Mary Reilly (21 page)

But when we went in I was soon at my ease, for the gentlemen was talking to one another all at once, it seemed, and paid us no mind. Their conversation was on the subject of Master’s project for a Latin school, and the three gentlemen, Mr. Utterson, Mr. Littleton and Master, was at persuading Dr. Lanyon to join them in it. Dr. Lanyon seemed to me a gloomy gentleman and I did not like the way he spoke to Master, for it seemed every time Master spoke he contradicted him, while when the others spoke, he agreed. He said it was enough that he gave part of his time to the free hospital, where Mr. Utterson and Mr. Littleton could be of no use, for they was not medical men. “But you, Harry,” he said, “might remember your oath and do as much good with me as in your Latin school.” So Master said, “I will gladly give you hour for hour in your hospital, if you will join us in this school.”

I would have thought this would be an end of it, but then it seemed Dr. Lanyon had some objection to the school beyond his feeling he was not suited to it, for he only said he would think upon it. They all fell upon their soup and the subject changed, but before I could make it out, we was done serving and went down.

Then I was busy in the kitchen, helping Cook, laying out the platters and silver, stirring the pots as she
directed and handing all manner of things to Mr. Poole and Mr. Bradshaw, who was up and down the stairs a dozen times. I saw two more bottles of wine go up and then the champagne with the soufflé, after which we all breathed a sigh and Cook flung herself down in the chair and said, “My poor knees must have a rest.” It was not long after this that Mr. Bradshaw called me up to help with the clearing off. The gentlemen was rising from the meal as I come in and indeed Mr. Utterson and Dr. Lanyon were nearly out the door, for Mr. Utterson knows his way to the drawing room and has said many times how he likes to sit before Master’s fire after a good meal. Master was speaking to Mr. Littleton and I heard him say, “Hastie has always taken a dim view of my enthusiasms. He thinks it is his duty,” very wry-seeming and loud enough for Dr. Lanyon to hear, though I think he did not, for I looked at his back going out and he gave no sign of it. Then when I looked back Mr. Littleton was walking out but Master had stopped and to my surprise I found he was looking at me with a very amused expression, for he’d read in my eyes what I think of Dr. Lanyon. So I ducked my head to my work, which was taking up plates. Master said to Mr. Poole, “Tell Cook she has outdone herself, Poole,” and then he went out.

After that we was all busy for more than an hour clearing up, and I helped Annie scour the pots for which she was grateful. She was yawning like a cat and no sooner was the last done then she went up to bed saying she hoped we would have no more gentlemen in ever,
which made Cook scowl at her and say she was spoiled from Master’s quiet ways and should not last a fortnight in a country house, which was nothing but dinners and parties. “Nor would I,” was all Annie said and went on climbing the stairs, yawning at every step so we had to laugh at her. Mr. Poole come down then and took a seat saying everything was done for a spell, but I was to go and tend the fire, as it was very low, so I went up. I found the drawing-room door open. I looked in to see Mr. Utterson, Mr. Littleton and Dr. Lanyon had drawn their chairs into half a circle facing the fire and Master stood next to it, leaning his arm on the mantel, so he saw me at the door and said, “Come in, Mary. As you can see, we need you, for I am trying to climb into the chimney.”

So all the gentlemen looked up at me as I went in, which made me uncomfortable. I went to the grate, knelt down before it and went straight to work, which seemed to make me invisible, for they went back to their conversation at once. It was Dr. Lanyon who was speaking, to this end, that it was not a good thing to educate the working classes for it gave them ideas above their station and could only lead to more discontent in lives already difficult to bear. “To a man who spends his every waking moment in some sweatshop where there is neither light nor air, and thereby earns scarcely enough to feed his family, it is a greater service that he may bring his ruined eyes and weakened lungs to hospital then to some ill-lit room where you would teach him to read a language he can never use and to entertain notions that
can only make him more keenly aware of the hopelessness of his station.” Indeed, he went on, it was a wonder to him that Master could find
any
students foolhardy enough to attend such a school, and that he could only proved the incurable foolishness and obstinacy of the class.

Master said surely the spirit could starve as well as the body, and Mr. Littleton put in that there was a great demand for the school and that he found the men to be eager for knowledge. Mr. Utterson said his students copied his manners as well as his lessons and he could not see that it could harm a workingman to know how to comport himself among gentlemen.

While all this was being said, I had finished my work and the fire was blazing up so high it seemed my face would catch, but I could not move without interrupting the stream of talk, which seemed, as Mr. Utterson concluded, to pause for a moment while Dr. Lanyon drew his breath to reply.

