Black Moth

This is the first novel written by Georgette Heyer, she was only 15 when she wrote the story, to amuse her brother who was ill. A few years later, she revised it and had it published. It is an adventure story with a lot of romance, and set in the 18th century, unlike most of her later works which are set in the Regency. Her hero is Jack Carstares, the son of an earl, who was accused of cheating in a game of cards and left home to live abroad in disgrace. After a few years living as a gambler or teaching fencing, he got lonely for home and returned to England where he turned highwayman. His father has died but he refuses to claim his title or estates, unless he could clear his name...but he cannot do that because his brother Richard was the one who cheated. Richard is now running the family estate and living with his spoiled wife Lavinia. He is racked with guilt but Lavinia will not let him tell the truth. Jack rescues a young woman who is being abducted by the rakish and selfish Duke of Andover, who is the brother of Richards wife. He duels with Andover, and wins, and saves the young woman, but is himself injured. He is nursed by the girl, Diana Beauleigh and her spinster aunt, who live in a small manor house with Diana's father. Jack and Diana fall in love but he knows he cannot tell her of his feelings. He lives in the house until he has recovered. Then he goes to see his friend, Sir Miles O'Hara, a local magistrate whom he had accidentally encountered just before he found Diana.

Cousin Kate, the end

Kate is relieved to have Sarah visit, and tells her of her engagement and how she and Philip hope to marry very soon. She can go to London to stay with her nurse, until the wedding. But while they are discussing this, they hear someone shrieking. It is Sidlaw, Lady Broome's devoted maid. Kate hurries to her aunt's bedroom and finds her dead, strangled. She had summoned Torquil to talk to him about his rash behavour in riding his horse, and he has clearly cracked up and killed her. Philip comes in and tells her he will go in search of his cousin, who clearly now realises that he is mad and fears discovery. He and Badger, Torquil's valet, find him in the lake... dead. Philip goes to tell the awful news to Sir Timothy, that Torquil has gone mad and that his wife and son are now lying dead. Kate feels depressed that this means that they will have to live at Staplewood, rather than at Philip's house. They can't leave the old man alone with his tragic memories. Philip had never expected to be the heir, and he won't want to leave his home either. Sarah tells her that things might not be so bad.... She has been talking to the servants, and has learned that the local gentry did not like Lady Broome much because she was so haughty. She was seen as keeping Sir Timothy away from socialising with them. Sarah says that if Philip and Kate live there, and make it a home again, they will have the neighbours befriending them and seeing their old friend, Sir Timothy. Kate tells Philip that she won't go back to London. She will stay at Staplewood until the funerals are over. Philip is pleased and says that this will help Sir Timothy, and that he wants the couple to marry as soon after the funerals as may be considered proper. In spite of the tragedy, Kate can see a happier future for herself and Philip.

Cousin Kate again and again

Kate agrees to marry Philip and assures him that she will be glad to have a home. She does not care that he's not the heir to the baronetcy. But she feels guilty that she has become engaged without the sanction of Lady Broome who is her chaperone, and while her aunt is ill. She resolves to tell Minerva as soon as she's well enough, that she's engaged. She tells Philip that she thinks he's unjust to her aunt, that she is selfish, true but not as bad as he makes her out to be. Kate loves Philip and admires his character but she feels that he's prejudiced against Lady Broome... She hopes that Torquil is not going mad, though his behavour is becoming more erratic. She was aware of his fits of temper and concerned when he got hold of a gun and began brandishing it about. After a couple of days, Kate is allowed to see Lady Broome. Her aunt has been quite ill.. She tells Kate about her own youth, and how her family were well bred but not that well off. She was a good looking girl, but she only had a small dowry. Her aunt invited her to London and she met Sir Timothy. He was much older than her, but she liked him and married him. She loved London society life, but within a few years, her husband's health broke down and she had to move back to Staplewood. Kate sympathises but then her aunt tries to persuade her to marry Torquil. She tells her that she is now engaged to Philip. Her aunt gets very angry, at this penniless girl thwarting her plans. Then Sarah Nidd arrives, worried about Kate. But she has met Torquil during her journey to Staplewood. He was riding, and he had spurred his horse and almost caused a terrible accident as there was a young woman with a small child who was nearly run down by him. She tells Kate about it. When Lady Broome hears of this, she tells Kate that she knows Torquil is mad. He was always unstable, and now, he has become dangerous and violent and may have to be confined. She says that the only thing that can save Torquil's reputation is for him to get respectably engaged and married. She tells her niece that the mental illness came from her family. She wants her son to father an heir, before he becomes seriously ill. Kate is horrified at her callousness about her son, and her obsession with keeping the Broome line going from father to son.

