Pistols for Two

This is a collection of Heyer's short stories, mostly stories about elopments and love at first sight romances. My favourite is Night at the Inn, because it has a couple who are not that well off, as hero and heroine. Mary is a governess, daughter of a poor clergyman. John is a clerk who has returned from Spain to be promoted to a higher job in England. They stay at an inn where the staff seem unfriendly, and then they find the next day that the landlord was a murderer like Sweeney Todd. Another story I like is "A Husband for Fanny", where Clarissa Wingham, a widow in her 30s, finds that the man she had been hoping to marry her daughter Fanny is in fact in love with her. Fanny has fallen in love with a young army officer, and wants to marry him. Her mother wants her to marry someone well to do, and encourages her to think of Lord Harleston as a husband. But she finds that Harleston is actually in love with HER, and Fanny's admirer, Richard Kenton inherits a little money and feels he can afford to marry her now. Hazard is a story about a gaming party. Lord Carlington wins the hand of Helen Morland, his host's half sister. Helen hates her brother who is selfish and unpleasant. When Lord Carlington wins her in the card game, she tells him she will go with him. He is drunk and agrees to take her. He sobers up as they embark on the journey to Gretna Green. They break their journey at an inn, and Helen reminds him that he promised to marry her and she has left her home to wed him. He says that he can't do it. He has just become formally engaged to Fanny Wyse, a young lady whom his family want him to marry. He says that while he is just marrying her because of the family connexion, he can't jilt her on the very day that their engagment is announced. Helen realises that her attempt to escape her brother's unhappy home is going to fail. She tells him that he could take her to her old governess, and she would give her refuge and maybe a job. Then there is a commotion at the inn. Carlington finds that his fiancee, Fanny, a very pretty little lady, has arrived there. He can't understand why she is pursuing him. She acts horrified to see him. She thinks that HE is pursuing her. Then she introduces her admirer, Henry Dobell, an army officer. Henry and Fanny are in love and she decided to run away with him. She didn't really want to marry Carlington. He realises that he has been given an escape. He urges Mr Dobell to leave immediately with Fanny and to make all haste to go to Gretna Green before her family can pursue them. Dobell is a rather stiff young man and keeps on talking but Carlington tells him to go and not waste a moment. When the couple have set off, he turns to Helen and says they will go back to London. He does not want to get married at Gretna Green. She says that he does not have to marry her. He tells her he has been in love with her for ages, and now he's going to marry her. So they agree to return home and plan a wedding. Another story is about Elinor Tresilian, and her niece Lucy. Lucy is in love with Arthur Roseley, a kind gentle young man. However his cousin George, Lord Iver, who has had the role of a guardian to him, is not keen on his marrying Lucy. The couple disappear and it seems like they have run away to Gretna Green and Iver and Elinor set out to stop them. On the way, it emerges that Iver was in love with Elinor some time ago, and she felt she could not marry him. Her mother had become an invalid, and her sister Clara was no help. He was angry with her for giving in to the selfish Clara and the two of them became enemies. He then thinks that Arthur might have taken Lucy to his sister's country house, and that the sister is a silly soft hearted girl who might help them to get married. So they are not on the road to Gretna. But he reckons that while Caroline, the sister is a fool, her husband is a sensible man who will refuse to countenance the young couple getting married. He tells Elinor that he's fed up with the 2 young lovers. He is not going to waste his time pursuing them. He wants to marry Elinor and is going to drive them to Gretna Green. She yields and kisses him. The short stories are interesting because they oftne show ideas that Heyer later worked up in a full length novel. In one of them, Sir Julian Arden meets a young woman on the road to Bath. Her carriage has an accident and her maid breaks a leg. Sophy, the girl, is upset but says that she has got to get to Bath as soon as possible. So she makes arranagments for her maid to be looked after and tries to plan a way of getting to Bath. It emerges that Sophy's mother married an army officer, who was extravagant and foolish and who died, leaving her badly off. She remarried, to a clergyman who is a nice man and they have several more children, but are quite poor. Now, Sophy who is 17 or so, has had a message that her grandfather is ill and making his Will. He lives in Bath, and she hopes that if she can get to see him, she may persuade him to include her mother in the Will. But she has a cousin, Joseph, who has also been estranged from the Grandfather. He is determined to beat her to Bath and get himself mentioned in the Will. Julian, who is a bored aristocrat, takes a dislike to Joseph, and he likes Sophy. He offers to drive her to Bath. He tells her that her grandfather is known as the Miser of Bath. When they get there, Mr Kennet, the miser, has changed his mind about the Will. He is not really all that ill and he is now planning to marry his housekeeper and his children and grandchildren probably won't get anything. The housekeeper is also miserly and keen to get her hands on her new husband's fortune. Sophy is upset, as she feels she has lost her chance of helping her family. But Julian tells her he is in love with her and wants to marry her.. and that he is very rich. The situation of the Miser and his marriage to a housekeeper shows up in Charity Girl, where Cherry's grandfather also refuses to help his grandchild, and has married his housekeeper.