False Colours By Georgette Heyer Part I

 As a  kid I went to a book fair, and bought Black Moth, the first novel by Georgette Heyer - and went on reading her books during my schooldays.  One of my favourites is False Colours.  It is a Regency novel, set just after Waterloo, and uses the plot of 2 identical twin brothers who swop identities.  Kit Fancot, the hero, is the younger son of an earl, who has been serving in the Diplomatic service, abroad.  He returns to London, believing that  his twin, Evelyn who is now the Earl of Denville, is in some kind of trouble.  To his surprise, when he arrives late at night, his mother, the ditzy but charming Lady Denville, is anxious about Evelyn because he has not come back from a trip.. Kit knows  that his mother is not usually a worrier but Lady Denville, who is pretty, youthful and very extravagant, tells him that Evelyn is engaged to a Miss Cressida Staveley, and that he is supposed to attend a dinner party at her home the following evening so he should have returned home.  

On questioning his mother, Kit finds that Evelyn, who is something of a lady's man, has decided to get married, to a suitable girl, but that it isn't a love match.  He then finds that Lady Denville, who is notoriously careless with money, is in debt, and that Evelyn wants to get hold of his fortune in order to pay off the debts.  However, Evelyn's father who was not sympathetic to his wife's follies with money, tied up his heir's fortune so that he could not get hold of it until he is 30 or if his uncle, Henry, who is his trustee, chooses to wind up the Trust earlier.   Evelyn, concerned about his mother's debts, decides that marriage to a sensible girl like Miss Staveley would convince Henry that he is now mature and that Henry would wind up the Trust and he would have the freedom to manage his estates and to pay his mother's debts. 

Lady Denville is upset that her crazy spending habits have caused problems for her son but she believes that Evelyn is determined to get married,  partly to help her financially and partly because he wants to get control of his property.  He has always been keen on running the estates but because he was not given a free hand he has devoted himself to a frivolous pleasure seeking lifestyle.  Kit however has his career as a budding diplomat to occupy him.  To cheer his mother up, Kit says jokingly that if Evelyn does not come back, he can always pretend to be him.  To his horror, Lady Denville takes his joking suggestion seriously and says that it could work.  The 2 young men are very much alike and had changed identities before as a joke.. but Kit never meant his remark to give his mother such an idea. 

However she begins to work on him, to persuade him.  Nobody knows that he is in London... and the family of Miss Staveley dont know him well, so he could pass himself off as Evelyn for the space of a dinner party.....

Tristan And Iseult Story

 I hope to write something about the Tristan and Iseult story soon.  This tale is not as well known as the Arthurian saga but it is related to it.  It also focuses on a love triangle, between King Mark of Cornwall, his bride Iseult and his nephew Tristan.  There was a Dark Ages King called Mark or Marcus, and it is possible that he had a son called Drustan or Tristan.   There are different versions of the story but the best known is about Iseult, an Irish princess marrying Mark, a British king who is older than her.  Iseult's marriage is arranged and Tristan is sent to Ireland to escort her to her new home.  Iseult does not like him because he killed her uncle in combat in Ireland.  But her mother, wanting her daughter to find love in her marriage, has prepared a love potion for Iseult to drink with her new husband.  Iseult and Tristan drink the potion and fall madly in love.  In many versions of the story, they become lovers and Iseult deceives her new husband by sending her maid, Branwen to share his bed on their wedding night.  The lovers continue their affair and Mark becomes suspicious. In some versions they run away together to Brittany.  In others, Tristan goes away and marries another wife, also called Iseult.  When he is dying he sends for his true love but his wife tells him that the sails on the boat that he sent out are black which means that his Iseult did not come... and in despair, Tristan dies.  Iseult dies also from grief when she arrives to find her lover has died.   The story may have influenced the Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur triangle in the Arthurian stories.. but it is more magical than the more realistic tale of Lancelot and Guinevere.  The love depends on a potion which forces the couple to fall in love and to deceive Mark.. whereas in the Arthurian saga there is a genuine bond among the 3 people involved.   The story inspired Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, and in the 20th century there have been several novelised versions of the saga.