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Passage Illustrated

Merely premising that the polite stranger was Mr. Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home to his residence at Kilburn.

He found waiting for him, in the hall, a poorly clad but delicate and interesting-looking little boy. The boy handed him a letter, merely mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he did not know, and who had given him no instructions to wait for an answer. Such incidents as these were not uncommon in Mr. Godfrey's large experience as a promoter of public charities. He let the boy go, and opened the letter.

The handwriting was entirely unfamiliar to him. It requested his attendance, within an hour's time, at a house in Northumberland Street, Strand, which he had never had occasion to enter before. The object sought was to obtain from the worthy manager certain details on the subject of the Mothers'-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and the information was wanted by an elderly lady who proposed adding largely to the resources of the charity, if her questions were met by satisfactory replies. She mentioned her name, and she added that the shortness of her stay in London prevented her from giving any longer notice to the eminent philanthropist whom she addressed.

Ordinary people might have hesitated before setting aside their own engagements to suit the convenience of a stranger. The Christian Hero never hesitates where good is to be done. Mr. Godfrey instantly turned back, and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street. A most respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door, and, on hearing Mr. Godfrey's name, immediately conducted him into an empty apartment at the back, on the drawing-room floor. He noticed two unusual things on entering the room. One of them was a faint odour of musk and camphor. The other was an ancient Oriental manuscript, richly illuminated with Indian figures and devices, that lay open to inspection on a table.

He was looking at the book, the position of which caused him to stand with his back turned towards the closed folding doors communicating with the front room, when, without the slightest previous noise to warn him, he felt himself suddenly seized round the neck from behind. He had just time to notice that the arm round his neck was naked and of a tawny-brown colour, before his eyes were bandaged, his mouth was gagged, and he was thrown helpless on the floor by (as he judged) two men. A third rifled his pockets, and — if, as a lady, I may venture to use such an expression — searched him, without ceremony, through and through to his skin.

Here I should greatly enjoy saying a few cheering words on the devout confidence which could alone have sustained Mr. Godfrey in an emergency so terrible as this. Perhaps, however, the position and appearance of my admirable friend at the culminating period of the outrage (as above described) are hardly within the proper limits of female discussion. Let me pass over the next few moments, and return to Mr. Godfrey at the time when the odious search of his person had been completed. The outrage had been perpetrated throughout in dead silence. At the end of it some words were exchanged, among the invisible wretches, in a language which he did not understand, but in tones which were plainly expressive (to his cultivated ear) of disappointment and rage. He was suddenly lifted from the ground, placed in a chair, and bound there hand and foot. The next moment he felt the air flowing in from the open door, listened, and concluded that he was alone again in the room.

An interval elapsed, and he heard a sound below like the rustling sound of a woman's dress. It advanced up the stairs, and stopped. A female scream rent the atmosphere of guilt. A man's voice below exclaimed "Hullo!" A man's feet ascended the stairs. Mr. Godfrey felt Christian fingers unfastening his bandage, and extracting his gag. He looked in amazement at two respectable strangers, and faintly articulated, "What does it mean?" The two respectable strangers looked back, and said, "Exactly the question we were going to ask you." — ​"Second period. The Discovery of the Truth. (1848-1849.) First Narrative. Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder," 4 April 1868: p. 213.

Commentary

Having already mugged the pawnbroker, Septimus Luker, the Indians know where the Moonstone is lodged, and who is likely to redeem it. Not knowing when, however, they have to keep watch on the bank, especially towards the end of June, 1849, if the jewel has not already come to light. Their chief suspect, and therefore the one whom they will be watching is not Franklin Blake, but Godfrey Ablewhite. He falls for their bogus appointment, despite the fact that the note he receives arranging the meeting in Northumberland Street, is given him by the very boy that the Brahmins had with them on 21 June at the Verinders' estate in Yorkshire. p>The passage in question occurs on the same page (213) as the full-size illustration (the only such illustration for this instalment), so that the readers know upon opening this page of the magazine that the three Indians are about to grab the unknowing Ablewhite (readily identifiable from his height, his long hair, and his clothing, all of which are consistent across the many illustrations involving him) even before they read the text.

