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"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson."
John McLenan
5 May 1860
11.3 cm high by 9.9 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted, p. 275; p. 152 in the 1861 volume.
Twenty-fourth regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson." — staff artist John McLenan's twenty-fourth composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 22, published on 5 May 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; "The Narrative of Eliza Michelson, Housekeeper at Blackwater Park." July 7th," p. 275; p. 152 in the 1861 volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The only circumstance of any importance that happened in the course of the day was the occurrence of another unpleasant meeting between the doctor and the Count.
His lordship, on returning from the station, stepped up into Miss Halcombe’s sitting-room to make his inquiries. I went out from the bedroom to speak to him, Mr. Dawson and Lady Glyde being both with the patient at the time. The Count asked me many questions about the treatment and the symptoms. I informed him that the treatment was of the kind described as “saline,” and that the symptoms, between the attacks of fever, were certainly those of increasing weakness and exhaustion. Just as I was mentioning these last particulars, Mr. Dawson came out from the bedroom.
“Good-morning, sir,” said his lordship, stepping forward in the most urbane manner, and stopping the doctor, with a high-bred resolution impossible to resist, “I greatly fear you find no improvement in the symptoms to-day?”
“I find decided improvement,” answered Mr. Dawson.
“You still persist in your lowering treatment of this case of fever?” continued his lordship. [Part 24: "The Narrative of Eliza Michelson, Housekeeper at Blackwater Park," p. 275; p. 151 in the 1861 volume.]
As a result of her adventures in the rat-infested boat-house, Marian may have contracted typhus fever in Part 17, in which she exhibits the early symptoms of the disease. However, the local physician whom Sir Percival has brought into the house, fails to diagnose Marian's condition until the fever firmly grips her. Fosco has been sparring with Mr. Dawson, as if deliberately attempting to antagonize him in hopes of getting him off the case. How convenient for the plotters if both Laura and Marian were to perish of typhus! McLenan's illustration conveys the mutual antipathy between the amateur and the professional physician.
But even initially, as the uncaptioned headnote vignette makes clear, Dawson has been reluctant to expose Laura to whatever Marian has contracted, and realizes that she is so overwrought by her sister's condition that she will be of little use as a nurse in the sick-chamber. To further upset Dawson, Fosco goes off to London by train and returns with a foreign-trained nurse, Mrs. Rubelle, who will operate under his auspices. Every move that Fosco makes has one objective: to compel the physician to resign.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (26 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 2006.
Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-25.
Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.
Created 19 July 2024