Acting on Impulse Read online

  He smiled rather grimly.

  “Suppose you cut out the fine talk, my girl, and come to grips? I don’t know why you should pretend you’d no idea I wanted to marry you. You’ve been in and out of my place for weeks. I’m not a fool, my girl, and I know what to make of that.”

  “Don’t call me that!” exploded Cicely. “I’m not your girl, and I won’t have such an—such an impertinence! I came to your farm because I was interested! We were just friends, as you very well know! I’ve never given you the right to talk to me like this!”

  “THINK so?” He rose and stood over her. “You were just playing, were you?—leading me on?”

  Cicely pushed back her chair and sprang up.

  “How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you say such a thing to me? Please—go! I am exceedingly sorry you should have made such a dreadful mistake—but to blame me? Why, I've never been anything but friends with you!”

  He came nearer.

  “Reckon a girl’s not friends with a man unless there is something more,” he drawled.

  Cicely backed to the wall.

  “Mr. Talbot, will you please go? If I were not alone here, you would not dare to speak to me in this way. I tell you, once and for all, I am not going to marry you. If you really care for me, you’ll go now.”

  “I’m not going. You’ve had your fun with me, and now you’ll pay for it.” He strode forward as he spoke, and gripped her by the shoulders.

  Panic seized Cicely, at the mercy of this dreadful person.

  “Bill!” she shrieked. “Bill, Bill, Bill!”

  From the garden came the sound of yelping barks. Bill showed no signs of coming to the rescue. Only he barked and barked in wild excitement.

  Talbot crushed Cicely against him. She could not even struggle under his iron hold. She was kissed roughly on her panting mouth, and then—

  Someone pushed open the cottage door.

  “You owe me a bob,” said a lazy, pleasant voice. “Get down, Bill!”

  “Richard!” sobbed Cicely. “Oh, Richard!”

  Still holding her with one arm, Talbot wheeled about. Cicely never quite knew what happened next. All that she remembered was that she was suddenly whisked from the farmer’s hold and deposited on the sofa. And Richard’s voice, dangerously sweet, was inviting Talbot to come outside. Then the two men seemed to disappear, shutting Bill into the cottage.

  Cicely crouched on the sofa, shivering still, and Bill snuffed and whined at the door with suppressed excitement.

  Then, after what seemed to Cicely countless ages, the door opened and Richard strolled in, calm and imperturbed. He passed the palm of his left hand across his knuckles and looked at his flushed cousin.

  “Has—has he—gone?” asked Cicely, in a very small voice.

  “Oh, yes!” said Richard.

  “Did—did—you—hurt him much?”

  “I hope so,” said Richard, and there was a short, uncomfortable pause.

  “How—how did you—find me?” she inquired, with would-be carelessness.

  “Process of deduction. What was that poisonous blighter doing in your cottage?”

  “Ha — having — tea,” said Cicely, nervously.

  “Where’s that fat fool—Maisie?”

  “Gone to—to see some friends.”

  “What does she mean by leaving you with a man like that?”

  “She—she doesn’t like him.”

  “Shows her good taste. Don’t you know better than to ask a brute like that to tea with you alone?”

  Cicely blinked away a tear.

  “I—I didn’t kn—know he—he’d—I always d—do ask my friends to tea!”

  “Your father’s house is rather different, isn’t it?”

  A muffled sob came from the sofa. Cicely was staring down at her hands, biting her lips. Richard went to her and sat with his arm about her shoulders. “Poor little kid! I won’t rag you any more. Don’t cry, Cis.”

  Cicely shed a few tears into his coat pocket, and sat up. She mopped her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief.

  “I—I am glad you came,” she sighed. “I n—never thought you would.”

  There was another pause.

  “Are—are you staying at the inn?”

  “I am.”

  “Are—are you going to stay for long?”

  “Looks as though I’d better,” said Richard drily.

  “Oh!” Cicely digested this. Then she spoke again. “P’raps you’ll be able to manage Timothy,” she said, hopefully. There was no answer.

