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Young Man by the Name of Guppy
Harry Furniss
1910
12.6 cm x 8.5 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Bleak House, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Chapter 33, "Interlopers" — facing XIV, 384.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Sir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the door opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy."
Sir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "The young man of the name of Guppy?"
Looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of introduction in his manner and appearance.
"Pray," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, "what do you mean by announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?"
"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir Leicester."
With this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at the young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, "What do you come calling here for and getting me into a row?"
"It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady. "Let the young man wait."
"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not interrupt you." Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive appearance.
Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants. [[Chapter XXIX, "The Young Man,"407]
Guppy, believing that he has solved the mystery of Esther Summerson's (in fact, "Hawdon's] birth, now dares to visit Lady Dedlock at the couple's London townhouse. Like Jo, the crossing-sweeper, Guppy has seen the similarity between Lady Dedlock's face and Esther's, but Guppy has made his guess from studying a portrait of Sir Leicester's wife that he had seen when visiting Chesney Wold. Inferring that Lady Dedlock is in fact Esther's mother, and that her father was the recently deceased law-writer "Nemo," Guppy has pieced together such clues as Miss Barbary's being Lady Dedlock's sister (who raised Esther) and that the real identity of the impoverished, drug-addicted scrivener of Cook's Court is Captain Hawdon. He reveals that he knows that Lady Dedlock visited Hawdon's grave in disguise at Tom-all-Alone's recently, and that she gave Jo the sovereigns. In support of his contention, he proposes to bring Jo in to her identify her as the mysterious visitor. Guppy now offers to obtain the correspondence between Hawdon and his lover for Lady Dedlock to enable her to keep her liaison secret. Lady Dedlock maintains her haughty composure throughout the interview in the library, but once Guppy has gone she collapses under the weight of remorse, crying, "Oh, my child!" She had apparently not known that her sister had brought up the child she thought had died in infancy.
Left: Phiz's November 1852 engraving of Guppy's visit to the Dedlocks in their London mansion: Young Man of the Name of Guppy. Right: Fred Barnard's realisation of Guppy's inept presentation of his "evidence" to Lady Dedlock regarding Esther's parentage: Mr. Guppy's Catechism (1873) in the Household Edition.
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Created 10 March 2021