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"Hush!" she whispered; "I hear something behind us."
John McLenan
10 March 1860
11.3 cm high by 8.8 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ½ inches), framed, p. 149.
Sixteenth 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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"Hush!" she whispered; "I hear something behind us." — staff artist John McLenan's sixteenth regular composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 16, published on 10 March 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, Blackwater Park, Hampshire: July 3d," p. 149; 109 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
“I was afraid it was a man in a long cloak.”
“It may be a man. In this dim light it is not possible to be certain.”
“Wait, Marian! I’m frightened — I don’t see the path. Suppose the figure should follow us?”
“Not at all likely, Laura. There is really nothing to be alarmed about. The shores of the lake are not far from the village, and they are free to any one to walk on by day or night. It is only wonderful we have seen no living creature there before.”
We were now in the plantation. It was very dark — so dark, that we found some difficulty in keeping the path. I gave Laura my arm, and we walked as fast as we could on our way back.
Before we were half-way through she stopped, and forced me to stop with her. She was listening.
“Hush,” she whispered. “I hear something behind us.”
“Dead leaves,” I said to cheer her, “or a twig blown off the trees.”
“It is summer time, Marian, and there is not a breath of wind. Listen!”
I heard the sound too — a sound like a light footstep following us.
“No matter who it is, or what it is,” I said, “let us walk on. In another minute, if there is anything to alarm us, we shall be near enough to the house to be heard.”
We went on quickly — so quickly, that Laura was breathless by the time we were nearly through the plantation, and within sight of the lighted windows. ["The Second Epoch. The Story continued by Marian Halcombe," Blackwater Park, Hampshire. July 3d," p. 149; p. 110 in the 1861 volume.]
Since this is a Collins Sensation Novel, readers of the weekly serial would have anticipated such a plot gambit: somebody (either Glyde, who is apparently away from his estate on undisclosed business, or Fosco, or one of their agents) is following Marian and Laura as they enter the plantation of the Blackwater Park estate. If readers suspected Fosco, they would have been surprised to find him reclining with a book and smoking a cigarette in the library when the half-sisters breathlessly re-enter the house. Who, then, is having them watched, and why?
We have just learned that Glyde knows the name of Laura's previous attachment: he had known it ever since the couple were on honeymoon in Rome, when their hostess's mentioning Hartright as a suitable drawing-master caused Laura to betray herself unconsciously. Afterward, the irate husband vowed that both Walter and Laura would "repent" their relationship. After Laura's shocking narrative, Marian realizes that it is getting dark, and that they must return to the house. Laura seems terrified of the gathering gloom, as McLenan suggests in his initial illustration for the sixteenth number.
The mysterious figure who seems to be following them may, of course, be some sort of illusion, "with a white cloud of mist behind it and above it" as it glides rather than walks by the boat-house, but both women see it and are thoroughly "unnerved." Taking the path back to the house from the lake, the pair unsteadily enter the plantation, as the illustration's backdrop makes clear. Before they exit the plantation, they both hear "a long, heavy sigh" behind them. Thus, readers may suspect that the hooded stalker is in fact Hartright, but for the moment Collins leaves the mystery unresolved as the serial curtain closes.
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 and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 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 11 July 2024