Cousin Kate Again 2

Kate is increasingly uneasy with life in the Broome household, especially when Lady Broome suggests to her that she should marry Torquil. She points out that she is 5 years older than him and penniless. But she begins to feel that her aunt is using her vulnerable position as a young woman with no money and few friends, to put pressure on her. She considers what she knows about Lady Broome, and wonders if she is hoping to maintain her status as lady of Staplewood for life, rather than let him be free to choose his own wife. So she wants to pick a bride for him who is beholden to herself. Kate starts to feel that she wants to escape from Staplewood but has nowhere to go. Then Philip comes to tell her that there is someone in the village to see her. She is amazed to find that old Mr Nidd, Sarah's father in law, has travelled all the way from London. He is a shrewd old man and fond of her. He decided to come to Staplewood, and see her and he met Philip in the town. Philip brings Kate to one of the better-class inns where she can talk privately to Mr Nidd. The old boy tells her that Sarah was worried because she had only had one letter from Kate, but she thought that Kate was busy with her new life. But he felt there was more to her silence than met the eye. Kate tells him that she is not having a gay social life, but that she would never forget Sarah. She writes a note for him to take to his daughter in law. She realises that Sarah's letters and hers to her nurse had been intercepted by Lady Broome who is trying to drive a wedge between them. However when she gets home to Staplewood, she finds that Lady Broome has contracted flu and has collapsed, very ill. She offers to help nurse her aunt but is not allowed, but during her aunt's illness, she and Philip talk. He tells her that he thinks Lady Broome is manipulating her, and that Torquil is unstable and getting crazier. He also tells her that he is in love with her and wants to marry her, although he is not a very rich man. He has his small estate and can give her a home.

Cousin Kate again

Kate feels uneasy in her new home, in spite of liking Lady Broome and Sir Timothy, her aged husband. He is very old and frail and he and Lady Broome seem to lead separate lives. Torquil is an odd boy who seems arrogant and cold. Dr Delabole is the family doctor who lives in the house and takes care of Sir Timothy and Torquil. Over several weeks, she adjusts to the family, but she soon finds life there quite boring. Lady Broome is busy with her household. Sir Timothy leads a quiet life, spending a lot of his time in his rooms, and Torquil is odd and difficult. She wishes she could be of more help to her aunt but Lady Broome won't give her any real duties. She writes to Sarah but does not receive a reply. Then Philip, Sir Timothy's nephew comes to stay. He is a handsome young man several years older than his cousin. The servants like him and wish he lived there permanently as he cheers his uncle up. She is inclined to like Philip but feels that he is cool towards her. He clearly does not like Lady Broome, who has no time for him. Kate becomes friendlier with Philip, and tells him about her father and her home in Portugal. Philip lives in a small manor house and runs his own estate, which is much smaller than Staplewood. He visits Gurney Templecombe, one of the Broomes' neighbours who was his childhood friend, and they talk about Torquil. Philip tells Gurney that he has been uneasy about his cousin for some time, and thinks that he is going mad. He feels sure that Torquil is worse than he was a few months earlier. Gurney says there have been stories of Torquil running away from the house, to go to the local pub, but he does not know what to make of them. It appears that he did go to the pub one night, and Dr Delabole came and got him back. And it caused some gossip among the local people.