  CICELY looked at him sideways. She sat for a moment, twisting a cushion-tassel. Richard said nothing at all, but watched her with that curious look in his eyes.

  A tiny smile came, shyly. And Cicely came to him and dived her hand into his waistcoat pocket.

  “What do you want, Cis?”

  “Diary,” said Cicely briefly.

  It was handed to her. She hesitated for a moment, not looking at him. Then she opened the book, and sucked the pencil. She scribbled diligently, and shut the book with a snap. Richard was watching her half-smiling, half-anxious. Cicely held out the book.

  “There you are! I’ve finished with it.”

  Richard took it. He slipped his arm round her once more. Cicely subsided meekly, and buried her face in his coat.

  Richard dropped a kiss on to the fluffy head.

  “Am I allowed to read what’s written here?” he asked.

  “If you—like,” said a muffed voice.

  He opened the book. The last entry was written in a round, sprawling hand. It was quite short.

  “Tuesday. Proposed to Cicely. Accepted.”

  THE END

  READING “A PROPOSAL TO CICELY”

  This one packs quite a punch, and even were it not only Georgette Heyer’s first published short story, but also her first published contemporary tale, there would still be a lot to examine in here. First, there is the suave, devoted Richard, whose chronicle of his many proposals to the firebrand Cicely is quite touching and sweet. But then you can’t help but think him a bit stalkery, too, unable to take no for an answer and all, and that is less sweet—but also more, somehow? (This is because romantical tales such as this have warped us all, of course, and our expectations of a fictional hero’s behaviour towards our heroine do not at all match what we would accept in real life.)

  Then we have Cicely, entitled and naïve, certainly, but a woman we cheer for, nonetheless—at first, anyway. When our story commences, she is terribly weary of her privileged life of wealth and beauty, and decides on a tree change as the cure. Not for her, the social whirl and a suitable marriage! For her, the countryside, and a light flirtation with what we’d call nowadays a “bit of rough.” In fostering the plebeian Talbot’s friendship and/or attachment to her, she is equal parts living dangerously and being determinedly egalitarian – when her friend and companion, the sensible if snobbish Maisie, objects to Talbot, Cicely doubles down on her efforts to befriend him, making herself free of his farm to simultaneously prove a point, give herself an illicit thrill, and, above all, alleviate her ennui.

  Which leads us, of course, to the almighty subject of class difference. This is, of course, a hallmark of Heyer, not just in her historical works but also in her contemporaries, especially in her arguably most challenging outing, 1930’s Barren Corn, in which a well-educated member of London’s rarefied gentry falls into mésalliance with the post-War equivalent of, in Victorian literary terms, a simple country maid, to the misery of all. (Including, it must sadly be admitted, many of the book’s readers.) Here, it manifests in Cicely’s utter disregard for Talbot as a man, or even as a person. To her he is a mere prop to her vanity, a sop to her boredom, and she is utterly astonished that he would presume to think of her as a potential mate, with their stations in life so very different, he a farmer and she a gentleman’s daughter. She takes it for granted that he will know his “place,” and that she could never be in any real danger from him, her “inferior.”
Indeed, it is evident she has never felt in real danger from any man, for which we can only envy her.

  Talbot, for his part, is assured of his own superiority over her, having misread Cicely’s signals entirely and also somehow believing that even if she had been signalling a romantic interest with her visits and her invitations, she’d consent to have him tell her what he’d “allow” her to do. In the space of a very few paragraphs, Talbot goes from mistaken to menacing, pitiful to predatory, and the shock of this sudden transformation rings so very true that a surge of adrenaline races through you, as your stomach plummets and fear grips.

  It is very, very well done.

