Armadale (125 page)

His memory served him better, when he reached the ground floor. He locked the hall door, and put the key in his pocket. ‘Now', thought the doctor, as he returned to the room in which Allan and Midwinter were waiting for him; ‘I have got them all three safe in the house; and out of it they won't get till whatever this night may bring forth.'

6
. ‘
Tired nature's sweet restorer
,
balmy sleep
.' The opening line of Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1742–5).

7
.
Even my wickedness… I have never been a happy woman
. This pious sentiment was chosen by Collins as the novel's epigraph – to deflect moral criticism of the novel, presumably.

1
.
each other
. The manuscript continues with the following crossed-out passage:

SECOND POSTSCRIPT
(Dec. 22nd.)

Mr Armadale's letter has just come. It contains, as I thought it would, news of his friend. The doctors have decided that change is the only remedy that Mr Midwinter now wants, and that a sea voyage (if he can be prevailed on to take it) is the best form in which change can come to him. He is ready and willing to follow their advice, and in a week's time he will probably have sailed from London. ‘I have only allowed him to go without me' (Mr Armadale adds) ‘on two conditions, with which he has
promised me to comply. He is to be back for my marriage and he is to consider my wife his sister and my house his home from that time forth. I am to see him on his voyage as far as the Downs; and then the Major is to have his daughter back at Thorpe-Ambrose, and we are all three to be very busy settling matters for the future at the great house.' There, for the present, ends Mr Armadale's news, [a black line]

1
.
all suffocated by sleeping in poisoned air
. Altick quotes the relevant item in
The Times
, 30 November 1865:

POISONOUS GAS – At the Liverpool Coroner's Court yesterday an inquiry was held touching the deaths of three men who were suffocated within a few days of each other while acting as shipkeepers on board the ship
Armadale
lying in the Huskisson Dock. Dr Trench, medical officer of health, and Mrs Ayrton gave evidence to the effect that death had been caused by inhalation of carbonic acid gas, which, in consequence of the prevailing high winds, had been forced back into the deckhouse where the men slept, and where they had kindled fires. The jury returned a verdict ‘That death resulted from suffocation caused by defective ventilation.'

Although Collins claims that he had the ending ‘sketched in his notebook' years before, Altick suspects that the novelist may have been influenced by the news item to invent the finer chemical details of Miss Gwilt's ingenious murder technique (Altick pp.
86
–7). It seems likely, too, that Collins was misled by a scientific error in The Times report. It is clear that the men on the
Armadale
were suffocated by the build-up of carbon monoxide from a fire in their bunkroom on board the ship. (This is still a hazard with such things as indoor barbeques.) ‘Carbonic acid' seems to have been included in the report by mistake. Dissolving small amounts of limestone in carbonic acid (which is what Collins has in mind with Miss Gwilt's fiendish purple flask, apparently) would produce small amounts of carbon-dioxide. In very confined chambers this could have a narcotic, or even a fatal effect – but not in an area as large as a bedroom. A scientist tells me it would be like trying to poison someone with the emissions from a fizzing coke can. Lydia would need vast amounts of acid and huge chunks of limestone and a very sophisticated pumping mechanism. It seems that Collins was misled by this report in
The Times
into thinking that his carbonic acid idea was scientifically plausible.

2
.
the kindness of a friend
. Catherine Peters guesses that the friend was Francis Carr Beard.

Collins was very interested in drama and the dramatization of his fiction in the late 1850s and early 1860s. With Dickens he had performed in successful amateur theatricals, and had written plays such as
The Lighthouse
(1855) and
The Frozen Deep
(1857).
¹
(Both had exciting scenes at sea which may have inspired the wrecked ship episode, and the later reappearance of
La Grace de Dieu, in Armadale
.) In May 1866 (the month that
Armadale
was printed in volume form)
The Frozen Deep
was accepted for the London commercial stage.
²
Collins had written an essay for
Household Words
in 1858, ‘Dramatic Grub Street', noting the fact that ‘in France, the most eminent imaginative writers work, as a matter of course, for the stage as well as for the literary table'. In Britain, however, as Collins observed, the dramatist-novelist was not honoured. Collins and Charles Reade (and to a lesser extent Dickens and Bulwer Lytton) set out to remedy the situation by writing original plays, and by adapting their own work for the theatre.

