Acting on Impulse by Georgette Heyer

Author:Georgette Heyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, short stories, historical romance, regency romance, georgette heyer, detective fiction, heyer, contemporary short stories, 1920s romance, 1920s short stories
Publisher: Overlord Publishing

THE END

READING “ACTING ON IMPULSE”

It never ceases to amaze me, the passivity of the Heyerian women in these contemporary tales of hers. Because, sure, our Ursula is presented to us here as an “independent” woman, who makes a living on her own and is accountable to no one, but ask her to marry an acquaintance of hers who will – apparently – take her away from all this artistic toil and make a lady who lunches of her, and she’s apparently ready to agree almost immediately, with no intimation of any particular fondness for the gentleman on her part, before or since the proposal.

To me, that makes sense in the Georgians and the Regencies. But in the 1920s? Really? With all the flappers and the women wearing trousers and the suffragettes?

Really?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love this story. It is funny, it is charming, and both the competent Ursula and her impulsive fiancé, the dashing and charismatic Kenneth (oh, these names!), are likeable and attractive souls for whom shared happiness is all but certain. But for the two of them to go from “pals” to “let’s get married!” in the space of a paragraph, without ever going on so much as a date or discussing things like whether they want kids, or where they’re going to live, or even just making out, is wholly bizarre – even in the 1920s, surely. I mean, I’ve read Elinor Glyn; those people were totally doing it.

But not before marriage, in Heyer Land. As far as we’re aware, Kenneth barely holds Ursula’s hand before deciding she’s the one for him… forever. What? No. That does not make sense.

It’s adorable as hell, though.

And, oh, the poor pater. Obviously, his snobbishness regarding Ursula is not to be borne, but how dreadful, to find oneself shut up in a ramshackle house – purchased outright by Kenneth, if you please, just as a bolthole for a couple of days, because of course one could buy a house on a whim, once upon a time; galling, isn’t it? – and deprived of the comforts of one’s declining years, all so your son can get married to his chance-met acquaintance. It’s disgraceful.

‘Pater,’ by the way, has to be one of the most time-specific endearments for a parent of all time. If you read a book in which the characters refer to anyone as “mater” and ‘pater,’ you are for sure reading a book that is set among the English upper echelons sometime around the World Wars. Giving the words an indefinite article – the mater and the pater – just solidifies the speaker’s place in society, and also in time.

In the decades since, “mater” and “pater” have rightfully fallen by the wayside, and while I actively decry the loss of some words from our shared vocabulary – one day I will see “zounds!” brought back into vogue – those frightfully twee appellations can stay gone for good.

So, poor ‘pater’ is starved into (whiskeyed and cigared into?) submission, and then

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