Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

  Low cloud scudded over Edinburgh as Stevenson walked to the Ferrier house, a half-mile distant. Walter had evidently been back under his parents’ roof for several months, since illness had rendered him unable to work or look after himself. As he walked, his collar turned up against an unseasonably biting wind, Stevenson found it distinctly more comfortable to revisit the conversation he had just left than to rehearse the one he was about to have.

  He had hardly been joking about the way Fanny curried favor by agreeing with his father’s every pronouncement. Like other women from her imperfectly-civilized continent, Fanny was possessed of some mannish traits and ways: she was outspoken and assertive in manner, constantly browned by the sun, and given, for heaven’s sake, to rolling her own cigarettes and smoking them unabashedly in any and all company. She could be brutally honest, and all too often she was just that with her new husband. With Thomas, though, Fanny managed to be softness and graciousness personified. Damned if she hadn’t all but wrapped the old fellow around her diminutive little finger—something Stevenson himself could never have managed. Was this hypocrisy in her, or was it simply sound strategy? She clearly knew that her own prospects and, in turn, her son’s whole future, remained highly tenuous. The pair of them depended on Stevenson’s pen and precious little else—and in turn, that pen depended on a body scarcely able to outlast a single damp Scots winter without ripping itself apart from the inside out.

  Whatever its reasons, though, the uncontestable result of Fanny’s demeanor was that, ever since the day Stevenson had first—and with such trepidation—brought his divorced colonial back with him to Heriot Row, his father had gradually softened from the stony patriarch into what he had revealed himself to be just that morning: jocular, affable, always quick enough to evince principle, but just as quick to posture in a playful way. For all that Fanny might put steel in her husband’s spine, for his father she was the cup that fosters kindness. All told, Stevenson and his strange little ménage were worlds better for it.

  A chilly drop exploded on his cheek as he approached the imposing façade of 28 Charlotte Square. As he climbed the granite steps, the spitting thickened to a full-bore shower. He stood for a moment before the deeply paneled door, rain pattering on the brim of his hat. Gathering himself, he reached for the heavy brass ring.

  Tap! Tap! There was a long pause with no response.

  Thunk! Thunk!

  At last the door swung open and an older housemaid showed him into the ornate but welcoming entrance hall. Hat in hand, he extended his card and said that he had come to see Master Walter. The woman nodded, taking his hat and overcoat and ushering him into a drawing room just to the right.

  “If you’ll please to wait here, sir.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  The maid slipped out, closing the door behind her. Stevenson fussed with his shirt cuffs as he peered around the high-ceilinged room. The elegant furniture was of French manufacture, no doubt, but uncommonly clean in line. The walls were papered in a tasteful new Morris pattern. Over a fireplace of clear Italian marble hung a large mirror, framed in gold and flanked by two charming gold sconces sporting candles, not gas. As Stevenson stepped up to admire the skeleton clock ticking away in the center of the mantlepiece, he spied the reflection of Ferrier’s sister sweeping into the room.

  “Coggie,” he exclaimed, turning to greet her. “How wonderful to see you! I—”

  “And you, Louis.” She approached with rustling skirts, extending her arms for a light embrace. As she stepped back, she retained his hands and squeezed them once, softly, before she let them drop. She had been a beautiful girl. She was now a beautiful woman, thought Stevenson, despite the creases that deepened on her brow as her smile fell away. He remembered Ferrier’s frequent teasing about how his bosom companion must one day marry his lovely little sister. He recalled, as well, solitary moments when he himself had returned to thoughts of that match with no levity at all. Where would it have taken them, he wondered? Would he still be a barrister, wealthy but discontent? Would he be discontent? And where else might Walter now be as a consequence?

  “You’ve come to see him,” the young woman declared, whisking him back from his reverie.

  “I have. If I may.”

  “Of course you may. Why ever not?”

  “I don’t know. It was a silly choice of words.”

  “It’s so good of you, Louis. It will cheer him immeasurably.” She smiled and crossed her arms over her slight chest. She stood there expectantly, her fingers fluttering over her elbows as though she were settling herself without thinking of it.

  He rummaged for words, something finished and kind and consoling. Nothing came beyond the obvious.

