivel to you? I wouldn’t know. It’s just one of those things. Besides, he doesn’t advertise me enough, & puts other authors above me, & doesn’t give me all his paper, which is so unfair. And I daresay, if we only knew, he doesn’t really appreciate me. From which you will gather that I have lately sustained a conversation with a fellow-inky. True. I am firmly of the opinion we should all be incarcerated. In parenthesis, this is a terrific gambit, & one that has not previously occurred to me. Apparently you “get a feeling” that your publisher is “out of sympathy” with your work. Under these conditions it becomes impossible for you to “give of your best.” I can’t think why, but then I’ve never been a very sensitive plant.

  She closed the letter: “I look forward to visiting you, & seeing the new Frere. It’s a long time since I had anything to do with an infant, & it will be nice to see one again.” The Freres’ third child, a son, was born six days later.

  Nineteen forty-five was the year of the General Election and the only time Georgette ever voted Labor. She was not the only Tory to contribute to the Labor landslide that year by casting her vote contrary to her usual political inclinations. Many among the British populace had moved to the political left during the War and, despite Churchill’s popularity as a war leader, did not consider him the best person to lead the country in a time of peace.

  Georgette had an abiding interest in politics and was never shy of expressing an opinion. A year before the election she had read Your M.P. by “Gracchus,”21 a ferocious diatribe against National-Liberal and Tory M.P.s and their acquiescence in the policy of appeasement before the War. The book had provoked a furor, sold 200,000 copies in its first month, and prompted one of Georgette’s blunt epistles:

  I seem to remember wildly cheering Labor & Socialist M.P.s at the time of Munich; while as for the decade before Munich, no party can afford to throw any mud. In fact, I think I am right in saying that it was Labor which raised the biggest outcry against any form of armament. Of course I rather loved parts of the book, because he went for people I detest, like Hoare, & Simon, & Wardlaw-Milne, & Baldwin…I suspect him of belonging to that illiterate mass of persons who apparently believe that the Government can always produce money out of a sort of a conjuror’s hat. His remarks about the opposition to the Beveridge Plan betray a bland ignorance of the most appalling fact now facing us: that We Are Broke—broke beyond anything he can imagine, & perhaps irremediably. He, like The Times…would like to bleed the Upper & Middle Classes white—he, because he thinks it would solve everything & do no harm, The Times because it thinks by doing this we can stave off ruin for perhaps 30 or 50 years…In all, it was quite good fun, & very shocking, & bits were true, & bits were not.

  With the election over she thought she might at last begin a new book. But Richard was home for the long vacation and Georgette had never liked writing in the hot summer months. She was also busy reading another manuscript for Heinemann. They had continued to employ her as a reader through the War and her latest report was for an unpublished book entitled In Me My Enemy. Georgette’s frank advice and suggestions for improvements reflected her astute understanding of what a successful novel entailed:

  Well, you can’t handle it. It’s all very difficult, but I do seem to be sure about that. I think she has got something. She can tell a story, she has a gift of phrase, & the fact that she can’t spell or punctuate doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that here is a huge inchoate mass of a book, without rhyme or reason, over-weighted & degenerating, in its last third, into a melodrama…At present she’s undisciplined & she doesn’t seem to see her story as a whole, or to know how to balance it. Nor does she understand that if you set out to write an immensely long book there must be more substance to it than the chronicle of various lives, leading us to no particular goal, positing no moral, working out no problems.

  Georgette’s final counsel was succinct:

  “Don’t be too ambitious!” is impossible advice to give to a young author, but it is the right advice here. The girl has the makings of a romantic novelist, not of a great gloomy, introspective saga-writer. I would advise her to put this book in a drawer; to think out a good, close-knit plot with plenty of wild deeds and dark passions, & a nice, fat climax; to lim
it herself to 100,000 words; not to stray into the bog of psychology—& to get on with it!

  19 General Bernard Law Montgomery (Montgomery of Alamein) was commander-in-chief, ground forces, for the Allied invasion of Normandy.

  20 Also known as Pilot-less planes, Doodlebugs or Buzz Bombs were terror weapons capable of killing large numbers of people and causing massive damage to homes and buildings over a large area. Between June 1944 and March 1945, flying bombs killed over six thousand people in Britain.

