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Contents (80)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. ACTING ON IMPULSE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. INTRODUCTION
  5. “A PROPOSAL TO CICELY”
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. A PROPOSAL TO CICELY
  8. THE END
  9. READING “A PROPOSAL TO CICELY”
  10. “THE LITTLE LADY”
  11. INTRODUCTION
  12. THE LITTLE LADY
  13. I.
  14. II.
  15. III.
  16. THE END
  17. READING “THE LITTLE LADY”
  18. “LINCKES’ GREAT CASE”
  19. INTRODUCTION
  20. LINCKES’ GREAT CASE
  21. I.
  22. II.
  23. III.
  24. IV.
  25. V.
  26. VI.
  27. VII.
  28. THE END
  29. READING “LINCKES’ GREAT CASE”
  30. “THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST”
  31. INTRODUCTION
  32. THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST
  33. THE END
  34. READING “THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST”
  35. “ACTING ON IMPULSE”
  36. INTRODUCTION
  37. ACTING ON IMPULSE
  38. I.
  39. II.
  40. III.
  41. IV.
  42. THE END
  43. READING “ACTING ON IMPULSE”
  44. “WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?”
  45. INTRODUCTION
  46. WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?
  47. THE END
  48. READING “WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?”
  49. “THE CHINESE SHAWL”
  50. INTRODUCTION
  51. CONT
  52. THE CHINESE SHAWL
  53. I.
  54. II.
  55. III.
  56. IV.
  57. V.
  58. VI.
  59. VII.
  60. VIII.
  61. THE END
  62. READING “THE CHINESE SHAWL”
  63. “THE OLD MAID”
  64. INTRODUCTION
  65. THE OLD MAID
  66. THE END
  67. READING “THE OLD MAID”
  68. “LOVE”
  69. INTRODUCTION
  70. LOVE
  71. I.
  72. II.
  73. III.
  74. THE END
  75. READING “LOVE”
  76. THE SEARCH FOR “ON SUCH A NIGHT”
  77. GEORGETTE HEYER’S BIBLIOGRAPHY
  78. FURTHER READING
  79. COMING SOON!
  80. OCTOBER 29, 2019

Though it is a romance, most of the action centres, not on Kenneth and Ursula, but on Kenneth and his father, the choleric “old General Mount.” The General is instantly recognisable as one of those crusty, irascible, yet soft-hearted men so popular in the fiction of the time. Kenneth’s only parent lives a comfortable, well-heeled life, with a clear code of conduct and a valet. Whisky and cigars are his weakness and Kenneth puts them to good use in accomplishing his latest mad plan. Kenneth is another of Heyer’s wealthy young men with only themselves to please. He is charming and lively with a great deal of bonhomie. He also has a strong, determined streak and will not be diverted once he has settled on a scheme.

Heyer’s heroine, however, is the first properly independent female in her fiction. Ursula is “an orphan, and she supported herself by painting posters and illustrating magazines.” She is intelligent and outspoken and knows how to manage Kenneth and, in the end, his father. This sort of character would appear five years later in Heyer’s most autobiographical novel, Helen. In that novel Angela Lorne is a friend of Helen’s, and an artist who does “poster-work” and illustrations for short-story magazines. She lives in a Chelsea flat with a large studio and is described as, “capable and fairly hard, and entirely independent.”

In “Acting on Impulse” Ursula is not “hard” but she is strong-minded and sure of herself. When the General discovers that she is “a modern girl who worked for her own living” he is apoplectic. For a man of his generation a “self-supporting girl” is the same as a bohemian and that, as he tells his son, must see an end to the affair. But Kenneth is determined.

He is the “creature of impulse” and it is his “ingenuous boyishness” that drives the unlikely but entertaining plot. The action is fast-paced, the dialogue is pure 1920’s literary England, with such smile-inducing phrases as “topping,” “top-hole” and “awfully bucked,” and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep the reader amused. Heyer’s hand is sure throughout the story and with some wit and more good humour than she would achieve in Helen, she brings the tale to its obvious conclusion.

Though only her second short for The Red Magazine, “Acting on Impulse” would be Heyer’s last for that publication.

ACTING ON IMPULSE

I.

EVERYONE who knew him or had ever known him agreed that Kenneth Mount was mad. His nurse had said it most emphatically when, at the age of five, Kenneth had left his bed while she was having dinner and climbed on to the roof through the trapdoor, clad only in his pyjamas. The only explanation he had been able to give for his extraordinary conduct was that he had wanted to see the man in the moon. When she indignantly demanded whether he could not have done that from his bedroom window, he replied that he hadn’t thought of it.