Growing Up With Georgette Heyer

She’s been so much a part of my young days and she’s still like a familiar friend that I go back to when I need a laugh. Any book of hers I found, I bought. It’s a collection I wouldn’t part with for anything. For me, she’s on par with Jane Austen – and I discovered Jane Austen after I read Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer has been dismissed by many as just another romance writer. You need to read her to know just how unfair that is. She couldn’t be more different from a romance writer like Barbara Cartland as chalk from cheese. This was the writer who brought the Regency romance genre into being – and what a wonderful, well-researched picture she paints of Regency England with words. Her books bring to life the Nonpareils of fashion in that era, all the nitty-gritty’s of high ton at its best, every little fashionable quirk from the late 18^th to the early 19^th century and the London of Almack’s, highwaymen, intricately carved snuffboxes, masked balls and curricles.

It all began for me at 10 when I was down with a bout of the flu and my mother came home with an armful of books from the library – one of them was Devil’s Cub and the author was Georgette Heyer. A few pages into the book and I was a goner – a Georgette Heyer addict for life. Decades later, I still reach out for a well-thumbed copy and the choice of titles depends on my mood. The great thing about her books is the incredible humour. Sure, there are the stereotypes that are found in many of her books. The masked villain, the stuttering young buck, the foppish old gentlemen, the beady-eyed dowagers.  The books always have a romantic angle – it is the structure around which the story is constructed. However, romance is not the crux of each book – just a barebones structure that allows for wordplay between the characters that assume an almost lifelike presence. Her research is meticulous – and whether it was the wars or the events of the time, even the fashion, she did a lot of painstaking work to make sure that each book and the period it was set in was as true to life as she could make it. From the elegance of Regency England fashion with its foibles, to the understated dress trends with Beau Brummell – she paints pictures so vivid, it’s just like being there.

In her historical romances, she hardly ever states what year it is – but all the inferences, the events, the fads are spot on. She could be seen in the libraries and the museums, taking down notes and she did her level best to make sure that even the speech and expressions were as true to the period as possible. Hers is Wodehousian wit taken out of the countryside and the gentlemen’s clubs to the lavishly furnished drawing rooms, card rooms and watering holes of London, Bath and Brighton – with a few quick trips to Paris.

In real life, she was probably more like Mary, the heroine in Devil’s Cub than Leonie, the young red-haired beauty in These Old Shades. To think that her first novel was written to amuse her brother who was ill – at the tender age of 17! She went on to publish 50 titles after that – and 2 were published after she died. Georgette Heyer was her real name and once she got married, she was quite content to be Mrs. Ronald Rougier and remain in the background, letting her books do the talking. In fact, many of her readers knew her married name only when her death was announced in the newspapers. Anyone who has read her books can’t just dismiss her as a mere romance writer. While Barbara Cartland might have been prolific, churning out books to a formula and rarely bothering about how authentic her background was, Heyer was meticulous and thorough.

Like Shakespeare, she used the ‘masquerading as the opposite gender’ so very well in some of her books like The Masqueraders and These Old Shades.  Like the plots of the Bard, this cross dressing made for some delightful and hilarious scenes in her books. She also tried her hand at murder mysteries and a few of her books are very in the Agatha Christie mould. However, swashbuckling romance was her speciality and she handled it as delicately as any of her expert horsemen protagonists – never too much to be racy, never too slow to be a bore. The ride was always punctuated with acerbic wit and fond humour of the best kind – and it made millions of her fans come back to read again and again.

Once Upon A Time In LollaLand

Once upon a time, where all good stories begin, there was a land where the good people toiled hard and were happy with what they reaped by the sweat of their brow. In the centre of the land stood their prized possession – the wonderful LollaTree. And why was it so wonderful? It was the LollaLeaf that they used to buy and sell whatever they wanted.

