Man carrying a carpet bag and wearing a top-hat. — staff artist John McLenan's headnote vignette (composite woodblock engraving) for the thirtieth weekly part of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, published on 16 June 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, "Epoch 3: Part II, "Hartright's Narrative, VII," p. 380; p. 189 in the 1861 volume.

Passage Illustrated: The Suspense Rises as Walter Notices Glyde's Spies

I dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park, and getting my directions from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house.

As I turned into the lane from the high-road, I saw a man, with a carpet-bag, walking before me rapidly on the way to the lodge. He was a little man, dressed in shabby black, and wearing a remarkably large hat. I set him down (as well as it was possible to judge) for a lawyer’s clerk, and stopped at once to widen the distance between us. He had not heard me, and he walked on out of sight, without looking back. When I passed through the gates myself, a little while afterwards, he was not visible—he had evidently gone on to the house.

There were two women in the lodge. One of them was old, the other I knew at once, by Marian’s description of her, to be Margaret Porcher. I asked first if Sir Percival was at the Park, and receiving a reply in the negative, inquired next when he had left it. Neither of the women could tell me more than that he had gone away in the summer. I could extract nothing from Margaret Porcher but vacant smiles and shakings of the head. The old woman was a little more intelligent, and I managed to lead her into speaking of the manner of Sir Percival’s departure, and of the alarm that it caused her. She remembered her master calling her out of bed, and remembered his frightening her by swearing — but the date at which the occurrence happened was, as she honestly acknowledged, “quite beyond her.”

On leaving the lodge I saw the gardener at work not far off. When I first addressed him, he looked at me rather distrustfully, but on my using Mrs. Michelson’s name, with a civil reference to himself, he entered into conversation readily enough. There is no need to describe what passed between us—it ended, as all my other attempts to discover the date had ended. The gardener knew that his master had driven away, at night, “some time in July, the last fortnight or the last ten days in the month” — and knew no more.

While we were speaking together I saw the man in black, with the large hat, come out from the house, and stand at some little distance observing us.

Certain suspicions of his errand at Blackwater Park had already crossed my mind. They were now increased by the gardener’s inability (or unwillingness) to tell me who the man was, and I determined to clear the way before me, if possible, by speaking to him. The plainest question I could put as a stranger would be to inquire if the house was allowed to be shown to visitors. I walked up to the man at once, and accosted him in those words.

His look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he knew who I was, and that he wanted to irritate me into quarrelling with him. His reply was insolent enough to have answered the purpose, if I had been less determined to control myself. As it was, I met him with the most resolute politeness, apologised for my involuntary intrusion (which he called a “trespass,”) and left the grounds. It was exactly as I suspected. The recognition of me when I left Mr. Kyrle’s office had been evidently communicated to Sir Percival Glyde, and the man in black had been sent to the Park in anticipation of my making inquiries at the house or in the neighbourhood. If I had given him the least chance of lodging any sort of legal complaint against me, the interference of the local magistrate would no doubt have been turned to account as a clog on my proceedings, and a means of separating me from Marian and Laura for some days at least. [Part 30. Third Epoch. Part II. "Hartright's Narrative, V," p. 380; pp. 188-189 in the 1861 volume.

Commentary: Glyde and Fosco have placed Mr. Kyrle's office under surveillance

So, who is the man in the top-hat whom Hartright apparently recognizes? Since he was one of the two spies watching Kyrle's offices in London, he is undoubtedly an agent of Fosco and Glyde, sent to monitor Hartright's movements at and near the Blackwater Park estate in Hampshire. The figure is remarkable for his tawdry black clothing, carpet-bag, and oversized hat: no wonder Hartright recognizes him. This lawyer's clerk (as Hartright takes him to be) is going up to the manor house when Hartright stops him, ostensibly to learn whether the great landowner will tolerate visitors at Blackwater. Possibly operating on his own initiative, the little clerk tries to pick a quarrel with Hartright with the intention of accusing him of battery before the local magistrate. Hartright refuses to rise to the bait.

Related Material

• McLenan's regular, full-scale illustration for the thirtieth weekly number in serial: Count Fosco and Mrs. Clements for 16 June 1860
• Fred Walker's poster: The Woman in White for the Olympic's October 1871 adaptation

Bibliography

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. 205-25.

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. 44-46.

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Created 29 July 2024