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And then what would she have done? Married someone she actually chose, when she was actually ready to do so after she’d properly processed her father’s death and her changed circumstances and learned that she did not need a man to take care of or complete her?

  Pshaw!

  “THE OLD MAID”

  INTRODUCTION

  “Helen King-Eyre, who was thirty-six and looked forty, stood by the window with her back to her friend and said nothing at all.” Such is the unusual beginning of Georgette Heyer’s last known contemporary short story. Published in Woman’s Pictorial in August 1925, it appeared under the name “Stella Martin,” the same pseudonym which two years previously she had published The Transformation of Philip Jettan. “The Old Maid” is undeniably a Georgette Heyer story, and reading it, it is tempting to think that it has several autobiographical elements – which may be why she used a pseudonym.

  It is interesting to note just how often Heyer used the name “Helen” in her fiction: Hélène de Courvonne in Simon the Coldheart (1925), Helen Marchant in Helen (1928), Helen North in A Blunt Instrument (1938), Helen “Nell” Stornoway in The Toll-Gate (1954), Helen “Nell” Merion, Lady Cardross, in April Lady (1957) and Helen Morland in “Hazard” (1936) (reprinted in Pistols for Two, 1960, and Snowdrift, 2016).

  It is also worth noting that Heyer’s friend Dorothea “Doreen” Arbuthnot’s middle names were “Helen Mary.” The two must have been very close, for Heyer dedicated Simon the Coldheart (1925 US edition) and Barren Corn (1930) to “Doreen.” Of course, Doreen was not a name she could use in her historical fiction, so it is possible that her repeated use of “Helen,” and even of “Mary” (Mary in “The Chinese Shawl” and Mary Challoner in Devil’s Cub, to name but two), was a subtle tribute to her friend.

  The Helen of “The Old Maid,” however, resonates strongly with what we know, not of her friend, but of Georgette Heyer herself, for there are several parallels between the budding author and the fictional heroine. Helen is a famous author; Heyer’s fame was growing. Helen is frank and yet shy, as was Heyer, and both women have “humorous grey eyes.” But it is perhaps Helen’s description of herself that seems so in tune with what we know of Heyer:

  She had had her success; men called her “great”; she was the biggest satirist of her day; she had hosts of friends, but she was lonely, for none of the men who admired her genius considered her as a woman. She was a “good fellow”, she was witty, and unusual, and an invigorating companion, but she was too downright to be attractive, too competent and independent.

  This is similar to what Heyer’s first biographer, Jane Aiken Hodge, wrote of her in 1984:

  Georgette was a self-confessed blue-stocking, that dangerous phenomenon, a female author… She had been shunned at Miss Head’s School because of her sharp tongue, and probably still used unusual words, talked in sentences, and maybe even indulged in an occasional Latin tag… the fact that she was beautiful may well have been counterbalanced by the equally unconcealable fact that she was witty. Friends from every stage of her life remember her dry tongue, her elegant speech, the laughter they shared.

  Like Helen, Heyer was frank and competent and independent; like Helen, she was not demonstrative. As an adult, she did not believe in overt displays of emotion or of speaking openly about her deeper feelings – her writing was her outlet for emotion. As an adolescent attending school she had struggled to make friends of her own age because she was mature beyond her years and related more easily to the teachers than the students. As a wife and mother she was kind and generous and proud of her husband and son, but she was not effusive in her affection. Heyer did not readily hug or kiss people beyond what was strictly necessary; she was reserved and shy with all but those inside her close inner circle. The Helen of this story is the same.

  In manner and speech she is also very much like the eponymous heroine of the autobiographical novel, Helen (1928), yet to come. The short dialogue between Helen and her friend Anne could almost have been lifted from Helen had it not pre-dated that novel:

  “Helen, you needn’t pretend with me.

  A hot flush rose.

  “Never have.”

  Interestingly, the writing of this final short story coincided with the return from Nigeria, after eighteen months away, of Heyer’s dear friend, Ronald Rougier. In 1923 he had qualified as a mining engineer and in October of that year had sailed to Nigeria to take up a position with the Niger Company. It is not known whether Ronald proposed before he left, but if he did, he was not accepted. It was only after his return in the spring of 1925 that Heyer agreed to marry him. Just as Helen is reunited with her old love, Maurice Parmeter, after a long absence in India, so Heyer was reunited with Ronald after his time in Africa. They were engaged in May 1925 and it’s possible that Heyer wrote this story as an outlet for her feelings. For most of her writing life, her books and stories would be an outlet for her emotions.

  “The Old Maid” is fascinating for what it appears to tell us of Heyer, but it is also a very entertaining story. The characters live, the dialogue is crisp and revealing, and there is a gruff humour of the type at which Heyer excelled. There is also an element of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, with its story of lost love and second chances. Like Anne Elliot, Helen strives to hide her true feelings, and like Captain Wentworth, Maurice Parmeter learns that honesty is the best way forward.

  This was to be Heyer’s last contemporary short story. She would, however, write three more contemporary novels. They would sell well, earn good reviews and achieve multiple reprints. Not only would Heyer suppress them within ten years of their publication, she would also exclude from a comprehensive list of her novel and short story publications all but one of her nine short stories that were published in the 1920s. Only the Danish title of “The Chinese Shawl” would remain in her records – a tantalising clue for those keen to know more of a wonderful writer and her feelings about these early, youthful works.

  THE OLD MAID

  HELEN KING-EYRE, who was thirty-six and looked forty, stood by the window with her back to her friend and said nothing at all. Mrs. Dering eyed her speculatively from her seat by the fire, and surreptitiously smiled.

  “You do remember him, don’t you, Helen?” she said softly.

  Helen swallowed hard. Did she remember Maurice Parmeter! She’d tried to forget him all these weary years, and miserably failed. And now he was coming home from India for good, and, if Anne Dering was to be believed, he wanted to see her again.

  “Yes. I remember him,” she said curtly.

  Anne spoke more softly still.

  “Helen, you needn’t pretend with me.”

  A hot flush arose.

  “Never have.”

  “Yes, you have. You’ve never told me how you feel about it.”

  Helen answered with some difficulty.

  “It’s never easy to admit you were a fool.”

  “Ah!” Anne straightened in her chair. “I guessed it. You’ve always been sorry you didn’t marry him?”

  “Yes.”

  Anne went to her, and put her arm around her shoulders.

  “It’s not too late, old girl.”

  Helen laughed shortly.

  “Much too late. I haven’t even seen him—since—since I sent him away. And I was twenty-five then. Don’t suppose he ever thinks of me.”

  “He isn’t married, dear. And he says in his letter that he wants more than anything to see you. He wouldn’t say that—being Maurice—unless he still cared.”

  “Bosh!” said Helen inelegantly. “Probably he’s got a sentimental feeling about me. That won’t last when he sees me.”

  “Helen, without any more nonsense, if Maurice still cared would you marry him now?”

  “Yes!” said Helen fiercely.

  “Very well,” replied Anne, in a business-like manner. “It’s up to you, then. And I’m determined you shan’t let this last chance slip. You’ll come to stay with me just as we’d arranged before I heard that Maurice was c