Georgette Heyer Read online

  Christmas came and went. She returned to Behold, Here’s Poison and apologized to Hodder for not finishing the manuscript in time for their planned February launch. Since her nervous breakdown Georgette had found that she “daren’t sit up all night writing anymore, 5.30 a.m. is now my limit, and that means early bed the next night.” A few hours sleep were usually enough to restore her energy, however, and she was always up in time to see Ronald and Richard in the morning. From 1928 this gruelling regimen enabled Georgette to write an average of two books a year for more than a decade.

  But even this prolific output could not prevent them falling deeper into debt. By February Georgette was faced with more than £300 of unforeseen bills and no clear idea of how she was to pay them. She toyed with the idea of asking Ronald’s mother to put up the securities needed to guarantee them an overdraft but as she and Mrs. Rougier did not always get on this was a last resort. A few months earlier she had considered selling the copyright in one of her novels to Heinemann. She had fixed on £250 as a reasonable price but done nothing about it. She thought of writing a series of eighteenth-century short stories or “hurriedly writing the Waterloo book, in the hope of serial rights,” but a novel about the Battle of Waterloo was not the sort of book to be written quickly. She assured her bank manager that she would deposit “substantial sums” into her account as soon as she received her latest advance and wrote despairingly to Norah Perriam: “I don’t quite know what happens next. Bankruptcy, I think. Something unpleasant, anyway.”

  Georgette finally delivered Behold, Here’s Poison to Hodder in February. Still smarting from her unsatisfactory experience with Heinemann’s printer over Regency Buck, she insisted that Hodder print the book exactly as typed. The novel was scheduled for May publication but Georgette hoped she might earn some extra income from its serial sale because “You never heard anything like the way the wolf is howling round our doorstep.” Determined to stave off financial disaster she returned to the short-story genre in the hope of a quick cash sale and within a day of finishing the Hodder novel had written “Hazard” which she described as “Quite too thrilling for words…Glorious drunken gambling scene with wicked step-brother staking his sister.” Two more short stories followed, but by mid-March Georgette had capitulated and written to her mother-in-law asking her to guarantee an overdraft of £700.

  Despite having made over a thousand pounds the preceding year, Georgette was again spending her income faster than she earned it. She and Ronald had spent over £800 renovating Blackthorns (which they did not own). This, she confessed, “out of income, takes some doing.” Even with the best estimates her earnings for the next six months would not exceed £1,200 and she was unable to see how this could be stretched to cover the household expenses, provide for her mother and Boris, meet her next tax bill, and whittle down the overdraft. Georgette’s calculations included the £500 advance for her next (as yet unwritten) Heinemann novel and £300, if Moore sold the first serial rights for the book. But this was hypothetical income; if she was to earn it she had to keep on writing. The stark financial reality was not made any easier by Ronald’s decision to chuck in the shop and become a barrister.

  Ronald had done his best to make a go of the sports store but by Christmas 1935 he could see that both the income and the long-term prospects were always going to be limited. He was not shy of work, but it had needed a considerable mental shift to switch from being a mining engineer living and working overseas to running a shop in a small country town in England. After a few years in the business, Ronald had begun to think seriously about pursuing his long-held ambition of reading for the Bar. He and Georgette talked about the possibility but they were never a couple who worked things out quickly. Major decisions took time, and from early in their relationship Georgette made a point of deferring to Ronald on financial matters. She was aware that she earned far more than he did and possibly always would. As a result she felt an unspoken obligation to accord him a degree of deference in matters which, in reality, she was quite capable of handling herself. Georgette cared deeply about Ronald, about his happiness and his well-being. When, early in 1936, he decided to take the plunge and pursue a legal career she fully supported his decision—despite the considerable cost involved. Accordingly, for the next four years, the burden of providing for their family came to rest squarely on her shoulders.

