“Remember? The Times?” he muttered. “‘Horrible things,’ wha’d they say? ‘not often attracting the public.’ But this story attracted ’em, didn’t it? And something about awakening ‘strange sensations?’ My God, Fanny!” He threw himself forward in his chair, his head crashing down onto his forearms. His tumbler leapt from his hand and rolled across the carpet past Fanny’s feet, leaving a trail of pungent spirits.
“I don’t know what else to say.” Fanny sat back and folded her arms in a mixture of combativeness and despair.
“Don’t you understand?” When Stevenson lifted his head his eyes were flushed and brimming. “Hyde is my creature.”
The clock struck midnight. The fire had all but died in the grate, and a chill had taken over the room. Stevenson shivered with the tolling and looked over at the bottle. It lay on its side, empty. No solace there. He rose to his feet and stumbled towards the door, his shoes scraping noisily on the bare floorboards between the carpet and the hallway.
“Shhhhh!” he hissed at himself. “You sound like the fucking cavalry.”
He kicked off his shoes and they clattered up against the wall.
“Shhhhh! Shhhhh!” He advanced a few steps in his stocking feet. “Like a mouse. Creep like a wee drunken mousie.”
He reached the staircase and, grabbing hold of the newel post, swung himself around it with a momentum that brought him hard up against the inner side of the banister. He struck his face on the handrail, he knew, but it scarcely pained him. Grabbing the rail, he pulled himself up the stairs, one at a time, left foot first, right following. Up. And up.
He reached the top of the flight and spun back towards the front of the house and the door to his room. Was Fanny asleep? Or just lying there waiting? Probably asleep. He stopped at the door and leaned heavily against the frame. Was that her breathing? He snorted to himself and continued down the hall, wondering if the floorboards would creak. No, thank God! On to the next flight. He grasped the rail. Left, and then right. Up. And up.
“Ain’t this folly, Thomson?” he giggled under his breath. “Very naughty. Naughtier naughtiest.”
He reached the top floor and endeavored to tiptoe down the bare hallway, reaching out with his right hand for support from the wall.
“Am I smudging? Best not smudge.”
This was Millie’s door, he thought dimly. Millie and Agnes’s. He passed quietly by, feeling an excited constriction in his chest. Then this would be Valentine’s. Oh my! He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and reached for the knob, turning it as slowly as he possibly could. Was it turning? Had it moved at all? The latch clicked free of its seat and he almost fell into the room, taking a few quick steps to keep from crashing onto the floor.
There was a brisk rustle of bedclothes. “Qui va? Qui va là?”
“C’est moi, Valentine. Ton…mâitre.” He closed the door behind himself, pushing it too hard. The latch engaged with a deafening clack. “Shhhh!”
“What are you doing here, monsieur? Is something wrong?” He could hear her sitting up in the bed.
“Yes.”
“What is it?” There was the sound of fumbling. She struck a lucifer and lit the candle on her nightstand, staring at him wide-eyed in the mounting chiaroscuro glow.
“Everything’s wrong.”
“Wait, please. Let me get out of bed. Let me put on my robe.”
“No!” hissed Stevenson, again louder than he meant to. “Right there. I want you there. Stay there.”
She had thrown her legs over the edge of the bed, uncovering them to rise. She drew them back in, pulling the bedclothes over herself once again. The candle cast her shadow on the wall to Stevenson’s left. Huge. Leaning towards him. Perfectly still.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?”
“Yes.”
“What do I want?”
She remained motionless, silent, bracing herself on her hands. Her nightgown was pulled slightly open. He could see the soft swelling of a breast.
“I don’t know. Damn me, Valentine, I don’t.” He did know, though, that he was on the brink of weeping.
“Come,” said the woman, sliding to the side. “Come. Sit.” She patted the bed next to her. “Look at me.”
He did as he was told.
“You do not know what you want?”
His head dropped to his chest and he shook it slowly, side to side.
“I believe I know what you want.” Her voice was silken in the chill air. He could smell the warmth of her. “But not this.”
“No?” He tried to focus on her face, but the room was swimming in the dancing candlelight.
She reached for a handkerchief on the table and lifted it to wipe a tear from his cheek. He had never seen her do anything so gently, and it unmanned him.
“No,” she replied. “Not at all. Now then!” She reached up to gather the bodice of her gown more closely about her. “Tell me why everything is wrong. How it is so.”
As best he could in his condition, Stevenson shared his anguish over the dreadful turn he had seen his work take. At times he blubbered, half expecting her to reach out and comfort him, but she sat there calmly, clinically, taking everything in. When he had finished, or thought perhaps that he had, she reached out and, for the briefest moment, pressed his knee.
“Madame Stevenson is right. You know?”
“Right?”
“It is not your fault how someone acts when they read what you write. Unless you tell them this is the way they must act. And even then, it is their choice, yes?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Please, monsieur. It is the things we do that matter. Not the stories we tell.”
He looked at her blankly. It put him in mind of something. Did it have to do with his father?
“You know the story ‘Hansel and Gretel?’”
Stevenson laughed.
“You do?”
He nodded.