  21 Gracchus was Tom Wintringham, a former commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigade; he was also one of the founders of the Home Guard.

  24

  While I like to have the fact of my having written a new book made known to an eager public, I cannot bear, and will not consent to any of the more blatant forms of self-advertisement.

  —Georgette Heyer

  In October 1945 Frere sought Georgette’s advice on a more serious project: Heinemann’s publication of Richard Aldington’s biography of the Duke of Wellington. Aldington was a great friend of Frere’s and a prolific writer famous for his novel Death of a Hero (1929). Highly regarded in literary circles, Aldington’s Wellington biography had already been published in America as The Duke and Frere now suggested republishing it in Britain as Wellington. He sought Georgette’s advice on the best illustrations for the new edition and she read the book with interest, made a detailed list of possible pictures, and wrote a letter suggesting some minor amendments and corrections to the text. Doubtful as to whether these should be forwarded to Aldington, she told Frere:

  Here is my letter to Aldington, & my suggestions for the illustrations. You had better read both, & if you think it won’t do, don’t send it. I tried it out on Ronald, asking: “Is that offensive, do you think?” He said: “Oh no!” Then I said: “I don’t want to sound unbearably know-all,—but on the other hand I don’t want him to think I’m offering a lot of criticism on insufficient information. Do you think he’ll realize that I really do know a good deal about the subject?” He replied gravely: “I think it will be irresistibly borne in upon him.” Now, I regard this answer with the most profound suspicion. I do not like that word “irresistibly.” Have I been insufferable? One so often is on one’s own high horse.

  But Frere did not think she had been insufferable. He told Aldington he had given Wellington to “a deeply read authority on the subject, one Mrs. Rougier, who writes under the name of Georgette Heyer, who knows the period backwards” and forwarded Georgette’s notes. Aware that Aldington might resent interference from an unknown commentator, Frere explained that Georgette “is a very great friend of mine” and also “a great friend of Charles Oman’s and by way of being a pupil of his.” He also explained that she “has taken a great deal of trouble with suggestions for illustrations,” before warning Aldington: “She has one or two scholarly points to raise with you about this and that, and particularly your piece on Waterloo. She is enthusiastic enough about the book to not wish to give a pedantic reviewer a handle, but she is extremely diffident of making any suggestions. I have assured her that you are the last person in the world to resent such a thing.”

  But Frere was wrong. At first glance Aldington’s reply appeared sanguine: “I’m awfully glad you got hold of this stuff and sent it to me.” He quickly explained, however, that he considered Georgette’s suggested amendments (which he ignored) as having come from a writer with an ambition to write her own book about Wellington. The consequence of his unexpected reaction meant Frere had to tread a fine line between his two friends: shielding Georgette from Aldington’s ire, while ensuring that Aldington was not deterred from completing the project. Letters and cables flew back and forth between the two men and Frere wrote Georgette a short, diplomatic letter which included several out-of-context sentences from Aldington’s latest epistle:

  Richard Aldington has cabled asking me to put off Wellington indefinitely, and he has followed up with a letter in which he says your points can only be answered in detail and at immense length…He goes on to say: “I can’t tell you how much gratitude I owe you for sending those notes along.” To which I would add my own special measure of gratitude. Personally, I don’t mind how long he holds it up if the net result is as good as it can be.

  This was a most satisfactory response to her annotations and Georgette was “relieved and gratified.” She remained blissfully ignorant of Aldington’s cursory dismissal of her scholarship and was delighted when he (somewhat ironically) decided to use both her proposed list of illustrations and her design for the book’s jacket. Wellington came out in September 1946 with a cover which featured—as per her suggestion—“the center of the great gold shield, presented to the Duke after the Battle of Waterloo.” There is no mention of her small contribution anywhere in the book and Georgette never knew that her efforts had been misconstrued.

  In September she told Frere: “There is a book going round in my own head like a borer beetle, but it hasn’t yet chrystalised [sic].” She soon worked it out, however, and early in the new year it was finished. “I expect you will like my next book,” she told a young Australian fan, “which is to be published this spring under the title of The Reluctant Widow.” Thirteen-year-old Rosemary White had written to Georgette from rural Australia after learning about the drastic food rationing in Britain (which in 1946 included bread for the first time). Worried that her favorite author might be starving and unable to write, Rosemary offered to send her a food parcel. Deeply touched and a little amused by her concern, Georgette wrote to reassure her: “It is very kind of you to want to send me a parcel of food, but I think you had much better save the money to buy my next book! Then we shall both benefit! Things are difficult in England, but not desperate.” Despite her assurances, the promised food parcel arrived. Appreciating the gesture, Georgette sent Rosemary an inscribed copy of The Reluctant Widow: “which I hope you will enjoy.”

