"The Bridal," sixth George Cruikshank illustration for Ainsworth's "Rookwood. A Romance" (1834, il. 1836) (original) (raw)

Passage Illustrated

They were at the altar — that wild wedding train. High over head the torch was raised. The red light flashed on bridegroom and on bride, giving to the pale features of each an almost livid look; it fell upon the gaunt aspect of the sexton, and lit up the smile of triumphant malice that played upon his face; it fell upon the fantastical habiliments of Barbara, and upon the haughty but perturbed physiognomy of Mrs. Mowbray; it fell upon the salient points of the Gothic arches; upon one molded pillar; upon the marble image of the virgin Thecla; and on the scarcely less marble countenance of Sybil who stood behind the altar, silent, statue-like, immovable. The effect of light and shade on other parts of the scene, upon the wild drapery, and harsh lineaments of many of the group, was also eminently striking.

Just as the priest was about to commence the marriage service, a yelling chorus, which the gipsies were accustomed to sing at the celebration of the nuptials of one of their own tribe, burst forth. Nothing could be more horribly discordant than their song. . . . .

This uncouth chorus ended, the marriage proceeded. Sybil had disappeared. Had she fled? No! she was by the bride. Eleanor mechanically took her place. A faint voice syllabled the responses. You could scarcely have seen Miss Mowbray's lips move. But the answers were given, and the priest was satisfied.

He took the ring, and sprinkled it once again with the holy water, in the form of the cross. He pronounced the prayer: "Benedic, Domine, annulum hunc, quem nos in tuo nomine benedicimus, ut quæ eum gestaverit, fidelitatem integram suo sponso tenens, in pace et voluntate tua permaneat atque in mutua charitate semper vivat."

He was about to return the ring to Luke, when the torch, held by the knight of Malta, was dashed to the ground by some unseen hand, and instantly extinguished. The wild pageant vanished as suddenly as the figures cast by a magic-lantern upon a wall disappear when the glass is removed. A wild hubbub succeeded. Hoarsely above the clamor arose the voice of Barbara. — Book Three, "The Gipsy," Chapter 11, "The Bridal," pp. 307-308.

Commentary

Other sensational scenes abound in the novel. There is, for example, Luke's wedding, which also takes place in a subterranean vault [like the opening scene in the family crypt]: St. Cyprian's cell, beneath a gypsy hideout, the ruined Davenham Priory. His bride, Eleanor Mowbray, is dazed from the effects of a love potion; Luke has abandoned his gypsy sweetheart, Sybil Lovel, in order to marry her. As the wedding party approaches the altar, the light of the single torch falls on "the ghastly corpse of a female, with streaming hair, at the altar's feet." It is, of course, the body of Luke's mother. This uninvited gueast is removed, and the ceremony proceeds, but not until the gypsies present have sung a wild wedding chorus and the light is inexplicably extinguished. Sybil's grandmother predicts the death of Luke's young wife; but, when light is restored, the bride, with Luke's mother's ring on her finger, is revealed to be Sybil herself. — George Worth, Ch. 4, "The Violent World of Harrison Ainsworth — II. The Gothic Strain," p. 81.

The arched vault, the pillars, the torchlight, the deep shadows, and the wild figures, formed a picture worthy of Rembrandt or Salvator. — Book III, "The Gipsy," Chapter 11, "The Bridal," p. 213 [1878 edition].

Flashing torchlight, shifting shadows, passionate exclamations, and eruptions of choral music all suggest the sensational Gothic atmosphere of Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) (minus the exotic foreign settings of those earlier Gothic novels), and the lurid melodrama of the nineteenth-century theatre. Strictly speaking, such scenes as Luke's wedding emphasize the "romantic" rather than "realistic" nature of Ainsworth's fiction; we are far cry here from the social relevance and contemporary setting of Dickens's The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, dating from the same decade, but much more modern in the issues it addresses as a "novel" rather than a "romance." Perhaps, then, Cruikshank's slightly whimsical treatment of his subject is more consonant with Ainsworth's outlandish text than that of John Gilbert in The Marriage, whose general layout and disposition of figures suggest that the later illustrator had studied Cruikshank's work.

