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"And rested her head quietly on my bosom."
John McLenan
28 January 1859
11.3 cm high by 8.8 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ½ inches), framed, p. 53 (p. 69 in volume).
Tenth regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"And rested her head quietly on my bosom." — John McLenan's tenth composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 10, published on 28 January 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, close of Part Three: "The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, in Extracts from her Diary," p. 53; Chapter I, "9th," p. 69 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
“Tell me quietly, my darling, what you wish to do,” I said. “Has Mr. Gilmore been advising you?”
She shook her head. “No, not in what I am thinking of now. He was very kind and good to me, Marian, and I am ashamed to say I distressed him by crying. I am miserably helpless — I can’t control myself. For my own sake, and for all our sakes, I must have courage enough to end it.”
“Do you mean courage enough to claim your release?” I asked.
“No,” she said simply. “Courage, dear, to tell the truth.”
She put her arms round my neck, and rested her head quietly on my bosom. On the opposite wall hung the miniature portrait of her father. I bent over her, and saw that she was looking at it while her head lay on my breast.
“I can never claim my release from my engagement,” she went on. “Whatever way it ends it must end wretchedly for me. All I can do, Marian, is not to add the remembrance that I have broken my promise and forgotten my father’s dying words, to make that wretchedness worse.”
“What is it you propose, then?” I asked.
“To tell Sir Percival Glyde the truth with my own lips,” she answered, “and to let him release me, if he will, not because I ask him, but because he knows all.” ["The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, in Extracts from her Diary," Chapter I, "9th," p. 53; p. 68 in the 1861 volume edition]
McLenan has placed a large tassel and bell-pull in the upper left quadrant to draw the reader's attention to an ornately framed portrait obscured by the curtain (left). This is undoubtedly Laura's portrait of her beloved father, whom she is still trying to please by marrying the man Mr. Fairlie chose to be her husband before his death. The pose captures Laura's internal conflict since she is love with the much younger drawing-master recently hired by her guardian, her uncle Mr. Frederick Fairlie.
This situation in Harper’s for 28 January 1860 is somewhat unusual because, instead of following his usual practice of providing an uncaptioned, small-scale headnote vignette and a full-size engraving for Part 10 (p. 53), McLennan has used two full-scale plates. In the first, Marian commiserates with Laura about what the engaged twenty-year-old feels is her responsibility to reveal to her future husband (Glyde): her romantic attachment to another man, without, of course, naming him.
In the second plate, Laura conscientiously follows through on her determination to disclose to her future husband that her heart is another’s. Nevertheless, since he refuses to cancel the engagement once she reveals this prior attachment, she seems to feel that she is bound to honour her promise to her father and marry Glyde.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (16 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert. London: Minerva, 2006.
Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-225.
Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.
Created 7 July 2024