Seven For a Secret

Webb’s fourth novel, Seven for a Secret (1922), is set in the heavily forested region where Shropshire merges into Wales, “the country that lies between the dimpled lands of England and the gaunt purple steeps of Wales—half in Faery and half out of it.” The primary characters inhabit isolated farms and inns. Gillian Lovekin, the pampered, only child of a wealthy local farmer living at Dysgwlfas-on-the-Wild- Moors, is a self-absorbed, immature young woman who craves excitement and attention, her ultimate ambition being to go to London. Gillian’s interferences and flirtations bring pain and suffering to herself and to others. Seven for a Secret contrasts Gillian’s sensual infatuation with the wealthy but sordid innkeeper, Ralph Elmer, with her romantic love for her father’s high-principled, devoted, and honest cowman-shepherd, Robert Rideout.

Gillian, considering that living in the county’s capital city will be her first step towards eventual fame and fortune in London, persuades her prim Aunt Fanteague to invite her to stay with her in Silverton. Gillian gets her wish, and Robert Rideout is ordered to drive her on the farmer’s cart to catch the train to Silverton. Robert is in love with Gillian. Gillian in her immaturity finds the moors lonely, whereas Robert cannot live away from them. Robert is of the land—almost a part of it—and, as with the land, Gillian scarcely notices him except to flirt— both because she enjoys making Robert confused and angry, and because she can get away with her misbehavior.

While in Silverton, Gillian lives with her Aunt Fanteague and spinster Aunt Emily. Aunt Emily’s elderly gentleman-friend, Mr. Gentle, has been calling and courting fortnightly for years by reading to Emily and singing to her on the pianoforte. On a lark, Gillian entices Mr. Gentle into taking her rowing on the River Severn. The results are tragic: Mr. Gentle catches a chill and dies. Poor Aunt Emily loses her mind, and Gillian is blamed for the whole affair.

Gillian makes plans to escape to London during Mr. Gentle’s funeral, and is prevented from doing so only by Robert Rideout (who had heard of the death and considered what Gillian’s next move might be). Robert intercepts Gillian on the train platform, and then forces her back to Dysgwlfas, where he compels her into writing letters of apology to her aunts and making a mourning wreath for the late Mr. Gentle.

While Gillian is away at Silverton, Ralph Elmer comes to Dysgwlfas with his manservant, Fringal, and his mute housekeeper, Rwth. Ralph moves into the Mermaid’s Rest, a recently-vacated inn, near a lonely and dreary stretch of land known as “the unket place” where evil seems to lurk. Isaiah Lovekin has earlier warned Robert Rideout: “you’ll bear in mind as my girl’s for none but a farmer, or higher.” Isaiah encourages Ralph, a man of sufficient wealth to deserve Gillian, and hopes that Ralph’s interest in her will help to take his undeserving cowman-shepherd’s mind off his daughter.

“She’s with her aunties,” he vouchsafed. “And there she’ll stop for a while. Plenty of young fellows there, seemingly, as likes a slim waist and a fresh colour.”
“Is she walking out with anybody?”
“She knows better. She’ll bide at home till her dad says ‘walk out.’”
Elmer laughed softly. In the laugh was the secret glee of youth in its own freemasonry. This middle-aged man might be the best sheep breeder anywhere round, he might be a terror for making money, but with regard to his own daughter, Elmer judged him a fool. He’d soon see whether old Lovekin’s daughter would bide at home if he—Ralph Elmer—said “walk out.”
“But you’re not a marrying man,” said Isaiah slowly; and Elmer blushed up to his hair at the implied discovery of his inmost thoughts. Isaiah was pleased with him for blushing—it was a confession of his own power. And what a foil for Rideout! Once those sparks were well lit in Elmer’s eyes, Isaiah judged that most things—cowmen-shepherds included—would go down before his eagerness in attaining his desire.

As Robert Rideout feared she might, Gillian falls in love with Ralph after she returns from Silverton. To Gillian, Ralph represents excitement and passion, just as Silverton had. Gillian accompanies Ralph Elmer to the county fair at Weeping Cross even though, deep inside, she is beginning to realize that she would rather be with Robert Rideout. At Weeping Cross, the dissolute Ralph seduces Gillian. Mary Webb is forthright in her treatment of the physical aspects of love, yet she handles the subject with great simplicity and naturalness. Webb’s description of Ralph and Gillian’s physical lust is highly charged:

In the sifting moonlight brilliant eye met brilliant eye. A vitality greater than their own rushed through their veins and pounded in their breasts. They could no more help themselves than slaves bound for sacrifice on Druidical altars. They were bound for sacrifice on an altar older than mythology: the altar of one who reigns in fold and field, in town and village, in the castle and the hut, who is merciless and arrogant; at once lovely and hideous; who wears the garb of every creed and sect, but belongs to none; who hates virginity; who will be worshipped as long as there remain in the world maids and men; but whose worship is mysterious as the forest, and whose name is unacclaimed of any worshipper—for her name is unknown. She has lust in her treasury as well as love; yet, because of her deathless, keen, miraculous vitality, she is clean. And such is her witchery that those who have lived and loved without having known her feel cheated. But those who die in her arms are content as if they already lived in Paradise.

