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Blind Love, 1889 (published 1890)
Bookworms who explore Collins' late novels with high expectations based on Armadale, The Moonstone, and The Woman in White are usually disappointed. The later books are often perfunctory, mediocre in style and storyline, and devised to make a controversial (for the times) point on social issues and attitudes no longer current, of interest mainly to those engaged in period studies. With the possible exception of The Black Robe (1881), the majority of modern Collins fans can safely cut short their reading list upon reaching 1870 (Man and Wife). With Poor Miss Finch (1872) we are already in murky waters, at least in this reader's arbitrary opinion.
That said, Blind Love is of far higher quality than one might expect. Collins died in 1889 and this last novel, already undergoing serial publication, was completed by Sir Walter Besant on the basis of Collins' detailed outline, notes, and fragments. We can dispense with any attempt to distinguish Besant's hand from Collins'; no ordinary reader could possibly care and it's enough to say that Besant made a competent job of it. Here Collins returns to complex plotting and the commission of an intricate crime, as in his famous earlier works. The story is lively and full of incident--never a dull moment, in fact, if you can overlook the improbability of most of what goes on.
A young lady named Iris Henley is at odds with her father because she refuses to marry her persistent admirer Hugh Mountjoy, a sincere and serious gentleman who would make her an appropriate husband. Iris regards Hugh as a staunch friend, but her affections have already been engaged by the scapegrace younger son of an Irish noble family, Lord Harry Norland, whose reputation deservedly leaves much to be desired. Having led a disorderly and wandering life marked by far more downs than ups, Harry has already run through his fortune, exasperated his family, and exhausted his expectations. Iris' stern father will never relent and sanction a marriage to the notoriously undependable Irishman; fully cognizant of everyone's reasonable objections to him, Iris herself has agreed to sever the relationship, but cannot tear Harry from her heart. Although the conventions of the period forbid overt exploration of the subject, it seems evident that Iris is the victim of an ungovernable physical attraction; in Harry's absence she is often lucid and critical, but in his presence she is always overwhelmed, rashly prepared to forgive all, bent on achieving his redemption through the force of her "blind love." The first third of the novel deals with Iris' helpless struggle against her own feelings when circumstances (occasionally abetted by Lord Harry) bring her into repeated contact with him. The unlikely means by which the author forcibly contrives these meetings in order to hurry the plot along, and their feverishly melodramatic content, will strike today's reader as more humorous than anything else, but they are grand fun to read once disbelief is suspended.
The reader must also turn a benign eye on Collins' bizarre attempts to explain Harry's character in terms of his nationality, as in passages like: "As these fierce words escaped him, he was no longer the gentle, joyous creature whom Iris had known and loved. The furious passions of the Celtic race glittered savagely in his eyes...." Collins goes so far as to propose a comparison between Saxon and Celt in an explicitly titled chapter where, during a gripping scene between Hugh Mountjoy and Lord Harry, the gentlemanly Saxon is deliberately shown maintaining his well-bred composure, reserve, and good manners in the face of the Irishman's blunt, undisciplined, and unrestrained conversation. Collins' favourite epithet for Harry, repeated throughout the novel, is "the Wild Lord."
Harry's flaws are not the usual hackneyed vices (a taste for strong drink, ladies of dubious virtue, and/or reckless gambling) that Victorian novelists customarily fasten on gentlemen whose character needs to be presented as disreputable. Lord Harry's failing is interestingly original in the context of Victorian fiction and has nothing to do with a quest for sensation and self-gratification. He has knocked around the world too much, frequented too many adventurers and men on the make, had recourse to too many expedients in a tight pinch. Thereby his principles have become elastic, his values uncertain. Not unscrupulous himself, he yet finds it easy to kick his scruples aside. He has a volatile, emotional, short-sighted personality and is prone to acting with no thought for the consequences. We observe him, as the member of a secret Irish political society which tolerates no back-sliding, carelessly seek to betray his fellows in order to save the life of an English friend. Unable to prevent the assassination, he impulsively determines to avenge it and hies off to South Africa on the heels of the murderer. Unsuccessful in carrying out his revenge, he drifts back to England. No money, no Iris, no vengeance--things look black, so he decides to commit suicide and ineptly cuts his throat. Iris happens by in the nick of time and Lord Harry is saved by the ministrations of his shady associate, Doctor Vimpany. At this point Iris begins to believe fate must be taking a hand in her life; she is destined to be with Harry, to salvage his inherently good qualities, and all further resistance is useless. To the dismay of her family and friends, she defiantly marries him and the newly-weds decamp to Paris.
