Mary Reilly

by Valerie Martin

  At dinner Mr. Poole was in a fuss because Master was closed up in his laboratory again and he’d said just to leave him a little cold mutton on the cabinet stairs as he was on no account to be disturbed. So, Mr. Poole said, he feared Master had so little regard for his own health it was getting to be all the staff could do to keep him well. I felt too low to say much, not that I’m ever talkative, especially when Mr. Poole is about, and Cook noticed I wasn’t eating. “Mary,” she said, “you’d best be to bed straight away. I fear rising so early and working so hard has knocked you up and we can’t do without you.” Mr. Poole raised his eyebrows at this and gave me a long look. Then he said, “You do look pale, Mary. I believe Mrs. Kent is right.”

  I thought I would fall over to hear a kind word from Mr. Poole and I know my mouth dropped open, but then I thought I must be looking near dead and perhaps they was right and I was coming down with something. So I said, “Yes, sir,” and Cook told me to drink all my beer and be off, which I did, getting in bed by eight, even before Annie. I fell straight to sleep, nor did I hear Annie get in, and I think I didn’t even move until near dawn when my eyes flew open like windows and my heart was pounding because I knew something was amiss in our house.

  Someone was climbing up the back steps, not to our attic but below that, between the kitchen and Master’s bedroom. The house was that quiet and still, I could hear the floorboards creak like thunder. I heard a step, then another, then silence. My palms were wet and my legs felt so weak, I thought perhaps I’d been dreaming and somehow carried it over into waking, and as I heard nothing else, I made myself calm by breathing in and out very slow.

  Then I heard another step, halting-like, then nothing. “Now I am awake,” I said out loud, hoping Annie might be awake too, but she didn’t move and as my eyes were used to the dark I could see her face, slack with sleep, and I had a funny thought, that Annie is like a dog at the end of a hunt when she sleeps and if you put a plate of food under her nose no doubt but she would dream she was eating.

  Another step, my thought went away, then another. He was on the landing now and moving towards Master’s room.

  I thought, of course, it mun be Master coming in from his work and moving quietly so as not to disturb Mr. Bradshaw who has his room under those stairs. And I felt foolish for my terror, though, I thought, this is the second time today I have heard footsteps. I heard the door to Master’s room open and he went in, so of course it was him, though there was something in the step, so halting, as if he was dragging one foot a little, whereas Master has a light, even way of walking.

  But he’s tired, I thought, and anyhow it’s probably my fancy, as how could I make that out listening through two floors? Then I remembered that my father had that halting way about his walk and how I used to hear my own name in it, long on the first part—Maare, and then short -ry, Maare-ry, until I thought I would scream.

  And it come back to me again, as it did so hard this afternoon, that my father is alive still, even if it is only in my own poor head, that he was gone for a while and that somehow Master’s kindness and interest has brought him back to life for me.

  BOOK 2

  What comes before brings me to last night and so I begin this new book which I bought at Lett’s this morning, paying sevenpence for the purpose of recording my life in this house.

