“Lord bless us and save us!” Wood-engraving 11.5 cm high by 11.5 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed, for instalment twenty-nine in the American serialisation of Wilkie Collins’s No Name in Harper’s Weekly [Vol. VI. — No. 300] Number 29, “The Fourth Scene — Aldborough, Suffolk.” Chapter X (page 622; p. 181 in volume). [Instalment No. 29 ends in the American serialisation on page 623, at the end of Chapter X. Precisely the same number without illustration (with only Chapter X) ran on 27 September 1862 in All the Year Round.]
Sole Illustration: Mrs. Lecount decides to investigate Magdalen’s wardrobe
She tried the door nearest to the front of the house on the right-hand side of the landing. Capricious chance had deserted her already. The lock was turned. She tried the door opposite, on her left hand. The boots ranged symmetrically in a row, and the razors on the dressing-table, told her at once that she had not found the right room yet. She returned to the right-hand side of the landing, walked down a little passage leading to the back of the house, and tried a third door. The door opened, and the two opposite extremes of female humanity, Mrs. Wragge and Mrs. Lecount, stood face to face in an instant!
“I beg ten thousand pardons!” said Mrs. Lecount, with the most consummate self-possession.
“Lord bless us and save us!” cried Mrs. Wragge, with the most helpless amazement. [“The Fourth Scene — Aldborough, Suffolk.” Chapter X: in the American serialisation, p. 622; p. 181 in volume]
Commentary: Mrs. Lecount’s dilemma — how to prove that Miss Bygrave is Magdalen
Determined to unmask “Susan Bygrave” as the woman who visited her employer at Vauxhall Walk in London disguised as Miss Garth, Mrs. Lecount intends to verify the one piece of evidence that she came away with: a fragment of the spurious Miss Garth’s Alpaca gown, from which the crafty housekeeper had surreptitiously clipped a fragment. Although readers know that Magdalen has since sold off her theatrical costumes and properties, readers do not know whether she has retained that particular gown in her wardrobe. When first thing that morning Captain Wragge departs for an hour’s sea-bathing in a boat and then Magdalen hurriedly exits the villa to take a walk on the marine parade, the vigilant Mrs. Lecount sees her chance to enter The North Shingles Villa by stealth, slip past any servants and the mentally incompetent Mrs. Wragge, and thoroughly inspect the wardrobe of the future “Mrs. Noel Vanstone.” Unfortunately, the cunning housekeeper now encounters the Captain’s wife. But Mrs. Lecount handles her so well that she at last obtains her objective, and sees the Alpaca dress hanging in the girl’s wardrobe. Although she cannot inspect it, Mrs. Lecount has ascertained through various slips that her interlocutor has made that “Susan Bygrave” is in fact Magdalen Vanstone, and that her neighbours at Aldborough were in fact in residence at Vauxhall Walk.
McLenan’s task was not simply to realise a significant, suspenseful moment in the 27 September 1862 instalment; rather, he had to contrast these very different female types, rendering both middle-aged, middle-class credible and even sympathetic. Although Mrs. Lecount has been caught in the act of trespass, she realizes that she must maintain an unruffled exterior; McLenan’s Mrs. Wragge, on the other hand, must be both startled and puzzled by the sudden appearance in her own house of so plausible an intruder. The illustrator shows both women in a quandary, unsure about what to do next, underscoring a Sensation moment that is equally comedic and dramatic.
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image 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.
