Georgette Heyer's Cotillion
Feb. 10th, 2017 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dimity_blueI read most of Georgette Heyer's books 30-ish years ago. I've read and re-read them over the years but don't actually give them much thought besides how fun and enjoyable they are.
I just finished re-reading Cotillion, which is one of GH's most fun books. It's all rather silly and light-hearted.
Spoilers ahoy!
Kitty is a penniless orphan, the ward of Matthew Penicuik (pronounced Penny-cook), a wealthy but tight-fisted man. He declares that one of his great-nephews shall marry Kitty and get his fortune along with her.
Kitty is offended, especially when Jack (the great-nephew she's in love with), declines to dance to his great-uncle piping and refuses to turn up and propose. Kitty persuades Freddy, the most kind-hearted great-nephew, to pretend to propose to her so she can go to London for a month. "For anything can happen in a month."
Freddy is not over-loaded with intelligence. To my mind, he's rather Bertie Wooster-ish - very kind, very amiable, and rather preoccupied with his clothes. However, he's also very socially adept. One review of Cotillion says:
**Kitty comes to love him because he always knows the right thing to do. He can find a sedan chair in the rain, he knows you have to have a special license to get married in a hurry, he remembers that people eloping need hair brushes.**
And it's true. Kitty is sensible as well as being kind-hearted and impulsive. Although she starts off with a childish crush on Jack, by the end of the book she's come to value Freddy and his adeptness far more.
And this is the bit when I admit to finding out something that makes me enjoy the book even more.
A Cotillion is a form of country dance (which I knew). I thought it fitted rather well as the title - everyone dancing around, interacting, parting and coming together. A chaotic situation that resolves itself into a set pattern could be likened to a country dance.
But no.
**The cotillion (also cotillon or "French country dance") is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and America. Originally for four couples in square formation,**
And there are four couples who end up together in Cotillion.
Our hero and heroine, Freddy and Kitty.
Freddy's feeble-witted cousin, Dolph, and his future wife, Hannah Plymstock.
Uncle Matthew and Kitty's governess/companion, Miss Fishguard
And Kitty's French cousin, Camille, and the lovely Olivia Broughty
I don't love the book just for Kitty and Freddy. I like Dolph and I love that he's saved from his abusive mother by the practical Miss Plymstock. I don't doubt that he'll be far happier on his Irish estate with Hannah than in London being terrified by his mother.
I also love that Freddy is so gung-ho for Olivia to elope with Camille. Olivia is extremely beautiful but has no spine whatsoever. Her mother, the bullying Mrs. Broughty, is ready to force her into marriage to an elderly roue, Sir Henry Gosford. She can't bear the thought of it, but her only other offer is from Jack (Kitty's crush). While he's handsome and dashing, he's not offering marriage or a long term relationship. Olivia doesn't want to become a prostitute either but it's that or Gosford.
I've got to admit Jack starts off looking like the book's hero and ends up looking like a total creep.
And then there's Camille. He's handsome, charming, and seeking a fortune. His father runs a gaming house in Paris. Camille would love to marry Olivia but he has no money. Freddy persuades him that carrying Olivia off to Paris is far better than leaving her to the tender mercies of her mother and Gosford, so off they go.
The last couple is Mr. Penicuik and "that Fish" as he refers to her. You don't actually get to see their relationship, but only hear of it 3rd hand from a displeased Jack:
**So far as I am privileged to understand the matter, the Fish has been busy! She has learnt to play chess so that he may beat her every night; she has prevailed upon him to believe that the pangs of his gout have been alleviated by some antiquated remedy of her finding rather than by the clemency of the weather; and finally she has instilled into his mind the famous notion that since it will not suit his comfort to dispense with her services it will cost him less to marry her than to continue to pay her a wage!**
So imagine that relationship!
I just finished re-reading Cotillion, which is one of GH's most fun books. It's all rather silly and light-hearted.
Spoilers ahoy!
Kitty is a penniless orphan, the ward of Matthew Penicuik (pronounced Penny-cook), a wealthy but tight-fisted man. He declares that one of his great-nephews shall marry Kitty and get his fortune along with her.
Kitty is offended, especially when Jack (the great-nephew she's in love with), declines to dance to his great-uncle piping and refuses to turn up and propose. Kitty persuades Freddy, the most kind-hearted great-nephew, to pretend to propose to her so she can go to London for a month. "For anything can happen in a month."
Freddy is not over-loaded with intelligence. To my mind, he's rather Bertie Wooster-ish - very kind, very amiable, and rather preoccupied with his clothes. However, he's also very socially adept. One review of Cotillion says:
**Kitty comes to love him because he always knows the right thing to do. He can find a sedan chair in the rain, he knows you have to have a special license to get married in a hurry, he remembers that people eloping need hair brushes.**
And it's true. Kitty is sensible as well as being kind-hearted and impulsive. Although she starts off with a childish crush on Jack, by the end of the book she's come to value Freddy and his adeptness far more.
And this is the bit when I admit to finding out something that makes me enjoy the book even more.
A Cotillion is a form of country dance (which I knew). I thought it fitted rather well as the title - everyone dancing around, interacting, parting and coming together. A chaotic situation that resolves itself into a set pattern could be likened to a country dance.
But no.
**The cotillion (also cotillon or "French country dance") is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and America. Originally for four couples in square formation,**
And there are four couples who end up together in Cotillion.
Our hero and heroine, Freddy and Kitty.
Freddy's feeble-witted cousin, Dolph, and his future wife, Hannah Plymstock.
Uncle Matthew and Kitty's governess/companion, Miss Fishguard
And Kitty's French cousin, Camille, and the lovely Olivia Broughty
I don't love the book just for Kitty and Freddy. I like Dolph and I love that he's saved from his abusive mother by the practical Miss Plymstock. I don't doubt that he'll be far happier on his Irish estate with Hannah than in London being terrified by his mother.
I also love that Freddy is so gung-ho for Olivia to elope with Camille. Olivia is extremely beautiful but has no spine whatsoever. Her mother, the bullying Mrs. Broughty, is ready to force her into marriage to an elderly roue, Sir Henry Gosford. She can't bear the thought of it, but her only other offer is from Jack (Kitty's crush). While he's handsome and dashing, he's not offering marriage or a long term relationship. Olivia doesn't want to become a prostitute either but it's that or Gosford.
I've got to admit Jack starts off looking like the book's hero and ends up looking like a total creep.
And then there's Camille. He's handsome, charming, and seeking a fortune. His father runs a gaming house in Paris. Camille would love to marry Olivia but he has no money. Freddy persuades him that carrying Olivia off to Paris is far better than leaving her to the tender mercies of her mother and Gosford, so off they go.
The last couple is Mr. Penicuik and "that Fish" as he refers to her. You don't actually get to see their relationship, but only hear of it 3rd hand from a displeased Jack:
**So far as I am privileged to understand the matter, the Fish has been busy! She has learnt to play chess so that he may beat her every night; she has prevailed upon him to believe that the pangs of his gout have been alleviated by some antiquated remedy of her finding rather than by the clemency of the weather; and finally she has instilled into his mind the famous notion that since it will not suit his comfort to dispense with her services it will cost him less to marry her than to continue to pay her a wage!**
So imagine that relationship!