Decorative Initial W
George Du Maurier
1875
Wood engraving
Designed for Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta
The Cornhill Magazine 32 (November 1875)
Scanned image, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham
The vignette for November, 1875, poses a problem of identification -- are the two Lincoln-lookalikes intended to be Ethelberta's grown-up brothers or her suitors, Neigh and Ladywell? Hardy had mentioned in the previous instalment that, after nine hours' labour, the "workmen-brothers" were accustomed to "making themselves as spruce as bride-grooms, according to the rules of their newly-acquired town experience" (p. 149). However, in the third plate Du Maurier gives neither brother a beard (later, in the eighth plate, the brothers have incipient beards), so that the reader is compelled to wonder if the pair are not supposed to represent the Wildean figures of clubman Alfred Neigh (his name echoically suggesting the source of his fortune, the knackering of horses) and the painter Eustace Ladywell, both of whom are romantically attracted to the clever, literary young widow. The two sophisticates encounter one another and exchange observations about Ethelberta outside the Mayfair Hall, where she has just concluded her evening's performance: "The two were going in the same direction, and they walked a short distance together" (p. 160) is probably the moment illustrated. The dialogue between Ethelberta's society acquaintances suggests that they may both be intending to make marriage proposals to her; the reader wonders whether one or the other may succeed since Ethelberta has just dismissed Christopher by telling him he must call much less frequently if she (as something of a celebrity) is to avoid becoming the subject of gossip in respectable society
Last modified 16 January 2008