  “I am so sorry, Coggie.” As, of course, was everyone.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ve heard that it may not be long now.” And how thoughtful he was to remind her!

  “Well,” she replied, reaching up to push a stray wisp of hair off her ear, “we don’t know, in truth. We’d thought he might not last the month. They’ve confirmed that it’s consumption, you know. Walter is dying.” Tears brimmed in her eyes, one of them dropping from a lash and tumbling down over her cheek. She swept it away with the back of a forefinger. “But the doctor thinks,” she went on with a forced smile, “that he’s had quite a good week, this past one.”

  “Really?” said Stevenson, gratefully buoyed. “That is wonderful.”

  “Wonderful indeed. He had barely had an appetite. But for several days now he’s eaten like a horse. And I fancy his face is much fuller.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “It is. But you will find him changed, Lou.” She reached again for her hair as her gaze shuttled back and forth between his eyes. Stevenson nodded. “Cruelly. Walter is jaundiced. They say it is his liver as well. From all of the drink, I suppose.”

  Stevenson nodded again.

  “You knew that?” Her lips stiffened as she eyed him. “Well, there it is!”

  “There it is,” he echoed. “Shall we go up then?”

  “Up?” For a moment she appeared confused. “Oh my, no! It’s not come to that.” She tittered nervously. “I fear I’ve let my anguish paint too grim a picture. Walter’s not bedridden, you know. Most days, at least. He’s in the library with mama. Here, let me take you to him.”

  She reached again for his hand and led him back through the entrance hall towards the rear of the house, past the wide staircase on which a second housemaid was busy with a broom and dustpan. They found Walter Ferrier reclining on a tufted chaise longue, fully dressed but with a light afghan tossed over his legs. His mother sat in a small chair just to one side, some needlework in her lap. Ferrier’s collar was too big for his lean and corded neck, but he was dressed in a coat and tie, and he smiled brightly as Stevenson came into the room. His skin was a glossy ochre.

  “Stevenson, my dear,” he exclaimed, tossing back the afghan and dropping his feet to the floor.

  “Don’t get up!” said Stevenson and Mrs. Ferrier together in what might have been studied synchrony. Stevenson looked down at the woman, prepared to smile at their strangely orchestrated performance. He was met with a chilly stare.

  “Mrs. Ferrier—”

  “Mr. Stevenson.”

  “Of course I shall get up,” insisted Ferrier, struggling to his feet as his sister rushed to steady him. He brushed her hand gently away and, with a strained but animated smile, extended his own to Stevenson. “Welcome to my new offices. You see I’m just…just putting the latest issue of The University Magazine to bed. It’s only taken, what is it? Eleven years. My damn co-editor absconded, you see! Went off to write novels.”

  Stevenson chuckled. He took the proffered hand with caution, half-afraid the man’s bones might crack in his grip. “A thousand apologies, Walter. Would that the old rag were still going. I believe it was the best writing we ever did.” He was surprised to feel his friend’s skin so warm, with so much meat in his grip. Ferrier’s grin
was lively and infectious, but the eyes that smiled above it were much the same disconcerting hue as his skin. It was hard to take in with equanimity.

  “Ah,” said Ferrier, with a penetrating gaze. “You have noticed that I am now jaune. Tout jaune. Like a Chinaman,” he chuckled. “Head to toe. Every last appendage of me.” He peered over at his mother, who shook her head in consternation and returned intently to her handiwork.

  “Arresting,” said Stevenson. “Artful, Walter. As always.” What else could one say?

  “Ha, ‘artful!’ Making myself my own best creation. If I were indeed a painting, though—I would say that my varnish had seriously discolored. No? Time to strip it off. Apply a new coat. Restore the bright undertints of youth!” Ferrier stared at his visitor, as though waiting for a nod or a smile. “Please, do have a seat, dear boy. Coggie, if you’d be so kind.” He sat back suddenly onto the chaise as his sister fetched a side chair for Stevenson, then made to fetch another for herself.

  “There’s no need, Elizabeth,” said their mother emphatically. “You may take mine. I have other business to attend to.” She rose with the vigor of a woman years younger and, with a brusque “Sir!” moved quickly to the door and away.

