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Passage Illustrated: Margrave's Peculiar Power over Animals

I turned my eyes from that dumb House of Death wherein rested the corpse of the last lord of the soil, so strangely murdered, with a strong desire to speak out to Margrave the doubts respecting himself that tortured me. But — setting aside the promise to the contrary, which I had given, or dreamed I had given — to the Luminous Shadow, to fulfil that desire would have been impossible, — impossible to any one gazing on that radiant youthful face! I think I see him now as I saw him then: a white doe, that even my presence could not scare away from him, clung lovingly to his side, looking up at him with her soft eyes. He stood there like the incarnate principle of mythological sensuous life. I have before applied to him that illustration; let the repetition be pardoned. Impossible, I repeat it, to say to that creature, face to face, “Art thou the master of demoniac arts, and the instigator of secret murder?” As if from redundant happiness within himself, he was humming, or rather cooing, a strain of music, so sweet, so wildly sweet, and so unlike the music one hears from tutored lips in crowded rooms! I passed my handover my forehead in bewilderment and awe. [Chapter XLIX, page 811]

Commentary: Allen Fenwick still has his doubts about Margrave's role in Derval's murder

Although the madman's confession seemingly exonerates Margrave of any blame in the murder of Sir Philip Derval (whose body has just been interred in the family's mausoleum on the family estate), Fenwick still strongly suspects that Margrave was the inspiration. He was the "demon" or the luminous spirit who ordered the foolish dupe to assassinate Sir Philip Derval to suppress the story of the elixir of life, and the secret of Margrave's external youth.

This is the twentieth weekly instalment of thirty-three in total (24 August 1861 through 8 March 1862), but, owing to the necessity for depicting major events of the American Civil War, none of the remaining numbers was illustrated. (See serialisation.) In the remaining numbers, the protagonist in the romantic triangle, Dr. Allen Fenwick, ascertains that murderer Louis Grayle and the fair youth Margrave are one and the same character, and that Margrave was indeed behind the murder of Sir Philip Derval.

Commentary: Margrave pursues Allen and Lilian Fenwick to Australia

The blithe Margrave's undoing comes with his attempt to employ his occult powers to seduce Lilian body and soul. His body disintegrates, swiftly rotting into nothing, for he receives the nemesis of one who, lacking a soul and a conscience, deploys his arcane knowledge for his own ends, not for the good of mankind. In our last view of him (in the illustrated numbers) near the Derval mausoleum, he looks supremely self-confident and in control, and not at all concerned that Dr. Allen Fenwick means to penetrate his secret and prevent his exerting any further control over the psychically suggestive Lilian Ashleigh. But Bulwer-Lytton saves the death of Margrave for the very last serial instalment, 8 March 1862, set in the mountains of Australia, where Allen has taken his new wife Lilian after she has suffered a mental collapse. He hopes that a fresh environment and warmer climate will enable her to recover her mental equilibrium. But Margrave has pursued Allen and Lilian to Australia, where he attempts to brew the elixir of life.

I now reached Margrave’s side. Bending over him as the Veiled Woman [Ayesha] bent, and as I sought gently to raise him, he turned his face, fiercely faltering out, “Touch me not, rob me not! You share with me! Never! never! These glorious drops are all mine! Die all else! I will live! I will live!” Writhing himself from my pitying arms, he plunged his face amidst the beautiful, playful flame of the essence, as if to lap the elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable burning. Suddenly, with a low shriek, he fell back, his face upturned to mine, and on that face unmistakably reigned Death! [Instalment 31, Chapter LXXXVIII, p. 238 in the Collier edition]

Bibliography

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly V, 10 August — 8 March 1862.

Bulwer Lytton, Edward (Lord Lytton). A Strange Story. The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton, Vol. VII. New York: P. F. Collier, n. d. Pp. 7-242.

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