  Rosemary thought The Reluctant Widow delightful. A parody of the Gothic novel it was made even more amusing by its heroine’s awareness of having fallen into an improbable adventure. Nearly fifteen years later Ronald was forcibly reminded of the novel in court. On 4 February 1959, at a session of the Water Bill Committee Hearings in the House of Commons (in which Ronald was acting as counsel for the Committee), the Chairman, Major Legge-Bourke, made a speech to the opposing counsel:

  The Chairman: Perhaps I might say to you, Lord Vaughan, that while you were using the wedding-metaphors I could not help but be reminded of something with which Mr. Rougier is, perhaps, more familiar, from The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer: “I have spent a great deal of my life listening patiently to much folly. In my sisters I can support it with tolerable equanimity. In you I neither can nor will. Will you accept my hand in marriage, or will you not?”

  Lord Vaughan: Mr. Rougier has matrimonially the advantage!

  Georgette was widely read in the legal profession and in both Houses of Parliament. As Lord Keith once told her in relation to the House of Lords: “as far as he can discover the better part of its inmates are my firm fans.”

  The Reluctant Widow was also published in the United States where G.P. Putnam had taken over publishing her novels (they had also brought out Friday’s Child in 1946). Georgette had not had an American publisher since ending her relationship with Doubleday in 1942 and her experience with them had made her a little cynical about her chances of success with the new firm: “Putnam’s say they are very excited about Friday’s Child. It doesn’t take much to excite an American.” She did not think much of Americans en masse, although she liked them individually. Her typically English view of Americans as uncultured and excessively gregarious was not enhanced by Walter Minton’s (the head of Putnam) effusive response to her novels or by his empty promises of publicity and enormous sales.

  The Reluctant Widow also caught the attention of a film company. This time the deal went through and Georgette was able to tell her young Australian fan that the novel was “be
ing filmed in technicolour next year!” With a film in the offing and the possibility of additional income from a successful production, Georgette and Ronald finally took steps to improve their financial situation and employed a new accountant, Mr. J.M. Rubens. He advised them to set up a limited liability company and to have all of Georgette’s future contracts and copyrights assigned to it. As the company’s Chairman and Director, Georgette and Ronald would receive annual bonuses and dividends. The company would also pay Georgette “for her services.” On 29 October 1946 they held the first annual meeting of their new company, Heron Enterprises Limited. For the next twenty-two years Heron Enterprises would own the copyright in Georgette’s novels.

  Her first book for Heron was The Foundling. In May 1947 Georgette wrote to Frere to say: “Imagine!—L.P. has sold The Foundling to the S.B. for £1000—on the strength of the first third of the book, which stinks anyway.” Her pessimistic view of the novel did not last and although she deprecated Dorothy Sutherland’s handling of The Foundling (“the story is being embellished with some of the most appalling illustrations”), its sale marked a turning-point in her relationship with Woman’s Journal. It was twelve years since they had serialized Regency Buck as Gay Adventure. Over the next twenty years Georgette’s serialized novels would become almost an annual feature of Woman’s Journal and Dorothy Sutherland soon discovered that £1,000 was a small price to pay for an author whose stories guaranteed that the magazine sold out. Years later she told Jane Aiken Hodge that “men snatched it from their wives to read the next installment.”

  Georgette took a break from The Foundling when Richard came home for the holidays. He was doing well at school and his sporting achievements and academic prowess seemed to his mother “of far more importance than Widows or Foundlings.” She was also pondering the direction of the new book: “Unless I do something about Harriet,” she told Frere, “this will be a novel without a heroine, for no one could call the ravishing Belinda a heroine. And whether I shall let it stand as it is—a leisurely, long book—or whether I shall ruthlessly cut & rewrite I know not. I think it lacks sparkle.” Her view of The Foundling was probably not helped by Ronald—generally her most loyal supporter—who was advocating a return to a more serious style of novel: