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The Vault
Sir John Gilbert, R. A.
1878
Wood-engraving
14 x 9.5 cm, vignetted
Facing page 2 in W. H. Ainsworth's Rookwood: A Romance (1882 edition).
In one volume, with illustrations by Sir John Gilbert. London: George Routledge and Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill; New York: 416 Broome Street.
Let me know, therefore, fully the intent Of this thy dismal preparation — This talk fit for a charnel. — Webster.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Within a sepulchral vault, and at midnight, two persons were seated. The chamber was of singular construction and considerable extent. The roof was of solid stone masonry, and rose in a wide semicircular arch to the height of about seventeen feet, measured from the centre of the ceiling to the ground floor, while the sides were divided by slight partition-walls into ranges of low, narrow catacombs. The entrance to each cavity was surrounded by an obtusely-pointed arch, resting upon slender granite pillars; and the intervening space was filled up with a variety of tablets, escutcheons, shields, and inscriptions, recording the titles and heraldic honors of the departed. . . .
Wearied with the prolonged silence, Peter at length condescended to speak. His voice was harsh and grating as a rusty hinge.
"Another glass?"said he, pouring out a modicum of the pale fluid. — Book One, "The Wedding Ring," Chapter 1, "The Vault," pp. 2-4.
Although the chief background element of the Rookwood vault, the stacked coffins, as well as the other obvious piece, the statue, are evident in the Cruikshank original, in contrast to Sir John Gilbert's later illustration of the same name, the 1836 figures are singularly uninteresting. Cruikshank's interlocutors in The Vault are much less engaging, but correspond approximately in their clothing and gestures to Ainsworth's description of the aged sexton and family retainer, Peter Bradley, and his grandson, Luke, the eiron of the tale. (For the moment, these names and identities will suffice.) Although Gilbert fails to emphasize the coffins, his three-dimensional handling of the scene and modelling of the figures (including the statue) is undoubtedly a realistic and more effective reinterpretation of Cruikshank's caricatural approach to his material in that Gilbert attempts to visualise as much of Ainsworth's text as possible.
As George Worth notes, the general creepiness of the midnight scene in the Rookwood vault as much as the establishing of the initial situation through the dialogue are "representative of the Gothic strain in Ainsworth's work" (81):
It opens as two men, an old sexton and his grandson Luke, are talking in hushed tones . . . while a sputtering candle throws "opaque and fantastical shadows." Seated on a coffin, surrounded by stacked coffins, they are discussing Sir Piers Rookwood, who has just died, and his clandestine relationship with Luke's late mother. The sexton has brought Luke to this place expressly to tell him that Sir Piers was her murderer, and Luke's reaction is everything the old man could have wished. . . .
One of the coffins falls to the ground, with a "thunderous crash"; it splits open, and "a dead bpdy, clothed in all the hideous apparel of the tomb," rolls out (I, i). It is, of course, Luke's mother's corpse, remarkably well preserved. Luke seizes her hand and kisses it; and, oblivious to what his companion is doing, does not relinquish his hold while the sexton attempts to replace the body in the coffin. — Worth 80-81.
The wedding ring on the skeletal finger which Luke is left gripping as the sexton attempts to restore the corpse to the coffin is crucial to the inheritance plot since it proves that the youth's mother was Sir Piers' wife rather than his mistress and that, therefore, Luke is Sir Piers' legitimate heir, a fact that will drive much of the remainder of the novel. The skeleton of Luke's mother makes a surprise appearance at Luke's wedding in another subterranean vault.
"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 12 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Rookwood. A Romance. With 8 illustrations by Sir John Gilbert. London: George Routledge, 1878, 1882.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Rookwood. A Romance. With 12 illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge, 1882.
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Last modified 14 February 2017