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"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner. "This is our parting —"
John McLenan
12 May 1860
11.3 cm high by 9 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ½ inches), vignetted, p. 293; p. 162 in the 1861 volume.
Twenty-fifth regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner. "This is our parting —" — staff artist John McLenan's twenty-fifth composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 23, published on 12 May 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; "The Narrative of Eliza Michelson, Housekeeper at Blackwater Park," p. 293; p. 162 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The next day was fine and sunny. Sir Percival came up, after breakfast, to tell us that the chaise would be at the door at a quarter to twelve — the train to London stopping at our station at twenty minutes after. He informed Lady Glyde that he was obliged to go out, but added that he hoped to be back before she left. If any unforeseen accident delayed him, I was to accompany her to the station, and to take special care that she was in time for the train. Sir Percival communicated these directions very hastily — walking here and there about the room all the time. Her ladyship looked attentively after him wherever he went. He never once looked at her in return.
She only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he approached the door, by holding out her hand.
“I shall see you no more,” she said, in a very marked manner. “This is our parting — our parting, it may be for ever. Will you try to forgive me, Percival, as heartily as I forgive you?”
His face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of perspiration broke out on his bald forehead. “I shall come back,” he said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife’s farewell words had frightened him out of the room.
I had never liked Sir Percival, but the manner in which he left Lady Glyde made me feel ashamed of having eaten his bread and lived in his service. I thought of saying a few comforting and Christian words to the poor lady, but there was something in her face, as she looked after her husband when the door closed on him, that made me alter my mind and keep silence. [Part 25: "The Narrative of Eliza Michelson, Housekeeper at Blackwater Park," p. 289; p. 161 in the 1861 volume.]
Laura in the illustration seems less pliable, and more determined to escape the clutches of her husband and the Count. However, in this fourth appearance in the narrative-pictorial sequence, this bald, ill-featured, painfully thin and hard-featured Glyde looks very little like his earlier counterpart in "Sign there!" (3 March 1860) or his rigid dog-testing image in "The little beast, cowardly and cross-grained as pet dogs usually are, looked up sharply," etc. (14 Janary 1860). McLenan has given him the soulless eyes and rigid expression of a vampire: and, indeed, his plans call for sucking the life out of his wife and appropriating her money. The first step, already accomplished, was to separate Marian from Laura. The Count has managed matters so that Laura believes Marian has already gone to recuperate at Limmeridge. The implication of the text anticipated by the uncaptioned headnote vignette is clear: Lady Glyde will now be in the Foscos' power in their new London residence.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (26 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 2006.
Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-25.
Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.
Created 19 July 2024