Eugene's Bedside — Marcus Stone's second October 1865 illustration for "Our Mutual Friend"

Eugene's Bedside

Marcus Stone

Wood engraving by W. T. Green

13.6 cm high x 9.8 cm wide, vignetted (facing p. 642).

Stone's illustration for Book 4, "A Turning," Chapter 10, "The Doll's dressmaker Discovers A Word," appeared in the October, 1865, instalment.

The scene captured in the thirty-seventh illustration is established at the very opening of the chapter: the presence at the bedside of Mortimer Lightwood and at the foot of the bed Jenny Wren. What is not clear for some paragraphs is that Lizzie is present, but this the illustration makes clear. [See below for commentary and passage illustrated.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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A darkened and hushed room; the river outside the windows flowing on to the vast ocean; a figure on the bed, swathed and bandaged and bound, lying helpless on its back, with its two useless arms in splints at its sides.

They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and she had a little table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting there, with her rich shower of hair falling over the chair-back, they hoped she might attract his notice. With the same object, she would sing, just above her breath, when he opened his eyes, or she saw his brow knit into that faint expression, so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. But as yet he had not heeded. The 'they' here mentioned were the medical attendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her intervals of rest; and Lightwood, who never left him.

The two days became three, and the three days became four. At length, quite unexpectedly, he said something in a whisper.

'What was it, my dear Eugene?'

'Will you, Mortimer —'

'Will I —?

— 'Send for her?'

'My dear fellow, she is here.' [639]

The moment realised in this illustration undoubtedly is the arrival of a clergyman (rear centre) to perform a marriage:

As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections of the trees in the river, another figure came with a soft step into the sick room.

'Is he conscious?' asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took its station by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immediately, and could not see the sufferer's face, in the dark room, from her new and removed position.

'He is conscious, Jenny,' murmured Eugene for himself. 'He knows his wife.' [645]

Consequently, Stone has facilitated the chapter's creating suspense by inserting the one figure not mentioned in the chapter previous to its conclusion, the minister who will marry Lizzie and Eugene. If the reader has studied to illustration prior to reading the entire chapter, the figure of the clergyman is an enigma, but, if the reader waits to examine the plate until the last page of the October 1865 instalment, the meaning of the illustration is clear: the climax of Eugene's deciding whether to propose Marriage to the girl from the river and her agreeing to accept him.

Marcus Stone has added the one important element lacking in the text: Lizzie's loving look of concern for Eugene, propped up on an enormous pillow and passing in and out of consciousness. Everything else is almost as Dickens describes, including Jenny's work-table, the assortment medicines, and the position of Lightwood. What the illustrator has adjusted in order to render the scene more compact is Jenny's location: in the text, she is clearly at the foot of the bed, so that Eugene can make ready eye-contact with her, but Stone has moved Jenny and her table to Mortimer's side in order to reduce the picture's width. The enormous, four-poster bed and its hangings dwarf the sufferer, who is rigid and expressionless, while the other characters — except the clergyman — have more animated expressions and postures. Thus, although the illustration reveals that Lizzie is present and puzzles the reader with the presence of the fifth figure, it does not reveal whether Eugene will live or die, but renders credible Lizzie's decision to marry above her class the man whom she loves.

References

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Il. Marcus Stone. Volume 14 of the Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.

Last modified 24 July 2011