[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> John McLenan —> The Woman in White —> Next]
"Beg my pardon, directly."
John McLenan
28 July 1860
11.2 cm high by 8.8 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅜ inches), vignetted, p. 469; p. 224 in the 1861 volume.
Thirty-sixth regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
"Beg my pardon, directly." — staff artist John McLenan's thirty-sixth composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 36, published on 28 July 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; "The Narrative of Walter Hartright, Resumed. X," p. 453; p. 224 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
On that next day, without any warning to me to expect him, he came to the house.
His first words, and the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was too late. Seeing my daughter in the room with me (I had been afraid to let her out of my sight after what had happened the day before) he ordered her away. They neither of them liked each other, and he vented the ill-temper on her which he was afraid to show to me.
“Leave us,” he said, looking at her over his shoulder. She looked back over her shoulder and waited as if she didn’t care to go. “Do you hear?” he roared out, “leave the room.” “Speak to me civilly,” says she, getting red in the face. “Turn the idiot out,” says he, looking my way. She had always had crazy notions of her own about her dignity, and that word “idiot” upset her in a moment. Before I could interfere she stepped up to him in a fine passion. “Beg my pardon, directly,” says she, “or I’ll make it the worse for you. I’ll let out your Secret. I can ruin you for life if I choose to open my lips.” My own words! — repeated exactly from what I had said the day before — repeated, in his presence, as if they had come from herself. He sat speechless, as white as the paper I am writing on, while I pushed her out of the room. [Part 36: "Mrs. Catherick's Letter" in "Hartright's Narrative, X," p. 469; p. 224 in the 1861 volume.]
Although the headnote vignette of Walter's reading an anonymous letter in the hotel lobby at Welmingham is very much in the present, shortly after Glyde's death in the vestry fire, the contents of the lengthy letter (undoubtedly from the cunning Mrs. Catherick) constitute both commentary on recent events and a series of flashbacks involving her relationship with Glyde.
In this scene which Mrs. Catherick describes in her letter, incensed at his arrogance, she had derided Sir Percival in her daughter's presence as "a low impostor, whom I could ruin for life if I chose to open my mouth." She was upset over Glyde's refusing to grant her permission to leave Welmingham briefly in order to visit relatives in the north of England. The next day, he appears unannounced and "in a mighty bad temper" to put her in her place. Wishing to keep the conversation strictly private, he dismisses the "idiot" daughter from the room. Knowing that there is some terrible secret hanging over the haughty baronet, Anne (clearly a young woman rather than a child) dares to stand up to him in this moment that McLenan has realised, although she actually has no precise notion as to what the "Secret" may be. Disgruntled Glyde is resolute, but Anne, despite her mental incapacity, even more so.
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 (26 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser and Sir John Gilbert. London: Sampson Low, 1860; rpt., Chatto & Windus, 1875.
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.
Created 3 August 2024