  The very real threat of sexual violence is thrust upon the reader in quite the most dramatic fashion here – even The Black Moth, the publication of which predated this story by a year, and which features as one of its leads a serial abductor and rapist, is not so blatant about the looming dread its heroine faces – and in reaction to it, our independent Cicely comes over all winsome and compliant to the suddenly masterful Richard, whose timely arrival at this hidden away backwater of a cottage could not have been luckier for him, or her, or even Talbot, most probably. Cicely, shuddering in the aftermath of her would-be suitor’s anger and assault, rashly clings to her childhood companion (and cousin – here we have the first of Heyer’s consanguine couples, eventually culminating in The Grand Sophy’s first cousin pairing) as a safety net, as a protector, and meekly accepts his oft-delivered marriage proposal, at last.

  It’s understandable, but also kind of lowering, to see Cicely brought so helpless by this encounter. It is maddening to see Richard believe himself validated in his opinion that she is not to be trusted to take care of herself.

  Though there are hints that perhaps the old defiant Cicely is still in there somewhere. I actually like to think that she breaks off the engagement a couple of weeks later, and goes off to see the world with the much-maligned Maisie. (I’ll never forgive Richard for being so unnecessarily mean about her, the jerk.) Indeed, this is the one and only Heyer romance that has ever left me hoping that the Happy for Now does not become a Happily Ever After, post-book. Richard – despite his four years serving in World War I, which is very subtly mentioned herein – is clearly a dilettante, and our Cecily needs more from her partner.

  She especially needs someone who won’t badmouth her friends.

  Is that really so much to ask?

  The name Richard, by the way? Georgette Heyer really liked that name. Not only did she bestow it on several of her characters – Richard Carstares of The Black Moth, Richard Carmichael of Helen, Major Richard Fawcett of Pastel, Richard “Diccon” Dangerfield of Beauvallet, Sir Richard Wyndham of The Corinthian and Richard Chartley of The Nonesuch, plus Vidal’s groom Richards in Devil’s Cub – she also gave it to her son. [Note: For a time, he too was known as “Dicky.” It was not until he went to Cambridge that a close female friend suggested he become “Richard,” after which he was Dicky no more. - JK.]

  Dogs would also come to be a regular feature in Heyer’s works, but happily none of her future creations ended up with such a misapplied name as Chu Chu San, which one can only assume came from the title of a “Japanese Fox Trot” written by one Joseph Samuels in 1919, and which would be fine, except that Pekinese [sic] are from China, and you just know that Cicely – and, by extension, Heyer – did not even think about that for a moment. Then again, “Chu” is a Chinese name, and “san” is Japanese, and Joseph Samuels was neither, so it is all of a 1920s cultural appropriation-y piece, really, isn’t it?

  Not that things are all that much better a century or so later, but at least now we know it’s wrong. Heyer – and, from the evidence, the majority of her contemporaries – did not. It’s so hard to stop ourselves from judging the past by the standards of the present, and our aspirations for the future, isn’t it?

  But we must. Or we could never read, well, pretty much anything ever again.

  “THE LITTLE LADY”

  INTRODUCTION

  Georgette Heyer’s second short story, “The Little Lady”, was published in The Red Magazine in December 1922. The Red, as it was affectionately known, was, as Mike Ashley observes, originally intended as “an adult all-fiction magazine,” but frequently included stories by boys’ adventure writers. Founded in 1908 and part of “the first wave of all-fiction magazines,” it had a circulation of 90,000 for its twice-monthly publication. The Red Magazine was sometimes described as the “progeny of The Strand magazine” and early editions included stories by Jack London, O. Henry and Rafael Sabatini. It offered readers a wide range of well-written short stories including mystery, adventure, dramatic, and humorous, with about a third of the magazine’s contents being romantic tales.

  “The Little Lady” undoubtedly falls into this latter category.

  An unusual Heyer story, “The Little Lady” definitely belongs to this group of Heyer’s juvenilia. A whimsical tale of lost love and chance encounters, the story was written in her teens. Its hero, Peter, has quarrelled with his fiancée and left London in a rage. Another of Heyer’s independent young men of means, he finds his way to a country inn, and walking in the woods one day he meets a strange young woman: Bride is elusive, ethereal, elfin, and dressed as though she “had stepped from the pages of Jane Austen.”

