The Intrigue Adventure
While the straight Romance was the last of Heyer's sub genre to be developed, the Intrigue Adventure was the first. Frequently characterised by a strong focus on the actions of the male lead, these novels had at their heart a mystery or conundrum which needed to be unravelled and a sense of danger and threat overall. The Blackmoth, the first of these novels, and Heyer's first novel, was written for a male audience of one, her younger, convalescing, brother, (Aiken Hodge, 1984, p16). Within these novels, Heyer develops the romantic relationship between her two characters as being inextricably entangled with their shared experiences in the adventure. All of the novels in this group share to some degree a concern for the re- establishment of rightful heirs in order to facilitate the romance, which would seem to be a nod towards the concerns of many of Scott's historical novels. In this group, the influences are most evidently masculine, and in one case, nearly contemporary with Heyer herself. It is perhaps because Heyer was young when she first shaped this particular class of novels that Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernell Books have such a significant part in it's composition, especially in such things as the male action centre and the peripherality of the romance.
But it is in this class of novels where Heyer develops her most striking character, subjected in time to progressive watering down in subsequent of her sub genre. Heyer's Rake owes much to Richardson's portrayal of Lovelace in Clarissa. The Black Moth with her second Intrigue Adventure, These Old Shades traces a careful evolution of this character from villain to hero with judicious plot borrowings from both Richardson and Orczy. In the Black Moth, we have a novel which immediately acknowledges it's debt to Richardson, by opening with the writing of a letter, and closing with the reading of another. The Duke of Andover is revealed, from the begining, to be a rake, finishing one 'affaire' with a duel and prepared for another. He is also presented, through the observation of his friend, as a figure who we might feel sympathy for and who might find redemption through love "'I would to God you might fall honestly in love - and that the lady might save you from yourself - my poor Devil!'"(Heyer, 1929, pii). The Hero of this novel a falsely disgraced heir, now rightful Earl, turned highwayman is Jack Carstares who knows Andover from before his self imposed exile. The plot turns, as with Clarissa, around the rake's attempts at seducing and indeed abducting (twice) Diana Beauleigh. Which attempts are of course repeatedly foiled by Carstares, who in the process falls in love with Diana, who falls in love with him, and regains his forsaken honour (and title) in order to make their marriage possible. As Diana's Aunt notes "'I could not bear to see you throw yourself away on a highwayman, my dear'"(ibid, p181) a sentiment shared by Carstares. For Heyer's happily ended romance, there is no room for the tragedy of Clarissa, indeed the penultimate chapter of The Black Moth is entitled Tragedy Turns to Comedy, thus Carstares is crucial as a figure who can in effect keep Diana from harm despite the Lovelace-like machinations of Andover. Andover is clearly rake as villain here, but as with Lovelace there is a hint of pathos in the end of the novel which seems to suggest that Andover has been deeply affected by Diana:
"'You see, Frank - I love her.'
'...Yes - she would not take you, but she has, I think, made you'" (ibid p326)
As Lovelace cries out on his death: "Sweet Excellence! Divine Creature! Fair Sufferer!...Look down blessed creature, look down!" (Richardson, 1985, p1487). Andover, alive, will make his polite bow to Diana when they meet in society. Where as for Richardson's Lovelace and Clarissa there is no polite resolution, only rectitude, for Diana there is the happy ending, for Andover the chance of reclamation.