The title page of the volume edition of
Armadale
declared that ‘Rights of Translation and Dramatic Adaptation are Reserved'. In order to protect his property from the pirates, Collins dashed off a dramatized version of
Armadale
as soon as he had finished the last number. George Smith undertook to have it printed, so it could be registered at Stationers' Hall for copyright purposes. Collins sent proofs of Acts One and Two and the manuscript of Act Three of his dramatized
Armadale
to Smith on 14 June 1866. He intimated at this point that the play would be in four acts, although he evidently later changed his mind. The printed work was entitled
‘Armadale
: a Drama in Three Acts'. As Collins told Smith, ‘It has been a much harder task to turn the book into a play than I anticipated'.
³

The action of the play is set in ‘our own time' (unlike the novel, which is antedated to 1851). There is a severely curtailed dramatis personae: Allan Armadale, Ozias Midwinter, Dr Downward, Felix Bashwood, Lydia Gwilt, Miss Milroy and Mrs Oldershaw are the principal characters. The first act opens in a wooded glade in the park of Thorpe-Ambrose. In the background is a ‘fancy fair' to raise funds for the local infirmary (an episode which Collins largely dropped from the novel). The infirmary aspect explains the presence, at this early stage, of Dr Downward. He and Mrs Oldershaw are really at Thorpe-Ambrose, however, to meet Miss Gwilt and conspire together to set a marriage trap for the new squire, Allan Armadale. Oldershaw has bills of Lydia's with which she blackmails her, and Downward wants money for his sanatorium. The
play has a very cumbersome exposition with unnaturally long asides to the audience. Gwilt, it emerges, hates Allan Armadale ‘because he is his mother's son'. At the age of twelve (as in the novel) she was forced to commit forgery by Allan's father. In another part of the park, the lovers Allan and Neelie Milroy play out their ‘Blackstone' scene, in which they plan their elopement. The arrangement for Allan to go to London is overheard by Lydia. The first act ends with Ozias discovering Miss Gwilt onstage and confessing ‘I love you'. With this in mind, Lydia hatches her plot: to start the rumour she has eloped with Allan Armadale, and to marry Ozias (in his true name).

The second act finds Miss Gwilt at home in her London lodgings. Once more, Oldershaw and Downward are in attendance. The false marriage between Ozias and Lydia has taken place and Allan has been ‘killed' at sea. Lydia is masquerading as his widow. But Allan returns. Downward (borrowing one of the more dramatic scenes in the novel) kills a fly to intimate to Lydia what must now be done. On this cue, she hatches the murder plot. Ozias enters, only to be denied by Lydia, with the melodramatic line: ‘I am
not
your wife.'

The third act takes place in Downward's sanatorium. It includes such episodes from the novel as the visitors' tour and the ruse to lure Allan into staying overnight on the grounds that Neelie is being treated there. As in the novel, Ozias and Allan exchange rooms, putting Ozias in the ominous Room Four. The act is dominated by a long, Lady Macbeth-like soliloquy by Lydia, in which she reflects ‘How people would cry Fie upon the truth if I was put into a novel or a play.' The play ends with her farewell ‘Good by, good by for ever' after which she enters the deadly bedchamber. The police break the door down and arrest Downward.

Smith obligingly printed twenty-five copies of
Armadale
the play. Collins sent one copy to Dickens, who replied with his opinion on 10 July 1866. While generally favourable, he pointed out how ‘dangerous' the character of Gwilt was: ‘I do not think any English audience would accept the scene in which Miss Gwilt in that widow's dress renounces Midwinter',
⁴
he warned his friend. In the context of the savage reviews the novel received on the grounds of its immorality, Collins seems to have decided against trying to stage the play. Writing to an acquaintance some years later (24 February 1880) he recalled that ‘My first attempt to adapt
Armadale
for performance… was [not] found suitable for this purpose and it has never been, and never can be, performed upon the stage.'
⁵
He evidently accepted that it was too immoral for Victorian England.

