From Bride’s first appearance, Heyer creates an almost mystical atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt. Is Bride real? A ghost? Mad? Heyer compels the reader to wonder. She also raises doubts about the time in which the story is set. Though its opening is clearly 1920s England and Peter drives his car to the country, Bride seems to come from a different time and place. She is otherworldly and strange. More than fifty years later, Heyer would write Cousin Kate, another unusual story and one in which a young man goes “mad.” Torquil’s madness is far more intense and dangerous than any behaviour we see in Bride, but it is interesting that Heyer touched on the subject so early in her career.

There is no knowing exactly when she wrote “The Little Lady”, though it was likely after 1918, at the end of the Great War. Heyer turned sixteen in August of that year and may have written it around that time. This is lightweight, sentimental fiction, with a mystical, magical element, that is unlike anything else she ever wrote. These elements suggest a more youthful pen than her later shorts. Here, too, is Heyer’s first– and most overt – reference to Jane Austen. Throughout her life, Austen would remain her favourite author, but the use of Austen’s name in this story has none of the subtlety or humour of later references.

“The Little Lady” also has an adolescent’s sentimentality; none of her later stories would come to be so saccharine. Instead, Heyer would find her voice with more fully developed characters, sharper dialogue and her own particular brand of humour.

THE LITTLE LADY

I.

HE was tramping through the wood, hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets, brow lowering, and lips in a sullen curve. He was very, very angry. Hurt, too, and like a sulky schoolboy. He had quarrelled with Ruth, and she had flung his ring back at him, telling him to go away and never to come back again. Well, he wasn’t going back.

A rotted piece of tree-trunk lay across the cutting; he kicked it petulantly out of his way.

It wasn’t his fault, anyway. She had started the row—at least, he thought so. He really couldn’t remember quite how it had begun or what it was about. He only knew that they had both been furious and that everything was at an end. Ruth was absolutely unreasonable, too. Probably it was just as well that the engagement was broken off.

A rabbit scuttled across the path and was lost in the bracken. Peter scowled after it; he was in no mood for rabbits. A thrush singing in some nearby tree made him look savagely round. How dare the bird be happy when he was in black despair? He strode on, shoulders hunched forward.

Yes, the row had upset him. He had gone back to his flat and had hurled some clothes into a portmanteau. He rather thought he had snarled at his servant, but he wasn’t sure. Then he had flung out of the place to his waiting car and driven blindly off Heaven knew where! He hadn’t cared where he was going to. He had just driven out of London, through the suburbs, out into the country and on, on till dusk came. Then he had come upon this place, with its bubbling stream and its quiet beechwoods. He had liked the old inn, and, in any case, one place was as good as another to him now.