“Charley Hexam renounces his Sister” by Harry Furniss — fourteenth illustration for “Our Mutual Friend” (1910)

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Charley Hexam renounces his Sister

Harry Furniss

1910

14.2 cm x 9.6 cm, or 5 ⅝ by 3 ¾ inches, framed

The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Vol. XV, Book 2, “Birds of a Feather,” Chapter XV, “The Whole Case So Far,” facing 417.

“You are an inveterately bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I have done with you!” He flung himself upon his heel and left her. — Our Mutual Friend, p. 420.

[Click on the images on this page to enlarge them.]

Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: A Dark Plate for a Dark Moment

‘I am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannot authorize you to say any such thing to Mr. Headstone: I cannot allow you to say any such thing to Mr. Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to him from me, after what I have said for good and all, to-night.’

‘And this girl,’ cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off again, ‘calls herself a sister!’

‘Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struck me. Don’t be hurt by my words. I don’t mean — Heaven forbid! — that you intended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden swing you removed yourself from me.’

‘However!’ said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, and pursuing his own mortified disappointment, ‘I know what this means, and you shall not disgrace me.’

‘It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more.’

‘That’s not true,’ said the boy in a violent tone, ‘and you know it’s not. It means your precious Mr. Wrayburn; that’s what it means.’

‘Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together, forbear!’

‘But you shall not disgrace me,’ doggedly pursued the boy. ‘I am determined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, you shall not pull me down. You can’t disgrace me if I have nothing to do with you, and I will have nothing to do with you for the future.’

‘Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I have sat on the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms. Unsay those words without even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you still, and so is my heart.’

‘I’ll not unsay them. I’ll say them again. You are an inveterately bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I have done with you!’

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a barrier between them, and flung himself upon his heel and left her. She remained impassive on the same spot, silent and motionless, until the striking of the church clock roused her, and she turned away. But then, with the breaking up of her immobility came the breaking up of the waters that the cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And ‘O that I were lying here with the dead!’ and ‘Oh, Charley, Charley, that this should be the end of our pictures in the fire!’ were all the words she said, as she laid her face in her hands on the stone coping. [Book Two, “Birds of a Feather”; Chapter XV, “The Whole Case So Far,” pp. 419-420]

Commentary: Furniss's Atmospheric Depiction of Charley's Rejection of Lizzie

Furniss's lithograph amounts to a dark plate for Book Two, "Birds of a Feather," Chapter XV, “The Whole Case So Far” (facing p. 3417), not merely because of its nocturnal setting, but also because it marks the point at which Charley Hexam's devotion to the schoolmaster results in his rejection of his only sibling. In the original serial sequence of 1864-65, in the tenth monthly part (February 1865), illustrator Marcus Stone realizes the upshot of Charley's unkindness in Lizzie's receiving some solace from Riah later that evening in A Friend in Need in an eerie setting, a city churchyard, suitable for Furniss's emotional a parting of wilful brother and caring sister.

Perhaps his choice must be viewed in the context of the fin de siècle and the rise in middle class sympathy for the working class, but Furniss has realized the evening churchyard scene in which Charley chooses his middle-class mentor, his teacher, over his loyalty to his working class sister. He is so embarrassed by her rejection of Bradley Headstone as a prospective suitor that Charley severs all ties with her. The novel's mid-point illustration comes as a culmination of the chapter’s recounting of the evening on which Charley and Bradley walk eastward to join Lizzie: that the interview is not going to be transpiring as Charley hopes is signalled at the beginning of the chapter: “A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect” (408). From the moment that the trio meet Charley tries to dominate Lizzie by telling her that she must walk out of her way to accommodate their conversation on a side street rather than take the thoroughfare she had planned to use. Lizzie guesses right away from her brother’s manner that he is advancing the schoolmaster as her prospective husband. Out of love for her brother, she tries to be reserved and even kind in rejecting the proposal. The focus of the illustration, however, is not on Headstone’s expressing his obsession with Lizzy, or even his implied threat in mentioning Eugene Wrayburn, whom Bradley rightly views as a rival. By the time that we arrive at Lizzie’s firm rejection of the proposal we come upon the illustration, even though the scene it realizes (Charley’s rejection of his sister) is yet three pages away. But Charley is already furious with Lizzie for rejecting Bradley, so the caption taken with the picture itself leaves us in no doubt that the boy’s “clouded and darkened” (417) face portents the breakup of a life-long relationship. Since Dickens takes pains to graph Charley’s feelings, Furniss’s plate complements the letter-press by foregrounding Lizzie as, almost tottering, she grabs the low wall to support herself as she turns her back on her brother. The scene pictured follows immediately upon Lizzie’s refusing to let her brother tell the schoolmaster that she has changed her mind. The text describes him at this terrible parting as “ungrateful and ungracious” (420), but also indicates that she is transfixed, and that she does not leave the uncongenial spot when Charley does, but is roused from her stupor by the ringing of the church bell to mark the hour. At this point Dickens describes her as emotionally devastated, crying with her chin on the stone coping. Furniss has moved passed that moment to show her merely gripping the coping. Almost immediately, Riah arrives, and comforts the girl, as in Marcus Stone’s atmospheric scene for the serialised number.

The Relevant Illustration in the Original (Serial) Edition (February 1865)

Above: Marcus Stone's atmospheric realisation of the nocturnal interview between Lizzie Hexam and Riah in Book Two, Chapter XV: A Friend in Need (February 1865). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Related Materials

Illustrations by Marcus Stone (40 plates from the Chapman and Hall edition of May 1864 through November 1865)
Frontispieces by Octavius Carr Darley (4 photogravures from the Hurd and Houghton Household Edition of 1872)
Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (16 plates from the Ticknor and Fields' Diamond Edition of 1867)
James Mahoney (58 plates from the Chapman and Hall Household Edition of 1875)
Harry Furniss (28 lithographs from the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Vol. XV, 1910)
Clayton J. Clarke (two studies from his designs for the Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910)

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

The Characters of Charles Dickens Pourtrayed in a Series of Original Water Colour Sketches by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1898[?].

Cordery, Gareth, and Joseph S. Meisel, eds. The Humours of Parliament: Harry Furniss's View of Late-Victorian Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2014. [Review by Françoise Baillet]

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1999.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [40 composite wood-block engravings]. The Authentic Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. 21 vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901 [based on the original nineteen-month serial and the two-volume edition of 1865]. Vol. XIV.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1872. 4 vols.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. VIII.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume IX.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XV.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 21: The Other Novels." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII. 441-442.

Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. London: George Redway, 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2004.

Vann, J. Don. "Our Mutual Friend, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, May 1864—November 1865." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 74.

Created 6 August 2025