Armadale
the play was a failure, but not a dead end. As Catherine Peters records, a French adaptation was made in 1867, in collaboration with Collins's friend François Régnier. Part of this version survives in manuscript. Although it was not, apparently, staged in Paris Collins was very hopeful that something would come of it. ‘I am at work on the “dramatic”
Armadale
‘ he wrote (presumably in 1867), ‘and I will take John Bull by the scruff of the neck, and force him into the theatre to see it – before or after it has been played in French, I don't know which – but into the theatre John Bull shall go'.
⁶

It was to be a few years before John Bull saw the play. In 1875, Collins
produced a third dramatic version of his story, now entitled
Miss Gwilt
. This was essentially an Englishing of the text produced with Regnier. It now had a five-act structure, shorter speeches, more stage action and more melodramatic emphasis. A production was mounted in Liverpool, for which Collins worked in the theatre with the cast. The play was now described as ‘altered from the Novel of
Armadale
'. There survives in the Huntington Library a printed prompt copy with Collins's manuscript additions and corrections, which apparently date from a subsequent staging in 1877.
⁷
The play now has a slightly enlarged dramatis personae, giving a large role to Major Milroy (in the play a straightforward Victorian paterfamilias, not the monomaniac zany we encounter in the novel). Captain Manuel figures as a seductive villain (although Collins carefully does not make him a bigamist). Darch (played in Liverpool by Arthur Pinero, later a more famous dramatist than Collins) was also given a largish part in this new version of the plot. Mrs Oldershaw, however, was removed entirely. The action again opens in Thorpe-Ambrose park. Miss Milroy and her father are talking about their new governess. ‘Is she a young woman,' Neelie asks; ‘Yes,' answers Major Milroy (Lydia's age is indeed reduced from the thirty-five years that figures so prominently in the novel). Allan Armadale has just arrived as the new squire and their landlord. By a complicated twist of the plot, Ozias has earlier saved Miss Gwilt from drowning, and Downward has been involved as the physician called in after the episode. During the public welcome of Allan Armadale at Thorpe-Ambrose Ozias learns for the first time that he is the other Allan Armadale. This bombshell (in the form of his dead father's letter) is followed by the dramatic entrance of Miss Gwilt, which climaxes the act.

Act Two is set at the ‘fishing house' of Thorpe-Ambrose. Miss Gwilt (more demure than in previous depictions) is engaged painting landscape. She is adored by her pupil, Neelie. Miss Gwilt has also entranced Allan Armadale and Ozias and Major Milroy. Ozias knows some guilty secrets in Miss Gwilt's past but has kept his knowledge secret for love. Lydia's mother, it emerges, was the cause of a fatal quarrel between the fathers of Allan Armadale and Ozias (this is a significant change from the novel). Meanwhile, Downward faces ruin if he cannot get Allan Armadale's money in three months. Enter Captain Manuel of the Brazilian Navy who will be Downward's tool. Allan and Miss Milroy declare their love. The Major banishes the young man for one year, to test his constancy. He rushes off to Cowes, to voyage round the world in his yacht. Downward now sees his opportunity: ‘Armadale goes to the Mediterranean; and Midwinter marries Miss Gwilt; the three meet abroad, and Armadale dies!'

In pursuance of this scheme Downward, who owns a newspaper, sends Ozias to Naples. Ozias, meanwhile, has proposed marriage to Miss Gwilt (who has resigned her post at Thorpe-Ambrose). Downward is the only witness at the wedding. Miss Gwilt (or Mrs Midwinter, she now is) upbraids Downward: ‘you have forced me into marrying him'. The way is open for Downward to conspire with Manuel to do away with Allan at sea.

Act Three opens in Naples, at the Midwinters' lodgings, six weeks later. Allan Armadale is in yachting gear. Lydia hates him, because she suspects Ozias loves
him more than he does her. Manuel has ingratiated himself into the post of Allan's sailing master. Manuel and Lydia, it emerges, have been lovers in the past. He is now dying of consumption, and desperate. Midwinter unexpectedly goes off to sea with Allan. Lydia, who knows of Downward's plot, tearfully realizes that her husband (whom she now loves) has gone off to certain death. The fourth act moves to Lydia's lodgings in London. Allan Armadale and Ozias have drowned and the whole crew of the yacht are presumed lost with them. Downward persuades Lydia to personate Allan Armadale's widow, and thus inherit Thorpe-Ambrose and all its wealth. Lydia is attracted by ‘the splendid wickedness of it'. At this point, Ozias and Allan Armadale return. They have not drowned after all (although Ozias has discovered about Lydia's earlier relationship with Manuel – who
has
drowned). In the face of their return, Downward plans the sanatorium murder.