Review: A Woman Of Little Importance by Sheila Walsh (1991)

An interesting, very old-fashioned read. I liked the feisty, speaks-her-mind heroine, although I wasn’t at all sure what she saw in the cranky hero, but the writing was lovely and very Heyer-esque, and Harry, the duke’s young grandson, stole every scene he was in.

Here’s the premise: Charity Wynyate is left (literally) holding the baby when her sister dies in childbirth at the same time as her brother-in-law, Ned, dies at Waterloo. Baby Emily was premature, so it’s a while before Charity can take orphans Emily and her older brother, Harry, back to England. She’s looked after them since Harry was born, but she can’t do it alone, so she takes the children to their paternal grandfather, the Duke of Orme. Since Harry is now his heir, he’ll do what’s right by the children, won’t he? Even though he had quarrelled so badly with Harry’s father that he doesn’t even know of Harry’s existence.

When she arrives at the duke’s London residence, she meets Harry’s uncle, Lord Alistair Ashbourne, who until that moment had believed himself to be the heir to the dukedom. I’m not quite sure how it was that the family knew that Ned was dead but knew nothing of Harry’s existence, since Ned’s family travelled everywhere with him and everyone would have known about him, even if Ned was so careless of his family as not to inform his father of the birth of a new heir, but let that pass. Alistair’s manner is icy towards Charity, since he sees her as an encroaching female of no account, using the children to weasel her way into the duke’s household. The duke is even worse – he’s the archetypal curmudgeonly, gouty duke, shouting at everyone (and I have no fault to find with this, having written a curmudgeonly, gouty duke myself, once).

The duke reluctantly accepts the children, orders Alistair to take them to a country estate of his, and tells Charity to go away – she’s to have nothing more to do with them. A free and frank exchange of views ensues, but dukes will have their way, so the children are packed off to the country and Charity turns, rather unenthusiastically, to considering her own future. Her father has remarried and the stepmother doesn’t want Charity around, so she’ll have to find employment as a governess or companion, but wouldn’t it be handy if that could be somewhere close to the children? She needn’t break her word not to see the children, but she might hear about them sometimes. And by the greatest good fortune, she bumps into an old army friend of poor, deceased Ned, Captain Fitzallan (or Fitz), whose mother just happens to live within a few miles of Ashbourne Grange, where the children are. His mother is happy to include Charity in her giant household while she looks around for work, but first Fitz takes her under his wing and squires her about to fancy parties in London.

This part of the book gave me the heebie-jeebies. A young (well, youngish) single woman being squired about town by a young single man who isn’t even a relative? And not a hint of a chaperon in sight? How did they even get to these parties – in a closed carriage? Eek! But let that pass, too. At least this part enables Charity to meet the lovely Melissa Vane, who just happens to be betrothed to Alistair.

Now, this is something that puzzles me mightily. We know almost from the first moment she appears that Melissa was not particularly interested in Alistair until his older brother died, making him the heir to the dukedom, and she thereafter drew him into her web. So she’s very beautiful, yes, but how could he not see that she’s only after the title? Does he not care? Is there a connection between the families to make a marriage more likely? And how could a sophisticated man about town be drawn in by a cold-hearted ambitious woman? I just can’t imagine what he sees in her, beyond her appearance, and if that were all, he’d be horribly shallow.

Whatever his reasons, this whole section of the book seems to be set up purely to have Charity and Alistair quarrel at Lady Sefton’s ball. He thinks she’s encroaching into society (which she isn’t, she was invited), she thinks he’s an arrogant prig (which he is, because what right has he got to judge her?). But this scene does provide an interesting and illuminating shift in perspective. She thinks her home-modified gown looks shabby genteel. He thinks she makes every other woman look overdressed. I wish more authors would use this kind of strategy.

Then it’s off to the country, where Fitz and his family take Charity under their wing, providing her with a riding horse and generally being good friends to her. I really felt sorry for Fitz at this point. It’s obvious that he rather likes Charity, but she can think only of the children. Oh, and the obnoxious Lord Alistair, of course, whose only good quality seems to be that he’s a snappy dresser. Why is it that otherwise sensible heroines fall helplessly in love with heroes who have never shown them the slightest kindness, when the perfectly nice sidekick doesn’t get a look in? It’s a mystery to me.

Inevitably, Charity ends up moving into Ashbourne Grange to look after the children, and clashing with Alistair who comes to check up on them (but only after being prompted by Fitz). Whereupon he decides to stay for a while, which had me clutching my pearls, I can tell you. Have these people never heard of chaperons? In what version of the Regency is it OK for a single man and and a single woman, unrelated, to stay under the same roof, with only the servants?

However, this spell together is where he begins (belatedly) to appreciate Charity’s good points, and she begins to realise he’s not quite as curmudgeonly as his father. But of course, we couldn’t possibly have a simple slide towards our happy ever after, so there has to be a sting in the tail, a reversion to curmudgeonliness for Alistair and a little bit of melodrama before we get there.

I confess, I really didn’t like Alistair very much for most of this book, but given the character of his father, perhaps some of his behaviour is understandable, and I have to admit he’s a very common type for the era in which this book was written. And the ending was rather sweet. This was so well-written that I’m going to be generous and go for four stars.