Kate, still dressed, had thrown herself on her bed, and was sound asleep" by Sir Luke Fildes. Seventh full-page illustration for Charles Lever's Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Time, facing page 135. Reprinted from the March 1871 number of the Cornhill Magazine. 10.5 cm by 16 cm (4 by 6 ¼ inches), framed. Part 6, Chapter XXIII, "A Confidential Talk." [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Dick Kearney's Self-Reproach
Right: The initial page for the sixth instalment in Volume XXIII of the Cornhill Magazine (March, 1871).
In that old square of Trinity College, Dublin, one side of which fronts the Park, and in chambers on the ground-floor, an oak door bore the names of "Kearney and Atlee."
With these brave words he mounted the narrow stair and knocked at his sister’s door. No answer coming, he knocked again, and after waiting a few seconds, he slowly opened the door and saw that Kate, still dressed, had thrown herself on her bed, and was sound asleep. The table was covered with account-books and papers; tax-receipts, law-notices, and tenants’ letters lay littered about, showing what had been the task she was last engaged on; and her heavy breathing told the exhaustion which it had left behind it.
"I wish I could help her with her work," muttered he to himself, as a pang of self-reproach shot through him. This certainly should have been his own task rather than hers; the question was, however, Could he have done it? And this doubt increased as he looked over the long column of tenants’ names, whose holdings varied in every imaginable quantity of acres, roods, and perches. Besides these there were innumerable small details of allowances for this and compensation for that. This one had given so many days' horse-and-car hire at the bog; that other had got advances "in seed-potatoes"; such a one had a claim for reduced rent, because the mill-race had overflowed and deluged his wheat crop; such another had fed two pigs of "the lord’s" and fattened them, while himself and his own were nigh starving. [Chapter XXII, "A Confidential Talk," pp. 135-136]
Commentary: A New Aspect of Dick Kearney
Luke Fildes has given us several representations of the headstrong Richard (Dick) Kearney and his father: the self-entitled son appears in a total of four full-page illustrations: 2, 5, 7, and 18. However, this illustration shows a brother who feels guilty about placing the responsibility for the administrivia of the Kilgobbin estate so heavily upon his sister's shoulders. No wonder, he muses, that the vexing questions of rents and remittances have so exhausted Kate. He has been able to lead a pleasant, upper-crust lifestyle in the capital, despite some financial concerns, while his sister plays the role of faithful estate manager that the steward's (Peter Gill's) general cantankerousness and illiteracy have forced upon her and her father. But Fildes' focus here is on the guilt-ridden, contemplative brother rather than on the exhausted sister.
After he peruses his sleeping sister, Dick begins to examine the accounts and other documents on his sister's table, and discovers a "character" which Kate has written out for Peter Gill: apparently he has resigned his stewardship, and the reference merely requires the signature of Lord Kilgobbin to be official. Gill will be working for Miss Betty on the O'Shea Barn estate. When she awakes, Kate explains the level of Gill's mismanagement which has resulted in a sharp decline in their rents since 1864. Kate also reports Miss O'Shea's tart criticisms of the entire family at the dinner that he missed in order to go snipe shooting.
Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary 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.]
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. The Cornhill Magazine. With 18 full-page illustrations and 18 initial-letter vignettes by S. Luke Fildes. Volumes XXII-XXV. October 1870-March 1872.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Own Time. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes, R. A. London: Smith, Elder, 1872; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873. 3 vols.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I-III. In three volumes. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, Rpt. London: Chapman & Hall, 1873. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XVI, "Exile on the Adriatic, 1867-1872." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 277-296.
Sutherland, John A. "Lord Kilgobbin." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 382.
Created 24 October 2007 Updated 22 June 2023