The LollaTree grew and grew and with it, the good people of the land prospered. There was a ritual that the LollaTree demanded though - and that was, every time they wanted a new batch of LollaLeaves, they had to insert a Glitto into the hollow in the tree. Only then could they harvest a new crop of LollaLeaves. The roots of the LollaTree needed to be nourished with Glittos which were mined from deep down inside the earth. The soil under the tree grew rich with Glittos and the LollaLeaves traveled far and wide, bringing wealth and prosperity to the land.

One day, when the Council of Power met, one of them said, “We don’t have any more Glittos to put into the hollow – what do we do?’ The Main One thought for a while. “Our good people have worked and toiled so hard – it would be wrong to take away the joy that the LollaLeaves bring them. Let’s just pretend – just this once that we have the Glittos. We will paint LollaLeaves exactly like the ones from the LollaTree and no one need know. We must protect our people.” So they made LollaLeaf substitutes so that the good people who worked hard could keep smiling.

“Only till we get the next lot of Glittos – then we’ll make up,” they said. And it was in the year three score and eleven. The months passed and the LollaLeaves were craved for all over the world. A year later, the Council of Power met once more and there was worry writ on all their faces. “Our people are happy but we can’t get enough Glittos for the LollaTree,” they said. The Main One smiled. “Then the Glittos will have to go. Look at how well our LollaLeaves are doing all over the world. Who needs the Glittos anymore?” So he sent the town criers all over the world to tell everyone that from henceforth, the LollaLeaf would be the measure of exchange without the benefit of the Glittos.

The Watcher who couldn’t speak watched and was very afraid. Where was this story going, he wondered? How could he tell the good people that they were not going down the ‘happily ever after road’? They were so sure they were.

With prosperity came chariots which were big and fancy and soon, the lio that was used to grease the chariots wasn’t enough. They needed more. So they went to the far off Land of Lio to get more and they could buy as much as they wanted with the wonderful LollaLeaves.

The first rumblings were heard in VinoLand, at the other end of the pond. They had too many LollaLeaves lying around so they wanted Glittos instead. “Take your LollaLeaves and give us an equal measure of Glittos,” they said. But there were not enough Glittos to give. They knew that today if it was VinoLand, tomorrow it would be others who would want Glittos instead of the LollaLeaves.

The Watcher wondered what they would do. Would the bubble burst? Would the world guess what a tangled web had been woven? The time has come, he thought. He was wrong.

The Council of Power knew they had to think fast. So they went to the Land of Lio and struck a deal. Every country that bought any Lio had to pay for it with LollaLeaves. Needless to say, the LollaLeaf grew even stronger and the sunshine of prosperity shone even brighter in LollaLand. When the people of LollaLand needed more lio for their own chariots, the Council of Power just went out and had more LollaLeaves painted.

They had so much now that they wondered what to do with them. “Let’s lend it to our people so they can buy themselves bigger cars, bigger mansions,” they said. “Let the people be even happier than they are!”

Till one voice from the province of Qira in the Land of Lio who had been a friend decided that he would allow people to buy his lio with another leaf. This would not be good for the good people so the Council knew they didn’t have a choice – they had to still his voice. They really didn’t have an option – it was his fault – why oh, why couldn’t he have let things be? He should have toed the line, not rebelled. Once his voice was stilled, the LollaLeaf was reinstated as the official measure of exchange – quietly but firmly.

The Watcher watched, sick to his stomach. He knew it was the beginning of the end. What would the good people do when they knew the truth? What would happen when the scales fell from their eyes? That it wasn’t the Lio but the LollaLeaf that was to blame?

Then came other voices of dissent. From the Land of Venez where their leader refused to sell his lio for only LollaLeaves. Then it was the leader of Nira, a neighbour of Qira and he did the unthinkable – he said he would accept all leaves from all over the world except the LollaLeaf.

The Watcher moved to a nearby hillock and watched as the LollaLeaf started crumbling. He watched as the scales fell from a few thinking eyes. He watched as the good people approached the crossroads – would they take the narrow long and winding road to the happily ever after? Suddenly in his hopeless eyes, there was a gleam – of hope. “Nothing is impossible,” he thought, “Not when the good people have the will to overcome. This too shall pass.”

