[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Wilkie Collins —> Illustrations of The Moonstone —> Next]
Sergeant Cuff, Mrs. Yolland, and Gabriel Betteredge at Cobb's Hole (uncaptioned)
William Sharp
chalk-and-ink chromolithograph.
18.2 x 12.8 cm
Illustration of scene from Chapter 16 but placed in Chapter 20 in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, facing p. 156, in the 1946 Doubleday edition. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"You must be mistaken about Rosanna Spearman," I said. "If she had been going to leave her present situation, she would have mentioned it, in the first place, to me."
"Mistaken?" cries Mrs. Yolland. "Why, only an hour ago she bought some things she wanted for travelling — of my own self, Mr. Betteredge, in this very room. And that reminds me," says the wearisome woman, suddenly beginning to feel in her pocket, "of something I have got it on my mind to say about Rosanna and her money. Are you either of you likely to see her when you go back to the house?"
"I'll take a message to the poor thing, with the greatest pleasure," answered Sergeant Cuff, before I could put in a word edgewise.
Mrs. Yolland produced out of her pocket, a few shillings and sixpences, and counted them out with a most particular and exasperating carefulness in the palm of her hand. She offered the money to the Sergeant, looking mighty loth to part with it all the while.
"Might I ask you to give this back to Rosanna, with my love and respects?" says Mrs. Yolland. "She insisted on paying me for the one or two things she took a fancy to this evening — and money's welcome enough in our house, I don't deny it. Still, I'm not easy in my mind about taking the poor thing's little savings. And to tell you the truth, I don't think my man would like to hear that I had taken Rosanna Spearman's money, when he comes back to-morrow morning from his work. Please say she's heartily welcome to the things she bought of me — as a gift. And don't leave the money on the table," says Mrs. Yolland, putting it down suddenly before the Sergeant, as if it burnt her fingers — "don't, there's a good man! For times are hard, and flesh is weak; and I might feel tempted to put it back in my pocket again."
"Come along!" I said, "I can't wait any longer: I must go back to the house."
"I'll follow you directly," says Sergeant Cuff.
For the second time, I went to the door; and, for the second time, try as I might, I couldn't cross the threshold.
"It's a delicate matter, ma'am," I heard the Sergeant say, "giving money back. You charged her cheap for the things, I'm sure?"
"Cheap!" says Mrs. Yolland. "Come and judge for yourself."
She took up the candle and led the Sergeant to a corner of the kitchen. For the life of me, I couldn't help following them. Shaken down in the corner was a heap of odds and ends (mostly old metal), which the fisherman had picked up at different times from wrecked ships, and which he hadn't found a market for yet, to his own mind. Mrs. Yolland dived into this rubbish, and brought up an old japanned tin case, with a cover to it, and a hasp to hang it up by — the sort of thing they use, on board ship, for keeping their maps and charts, and such-like, from the wet.
"There!" says she. "When Rosanna came in this evening, she bought the fellow to that. 'It will just do,' she says, 'to put my cuffs and collars in, and keep them from being crumpled in my box.' One and ninepence, Mr. Cuff. As I live by bread, not a halfpenny more!"
"Dirt cheap!" says the Sergeant, with a heavy sigh.
He weighed the case in his hand. I thought I heard a note or two of "The Last Rose of Summer" as he looked at it. There was no doubt now! He had made another discovery to the prejudice of Rosanna Spearman, in the place of all others where I thought her character was safest, and all through me! I leave you to imagine what I felt, and how sincerely I repented having been the medium of introduction between Mrs. Yolland and Sergeant Cuff. — "The Story: First Period — The Loss of the Diamond," Ch. 16, p. 121-122.
In Sharp's narrative-pictorial sequence, Sergeant Cuff, the first professional police detective in English literature, appears in two pen-and-ink vignettes (in which he is interacting with Lady Julia and Rosanna Spearman, in company with Betteredge) ahead of his appearing in several full-page character studies, the first facing p. 116 in Chapter 15, and the second in Chapter 20, but referring to his visit to Cobb's Hole to investigate what Rosanna Spearman was doing at the Yollands' cottage. Here, Sergeant Cuff (dominating the composition, left of centre) employs Betteredge (right, with his hat still on) as his stalking horse, using the kindly, old servant as a means of gaining the trust of the short, stout Mrs. Yolland (right of centre) in order to extract from her the nature of Rosanna Spearman's recent visit. As he suspected, Rosanna has purchased a small, waterproof chest just like the one that Mrs. Yolland has shown the detective, and which he now holds, assessing its weight. An unconvincing length of chain on the table and the money on the table complete the realisation of the text. Compare the treatment of precisely this scene (including the same caption used by John Sloan) by the Harper's house illustrator forty years earlier: "Weigh it in your hand, sir," she said to the Sergeant." Although in the original illustration the serial illustrator has captured an earlier moment, when Cuff is just holding the chain in his outstretched hand, Sharp has made the composition far more dramatic by having Cuff hold the box; there are other significant differences, including a lack of clutter and an absence of obscuring darkness as Sharp uses the candle rather than the fireplace to illuminate the scene. For the sale of visual continuity, Sharp has positioned Cuff's hat and gnarled walking stick prominently in the right foreground, and reduced the size of the table in order to accommodate the three figures.
Left: The American serial's depiction of the same scene in the Yollands' cottage at Cobb's Hole, "Weigh it in your hand, sir," she said to the Sergeant (29 February 1868). Centre: F. A. Fraser's depiction of Cuff's discussing roses with the estate's gardener, "One of these days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand at growing roses." (1890). Right: John Sloan's depiction of the visit by Cuff and Betteredge to Mrs. Yolland at Cobb's Hole, Weigh it in your hand, sir,' she said to the Sergeant. (1908) [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. with sixty-six illustrations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. 12 (1868), 4 January through 8 August, pp. 5-503.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. All the Year Round. 1 January-8 August 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With many illustrations. First edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, [July] 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With 19 illustrations. Second edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1874.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by George Du Maurier and F. A. Fraser. London: Chatto and Windus, 1890.
_________. The Moonstone. With 19 illustrations. The Works of Wilkie Collins. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1900. Volumes 6 and 7.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With four illustrations by John Sloan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by A. S. Pearse. London & Glasgow: Collins, 1910, rpt. 1930.
_________. The Moonstone. Illustrated by William Sharp. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With nine illustrations by Edwin La Dell. London: Folio Society, 1951.
Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Scarborough, Ontario: Signet, 1984. Pp. 1-21.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review Volume 42, Number 3 (Fall 2009): pp. 207-243. Accessed 1 July 2016. http://englishnovel2.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2014/01/42.3.leighton-moonstone-serializatation.pdf
Nayder, Lillian. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornll U. P., 2001.
Peters, Catherine. The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1991.
Reed, John R. "English Imperialism and the Unacknowledged crime of The Moonstone. Clio 2, 3 (June, 1973): 281-290.
Stewart, J. I. M. "A Note on Sources." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 527-8.
Vann, J. Don. "The Moonstone in All the Year Round, 4 January-8 1868." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 48-50.
Winter, William. "Wilkie Collins." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 203-219.
Last updated 17 October 2016