The Importance of Agency

[mtvessel]

Nov 2022 – Jan 2023
Regency Buck / A Civil Contract / The Grand Sophy – Georgette Heyer – Arrow, 2004/2004/2005
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So here are three more Georgette Heyer novels recommended by my friends. They are all good fun and all subvert the romance formula in interesting ways. But for me there was a definite order of enjoyment, and that order was linked to the agency of the female protagonists.

In Regency Buck our leading lady is Judith Taverner, who arrives in London along with her nice-but-dim brother Peregrine after the death of their father. As they have not attained the age of majority yet, they have a legal guardian, whom the siblings are appalled to discover is the arrogant dandy, Lord Worth. He may be a fine horseman and have excellent taste, but his condescending manner is insufferable.

And insufferable he remains, long after we are supposed to start liking him. There is a clear hint of Pride and Prejudice in the plotting, but the relative helplessness of the heroine and the way in which her male acquaintances effectively gaslight her by refusing to explain their motives leave a sour taste in the mouth. I liked the portrayal of dandy society and the depiction of Brighton Pavilion, but the story didn't really work for me.

A Civil Contract is a much more interesting proposition in that it completely upends the romance formula by portraying a successful marriage between two people who are not in love. Adam Deveril is a promising viscount whose father dies leaving the family mired in debt. Jonathan Chawleigh, a new money tycoon, offers a solution; marry his daughter Jenny and he will pay the bills. Seeing it as the only way of saving the family manse, Adam submits himself to Mr Chawleigh’s clumsy match-making. He meets Jenny, and although they are not attracted to each other, they agree on a marriage of convenience – she will try to make him comfortable and he will try to make her happy. Of course, it becomes rather more than that, despite the reappearance of Adam’s old flame Julia Oversley, a woman he loved but could not marry.

What makes this book is the character of Jenny, who is practicality personified. It must be said that not a lot really happens and Jenny is still somewhat restricted in what she is able to do, but in the conflict between sense and sensibility it is quite clear which side Heyer is on.

Then we come to The Grand Sophy, which is hilarious. Sophy is an only child, the twenty-year-old daughter of the eccentric diplomat Sir Horace Stanton-Lacey who dumps her on his cousins, the Rivenhalls of Ombersley, when he has to go abroad. They are in a bad way. Lord Ombersley is a gambling addict who spends most of the time at his club and Lady Ombersley is passive, weak-willed and sickly, leaving Charles, the eldest son, to become, in effect, the head of the household. Their romantic affairs are not much better – Charles is engaged to a tiresome bluestocking called Eugenia Wraxton, while eldest daughter Cecilia has rejected a perfectly presentable lord and is instead mooning over wannabe romantic poet Augustus Fawnhope. Then there is teenager Hubert, due to start at Oxford, who has got himself into serious financial trouble. Luckily Sophy, who combines an air of pert innocence with a Machiavellian talent for scheming, is up to the challenge of sorting them all out, much to the alarm of the strait-laced Charles who is determined to marry her off before she can interfere any more in his family affairs.

The twist in the romance formula here is that Sophy has her own money, so is beholden to no-one and can do pretty much as she wishes. The result is that she brings, in the rather tiresome parlance that seems to have become ubiquitous recently, a "chaotic energy" to the plot that makes it the most engaging and funniest of Heyer's books that I have read. Apart from a brief appearance by a character who is an unpleasant anti-semitic stereotype, and the fact that Sophy's eventual romantic interest really doesn't deserve her, this is a great book.

Comments

[ingaborg]

I agree with you almost entirely, although I think that one of the central points of A Civil Contract is that Jenny is absolutely in love with Adam, but chooses to hide her feelings. I find this uncomfortable and poignant, and I do want to have stern words with Adam for failing to notice, and taking Jenny's careful devotion to his emotional and physical comfort so much for granted.

There is indeed a general theme of the male leads being arrogant twats. I think my favourite Heyer hero has to be Freddy in Cotillion.