Cousin Kate redux

Some time ago I was writing a blog on the Cousin Kate novel by Georgette Heyer. It is one of her last novels.. published in 1968. I let it lapse, so I'm going to go back to it. It is set in England a few years after Waterloo, and Kate Malvern the heroine, is a governess of 24. Her father was an army officer and she spent many years with him in the Peninsular War, looking after him and providing him with support on the march, when her mother had died. Her father's family were upper class and her mother's family were poorer and less well bred. Both families snubbed the Malverns when they married. So Kate did not know any of her relatives. She and her father came back to England when the war ended, and moved into a set of elegant rooms. However, Major Malvern was a gambler and ended up losing most of his small fortune. He died, leaving Kate with nothing but debts. Kate found a job as a governess in the countryside, and set out to earn her living, at the age of 23. She had a devoted nurse, Sarah, who had married a man with a small business, in London. Joe Nidd owned a carrier's business. He and Sarah lived in the City with his aged father and some of their relatives. Kate knew she could turn to the homely motherly Sarah in a crisis. Kate arrives at Sarah's house, having lost her job because the brother of her employer tried to kiss her and when she refused to kiss him and turned down his proposal of marriage, there was an uproar in the house. Sarah is glad to see her, but she's worried that as Kate is young and pretty, it is not going to be easy for her to get a new job. Kate tells her that she is considering seeking domestic work, as perhaps a lady's maid, rather than being a governess because it is better paid....and Sarah is horrified at the thought of her nursling becoming a servant. She decides to write to Major Malvern's family, to see if they would forget the old quarrel and give her a home. Mrs Malvern's family only consists of one sister, who was spiteful and not likely to have changed her mind. Sarah talks to her father in law. They find that Major Malvern's half sister is married to a wealthy baronet, who owns a well known stately home, Staplewood. She writes a letter. Lady Broome arrives in London to see her niece, and seems kindly. She offers her a home for a visit. She is very rich and fashionable. She tells Kate that her husband is older than her, and they have one son -a boy of 19 called Torquil. Kate agrees to go for a visit and to hope that Lady Broome can find her a job in a little while as she does not want to be beholden to her aunt.

Terrence Hardiman

Terrence Hardiman, who died in early May, was a well known British character actor, who had great talent. He was never a star, but he had a very successful and busy career and has left a lot of good work behind him. He was born in Forest Gate, a suburb in East London, in 1937. His father was a policeman. He went to college, where he took up acting and he became a friend of Derek Jacobi. He learned his craft and worked on stage, and screen for all his working life. He was in some films, including Ghandhi, but most of his work was stage and TV. He was tall and slim and was often cast as a career soldier. One of his finest roles was in the wartime drama, Secret Army, where he played a sympathetic German officer, Major Reinhardt. He was in the third series of the show, as a replacement for Michael Culver's character, Major Brandt. Hardiman was in another wartime series, Colditz, and a third called Wish Me Luck. He often played German officers, because he had a talent for making difficult characters sympathetic. He played judges, barristers and doctors as well. He had a small comic role in an episode of the comedy, Goodnight Sweetheart, where he played a bank clerk who was a jokey parody of John Le Mesurier's character, Sgt Wilson in Dad's Army. He was able to convey Le Mesurier's effete manner very well. It showed his versatility as an actor. He had a long list of character roles on TV, including a doctor in Minder, a judge in the Bill, an army officer in When the Boat comes in, and a barrister in The Brittas Empire. One of his roles in later life was Abbot Radulphus, in the medieval mystery series Cadfael, another likable authority figure. He worked in the show with Michael Culver who had also been in Secret Army. He was in a later Dr Who. Another good part which I liked very much, was as an insurance investigator in The Charmer. He was acting with Bernard Hepton who was with him, in Secret Army. Terrence's character was a shrewd man who was suspicious of Ralph Gorse's claim that it was an accidental fire which killed his wife. He also played a sinister headmaster in the children's series, the Demon Headmaster, which made him very popular with children. He also did a lot of reading books on audio tapes. He was married to Rowena Cooper, who was also a well known and talented actor.