Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

  It was in truth an exceedingly pleasant day, for the dead of winter, and Stevenson grew warm as he sauntered along. By the time he reached the town center, he had loosened his cravat and doffed his broad-brimmed hat, earning him a stare or two from the more staid among his passers-by. He knew he could find the Review at his regular newsagent’s, but he resolved to check at a bookshop nearer to hand, west of the central square.

  As he approached the broad, copiously-mullioned windows of the establishment, he smiled to remember long-ago days when he and Cummy would peer into similar windows at Wilson’s in Leith Walk, scanning the covers of the penny-papers on display for any indications of their contents. Once a hopeless devotee of cheap periodicals, his deeply pious nursemaid had become increasingly concerned that they might harbor some kind of subtly sordid matter that could blotch the soul of her innocent charge, perhaps even blotch her own. She had consequently and abruptly called a halt to all suspect acquisitions. At the same time, readerly curiosity lived on in her undiminished, and time and again the two of them would stand, their noses to the glass, scouring the woodcuts and their legends for hints of the fates of various characters they had once so avidly followed. “The Baronet Unmasked.” Who could have discovered his secret identity, and would the revelation foil all of his hopes for a happy marriage? “Dr. Vargas Removing the Senseless Body of Fair Lilias.” “Senseless” did not necessarily mean “dead,” but just what, then, had rendered her unconscious, and what were the doctor’s intentions? Stevenson cringed to think what Cummy would make of his own latest literary production, and was still shaking his head as he walked through the door and set the little sprung entrance bell a-tinkling.

  There was something about a well-stocked bookshop that pleased Stevenson to his bones. A well-provisioned wine merchant’s had a similar effect; and in France or Italy, such a place might even hold a slight advantage in its promise of imminent delight. Still, as he entered, Stevenson rejoiced to inhale the delicate pungency of fine leather bindings and to spy a half-dozen refined readers poring happily over prospective purchases. He strode over to where periodicals were kept and, spying The Saturday Review, picked up a copy. 23 January 1886. He thumbed through and found Lang’s piece—unsigned, but recognizably in the Scotsman’s style. “Mr. Stevenson’s ‘Prince Otto’ was, no doubt, somewhat disappointing to many of his readers. They will be hard to please if they are disappointed in his ‘Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’”

  Hmmm. Well. It went on at some length, and he resolved to save the rest for later. He carried the magazine over to the bookseller’s desk, smiled a greeting, and asked if he might leave it there while he continued to look around the establishment.

  “Of course, sir,” said the bespectacled man. “It will be right here when you’re ready.”

  Between the high shelves at the rear of the shop there was a table with canted bookstands, back to back, bearing new arrivals. Moving down one side, Stevenson bent to see the title of a rather large buckram tome. Capital, Volume II. He chuckled. Perhaps he should buy Engels’ latest and send it up to his father. That would surely precipitate the old fellow’s demise. He spied the new Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham. Stevenson had enjoyed A Modern Instance. Despite its sterile realism, he had found its honest treatment of divorce both bold and refreshing—although he had gone to some lengths to keep the exact contents a secret from Fanny.

  Goodness, there was his justly maligned Otto and, right next to it, A Child’s Garden of Verses. Lang’s review would obviously do nothing to move the former out of the rack, and he doubted the prime audience for the latter would be tall enough to see over the edge of the table.

  Now here was a new novel by that young lad who had written him to praise Treasure Island, Rider Haggard. King Solomon’s Mines. He pulled this one out with his forefinger, picked it up, and opened to the first page. “There are many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great battle of Loo, and also about the ‘Silent Ones’ or Colossi at the mouth of the stalactite cave.” The great battle of Loo! No need to worry, it was clear, about sterile realism here. Perhaps they could read it aloud when Sam was at home. Stevenson tucked the volume under his arm.

  The bell over the door tinkled again, and a tiny woman well along in years toddled into the shop and over to the bookseller’s desk.

  “Good morning,” she piped, in high, fluting voice.

  Stevenson looked at the clock behind the desk. It was just past two in the afternoon.

  “Good morning, madam,” replied the shopkeeper, removing his spectacles with an indulgent smile. “May I help you?”

  “You may, thank you,” said the woman. “I am hoping to find a book.”

  “Yes?” The man waited patiently, rubbing his hands together. “And… the title?”

  “Goodness. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

  “Perhaps the author?”

  She held a gloved hand to her mouth and tittered. “I can tell you what it is about!” A twinkle in her eye hinted at a vein of mischief that might have made her an intriguing companion in years past. That might still. “I am looking for that novel about the doctor here in Bournemouth, you know…who took something. And came to a bad end.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded with obvious excitement.

  “Ah, you must mean Dr. Jekyll. It’s just in. I haven’t even had the chance to put it out. Let me just fetch you a copy.” He bustled past Stevenson towards a door at the back of the shop and, a moment later, emerged with a slender volume in paper covers. “Here it is. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  That’s “Strange Case,” Stevenson observed to himself. No definite pronoun. He had rather thought the title might appropriately sound like the call of a newsboy hawking papers on the street. So much for attentive readings.