“If someone reads ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and decides to eat children for his supper, has the story made him do that?”
He laughed again.
“It is what you do, monsieur. Your acts. If you had come and forced me this night, that would have been a sin.”
His stomach clenched as though he might be ill.
“I wouldn’t do that, Valentine. I would never force you. I suppose I thought…I thought you—”
“Shhhh! Shhhh! Let me tell you a story.” She reached over and slid the candle slightly closer to them on the nightstand, and then adjusted herself in the bed. “One time, years ago—I was thirteen—my brother came to me at night. Very much this way.” She nodded gravely. “He was eighteen. He was, how do you say, amorous? He loved the girls. This night, my brother came to me in the middle of the night and he fell on top of me. In my bed. I cried out and he grabbed me by the throat and he told me he would kill me if I was not silent. I was so frightened that I believed he truly would. So I fought him in silence until I could fight no more. He was very strong, you see. And it finally hurt me more, I thought, to fight against him than to let him have his way. And he did.”
“God, Valentine,” sighed Stevenson. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”
“You may feel sad at me and my story. Good. Then you feel what a good man should feel. It was also good that, tonight, you did not do something to regret. That would be sinful. It would be unforgiveable.”
He could not recall, at that moment, any other utterance that had left him feeling so chastened and penitent.
“Let me tell you this now before you go to bed. Your own bed.” She lowered her head and peered at him sternly. “I have been with no man since that night. I was not before and I have not since. I have no taste for these things with men. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
Valentine pulled her head back and, surprisingly, laughed softly. “‘I do.’ This is what you say to the priest, yes? When you marry?”
“It is.”
&nbs
p; “I do,” she repeated, as though trying it on for size. “Now, go to Madame Stevenson.”
“Valentine—”
“We will not speak of this. Not with anyone. This is for us alone to know.”
He had scarcely closed her door before he began to wonder, in the dim way his condition allowed, how he could have misjudged this woman so utterly, so completely misread her intentions. It was a matter to revisit some time when he felt less likely to vomit.
16
He had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”
—THE NARRATOR, OF MR. UTTERSON
THE TIMES
MONDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER 1888
ANOTHER MURDER AT THE EAST-END.
Whitechapel and the whole of the East of London have again been thrown into a state of intense excitement by the discovery early on Saturday morning of the body of a woman who had been murdered in a similar way to Mary Ann Nichols at Buck’s-row on Friday week. In fact the similarity in the two cases is startling, as the victim of the outrage had her head almost severed from her body, and was completely disembowelled. This latest crime, however, even surpasses the others in ferocity. The scene of the murder, which makes the fourth in the same neighbourhood within the past few weeks, is at the back of the house, 29, Hanbury-street, Spitalfields. This street runs from Commercial-street to Baker’s-row, the end of which is close to Buck’s-row. The house, which is rented by a Mrs. Emilia Richardson, is let out to various lodgers, all of the poorer class. In consequence, the front door is open both day and night, so that no difficulty would be experienced by any one in gaining admission to the back portion of the premises. Shortly before 6 o’clock on Saturday morning John Davis, who lives with his wife at the top portion of No. 29, and is a porter engaged in Spitalfields Market, went down into the back yard, where a horrible sight presented itself to him. Lying close up against the wall, with her head touching the other side wall, was the body of a woman. Davis could see that her throat was severed in a terrible manner, and that she had other wounds of a nature too shocking to be described. The deceased was lying flat on her back, with her clothes disarranged. Without nearer approaching the body, but telling his wife what he had seen, Davis ran to the Commercial-street Police-station, which is only a short distance away, and gave information to Inspector Chandler, H Division, who was in charge of the station at the time. That officer, having dispatched a constable for Dr. Baxter Phillips, Spital-square, the divisional surgeon, repaired to the house, accompanied by several other policemen. The body was still in the same position, and there were large clots of blood all round it. It is evident that the murderer thought that he had completely cut the head off, as a handkerchief was found wrapped round the neck, as though to hold it together. There were spots and stains of blood on the wall. One or more rings seem to have been torn from the middle finger of the left hand. After being inspected by Dr. Baxter Phillips and his assistant, the remains were removed, on an ambulance, to the mortuary in Old Montagu-street. By this time the news had quickly spread that another diabolical murder had been committed, and when the police came out of the house with the body, a large crowd, consisting of some hundreds of persons, had assembled. The excitement became very great, and loud were the expressions of terror heard on all sides. At the mortuary the doctors made a more minute examination of the body, after which the clothes were taken off. The deceased was laid in the same shell in which Mary Ann Nichols was placed.
11 September
The Athenaeum Club
Dear Stevenson,
I am sick at heart. I had of course read the English papers in Davos about the terrible string of doings in the East End. It was only when I had returned to London, however, that I heard of the talk that the theatrical piece made from your book may have played a role in bringing about these dreadful events. And now another! I know it is not your play but Mansfield’s, yet my heart goes out to you as you live with the people’s suspicion that your story may have had a hand in it all. Oh Louis, did I not tell you it was a dreadful thing? I recall saying that all of us had a Hyde lurking within us, struggling to emerge, yet it was never a Hyde of such inhuman brutality that I contemplated. The greatest horror of it all is that I believe I have a notion of who the man may be, yet I am positioned such that I can see no way to play a role in bringing him to justice. Of the many burdens I have struggled under in this life, this now seems the weightiest. I scarce know what to do…or to think of myself.