The morning after her tryst with Ralph, Gillian wakes to the awful realization that she loves Robert Rideout, not Ralph Elmer. Yet, when Robert and her father arrive in Weeping Cross, Gillian pretends that she loves Ralph knowing that otherwise Robert would kill Ralph for his transgression, and would then be hanged for murder. Ralph Elmer is coerced into marrying Gillian, even though he is already married to his housekeeper Rwth (a secret known only to his manservant, Fringal). In time, Gillian finds that mere physical love loses its attraction. The struggle between egoism and unselfishness rages fiercely within Gillian.

As Robert begins to have suspicions about Rwth’s background, he persuades the unsuspecting Gillian to teach the mute servant to write so that she will be able to communicate. Rwth eventually reveals in writing to Robert (in the presence of Ralph and Fringal) the story of her abduction as a girl by Fringal, her marriage to Ralph Elmer, and his violence after she had given birth to their child. The baby was stillborn, and the shock caused Rwth to become mute. Thereafter, Ralph degraded Rwth and treated her as a slave-housekeeper. Because Robert still believes that Gillian loves Ralph, these revelations bring him no joy.

The next day, while coming home from rabbit hunting, Ralph sees Rwth gathering firewood in the lonely and dreary unket place. A malevolent impulse overcomes Ralph and he murders her, knowing that he can bury Rwth’s body and—with it—the secret of his sordid past. Robert, hearing the gunshot and meeting a now-cheerful Ralph (who tells him that Rwth has left that afternoon for the city), is suspicious. Premonition causes Robert to return to the meadow late that evening:

When he reached the gyland he heard a sound of digging. Frantic, hurried, yet careful digging. But before he had time to go over it stopped. He waited . . . An hour went by—more. Not till two hours had gone was there any sound. Then across the bridge, very stealthily, went Ralph. And as if in an ironic jest, the moon swam out and revealed every feature—every haunted, terrified feature of his face . . . And Robert knew, as surely as he had ever known anything in his life, that Ralph had murdered Rwth, had crept here to bury her, and had waited afterwards till enough snow had fallen to conceal his work.

Even though Robert Rideout hates the dissolute Ralph Elmer and wants Gillian for himself, Robert unselfishly wants Gillian’s happiness more than revenge or his own contentment. Believing that Gillian loves Ralph, Robert prepares to take the blame upon himself. Knowing that the only way to save Ralph’s life is for someone else to confess to Rwth’s murder, Robert is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and die for the sake of Gillian’s happiness. He agonizes over his confession note and plans to shoot himself, waiting only until the thaw so that his poor farm animals won’t starve.

Gillian discovers Robert’s intention, then learns the truth of Rwth’s past and her murder, and throws herself at Robert’s feet. Gillian’s life— with sex, death and murder in its wake—eventually chastens her into a grateful lover. At the close of the story, she is ready to take her second chance at love with the devoted Robert Rideout, who has waited and suffered through Gillian’s false marriage with Ralph Elmer.

Seven for a Secret was written in the year after the Webbs had moved to London. The interruptions and personal difficulties that Mary Webb experienced in adjusting to her life in London affected the evenness of her writing. This novel contains some of Mary Webb’s worst and her best writing. The major characters (Gillian, Robert, Ralph and Rwth) are less real than symbolic—like the characters in an allegory or a morality play. Webb employs melodramatic exaggeration, and relies on coincidence to further the plot. Yet her descriptions of the moorlands are evocative, and suffused with a distinctive atmosphere. The minor characters in the novel are vividly drawn: irritating Aunt Fanteague, whose bonnet “seemed to have been built of bricks and mortar, not merely sewn”; influential farmer Isaiah Lovekin, “the legend of whose acumen is about them, like the protecting leaves of winter broccoli”; maternal Mrs. Makepeace who “saw all men as so many children, to be cared for and scolded, and, because Jonathan Makepeace was the most helpless man she had ever met, she married him.”

Mary Webb’s most memorable minor character in Seven for a Secret is the helpless rustic, Jonathan Makepeace—always mildly surprised to be in trouble with inanimate objects. Webb depicts him with humor, affection and sympathy:

If he gathered fruit, a heavy fire of apples poured upon his head. If he fished, he fell into the water. Many bits of his coat, and one piece of finger, had been given to that Moloch, the turnip-cutter. When he forked the garden, he forked his own feet. When he chopped wood, pieces flew up into his face like furious birds. If he made a bonfire, flames drew themselves out to an immense length in order to singe his beard. This idiosyncrasy of inanimate nature (or of Jonathan) was well known on the moors, and was enjoyed to the full.

Robert Lynd, in his introduction to the novel in the Collected Edition of Mary Webb, suggests that Seven for a Secret can be read as “a tale of the conflict between light and the powers of darkness,” and describes Webb’s “imaginative energy” as the characteristic feature of her writing. The novel was dedicated with permission to Thomas Hardy. Webb’s dedication reads: “To the Illustrious Name of Thomas Hardy whose Acceptance of this Dedication has Made Me so Happy.” The dedication copy of this work (cat. 85) has the following presentation inscription: “Mr. Thomas Hardy / with the greatest respect / and admiration from / Mary Webb. / Nov: 27th 1922. / 46. B. Leinster Square / London. W. 2.”