  “R. L. Stevenson,” said the man as he handed her the volume.

  “That’s the one!” exclaimed the old lady, grasping it in both hands. “Stevenson. Our vicar at St. Peter’s, Mr. Ram, you know. He gave a positively gripping sermon on Sunday. About the poor doctor and whatever it was he was taking. I have been positively dying to read it ever since.”

  “Well then,” said the bookseller, “I am very glad we had a copy for you.”

  “I hope it won’t be injurious to my health.” The woman tittered once again. She turned the book to look at the back cover. “I am told it is extremely exciting.”

  “Well, you can always set it down if you must,” suggested the man, smiling once more.

  “Of course I can. Thank you for reminding me. I wish I had known that when I read Udolpho as a girl.” Again the twinkle. “That one was nearly the death of me. I do so like a good chill now and again, though. Especially if it all works out in an edifying manner.” She jabbed at the cover with her gloved forefinger. “It says one shilling. Is it really only one shilling?”

  “It is, madam.”

  “Excellent.” The woman reached into her purse and extracted a single coin, handing it to the man with a bob of her head.

  “Read it in good health,” he said, quickly wrapping the volume in brown paper and handing it to the woman.

  “Thank you, I will. Good morning.”

  “And good morning to you, ma’am.”

  Once the old soul had left, Stevenson moved to the desk and laid Haggard’s book on top of the Review. “Both of these, if you would.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “A charming lady.”

  “She was, sir. Charming.”

  “She very much knew what she wanted.”

  “More or less, sir,” the man grinned.

  “Do you expect to sell many copies of, what is it, The Strange Case?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to say, sir. One never knows with these little paper-covered shockers. Our clientele ar
e quite refined.” He gave Stevenson a conspiratorial wink.

  “How remarkable that it should already have found its way into a sermon, of all things.”

  “It is, sir. It is.”

  “I’m curious. Do you think the notice by the clerics is likely to help with its circulation? Here in Bournemouth?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Yes, indeed. For my money, if a crawler can pass muster with the pulpit, there will be no stopping it.”

  “There’s nothing like titillation buffered by moral justification, I suppose. This Stevenson fellow must know what he’s doing.”

  “Well, he does,” exclaimed the man. “Don’t you know him? He’s the one who wrote Treasure Island.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Stevenson. “I believe I’ve heard of that one.”

  “Of course I’m not sure that his next-to-latest is very good,” said the fellow, lowering his voice. “Prince Otto. We have it over there.” He pointed to the table Stevenson had browsed. “I believe he writes mainly for boys.”

  “Really? Is Jekyll and Hyde for boys, then?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, sir.” The man grasped his chin in contemplation. “You may have a point there. Perhaps not.”

  “Well, perhaps I shall pick it up later and see for myself.”

  “Of course, sir. We’ll make sure to have copies on hand.”

  “Thank you very much. I would appreciate that.”

  When Stevenson arrived back at Skerryvore, Fanny was resting. Valentine said she had gone upstairs shortly after he had left and, aside from ringing down at one point for a glass of warm milk, she had been quiet all afternoon. He considered going up to see how she was doing, but when he learned about the milk, he assumed that she was napping. He decided to wait for a bit.

  “May I bring you some tea?” asked Valentine, as she took his overcoat and hat.

  “If you would, dearest. That would be very nice.”

  The woman laughed gaily, putting her wrist to her mouth just as Stevenson realized what he had said.

  “Oh, good heavens,” sputtered Stevenson. “I am so sorry, Valentine. I don’t know what—”

  “No, no,” she replied. “I am not upset. It is just funny, is it not?”

  “It is.” He saw she was blushing. Was this the first time? “It is funny. But, again, please excuse me.”

  “There is no need.” She regained her full composure even as he looked. “You will be in the drawing room?”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Stevenson walked through to his favorite armchair, hard by the fire. Unwrapping Haggard’s novel, he tossed the paper into the flames, then laid the book on his reading table. He sat down, chuckling at himself, and turned to The Saturday Review.

  He had long finished with his tea by the time Fanny came down. She walked through the door, stretched extravagantly, and walked over to kiss him full on the mouth.

  “What was that for?”

  “I feel so much better. I took a little nap. Life seems like it’s worth living again.”

  “I am so glad. I was quite unprepared to be a widower.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. Marrying younger men does come with certain risks,” she offered with a wink.

  Did British ladies have the capacity to wink? Stevenson wondered in a flash. Were they even born with the musculature?

  “Well, did you find Lang’s review?”

  “I did.” Stevenson pointed to the paper lying on the table. He had been reading Haggard when she walked in, having found himself immediately captured by the adventurous tale. It was something Sam would love, as indeed would Stevenson’s own father. If the rest of it were half as gripping as the start, he would have to send a copy up to Edinburgh.

  “What did he say? Tell me!”

  “Would you like to read it?”

  “You read it to me.”

  “All of it, or just the good bits?”

  “There were bad bits?”

  “Well, he did say that I should have thrown in a sprinkling of prostitutes.”

  “You great goose,” snorted Fanny. “You need a good spanking.”

  “All in good time.”

