a man would sacrifice himself for woman he believes loves another, set in England Wales border, vivid descriptions but unlikely plot

It’s funny how a book can sometimes surprise us. I very nearly didn’t read this novel at all. I have had it tbr for absolutely ages, and it was the only book I had for 1922 in my ACOB. I have no memory at all of where it came from. When I was in my teens I read Precious Bane, Mary Webb’s best-known novel, in fact, my sister and I were both obsessed with it for a while. I think I read Gone to Earth too, but I can’t remember that one at all – it certainly didn’t leave an impression in the same way as Precious Bane did. Seven for a Secret was the fourth of Mary Webb’s six novels, coming two years before Precious Bane.

Mary Webb is known as the writer Stella Gibbons parodied in her novel Cold Comfort Farm. A Shropshire novelist and poet. Mary Webb’s work is very much rooted in the Shropshire landscape she grew up in. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that I mightn’t get on so well with Mary Webb now Her obvious romanticism might have suited my teenage years but would probably irritate me now. Mary Webb is very descriptive, – her storytelling comes from the same tradition as writers like Sheila Kaye-Smith (who I also read recently) and Thomas Hardy – to whom this novel is dedicated. Hers is perhaps a style that won’t suit everyone, there is an old-fashioned quality to it, but unexpectedly I loved it.

The one aspect to the novel I might take slight issue with is Webb’s use of dialect, true she does it spectacularly well – but I’m never sure if dialect is really necessary. Can’t a writer merely tell us that a person speaks with a particular accent, throw in a few colloquialisms and allow the reader’s imagination to do the rest? That’s probably how a modern writer might approach it. Of course, Mary Webb was writing at a time when this kind of romantic writing was more in vogue than it is now. I found I got to grips with the dialect fairly quickly – but I could understand it putting some readers off.

I saw seven magpies in a tree,
One for you and six for me.
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
That’s never been told.

Gillian Lovekin is eighteen as the novel opens, living with her father, on his farm in the Shropshire hills. Gillian is a very pretty girl, a head full of dreams and longings – including for men to lose their hearts to her. She imagines herself in a fabulous gown, and dreams of experiencing London. There is in Gillian, a little of that slightly self-important selfishness that the young girls can sometimes have. She’s young, apt to make errors in the pursuit of happiness.

Gillian and her father are looked after by Mrs Makepeace – whose second husband Jonathan works on the farm too – he is quite a character, in a constant battle with every inanimate object in his path – if there is an accident to be had, Jonathan will have it. Mrs Makepeace’s son from her first marriage; Robert Rideout is Mr Lovekin’s cowman-shepherd. A thoughtful, dreamy character his strong, kind hands induce the cows to produce more milk, ewes drop their lambs safely. In his own time, he writes poetry in secret, and has slowly but inevitably fallen in love with Gillian. However, neither Gillian or her father consider a cowman-shepherd as suitable husband material. Robert has a friend Gipsy Johnson, who tells Robert a sad, perplexing tale of a lost child. In time Robert comes to think he can solve the mystery.

While Gillian is away visiting her aunt, a stranger; Ralph Elmer comes to live at the old inn ‘The Mermaid’. Elmer is a big personality and seems to have his finger in a lot of pies. He is accompanied by his mute housekeeper Rwth, and his surly old manservant Fringal. Right from the start Robert is unsettled by Elmer.

“And with the acute intuition of the poet he saw that Gillian would assuredly come back; that she would meet Elmer; that Elmer’s philosophy of self would go down before the passion she would arouse; that maybe she would be his.”

Gillian arrives home, and Elmer sets his cap at her – he enlists the sinister Fringal in his plan – which certainly doesn’t include marriage. Robert finds the distance between himself and his old friend Gillian widening. Gillian is hugely fond of Robert, her affection is growing, but it is as if she is too stubborn to admit it.

Meanwhile Robert can’t help but wonder about Elmer’s housekeeper Rwth – the girl is horribly bullied by Elmer – helpless and shrunken into herself she is a rather pitiful figure. On his visits to the inn Robert can’t help but show her simple kindness – and from then on, the girl gazes out of her attic window across the fields to the farm where he is working, utterly smitten. Gillian is also drawn to the strange silent girl, the two make jam together and Gillian starts to teach Rwth how to write so that she can communicate at last.

“The fresh summer breezes came in, laden with hay and moss and bracken scents. Dysgwlfas Farm miniature but clear, met their eyes when they looked up from their work. And sometimes, when the wind was in the right quarter, they could hear the pleasant high note of the machine, and the shouts, made soft and short by distance, of Jonathan and Robert and their helpers as they lugged the hay.”

Gillian is at heart a good and loving young woman – over the course of the novel, she begins to lose that giddiness we saw in her at the start, and we recognise the great capacity she has within herself to love.

The stage is set for betrayal, secrets to be unearthed, and the lives of good honest people to be unsettled by the stranger in their midst. I found it a very compelling read. There are a few ends to be tied up at the end of the story – and one or two of these are slightly rushed – but that didn’t stop me enjoying this novel immensely. I flew through the last fifty pages barely breathing. ( )