False Colours Part IV

Kit is worried about Evelyn, though he feels sure that his twin is safe. But he still is missing. Kit feels that he is falling in love with Cressy. She seems fond of him, but he is aware that he is a younger son. He does not have anything like Evelyn's rank or fortune so why should she throw over a richer man, for him? He feels too that in spite of the precautions he and Lady Denville took, the guests, or at least Cressy, would be aware now if they met Evelyn, that Kit was not him. They have got to know him a bit, and the real Evelyn isn't the same. Lady Denville reads the paper and finds a note in the society gossip pages. It hints that Cressy is staying with Lady Denville and that a marriage may well be expected. A few days after this, Kit is playing billiards with Cressida, when they are interrupted by the arrival of a lady visitor. It turns out to be a Mrs Alperton, a rather vulgar middle aged woman who is the mother of Evelyn's current mistress, Clara. Mrs Alperton is an ex "Bird of Paradise" herself. She tries to create a fuss, saying that Evelyn was her daughter's protector and that he has now abandoned her to marry another woman.. She tries to bully Kit into paying handsomely for her silence. However, to Kit's surprise, Cressy comes in. She seems very well able to talk to Mrs Alperton, telling her that the gossip was a mere rumor. She says she is not shocked to find that Evelyn has a mistress and she is sure that he would treat the woman properly. Mrs Alperton is vanquished, and leaves. Kit realises that Cressy knows that he is not Evelyn, and they declare their love for each other. He explains why he felt driven to impersonate his twin. She tells him that she was drawn to him and gradually realised that he was not the same person as Evelyn. She knew that she could not marry Evelyn. They try to make plans for the future - Kit hoping that Lord Staveley will accept him as a suitor in place of Evelyn. Shortly afterwards, Evelyn makes a startling return, coming to the house in the middle of the night. He tells Kit that he had been injured in a carriage accident, and was laid up for a couple of weeks, recovering. He had been taken in by the Askham family, who lived not too far away. They are a country gentry family and very kind. They looked after him and nursed him. When he recovered from his injuries, and saw the newspaper with the item about Cressy visiting Ravenhurst, he realised that his twin must have returned to England and was taking his place.

False Colours Part III

Kit finds that in the small house party, he has to see a lot of Cressida. And it's difficult to act as Evelyn towards her. He finds her charming. She enjoys hearing about travelling.. and Kit is able to talk to her about this. Luckily, Evelyn visited him abroad more than once so he can chat about the places that "Evelyn" went. Cressy's stepmother, Albinia, is pregnant, and almost due to give birth.. so she is a bit concerned. As things are, her relationship with Albinia is not easy, and it will be much worse if she produces a son and heir to the title. But she is not sure if she likes "Evelyn" well enough to marry him. Cosmo and Ambrose Cliffe, Kit's uncle and cousin are unwelcome guests. Cosmo is very tight fisted, unlike his sister Lady Denville. Ambrose is foolish and an embarrassment. He has been sent down from Oxford for having improper relationships with women. He has also gotten into debt. Kit feels a bit sorry for him and tries to teach him to shoot, but finds him tiresome. Lady Staveley urges her grand daughter to make up her mind about the marriage.

False Colours II

I love False Colours, albeit the plot does mean that one has to stretch one's imagination a little. However it is plausible that if only one of the twins is in London, and their social circle do not expect to see both of them, that the deception could work for a short time. Kit feels uneasy about engaging in this deception, but his brother's valet and groom both assure him that he can pull it off and that they will help... The two servants tell him that it would be unkind to Cressida Staveley to let her be embarrassed by her suitor not turning up at the party. He decides to go ahead with it. He is still unsure if Evelyn is making the right choice in deciding to make an "old fashioned" marriage, to a girl he does not know that well. But he knows that his twin is very stubborn. He believes that as Cressy is 20 years old and her father is also a ladies' man, she will be able to accept some philandering on her husband's part. Lady Denville tells him that it is most important that he wins over old Lady Staveley, Cressy's grandmother. Cressy lives with her father who is a rather weak man, and her new stepmother, Albinia, who is not that much older than herself... so it is understandable that she should wish to get married... Kit goes to the dinner party and is concerned to find that Cressy's uncle, Charles, knows Evelyn slightly. But he manages to pull off his impression of his twin. Then Cressy worries him by asking if they can meet the following day to discuss something and he wonders if she has rumbled him. When he talks to his mother, later, Lady Denville tells him that all that Cressy wants to discuss is Evelyn's plan to have her live with him and his bride, which she does not want to do. Kit resolves to get out of London as soon as he can, after the dinner, to avoid any further interaction with Cressy. He and Lady Denville plan to go to Brighton or to the family estate which is near to the town. But things don't work out. He meets with Cressy, and she tells him that she would like to get to know him better, before committing herself to marriage. But he and Lady Denville continue to make plans to leave London, as it is approaching high summer. Most of the upper classes will be going to their family estates or a making a visit to the seaside. He is getting worried that Evelyn has not turned up but hopes that if he does so soon, he will realise what has happened and they will be able to conceal their deception. Kit travels ahead of his mother, to Ravenhurst Park, the family estate. He begins looking into the estate business there, to keep up the fiction that he is Evelyn. He is able to confide in Mrs Pinner, his old nurse who is retired. She lives in a cottage on the estate. However within a couple of days, Lady Denville arrives, and brings bad news. Old Lady Staveley has been to visit her. She wants to make sure that her granddaughter will have some time to get to know her intended.. before they get formally engaged. This was the very thing that Kit had wanted to avoid. Lady Stavely has invited herself to Ravenhurst, and they are stuck with her. Lady Denville has thought of this and has invited a few other people. Kit will be able to keep his distance from Cressy. Lady Denville invites her brother Cosmo, and his wife and son. Cosmo is very unlike his beautiful, charming and extravagant sister. He is grouchy and a penny pincher.. so he is glad to get an invitation to a relative's place. He has let his own small estate to someone for the summer. Lady Denville also invites Sir Bonamy Ripple. He is her platonic admirer, and has allegedly been in love with her for all her life and remained a bachelor for her sake. She is fond of him and enjoys his company, but he is a very fat man who lives for pleasure. Kit hopes that this ill assorted party will mean that he can avoid being in company too much with Cressy.

