Georgette Heyer

by Jennifer Kloester

  Georgette’s agent, Joyce Weiner, was also thinking about retirement. She had suffered intermittent bouts of illness throughout the year but by January 1971 was well enough to invite Georgette to lunch to mark her agency’s Silver Jubilee. It was a short-lived celebration. By March they were both unwell: Georgette’s foot was still swollen and she had developed a persistent cough, while her agent’s condition resisted all attempts at a cure. That spring Joyce Weiner finally gave in and announced her retirement. She did her best to mitigate the disappointment to her most important author by suggesting to Georgette that Deborah Owen, an American married to British MP David Owen, might do very well as her replacement. The news still came as a blow. Georgette had learned to rely on Joyce Weiner’s management of her foreign and serial rights. When her agent talked “of ‘the kindness, tolerance, loyalty and understanding’” Georgette had shown her, Georgette demanded she “put a sock in it!” A few weeks later, she met Deborah Owen and agreed that she should take over.

  By May Georgette was feeling better so Ronald took her on an Aegean cruise “by way of setting me completely on my feet once more.” They had a marvelous time; Georgette thought Rhodes and Knossos wonderful. They ended their holiday in Venice. But on their last day there Georgette gashed her right shin badly while getting into a water-taxi outside Cipriani’s. Weeks later it still had not healed. The injury left her rather lame, making it difficult to walk more than a few hundred yards at a time, but she remained stubbornly optimistic that she would be completely healed when they returned from Greywalls, midway through September.

  The year 1971 was another without a new novel. Reinhardt sent a gentle hint via a fan letter from Argentina (pointing to the reader’s query about “new works”), but Georgette did not rise to the bait. That autumn, any plans she might have had for a new novel were put on hold as she and Ronald prepared to move house once more.

  After four years they had decided that the Jermyn Street flat was too noisy and had finally found a charming apartment at 28 Parkside, Knightsbridge. The move meant another major disruption but the new place had the benefit of being “beautifully spacious and blessedly quiet.” It also had views directly on to Hyde Park from their bedroom, the sitting room, and Georgette’s study, and a staff of day and night porters to manage things. Ronald had now fully retired from legal practice but was continuing his role with the General Optical Council for one more year. Georgette hoped that a gradual transition would “let him down lightly;” she had concerns for him in retirement—Ronald being the sort of person “who can’t thrive unless his brain is fully occupied.”

  They had plenty to occupy them that Christmas, however, for Frank’s wife, Joan, died on 16 December after a long battle with cancer and Boris’s wife, Evelyn, was also unwell. Georgette did not expect it to be a particularly merry Christmas but she had invited her brothers and sister-in-law to spend the day with them and hoped to make the occasion a pleasant one. Entertaining her family was an effort, especially when she was “longing…to remember that I am not only a Sister, and a Housewife, but a NOVELIST!” She was tired but she wanted to return to her writing and assured her publisher that “suddenly an Idea will burst upon me—after which I shall forget that I’m a Sister and a Housewife, and shall plunge deep into the early XIXth Century, and be lost to Society until I have written THE END!”

  Early in January 1972 Georgette received the second of the two fan letters which she would keep. It came from Roy Pfautch, President of Civic Service Incorporated in St. Louis, Missouri, and began:

  I am not given to the writing of letters of praise to famous individuals. In this instance, I am literally compelled to do so by a feeling of gratitude so strong that the peace of my nerves demands an assuaging through the process of thanking you for the grace, the marvels and the sheer magic of your writing.

  He assured her that her Regency novels were “read and reread” and told Georgette he could “only hope…only anticipate…and only wait” for her next novel. It was a delightful letter to receive and she wrote a pleased reply in which she assured the American businessman that “I’m not really as good as you think I am, but it is very nice to be told I am!” Perhaps inspired by this unlooked-for praise, a week later she told Reinhardt that she was starting a new book.