  This morning Mr. Poole and Mr. Bradshaw were debating on the best means to move the cheval glass from Master’s bedroom to the cabinet in the laboratory, for it seemed Master had called Mr. Poole in early to request that this be done. Mr. Poole was for wrapping it up entire in blankets and rope and calling in the knife boy to help, as it is a big, heavy glass and will need considerable care. Mr. Bradshaw, who is handy with tools, was of the opinion that the glass should be taken from the frame, on which it is hung by a swivelling joint, carried to the laboratory in the two pieces and put back together there. While they discussed the best method, I found myself puzzling on why Master would want a looking glass in his laboratory, but I didn’t venture a guess as I knew Mr. Poole would be annoyed to have any of Master’s wishes questioned and would tell me to mind my own concerns. They were having such a disagreement, though they spoke to one another most respectfully, it was clear Mr. Bradshaw thought Mr. Poole an unbending, tiresome old crank and Mr. Poole thought Mr. Bradshaw a brash upstart, and both were worried about the job for fear something would happen to the mirror and which one would get the blame if his method failed, that I was fair amused. I knew Mr. Poole was beside himself when he told me to take up Master’s breakfast tray to the drawing room and see what his plans for luncheon was. I set up the tray and Cook gave me a pretty vase with a single rose in it to put on the side, which she’d saved from a bunch bought at market yesterday, so it made a lovely touch on the tray, I thought. Cook asked if I felt better and I said I did, as I’d gone to bed so early and slept well. I carried the tray up through the house and it seemed my poor spirits had truly lifted. It was a bright day out for a change and the sunlight streamed through the panes so it pleased me to see how clear they was, and how all the cabinets and tables gleamed with the polishing I’d given them. When I knocked at the drawing room Master called out, “Come in,” sounding cheerful I thought, and so he was, for when I opened the door he looked up from the desk where he was writing and said, “Ah, Mary. You’ve brought my breakfast. I hope it’s a big one.”

  “I believe it is, sir,” I said, bringing the tray to him. He cleared his papers out of the way so I could set it down before him. “Cook said you ate nothing on your plate last night that would keep a mouse alive so she mun stuff you when she can.”

  “Last night I couldn’t eat, Mary,” he said, diving into the rashers before I had the plate square before him. “I’ve been at an impasse in my work for some time now, but last night”—he paused to bite into his toast—“last night all the barriers fell before me.” He chewed a moment, looking like a half-starved child, I thought. “Excellent toast,” he finished.

  “I’d say rather it were this morning, sir,” I said. “For I heard you coming in with the sun. You can’t have had three hours’ sleep.”

  “I don’t feel tired at all,” he said.

  “Perhaps you’ve found a way to go on without sleep, sir,” I said. “But sooner or later it mun catch up with you and you’ll make yourself ill again.”

  Master chewed for a moment without speaking and as I was standing behind him I couldn’t see his face. “Are you chiding me, Mary?” he asked.

  There was something in his tone that wasn’t pleased and I felt so taken aback by it that I didn’t speak, but stood there staring at his back until he turned in his chair and looked me up and down, his face set in that expression of kindly interest that always touches me to say what is in my heart, and he began to speak to me softly saying, “Am I too much trouble for you, Mary? Do you wish you had a more regular master who went out to the courts every day, or perhaps to a bank, and always had dinner at the same time, unless, of course, he was dining at his club?”

  As he spoke I was shaking my head, and when he paused I jumped in saying, “Oh no, sir. I never wish to serve anyone but you.”

  “Of course that is what you must say, Mary. But you’re very young, and very fair, as I’m sure you know. How can you be expected to find any reward in giving up your youth to serve a life as old and dry and dull as mine?”

  His words stung me and I found my tongue. “And what should I do other, sir?” I said. “Should I like a house full of fashionable ladies, fetching toys and shoes for disagreeable children, scrubbing floors and carrying up coal for gentlefolk who never look at me except to see if I’ve not done summat amiss? No, sir, thank you. I’d a bit of that before I come here.”

  Master smiled at my outburst. “You do put things strongly, Mary.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I speak out because I can’t bear for you to think I’m wishing for some other life than the one I have. If I chide you, it’s only that I worry for your health—we
do all of us, when you close yourself up and do without food or sleep for days on end.”

  “I suppose I have a master too,” he said. “And mine, Mary, if you can conceive it, is more demanding than yours.”

  For a moment I was puzzled to understand what he meant, but then I saw that he was speaking of his work, his “scientific investigations,” as Mr. Poole calls them, which cannot be interrupted, and I remembered he said that he’d broken through all the barriers last night. “Won’t your ‘master’ give you a little rest now, sir?” I said. “After last night?”

  Master looked startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there and suddenly found me too close by, too sudden. He looked at me hard until I felt he was trying to solve the question of how I’d got to be standing before him, having said what I’d just said, and as I didn’t know the answer myself, I didn’t speak. At last he said, “Do you truly never wish for another life, Mary?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “What would be the good of that?”