  “I believe I shall make you wait until you beg me.” She leered at him imperiously.

  “Well, in the meantime,” said Stevenson, reaching for the paper, “attend.” He turned to the relevant page, making a show of flattening the sheet. “Mr. Stevenson’s Prince Otto was, no doubt, somewhat disappointing to many of his readers. They will be hard to please if they are disappointed in his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. How is that for starters?”

  “I hardly like the first observation, but he’s moving in the right direction. So go on.”

  “To adopt a recent definition of some of Mr. Stevenson’s tales, this little shilling work is like ‘Poe with the addition of a moral sense.’”

  “Aha,” cried Fanny.

  “I thought you might cotton to that. Mr. Stevenson’s idea, his secret (but a very open secret) is that of the double personality in every man.”

  “Damn him. Now he’s gone and given the whole story away before anyone’s even bought it.”

  “True enough. But attend: It is proof of Mr. Stevenson’s skill that he has chosen the scene for his wild ‘Tragedy of a Body and a Soul,’ as it might have been called, in the most ordinary and respectable quarters of London. His heroes are all successful middle-aged professional men. No women appear in the tale (as in Treasure Island) and we incline to think that Mr. Stevenson always does himself most justice in novels without a heroine.”

  “But there are women in it. Did he even read it?”

  “Shhh! It may be regarded by some critics as a drawback to the tale that it inevitably disengages a powerful lesson in conduct. It is not a moral allegory, of course, but you cannot help reading a moral into it—”

  “Goodness. He cuts it rather fine there, don’t you think?”

  “He goes on: You cannot help reading a moral into it, and recognizing that, just as every one of us, according to Mr. Stevenson, travels through life with a donkey (as he himself did in the Cévennes), so every Jekyll among us is haunted by his own Hyde. But it would be most unfair to insist on this, as there is nothing a novel-reader hates more than to be done good to unawares.” He looked at Fanny pointedly. “Nor has Mr. Stevenson, obviously, any didactic purpose.” He looked at her again. “His moral of the tale is its natural soul, and no more separable from it than, in ordinary life, Hyde is separable from Jekyll. Blather, blether, blather. In the end, in this excellent and horrific and captivating romance, Mr. Stevenson gives us of his very best and increases that debt of gratitude which we all owe him for so many and rare pleasures.” Stevenson laid the paper down and stared noncommittally at his wife.

  Fanny paused a moment, then broke into an unguarded grin. “That’s a wonderful review, Louis. Anybody who reads that will certainly rush out to buy it!”

  Stevenson shrugged. “I confess I’m not at all displeased with what he had to say.”

  “Of course, he has given it all away.” Fanny picked in annoyance at some bits of lint on her skirt. “How can anyone now have the full, unfolding experience of it all? The way I did.”

  “I know. Dear old Lang.”

  “Then,” she added with a little huff, “there was that silly bit about your having no didactic purpose but, at the same time, a clear moral emerging.”

  “He did seem a little muddled.”

  “I am sure most readers will easily take a moral away.”

  “Well, I know that at least one reader has.” Stevenson shared with her his story of the little old woman at the bookshop.

  “So they’re talking about my husband’s latest book in church!” marveled Fanny, after a hearty laugh. “My goodness, but we have arrived.”

  “So it would seem. And I clearly owe it all to you. If you hadn’t made me consign the original to the flames…”

  “Stop it!” Fanny glowered briefly, then she fiddled anew with her skirt and gri
nned. “I would love to have heard the parson’s final summation for his flock.”

  “As would I. That, and know what hymns he chose that morning. ‘How Firm a Foundation?’ ‘Amazing Grace?’”

  Fanny shook her head in amusement. “But if you were a man of the cloth, Louis, how would you wrap up a sermon on the thing?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

  “You should tell me, Pig. You are the one who asked for an allegory.”

  “Ha! Which Lang said it wasn’t. Even though he claims it has a clear and universal moral. Honestly!” Fanny refolded her arms and kicked a foot impatiently.

  “You know,” Stevenson continued with a more serious aspect, “a fellow named Vernon did write to me the other day. A clergyman and author. Of religious books, from what he said. He asked me what the story meant. I told him honestly that the writer does the best he can, and then it is for the commentator to decide what it means to him. Or—perhaps if he is a particularly egregious commentator—to decide what it ought to mean for everyone.”

  “Including the writer?”

  Stevenson laughed. “I don’t know. If he is a particularly priestly sort, I suppose. When you think of it, hasn’t the whole history of Christianity involved particularly learned and persuasive and drably garbed interpreters explaining what the Word of the Heavenly Author really means? As though He hadn’t spoken clearly for Himself?”

  “Heavens!” exclaimed Fanny. “It’s a good thing your father isn’t around to hear you say that.”

  Again Stevenson laughed. “It’s a good thing he’s not around to hear me say most of the things I say.”

  For a moment they were silent.

  “You know, Louis—what Lang said about all of your heroes being middle-aged professional men? What do you think it means that not a single one of them seems to be married?”

  “Do we know that?”

  “About Jekyll and Utterson, we do. And there’s no evidence any of the others are. There are maids and housekeepers, but no wives.”