The moment flagged by a previous Cruikshank illustration, Sybil and Barbara Lovel (for which there is no equivalent in Gilbert's program), prepares the reader for some sort of disruption in the marriage ceremony, as Barbara Lovel has already predicted that Eleanor Mowbray may marry Luke, but cannot remain his wife. In the illustration of the wedding ceremony, Luke should seem conflicted about abandoning Sybil, his childhood sweetheart, for the Mowbray heiress — or true love for ambition. The deep solemnity of the occasion in the illustration complements Ainsworth's text effectively, showing the principal figures, Luke and his bride, Eleanor (face obscured), centre; eighty-year-old Barbara Lovel (in Cruikshank wearing the distinctive headgear seen in Sybil and Barbara Lovel and Mrs. Mowbray (wearing a dark dress and a feathered hat, and positioned just to the right of the bride); the nondescript priest, Father Checkley; and, holding aloft the torch, its flame blown left and driven upward to the vault by the draft in the crypt, the Knight of Malta.

Given a place of prominence in both Sir John Gilbert's wood-engraving The Marriage and George Cruikshank's The Bridal, leaning against a pillar in the right-hand margin in vest, jacket, breeches, and striped hose, is the curmudgeonly sexton, Peter Bradley, Luke's grandfather. He is supposed to be smiling (rather than scowling, arms crossed judgmentally, as in both illustrations) because his plan to see that Luke will inherit the Rookwood estates is about to come to fruition as Luke marries his cousin, Eleanor Mowbray, whose mother is a Rookwood. In fact, "Peter Bradley" is the pseudonym for Alan Rookwood (Mrs. Mowbray's uncle, in fact), who is aware (as even Eleanor's mother is not, apparently) that after Sir Piers' death the estate must pass to Eleanor and, by extension, her husband. The whole situation is complicated by a curse on the first bride of a Rookwood, who must die (as Luke's mother did) to make way for a second wife.

Aware of this malignant fate, Barbara Lovel had planned to murder Eleanor so that her granddaughter, Sybil, will become to second Lady Luke Rookwood. The girl thwarts both Alan Rookwood's and Barbara Lovel's ambitions by substituting herself for Elanor at the last moment so that, in the dark, Father Checkley (left in both illustrations) has married her to Luke. The bride whom both Cruikshank and Gilbert depict is Eleanor and not Sybil since the moment realised is prior to the lights being extinguished. Conspicuously absent, then, from both illustrations is the figure of the "alternate" bride, Sybil, or Handassah, the Gypsy girl who will shortly hold the unconscious Eleanor. The most important object in the subterranean chamber, the altar, is not shown, probably because the viewer in each case regards the scene from approximately where the altar would be standing.

Bibliography

"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 28 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.

Carver, Stephen. Ainsworth and Friends: Essays on 19th Century Literature & The Gothic. Accessed 1 November 2016. https://ainsworthandfriends.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/william-harrison-ainsworth-the-life-and-adventures-of-the-lancashire-novelist/

Dickens, Charles. Pilgrim ed. of the Letters of Charles Dickens, Vol. 5 (1847-1849). Ed. Graham Storey and Katherine Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.

Golden, Catherine J. "Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805-1882." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell. New York and London: Garland, 1988. Page 14.

Kelly, Patrick. "William Harrison Ainsworth." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 21, "Victorian Novelists Before 1885," ed. Ira Bruce Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. Pp. 3-9.

Muir, Percy. "Two Colossi — Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank." Victorian Illustrated Books. London: B. T. Batsford, 1971. Pp. 25-58.

Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1978.

Sutherland, John. "Rookwood" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. Pp. 544-545.

Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.

Last modified 19 February 2017