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"She led me across the lawn."
F. A. Fraser
Wood engraving by the Dalziel Brothers
6 ¼ x 4 ⅛ inches (15.8 cm high by 10.5 cm wide)
Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, second illustration, facing p. 49.
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Scanned image by Simon Cooke and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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“Curious,” said Miss Halcombe; “I suppose it must be a begging-letter. There,” she added, handing the letter back to the lad, “take it to the house, and give it to one of the servants. And now, Mr. Hartright, if you have no objection, let us walk this way.”
She led me across the lawn, along the same path by which I had followed her on the day after my arrival at Limmeridge. At the little summer-house, in which Laura Fairlie and I had first seen each other, she stopped, and broke the silence which she had steadily maintained while we were walking together.
“What I have to say to you I can say here.”
With those words she entered the summer-house, took one of the chairs at the little round table inside, and signed to me to take the other. I suspected what was coming when she spoke to me in the breakfast-room; I felt certain of it now. ["Walter Hartright's Narrative Continued," Chapter X, p. 49]
The long-standing engagement between Laura Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde, twenty-five years her senior, places her half-sister, Marian Halcombe, in a very difficult position. Although she very much admires the handsome young Walter Hartright, the drawing-master whom Laura's uncle, Frederick, has hired teach the young women drawing and painting, she realizes that both her half-sister and Hartright will be compromised if he remains any longer at Limmeridge. Clearly, he is in love with Laura, and she with him; but no good can come of this attachment since Sir Percival will be calling shortly to claim his bride and name the day. As is typical of realistic illustrators of the Sixties, Fraser has depicted the critical conversation in suitable surroundings, and between two principal figures in the novel. Only in the garden can the pair be reasonably sure that they will not be overheard, and Marion feels that she can be much more candid and to the point outside the country house.
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: A Novel. Illustrated by John McLenan. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. London: Sampson Low, 1860; rpt. with illustrations by F. A. Fraser and Sir John Gilbert. London: Chatto & Windus, 1875.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert. London: Minerva, 2006.
Created 30 July 2024
Last updated 19 September 2024