"The Moonstone" — "First period. Chapter 20: "She limped a step nearer to me, and looked as if she could have eaten me alive."

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"She limped a step nearer to me, and looked as if she could have eaten me alive."

"C. G. B."

Wood engraving

17.3 x 11.8 cm

The second full-sized illustration for the twelfth weekly part of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance in Harper's Weekly" (21 March 1868), page 197. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

The illustrations appearing here are courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.

Passage Illustrated

How the Monday affected the rest of the household I don't know. The Monday gave me a good shake up. The first of Sergeant Cuff's prophecies of what was to happen — namely, that I should hear from the Yollands—came true on that day.

I had seen Penelope and my lady's maid off in the railway with the luggage for London, and was pottering about the grounds, when I heard my name called. Turning round, I found myself face to face with the fisherman's daughter, Limping Lucy. Bating her lame foot and her leanness (this last a horrid draw-back to a woman, in my opinion), the girl had some pleasing qualities in the eye of a man. A dark, keen, clever face, and a nice clear voice, and a beautiful brown head of hair counted among her merits. A crutch appeared in the list of her misfortunes. And a temper reckoned high in the sum total of her defects.

"Well, my dear," I said, "what do you want with me?"

"Where's the man you call Franklin Blake?" says the girl, fixing me with a fierce look, as she rested herself on her crutch.

"That's not a respectful way to speak of any gentleman," I answered. "If you wish to inquire for my lady's nephew, you will please to mention him as Mr. Franklin Blake."

She limped a step nearer to me, and looked as if she could have eaten me alive. "Mr.. Franklin Blake?" she repeated after me. "Murderer Franklin Blake would be a fitter name for him."

My practice with the late Mrs. Betteredge came in handy here. Whenever a woman tries to put you out of temper, turn the tables, and put her out of temper instead. They are generally prepared for every effort you can make in your own defence, but that. One word does it as well as a hundred; and one word did it with Limping Lucy. I looked her pleasantly in the face; and I said — "Pooh!"

The girl's temper flamed out directly. She poised herself on her sound foot, and she took her crutch, and beat it furiously three times on the ground. "He's a murderer! he's a murderer! he's a murderer! He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman!" She screamed that answer out at the top of her voice. One or two of the people at work in the grounds near us looked up — saw it was Limping Lucy — knew what to expect from that quarter — and looked away again.

"He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman?" I repeated. "What makes you say that, Lucy?"

"What do you care? What does any man care? Oh! if she had only thought of the men as I think, she might have been living now!"

"She always thought kindly of ME, poor soul," I said; "and, to the best of my ability, I always tried to act kindly by her."

I spoke those words in as comforting a manner as I could. The truth is, I hadn't the heart to irritate the girl by another of my smart replies. I had only noticed her temper at first. I noticed her wretchedness now — and wretchedness is not uncommonly insolent, you will find, in humble life. My answer melted Limping Lucy. She bent her head down, and laid it on the top of her crutch.

"I loved her," the girl said softly. "She had lived a miserable life, Mr. Betteredge — vile people had ill-treated her and led her wrong — and it hadn't spoiled her sweet temper. She was an angel. She might have been happy with me. I had a plan for our going to London together like sisters, and living by our needles. That man came here, and spoilt it all. He bewitched her. Don't tell me he didn't mean it, and didn't know it. He ought to have known it. He ought to have taken pity on her. 'I can't live without him—and, oh, Lucy, he never even looks at me.' That's what she said. Cruel, cruel, cruel. I said, 'No man is worth fretting for in that way.' And she said, 'There are men worth dying for, Lucy, and he is one of them.' I had saved up a little money. I had settled things with father and mother. I meant to take her away from the mortification she was suffering here. We should have had a little lodging in London, and lived together like sisters. She had a good education, sir, as you know, and she wrote a good hand. She was quick at her needle. I have a good education, and I write a good hand. I am not as quick at my needle as she was—but I could have done. We might have got our living nicely. And, oh! what happens this morning? what happens this morning? Her letter comes and tells me that she has done with the burden of her life. Her letter comes, and bids me good-bye for ever. Where is he?" cries the girl, lifting her head from the crutch, and flaming out again through her tears. "Where's this gentleman that I mustn't speak of, except with respect? Ha, Mr. Betteredge, the day is not far off when the poor will rise against the rich. I pray Heaven they may begin with him. I pray Heaven they may begin with him." — "First Period: The Loss of the Diamond (1848), The Events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder," Chapter 22, p. 197.

Commentary

Visually speaking, the American Moonstone stresses this theme [surveillance, reading, and interpreting] by foregrounding scenes of men reading women, a theme highlighted by the captions. In a striking series of parallel scenes, we see Cuff reading Rachel, then Cuff reading Rosanna, and finally Cuff reading Lady Verinder. — Leighton and Surridge, p. 227.

Here, representatives of different classes, ages, and genders "read" each other. The illustrator connects the binary opposites with their cane and crutch. As Betteredge is the narrator here, the reader accepts Betteredge's assessment of Limping Lucy as an oddity, a malcontent who is no respecter of the class system, although as Rosanna Spearman's best friend she understands the force of Rosanna's unrequited love for her social superior, Mr. Franklin Blake. Limping Lucy would seem to be a natural confederate and confidant for Rosanna Spearman, thoughtful young women who share a cynical view of male-dominated society and physical deformities that mark them as social rebels and misfits. These social isolates have somehow gravitated to one another, and Lucy now defends her dead friend with all the fierceness of Dickens's Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities (1859), denouncing the aristocrat as the source of the working-class girl's self-loathing and the cause of her suicide.

Rosanna's one true companion, Limping Lucy Yolland, substantiates the social commentary insinuated in the portrait of Rosanna Spearman. On a couple of occasions in the novel, Lucy calls attention, in general but very potent and provocative terms, to the abuse that she and the Rosannas of the world have suffered at the hands of the Verinders and their kind. — Steve Farmer, 21-22.

Related Materials

The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876)
Detection and Disruption inside and outside the 'quiet English home' in The Moonstone
Illustrations by F. A. Fraser for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1890)
Illustrations by John Sloan for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1908)
Illustrations by Alfred Pearse for The Moonstone: A Romance (1910)
The 1944 illustrations by William Sharp for The Moonstone (1946).

Last updated 30 November 2016