Mary Reilly (25 page)

Then Mr. Utterson found a letter and a package of pages bound up, which was directed to him in Master’s own hand. He told Mr. Poole he meant to take them away to study and that we was all to wait in the house, calling no one until a way to clear Master’s name of any wrongdoing should reveal itself to Mr. Utterson.

So Mr. Poole come in and told us what they had found, though as he said, he could scarce believe his own eyes nor make any sense on it, but must have a hope that Mr. Utterson will return before morning and show us the way out of this mystery.

And that was all we knew, nor could we go out to the cabinet to see for ourselves but must make a show of eating dinner and clearing up. Annie and I went up to bed before the others, for I felt so anxious I wanted to lie in my bed and think what it all might mean. Then we lay down together and she said, “Where could our master have hid himself?” but before she’d puzzled out one answer she drifted off to sleep.

I thought I would not sleep but lay staring into the darkness, thinking of how I might find Master or he might send for me, for I could not believe he was lost to me. But somehow I did go to sleep and when I woke up it was a few moments before I knew what I was listening for, though the house was quiet all round me, and that was Master’s step.

Of course he did not come.

Then I thought of Edward Hyde, or of his body, which lay still in the cabinet where he could harm no one, and as I thought of him I rubbed my shoulder which still is tender to me, though there was no marks upon it, and I seemed to hear his harsh voice in the dark room, saying he might as well dig a grave and lay himself in it, so I thought, that is just what he has done, for he feared the sure steps to the gallows more than death itself.

Yet I could scarce believe it. Such a man does not take his own life, but howls for mercy once he knows he can only expect to die if he calls for justice, and fights for his life to the last moment.

A strange fear come to me, so strong that I sat up in the bed holding the cover to my chest and that was this, he is not dead. I seemed to hear his footsteps, that light, halting way he has, pacing back and forth, as Mr. Poole said he did before they broke open the door, back and forth in my own head until I could bear it no longer and got out of the bed.

I must see for myself, I thought, but how was I to do it, for Mr. Poole would be waiting up for Mr. Utterson’s return, so I must get past him to get the key to the theatre, and then I would run the risk that they might come out behind me. Still, I thought, it could be done, for Mr. Poole would be in the front hall so I had only to get down the back stairs past the ground floor and if I moved quietly in the kitchen he would not be likely to hear me. I pulled my cloak over my shift and
went out onto the landing, listening for any sound that might give me away. I made my way down the stairs one at a time, pausing every step and scarce breathing, for it seemed my own breath was loud in my ears. I could see little but my own bare foot as I looked down, and I remembered the night Master had smiled to see I went about the house without my boots. Pray, I thought, he may smile to see this foot again.

In this way I arrived at the kitchen, where everything was quiet and orderly and I knew my way so well I did not need a light. I stopped at the pantry and took the key to the theatre from the nail, then slipped out the back door to the yard.

It was a clear, cold, windy night and overhead there was a few thin clouds moving along swiftly as if they was being drawn across the sky on a string. My hair blew wild about my face, so I had to be constantly pushing it away from my eyes with one hand while with my other I held my cloak in close about me. The flags was like ice against my feet and I stepped lightly upon them, hurrying past the garden where I noted the tips of the bulbs have broken through the soil. I did not pause but struggled on against the wind to the theatre door where, with some difficulty, I got the key in the lock. The wind caught the door and threw it open with such force it nearly knocked me down, but I clung to it and pulled myself inside, hauling the door back in with me. Then I could not hear the wind and it seemed the whole world had suddenly gone very still and black. I did not move but something moved inside me and that was a stab of
fear, sudden and deep, like a flash of light. I could make out the staircase across the theatre, rising up into a blackness deeper than the one in which I stood. And if I climb those stairs, I thought, and light the lamp, if I look on his dead body, if I touch him and know he is cold and truly gone and Master must be safe somehow, then will this fear be laid to rest?

