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Nicholas rescues Madeline
Harry Furniss
1910
5 ⅛ by 3 ½ inches (13.3 cm high x 8.8 cm wide), vignetted
Nicholas, taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore her from the chamber and down stairs into the room he had just quitted. — p. 733.
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing IV, 733.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Who is the owner of this house?" said Nicholas, hastily.
An elderly woman was pointed out to him; and to her he said, as he knelt down and gently unwound Madeline's arms from the lifeless mass round which they were entwined: "I represent this lady's nearest friends, as her servant here knows, and must remove her from this dreadful scene. This is my sister to whose charge you confide her. My name and address are upon that card, and you shall receive from me all necessary directions for the arrangements that must be made. Stand aside, every one of you, and give me room and air for God's sake!"
The people fell back, scarce wondering more at what had just occurred, than at the excitement and impetuosity of him who spoke. Nicholas, taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore her from the chamber and downstairs into the room he had just quitted, followed by his sister and the faithful servant, whom he charged to procure a coach directly, while he and Kate bent over their beautiful charge and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore her to animation. The girl performed her office with such expedition, that in a very few minutes the coach was ready.
Ralph Nickleby and Gride, stunned and paralysed by the awful event which had so suddenly overthrown their schemes (it would not otherwise, perhaps, have made much impression on them), and carried away by the extraordinary energy and precipitation of Nicholas, which bore down all before him, looked on at these proceedings like men in a dream or trance. It was not until every preparation was made for Madeline’s immediate removal that Ralph broke silence by declaring she should not be taken away.
"Who says so?" cried Nicholas, rising from his knee and confronting them, but still retaining Madeline's lifeless hand in his.
"I!" answered Ralph, hoarsely. [Chapter LIV, "The Crisis of the Project and its Result," 733]
Editor J. A. Hammerton's comment about Gride ("an old miser and money-lender") in the "Who's Who" in the front matter does not provide much of a clue as to his relationship to Ralph Nickleby. The illustrations involving this character in the various editions, 1839 through 1910, suggest that the relationship between the middle-aged money-lender and the septuagenarian is one of mutual interests and closely guarded confidences. Here, Gride has paid Bray's debts in order to secure his daughter Madeline's hand in marriage. However, fate deals the misers a bad hand when Walter Bray dies on the very wedding day, just as he is about to escort down to the anxious bridegroom. Daring Ralph o intervene. Nicholas runs off with the bride. Here, Furniss shows the Nicholas's triumphing over his wicked uncle and his minion as the protagonist asserts that he has penetrated Ralph Nickleby's scheme.
The orientation of the illustration focuses the reader's attention solely on the daring actions of the protagonist by placing him well into the foreground and his adversaries to the rear. The scene is not at Ralph Nickleby's or Arthur Gride's, but rather at Walter Bray's apartments not far from the King's Bench Prison. Implausible as this plot gambit may sound, Dickens prepares us for it through Bray's mentioning a dream he had about the floor falling away from under him as he was about to escort Madeline to the ceremony. Providence has effected the dissolution of the unequal marriage and frustrated Gride's attempts to control Madeline's inheritance.
Left: Phiz shows how Nicholas outwits Gride and his uncle Ralph in Nicholas Congratulates Arthur Gride on His Wedding Morning (August 1839). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition study of the novel's miserly villains: Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration for this chapter involves Nicholas's entreating Madeline not to go through with the marriage: "I must beseech you to contemplate again the fearful curse to which you have been impelled." (1875)
Above: C. S. Reinhart's 1875 woodblock engraving of Nicholas's stealing the aged miser's bride: And then, taking the beautiful burden in his arms, rushed out in Chapter 54 of the American Household Edition.
Barnard, J. "Fred" (illustrator). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-nine illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.
__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Created 17 September 2021