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"Sign there!"
John McLenan
3 March 1860
11.3 cm high by 8.4 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ¼ inches), framed, p. 133.
Fifteenth regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"Sign there!" — staff artist John McLenan's fifteenth regular composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 15, published on 3 March 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, Blackwater Park, Hampshire: IV, June 17th," p. 133; 102 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Madame Fosco looked for her orders again, got them again, said she would prefer leaving us to our business, and resolutely walked out. The Count lit a cigarette, went back to the flowers in the window, and puffed little jets of smoke at the leaves, in a state of the deepest anxiety about killing the insects.
Meanwhile Sir Percival unlocked a cupboard beneath one of the book-cases, and produced from it a piece of parchment, folded longwise, many times over. He placed it on the table, opened the last fold only, and kept his hand on the rest. The last fold displayed a strip of blank parchment with little wafers stuck on it at certain places. Every line of the writing was hidden in the part which he still held folded up under his hand. Laura and I looked at each other. Her face was pale, but it showed no indecision and no fear.
Sir Percival dipped a pen in ink, and handed it to his wife. “Sign your name there,” he said, pointing to the place. “You and Fosco are to sign afterwards, Miss Halcombe, opposite those two wafers. Come here, Fosco! witnessing a signature is not to be done by mooning out of window and smoking into the flowers.”
The Count threw away his cigarette, and joined us at the table, with his hands carelessly thrust into the scarlet belt of his blouse, and his eyes steadily fixed on Sir Percival’s face. Laura, who was on the other side of her husband, with the pen in her hand, looked at him too. He stood between them holding the folded parchment down firmly on the table, and glancing across at me, as I sat opposite to him, with such a sinister mixture of suspicion and embarrassment on his face that he looked more like a prisoner at the bar than a gentleman in his own house.
“Sign there,” he repeated, turning suddenly on Laura, and pointing once more to the place on the parchment. ["The Second Epoch. The Story continued by Marian Halcombe," Blackwater Park, Hampshire. IV. June 17th," p. 133; p. 101 in the 1861 volume.]
The accompanying text shows that Marian, aware of the nature of the financial document from a conversation that she has overheard between Glyde and his lawyer, Merriman, backs Laura in her determination to put her signature to no parchment she has not read. The picture seems to imply that Fosco is supporting the enraged husband; in fact, he urges restraint on his friend, and grips him by the shoulder. And thanks to Fosco's moderating influence, Glyde abandons for the moment his insistence that Laura sign, and takes himself on the dogcart for a mysterious journey whose purpose he refuses to disclose. The mystery, then, is not Glyde's document: clearly he intends to access Laura's fortune to buy off his importunate creditors. As the narrator, Marian has told as much. No, what intrigues the reader is why Glyde impetuously intends to drive across the county to Welmingham to consult Mrs. Catherick (presumably about her whereabouts). He intends to take up the issue of the document signing when he returns from his mysterious journey tomorrow.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1860.
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 1859 — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.
Created 10 July 2024