  Ferrier exchanged a vexed glance with his sister before he turned back to Stevenson. “You’ll have to excuse my dear old mother, Lou. I fear my afflictions rather weigh on her.”

  “Of course they do. I take no offense.” He felt, though, a sudden flush under his collar. “My welcome has otherwise been very cordial indeed.” He glanced swiftly at Coggie, who met his eyes with an apologetic smile.

  “So then, Stevenson,” said Ferrier, resting his head on his propped arm. “You are well?”

  “I am, Walter. Tolerably well.”

  “And your family?”

  “They too, thank you.”

  Ferrier nodded. “Excellent. Excellent. So I have now read your pirate book!” He paused portentously.

  “Yes? And?”

  “I found it terrific fun. Coggie did, as well. Actually, it was she who read it to me.”

  “That so pleases me,” beamed Stevenson. “It’s not much, perhaps. For a juvenile audience. But it’s a start.”

  “It’s a pip, Lou. I wouldn’t let her stop reading.” He looked fondly at his sibling. “Words of genius—on the lips of an angel.” She responded with a distinctly unladylike face, reminding Stevenson of the saucy young beauty she had been in Ferrier’s university days—an intelligent girl who obviously yearned to burst from the domestic cloister out into the wider world. “It was the only thing that could take my mind off this infernal itch.” Ferrier scratched in pantomime at his arm and then his torso. “Damn this affliction! Damn all afflictions! So has it sold well, Stevenson? Has Treasure Island brought treasure to your island?”

  “It is selling tolerably well, thank you. But if there is a real fortune being amassed, I myself have yet to see it. Perhaps you should inquire at Cassell’s.”

  “Ah, yes. Your esteemed publisher.” Ferrier nodded and turned his free hand to examine his nails. “Honestly though, Lou, I kept looking for some kind of love interest. Knowing your weakness for the ladies—them, and the devotions they inspire.” He looked puckishly at his friend and then at his sister. “Or should I say the deviations?”

  “Really, dear brother. There are ladies present.”

  “Well, none of them in Stevenson’s damned book! Unless you count the mum. Jim’s avaricious mum. Fumbling for her due through a pile of coins whilst the killers rush their way. Marvelous suspense, that! I was cursing her, Lou!”

  Stevenson smiled. “The poverty of ladies was Sam’s requirement. Not that I do them very well. Ladies.”

  “I have heard others say as much.” Ferrier peered over his fist as he nibbled at a nail. “And ladies can be so very difficult…to do.”

  “And Sam?” queried Coggie, clearly determined to ignore her brother’s provocations.

  “My stepson. He was ten when we hatched the story, the two of us.”

  Coggie nodded sweetly.

  “All full of Captain Maryatt and Mungo Park. And pirates. He insisted there be no women. No significant ones, at least.”

  “But Coggie, you know,” blurted Ferrier, “Coggie contends that all women are significant. Ain’t that so? Vital ‘cogs,’ every one, in our galloping social engine.”

  “Oh my goodness,” exclaimed his sister theatrically. “Walter’s made a joke! A wee pun. You see what a wit I have for a brother, Louis. A veritable Mercutio.”

  “Mercutio indeed,” sighed Ferrier. “Thou speaketh wiselier than thou knoweth. ‘Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.’” He eyed her intently then turned back to Stevenson. “But look now. I’ve gone and dampened our levity. Self-indulgence is such a bother in the terminally ill. Don’t you find?”

  Stevenson scrabbled again for something to say. “There’s hardly anything you could offer up, Ferrier, that I wouldn’t be delighted and privileged to hear.”

  Ferrier fixed him with narrowed eyes. “Hmmm! I struggle to assess the sincerity with which you speak, dear friend.” He paused again, then added sunnily, “Yet I shall take it for the best.”

  “As it was meant,” said Stevenson. “Although, as always, Ferrier, I do treasure your infinite capacity for skepticism.”

  “There’s my old Lou,” cried Ferrier, clapping his hands. “Splendid. Now, where were we? I find it so hard lately…”

  “Louis’s book, I believe.”