The Pearse illustration of the 1910 Chatto and Windus edition, a half-tone lithograph, resembles in its basic outlines and the impression it conveys of the three Brahmins as muggers. Pearse in the frontispiece depicts the three Indians as thugs, attempting to rob a respectably dressed Englishman. However, whereas the three Indians effectively restrain the florid, six-foot Englishman, keeping him still so that they can search his pockets thoroughly; in the Pearse plate, they have yet to "bandage" his eyes, so that He can actually see the man to the left. Having grabbed him, however, the three Indians in Fraser's wood-engraving cover his face and lift him off the floor while Albelwhite's hat is still air-born, suggesting violent motion captured in a snapshot. The furnishings in the room reinforce the "respectable" nature of the house on Northumberland Street, with bric-a-brac on the mantle, paintings on the wall, and a patterned tablecloth and solid table-leg projecting out from under it.In this perfectly mundane, thoroughly English middle-class drawing room violence has unexpectedly broken out, a reflex of the violence inflicted upon the Brahmins forebears by the agent of Empire, Colonel John Herncastle.

The Harper's illustrators have taken a slightly different approach, showing the stealthy, cat-like Indians about to pounce upon the unsuspecting Englishman. They are decidedly sinister as they approach the Englishman from behind as he peruses the oriental book on the table, and is yet unaware of their approach. Thus, the serial illustrators have excited the reader's interest and heightened the suspense by showing the three, sharp-faced, bearded Indians about to grab Ablewhite; only a reading of the accompanying text will reveal the outcome of the attempted assault. The American readers Harper's Weekly might not have detected in this instalment a contemporary allusion to an actual crime (an "attempted murder" rather than a mere "assault") in London in July, 1861:

Some Victorian readers would have recalled another actual crime when they read that Godfrey Ablewhite and Septimus Luker had been lured away and then attacked by the Indians. The Murray Case was never as notorious as the Road Murder [1860], but it figured prominently in the newspapers, and crowds of people gathered at the scene of the encounter. In July of 1861, a Major Murray was accosted in the street by a man who addressed him by name and then persuaded him (for business reasons) to go to Northumberland-chambers, an address off the Strand. Leading Murray into his room, the stranger, a Mr. Roberts, asked him to be seated; but after Murray had complied, to quote The Times, "he observed the stranger approaching him from behind, and the next instant he experienced a stunning sensation and fell forward on the floor. He had been struck by a bullet." Murray managed to recover and eventually killed his attacker — and in that he differs from Collins's victims, who are mugged and bound before they can defend themselves from their mysterious brown-skinned assailants. Nor are there bullets in the novel, for the Indians are not after personal revenge, only clues to the missing Moonstone. But Collins seems to have borrowed the outlines and the address of the Murray case, for Godfrey, like the Major, is decoyed to a house in Northumberland Street, Strand. — Lonoff, "Wilkie Collins and His Readers, 179.

The "Indian gentleman," the leader of the Brahmins as characterised by the Verinder family attorney, Mr. Bruff, is not likely to have gone about the streets of London with an exaggerated sash tied about his waist, so that the costuming of the trio in the illustrations by Pearse and Fraser is less fanciful and more credible than that by The Harper's Weekly illustrators, who sensationalise the assault by emphasizing the outlandish and racially "other" nature of the assailants (whose features and colouring suggest both aboriginal Americans and African-Americans) in the 4 April 1868 realisation of Miss Clack's account of Godfrey's misadventure.

Illustrations from Later Editions (1890, 1910 & 1946)

Left: F. A. Fraser's depiction of the Northumberland Street assault on Godfrey Ablewhite, "He had just time to notice that the arm around his neck was naked and of a tawny-brown colour, before his eyes were bandaged, his mouth was gagged, and he was thrown helpless on the floor." (1890). Centre: Alfred Pearse's reiteration of the Fraser illustration as the frontispiece for the volume, He felt himself suddenly seized round the neck. (1910). Right: William Sharp's realisation of the Northumberland Street mugging underscores the kinetic energy of the Brahmins, Godfrey Ablewhite Assaulted [no caption] (1946). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

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).

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Last updated 25 August 2016