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Passage Illustrated or Referenced in the Final Vignette

‘We are safe here,’ said she. ‘But we must listen for footsteps. I have only five minutes: Lord Mountclere is waiting for me. I mean to leave this place, come what may.’

‘Why?’ said Sol, in astonishment.

‘I cannot tell you — something has occurred. God has got me in his power at last, and is going to scourge me for my bad doings — that’s what it seems like. Sol, listen to me, and do exactly what I say. Go to Anglebury, hire a brougham, bring it on as far as Little Enckworth: you will have to meet me with it at one of the park gates later in the evening — probably the west, at half-past seven. Leave it at the village with the man, come on here on foot, and stay under the trees till just before six: it will then be quite dark, and you must stand under the projecting balustrade a little further on than the door you came in by. I will just step upon the balcony over it, and tell you more exactly than I can now the precise time that I shall be able to slip out, and where the carriage is to be waiting. But it may not be safe to speak on account of his closeness to me — I will hand down a note. I find it is impossible to leave the house by daylight — I am certain to be pursued — he already suspects something. Now I must be going, or he will be here, for he watches my movements because of some accidental words that escaped me.’

‘Berta, I shan’t have anything to do with this,’ said Sol. ‘It is not right!’

‘I am only going to Rouen, to Aunt Charlotte!’ she implored. ‘I want to get to Southampton, to be in time for the midnight steamer. When I am at Rouen I can negotiate with Lord Mountclere the terms on which I will return to him. It is the only chance I have of rooting out a scandal and a disgrace which threatens the beginning of my life here! My letters to him, and his to me, can be forwarded through you or through father, and he will not know where I am. Any woman is justified in adopting such a course to bring her husband to a sense of her dignity. If I don’t go away now, it will end in a permanent separation. If I leave at once, and stipulate that he gets rid of her, we may be reconciled.’ [Chapter XLVII, "Enckworth (continued) — The Anglebury Highway," 617]

Commentary

Hardy generates considerable suspense at the curtain of the tenth and eleventh instalment over the impending marriage of Ethelberta and Lord Mountclere. Only this vignette of a speeding hansom cab seems to complement this textual vein, however. It alludes to speedy departure, as does the final full-page illustration, She Lessened in His Gaze, and Was Soon Out of Sight. Hired and substituted carriages (hansom cabs and broughams) which Christopher and Mountclere arrange suggest escape.

Once she has discovered the existence of the viscount's mistress as the pheasant keeper in the toy cottage on the Enckworth estate, Ethelberta develops a plan to deal with her. However, she does not share the details, and Hardy leaves readers guessing about how she will overcome this rival. The final, full-page illustration opposite the vignette shows Ethelberta managing the reins, and therefore firmly in charge. This final instalment is very much concerned with issues of property, gender, familial relations, and (as articulated by Sol Chickerell) class.

Related Material

• An Introduction to the plates

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Part Two: Du Maurier's Twenty-Two Illustrations for the Cornhill Magazine's Serialisation of Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta, July, 1875-May, 1876." The Thomas Hardy Year Book No. 40: Hardy's Artists by Philip Allingham. Guernsey: Toucan Press, 2012. Pp. 58-66.

Hardy, Thomas. The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters. The Cornhill Magazine. Vol. XXXIII (1876).

Hardy, Thomas. The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters. Intro. Robert Gittings. London: Macmillan, 1975.

Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.

Page, Norman. "Thomas Hardy's Forgotten Illustrators." Bulletin of the New York Public Library 77, 4 (Summer, 1974): 454-463.

Sutherland, John. "The Cornhill Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. P. 150.

Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985.

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