Verily, verily, below the LollaTree, way below the levels of the Lio and the Glittos there runs the vein of Verity. If one digs deep enough, the springs of Truth will out, nourishing the land with cleansing streams, bringing new life and new hope.

Looking Back On LollaLand

All ‘Once Upon A Time’ stories unfortunately do not automatically end with ‘happily ever after’. The ‘happily ever after’ needs a lot of work to make it come true. So it was with LollaLand. There was a time when the LollaTree stood proud and strong in LollaLand against every wind that blew, knowing that it reigned supreme in the world. Once its Glitto nourishment stopped however, it was living on borrowed time. Buffeted by its gardeners, supported by the Council of Power, it still held its position of honour in the world but the writing was on the wall. Soon, there were whispers not of ‘What if….’ but of ‘How soon…???’

It was the year 2020 and the Watcher had been watching global events unfold. There were no best of times anymore – just bad times which spiralled down ever often to worse times and then slowly settled back to the bad. He watched as the world he knew was enveloped in a cloud of hopelessness, not knowing how to deal with what was happening. And yet, in his heart, hope was not laid to rest. He realised that there had to be a stripping down, a cleansing to start afresh and true.

It did not help the LollaTree that its leaves were losing their shine around the world. Nor did the rumours help – of devious plots to consign the LollaLeaf to history by growing a new tree with shiny new leaves. Of how these leaves were quietly shipped out to strongholds in DragonLand across the other side of the world to be held in safekeeping. Whispers in the wind, may of them untrue but underneath it all lay one fact – the LollaLeaf was fast losing credibility and its intrinsic worth.

It was all a chimera that was being put together for years by the powers that were. A bright shiny picture painted on a cardboard sky with a paper moon floating by. A backdrop for the well-rehearsed play that unfolded on the world’s stage – only the actors were so consummate, their spectators thought what they were watching was for real. Till one day, the scales fell away from people’s eyes because they couldn’t pretend anymore and everyone joined the chorus to dislodge the LollaLeaf.

The Watcher shut his eyes and rewound his thoughts to 12 years ago when the death knell had sounded for the LollaLeaf. It took two whole years for the LollaLeaf to get dislodged from its pinnacle of supremacy and it was just not rooted down enough to withstand the pressure the rulers of the other lands were exerting. So the era of the LollaLeaf came to an end and a new age began where the LollaLeaf was recognised only within the boundaries of LollaLand.

The clamouring grew louder. Why should we have the LollaLeaf lording it over all our leaves? they asked.  The rulers of DragonLand were the most vociferous because they had the largest stake in LollaLand. There was a time when they had bought bonds belonging to the Treasury House of LollaLand – would they just be papyrus of little worth when the time came to redeem them?

The world watched as the value of Glittos went up, up, up. In just one year, in LollaLand’s Glitto-making house alone there was a sharp surge from striking 140,000 a year to 710,000 a year. The only reason this was happening was because the faith in the LollaLeaf was plummeting.

“Let us have a common leaf that belongs to no land,” they all said. This was not something LollaLand wanted or supported but the tide was fast turning against it and there came a day when it had to go with the flow and say “Yes” to a new leaf: the GloboLeaf.

The GloboLeaf stood supreme in the world. Every leaf in every land was linked to it and the GloboLeaf did not need nourishing or be linked to a value source like the other leaves. It was intangible yet powerful because it was the touchstone of value for all the other leaves. The other leaves needed nourishment so that they could grow strong and valuable. They were all allowed different kinds of nourishment – some chose Glittos, some chose Dazzlers or other precious rocks, some even chose the land they owned. They could choose just one or have a matrix of many, just as long as their leaves were linked to the nourishment of something of value. The matrix of valuation was a bit complex but thus far it had proved to be transparent and above manipulation. Once upon a time, the LollaLeaf had been well and truly nourished with Glittos but that was history now.  Now, they would have to go back to the grassroots level and start growing anew.

