"The Little Church in the Park" — twelfth illustration by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne) for Dickens's "Bleak House" (August 1852)

The Little Church in the Park by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, facing p. 176 (ch. 18, "Lady Dedock"). 11.2 cm by 17 cm (3 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches). For text illustrated, see below. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage Illustrated: The Dedlocks in Church at Chesney Wold

We arrived at [Boythorn's] house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all set forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful trees until it brought us to the church-porch.

The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old coachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all the pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. There was a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome old face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us was close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her by her beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was of the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. One face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed maliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and everything there. It was a Frenchwoman's.

As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that direction, a gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely unconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great people were come and that the service was going to begin.

"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight — '"

Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the look I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and to hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine down — released again, if I may say so — on my book; but I knew the beautiful face quite well in that short space of time.

And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, associated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little glass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen this lady's face before in all my life — I was quite sure of it — absolutely certain.

It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her eyes, I could not think. [Chapter XVIII, "Lady Dedlock," 176-177; Project Gutenberg etext (see bibliography below)]

Comment

At midsummer, Esther and John Jarndyce are down in Lincolnshire, visiting Boythorn. At church, Esther feels inexplicably distressed when she catches sight of Lady Dedlock's face as the aristocrats leave the parish church after the Sunday service. The glimpse has stirred childhood memories as she seems to feel that she has seen Lady Dedlock before. At a reception in a Chesney Wold garden house afterward, Esther's unease increases when she hears Lady Dedlock's voice. Harry Furniss in his revision of the serial illustration emphasizes the local aristocrats rather than the architectural setting of the parish church at Chesney Wold The Deadlocks leaving the Church. In the Household Edition (1873), Barnard abandons the church scene, and depicts instead the chance meeting at the gamekeeper's lodge a week later.

In his visualisation of the scene in church, Phiz concentrates on the realism of the architectural and social setting. However, he juxtaposes the living aristocrats in their privileged pew (centre left) and their seventeenth-century ancestors depicted in the impressive monument (centre). Ironically, although Esther is now within feet of her birth-mother, she cannot see her because her view is blocked by the privacy curtains, which thus suggest the secret that Lady Dedlock has maintained all these years about the illegitimate child she had with Major Hawdon (alias "Nemo").

Other Editions' Illustrations for this Chapter (1873 and 1910)

Left: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the chance meeting of the Wards of Jarndyce and Lady Dedlock at Chesney Wold: "I have frightened you!" she said (1873). Right: Harry Furniss's 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition full-page lithograph of the scene when the Dedlocks depart for home after the service: The Deadlocks leaving the Church.

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions

Image scan and text by George P. Landow; additional 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

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Bradbury & Evans. Bouverie Street, 1853.

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Project Gutenberg etext prepared by Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada (charlie@idirect.com), with revision and corrections by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Seen 9 November 2007.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 6. "Bleak House and Little Dorrit: Iconography of Darkness." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 131-172.

Vann, J. Don. "Bleak House, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, October 1846—April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 69-70./

Last modified 12 November 2007

Last modified 4 March 2021