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"When he took off his hat with a flourish," etc.
John McLenan
4 August 1860
11.2 cm high by 8.3 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅜ inches), vignetted, p. 485; p. 229 in the 1861 volume.
Thirty-seventh regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"When he took off his hat with a flourish," etc. — staff artist John McLenan's thirty-seventh composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 37, published on 4 August 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; "The Narrative of Walter Hartright, Resumed. XII," p. 485; p. 229 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
As soon as I was out of the room I went down to the first landing and waited — I was determined to stop him if he tried to come upstairs. He made no such attempt. The girl from the shop came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand — a large gilt card with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath in pencil: ‘Dear lady’ (yes! the villain could address me in that way still) — ‘dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter serious to us both.’ If one can think at all, in serious difficulties, one thinks quick. I felt directly that it might be a fatal mistake to leave myself and to leave you in the dark, where such a man as the Count was concerned. I felt that the doubt of what he might do, in your absence, would be ten times more trying to me if I declined to see him than if I consented. ‘Ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,’ I said. ‘I will be with him in a moment.’ I ran upstairs for my bonnet, being determined not to let him speak to me indoors. I knew his deep ringing voice, and I was afraid Laura might hear it, even in the shop. In less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop. There he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me the moment I set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish and spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a day since.” [Part 37: "Hartright's Narrative, XII," p. 485; p. 228 in the 1861 volume.]
Although the headnote vignette of Fosco's bowing reinforces his admiration of Marian Halcombe, she is not fooled for a moment. The charming and seemingly innocuous foreigner with the theatrical manner is a much greater threat potentially than the irascible Glyde ever was. To Marian he is duplicity personified.
When he "takes off his hat with a flourish" at her door, she is slightly amused, but hardly beguiled. She is careful not to let him see Laura when he calls at their rooms above the news-vendor's shop in London. Marian has already recognized the owner of the Asylum as the stranger with whom he had been conversing before paying his call, and is on her guard, as McLenan's main illustration for instalment 37 suggests. To put her at ease, Fosco confides that he has dismissed the Asylum owner in order to win her favour as he has spared Laura reconfinement. And like Collins's other foreigners, Fosco here is full of theatrical gestures and extravagant compliments, for he is but a Collins adaptation of the stage villains of contemporary melodrama: "Expressive gestures and exaggerated movements were a common feature of nineteenth-century melodrama" (Bachman and Cox, Note 1, p. 544).
The scene is essentially a flashback that explains why Marian shifted their London residence while Walter was away in Hampshire. She must avoid letting Fosco and Glyde know where Laura is to be found. Consequently, she feels impelled to get as far away from the news-vendor's shop as possible, and removes to Gower Street in Fulham.
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. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser and Sir John Gilbert. London: Sampson Low, 1860; rpt., Chatto & Windus, 1875.
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. 205-25.
Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November 1859 — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 44-46.
Created 3 August 2024