  To become a barrister in England in the 1930s meant forgoing an income for at least three years while the candidate qualified. There were also admission fees, lecture fees, and term dinners to be paid for, the cost of a wig and gown, and the expense of obtaining and keeping a place in an established chambers. Because a candidate could not accept briefs or be paid while reading for the Bar, the system effectively precluded anyone without a private income from becoming a barrister. Ronald applied for admission to the Inner Temple in the spring of 1936 and Georgette wrote to Norah Perriam to say, “If you can think of any way whereby I can raise ready cash by my pen, pray tell me of it!” She had abandoned the Waterloo book and decided “to write a light, saleable Regency novel which I rather think I shall call ‘Corinthian.’”

  She planned to set the novel in the same period as Regency Buck “so that I need not waste time reading for it,” and thought she could finish it in six weeks. A serial sale to Woman’s Journal would mean a quick £300. So desperately did Georgette want the money to pay off her overdraft and release Mrs. Rougier’s securities that she was even “toying with the idea of playing Hodders for a big advance on my period stuff.” But Ronald was “dead against it. Says it is mortgaging the future, & I should not leave Heinemann without good reason.” She was feeling strained because her idea for “Corinthian” had not crystallized and she could not think of anything else.

  Having given up on “Corinthian” she was beginning to despair of ever thinking of a suitable plot for a new historical novel. “After several days brain-racking, during which time it appeared to me that I had Written Myself Out & couldn’t think of any plot at all, a Wholly Glorious Novel burst upon me in the space of twenty minutes,” she told Norah Perriam triumphantly. “Three hours work filled in the rough sketch, & the result is the accompanying synopsis, which I hope may convey something to you…Unless I’ve lost my gift for the Farcical, which I do not think, I’m going to perpetrate one of my more amusing & exciting works. The title is The Talisman Ring.”

  Six weeks later she delivered the first half of the book to Moore. He easily sold the serial rights to Woman’s Journal. Georgette had already forwarded the early chapters to Dorothy Sutherland, when Richard fell ill and required surgery. His needs naturally took precedence over her writing, but Georgette assured the editor that she would receive the rest of the book in time for publication. The moment Richard recovered she went straight back to her writing.

  The Talisman Ring proved an ideal novel for serialization: fast-paced and with plenty of the ironic comedy and unsentimental romance at which Georgette excelled. She set the novel in 1793 in the familiar countryside around Horsham, introduced an intriguing murder mystery, and created an engaging cast of period characters to solve it. The first installment appeared in Woman’s Journal in August, with illustrations which gave Georgette “a hearty laugh. Two ladies in full Victorian ball-dress in the middle of a winter’s morning & staying in a country inn!” It was an amusing faux pas but it also reinforced her poor opinion of Dorothy Sutherland; Georgette cared a great deal about historical accuracy.

  On 19 June 1936 Ronald was admitted to the Inner Temple and began his training for the Bar. He had sold the lease on the sports store and, despite the increased financial responsibility for Georgette, was relieved to be rid of it. In July, the family took rooms for a fortnight at No. 3 The Wynding, an Edwardian terrace house situated behind the dunes at the foot of Bamburgh Castle. This time Georgette took her typewriter, though she had no expectation of using it.8 She spent the days on the beach with Ronald and Richard, “sitting on the sands, or visiting Places of Interest,” and let
ting her brain lie “wonderfully fallow.” But even in this tranquil setting she could not escape her money worries.

  Ronald’s mother was becoming increasingly concerned about her still unreleased securities and Georgette wrote to Moore from Bamburgh urging him to wrest the money for The Talisman Ring serial from Amalgamated Press. Not even a £325 royalty check had sufficiently reduced her overdraft and an American proposal to produce Merely Murder for Broadway seemed a vain hope. Georgette could only conclude that she and Ronald would “have to start thinking of a new detective story” as soon as they got home. It must have been a continual challenge: finishing one book only to have to almost immediately start the next. As Georgette expressed it to Norah Perriam: “What a life!”

