So what does “Whose Fault Was It?” say about Heyer, at age twenty-one, still living at home with dear old Mummy and Daddy? (She did not, surprisingly, go in for “mater” and “pater,” no matter what her fiction might have suggested.) It could very well just be a fond dream, that her parents might have entered into each others’ interests, and would thence have been content in their home life. It could be that Heyer had heard from young married friends – the like of Joanna Cannan – about the harsh realities of being treated like a “housekeeper” by one’s husband, after the honeymoon was over. It could even be showcasing her deepest fears about marital compatibility, especially when either party is ruled by a particular passion. Like, for example, writing.

Or, it could just be that a cigar is a cigar, that the Chinese porcelain collecting household tyrant who learns to woo his wife through ballroom dance (consider that a lifehack, fellas!) was named George because it was a super-popular name, or as a tribute to Heyer’s eldest brother, just four years her junior, whose name was also George – there were two Georges and a Georgette in that house; happily, the younger George was always known as “Boris,” his middle name, thus rendering the dinner table much less confusing – or simply because she had by then befriended one George Ronald Rougier, who would become her husband only a few years later.

We’ll probably never know, but it is fun to guess about it, isn’t it? Especially since Georgette Heyer herself left us so comparatively little to go on.

One thing that is very obvious about her: she certainly understood the soul of a collector. Those of us who are captivated by anything esoteric or artistic or absurd, who search diligently for those objects of our devotion far and wide, and who proudly display our treasures while longing to share the experience, the enthusiasm, with others (especially those we love most), can only identify most strongly with George, grieve with him for his destroyed Ming – though not Ming, as it turns out – vase, and rejoice at the convert that Diana becomes when she begins to learn more about his special subject. The thrill of the chase, the joy of a bargain, it all sings in Diana’s search for a replacement vase, and as the story comes to a close we can easily see ahead to their future Saturdays, haunting estate sales and flea markets and arguing agreeably over the provenance of assorted porcelain, before heading out to a dance hall to trip the light fantastic, united at last.

Is this what Heyer wished had happened between the real-life George and Diana (née Sylvia)? Is this story, entertaining and hysterical and ultimately charming as it is, her idealised vision of life at home?

I like to think so. And the knowing, wise woman of the world mother archetype she gives us here – who shows shades of Lady Malmerstoke in Powder and Patch, among many others – might likewise be her idealised vision of what her “difficult” mother (which Pastel also dwells upon) might have been.