Book review (Warning – contains spoilers!) by Val H: The Reluctant Widow is hugely enjoyable: well constructed, pacey and funny. The publishers, Heinemann, marketed it as ‘a light and gay romance of Regency days’ (Bookseller, 28 February 1946) and ‘the best of entertainment’ (Edinburgh Evening News, 20 July 1946). But it is not generally reckoned to be one of Heyer’s best novels. Somewhere in the middle ranks perhaps? Is that a fair assessment?
Cover of first edition (1946)
Widow tells how Miss Elinor Rochdale, gently born but obliged through scandal to work as a governess, travels to Sussex to take up a new post, climbs into the wrong coach and is persuaded against her better judgment into marriage. The man doing the persuading is the local aristocrat, Lord Carlyon, and the groom is his cousin, Eustace Cheviot, who is promptly killed in a tavern brawl. Overnight this reluctant bride becomes a reluctant widow. Until the estate is settled, Elinor agrees to stay at Highnoons, Eustace’s dilapidated house. Once there, she finds that widowhood is not at all a restful state.
By 1947, wartime austerity rules were less stringent, and it go this more appropriate cover from the Book Club.
While most of Heyer’s Regency and Georgian novels are obviously ‘light and gay’, Widow appears to be dark. Elinor is hedged about by fear, mystery and decay. This is Gothic, the reader realises. Take, for example, the opening scenes, when, already uneasy about her new job, Elinor arrives at night in a place she does not know. She expects to be met, and the only carriage waiting does not look quite right, but what is she to do? The coachman is clearly expecting a young woman, so in she gets. The journey then takes much longer than she expects. When she arrives at a darkened house, she meets a ‘gentleman in buckskin breeches and a mulberry coat’ (Widow, p. 6) whose speech is described as ‘measuring’, ‘cool’, ‘indifferent’, ‘grim’ and ‘coldly dispassionate’ (Widow, chapter 1). At one point, his lip even curls, in the classic way. What heroine would not be unnerved?
Highnoons, where most of the novel is set, is all ‘decayed grandeur’ (Widow, p. 4).
They had by this time reached Highnoons, and were driving up the neglected carriage-way, between dense thickets of overgrown shrubs, and trees whose branches almost met over their heads. (Widow, p. 77)
As much of the pleasure gardens as she could see were overgrown with weeds, and she gave them scant attention. The house itself, now that she saw it in the daylight, she found to be a beautiful building, two hundred years old, with chamfered windows, and tall chimneys. (Widow, pp. 77-8)
Once in residence, Elinor hears mysterious noises: ‘A slight sound, as of a creaking stair, made her start.’ (Widow, p. 86). She finds secret places: ‘… Elinor watched … a dark, narrow cavity appear at her feet.’ (Widow, p. 99) There are other disturbances too.
But of course all is not as it seems. In Heyer’s hands, the Gothic is there to be subverted. Elinor then is not scared by what she finds. (Well, perhaps a little, but she is resolute.)
