Nina Kostalergi was busily engaged in pinning up the skirt of her dress by Sir Luke Fildes; engraver, Swain. Thirteenth illustration for Charles Lever's Lord Kilgobbin, 10.3 cm high by 15.7 cm wide (4 by 6 ¼ inches), framed, full-page wood-engraving for Chapter LI, "Awakenings," facing p. 288. Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine, Part 12 (September 1871), Vol. XXIV, facing p. 257. [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Nina's superciliousness embarrasses Kate
Right: The initial page for the twelfth instalment in Volume XXIV of the Cornhill Magazine (September, 1871), 257.
It was not at all unpleasant to him to think that the people who should surround her were so unlike himself. "The barbarians," as he courteously called them to himself, "will be very hard to endure. Nor am I very sorry for it, only she must catch nothing of their traits in accommodating herself to their habits. On that I must strongly insist. Whether it be by singing their silly ballads — that four-note melody they call "Irish music," or through mere imitation, she has already caught a slight accent of the country. She must get rid of this. She will have to divest herself of all her 'Kilgobbinries' ere I present her to my friends in town." Apart from these disparagements, she could, as he expressed it, "hold her own," and people take a very narrow view of the social dealings of the world, who fail to see how much occasion a woman has for the exercise of tact and temper and discretion and ready-wittedness and generosity in all the well-bred intercourse of life. Just as Walpole had arrived at that stage of reflection to recognise that she was exactly the woman to suit him and push his fortunes with the world, he reached a part of the wood where a little space had been cleared, and a few rustic seats scattered about to make a halting-place. The sound of voices caught his ear, and he stopped, and now, looking stealthily through the brushwood, he saw Gorman O’Shea as he lay in a lounging attitude on a bench and smoked his cigar, while Nina Kostalergi was busily engaged in pinning up the skirt of her dress in a festoon fashion, which, to Cecil’s ideas at least, displayed more of a marvellously pretty instep and ankle than he thought strictly warranted. Puzzling as this seemed, the first words she spoke gave the explanation. [Chapter LI, "Awakenings," pp. 287-288]
Commentary: Nina's Romantic Manoeuvring and Political Meddling
Although Nina is trying to fascinate the Lord Lieutenant's private secretary, she is also interested in the rugged rebel, Daniel Donogan, and the handsome young lieutenant on leave from the Austrian army, Gorman O'Shea. In this illustration, Fildes shows readers what the discretely hidden Walpole sees in the Kilgobbin Castle's "beech alley" in the garden. He is seeking her out because, although he is leaving the Castle for Wales, he wishes to assure her of his speedy return. "Will she miss me?" the smitten secretary wonders. He admits to himself that he has fallen victim to her "absorbing charm" (287). He is, moreover, certain that she should not, in his absence, accommodate herself none of these "barbarians" (as he calls the Irish) by singing their ballads and picking up their brogue and other such 'Kilgobbinries.' The casual pose adopted by Gorman O'Shea signals an intimacy to which the jealous Walpole will take umbrage. And the modern reader likely wonders if O'Shea's cigar is merely an accompaniment to conversation or a phallic symbol.
In trying to assist Daniel Donogan, Nine has massively blundered. Attempting to forward him the police memorandum that Walpole had penned, Nina had used an unreliable channel that she discovered in Donogan's notes which he left in her custody. The upshot of her bungling is that two Orange newspapers in Northern Ireland have published Walpole's note to two regional police chiefs, and questions have been asked in the Commons about secret negotiations between the Whig administration and the Fenians. Lord Danesbury explains to Walpole, who has taken a special train and the Holyhead steamer to get to the Viceroy's North Wales estate, that he is being forced to resign as Lord Lieutenant, and that Walpole will have pursue his diplomatic career at the British embassy in Guatemala, a post that would not permit him to take Lady Maude Bickerstaff (or Nina Kostalergi, for that matter) as his wife and companion to the margins of western civilisation.
Scanned images and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. The Cornhill Magazine. With 18 full-page illustrations and 18 initial-letter vignettes by S. Luke Fildes. Volumes XXII-XXV. October 1870-March 1872.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Own Time. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes, R. A. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, 3 vols.; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I-III. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, Rpt. London: Chapman & Hall, 1873, in a single volume. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XVI, "Exile on the Adriatic, 1867-1872." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 277-296.
Sutherland, John A. "Lord Kilgobbin." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 382.
Created 24 October 2007 Last modified 30 June 2023