  The Rougiers moved to Parkside in January, celebrating with a cocktail party for sixty friends. It was a great success but a few days later Georgette fractured her fibula and once again became housebound. Her leg was very painful and not at all conducive to positive thought. As well as feeling that she had “become Accident Prone, in my old age,” she was finding the new book unexpectedly difficult. “There are moments when I feel I have written myself out,” she told Joyce Weiner. She was pushing herself again, trying to meet her self-imposed deadline in order to give Reinhardt the book in time for autumn publication. Family and friends tried to soothe her concerns but she refused to listen. While she recognized that she had not been in good health for some while, Georgette was also convinced “that ten years ago it wouldn’t have affected my brain as today it has.”

  A month later, despite her struggles with the book, Georgette told Reinhardt the title was Lady of Quality and that “Ronald says the operative words are ‘the rudest man in London.’” The new book had several things in common with Black Sheep, although Lady of Quality was a quieter, more thoughtful book than its predecessor. It was also the first of Georgette’s novels in which the older heroine openly struggles with “the question of being obliged to give up her freedom, to turn her life upside down” by choosing to marry. Georgette had been thinking deeply about love and marriage, and the novel offers a rare insight into the bond between a happily married couple (the heroine’s brother, Sir Geoffrey, and his wife Amabel). Their marriage is depicted not as a fairy-tale romance but as a practical, loving relationship. Georgette imbued the book with her usual humor, created another of her memorable characters in the dreadful Maria Farlow (an “infernal gabster” who would be magnificently dispatched by the hero) and ended the novel on a note of domestic felicity between Sir Geoffrey and Amabel which in some ways reflected her own happy ménage.

  It was a race to get the book finished. She worked at breakneck speed through the spring, stopping only to celebrate Richard’s appointment as a Queen’s Counsel in April (he would be made a Bencher in 1979 and knighted in 1986 after being appointed to the High Court. He and Susie would divorce in 1996 and Richard would remarry that year), and to attend a “Grand Day” at Lincoln’s Inn at which she (along with the Duke of Kent) was a guest of honor. The rest of the time she worked in “strict retirement,” eschewing lunches and social engagements and only going away for a short break to Greywalls over Whitsun. She worried over her writing and was relieved when, after reading the bulk of the manuscript to Ronald, he assured her that it was not dull.

  She finished the book on 17 June. It meant a tight schedule if Reinhardt was to achieve October publication, but he collected the last thirty thousand words himself, had everyone on standby and, when Barbosa unexpectedly fell ill, “managed to get hold of another artist, who agreed (for a sum!) to do the job instanter [sic], AND to copy Barbosa’s style!” Georgette eventually pronounced the dust jacket as one of her best. She was less convinced about the book, thinking Lady of Quality well below the standard of her “Vintage works.” But booksellers found nothing wanting. Even before she had finished writing it, her new novel had sold twenty-five thousand copies on the strength of her name and the title alone.

  Reinhardt sent the new contract in May and told Georgette he had doubled her advance. In June she called it in: “When I grandly said that I didn’t want £10,000 I was reckoning without the Treasury Sharks.” Since the beginning of the financial year she had paid £28,000 in tax and had just received a bill for another £6,000. Her sentiments about taxation and the “National Drain” had not altered over the years, although a new purchase tax a few years earlier had made her more sympathetic to “the countless millions who su
bsist by the skin of their teeth on low incomes.” She knew she was fortunate and, although she worked hard for it, she was never tempted to take her income for granted—even telling Max Reinhardt: “Mind, now! I don’t want you to pay me this ridiculous sum without having read the book! You may well feel it isn’t worth it.” But Reinhardt did not need convincing. Georgette’s lament that she would “have to revert to the One-Book-A-Year routine” in order to satisfy the Inland Revenue was deemed by her publisher to be wonderful news.

