xxx xxx

Frank Clare returns home after three years of professional studies to confront his disagreeable father in his library [uncaptioned] — headnote vignette for "The First Scene," Chapter IV, in Wilkie Collins's No Name, first published in All the Year Round and Harper's Weekly, Number 2 (the 22 March 1862 instalment): 10.6 cm high by 5.5 cm wide, or 4 ¼ inches high by 2 ⅛ inches wide, framed; with the regular illustration, “Come, Frank!” (both on p. 189 in serial). Wood-engraving: 11.5 cm high by 11.3 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed; p. 23 in volume. These two illustrations are positioned on different pages in the volume: p. 21 for the vignette, the scene which precedes Frank's discussion of participating in amateur theatricals with Magdalen (p. 23, text and illustration).

Passage Illustrated: Frank's Dissension over Participating in Amateur Theatricals

“But I never tried to act. I don’t know how.”

“Not of the slightest consequence. If you don’t know how, come to me and I’ll teach you.”

“You!” exclaimed Mr. Vanstone. “What do you know about it?”

“Pray, papa, be serious! I have the strongest internal conviction that I could act every character in the play — Falkland included. Don’t let me have to speak a second time, Frank. Come and be introduced.”

She took her father’s arm, and moved on with him to the door of the greenhouse. At the steps, she turned and looked round to see if Frank was following her. It was only the action of a moment; but in that moment her natural firmness of will rallied all its resources — strengthened itself with the influence of her beauty — commanded — and conquered. She looked lovely: the flush was tenderly bright in her cheeks; the radiant pleasure shone and sparkled in her eyes; the position of her figure, turned suddenly from the waist upward, disclosed its delicate strength, its supple firmness, its seductive, serpentine grace. “Come!” she said, with a coquettish beckoning action of her head. “Come, Frank!” [“The First Scene. Combe Raven, Somersetshire,” Chapter IV, p. 256 in the American serial; p. 23 in volume]

Comment: The Vanstones Return, No Secret Revealed, No Sign of Trouble on the Horizon

Mr. Vanstone, the principal figure in the main illustration, seems sanguine and optimistic after returning with his wife from the mysterious three-week trip to London, and the caption “Come, Frank!” certainly implies that Mr. Vanstone is quite prepare to be a welcoming and even jolly host. He has, as Collins's narrator remarks, "returned in perfect possession of [his] everyday looks and manners" (19). The illustration well conveys his "imperturbable cheerfulness" (19), and something of his indolence, too.

Apparently this "trivial social ceremony of a morning call" (19) from Frank will precipitate a momentous revelation, eventually. As the potted plants suggest, the scene is the conservatory at Combe-Raven. Frank is in the background, upper left, and Magdalen is on her father's arm. Initially, she has failed to recognise the "undeniably handsome" (21) young man of twenty, since he little resembles the youth of seventeen who left for professional studies three years earlier. The engineer's report on Frank's professional progress which Mr. Vanstone has just read is anything but positive, however. But Mr. Vanstone merely regards Frank's unfitness for engineering as "a false start" (21). And Magdalen is delighted to see the "favourite play-fellow" (22) of her youth again. She has just broken the news to Frank that he is to act with her as Faulkland, the romantic lead in The Rivals (1775), the Comedy of Manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, rather than the eponymous romantic role in Bulwer-Lytton's Falkland (1827) in the "private theatricals" being organized by the Marrables. Unsure of himself, Frank demurs, but Magdalen insists: "Come and be introduced" (22), she firmly replies, for the Marrables have just arrived from Clifton, opposite Bristol, begging their assistance in completing the cast with Magdalen playing the crafty maid, Lucy. Frank, never having acted, is reluctant to take a major part, although by temperament he is certainly suited to playing a sensitive young man deeply in love with the female lead, Julia, but is prone to anxiety and self-doubt.

The Uncaptioned Vignette of Frank Clare and His Father in the Cottage's Library

Two days after Mr. Vanstone’s return from London, he was called away from the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over his letters, delivered by the morning’s post. Thrusting them into one of the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again, at one grasp, to read them when occasion served, later in the day. The grasp included the whole correspondence, with one exception — that exception being a final report from the civil engineer, which notified the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself, and the immediate return of Frank to his father’s house.

While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone’s pocket, the object of it was traveling home, as fast as railways could take him. At half-past ten at night, while Mr. Clare was sitting in studious solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favorite black cat to keep him company, he heard footsteps in the passage — the door opened — and Frank stood before him.

Ordinary men would have been astonished. But the philosopher’s composure was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his eldest son. He could not have looked up more calmly from his learned volume if Frank had been absent for three minutes

“Exactly what I predicted,” said Mr. Clare. “Don’t interrupt me by making explanations; and don’t frighten the cat. If there is anything to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed. You can walk over to Combe-Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone: ‘Father’s compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands like a bad shilling, as he always said I should. He keeps his own guinea, and takes your five; and he hopes you’ll mind what he says to you another time.’ That is the message. Shut the door after you. Good-night.” ["The First Scene," Chapter III, pp. 20-21 in volume; p. 189 in serial]

Comment: Introducing the Secondary Characters, Mr. Clare and His Son, Frank

Mclenan uses the vignette here to alert readers to the initial appearance in the novel of an important, albeit secondary character, young Frank Clare, the son of the Vanstones' crotchety neighbour in Somersetshire. In the father's sour look Mclenan captures the essence of Mr. Clare's personality, contrasting the disagreeable father with the affable, fashionably dressed professional that his son has become in the three years that he has been away in the north of England and Belgium. The father appears as Collins describes the cynic-philosopher: "crooked of back, and quick of temper" (19).

Thus, the vignette of Frank and his father complements the main illustration for the story's second serial instalment, "The First Scene," Chapters III and IV in both Harper's Weekly and (unillustrated) All the Year Round (22 March 1862). The fathers and their children present sharp contrasts: ill-tempered, reclusive, bookish Mr. Clare versus expansive, genial, gregarious, and stout Mr. Vanstone; the dutiful, polite, somewhat introverted son and failed professional engineer versus the mercurial, extroverted, dramatic Magdalen.

Related Material

Image scans 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 person who scanned the images, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Blain, Virginia. “Introduction” and “Explanatory Notes” to Wilkie Collins's No Name. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.