The motivation of the heroine at the beginning of the story, as Miss Morgan has pointed out,[13]is more elaborate than usual in Haywoodian romance. To show a young girl's vanity teasing her into an intrigue required a more delicate appreciation of the passions than the stock situations in love stories afforded. Obliged to draw upon her own resources, Mrs. Haywood handled the incidents with a niceness that could hardly have been expected from the author of "Love in Excess." Her sense for vraisemblance protected her from many absurdities, though not from all. For instance, when Idalia to preserve herself from the importunities of Ferdinand employs the same threat of stabbing herself that Clarissa Harlowe in similar circumstances holds over Lovelace, the Italian heroine very naturally tries first to stab her seducer. But realism vanishes when Idalia begins her romantic flight from place to place and from lover to lover. The incidents of romance crowd fast around her. When in man's clothes she is loved by a woman who takes her for what she seems, and by the woman's husband who knows her for what she is, the reader cannot help recalling a similar Gordian love-knot in Sidney's "Arcadia." Perhaps the only convincing detail in the latter part of the book is the heroine's miserable end. But although the sentiments of the characters are reported in concealed blank verse that smacks of theatrical rant, though the absurd Oriental digressions, the disguises, the frequent poisonings, and fortunate accidents all detract from the naturalness and plausibility of the tale, yet one cannot deny the piece occasional merits, which if smothered in extravagances, are hopeful signs of a coming change. The very excess of strained and unnatural incidents indicates that the popular palate was becoming cloyed; for a time the writers of fiction attempted to stimulate it by spicing the dish, but when the limit of mordancy was reached, a new diet became imperative.
Though in no sense a soothing draught for the overstrained sensibilities of romance readers, "The Fatal Secret: or, Constancy in Distress" (1724) nevertheless represents a valuable part of Mrs. Haywood's contribution to the technique of the novel. Few of her works indicate more clearly her power to display the operations of passion dominating a young and innocent heart.
When the story opens, Anadea is a heart-free maid of sixteen, better educated than most young girls, and chiefly interested in her studies. Fearing to leave her unprovided for, her father urges her to marry, and she, though inclined to a single life, returns a dutiful answer, begging him to direct her choice. He fixes upon the worthy Chevalier de Semar, and bids her prepare for the wedding.
"The Time which the necessary Preparations took up, Anadea pass'd in modelling her Soul, as much as possible, to be pleas'd with the State for which she was intended.—The Chevalier had many good Qualities, and she endeavoured to add to them in Imagination a thousand more. Never did any Woman take greater Pains to resist the Dictates of Desire, than she did to create them …yet she had it not in her Power to feel any of those soft Emotions, those Impatiencies for his Absence, those tender Thrillings in his Presence, nor any of those agreeable Perplexities which are the unfailing Consequences of Love …and she began, at length, to lay the Blame on her own want of Sensibility, and to imagine she had not a Heart fram'd like those of other Women."
At the house of a friend Anadea meets the Count de Blessure and feels the starts of hitherto unsuspected passion. Beside this new lover the Chevalier appears as nought. Her mind is racked by an alternation of hope and despair.
"In Anxieties, such as hopeless Lovers feel, did the discontented Anadea pass the Night:—She could not avoid wishing, though there was not the least Room for her to imagine a Possibility of what she wish'd:—She could not help praying, yet thought those Prayers a Sin. —Her once calm and peaceful Bosom was now all Hurry and Confusion:— The Esteem which she had been long labouring to feel for the Chevalier, was now turn'd to Aversion and Disdain; and the Indifference she had for all Mankind, now converted into the most violent Passion for one …she thought she could be contended to live a single Life, and knew so little of the encroaching Nature of the Passion she had entertained, that she believed she should never languish for any greater Joy, than that she might, without a Crime, indulge Contemplation with the Idea of his Perfections; and to destroy that pleasing Theory by marrying with another …was more terrible to her than the worst of Deaths.—Confounded what to do, or rather wild that there was nothing she could do that might be of Service to her in an Exigence like this, her Mind grew all a Chaos, and the unintermitting Inquietudes of her Soul not permitting any Repose, she …had a very good Pretence to keep her Chamber, and receive no Visits."
She passes the day in tormenting perplexities, sometimes relieved by intervals of unsubstantial joy, when she fancies that her affianced may break off the match for some reason, that his sickness, an accident, or death may leave her free to wed Blessure. In imagination she pictures to herself happy meetings with her lover, and even repeats their conversation. Then recollecting her true situation, she lapses into real woe and bitterness of heart. The Count, however, has been deeply affected by her charms, and though he learns that she is engaged to De Semar, he sends her an appealing letter to discover whether the match is the result of choice or duty. Upon the receipt of this billet the soul of Anadea is distracted between the impulses of love and the dictates of prudence. Finally she writes a discreet, but not too severe reply, intimating that her choice is due more to duty than to inclination. Naturally the Count protests vehemently against her sacrificing herself to a man for whom she cares nothing, vows that the day of her wedding with De Semar shall be his last upon earth, and entreats a meeting.
"What now became of the enamour'd Anadea? How was it possible for a
Heart so prepossessed as hers, to hold out in a Reserve which was very
near breaking the Strings which held it—… Yet still the
Consequences that might attend this Meeting, for a Time repelled the
Dictates of her Passion.—But it was no more than a faint Struggle;
Love! all-conquering, all-o'er-powering Love! triumphed over every
other Consideration! and she consented to his and her own impatient
Wishes."
Under the pretence of a change of air she goes to a friend's house at Versailles, where Blessure secretly weds her. After a short period of felicity, they are betrayed by an officious maid. Blessure kills the Chevalier, but is himself wounded and cast into prison. His father secures a pardon by promising the king's mistress that the Count shall marry her daughter, but Blessure remains constant to Anadea, though keeping his marriage a secret for fear of infuriating his father. He is sent away by his displeased parent to learn the virtue of obedience, while Anadea retires to St. Cloud to await her husband's return. There the story ends in an unexpected tragedy of incest and blood.
The back-stairs intrigues and the sensational horrors which to the majority of Mrs. Haywood's readers doubtless seemed the chief attraction of the story are not different from the melodramatic features of countless other amatory tales, French and English. But when for a dozen pages the author seeks to discover and explain the motives of her characters both by impersonal comment and by the self-revelation of letters, she is making a noteworthy step—even if an unconscious one— toward the Richardsonian method of laying bare the inner natures of ordinary people. She has here pursued the analysis of character as an end in itself, for in "The Fatal Secret" there is no hint of disguised scandal, nor any appeal to the pruriency of degenerate readers. Sensational in the extreme the story is, but nevertheless the progress of the narrative is delayed while the sentiments of the heroine are examined in the minutest detail. While better known romancers exploited chiefly the strange and surprising adventures (other than amorous) of their characters, or used the voyage imaginaire for the purposes of satire, Eliza Haywood and her female colleagues stimulated the popular taste for romances of the heart. In trying to depict the working of intense human passions they rendered a distinct service to the development of English fiction.