IMNSHO, Cotillion is probably the most brilliantly plotted of Georgette Heyer's comedic regencies. This masterpiece works on nearly every level. Unlike The Civil Contract, it's lighthearted and funny; unlike The Grand Sophie, (perhaps her most beloved work) the increasing attraction of the main couple, Freddy & Kitty, is front and center. Moreover, Freddy and Kitty have the distinction of being amongst the most genuinely warm and kind-hearted of her protagonists; so getting them together, while still telling an engaging tale, without those tiresome tstl or ‘great misunderstandings’[1] is an extraordinary feat. How does she do it?
The book starts out with Kitty being required, by her irascible, penny-pinching guardian Uncle Matthew to choose amongst his unmarried nephews—Hugh, a dull clergyman; Foster, a poor and foolish Irish earl; Jack, a handsome gamester, whom the uncle actually favors; and the wealthy Freddy, whose appearance is manipulated by Jack and Foster's mother—a suitor to receive his fortune upon his death; otherwise, she's to be left penniless. These sorts of autocratic martinets are more often than not excused in Heyer—annoying, but beloved curmudgeons. In this story, he's refreshingly criticized for being the gothick asshole he is.[2]
Heyer, as it happens, did not apparently think much of these stories (any more than Mucha thought of the frothy advertisements on which he made his name) and she churned them out at the rate of roughly one a year to pay the bills, using a stable of ‘stock’ characters on which she rang changes: by the time she wrote this story, she took what was normally a sidekick, a fashionable dandy, and made him the hero.
Freddy, therefore, is not particularly athletic, nor bright, nor outrageous. He's a good dancer, and very polite, but ‘not in the petticoat line.’ After years of writing tall, dark, handsome, ‘top o the trees’ type heroes, she's begun to shift focus, and thus, though Kitty believes herself in love the big handsome (and rolled up) gamester Jack (who was Heyer's more likely sort of protagonist) at the beginning, her natural warm-heartedness is drawn to Freddy's equal generosity, and willingness (as Jack is not) to participate in her schemes for the betterment of those around her as book progresses.
Thus, the other romantic subplots—the efforts of Kitty's cousin Camille to woo the beautiful but lower-class Olivia, and Kitty's would-be suitor Foster to marry the very common, plain and practical (and poor) Miss Hannah Plymstock—work perfectly to advance Freddy and Kitty's understanding, while detaching her infatuation with Jack, who intends to make the beautiful, but penniless Olivia his mistress, and who mercilessly mocks the mentally slow Foster, commanded by his mama to marry Kitty for the sake of the fortune her Uncle Matthew intends to bestow upon her.
The scales do not immediately drop from Kitty's eyes: Jack has been her beau ideal for years, and her request that Freddy pretend to be engaged to her that she might have a London season is solely to get back at Jack for failing to offer for her: she intends to have some pretty dresses, look her best, and make him rue the day he refused to offer for her. He, despite his debts, is no mood to bend to his uncle let alone her ‘impertinent piping’. Freddy is none too thrilled with the pretense, but he's known Kitty forever, and is kindhearted; for this reason he agrees to the ruse.
He turns out to be an excellent, if somewhat unwilling, co-conspirator: his sense of fashion is, of course, superlative, and his wealth allows him to underwrite the cost of the fancy new clothes with which Kitty wishes to adorn herself. Not only that, we are introduced to his delightful family: unlike most romances, even those written by Heyer, they are, for the most part, on board with Freddy's engagement. His percipient father is a joy to behold, and one of the most engaging parents ever to be encountered in romantic fiction. His mother, while suspicious and none-too-thrilled, nevertheless acquiesces, trusting her husband's insights and her son's agency. Though not terribly bright herself, she nevertheless clearly has an affectionate marriage, as does her daughter, married to a much older man, with whom Kitty ultimately stays during her London adventures. This is in contrast to, say, the loveless union of Mr and Mrs Bennet, for whom one could clearly make a case of being the ur-parents of these sorts of romances.
In fact, there are remarkably few villains in this story, and none of them are pitted directly against the main protagonists: we have Mrs. Brougty prepared to sell Olivia to an appalling old roue; and Foster's mother, who treats her mentally impaired son with contempt so that she may remain in control of his money; but it is primarily society's strictures and stratification that forms the bulk of the obstacles Kitty and Freddy must overcome, of which the greatest, of course, is that women, in order to secure their futures, must marry well. Foster's mother and Mrs Broughty are both awful people, but their problems—how to make money—are very real ones for women in this society.
Thus the impoverished Mrs Broughty, if she wishes to achieve a place in society, must marry her daughter into it; the snobbish haut monde look down their noses at money-grubbing cits, and the unattractive way in which Heyer portrays the wealthy, noveaux riches father in Contract is, to my mind, part of what makes that novel painful for modern readers. Though that book is more sophisticated than most, in its attempt to be sympathetic, Adam—and the author's—distaste for the man is palpable, despite the author's efforts to balance his vulgarity with Adam's mother's helplessness and over-sensibility.
