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Passage Illustrated: Dr. Hickman attempts to manipulate Lady Eleanor Darcy

“I must leave you, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, rising; “and although I have heard much to agitate and afflict me, it is some comfort to my heart to think that I have poured some balm into yours; you have my forgiveness for everything.”

“Wait a second, my Lady, wait one second!” gasped he, as with outstretched hands he tried to detain her. “I'll have strength for it in a minute — I want — I want to ask you once more what you refused me once — and it isn't — it isn't that times are changed, and that you are in poverty now, makes me hope for better luck. It is because this is the request of one on his death-bed, — one that cannot turn his thoughts away from this world, till he has his mind at ease. There, my Lady, take that pocket-book and that deed, throw them into the fire there. They're the only proofs against the Captain, — no eye but yours must ever see them. If I could see my own beautiful Miss Helen once more in the old house of her fathers —”

“I will not hear of this, sir,” interposed Lady Eleanor, hastily. “No time or circumstances can make any change in the feelings with which I have already replied to this proposal.”

“Heffernan tells me, my Lady, that the baronetcy is certain — don't go — don't go! It's the voice of one you'll never hear again calls on you. 'Tis eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to die!”

A faint shriek burst from Lady Eleanor; she tottered, reeled, and fell fainting to the ground. [Chapter LXII, "A Dark Conspiracy," pp. 517-518]

Commentary: Dr. Hickman fails to win Helen's hand for his grandson

Arriving at Mrs. Fumbally's in a coach-and-four after a severe winter storm, Dr. Hickman, his ambitious son Hickman O'Reily, and his attorney Mr. Nalty hold a council of war after a less than satisfactory meal. Their intention in coming to Port Ballintray is to buy off Lady Eleanor Darcy with an annuity in exchange for her dropping the law suit about the possession of Gwynne Abbey and its estates. They know that she is funding her attorney Bicknell's efforts out of her own personal fortune, and are aware that, after a series of judgments against his client, Bicknell is short of the funds required to pursue the Darcys' claims. The present scene occurs in Dr. Hickman's bedroom at Mrs. Fumbally's boarding-house the next day. The invalid, Doctor Hickman, yells frantically as he yanks the bell-pull to summon aid as Lady Eleanor faints and his attorney, Nalty, and a servant rush in, left.

The plan as broached to Nalty is to have Dr. Hickman (as if from his death-bed) renew his proposal that Helen Darcy marry his grandson, Beecham O'Reilly, in order to resolve the legal wrangling between the upstart Hickmans and the aristocratic Darcys, even though Lady Eleanor has already haughtily rejected such a proposal. He will affect "to sorrow over their changed fortunes" (505) in order to appeal to Lady Eleanor's sympathies as "the last request of one that has already left the things of this world" (505). Mr. Nalty of Dominick Street, Dublin, is appalled at the elderly miser's duplicity before Lady Eleanor arrives at noon in response to a note the Doctor sent her earlier. She has come from the cottage at the edge of Ballintray on foot and in the midst of a snowstorm, much to Dr. Hickman's malicious satisfaction.

The interview began well enough, with Lady Eleanor's expressing sympathy for the suffering, ill-housed patient, and Hickman begging not only for her "forgiveness," but her "approbation" (515). He appears overcome with emotion, for he remains an able dissembler to the end. He then implicates Captain Lionel Darcy in Gleeson's fraudulent bills, arousing her ire. He counters that he has all seven in his pocket-book, each for a thousand pounds and signed by her son. And from under his pillow he produces documents which he asserts consign Westport and nearby estates to him under Lionel's signature. Suddenly the interview is interrupted by a servant bearing a note for her, warning of "a dark conspiracy" (516). The anonymous informant (possibly Nalty) specifically warns her about Hickman's using the phrase "'Tis Eighty-six Years have crept to your feet to die" to deceive her as to his moribund condition. When he does indeed use this phrase to excite her pity, Lady Eleanor faints. However, she recovers quickly and departs hastily, now suspecting that the Doctor's accusations about Lionel's forging his father's signature to mortgage the estates are utterly false.

Although Lever has consistently cast Dr. Hickman as the villain of the novel, Phiz has provided only one other illustration involving the cunning, deceptive miser: Sandy M'Grane expedites the doctor in Chapter VIII, "The 'Head' of the Family" (February 1846).

Bibliography

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

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union. London: Chapman and Hall, serialised January 1846 through July 1847.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter IX, "Nomadic Patriarch, 1845-1847." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 146-164.

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

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Created 16 August 2023