  Home from her holiday, she was back at work by the end of August. She called her new detective novel, They Found Him Dead, another Shakespearean title, this time from King John. Georgette hoped the book’s “general atmosphere of mystification and Fear” would convince Dorothy Sutherland to buy the serial rights. She sent the first eight chapters to Moore and suggested that he remind reluctant editors “why E.M Delafield sells so well!—Because she draws lots of absurd & well-known types, & we all love laughing at people we know. That’s what I’ve done.”

  In They Found Him Dead Georgette took great delight in poking fun at various relatives and chance-met acquaintances. She had a knack for detecting a person’s foibles and frailties and of writing them into her fictional characters. The new novel included “a thumbnail sketch of a woman I met at Bamburgh this year; two Striking Portraits of my brother-in-law & his wife; one middle-aged Female Explorer (‘Out in the Congo one gets used to facing danger’); and one schoolboy with a predilection for American gangster films.” And she clearly had Ronald in mind when she had Hannasyde tell his sergeant that:

  “You think that if a man plays first-class football, and gets into the semi-final of the Amateur Golf Championship that he can’t be a murderer!”

  The sergeant blushed, but said defiantly: “Psychology!”

  “Rubbish!” said Hannasyde.

  Georgette even took a satirical swipe at her own imperfections and domestic situation through the fictional Rosemary Kane:

  You see, I know myself so frightfully well—I think that’s my Russian blood coming out…My grandfather was a Russian…I know I’m selfish, capricious, extravagant and fatally discontented…I wasn’t born to this humdrum life in a one-eyed town, surrounded by in-laws, with never enough money, and the parlour-maid always giving notice, and all that sort of ghastly sordidness…I’m the sort of person who has to have money…you can say what you like, but money does ease things.

  With her mother-in-law now “agitating ceaselessly” for the return of her securities, Georgette knew only too well how money eased things. The lack of it was almost driving her to distraction with the result that her “whole aim and object is to be free of this obligation.” Although she had succeeded in considerably reducing her overdraft and there were no longer renovations to pay for, general household costs had not abated. The uncertain nature of her income made it difficult to budget, and unforeseen expenses had made it impossible for her to completely clear her debts. She was only a few hundred pounds short of balancing the books: “Once I’m straight I think all will be plain sailing, as I seem to be making a fair income, one way & another. That’s why I’m so mercenarily minded at the moment, & lie awake praying for the American play to be a success, & for Fox Films to buy Talisman Ring.”

  Despite her initial skepticism, Merely Murder was to be staged on Broadway. The writer was A. E. Thomas, a New York playwright whose play No More Ladies had been made into a film starring Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery. Thomas regularly sent Georgette drafts of the Merely Murder script, but they did not impress her. She felt that he had veered down the vaudeville path and inserted into the story what she considered to be “low comedy.” She asked Moore to inform Thomas that “Wit & custard-pies don’t mix. If he tries to introduce ‘mad situations’ he will fall between two stools.” She also wanted the producer, Mr. Blatt, reminded that “the original reason for dramatizing the book lay in the quality of the dialogue,” the characters’ personalities, and in the reader’s uncertainty about Kenneth Vereker’s guilt or innocence.

  She would have liked to go to New York and collaborate on the play but felt it to be impossible. “This play is not going to be as good as I could make it,” she told Moore, “to correct by correspondence is very difficult, as I don’t wish to hurt Mr. Thomas’s feelings. The ideal thing would have been for us to have worked together—he to plot the sequence me to write the necessary dialogue. Reading this 2nd version has made me more than ever determined to do Behold, Here’s Poison myself.” Georgette could see how easily just one successful script or screenplay would provide instant relief from her financial embarrassments. But her plan to turn Behold, Here’s Poison into a play was short-lived because she was soon distracted by other, more pressing, concerns.

  By the end of 1936 Georgette had grown concerned about Heinemann’s handling of her books. She had given them nine novels in twelve years, none of which had needed discussing, editing, or rewriting. If she was not yet an instant bestseller, her cumulative sales ran into the hundreds of thousands. Yet she felt there was little active interest from Heinemann in either her or her writing. She might have put up with what she saw as personal neglect if she had felt that the firm was doing its best to sell her books. But Hodder’s successful promotion of Behold, Here’s Poison seemed a stark contrast to Heinemann’s approach: “I notice that I have been dropped from Heinemann’s advertisements,” she told Moore, “I think this premature.” Nor was she happy with the presentation of her latest work: “The wrapper to Talisman Ring is held on all sides to be cheap in execution & I very much object to having other books advertized in the end pages of mine.”