  “Oh,” he replied. “So it is only that you believe you cannot have one.”

  “Not only that, sir,” I said. “Though I suppose that’s part of it.”

  “And if you could. If I told you there was a way to have a life in which you could act only as you please, when you please, with no consequences, no regrets, then wouldn’t you say yes?”

  Master fair toppled over his chair as he said this, and seemed so intent on my answer that I felt I had better think hard and give it true as I could. But I couldn’t understand really what he meant, except that I might dream of a life out of service, that I might want to be a lady, who has nothing to do but amuse herself. I’ve seen plenty of these and never envied them one moment, as it does seem their lives are full of mean spirit, if they are full of anything, because they are so idle. So I started to say no, I wouldn’t want such a life, but then it seemed Master was so vexed over the thought of there being no consequences that he must not mean what I thought, so I only said, “I don’t believe that there is any actions without consequences.”

  Master looked surprised—disappointed, I thought. He seemed to remember that I was only a housemaid—I could see that in his face and it hurt my pride, though why I should feel so I can’t say, as I’m proud to be what I am and had only just told him as much. He said, “Of course that’s true, Mary. Under normal circumstances what you say is quite true,” and he said the word “normal” as if it was the space between us, and mayhap he is right about that. I felt I’d failed to imagine the world Master must be in always, where many things is possible because of his being a man of science. This cast me down considerable. Master turned back to his breakfast and I had to clear my throat to get his attention and ask what his plans was for luncheon.

  “Tell Poole I’ll take it in the library, Mary,” he said. “And that my solicitor will be joining me for dinner at the regular hour.”

  “Very good, sir,” I said, as I’ve heard Mr. Poole say when Master gives his wishes. It seemed to strike Master as funny to hear me say it, for he turned a little in my direction and said, “Where is our Mr. Poole this morning, Mary, that you are sent on the breakfast mission?”

  “He and Mr. Bradshaw is struggling with your cheval glass, sir,” I said. “They aren’t in agreement as to how it should be transported.” This made Master smile in his easy way and I felt we was back on our good footing.

  “Will they succeed, in your opinion, Mary?”

  “Oh yes, sir,” I said. “I’ve no doubt on it. But it will take time. It seems there’s a strategy to it.”

  “Well, I wish them luck, Mary,” he said, “and I think I’ll avoid the scene of the struggle.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, turning to leave. I was nearly at the door when Master added, “Don’t worry about me too much, Mary. I’ll take better care of myself now. I promise you that.”

  The rest of the day passed quietly. Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Poole got the mirror down the stairs and out into the backyard without anything going amiss. I was at hanging up the drawing-room curtains, which I had washed in the morning, feeling I should take advantage of the sunshine to get something dried out, as we’ve had so little sun of late, and Mr. Poole called to me to come and get the laboratory key from his pocket and open the door for him as he couldn’t do it himself, being under the weight of the mirror, which they’d wrapped up all in one piece, so Mr. Poole had won out. I left the curtains in the basket, ran to his side and dug out the key from his pocket. I squeezed in before them as they was huddled under the overhang like dogs in the rain, and shoved the big door open before them. Then, as I couldn’t get back around them, there was nothing to do but step inside. I felt a thrill, though I dared not show it, that I was seeing at last where Master spends so much of his time. It seemed my eyes couldn’t take it all in quick enough, though truly there was not that much to see.

  The first room is the old “theatre” where Dr. Denman used to perform operations for students. Master hasn’t bothered to change it, so there is an evil-looking table bolted to the floor in the centre and around the room two rows of benches on raised steps, each with a ledge in front of it, so I pictured the students leaning forward on their elbows to see someone being cut open, for Dr. Denman was a surgeon, Mr. Poole says, and he had a great reputation among students, though they sometimes called him “the butcher,” because they said he would find a reason to cut open a perfect well man out of his desire to have a look inside him.

