Mary Reilly

by Valerie Martin

  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 re
sted 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.

  AFTERWORD

  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.

  I have also taken great liberties with Mary’s punctuation and spelling. She rarely used punctuation at all and her method of capitalizing proper names was erratic, though it is interesting to note that she always failed to capitalize the word “i” and never failed to capitalize the word “Master.” She used dashes occasionally as commas and left off all possessive apostrophes. She recorded dialogue without breaks in the line or marks of any kind. All of these idiosyncrasies I have standardized for ease in reading.

  I have retained, however, Mary’s habitual misuse of the verb “to be” as it seems characteristic of her voice, as is her use of the dialect “mun” for “must.” Occasional words were illegible; these I have substituted with the most logical option. Mary sometimes names places and streets with one letter followed by a dash, for example in “H__________.” I have retained this peculiarity.

  Mary’s diaries break off abruptly and the last book is not like the others filled. Given the compromising situation in which she was discovered (even by contemporary standards, a domestic found late at night in her nightgown embracing her dead employer might expect repercussions), it seems probable that she did not leave Jekyll’s house with that document most vital to the Victorian servant, that passport from hardship and squalor to the haven of domestic servitude: a good “character.” However, as Mary shows herself throughout her chronicle to be a resourceful and honest young woman, as well as a better than average servant, we can surmise that she recovered from the shock of her master’s suicide and landed on her feet in some less fantastic household.

  The question of what really happened to Mary’s employer, Henry Jekyll, is not so easily resolved. It is difficult to credit Mary’s own conclusion, that her beloved Dr. Jekyll and his murderous assistant Edward Hyde were one and the same person, but not for the reasons Mary gives us: “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?” A glance at the daily newspapers will remind us that such duplicity is not uncommon, especially among those who set themselves up as moral arbiters among us. One need only examine the lives of the wife, children and secretary of many a reformer to uncover sufficient duality of purpose to fill a column, sometimes a book. What is unexplained and incomprehensible in Henry Jekyll’s case is the physical transformation, which, if we are to believe Mary’s account, was considerable, and given Mr. Poole’s panic driven search for a certain chemical as well as Jekyll’s own remarks about his experiments, was achieved by the administration of some drug.

  I propose two possible solutions. There may be others. The first is that Mr. Poole and Mr. Utterson lied about what they found in the cabinet, that they knew Jekyll had killed himself, possibly from despair over his addiction to some drug (Edward Hyde might easily have been his supplier and have disappeared after the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, leaving Jekyll to bedevil chemists who were unable to provide him with a sufficient or pure supply) and that, in order to buy time to save Jekyll’s name, they concocted the story of the dead Hyde. This may seem farfetched, nor does it explain the reappearance of Edward Hyde the night of Jekyll’s death, but Mr. Poole and Mr. Utterson show themselves to be obsessed with the good name of Henry Jekyll, and the shock of breaking down a door to find they had themselves driven the poor man to suicide could have caused them to make up a story which, in the end, would cause more trouble than it was worth. If this was the case it would explain the movement of the boot, which Mary comments upon after Dr. Jekyll’s fall in the yard. If Dr. Jekyll and Edward Hyde were not the same person, Hyde might easily have come into the yard and moved the boot. It seems entirely within his character to play such a pointless joke.

  A second possibility is that Mary is correct and that Henry Jekyll did somehow come upon a way of transforming himself into the thoroughly unrecognizable and reprehensible Edward Hyde. That this involved losing a foot or so in height, a total change of features and coloring, as well as a stripping away of the effects of age (for all who see him agree that Hyde is small and young) strains credulity, but surely Jekyll would have found the transformation of dots of light into moving pictures, which we enjoy without astonishment, equally as incredible. The experiment, begun out of curiosity by the kindly, aging philanthropist, must then gradually have gotten out of control, requiring more and more of the chemical to effect the transformation back into Jekyll, until at last no amount would do. It does seem clear, and rather sad as well, that Jekyll closed himself up in his cabinet in a state of despair, knowing that he could no longer keep Edward Hyde at bay. To share one’s body with a dangerous criminal is not a fate anyone would willingly embrace, but to share one’s consciousness as well, which it seems was in some degree Jekyll’s unhappy condition, this must be terror indeed. The curious psychological relationship of Dr. Jekyll to Edward Hyde might be best explained by some student of human psychology adept at untangling the complex threads that so loosely knit the conscious to the unconscious. It is a mysterious connection and one that would surely repay study, for who among us has not felt at some moment the press of an uncon
scious desire to create havoc? Is it not the fear of this impluse that drives us to insist upon social order?

  A third and final mystery which also might entertain a scholar more pertinacious than myself is the manner by which Mary’s diaries traveled from London to Bray. There are several possibilities, one of which I should mention, though only because it is bound to be raised by someone who believes, as a librarian at the British Museum assured me, that such a diary as this could not exist because housemaids in the late Victorian period were all illiterate.

  We have a fair amount of evidence that this was not the case. Many such diaries have survived, as well as an account of an underhousemaid in London who published a novel, the subject of which was her employer’s family, thereby creating a scandal, and undoubtedly a good deal of anxiety in many an upper-class household. This, of course, raises a specter over the present manuscript, one which I neither endorse nor seek to discredit, and that is the possibility that the sad and disturbing story unfolded for us in the pages of Mary’s diaries is now and always was intended to be nothing less serious than a work of fiction.

  Acknowledgments