  Burdened by her overdraft and strained by her efforts to produce enough work to clear the debt, she wondered if a change of publisher might not solve her money troubles. She knew Hodder were eager to acquire her historical novels and would pay handsomely for them. When Georgette discovered that she had again been left out of Heinemann’s advertising, she put the idea of a change to Moore:

  My ire has once more been roused by the noticeable omission of my name from Heinemann’s list in today’s Observer. I don’t know whether I wrote strongly enough to you on this subject in a previous letter, or whether you may perhaps have thought that I was merely suffering from a spasm of irritation. I’m not. I doubt very much whether you will succeed in getting me to sign a new contract with Heinemann. I don’t deny that they are good publishers. What I feel more & more is that they are only concerned with their high lights. If you think it over, what is their utter unconcern over each book of mine but apathy? It is sometimes annoying to be badgered by your publisher for a synopsis of your new book, but at least it shows a keenness which seems to me to be lacking in Heinemann’s organization.

  My complaints against them are several. First, they apparently regard me as a certain seller up to a certain number of copies, & see little point in trying to push sales beyond that maximum. Second, they do not advertize me. Third, they seem to be unable to get the book reviewed…As regards the advertizing I do not wish to be told by C.S. Evans that he does not believe in advertizing. No such disbelief seems to deter him from billing continuously works by Dunsany, Somerset Maugham, Maurice Baring, & Masefield. Well, those are big names, but my point is that if Evans is only concerned with these he is not the publisher for me…

  I’ve been with Heinemann for a number of years now, & I don’t really want to change, but I wonder whether I’ve been with them too long? They don’t care what I produce. Had they written to me that they didn’t think Talisman Ring quite up to the mark these doubts wouldn’t exist in my mind. But they didn’t. They probably haven’t read it. And I feel certain that the comparative failure of Regency Buck is attributable to their apathetic handling of my work. It
was “another Heyer” to them, cast out to sink or swim like the rest. But had Hodder handled it, might it not have rivaled David Murray’s Regency? [This moderately successful novel about a woman named “Regency” and three of her identically named descendants has faded into obscurity.]

  I want you to think the situation over carefully, and to glance at my contract. Am I tied up past this book? And I’m not a bit interested in the slow increase of sales. I have just seen what Hodder could do with a book like Poison, as against what an inferior publisher did with a far better book, Death in the Stocks. And a prejudice against Hodders, a liking to be amongst Heinemann’s authors isn’t going to weigh with me if once I am convinced that Hodder would put me over bigger. How much do Hodder want my romances, and what are they prepared to pay for them?

  Moore conveyed the gist of her letter to Heinemann who did not respond. It did not help that there was no one at the firm specifically responsible for her. Georgette would have liked a more personal relationship with someone at Heinemann, but it was difficult. She did not like the Chairman, Charles Evans, and, unlike other Heinemann authors, she did not make a habit of calling in at the firm’s headquarters at 99 Great Russell Street to discuss her work or check on the progress of her latest novel. Although other successful Heinemann writers, including J.B. Priestley, Somerset Maugham, and Francis Brett Young, expected—and received—a good deal of personal attention and support from the firm, this had never been Georgette’s style.9 She was mostly content to remain in Sussex and write.

  Busy with her work, she put her concerns to one side and got on with correcting the proofs of They Found Him Dead and the script for Merely Murder. Things were not going well with the play, which was depressing for she had counted on the income from the production. Without it Georgette could see herself being in “just the same financial muddle next spring as I’ve been in this year.” She was also depending on Woman’s Journal buying They Found Him Dead and was endeavoring to meet Dorothy Sutherland’s request for cuts and changes.