  “Oh yes. That’s right. From Cassell’s, as he reminds us. How apt, really, that it should be Cassell’s.”

  “Apt in what sense?” asked Coggie.

  “They’ve a strong Temperance leaning, have they not?”

  “They do indeed,” replied the writer, feeling now a vague disquiet at the trend in conversation. “Temperance, along with every other righteous cause one might conceive of. We took their Family Paper when I was a child, so I am particularly well versed.”

  “So did we!” exclaimed Coggie. “It was always full of admonitory stories. And pictures.”

  Stevenson gazed at her and smiled. “Personally, I much preferred Punch.”

  “Indeed,” declared Ferrier. “Punch the magazine and punch the beverage, both. Ha! So I’m driven to wonder, Lou, if the Cassell family’s position on drink weren’t instrumental in their decision to present your genius to the world.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” asked Coggie.

  “I fear your dear brother is suggesting that Cassell’s decision was based on something other than literary merit.”

  Ferrier grinned but shook his head.

  Coggie looked at him insistently. “It is simply an excellent book, Walter. Nothing more and nothing less. Anyone could have seen that it deserved an audience. I’ve heard that even Mr. Gladstone found it admirable.”

  “Q.E.D., then!” exclaimed Ferrier, with a slap at his thigh. “The Temperance conspiracy confirmed. A teetotaling publishing house and a teetotaling Prime Minister—who, as we all know, is hell-bent on turning this into a completely dry island. It’s, it’s…”

  Stevenson’s budding unease gave way to concern as the sick man winced with surprise and started to cough, more and more rapidly and violently. His face flushed with the strain, turning a gruesome reddish-brown.

  “Walter,” cried Coggie, rushing to his side. She laid her arm across his back and took his hand in her own. “Can I fetch you some water?” The man nodded, his eyes extruded, more than a hint of fear in them as he struggled to check the spasms. Stevenson felt his own muscles tense, knowing all too well what Ferrier was going through—waiting for the blood to come with its gagging taste of iron. He could only sit and watch, as impotent in the moment as in the larger sweep of Ferrier’s life.

  Coggie hurried back with a glass, steadying her brother as he sipped and swallowed. Soon enough his shoulders relaxed and he settled back with a sigh. “Not so bad,” he whispered once he had glanced down to inspect his palm. �
��No gore at all. Perhaps there’s none left in me.” He looked at Stevenson with a softer expression than he had shown the whole while. The look recalled the Walter of old. “Quite the conversation stopper, that. My apologies.”

  “Not at all. Are you all right?” As though he could ever be right again.

  “Better. For the present. I am indeed.” Ferrier paused for a moment, gazing back and forth between his two companions. “You are both so dear to me. I fear, Louis, I can play the tyrant at times. Interrogating you the way I seem to have been doing.”

  “You were merely showing interest in my work, dear Walter. As always, your interest flatters me.”

  “I am glad.” Ferrier smiled graciously. “Will you, though, indulge me in a serious question?”

  Stevenson laughed a mite uneasily and shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m quite prepared for a serious question from you, Walter. It might be the very first you have ever addressed to me.”

  Stevenson looked for some witty repartee, but his old friend regarded him with earnestness. “All this playful talk of your publisher emerges from a powerful reaction I had to the story from the very start. Which led to a curiosity about its author’s intent.”

  “Please go on.”

  “You once declared yourself, Lou, ‘Literature is a mirror held up to life.’”

  Stevenson grinned. “That was Dr. Johnson, Walter. Not humble I. A mirror up to nature and life, he spoke of. And poetry in specific.”

  “Damn!” swore Ferrier, chuckling. “Of course. You’re quite right. But then,” he added with a twinkle, “perhaps I have always thought of you as the nearest thing to the learned Doctor that Auld Reekie has managed to spawn.”

  “I assure you I have neither the wit nor the talent,” responded Stevenson. “Nor the Boswell. Though perhaps, being a good Edinburghian, you might care for the job.”

  “I fear I am destined to other tasks,” answered Ferrier. “Still, it is a corking good observation, whoever made it. To the point, though. This book for boys? Your charming adventure? Some grown men may be moved to look deeply into the mirror you hold up there, Lou. To real life!”