  Lady of Quality left Georgette exhausted. She wrote to thank Reinhardt for all his efforts with the novel as well as for his “quite Divine Patience with your most tiresome author!” She was no such thing, of course, and Reinhardt knew it. Though she could be demanding, she was not difficult, and after more than fifty years of writing was still the consummate professional. With the book done, she enjoyed a leisurely July watching the cricket on the television and preferring to stay in to see the fourth test to going out to lunch or shopping. She had slowed down considerably since suffering the injuries to her legs and would not cross Knightsbridge without Ronald beside her for fear of being run over by the “cars and busses which come hurtling round the corner the entire time.”

  They were at Greywalls for Georgette’s seventieth birthday in August, and celebrated with a bottle of champagne. Ronald’s gift was the promise of a long silver chain—once she had found one she liked. Joyce Weiner sent an “enchanting little pill-box” and Reinhardt wrote to congratulate her, convey “the good news that Lady of Quality is selling like hot cakes,” and to tell her that Pan had offered £15,000 for the paperback rights. Georgette was pleased, especially about Pan, though she could not refrain from asking Reinhardt: “Did you have to wring it out of them, or did they actually offer it?”

  Georgette returned from Greywalls feeling restored to health and ready to start work on a new book “if I can think of one!” A few weeks later she had a fall in her dining room, cut her scalp open, and bruised her spine and ribs. It was several weeks before she could cough without pain or lie down comfortably and the accident put paid to any thought of a new novel. Instead, she got out her long-neglected medieval manuscript and spent the dreary days of recovery reading it through and “toying with the idea of bringing it to an end, with the death of Henry IV.”

  It was years since she had looked at the book and a relief to discover it was “definitely GOOD” and “absorbingly interesting”—though not at all in her usual style. She did not know if it should be published and hoped Reinhardt would read it and advise her. The third part was still unfinished and would need a lot of work to complete but with Lady of Quality already heading the bestseller lists and her income secure the task now seemed feasible. Whether John of Lancaster was published or not, Georgette was certain she wanted to finish it. If Reinhardt thought it would be “disastrous to publish it” then she would “put it away to be published after my death!”

  She never did finish the book that became My Lord John. Perhaps she recognized the novel’s shortcomings and her own inability to grasp the medieval era. When it was eventually published the year after her death her reviewers praised her research, her knowledge, and her skill as an outstanding storyteller, but the majority view was that My Lord John did not match the standard set by her Regency novels. Most readers found her posthumous novel a dull book crammed with too much historical detail, contrived dialogue, and a confusing cast of characters. Georgette’s inability to understand the importance of religion in medieval times was a major flaw and she was unable to bring the era to life as she had the Regency. In this book at least Georgette failed to wear her learning lightly—and in her heart of hearts she must have known it. If she had really wanted to finish the manuscript she would not have put it away for eighteen years. By keeping it “in lavender,” however, Georgette avoided the sort of disappointment she had experienced with Penhallow and her medieval dream remained inviolate until the end.

  Death seemed a little nearer that Christmas. In a card to Joyce Weiner, Georgette told her former agent that she had “been through a pretty grim period…and begin to wonder whether I ever shall be fit again.” The accident in her apartment was her fourth unlucky incident in less than two years. It had knocked her confidence and made her feel her age. By January 1973, though her spine was still sore, she was feeling a little better and able to write Reinhardt a pithy letter criticizing W.H. Smith’s latest advertising gambit. Her publisher was hoping for news of her next book but a few weeks later Georgette wrote to say she had been “laid up with bronchitis, & am only just—precariously—on my feet again.”

  She had a new doctor whom she and Ronald thought excellent and hoped would see them to their last. His response to her worries about her writing was to assure her that “if I take things very easily for some weeks, don’t over exert myself, don’t let anything worry me, & don’t have Any More Accidents, I shall in all probability regain all my lost vitality, & perpetrate a Masterpiece!” She was not convinced. She thought it unlikely she would produce a book that year and apologized to Reinhardt for letting him down.

