"The Moonstone" — "Second period. The Discovery of the Truth. (1848-1849.) First Narrative. Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder," Ch. VII: "I don't think he put his arm round my waist to support me."

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"I don't think he put his arm round my waist to support me."

Harper & Bros. house illustrator William Jewett

Wood engraving

17.5 x 11.5 cm

The second illustration for the eighteenth weekly part of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance in the Harper's Weekly (2 May 1868), page 277. [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.]

Illustrations 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: Godfrey's Rebuilds His Relationship with Miss Clack.

"Have you seen Rachel yet?" I asked.

He sighed gently, and took me by the hand. I should certainly have snatched my hand away, if the manner in which he gave his answer had not paralysed me with astonishment.

"I have seen Rachel," he said with perfect tranquillity. "You are aware, dear friend, that she was engaged to me? Well, she has taken a sudden resolution to break the engagement. Reflection has convinced her that she will best consult her welfare and mine by retracting a rash promise, and leaving me free to make some happier choice elsewhere. That is the only reason she will give, and the only answer she will make to every question that I can ask of her."

"What have you done on your side?" I inquired. "Have you submitted."

"Yes," he said with the most unruffled composure, "I have submitted."

His conduct, under the circumstances, was so utterly inconceivable, that I stood bewildered with my hand in his. It is a piece of rudeness to stare at anybody, and it is an act of indelicacy to stare at a gentleman. I committed both those improprieties. And I said, as if in a dream, "What does it mean?"

"Permit me to tell you," he replied. "And suppose we sit down?"

He led me to a chair. I have an indistinct remembrance that he was very affectionate. I don't think he put his arm round my waist to support me — but I am not sure. I was quite helpless, and his ways with ladies were very endearing. At any rate, we sat down. I can answer for that, if I can answer for nothing more.— "Second period. The Discovery of the Truth. (1848-1849.) First Narrative. Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder." Chapter VII: p. 278.

Commentary

Clack is a comic distortion of the other passionate women in the novel. Cloaking all her prejudices and greed beneath excessive religiosity, she seeks attention, love, and money. Godfrey Ablewhite is a truly Godlike hero for her because of his good looks, smooth ways, and ostentatious virtues displayed for various philanthropic groups. In the course of her spying and interference, Clack is appalled by his proposal to Rachel — little knowing that his declaration springs from financial necessity, not love — and easily taken in by his facile explanations for his indifference to the philanthropy groups. Like Jane Hardie in Hard Cash, but without her ultimate dignity and selflessness, Clack thinks that her emotional and sexual responses to Ablewhite are signs of righteous spirituality. . . . Clack's amorous delusions, and the passions and reserve of Rachel and Rosanna, are a far cry from power-crazed Marion in Strathmore or lascivious Archbold in Hard Cash. — Kalikoff, p. 122.

The conversation closes the seventh chapter and the instalment, so that the reader is impelled to purchase the next instalment to learn of Godfrey Ablewhite's reaction to Rachel's rejection, and the collapse of his plans for solvency by acquiring as her husband control of Rachel's vast fortune. But, like other resilient Collins villains such as Count Fosco in The Woman in White, Godfrey Ablewhite quickly recovers his equanimity and determines to pursue another avenue of escape from his debts and the possible ignominy if his embezzlement is detected and made known. The picture renders him ridiculous as he attempts to explain his emotional behaviour and then rationalizes about his having lost a fortune in having lost his fianceé, but having through the good graces of his cousin, Drusilla Clack, having regained his identity as a committee-man and charity organizer, Godfrey will not be cut out of any rich widows' wills. With the peculiarly undersized chair that he has but lately occupied in one hand, Godfrey hugs the adoring Drusilla with the other (and gives her an interesting and rather knowing look). The illustrator has made Drusilla Clack and the sociopathic Godfrey Ablewhite an odd-looking couple, underscoring the unlikelihood of the supremely plain Drusilla's ever realizing a romantic relationship with her tall, blonde, handsome cousin — a temporarily lapsed "Christian hero" who has explained his conduct to her satisfaction. The sly cast of his facial expression (which we see, but which his adoring disciple does not) betrays his entirely selfish motives, and prepares readers for the eventual revelation that he is indeed the one who stole and pawned the Moonstone.

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 28 November 2016