I stay in London for another fortnight, attending to some matters with my publishers. You may find me at the Athenaeum.
With warm regards to Fanny and to Sam,
Symonds
Stevenson took the third train of the day to London. Fanny had pressed him hard on his reasons for going to the capital so precipitously, but, for reasons that were not entirely clear to him, he had refused to be forthcoming. Perhaps he wanted a free hand in dealing with a matter for which, despite her repeated remonstrations, he felt extreme responsibility and guilt. Perhaps he craved a sort of excitement that he was loath to share. It did feel strangely like those days at Colinton Manse when, as a young boy, he would escape from the house and its grownups to join his cousins out in the fields and alongside the streams, relishing the intoxicating prospect of whatever the day might bring. Only so long could he and they abide being cooped up in the house, despite all its storybooks and toys; there came, infallibly, that irresistible craving for free ranging adventure. The last thing presently on his mind, however, was frivolous recreation.
He withstood Fanny’s annoyance and then her outright anger as he packed his Gladstone, assuring her he would return as soon as he had finished with his business. It was only after he had grabbed his things, donned his hat, and slammed the front door behind him that he felt reasonably certain he had dodged the threat of assault.
The train ride was uneventful. The only news in the day’s paper was that the previous afternoon, Mr. Wynne E. Baxter, coroner for the South-Eastern Division of Middlesex, had resumed his inquiry at the Vestry Hall, Cable Street, “St. George’s-in-the-East,” respecting the death of Annie Chapman. Eight citizens had testified.
Stevenson took a hansom from Waterloo to Pall Mall to call at the Athenaeum Club, where he asked for Symonds. Once he had examined the writer’s card, the porter allowed that Mr. Symonds was indeed currently in residence but that he was out for the day, expected back, perhaps, in the late afternoon. Stevenson left a message that he would call again at seven, and then walked up to Piccadilly and on to the Savile.
He had vaguely hoped to see Dobbs at the door, but it was another fellow altogether who opened for him. Nonetheless, he was greeted by name at the porter’s lodge and assured that there would be a room available for the night—and, should he require it, for the foreseeable future. If Mr. Stevenson would care to leave his bag, it would be taken to his room as soon as one became ready; in the meantime, he might of course avail himself of the morning room, the drawing room, the library, or the bar. Stevenson looked at his watch. 1:30—a bit late for luncheon, and he had no appetite at all. He walked to the bar and ordered himself a whisky.
At seven he was on his way back down Regent Street, approaching the Athenaeum. The august establishment was the first club in London to have installed electric lighting, and as he neared the elegant Neoclassical pile, Stevenson was dazzled by the brightness pouring out the place. He took a moment to look up at the imposing gold statue of Athena herself, atop the massive Doric portico. Dickens, Darwin, Scott, Thackeray, Spencer, Palmerston, Kipling: it was an Olympian lot that frequented this British retreat of the Goddess of Wisdom. Stevenson felt a blend of excitement and dread as he considered just what sort of knowledge one if its members might convey to him this very night.
An elder
ly porter opened the door to inform him that Mr. Symonds attended him in the South Library. Stevenson followed the man across the marbled entrance hall and through a tall double door into the impressive reading room. All four walls were stacked with books, three tiers of them stretching from the floor to the high ceiling. He spotted his old friend at the top of the stairs to the first mezzanine. Symonds gestured and, after turning to slide a sizeable volume back into its shelf, descended the stairs to greet him. While his expression and handshake were warm and assured, a tentativeness lurked in his eyes.
“My things are just here,” he said, pointing to a chair by the door. “Shall we avail ourselves of this fine evening and begin with a stroll around St. James’s Park?”
“Perfect.”
“I do hope you will join me for dinner. I have a table at Bertolini’s. In St. Martin’s. Eight o’clock?”
“Excellent. I don’t believe I’ve dined there.”
“You’ll enjoy it.” Symonds retrieved his gloves, stick, and a broad-brimmed, Whitmanesque hat, gesturing towards the door.
The two exchanged nothing beyond pleasantries until they had descended the steps to the Mall and turned west along the upper margins of the park. The air was still and the walkway tolerably well lit, such that they were likely to see or hear well in advance the approach of anyone who might overhear their conversation.
“I am extremely grateful you have come,” declared Symonds, once he was sure they were quite alone. “I wasn’t certain that you would.”
“How could I not?”
“It’s a dreadful business, Stevenson.”
“It assuredly is. I cannot tell you how shattered I am. I don’t know that I ever in my life have felt the way I feel just now.”
“I can only imagine.”
“That letter of yours came back to mind immediately. Chillingly.”
“I am sorry.”
“No. There’s no need to apologize. It simply confirmed for me that the damned thing might well have some less-than-desirable effects.”
“You put it rather mildly.” Symond looked at him gravely.
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