And strange to say it come to me that I was more afraid to look on Edward Hyde dead than I was to see him alive. So I reasoned with myself, you have come this far, you must see it through, and I took a step forward, and then another, halting at each one, my ears straining for a sound, my eyes for any movement in the room, and as I drew closer to the staircase it seemed my heart was pressed so tight against my chest I could not get my breath. I clutched the rail and dragged myself up a few steps, thinking of how Master looked that night he come down to speak to me, which was the last time I saw him, so weak and his manner so strange. If only, I thought, the door would open and he would come out to me now. But in a moment I knew that was not possible for I found the door and it could never be opened properly again. Mr. Poole told Cook he had hacked it open with an axe while Edward Hyde cried out for mercy on the other side, so I had imagined the lock giving way, but the hinges had come free as well and the panel was split in two.

They had propped the wreck of it up against the doorway, only to cover the space a little, for it was easy enough to slip past it on one side, so it served no use
in keeping anyone in nor out. I pressed against the wall, pulling my cloak in tight around me. I could see nothing ahead of me, for the curtains was drawn so even the dim light of the moon could not get in, and I shuddered as I took the first step, fearing my bare foot might find his body before my hands could find the lamp. So I crouched down and made my way with my hands outstretched, feeling the carpet before me. I come to the back of the chair before the fireplace and groped my way around it to the tiles where I felt along the edge to the matchbox. I took out a few and set at once to striking one against the grate, but my hands was shaking so bad I only wore off the tip of the first one. The blackness seemed to press in tight all about me and I looked and looked to see through it, so that I began to see spots of colour swirling about, while I struck the second match once, then again, full of panic and thinking, when it lit, would I find I was looking down into his dead eyes? On the third try it took and I breathed a great sigh of relief, cupping my hand round the little flame and standing up at once to bring it to the lamp. No sooner was I up than I felt a movement at my shoulder, so that I gasped, whirling around where I stood, for he was standing just behind me. But it was my own reflection I found gazing back at me, open-mouthed, from the cheval glass, my hair standing out wild around my face, my eyes filled with terror while the match flared a little, then faded. As quick as I could I took a new one and lit it from the other. Still, my hands was shaking so bad and my palms had gone damp, so it was all I could do to bring the two
sticks together. Then I held my hand up to find the lamp, which stood on the table nearby, the wick neatly trimmed and the glass as clean as if I’d done it myself. I used another match to get to it, then with what relief I saw the wick take the flame and a rosy glow come up all around me. Now the sitting room came to life before me and I saw it had been left in perfect order, even to the tea things laid out neatly on the sideboard, and there was no sign of anyone living or dead upon the carpet. So I knew he must be in the part of the room where the laboratory table was, which was behind me. I turned in my place very slow, trying somehow to brace myself against what must leap out at my eyes.

There was the table, littered with strange bottles and glasses, some with coloured liquid standing in them still, as if Master had just stepped away from an experiment a moment ago. I held the lamp up so that I might see farther, but my own shadow fell across the table and quenched the ugly glimmering of the bottles there. Then I seemed to hear Master say, If we cast our shadows, are they not always part of us?

I felt a queer sickness in my stomach and I swallowed hard once, then again, for as I stood gazing at the table it was as if the pieces of some wicked puzzle fell into place before my eyes. His experiments, I thought, and I heard Master say he had been successful, so successful no one would believe him. Then I lowered the lamp and as I did I saw him. He had fallen on the far side of the table, near the window. Perhaps he thought to get out that way. He lay on his back, his hand
stretched out towards me, clutching the empty bottle as Mr. Poole had said. My heart lurched in my chest and I felt a gagging at my throat as if that hand was closed about it. The sleeve was rolled well back on the shirt, and as I approached I saw the trouser legs rolled up from his ankles as well. I knew what I would find as I rounded the table, and I clutched the end of it to hold me up. I raised the lamp to see his face, which was not as I had ever seen it but all twisted in a grimace of pain, the lips stretched cruelly over the gritted teeth, his eyes wide open and staring, so that he seemed to call out to me for help.

