Book Review: Arabella by Georgette Heyer

Eponymous Challenge #1

Arabella Tallant is the eldest of four sisters in a family of eight children and modest means. As such she knows it is her duty to marry as well as she can, in order to assist her younger siblings. With her godmother’s offer of a Season in London and her family’s contrivances to get her finely arrayed on a budget her chances look good. Then her uncle’s carriage breaks down, obliging her and her chaperone to seek shelter at the home of the fabulously wealthy Mr. Beaumaris. There she overhears a comment revealing that he thinks her a gold-digger and her ‘carriage accident’ a mere ruse. Impulse gets the better of her and she pretends to be an heiress travelling to London in order to conceal her wealth and be courted for herself alone - before giving him a firm set-down. Not liking such treatment, Mr. Beaumaris decides to have word of the mythical Tallant fortune spread all over town, and to pay Arabella enough attention to make her the most popular girl of the Season.

Sure enough, Arabella is beset by suitors, and when she realises what Mr. Beaumaris’s gossipy friend Lord Fleetwood has done she’s in a quandary. She must marry; but how can she accept a proposal when to do so means revealing that she has no fortune - and the origin of the story that she does? She also finds it hard to keep up the pretence of being a fine lady; as a vicar’s well-brought-up daughter she can’t help rushing to the aid of creatures in need - even mongrel dogs and climbing boys. Mr. Beaumaris is disconcerted to discover that instead of being just a harmless bit of amusement, he actually likes her - and can’t say no when she needs a home for one of her rescued unfortunates. It takes the calamitous London career of Arabella’s incognito brother Bertram to sort things out - after making them vastly more complicated.

It’s about time I posted a review in my own challenge! (But, well, reading slump, blogging slump, whole-life slump . . . my mother is currently making better headway through my TBR box than I am.) This book I finished . . . er, a while ago, so it wasn’t part of the aforementioned slump - quite the opposite, in fact. While reading it I frequently had a broad smile on my face - especially if Ulysses was on the page. The little dog had a marked personality and simply adored his new owner, leaving many gentlemen comically confused as to whether having a dog following one everywhere was a new fashion they should all be adopting. (Except for Mr. Frederick Byng, who I’ve recently discovered was a real figure, and who took drives in the park with a perfectly coiffed and clipped poodle.) I liked Mr. Beaumaris’s willingness to poke fun at the slavish followers of fashion even though they were following him; but my favourite of the two was Arabella. She was kindhearted, able to hold her own in repartee with all the city people, and prone to getting into scrapes by not thinking about the likely outcome of her good intentions. Her agonising about how to extricate herself can’t have been much fun for her, but certainly is for the reader.

I just wish I could have seen the oh-so-fashionable Mr. Beaumaris happily pottering about the parsonage with all Arabella’s relatives; or her first meeting with his dragonish grandmother. (Somehow I think Arabella and the Dowager Duchess would have liked each other immensely.) And a glossary of Regency slang terms wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Rating: B+

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

Sylvester Rayne, Duke of Salford, has decided to marry before his nephew and ward Edmund gets old enough to feel put out by the loss of his position as heir presumptive. To the despair of his romantic mother he approaches the exercise in coldly business-like fashion, but he does unbend enough to allow his godmother to add her granddaughter to his shortlist. Unfortunately on visiting her family estate he doscovers that Phoebe Marlow is not duchess material: a shrinking violet when in the presence of her autocratic stepmother, and a regular tomboy when not. And Phoebe, after meeting Sylvester the previous Season, quickly pegged him as aloof and proud to the point of arrogance; so much so that when she wrote her first novel (a Gothic), she cast him as the villainous Count Ugolino.

Desperate to avoid being railroaded into marriage, Phoebe runs away to her grandmother in London, delivering quite a blow to the duke’s ego in the process. And things only get worse when the novel is published and becomes a sensation. Thanks to Sylvester’s - and Ugolino’s - distinctive and devilish-looking eyebrows, the unflattering portrait is instantly recognisable, and the original is furious. Then there’s his spoilt sister-in-law Ianthe, who wants custody of her son regardless of the terms of her late husband’s will, or the fact that her fiancé is a ridiculous fop whom Edmund loathes. She found Phoebe’s novel quite inspiring - especially the part where the heroine kidnaps Ugolino’s ill-used nephew to safety. And Phoebe’s talent for getting into trouble is such that she finds herself right in the middle of it, much to Sylvester’s horror.

Of course you know from the start that there’ll be a happy ending, but most of the fun is in getting there and Georgette Heyer can always be counted on to make the journey enjoyable. She has a wonderful way of bringing out the eccentric and absurd in her characters, particularly the ones who deserve it. In this book that’s Sir Nugent Fotherby, Ianthe’s foppish fiancé, who in one scene brags to Phoebe about his perspicacity in selecting his recently-purchased horse, a horse she knows was sold to him by her father for way too much money. There were a lot of moments where the poor girl had a hard time restraining her giggles (and the same can be said for this girl).

This book gave me something to think about, because I have faint hopes of one day writing the Great Australian Mystery Novel, and can think of a few former acquaintances who would make wonderful villains. But since none of them are happily-ever-after material like Sylvester, I’ll hve to make sure they’re sufficiently disgused. But not too much. That would take the fun out of it.

Rating: B
Best comeuppance: Sir Nugent losing the ostentatious tassels on his custom-designed Hessian boots
Wish I could: Write a novel that woul be as much of a success as Phoebe’s

Now reading: The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer (WCRC)
                                 The Fourth Protocol - Frederick Forsyth                                  The Best Man to Die - Ruth Rendell