In which we serialize Society Patroness Rachel Hyland’s first book in her Reading Heyer series, Reading Heyer: The Black Moth. Called “delicious” by Heyer expert Jennifer Kloester, it is a reading guide, critique and loving homage all in one. But mostly, it’s just a lot of fun. We hope you enjoy. Check back every Sunday for another installment, or buy the book here.
CHAPTER XVI: MR. BETTISON PROPOSES
Oh, Mr. Bettison! Now, really, what are you thinking? Sure, okay, we get it. You’re the local squire, in a time when such a thing was a fundamentally desirable trait in a man. (And, if we’re honest, it probably still is now.) Also, you’re young yet, and not beset by gout or the palsy or any sort of pox – that we know of, anyway – which makes you something of a rarity when it comes to the wealthy but spurned suitors of any historical heroine. But how utterly foolish of you not to realize that not only are you going to be turned down flat, in favor of a more dashing, if less respectable, gentleman, but you’re also going to be held up to us as an object of ridicule, your pride comething quite satisfactorily before your inevitable fall.
You know how we know this, even aside from the fact that you’re not mentioned in the blurb of this novel? Really, Mr. Bettison, must you be so obtuse? Dude—wait, can I call you dude? Too bad, I pretty much have to. Because l’m not much of one for being too formal, and yet I don’t know your first name. No one does. You’re like Sam Rockwell’s bit-part playing character in Galaxy Quest; without a full name, you can only believe yourself destined for an early death. Or, in the case of a novel such as this, an early exit with a flea in your ear.
So, naturally enough, Diana refuses your kind offer. But do you have to be such a douche about it? All “Do you dare aver that you did not encourage me to visit you?” and harping on about how “that fellow” – by whom you mean our hero, who not only has a first and last name, but a title and several nicknames, as well – is a popinjay and such. (Not that we can, in fairness, disagree; he loves his brocades and velvets, does Jack.)
So, you got unceremoniously dumped on your ass by a frigidly polite Di. And then escorted from the building, as though you were a troublesome detective making trouble for a wealthy, but most likely guilty, suspect. Good.
And goodbye, Mr. Bettison, fortunately never to be seen or heard from again!
Then hello to the sensible Aunt Betty, who happens upon a crying Diana, asks what is amiss, and when Di explains that her rejected suitor had gone so far as to claim that she was denying him because of her love for the recently departed Jack, is suitably outraged: “The brute!” she replies. And then also: “But, of course, ’tis true?”
This Diana has the grace to admit (“Of–of course ’tis true, but h-how dared he say so?”), and there follows a discussion of Jack’s honor, Diana’s unmaidenly-ness (“I–I–I asked him to marry me–and he wouldn’t!”), Betty’s belief that a man claiming such a “spotty” past had no other recourse but to refuse her proposal and how men are, generally, “big stupids.”
All of this is followed by quite an unexpected visitor (after all, she wasn’t mentioned in the chapter title): Lady O’Hara. She’s come to pay a call, Aunt Betty believes, due to the fact that her husband “Sir Miles had been here so often,” but we know better: she’s come to check out Diana’s worthiness as a suitable lifemate for her beloved Jack. (Or, at least, assess the competition: remember, even her husband considers her “attracted” to him.) The three ladies share tea and civil discourse, and Diana’s father Mr. Beauleigh makes another random cameo appearance in the plot: he comes into a room, sees the women chatting, and exits hurriedly.
You know what? We don’t know his first name, either.
THOUGHTS
I previously discussed the terrific exclamations and curses with which Georgette Heyer makes her characters so free, but you know another awesome word? “Popinjay.”
Aside from the romance and the adventure and the enjoyably dry wit and wicked sense of fun, the other thing one can gain from the works of Heyer is a broad and remarkable vocabulary. Any Scrabble player wanting to expand their language base and dazzle others with their knowledge of the abstruse and obscure could do very worse than to delve into her back catalogue.
(OFF TOPIC: Did you know that “za,” as in the shortened form of “pizza,” is now a valid Scrabble word? What is the world coming to?)
To return: one word I know for certain I learned from Heyer is “Bohea,” as in a type tea, which in historical novels is always taken in “a dish.” Funnily enough, I always just accepted this as how things were done back then without further research; I mean, if people in the olden days thought of tea as soup and preferred to slurp it from a bowl, who was I to judge?
It was only about ten years ago, when touring around the vast collection of crockery at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (a must for any fan of the genre, by the way), that I learned the very fascinating fact that the dainty teacup and saucer as we know it today, and which they use to such devastatingly uppercrust English effect on Downton Abbey and similar, was only invented in about 1750, by a man named Robert Adams. Before this, handle-less cups the like of Japanese and Chinese tea sets were employed, making a “bowl” or “dish” of tea the usual method of consumption. Since this novel is set right around that time, one can only admire Heyer’s scholarship here – as a youngster of nineteen, remember! – that she has her characters consuming even something as trivial as tea from the correct piece of kitchenware. (Not that the British consider tea “trivial,” of course. I mean, how’s this for a fun statistic to know and share: since the year 1700, the United Kingdom in its various political make-ups has been the highest per capita consumer of tea, and in 2010 the figure was pegged at 5.2 kilograms, or almost 11.5 pounds, of tea per person per year.)
Now, don’t forget to thank me when you win all that money on Jeopardy!, will you?
New chapters of Reading Heyer: The Black Moth will be posted here at Heyer Society each Sunday. Or buy it here.