False Colours By Georgette Heyer Part I

When I was about 12, 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 a year or so 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 just started his career in the Diplomatic service, abroad. He returns to London, believing that his twin, Evelyn who is now the Earl of Denville, is in trouble. He arrives late at night, and 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, so he is surprised. Then, Lady Denville, who is pretty, youthful looking, and very extravagant, tells him that Evelyn is engaged to the Hon. Cressida Staveley. He has been invited to 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. It is not a love match. He then finds that Lady Denville, who is notoriously careless with money, is in debt. Evelyn wants to get hold of his fortune in order to pay off the debts. Their father who was not sympathetic to his wife's follies with money, tied up his heir's fortune. Evelyn cannot 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. 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. He wants to help her, and he also 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 took to a frivolous 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 suggestion seriously. She says that the 2 young men are very much alike and had changed identities before as a joke. She begins to persuade him. Nobody knows that he is in London... and the Staveleys don't 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.

John Betjeman

Betjeman is one of my favourite English poets, his works are simple and based on real life.  He was born in London to a well to do middle class family, in 1906. His father owned a business making ornamental furniture, of the kind loved by Victorians.. and this may have led to Betjeman's later passion for Victoriana and Victorian architecture. He liked both when they were unfashionable. He went to good schools, receiving most of his education at Marlborough, which was a famous public school. However, he did not enjoy it that much as he was literary and artistic rather than fond of sports. He went to Oxford and did not do that well there, ending up with no degree. One of his tutors was the young CS Lewis, who didn't like him. Betjeman returned the dislike. He cultivated an eccentric arty bohemian image.. Evelyn Waugh who was at Oxford round the same time, used him as a partial model for Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited... He had the habit of carrying round a teddybear. He wanted to be a writer, and had made friends at Oxford in the world of writing, so he had a start. He began to write a gossip column and mixed with "society" people.. and he also wrote for the Architectural Review. He praised Victorian architecture. A few years later, he married Penelope Chetwode, a peer's daughter and they had 2 children.. Paul and Candida who also became a writer and campaigner like her father. During the War, Betjeman worked at a government post in Ireland which was neutral in the conflict...and continued to write his poems. His poems were simple and traditional in style, very English. He liked to observe the class structure with affection, and to portray the rituals of the British such as pony clubs, riding, tennis etc. Some of his works were love poems to the hearty sporty girls of the 1920s, who had now been freed from Victorian restrictions and who enjoyed games and parties in a livelier way than their grandmothers. Betjeman's marriage was happy at first, but he and his wife began to drift apart. Penelope was also a writer on travels, and she became interested in Roman Catholicism, and discussed it with her friend Evelyn Waugh who was an ardent convert. Betjeman himself had religious doubts but he cared very much about religion and was a member of the Anglican church. He became intolerant of his wife's interest in the Roman church. She did convert and he and she, while they remained married, began to grow apart. He started a relationship with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish who was a member of Princess Margaret's household.. and that relationship lasted to the end of his life. He became Poet Laureate and his traditional poems were very popular. He died in 1984.

Rough Music

this is one of my favourite stories, available on Amazon.  Its not a love story, it is a music based story, set in the 1970s and 1980s, about a country rock band.  The 2 lead singers are not pop idols... they are talented, fun but not conventionally handsome.  The story is about them and their friendship and the compromises that they have to make, in the music world.  Their marriages suffer from strain because they are away on tour a lot of the time.  They want to be successful but they also want to play real music.  They have ups and downs, make mistakes and hope that things will work out OK...