The Black Moth

I have several Georgette Heyer books on hand and make sure to read at least one per year; she seemed the perfect last hurrah before the school year starts again. I decided to start with her earliest book, The Black Moth, from 1921.

Six years ago Jack Carstares, Earl of Wyndham, accepted an accusation that he cheated at cards. Though his sacrifice preserved his younger brother Richard’s honor and hopes of wooing the lovely Lavinia Belmanoir, Jack himself was disgraced and fled the country. Now he has returned to England and passes his time roaming the countryside as a highwayman. He is only Robin Hood by half, which I find less charming; he steals from the rich and…keeps it for himself. [But this is okay, because he has been unfairly denied access to his inheritance, and needs to stay solvent somehow. Besides, those odious people don't need their money anyway.]

Though Dick did win Lavinia, he has never forgiven himself for allowing his brother to take the fall. Recently, however, it all but consumes his thoughts. He convinced his father to still will the title and estate to Jack before his death. He told Lavinia the truth right after they married and she cares not that she married a cheater, only that her social standing be maintained. His fear of losing her is the only thing still preventing him from revealing the truth. Well, also the fact that he is slightly intimidated by her brother Tracy, Duke of Andover, who just might have manipulated the whole card affair in the first place.

In one week, Jack has two roadside escapades that change events entirely. First, he accidentally holds up a friend from his former life, Miles O’Hara, a justice of peace who discovers his identity and is determined to see him restored. Second, he foibles “Devil” Belmanoir’s attempt to kidnap and marry the lovely Diana Beauleigh, and is wounded in the process. While recuperating at the Beauleigh manor,  he tries to convince Diana he is not worthy of her, and she tries to convince him of the opposite. Neither quite succeeds, and they might go on fawning at each other indefinitely if the Duke doesn’t have other plans to win Diana for himself.

The Black Moth does already have a lot of the elements that make a Georgette Heyer book great: multiple couples (happily married, unhappily married, and courting), likable chaperones, extremely fashionable gentlemen, and non-traditional females. Diana pretty much threw herself at Jack several times, even going so far as to propose to him, but he was too noble and self-sacrificing to accept (can you sense a theme with his character?). The writing was great, and if wit was lacking she made up for it with humor. For some reason, though, I just didn’t totally buy into the story of Jack and Diana. I liked the plot with Richard and Lavinia much more, and those were the parts I reread when writing this review. Perhaps its because they had weaknesses and regrets, and therefore more tension, whereas the main couple came off as a bit flat.

The Duke of Andover as a complex “villain” had the potential to be the best aspect of the book, but never quite achieved it. He was never friendly and often acted out of selfish ends, without caring if anyone else was hurt; if fact, he seemed to pride himself on his resolve and reputation. However, Lavinia adores him, and his closest friend Frank, who seems to have a good head on his shoulders, is also quite fond and often pities him. We are not given a reason for his being likable by those two characters, other than the length of their acquaintances. I was almost sorry for the Duke myself at times, but realized I never really had cause to be. He is neither likable enough to be an anti-hero, nor despised enough to be a true scoundrel.

Georgette Heyer doesn’t use any exact dates, but from all the fashions this seems to be set in the mid to late eighteenth century. The women wear silk dresses with wide skirts, and the men wear patches and tight jackets. Powder is even more prevalent than snuff. I love the American colonial era, but some of the European upper class fashions are a bit much for me. I prefer my men without fountains of lace and embroidered satin waistcoats, thank you very much.

All in all I don’t think The Black Moth will ever be among my most favorite Georgette Heyer romances, but it’s the book that started it all, and quite an output for a girl who was fifteen at the time!

Thursday Throwback: The Doll’s House

How strange that a little farthing doll should last so long. Tottie was made of wood and it was good wood. She liked to think sometimes of the tree of whose wood she was made, of its strength and of the sap that ran through it and made it bud and put out leaves every spring and summer, that kept it standing through the winter storms and wind. “A little, a very little of that tree is in me,” said Tottie. “I am a little of that tree.” She liked to think of it.

I used to love reading books about dolls, and Rumer Godden had some great ones; I borrowed them first from my friend and then from the library multiple times. The Doll’s House
was all about creating a model house for two little Japanese dolls. I thought it was the coolest book ever, and can still remember it vividly. It was always my dream when I was little to have a doll house, but I had to settle for playing with the one at my grandmother’s.

When I found The Doll’s House at the book sale last week I couldn’t recall if it was one I used to read. The characters seemed very vaguely familiar, but it might have just been similarities to the other doll books. Then, about twenty pages in, Marchpane was mentioned in passing and I felt an inexplicable shiver of hate down my spine. She had not been introduced as a character yet, and I could not explain why I disliked her so, but I knew I did. Funny how strongly she must have affected me when I was a child!

The main character in the book is Tottie, a little wooden farthing doll over a hundred years old. She has been passed down in the family and currently belongs to two little girls named Emily and Charlotte. The sisters have also acquired other various dolls to put together a family. Birdie, the mother, is a celluloid doll from a party popper, who has good intentions but only room for one thought at a time in her head. Mr. Plantagenet is sturdier, but a great worrier. He belonged to a neighbor family and was much abused before being rescued by the girls. Apple is a little boy doll with a knack for getting into simple mischief.

This doll family lives in a shoebox, and dream of one day having a house like the one Tottie used to live in when she belonged to Emily and Charlotte’s great-grandmother. With dolls, wishing hard is their only way of making things happen, and in this case they wish hard enough. When an older relative passes on the house is found again, and delivered to the girls. Unfortunately, the house is in disrepair, and in order to get money to fix it up, the girls lend Tottie to a doll exhibit at the museum. Poor Tottie, however, does not understand that this is only temporary.

Along with the dollhouse, the girls inherit another heirloom, the snobby china doll Marchpane. She and Tottie have a frigid history dating way back to when they both used to live in the dollhouse. Unfortunately, Emily and Charlotte are quite taken with her exquisite looks. Everything is disrupted when they make her mistress of he dollhouse and relegate the other dolls to servant roles. Only when matters come to an extreme point do the girls realize what really makes a doll valuable.

The plot itself of this book is not necessarily my favorite; my distaste for Marchpane is too strong, and the ending is one of those “Little Match Girl” or “Tin Soldier” endings where I’m not really quite sure it’s happy. Nevertheless, Rumer Godden writes about dolls, and by extension, the children who own and love them, in a way that no one else can. She explains things so matter-of-factly that you can’t help but believe that dolls really are alive in a sense. The materials that the dolls are made out of, and their histories, are reflected in their characters. They are fully developed, and at the same time completely at the mercy of their owners. When Charlotte and Emily are in tune with the dolls they know exactly what they need and things go smoothly, but when that intuition fails the situation gets very bad indeed.

I was trying to remember all the other doll books I used to love, the ones I still own as well as the ones I borrowed. I could have sworn that there was a sequel, with a doll from Jamaica who practiced black magic. All of the other Rumer Godden books are stand-alones, though, so the one of thinking of must be different. I know it had a family living in an old doll house, like this, and they had issues with the voodoo doll, and there was a subplot with something valuable hung on the wall in the dollhouse. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? I couldn’t find anything online, so if this bother me enough I might need to ask on LibraryThing.