  The room is quite large and the windows is all at the top and even on the ceiling, so that the light comes in great streaks that cross over one another, making pools in some spots and leaving others in darkness. Master doesn’t use the room for much but storing things. There were boxes stacked around, some with straw pouring out and also piles of the straw in corners. There’s tools scattered around too, most carelessly. I saw a hammer on the floor alongside one of the boxes, and some sort of prying tool, and an axe half buried in straw. Spiders has made themselves comfortable it looked for a long time to me, especially up in the corners and in the windows where I think they must like to be to catch such foolish flies and bugs as is drawn to light. The floor was of smooth flags that I could make shine as ours in the hall do, if I’d a week or so with no other project, such was the grime that covered them. On the far end of the room was a staircase leading up to a landing and a second door covered with dark red baize which looked as it might open into a heart, and it was to this door that Mr. Poole, Mr. Bradshaw and the knife boy was struggling with the big mirror. I saw they meant to haul it up and Mr. Poole called out to me to take up the key as was hanging on the wall next to the door. I thought it odd to lock a door, then put the key next to it, but this is Master’s habit when he wants Mr. Poole to enter the cabinet, as there is only one key which Master does usually keep upon himself. Mr. Poole bid me open the door so I squeezed by them on the steps and did so.

  The theatre had made me feel sad. To see a room no one cares for is to me like seeing a child or an animal that mun struggle without love, or perhaps it is because the rooms of those who don’t care for life—or for anyone in it—are so often neglected. So this room gave me a start, for this was a room Master loved, but there was something else I cannot name, some deep sadness, of one, I thought, who is not loved. Everything was neat, as is Master’s way, and I saw he don’t need any help to keep it so. There was a fireplace with a good chair drawn up to it and a tea table beside that. The fireplace had a fine brass fender on it with two beautiful brass babies on either side, lying back a bit as if to warm their feet, such bright smiles and a happy manner about them as lifted my heart to look at them and think of who might have been amused to make such pretty things. They are finer than any of the fenders we have in the house, and, of course, in want of a polishing, though there was no dust on them, so Master, or Mr. Poole, must rub them with a cloth. There was a good carpet on the floor and shelves lined with books. A big old blackened kettle on the hearth, such as is used in the country, and tea things, very fine,
with a rose and a pansy in the pattern. This was one end of the room, a proper study and retreat for any gentleman. The far end was a different picture. There were three long windows with a ledge before each, wide enough to sit upon and looking out into the court, I imagined, and they let in the light, and a deal of it there was, pouring over the long table set before them, and over the three big presses filled with drawers, each labelled in Master’s fine hand. The carpet ended well before, so the table stood on the cold flags. On the table was all manner of strange bottles and containers, long glass tubes with cork stoppers leading from one to another, and such tools as funnels, odd-shaped spoons, measures and scales, screens—so many and different kinds that I could scarce take them in—and though everything was orderly, there was so much I had a feeling of confusion. Mr. Poole and Mr. Bradshaw had sent the knife boy off and was unwrapping the glass in the corner; they’d put it down in the end of the room that was like a sitting room, which I thought was right as it seemed such a fine old piece would look like an orphan child in this cold part of the room, and I wondered if they chose the spot out of the same sense I had, or if it was Master’s wish to keep these two worlds forever apart. I stepped back onto the carpet, feeling as I did so fair in retreat, and I stood looking back at the table which I understood was where Master did his science and I had this thought, that here was the place that was killing him and I hated it. I set my heart against it.

  Then Mr. Poole called my name impatiently, saying I might go back to my work, and I turned to see myself looking at my own reflection in the glass, for they had it all unwrapped and in place, and as I peered at my own figure for a moment it seemed I was looking back at myself from the edge of the world, and if I didn’t step carefully I would fall off into nothing. I shook myself, for I seemed to be standing in a dream, and took myself back to my work, but though I was busy the rest of the day I felt such ill-content as makes every move a chore.