I’ve always loved the novels of Georgette Heyer for their
wit, well-researched period detail, terrific story-telling and escapist fun.
And I am not alone. When, in June 2015, I went to the Blue Plaque ceremony at
103 Woodside, Wimbledon, where she was born, Stephen Fry, a great fan, did the
honours, opened the red curtains to reveal the plaque and spoke
enthusiastically of Georgette Heyer’s stylish and witty novels. He’d discovered
them at school and has loved them ever since; he finds them great comfort
reading if ever he’s under the weather.
There were many appreciative messages from people who
couldn’t be there, including Antonia Byatt and Nigella Lawson.
I also met Professor Mark Noble from Aberdeen University (an
authority on the science of the cardiovascular system), who’d come down from
Scotland especially for the ceremony. He’d been given a Georgette Heyer to read
when recovering from flu as a teenager, and has been a fan ever since. He looked
very dapper, as befitted the occasion – I’m sure Georgette Heyer, very stylish
herself, would have approved.
So why am I having a problem with April Lady when so many eminent people probably disagree? It has
more or less the same plot as The
Convenient Marriage (1934); and the heroine, Nell, is rather too quiet and
subdued. Her personal problems (debt, her husband’s supposed mistress, thinking
he doesn’t love her, and so on) make it difficult for her to be proactive. As a
novelist myself, I can see the technical problems here.
However, I can cope with all this. What I find very
difficult, though, is that, in the last few pages of the book, the hero Giles,
Nell’s estranged husband, allows his very young and flighty half-sister, Letty,
to marry the proper but ineligible Jeremy, and go with him to Brazil of all places. Letty is headstrong,
self-centred, spends money like water (fortunately, she’s an heiress) and, frankly,
is a pain.
Jeremy Allandale is a very proper young man of good, but
impecunious, family. He has a mother and sisters to support, and must make his
own way in the world. When he’s offered a position (he’s in the Foreign Office)
as a secretary in Rio de Janiero, he accepts it. It’s a step up for him but it
means he will be in Brazil for a couple of years.
Very sensibly, Giles has hitherto refused to allow an
engagement between Letty and Jeremy. She, after all, is only seventeen when the
story opens. So why does he backtrack
in the last few pages and allow them to marry and Letty to sail to Brazil with
Jeremy?
It’s bonkers! She doesn’t speak Portuguese, she’ll know
nobody, she won’t have a clue how to go on in diplomatic circles (crucial if
Jeremy is going to get on in his career), or how to run a house or organize
servants, and she is completely ignorant about money. What happens when she
gets pregnant? Remember, Jeremy will be
at work all day.
Yours truly outside 103 Woodside. Georgette Heyer's family on stairs behind.
When I was a teenager, none of this worried me; I just
thought that Nell and Giles would be relieved to be free of the constant worry
about what Letty was getting up to.
Nowadays, I think that Giles abandoning his responsibilities
towards Letty is disgraceful. OK, she
is tiresome, badly-brought up, etc. but she is very young, and, like it or not,
he is responsible for her.
Blue Plaque revealed
So, I've invented a scene where Giles asks Jeremy’s sensible
mother to have Letty to stay with her while Jeremy is away. Jeremy describes
Mrs Allandale thus: ‘Her understanding is superior, her mind of an
elevated order, and her firm yet tender command over my sisters encouraged me
to hope that over my darling also her influence would prevail.’
This is exactly what Letty needs. And, in return, Giles and
Nell will give Jeremy’s sisters a splendid Season. I offer this in some
trepidation but I cannot be the only person to find Giles’ behaviour here
worrying. And I doubt if I’m the only novelist to invent further scenes
featuring characters from her inimitable novels.
Elizabeth Hawksley
