He was dead. Wood-engraving 11.3 cm high by 11.5 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed, for instalment thirty-six in the American serialisation of Wilkie Collins’ No Name in Harper’s Weekly [Vol. VI. — No. 307] Number 36, “The Fifth Scene, Baliol Cottage, Dumfries.” Chapter III, (page 730; p. 224 in volume), plus an uncaptioned vignettte of Mrs. Lecount a coachman (Chapter III: p. 730; p. 222 in volume): 9.6 cm high by 5.6 cm wide, or 4 inches high by 2 ¼ inches wide, vignetted. [Instalment No. 36 ends in the American serialisation on page 731, at the end of Chapter III. Precisely the same number without any illustration ran on 15 November 1862 in All the Year Round.]
The Vignette: Mrs. Lecount and the Coachman who must serve as Witness to the Will
“We shan’t keep you long,” said Mrs. Lecount, dismissing the coachman. “In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey back.”
The coachman’s austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled mysteriously, and approached Mrs. Lecount on tiptoe.
“Ye’ll no forget one thing, my leddy,” he said, with the most ingratiating politeness. “Ye’ll no forget the witnessing as weel as the driving, when ye pay me for my day’s wark!” He laughed with guttural gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the room.
“Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the door, “did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you blind?”
He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. Lecount looked at him in astonishment.
“Can’t you see the brute is drunk?” he went on, more and more irritably. [“The Fifth Scene, Baliol Cottage, Dumfries,” Chapter III: p. 730; p. 222 in volume]
The Main Illustration: A Significant Plot Development — Noel Vanstone discovered dead
He had changed his place. He was sitting at the table in the corner — still with his back to her, writing. This time his quick ears had not served him; this time she caught him in the fact.
“Oh, Mr. Noel! Mr. Noel!” she said, reproachfully, “what is your promise worth?”
He made no answer. He was sitting with his left elbow on the table, and with his head resting on his left hand. His right hand lay back on the paper, with the pen lying loose in it. “Your drink, Mr. Noel,” she said, in a kinder tone, feeling unwilling to offend him. He took no notice of her. She went to the table to rouse him. Was he deep in thought?
He was dead! [“The Fifth Scene, Baliol Cottage, Dumfries,” Chapter III: p. 731; p. 225 in volume]
Commentary: Fortune Once Again Favours Mrs. Lecount rather than Magdalen
While Magdalen is away in London, consulting her attorneys and looking for her sister Norah, Mrs. Lecount arrives at Baliol Cottage, and takes the self-pitying Noel in hand. She counters the will favouring Magdalen as Noel's widow by having him make a second will. This she takes the precaution of having one of the servants and the Scottish coachman (depicted in the vignette as something of a wit and an imbiber of Scotch) witness. She leaves nothing to chance. She even dictates a letter that will modify the terms of the will if Admiral Bartram’s nephew, George, the beneficiary of the Combe-Raven legacy, remains unmarried. She is determined to outflank Magdalen’s marriage strategy by making sure her rival will not marry young George. The present scene with the coachman offers readers some comic relief in the sententious dialectal biblical quotations of the bibulous coachman. Noel refuses to be driven by a drunkard, and so elects to remain one more night at Baliol Cottage, little suspecting that it will be his last. But the new will is legally binding, duly witnessed, and supersedes the previous will that had favoured Magdalen.
The larger illustration is particularly well executed as the reader does not immediately realise that Noel Vanstone is dead. As Mrs. Lecount presents the posset, she looks curiously at the slightly slumping figure in the fashionable dressing-gown. Thus, the illustration complements the letter-press, but does not reveal that the master of Baliol Cottage has suddenly and inexplicably died. The next confidential servant whom we see will not be Mrs. Lecount, but Magdalen in disguise at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex.
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 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.