  By late March Georgette was, if not quite well again, on her feet and able to walk through Green Park with Ronald. She found herself easily tired and overwhelmed by noise, traffic, or anything else frenetic or fast. She loved her view across Hyde Park and would often spend time in the gardens, finding it “a blessed relief to be surrounded by grass, and trees, and flowers, instead of houses!” She missed Albany’s peaceful environs and the sense of being tucked away in a haven in the heart of busy London. Parkside was an improvement on Jermyn Street but as her health continued poor, Georgette found it increasingly exhausting to be out in the world. She managed a trip to Provence with Ronald and Frank in the spring but confessed to Reinhardt afterwards that she felt “about Provence much as I felt about Iceland: it was extremely interesting, I wouldn’t have missed it, but I don’t want to go there again. It isn’t my kind of country.”

  But the holiday did her good and by July she was more or less restored to health and catching up on her “Social Arrears.” This meant occasional lunches with friends, for she found that more than one engagement on the same day left her exhausted. A few weeks later her plan to meet Joyce Weiner for lunch had to be postponed after Georgette suffered a slight stroke. Desperate to see her well again Ronald took her north to the Summer Isles Hotel in Scotland. He hoped the magnificent views and wonderful air would be a tonic to her exhausted nerves and afflicted body. They had three glorious, untroubled weeks before Georgette became ill again and had to be transferred to a nursing home in Edinburgh, where she stayed for the remainder of their holiday. Ronald was a tower of strength, organizing everything and eventually bringing her home on the day train.

  By late September she was over the worst of it and able to meet Max Reinhardt for lunch, but his pleasure in her recovery and belief that she was well again proved premature. The stroke had left her with a semi-paralyzed right hand; she was now losing weight and had developed a little, dry cough. She wrote to Joyce Wiener in October to apologize for their delayed lunch but explained that “At the moment I am keeping my social engagements to the barest minimum, which is very boring, but also very necessary, if I am ever to think of writing another book.”

  Georgette was fighting against the odds but refusing to give in. In November she told her old friend Dorothy Tornow that she was “at last making progress, & no longer feel better one day and worse the next. I can’t do very much yet, but I no longer feel a longing for death!” Ronald was doing all he could to aid her recovery and Georgette admitted that “the ministrations of my peerless husband” were the only thing that helped. Now fully retired, he was always there and ready to do the shopping or any other errand no longer within her power, while their housekeeper’s sister did the cooking.

  On 10 November 1973 Georgette learned that her brother Boris had died after a long illness in the Radcliffe Infirmary. She had longed to visit him during the last months of his li
fe but her doctor would not allow it. It was small comfort to know that even if she had made the journey her brother was beyond recognizing anyone. She had made up The Black Moth for Boris and he had always been one of her most enthusiastic readers. Now he was gone, and she had to “try not to let it get me down.”

  Georgette and Ronald had a quiet Christmas. She sent her usual Fortnum & Mason hampers to family and friends but was incapable of traveling to Murrell’s End. Richard and Susie held the festivities at their Gloucester Road flat and Georgette spent a “very happy, lazy day with them” and her grandsons, who were as engaging as ever. She was proud of Richard’s family and told Isabella Banton that her son “was born lucky.”

  In January 1974 the international oil crisis found them enduring all sorts of inconveniences in order to save fuel. The crisis deepened through the new year until Georgette felt they could stand no more. “We are neither of us of an age, or in the right state of health, either to cope with life in a flat which has no light or heat other than that provided by electricity—let alone the lift!” she told Reinhardt. Her pronouncement to friends that her health was better had been short-lived. Her doctor told her she would not be well before June. This was frustrating because she was “trying to think of a Plot for a book, & finding it almost impossible.” Her doctor had urged her to start writing as a form of “excellent mental therapy,” but Georgette found the idea of writing a book as therapy unappealing. She had thought of several possible characters, however, and hoped that if she began writing, inspiration might come. Reinhardt assured her that he did not want her to feel pressured—only that if she was writing a new novel they would “all be thrilled.”