At the end of this novel he is waiting for the final transformation tohero. In These Old Shades, Heyer returns to Andover and reworks his story to allow for his appearance as the Duke of Avon. The inkages, the shadows, are clear: the close friend, Frank Fortescue becomes Hugh Davenant, and his flamboyant sister remains devotedly married to a man of stolid character who, though, is not the brother of a Jack Carstairs. Yet there is an echo of even this 'old shade' in the character of Jenny Beauchamp, now Merrivale, whom Avon once sought to spirit away from her family. Avon recalls "'-you said with your customary simplicity, that although she would not accept my suit, she made me. Voila tout.'" and Davenant replies "'I should have said that Jenifer prepared the way for another woman to make you.'" (Heyer, 1926, p16). But the rakes actions are diminished here there is less of evil intent suggested. This is crucial to Avon's transformation, he may be portrayed as a rake but nothing must intrude upon his possible construction as hero, no hint of Andover's villainy must be present. Rather a sense of the dissolute but reclaimable soul, which is emphasised by Fortescue-become-Davenant's words. In order to increase the elements of honour and passionate integrity in Avon, Heyer borrows from the background of The Scarlet Pimpernel where Margueritte Blakeney recalls her brother's love for Angele St. Cyr and the beating he received at the hands of the Marquis de St. Cyr's valets, "thrashed like a dog within an inch of his life" (Orczy, 1913, p63). This is reworked as the attempted whipping of Avon by Saint-Vire for his daring to pay court to Saint-Vire's sister. However it is not possible for a hero within a Heyer romance to be portrayed as a helpless victim so instead "'[Avon] had the pleasure of cutting his face open with his own whip'" (ibid p33). This incident and it's sequel, threats of whipping at the hands of Saint-Vire's valets if Avon persists in his suit, form the basis of the emnity between these two characters, the initial reason for Avon's careful plot to bring Saint-Vire down. The heroine of this novel is in no way similar to the gentle and mannered Diana, though Leonie is also exposed to frequent attempts at abduction (by her father Saint-Vire). Heyer is not seeking to achieve the salvation of her rake at the hands of a demure angel in the house, who will improve him through superior moral character, rather she is presenting a matching of characters, suited to each other in temperament and passion. Leonie is an active character in the novel's action, making her own escape from Saint-Vire's abduction plan, accepting no one's commands except Avon's (again, the sense of the heroines eneries being contained by the hero) and ultimately preferring the masculine dress (used as a disguise when Avon first finds her in Paris and makes her his page) which affords her greater freedom of movement and indeed of social access. When in the novel's closing scene her new brother in law insists that she must learn to conform to appropriate conduct she responds with a succinct "'Ah, bah!'" (ibid p352).
Heyer neatly achieves her transformation of rake, as Avon's progress towards his revenge against Saint-Vire unfolds. It becomes increasingly a revenge for the sake of Leonie and less a matter of personal emnity. In effect it depicts his movement from the self interested rake to the hero of a Heyer romance, whose primary concern is for his lover. In these two novels, Heyer again shows herself concerned with the vulnerabilty of women, but here it is more immediately their physical vulnerability in a world of male force. Even Leonie's resourcefulness is undercut by the understanding that for her to live without male protection is untenable. Expressed in the language of the romance's ending "'Monseigneur, I do not think that I can live without you. I must have you to take care of me and to love me and to scold me when I am maladroite.'" (ibid, p342). Leonie and Diana are, along with Clarissa, and indeed Richardson's Pamela, entangled in the conventions of a literary world that is finally defined by the presence or absence of male protection and male threat. This is a common construction of the world in Heyer's Intrigue Adventure novels, centred as they often are in masculine perspectives. In Devil's Cub we see the final step of Heyer's transformation of her rake hero. Vidal, Leonie and Avon's son, is at once seen as being more and less of a rake than his father.
In his abduction of Mary Challoner, we get a greater sense of the subterfuge and planning which is suggested in Clarissa, indeed the intended absconsion with Mary's willing sister bears more in common with Lovelace's scheme for Clarissa than Andover's crude abductions or the dark hints of Avon's past. But Mary Challoner is strong minded and virtuous, as opposed to Leonie who was just strong minded and Diana who was just virtuous. Heyer here is operating on the principle of the angel in the house, depending on a sense of honour within the bosom of her hero, a sense of honour which is definitely lacking in the construction of Andover, Avon and their original Lovelace. In many ways, then, this finished transformation of the Rake as reclaimable soul lends itself to a more victorian reading, where the debate over the sinning soul ( such as Anne Bronte's Tennant of Wildfell Hall) gains greater weight than is found in novel's of the earlier period.
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