“No buzzing in my head! No Captain to shave tomorrow!” Wood-engraving 11.7 cm high by 11.7 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed, for instalment sixteen in the American serialisation of Wilkie Collins’s No Name in Harper’s Weekly [Vol. VI. — No. 287] Number 16, “The Third Scene — Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth.” Chapter I (page 413; p. 106 in volume), plus an uncaptioned vignette of Captain Wragge, examining a costume (p. 109 in volume): 9.7 cm high by 5.6 cm wide, or 3 ⅞ inches high by 2 ¼ inches wide, vignetted, “Between the Scenes. Chronicle of Events: Preserved in Captain Wragge's Despatch Box. IX. (Chronicle for June),” with text in the volume edition, p. 103. [Instalment No. 16 ends in serial on page 415, at the end of Chapter I.]
Passage Illustrated in the Vignette: Captain Wragge Examines a Theatrical Costume
Three o’clock. — I open these pages again to record a discovery which has taken me entirely by surprise.
After completing the last entry, a circumstance revived in my memory which I had noticed on escorting the ladies this morning to the railway. I then remarked that Miss Vanstone had only taken one of her three boxes with her — and it now occurred to me that a private investigation of the luggage she had left behind might possibly be attended with beneficial results. Having, at certain periods of my life been in the habit of cultivating friendly terms with strange locks, I found no difficulty in establishing myself on a familiar footing with Miss Vanstone’s boxes. One of the two presented nothing to interest me. The other — devoted to the preservation of the costumes, articles of toilet, and other properties used in the dramatic Entertainment — proved to be better worth examining: for it led me straight to the discovery of one of its owner’s secrets.
I found all the dresses in the box complete — with one remarkable exception. That exception was the dress of the old north-country lady; the character which I have already mentioned as the best of all my pupil’s disguises, and as modeled in voice and manner on her old governess, Miss Garth. The wig; the eyebrows; the bonnet and veil; the cloak, padded inside to disfigure her back and shoulders; the paints and cosmetics used to age her face and alter her complexion — were all gone. Nothing but the gown remained; a gaudily-flowered silk, useful enough for dramatic purposes, but too extravagant in color and pattern to bear inspection by daylight. The other parts of the dress are sufficiently quiet to pass muster; the bonnet and veil are only old-fashioned, and the cloak is of a sober gray color. But one plain inference can be drawn from such a discovery as this. As certainly as I sit here, she is going to open the campaign against Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount in a character which neither of those two persons can have any possible reason for suspecting at the outset—the character of Miss Garth.
What course am I to take under these circumstances? [“Between the Scenes. Chronicle of Events: Preserved in Captain Wragge’s Despatch Box. IX. (Chronicle for June),” p. 413; in the volume edition, p. 103].
Passage Illustrated in the Main Plate: Mrs. Wragge is Elated about Relief from Marital Duties
Mrs. Wragge was seated at the table absorbed in the arrangement of a series of smart circulars and tempting price-lists, issued by advertising trades-people, and flung in at the cab-windows as they left the London terminus. “I’ve often heard tell of light reading,” said Mrs. Wragge, restlessly shifting the positions of the circulars as a child restlessly shifts the position of a new set of toys. “Here’s light reading, printed in pretty colors. Here’s all the Things I’m going to buy when I’m out shopping to-morrow. Lend us a pencil, please — you won’t be angry, will you? I do so want to mark ’em off.” She looked up at Magdalen, chuckled joyfully over her own altered circumstances, and beat her great hands on the table in irrepressible delight. “No cookery-book!” cried Mrs. Wragge. “No Buzzing in my head! no captain to shave to-morrow! I’m all down at heel; my cap’s on one side; and nobody bawls at me. My heart alive, here is a holiday and no mistake!” Her hands began to drum on the table louder than ever, until Magdalen quieted them by presenting her with a pencil. Mrs. Wragge instantly recovered her dignity, squared her elbows on the table, and plunged into imaginary shopping for the rest of the evening. [“The Third Scene — Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth.” Chapter I (page 413; p. 105 in volume).
Commentary: The Devious Captain Wragge Backs Both Magdalen and Noel Vanstone
Despite the continuation of the character comedy with the whimsical figure of the mentally scattered Mrs. Wragge and the vignette study of Wragge's inspecting Magdalen's wardrobe, the weekly illustrations continue to focus on the plight of the wronged heiress. Her presence is merely implied by her clothing in the vignette, but she shares the frame in the main illustration with the focal character; we note that the depth of Magdalen's genuine emotion contrasts the superficial elation of the Captain's wife. She is overjoyed at the prospect of accompanying Magdalen up to London, and of not having to dance her usual attendance on her husband, who remains behind at Nottingham.
Since Wragge in checking Magdalen’s luggage, left behind, finds that she has taken up to London with her “the dress of the old north-country lady,” as well as appropriate stage makeup and wigs, he concludes that she intends to disguise herself as her old governess, Miss Garth. With her, too, as the main illustration suggests, she has taken Mrs. Wragge so that she will be able to take rooms near Noel Vanstone’s Vauxhall Walk residence without arousing undue suspicion. Intent upon using this knowledge to his advantage, the Captain writes to Noel Vanstone, implying that he is in danger and that he, Wragge, is prepared to advise him more particularly about “the conspiracy,” if he responds with adequate remuneration to “An Unknown Friend” advertisement in The Times.
Related Material
- Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins’s No Name (1864) by John Everett Millais
- Victorian Paratextuality: Pictorial Frontispieces and Pictorial Title-Pages
- Wilkie Collins's No Name (1862): Charles Dickens, Sheridan's The Rivals, and the Lost Franklin Expedition
- "The Law of Abduction": Marriage and Divorce in Victorian Sensation and Mission Novels
- Gordon Thomson's A Poser from Fun (5 April 1862)
- Kate Egan's Playthings to Men: Women, Power, and Money in Gaskell and Trollope
- Philip V. Allingham, The Victorian Sensation Novel, 1860-1880 — "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment"
Image scans and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Blain, Virginia. “Introduction” and “Explanatory Notes” to Wilkie Collins's No Name. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
