The Sick Chamber by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 533. (April 1856). Steel-engraving. 9.6 cm high by 15.3 cm wide (3 ¾ by 6 inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, Chapter LV, "A Letter That Never Reaches Its Address." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Lady Dorothea and her son search for the secret document
“You have written to Scanlan?” asked he.
“Yes; my letter has been sent off.”
“Minutes are precious now. If anything should occur here,” — his eyes turned towards the sick-bed as he spoke, — “Merl will refuse to treat. His people — I know they are his — are hovering about the hotel all the morning. I heard the waiter whispering as I passed, and caught the words, 'No better; worse, if anything.' The tidings would be in London before the post.”
Lady Dorothea made no reply, and all was now silent, save the unequal but heavy breathings of the sick man, and the faint, low mutterings of his dream. “In the arras — between the window and the wall — there it is, Barry,” cried he, in a clear, distinct voice. “Repton has a copy of it, too, with Catty's signature, — old Catty Broon.”
“What is he dreaming of?” asked the young man.
But, instead of replying to the question, Lady Dorothea bent down her head to catch the now muttered words of the sleeper.
“He says something of a key. What key does he mean?” asked he.
“Fetch me that writing-desk,” said Lady Dorothea, as she took several keys from her pockets; and noiselessly unlocking the box, she began to search amidst its contents. As she continued, her gestures grew more and more hurried; she threw papers recklessly here and there, and at last emptied the entire contents upon the table before her. “See, search if there be a key here,” cried she, in a broken voice; “I saw it here three days ago.”
“There is none here,” said he, wondering at her eagerness.
“Look carefully,—look well for it,” said she, her voice trembling at every word.
“Is it of such consequence —”
“It is of such consequence,” broke she in, “that he into whose hands it falls can leave you and me beggars on the world!” An effort at awaking by the sick man here made her hastily restore the papers to the desk, which she locked, and replaced upon the table.
“Was it the Henderson did this?” said she aloud, as if asking the question of herself. “Could she have known this secret?” [Chapter LV, "A Letter That Never Reaches Its Address," 533]
Commentary: A Plot Secret is about to be Revealed, but just not yet.
With her husband on his death-bed in their suite at the hotel in Baden, Lady Dorothea is desperate to contain the potentially disastrous situation. If the transaction between the Martin brothers in youth comes to light, she and Harry will be left penniless because the estate will revert to the older brother, Barry Martin. Until now, apparently, Captain Harry has known nothing of this agreement, since he has been borrowing heavily at high rates of interest from Merl to cover his gambling debts by issuing securities on his inheritance. As she searches desperately through the portable writing-desk, Lady Dorothea directs her gaze nervously towards her dying husband.
Lady Dorothea knows something that neither Scanlan, nor Harry, nor yet Masasingbred (the originator of the buyout scheme) knows: Harry is not the heir to the Martin estate, although this fact is not apparent to the reader at the close of Chapter 54, as her husband lies dying. At this point, she has dealt with all her husband's incoming correspondence, except for one letter, whose handwriting she recognizes as belonging to their attorney, Val Repton. Since she is reasonably sure that her husband is about to expire, she disregards the caution "Strictly confidential" and opens it to discover from Repton that the affairs of the estate are in total disarray, and those of Ireland overall little better:
The rents are not paid, partly from a season of great pressure; but, more still, from an expectancy on the side of the people, that something — they know not what — is coming. The Relief Bill only relieved those who wanted to job in policies and make market of their opinions; the masses it has scarcely touched. [526]
Although the delirious invalide is not evident in the illustration, the bottles of medicine at the bedside table suggest his condition. In his raving, Martin reveals that his attorney in Dublin has a copy of the agreement, signed and witnessed by the ancient housekeeper at Cro' Martin, Catty Broom. Since Mary has protected her from Lady Dorothea's recent cost-cutting measures on the estate, Catty would all too readily give up her knowledge of the document. Thus, even if the pair of searchers uncover the original agreement, the truth is likely to come out. Had Lady Dorothea known earlier about Harry's gambling debts, she would have revealed her plot secret to her wastrel son much sooner. They have doomed each other by working in ignorance at cross purposes.
Godfrey Martin on his deathbed rallies momentarily, insisting that he has something important to tell his son. "Harry, I have something to say to you, and if I were strong enough to say it — this evening perhaps" (594). But by the time Harry returns from his walk an hour later, his father is dead. But readers of the serial would have known that the next two instalments will reveal and resolve all the Martins' issues.
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.
Created 12 October 2022