Having agreed to take a secondary role in the Marrables' forthcoming theatrical production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals (1775), Magdalen diligently studies her lines in tranquility in the main illustration, There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the long looking-glass, etc. — the accompanying headnote vignette for "The First Scene," Chapter VI, involves the Stage Manager's directing Magdalen in the role of the maid, Lucy, with several of the other young actors to the left in Wilkie Collins's No Name, first published in All the Year Round and Harper's Weekly (Vol. VI-No. 274), Number 3 (the 29 March 1862 instalment); vignette: 10 cm high by 5.7 cm wide, or 4 inches high by 2 ¼ inches wide, framed; with the vignette and regular illustrations both appearing on p. 205 in the serial). The main plate, also a wood-engraving, is 11.4 cm high by 11.4 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed; top of p. 26 in volume. These two illustrations are positioned on different pages in the volume: p. 28 for the vignette, showing the rehearsal in progress at Evergreen Lodge, Clifton.
Passage Illustrated: Magdalen's Thoughtfully Getting Up Her Part in the Amateur Theatricals
The hours of the afternoon passed away, and still Magdalen remained shut up in her own room. No restless footsteps pattered on the stairs; no nimble tongue was heard chattering here, there, and everywhere, from the garret to the kitchen — the house seemed hardly like itself, with the one ever-disturbing element in the family serenity suddenly withdrawn from it. Anxious to witness with her own eyes the reality of a transformation in which past experience still inclined her to disbelieve, Miss Garth ascended to Magdalen’s room, knocked twice at the door, received no answer, opened it and looked in.
There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the long looking-glass, with all her hair let down over her shoulders; absorbed in the study of her part and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper, until it was time to dress for dinner. And there behind her sat the lady’s-maid, slowly combing out the long heavy locks of her young mistress’s hair, with the sleepy resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment for some hours past. [“The First Scene. Combe Raven, Somersetshire,” Chapter V, p. 205 in the American serial; p. 23 in volume]
Passage Anticipated by the Uncaptioned Headnote Vignette for the Third Number
The manager perched himself, book in hand, on a stool close in front of the stage. He was an active little man, of a sweet and cheerful temper; and he gave the signal to begin with as patient an interest in the proceedings as if they had caused him no trouble in the past and promised him no difficulty in the future. The two characters which opened the comedy of The Rivals, “Fag” and “The Coachman,” appeared on the scene — looked many sizes too tall for their canvas background, which represented a “Street in Bath” — exhibited the customary inability to manage their own arms, legs, and voices — went out severally at the wrong exits — and expressed their perfect approval of results, so far, by laughing heartily behind the scenes. “Silence, gentlemen, if you please,” remonstrated the cheerful manager. “As loud as you like on the stage, but the audience mustn’t hear you off it. Miss Marrable ready? Miss Vanstone ready? Easy there with the ‘Street in Bath’; it’s going up crooked! Face this way, Miss Marrable; full face, if you please. Miss Vanstone —” he checked himself suddenly. “Curious,” he said, under his breath — “she fronts the audience of her own accord!”
Here the stage artifice of the situation presented difficulties which Magdalen had not encountered in the first scene — and here, her total want of experience led her into more than one palpable mistake. The stage-manager, with an eagerness which he had not shown in the case of any other member of the company, interfered immediately, and set her right. At one point she was to pause, and take a turn on the stage — she did it. At another, she was to stop, toss her head, and look pertly at the audience — she did it. When she took out the paper to read the list of the presents she had received, could she give it a tap with her finger (Yes)? And lead off with a little laugh (Yes — after twice trying)? Could she read the different items with a sly look at the end of each sentence, straight at the pit (Yes, straight at the pit, and as sly as you please)? The manager’s cheerful face beamed with approval. He tucked the play under his arm, and clapped his hands gayly; the gentlemen, clustered together behind the scenes, followed his example; the ladies looked at each other with dawning doubts whether they had not better have left the new recruit in the retirement of private life. Too deeply absorbed in the business of the stage to heed any of them, Magdalen asked leave to repeat the soliloquy, and make quite sure of her own improvement. She went all through it again without a mistake, this time, from beginning to end; the manager celebrating her attention to his directions by an outburst of professional approbation, which escaped him in spite of himself. “She can take a hint!” cried the little man, with a hearty smack of his hand on the prompt-book. “She’s a born actress, if ever there was one yet!” [Chapter VI: p. 206 in serial, pp. 27-28 in volume]
Commentary: Magdalen Proves a "Natural" Actress
The scene now shifts from Combe-Raven, Somersetshire, to Evergreen House, Clifton, the fashionable Bristol suburb with magnificent Georgian and Victorian architecture. Frank is convinced that he cannot possibly do the part; Magdalen is equally convinced that she will handle her supporting role brilliantly. We move in reverse, as it were, from the Stage Manager's delightedly applauding her performance during the initial rehearsal (the subject of the vignette) to Magdalen's memorizing her lines (the subject of the main plate). Miss Garth, not depicted in either plate, is the viewer in the main illustration, and has accompanied Frank and Magdalen by railway to Bristol and thence to Clifton's Evergreen Lodge as a sort of chaperone.
What then do the plates have in common? After all, Magdalen does not even appear in the vignette. Magdalen Vanstone, who has never before participated in theatricals, studies her part with determination, takes direction brilliantly, and puts in a performance of professional calibre, if one is to judge from the stage manager's enthusiastic response here — she is presumably on the stage whose footlights Maclenan shows in the vignette. Thus, illustrator and novelist prepare readers for Magdalen's polished and controlled impersonations later in the story. We see her assiduously studying her script, and note that the maid is careful not to break her mistress's concentration.
Related Material
- Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins’s No Name (1864) by John Everett Millais
- Victorian Paratextuality: Pictorial Frontispieces and Pictorial Title-Pages
- Wilkie Collins's No Name (1862): Charles Dickens, Sheridan's The Rivals, and the Lost Franklin Expedition
Scanned images and captions 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.