It is in the central portion of the novel that Collins finally marshals the story-telling powers a century of fascinated readers have justly admired. His study of the marriage is masterly, digging subtly beneath its blissful surface to chronicle Harry's instinctive jealousy of Iris' steadfast friend Hugh, the genesis of Iris' first misgivings and her aversion to the callous and cunning Doctor Vimpany, and the tensions produced by the constant lack of sufficient funds. Then, as Harry's finances approach the point of no return, Collins introduces the compelling narration of Vimpany's complicated scheme to retrieve the situation, detailing how Harry is won over, how Iris is gotten momentarily out of the way to allow the conspirators freedom to maneuver, and how the spying servant Fanny Mere uncomprehendingly witnesses the actual crime that the two commit.
When Iris returns unexpectedly, unaware of what has taken place, she finds Harry moody and restless. And when he says he will take her into his confidence, she cannot help but respond. Iris is still so passionately loyal, so anxious to aid and support her husband, that she allows him to draw her into the insurance fraud he is now seeking to implement and shies away from trying to dismantle his specious justifications: they are not really stealing, he reassures her; it is money that belongs to them by right; they are only collecting it a little early, that's all. And the need for money is pressing. Yet Iris knows it is wrong. After cooperating with Harry, her conscience refuses to sleep. With every passing day she grows more embittered and despairing, heaping blame on her own weakness and perceiving with horror that, far from being a positive influence on her husband, she has simply let her unconditional love for him drag her down to his level, to the final loss of her self-respect, just as Hugh Mountjoy once warned her might happen. Nor is Harry too insensitive to understand the irreparable damage he has done to his wife and to their marriage. This is no longer a situation where he can express repentence and a fresh resolution to reform, be lovingly forgiven, and continue blithely as before.
The Norland household is one of gloom and incommunicative silences by the time Harry finally rebels. This is intolerable, he tells Iris. We have to stop it. What's done is done and we must go on from here--which, as Iris has by now understood, is the whole philosophy of her husband's life. He proposes that they turn over a new leaf, emigrate to America with their ill-gotten capital, start all over again, and in time forget the past. Iris listlessly agrees, but just as they begin preparations for the voyage a revelatory letter arrives from Fanny Mere and Iris learns at last that the true crime Harry has acquiesced to is that of murder.
The closing of Blind Love is rapid and uninspired, merely a trundling of the villains offstage. Iris, of course, leaves Harry for good and restores what she can of their illicit gains. The Wild Lord has to be removed before she can marry Hugh; hence Collins has Harry disgorge the rest of the loot and, in expiation for his sins, deliberately expose himself to the death-penalty imposed by his Irish political society for treachery. Vimpany is briskly ushered to his eternal merits by a natural calamity just as he is mounting an ill-advised attempt to blackmail Hugh and Iris. So the novel ends, with Iris subdued and shamed, slowly winning her way back to a normal life with Hugh's devoted support.
Although the character traits and personal histories are markedly different, the narrative functions of the principal personages in Blind Love are much the same as those required by Collins' far superior novel The Woman in White : Hugh stands in for the long-suffering, patient, tenacious Hartright; Vimpany for the devious Count Fosco; Lord Harry for Sir Percival Glyde; Iris for Laura, although less of an innocent victim; and Fanny Mere for Marian Halcombe. It was all done better in The Woman in White, but Blind Love is still well worth the reader's time.
© Wordreign, July 1999
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