  From Bride’s first appearance, Heyer creates an almost mystical atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt. Is Bride real? A ghost? Mad? Heyer compels the reader to wonder. She also raises doubts about the time in which the story is set. Though its opening is clearly 1920s England and Peter drives his car to the country, Bride seems to come from a different time and place. She is otherworldly and strange. More than fifty years later, Heyer would write Cousin Kate, another unusual story and one in which a young man goes “mad.” Torquil’s madness is far more intense and dangerous than any behaviour we see in Bride, but it is interesting that Heyer touched on the subject so early in her career.

  There is no knowing exactly when she wrote “The Little Lady”, though it was likely after 1918, at the end of the Great War. Heyer turned sixteen in August of that year and may have written it around that time. This is lightweight, sentimental fiction, with a mystical, magical element, that is unlike anything else she ever wrote. These elements suggest a more youthful pen than her later shorts. Here, too, is Heyer’s first– and most overt – reference to Jane Austen. Throughout her life, Austen would remain her favourite author, but the use of Austen’s name in this story has none of the subtlety or humour of later references.

  “The Little Lady” also has an adolescent’s sentimentality; none of her later stories would come to be so saccharine. Instead, Heyer would find her voice with more fully developed characters, sharper dialogue and her own particular brand of humour.

  THE LITTLE LADY

  I.

  HE was tramping through the wood, hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets, brow lowering, and lips in a sullen curve. He was very, very angry. Hurt, too, and like a sulky schoolboy. He had quarrelled with Ruth, and she had flung his ring back at him, telling him to go away and never to come back again. Well, he wasn’t going back.

  A rotted piece of tree-trunk lay across the cutting; he kicked it petulantly out of his way.

  It wasn’t his fault, anyway. She had started the row—at least, he thought so. He really couldn’t remember quite how it had begun or what it was about. He only knew that they had both been furious and that everything was at an end. Ruth was absolutely unreasonable, too. Probably it was just as well that the engagement was broken off.

  A rabbit scuttled across the path and was lost in the bracken. Peter scowled after it; he was in no mood for rabbits. A thrush singing in some nearby tree made him look savagely round. How dare the bird be happy when he was in black despair? He strode on, shoulders hunched forward.

  Yes, the row had upset him. He had gone back to his flat and had hurled some clothes into a portmanteau. He rather thought he had snarled at his servant, but he wasn’t
sure. Then he had flung out of the place to his waiting car and driven blindly off Heaven knew where! He hadn’t cared where he was going to. He had just driven out of London, through the suburbs, out into the country and on, on till dusk came. Then he had come upon this place, with its bubbling stream and its quiet beechwoods. He had liked the old inn, and, in any case, one place was as good as another to him now.

  He had intended to move on next day, but somehow, for no particular reason, he had stayed. He had been here almost a week and still he felt no more at ease in his own soul. He had come to a clearing in the wood where the golden sun filtered through the trees in great patches. He flung himself down upon a mossy bank and sat hugging his knees, staring gloomily before him. The sunlight played about his bare head, caressing his cheeks, but it awoke no gladness in him. He blinked at it, and shifted farther into the shade.

  A crackling of twigs sounded on his left, and the flick of leaves brushing against an alien presence. He turned his head apathetically.

  Through the undergrowth a little lady came, pushing her way. She paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing, standing on tiptoe, like some startled faun, timidly regarding him.

  Peter looked at her with some interest. Her hair was cut short and clustered in feathery curls about her head. She was dressed in white muslin, high-waisted and blue-sashed, with tiny puff sleeves and sandal shoes. Rather eccentric, Peter thought, but quite pleasing to the eye. She looked very young, too, hardly more than a child. but it was difficult to tell with that short hair.

  For a moment they stared at one another, he curiously, she with a half-shy, half-mischievous look on her little, pointed face. Then she took one or two dancing steps forward, light as thistledown upon the grass, and curtseyed to him, laughing. The sound of her voice was like fairy bells, ethereal and far away. Peter saw that although her eyes were smiling they were very sad.