In the same way, Freddy resorts to helping Camille elope with Olivia not because he likes either one—he regards the former as a professional card-sharp and the latter as a vapid adventuress—but because he knows that if he does not Olivia is too inexperienced to play the mistress without creating scandals all over, into which she will inevitably draw Kit. Nevertheless, he treats them both with a good deal of kindness and respect, his innate personality trumping snobbery. Their problems—and Freddy's willingness to solve them—show, in a most extraordinarily effective way, his growing affections for Kit.
Kit has in similar ways been learning to appreciate Freddy. Jack may be big, handsome, and dashing, but he's not at all helpful; he will help Kitty, but only in exchange, not out of the goodness of his heart, as Freddy (& Kitty herself) does. This is perhaps most clearly shown in the book's climax, in which Kitty is attempting to assist Foster and Hannah get from under his terrifying mother's control: they need to marry secretly and quickly (without banns) in order to keep her from foiling their plans by placing him in a mental institution. Kitty hits upon the scheme of taking them to yet another cousin—the first one to offer for her—the stodgy clergyman who will marry her to save her from her ‘starts’ and ensure she has a home, but not because he loves her—and having him, Hugh, marry Foster and Hannah instead.
Hugh, very conscious of his dignity, is unwilling to do this, despite their being no legal bar, since both parties are willing and of age, but, like most of Kitty's other relatives, is finally persuaded, until they hit the final hitch, the lack of a special license—an expensive, and difficult to obtain document. Kitty has neither the knowledge nor funds to obtain one, and Jack will not without quid pro quo. Hugh may be the worst of prosy bores, but can hardly be blamed for his unwillingess to break the law.
Once again the bar to happiness is society's mores: though Hannah is willing to live with Foster unmarried for three weeks, since her family disapproves the match and neither she nor he have any money, it would be difficult for them to find lodging with a clergyman, or indeed anyone of ‘good morals’ without their marriage-lines. It is left to Freddy, having carefully read Kitty's letter of their adventures, to deduce that everyone has neglected the all-importance special license, obtain one, and present it as a pledge of affection at the last moment.
Jack, of course, realizing that the girl who has adored him for years, and worse yet, the fortune attached to her, is slipping from his fingers, makes Kitty an offer, impelled by his uncle's plan to marry Kitty's governess, who, not being so very old, could likely cut him out with an heir. He presumes he can have her with a snap of the fingers, but it is at this point that Kitty, having realized the ambition driving her for bulk of the book, realizes that however handsome and manly Jack may be, it is to Freddy she's given her heart.
She refuses him, and he insults her.
This being Heyer, in which the women may be hoydens of the first order, but the men must always be manly, the rather effete Freddy punches Jack in the nose to defend Kitty's honor. It's a bit jarring for modern audiences, but overall, the book is relatively free of the cruelties Heyer's manly (or boyish) characters often promote, such as the pranks to which nearly all boy protagonists in her stories are prone. Hannah, as a cit, may be plain; but she's likeable. Jack, for all he's an asshole, is not without his appealing qualities. Foster, despite being mentally impaired, and Hugh, though depicted as a bore, still have some sympathetic qualities. Even Matthew is softened a bit, by adopting Kitty's (ex)governess, Fish, to whom he becomes affianced—granted to save money, but his obstreperous behavior actually improves as Fish learns to manage him: they're both happier.
Just as Uncle Matthew's declarations to the impoverished (and now jobless) Fish bring matters to a head, Freddy's observant father serves to provide foreshadowing, confusing the anxious and guilty Kit by assuring her that he's delighted that she'll be ‘joining the family at not very distant future’: he more than she or his son has perceived the growing bond. In a similar way, his daughter, who introduces Kitty to the ton, serves to illustrate the growing bond in a more substantial way:
Kitty is rather unwillingly taken to rude (and middle-class) masked ball by Olivia's family, the Scortons, and deeply grateful when the proper Freddy rescues her, for it's not the sort of entertainment she likes at all. Meanwhile, Freddy's sister, whose husband is out of the picture for the duration of the novel, has convinced Jack to take her to this highly improper entertainment, and is appalled when Kitty, who had no notion of being dragged to this event, recognizes both her and Jack. Besides showing her that Jack is a bit of a ‘loose fish’ in consenting to take Freddy's sister into a vulgar entertainment (that Freddy and even she knows is ‘not the thing’) it's a screamingly funny scene as the less experienced Kitty apostrophizes Meg for wearing that ‘awful lilac dress that neither Lady Legerwood, or Freddy or I have told you doesn't become you’ —showing in this most subtle of ways in which Kitty partakes of the high-in-the-instep Legerwood family's ideas in general and Freddy's tastes in particular. It's an absolutely brilliant bit of storytelling.
The whole book is a pitch-perfect manual on how to write a flawless comedy of manners, with no element (or character) wasted.
update, 22jul17: this comment explains the title; reading the tor reviews of Heyers’ books made me realize that the titles were sometimes just as witty as the dialogue:)
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
