“Do you hear, you villain!” Wood-engraving 11.5 cm high by 11.7 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed, for instalment twenty-eight in the American serialisation of Wilkie Collins’s No Name in Harper’s Weekly [Vol. VI. — No. 299] Number 26, “The Fourth Scene — Aldborough, Suffolk.” Chapter IX (page 605; p. 173 in volume), plus an uncaptioned vignettte of Mrs. Lecount with opera glasses (p. 605; p. 174 in volume): 8.8 cm high by 5.7 cm wide, or 3 ½ inches high by 2 ¼ inches wide, vignetted. [Instalment No. 28 ends in the American serialisation on page 607, at the end of Chapter IX. Precisely the same number without illustration ran on 20 September 1862 in All the Year Round.]
Main Illustration: Magdalen, unable to bear the pressure, demands to go away for two days
“Is he coming again to-day?” she asked, pushing away from her the chair which Captain Wragge offered, with such violence that she threw it on the floor.
“Yes,” said the captain, wisely answering her in the fewest words. “He is coming at two o’clock.”
“Take me away!” she exclaimed, tossing her hair back wildly from her face. “Take me away before he comes. I can’t get over the horror of marrying him while I am in this hateful place; take me somewhere where I can forget it, or I shall go mad! Give me two days’ rest — two days out of sight of that horrible sea — two days out of prison in this horrible house — two days anywhere in the wide world away from Aldborough. I’ll come back with you! I’ll go through with it to the end! Only give me two days’ escape from that man and everything belonging to him! Do you hear, you villain?” she cried, seizing his arm and shaking it in a frenzy of passion; “I have been tortured enough — I can bear it no longer!” [“The Fourth Scene — Aldborough, Suffolk.” Chapter IX: in the American serialisation, p. 605; p. 172 in volume]
Uncaptioned Vignette of Mrs. Lecount: What Mrs. Lecount Observes with Her Binoculars
Noel Vanstone closed his eyes in silent ecstasy.
When he opened them again Captain Wragge had passed through the garden gate and was on his way back to North Shingles. As soon as his own door had closed on him, Mrs. Lecount descended from the post of observation which the captain had rightly suspected her of occupying, and addressed the inquiry to her master which the captain had rightly foreseen would follow his departure. The reply she received produced but one impression on her mind. She at once set it down as a falsehood, and returned to her own window to keep watch over North Shingles more vigilantly than ever.
To her utter astonishment, after a lapse of less than half an hour she saw an empty carriage draw up at Mr. Bygrave’s door. Luggage was brought out and packed on the vehicle. Miss Bygrave appeared, and took her seat in it. [“The Fourth Scene — Aldborough, Suffolk.” Chapter IX: in the American serialisation, p. 606; p. 174 in volume]
Commentary
The overturned chair and Magdalen’s distraught visage speak immediately to her disturbed mental state, reinforcing the readers’ doubts about the girl’s being able to carry out her plot against Noel Vanstone. As we have come to expect and as the main illustration suggests, Captain Wragge remains cool and self-controlled. He readily agrees to her proposal to get away from the stressful situation for a few days. The vignette is as significant in the plot development as it signals in advance of our reading this week's serial episode that Captain Wragge is quite correct abut his adversary’s monitoring his every move outdoors from some hidden coign of vantage, though not necessarily with opera glasses: “I have not the least doubt she is watching us at this moment from behind her window-curtain,” he tells Noel Vanstone in the garden.
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 them 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.
