Passage Illustrated: The Engenues Kate and Nina Clash over George's Miniature

So absorbed was Kate in grief that she heard nothing, and Nina approached her, slowly, till at last she stood directly behind her, fixedly regarding the heaving figure, the dishevelled hair, and the trembling hands that seemed to clutch with eagerness some object within their grasp. Kate suddenly started, and pushing back her hair from her eyes, seemed as if trying to collect her wandering thoughts. Then, unclasping a case, she placed a miniature before her, and contemplated it attentively. Nina bent over her till she almost touched her in her eagerness. Had any one been there to have seen her features at the moment, they would have perceived the traits of intense and varied passion, surprise, rage, and jealousy, all struggling for the mastery. Her dark skin grew almost livid, and her black eyes glowed with anger; while, with a force like convulsion, she pressed her hands to her heart, as if to calm its beatings. A sea of stormy passions was warring within her, and in her changeful expression might be seen the conflict of her resolves. At last, she appeared to have decided; for with noiseless steps she gradually retreated toward the door, her eyes all the while steadily fixed on her mistress.

It seemed to require no slight effort to repress the torrent of rage within her; for even at the door she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, softly opening it, withdrew. Once outside, her pent-up passions found vent, and she sobbed violently. Her mood was, however, more of anger than of sorrow, and there was an air of almost insolent pride in the way she now knocked, and then, without waiting for reply, entered the room.

“Madame de Heidendorf requests that the Princess will appear in the drawing-room,” said she, abruptly, and confronting Kate's look of confusion with a steadfast stare.

“Say that I am indisposed, Nina, —— that I feel tired and unwell,” said Kate, timidly.

“There is an Archduke, Madame.”

“What care I for an Archduke, Nina?” said Kate, trying to smile away the awkwardness of her own disturbed manner. [Chapter XLVIII, "Secrets of Head and Heart," 414]

Commentary: Nina and Kate Dalton come into conflict over George's miniature

By their postures and juxtaposition the two young women are not merely in dialogue, but in conflict, and Phiz has positioned Nina in such a way that he anticipates her act of defiance on the page following the illustration: “'Then this, perchance, may move you!' cried Nina; and with a bound she sprang to the table at which Kate was seated, and, dashing the handkerchief away, seized the miniature, and held it up.” Although Lever has had neither Kate, nor her maid Nina, nor yet their recent visitor from Florence, the Abbé D'Esmonde, name him, George Onslow is very much on the minds of all three. Kate has agreed to marry the Russian nobleman to free her admirer (whom she believes impoverished by virtue of the failure of his father's bank) from his devotion to her. Nina is still very much in love with George, and jealous of her mistress's pining for George, whose love letter, delivered by the Abbé and probably written on his deathbed, lies open on the table. At the moment described, Nina is about to snatch the miniature of George which Kate is sorrowfully contemplating.

This is one of only eight illustrations reproduced in Volume Two (1859) of the first edition's forty-eight engravings. The other seven are the fine vertical frontispiece, A Journey (ii), Frank Visits his Uncle (facing 18), Teaching the Old Idea how to shoot (facing 87), The Benediction (facing 115), Abel Narrowly escapes Caning (facing 161), Norwood's Exit (facing 267), and Retribution (facing 332).

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]

_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Last modified 10 April 2022