I set the lamp upon the table where it made a great clatter of light among the bottles and tubes there and I remembered the first time I come into this room so long ago and how I set my heart against it, so even then I must have known. All the time the truth was right before my eyes and especially that last night when I held Master up in the yard and saw the change come upon his face, and those other eyes looking out at me for a moment, but I would not understand, as if I was too stubborn to know it.

How many times did he tell me?

But Master was right, who would believe it? How could one man be two—one kind, gentle, generous, the other with no care but his own pleasure and no pleasure but the suffering of his fellows?

I leaned upon the table and glared at the bottles, all glittering before me, and wanted to smash them but I had no strength. Indeed my knees no longer held me
up so I slipped to the floor. Then I crawled to Master, speaking to him softly. His face was turned towards mine, his silver hair matted about it in a way I did not like to see, and his eyes, so wide and staring, seemed to look through my head at the table behind me. From the yard I could hear the sound of heavy footsteps and raised voices crossing to the theatre. They were coming to take him away, take him from me entire, and they knew—now everyone would know—my gentle Master and Edward Hyde was one and the same. “But you said you no longer care for the world’s opinion,” I said to him, “nor will I.” When I reached him I kissed his hand, as I did that night in the yard, then I tried to pry the bottle from him, for I did not like to see it, but his fingers was stiff, he held on with death’s own grip. “This is a cruel trick,” I said to Master. “That he should take his own life and leave you behind to answer for it.” I smoothed his hair back away from his forehead, but I did not try to close his eyes.

I heard the footsteps crossing the theatre; soon they would be on the stairs. “Well, let them come,” I said and I lay down beside Master, covering us both with my cloak as best I could, for the floor was cold. I rested my head upon his chest and put my arms about his neck. I could hear my own heart in my ear and it seemed to be beating against his still one.

That was how they found us.

The preceding extraordinary diaries came to light three years ago in a transferral of property at Bray, in Berkshire, west of London. How they arrived in my hands is a complicated story, though not a surprising one, as I have long had an interest in old letters and diaries and am well known to those who deal in such documents. The diaries (my own term; Mary Reilly referred to her writings as “journals”) were in four leatherette notebooks, (6¼ by 8½″, lined pages, 20 to 21 lines per page) closely written and containing a few pages separate and folded, the principal being the account with which I have chosen to begin Mary Reilly’s story. Mary’s habitual frugality shows in her method of writing, which was to put two lines above the top line on each page and another two below the last, so that the page is entirely covered.

The inside covers of the books are lined with marbled paper and the photograph, the traditional
carte
of the period, is pasted into the inside cover of the first book, the text of which is not included here, for reasons I will explain, and I presume it to be of Mary Reilly herself.

I have taken various liberties with Mary’s text to prepare it for publication, and these should be explained so that the reader will have a better sense of the original
manuscript. First, as I have indicated, I have omitted one of the surviving volumes. That is Mary’s account of her life at Mrs. Torbay’s house, her first position, which predated the text presented here by some years. Mary was probably fifteen or sixteen at the time and her style is less developed, her observations less acute, and her obsession with people being in their proper places—which we here see put to the test so poignantly—at its most full-blown and defensive. The Torbay house was a crowded one, with five children and a large staff. Mary was the lowest of these and she was under the influence of a lady’s maid named Mrs. Swit (whom she refers to in the present text), who filled her head with maxims about the proper relations of servants to masters and, importantly for our sake, encouraged Mary to keep a record of her life. If the text here presented creates, as I hope it will, an active interest in this serious and strangely eloquent young woman, her adolescent efforts may be published at a later date.

Because Mary did not date her entries, it is difficult to tell how much time is covered in the three books I have transcribed. Considering the amount of work that fell to her, it would be surprising if she had had the energy to write every day. Sometimes she begins by describing a passage of days, at other times she simply says “yesterday,” or “today,” which allows for the possibility that many days have passed. The space breaks between entries are entirely my own creation; Mary did not waste paper by leaving even a line unfilled. I have
made no effort to compact the three books; they stand as she left them.