Connotations 18.1-3 (2008/2009)

52
PHILIPP ERCHINGER
Blackwater Park. “The morning,” on this occasion, as we are told,
“was windy and cloudy; and the rapid alternations of shadow and
sunlight over the waste of the lake, made the view look doubly wild
and weird and gloomy” (208). We may debate whether it is the
otherwordliness of the scenery or his villainous personality that
makes Sir Percival utter the remark that immediately follows this
description, but his utterance should certainly be quoted in context
and at length:
“Some people call that picturesque,” said Sir Percival, pointing over the
wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. “I call it a blot on a gentleman’s
property. In my great-grandfather’s time the lake flowed to this
place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles
and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it and plant it all over. My bailiff (a
superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the
Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder,
doesn’t it?” (208)
Even given that, at this point of the text, we are already in a good
position to anticipate that Sir Percival will sooner or later turn out to
be a most insidious rogue, this remains a fairly puzzling statement
because it is almost impossible to tell what should have motivated his
claim that the lake “looks just the place for a murder.” We could, of
course, ascribe Percival’s question to some recently formed murderous
intention on his part, which he decides to discuss with Fosco at
this point. But it remains unclear why of all places it should be “just”
this poor remnant of a lake, “all puddles and pools,” that strikes him
as a suitable scene for a murder, especially because, with its “wide
prospect,” it seems to be fully exposed. Closer to Percival’s meaning
perhaps, we could also read his question as a rhetorical one, mockseriously
enlarging on the superstitiousness of his bailiff in order to
frighten the ladies or enhance the “wild and weird” gloominess of the
possibly bewitched scenery. But this would equally leave us in some
doubt as to how exactly the place and its atmosphere relate to Percival’s
hidden plans or the plot as a whole. Either way there seems to be
something offhanded and undecided about the whole statement,