The ‘dark, narrow cavity’ is discovered by Nicky, Carlyon’s younger brother, who has offered to keep Elinor company. He brings along his dog, Bouncer. These two add considerably to the fun. Nicky is always in one scrape or another. He has just been sent down from Oxford for an encounter with a performing bear. Now he interrupts Carlyon’s attempts to persuade Elinor into marriage with a new problem:
His younger brother heaved a large sigh and smiled blindingly at him. ‘Oh Ned, you always make a fellow feel there is nothing so desperately bad after all! But indeed there is! I’m excessively sorry, but I have killed Eustace Cheviot!’ (Widow, p. 28)
Heyer does a good line in lively, charming and thoughtless young men, from Perry in Regency Buck (1935), through Sherry in Friday’s Child (1944) to Hubert in The Grand Sophy (1950). She was in part inspired by her son, Richard, to whom Widow is dedicated, and his friends. Lively, charming and thoughtless dogs also feature in Heyer’s novels: ‘The dog Bouncer accompanied them, hopeful of rats, but presently grew disgusted with the lack of sport, and lay down, yawning cavernously.’ (Widow, p. 97)
Daunting though it is, Highnoons, with its gloomy rooms and overgrown gardens, is no match for its new mistress. Elinor is one of Heyer’s sensible heroines – a sister to Frederica Merriville (Frederica, 1965) and Drusilla Morville (The Quiet Gentleman, 1951). Reluctant wife, reluctant widow, reluctant resident, Elinor does not retire to a chaise longue, vinaigrette in hand, to weep behind drawn blinds. Servants are hired, gardens are tamed, rooms turned out and household linen mended. Elinor recognises the irony of her situation, but rises above it, as in this conversation with Carlyon:
‘Only see how [the ivy] overhangs some of the windows! I daresay one can scarcely see to set a stitch in those rooms on the brightest day! Then, too, consider how the least wind must set the tendrils tapping at the window-panes like ghostly fingers! How can you talk of stripping it away? You are not at all romantic!’
‘No, not at all. Come, you will take cold if you stand any longer in this east wind.’ (Widow, p. 78)
Here by the way is the romance. There can be no doubt that this pair – intelligent, amused and reasonable – are meant for each other. There are no lingering glances but rather barbed exchanges.
‘You alarm me, Mrs Cheviot,’ interposed Carlyon. ‘Are you going to tell me that you have indeed encountered a headless spectre?’
‘Yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘I might have known you would make light of it, sir!’
‘I may do so, perhaps, but I will engage not to until I know what it is that has so much distressed you.’ (Widow, p. 133)
Carlyon is one of Heyer’s most superior heroes. Is he ever not in command? Does he feel any uncertainty? It seems not: he even describes himself as ‘overbearing, self-willed’. (Widow, p. 303)
Romance, Gothic novel, comedy – and thriller. As Carlyon suspects from the beginning, there is mystery at Highnoons. What has Eustace Cheviot been hiding? Read the book to find out, but first come and meet Francis Cheviot, a cousin of Eustace, who may be involved in the mystery. He is one of Heyer’s most intriguing characters.
Francis is his own work of art:
A slim and exquisite figure descended languidly on to the drive, and stood with the utmost patience while the valet straightened the numerous capes of his great-coat, and anxiously passed a handkerchief over the gleaming surface of a pair of well-cut Hessian boots. … From under the brim of his hat, a pair of weary, blue eyes gazed in insufferable boredom at nothing in particular. (Widow, p. 189)
Francis appears indolent, delicate, interested only in his health and his cravat. As the experienced reader will guess, this hides the sharpest of wits. If more proof is needed that Francis is someone to be reckoned with, Bouncer and he dislike each other at first meeting. Francis is as determined as Carlyon to unravel the mystery of Highnoons. But there is more. Francis is explicitly queer-coded: ‘a face decidedly round, with a nose inclined to the retroussé, and an almost womanishly delicate mouth and chin.’ His hands are white and his tone of voice dulcet and he smiles sweetly. Heyer is among many mid-20th century writers to feature queer-coded characters. These are sometimes despised by their creators, or they may be accepted for who they are. In this case, Heyer clearly enjoys this dangerous dandy.
So why is Widow not recognised as one of Heyer’s great novels? It may be that it suffers by association with the 1950 film based on it, which lacks Heyer’s subtlety and humor.
Or perhaps readers feel that the novel is neither one thing nor the other. Is it a comic or a Gothic novel, a thriller or a romance? All of them, of course. All at once. Perhaps that’s the problem but, let’s face it, it is quite a small problem. Heyer’s skill in creating and sustaining this confection is a thing to wonder at. A bravura performance by an author who is having a lot of fun.
Unless otherwise stated, all the quotations are taken from The Reluctant Widow (William Heinemann, 1946).
