Wilkie Collins and women

I have neglected the historical studies lately. The reason is that, after having finished reading the satisfactory Jude Morgan regency romance "A Little Folly" (he really is just as good as Heyer, if not better, though the Austenesque moral message grates a bit - less painful self-revelation for the heroine, please!) I started yet another Wilkie Collins novel. I've read quite a lot of them by now and am constantly surprised at how good they are, even the unknown ones. The only one who has really disappointed me is, strangely enough, "The Moonstone". Whenever I've had problems with some aspects of the other books - the time it takes for the author to set the scene for the really thrilling plot in "Armadale" (though the pre-history is dramatic, it reads a little like a summary of a serialised novel in a women's magazine: you almost expect it to end with the words "now read on"), the disappointing ending of "The Law and the Lady", the seriously irritating lawyer-hero Sir Patrick in "Man and Wife" - I've always ended up thinking: "come on, it's still good, and way better than 'The Moonstone'".

I may have a good moan about "The Moonstone" at a later date, but for now I'd like to dwell on one of the things Collins does really well, and that is female characters. The novel I'm reading right now is "Poor Miss Finch", and though the titular heroine Lucilla Finch is charming enough, though a little missish, the most likeable female in the book is the strong-minded, honest, opinionated, loyal and affectionate Madame Pratolungo, her companion, who is the novel's chief narrator.

Like so many of Collins's admirable women, Madame Pratolungo is a "doer". She engages herself wholeheartedly for the welfare of Lucilla and shows endless initiative. She doesn't mince words either. When Lucilla's love Oscar acts like a poor fish (which one can't help thinking that he is, even though Madame Pratolungo has reason to revise her bad opinion of him as the story unfolds) she gives him an earful. When Oscar's twin brother Nugent starts to get uppity, she gives him an earful. Not that these earfuls help a lot, because the brothers are both in their separate ways pig-headed, but you love Madame Pratolungo for trying. In a way, she is a good version of the impressive female baddie Mrs Lecount in "No Name": they are both resourceful French widows, often reduced to bullying the weak-willed menfolk around them, and they both love and revere their late husbands. Madame Pratolungo memorably remarks regarding the aversion Lucilla (who is blind) has to dark colours and complexions: "This singular prejudice of hers against dark people was a little annoying to me on personal grounds [...] Between ourselves, the late Doctor Pratolungo was of a fine mahogany brown all over."

It is strange that Collins, who created characters like Marian Halcombe in "The Woman in White", Lydia Gwilt in "Armadale", Valeria Woodville in "The Law and the Lady", the two aforementioned French widows and many other fine female characters often speaks so slightingly and patronisingly about women in general. Granted, it is his characters who speak and not he personally, but you have the feeling you are supposed to agree when, for instance, Sir Patrick muses on the female sex and its weaknesses. But I suppose, as a woman, you have to take the rough with the smooth.

The disability lobby must feel equally ambivalent about Wilkie Collins's outlook. On one side, he includes a large number of characters with one handicap or another in his novels and enters feelingly into their situation. On the other hand, these characters are no better or worse than the others, and their particular disability is shamelessly milked for dramatic effect. The novella "The Guilty River" is a case in point: the baddie in this story is deaf, and he is not able to become a better person until his deafness has been cured. At the same time, the story contains a harrowing account of how his condition separates him from his fellow men. I rather like this - horrible word - unsentimental approach. It must surely be a "right" worth having to be depicted as a flawed or downright villainous character in a novel - they are so much more interesting than butter-wouldn't-melt goodies. But then you're talking to the girl whose favourite fictional blind character is Pew in "Treasure Island".