The Watcher smiled. For ten years now, there had been a money system in place that made sense to everyone. Would it last? Would people remember the aftermath of the LollaLeaf bubble that burst and left so much despair in its wake? For now, things were good. Tomorrow, who knew? At the core of the heart of man, there was discontent and greed. There would be ways to manipulate and corrupt this system too. However, now was a great time and place to be. Tomorrow was another day.

Lollaland And Its Diminishing Glitter

All that glitters isn’t gold. Will the golden sunshine that bathed all of Lollaland through the years ever be felt again? Time was when the streets were paved with gold and the whole world dreamed of this golden destination where everyone seemed to live happily ever after. The LollaTree had seemed to be blessed with everlasting life and the LollaLeaf had been so powerful. When did the rot set in? It had been slow, insidious and behind the scenes.

The Watcher watched and hummed sadly to himself:

Where have all the Glittos gone

Long time passing

Where have all the Glittos gone

Long time ago

Where have all the Glittos gone

Gone to fraudsters  everyone

When will we ever learn?

When will we ever learn?

They built a huge safehouse to house the Glittos many years ago and it was guarded night and day – and guarded well. It was called Torf Xonk and it wasn’t just tough to get in, it was impossible. And the people of Lollaland felt safe and happy that so much wealth was kept secure by their leaders. And the golden sun shone down on its golden people and all was right with their world.

The first signs of everything not being right in the depths of this impregnable safehouse were felt two years ago when some of the Glittos were shipped far away to DragonLand in payment for goods received. Everything seemed all right but the usual checks were done. Small holes were drilled into a few of the Glittos to make sure that they were pure. Imagine the shock of the ones who tested them when they realised that what was gold was just a sheer cover-up and inside was inferior metal. And the markings on the fake Glittos showed that they had been in the safehouse for many years.

So who had taken out the real Glittos and put in fake Glittos in their place? How could they do it in a safehouse that was thought to be the most secure place in all the land? Who had access to the golden vaults in order to make the switch? And who had the authority to switch the Glittos without anyone knowing?

There were tears in the Watcher’s eyes. ‘The good people of the land who work so hard and are so loyal have been robbed by the very people they trusted, the very ones they put in power. The only way to right this wrong is for the people to know the truth and to demand justice. Will they do it?’ he wondered.

Then came the Keeper of the Global Glittos and he asked to see the Glittos that were owed to the ones he worked for. The more he saw, the more he doubted and he, too, began to smell a conspiracy where the Glittos had been quietly and sneakily replaced with metal of much less worth. He demanded an answer and that was his undoing. In order to keep him quiet, they wove a web of lies around him and as he was leaving Lollaland, he was caught and brought back in chains with accusations of wrongdoing.

The Watcher could not believe that in a country known for its bravery and honesty, there would be a few in power who would stoop to sex, lies and gutterscrape in order to frame a person who saw through them. He knew that a few were selling the country out and he prayed the people would open their eyes and see, listen and understand, seek and find the truth.

For too long, any dissent was met with the gun. In Qira, in other lands, at the heart of the conflict was the Glitto because that was what kept the LollaLeaf strong. Far away, an old enemy smiled and let a word fall here, a word there as to why the Keeper of the Global Glittos had been the victim of a conspiracy plot. According to him, the Keeper knew the truth – that there were no more Glittos in the safehouse and all that were there were fake. He knew because there were a few good men in the King’s court, who, under peril of their lives, whispered the truth to him.

This time, there can be no resorting to war, thought the Watcher. Maybe the time had come for the veils of deceit to be rent apart and for truth to shine again. And what of the Glittos? Why, man gave it its value and man can take it away. It’s the real values that you cannot take away. Values of truth, honesty, decency, charity. Suddenly, he smiled. There was hope, he knew because of the people - the people of LollaLand who were honest and hardworking and would get past this, too. He had to have faith that this would pass and the sun would come out and shine in LollaLand again.