“To what end, Gabriel?” he said, in such an angry voice we all seemed to draw away from his harsh tone. “To what end this sham of gentility? So that a rogue may call a gentleman by his Christian name before he throttles him to death with another gentleman’s walking stick?”

Then we could have heard a pin drop on the carpet, the silence was that sudden and thick. I kept my eyes on the grate but I heard Master lift his glass from the mantel, drink from it, then set it back down very slow, and when he spoke his voice was the same, slow and
careful. “We differ only on interpretation, Hastie,” Master said. “We always have. You see the exception and conclude it proves the rule. What I fear is that unless we make some effort to bring the light of reason to the labouring classes, that exception may well
be
the rule.”

Dr. Lanyon, who seemed ashamed of what he had said, as well he might be, mumbled a few words to the effect that Master might have a point.

“Can we agree on this, then,” Master said, “that as we gather here, comfortable, safe and warm after a good meal, with our fire and our port and you, Gabriel, with your pipe, a new world is coming into being just outside there.” Here Master lifted his glass to the window that faces the square. “And it is a world we know little about, one that may have no place for us in it, a world”—Master paused and all the gentlemen hung on his words, as did I—“we made ourselves but which is already beyond our control.”

Dr. Lanyon spoke up at once. “Aye,” he said. “That is the truth.”

They fell quiet again until Master said to Mr. Utterson, “Gabriel, your glass is empty. May I fill you another?” Then I took the opportunity to get up off my knees and slip out, feeling I’d overheard more than I could understand. As I went downstairs I went over what each gentleman had said and pondered what Master might mean by saying that the world might have no place for him in it. I was struck with how mild he had responded to Dr. Lanyon’s remark, for surely he had meant Master was in some way to blame for the murder
of Sir Danvers Carew, because he had tried to do good among those who could not profit by it. In the kitchen I took off my apron and Mr. Poole told me he would close up and I might go off to bed, which I did, taking a fresh candle with me so that I would have light to set down these things I heard.

I
t do seem as the days grow shorter there is less time and more to fill it with, so the hours go by and I am too weary of an evening to write in my journal and of a morning too busy. Master is in and out at all hours, but has not gone to his laboratory in many weeks, for he has so many of what Mr. Poole calls his “projects” afoot it is all he can do to keep up with them. The weather is cold, full of gloom, though the holiday season will be upon us soon and the shops bring out all manner of things to sell, earlier each year, so it is bright and pleasant to walk among them. Our garden is bloomed out and laid down for spring, so Cook says we will have little work in it for the next two months. We have dried a good many herbs and potted up some smaller ones to bring in.

Days go by and Master hardly speaks to me, so I find myself waiting eagerly to be summoned to stir up a fire or carry some message downstairs and always come away feeling sad, for he only says what must be
said and does not ask after me or seem to want my opinion, but has his mind always occupied with matters outside our house. Indeed he is in good spirits most of the time and he is by his nature such a thoughtful gentleman no one in his service could ever count himself ill used. Yet I feel somehow he does not like to see me, for I remind him of that house in Soho, which I wish I had never seen, and of his unhappy connection with one who betrayed his confidence and trust so cruel and open for all the world to see. Many times as I am going out of a room I look back to see him working at his desk or pacing about before the fire and I want to say, He is gone. Must he still stand between us?

But I know there is no help for it. Mr. Edward Hyde will never leave us. Everything we do in this house is to cover the place where he is still. The way we never speak of him speaks of him. I never enter a room but I expect to find him there. Even now, sitting quietly at the end of day with my candle and my journal, I seem to hear his strange light footstep on the stair.

S
omething is amiss, though I do not know what. Yesterday Master went out in the afternoon on some errand, saying he would not be back until dinner. Then, very close to dinnertime, a note was handed in to
Mr. Poole from Master, saying he would not be back until very late but that Dr. Lanyon would be coming by to take something from his cabinet. Mr. Poole was to engage a locksmith to open the door. Even Mr. Poole, who never questions Master’s wishes, said to Cook, “It is odd he did not send the key,” but Cook said, “He has not been in his laboratory in so long, mayhap he has mislaid it.” So Mr. Poole did as Master asked and Dr. Lanyon came by after dinner, but I did not see him. Then we all finished our chores and sat about waiting for Master. I helped Annie cut out a dress pattern. At eleven Master still had not come, so Mr. Poole said we had all best turn in and he would get up if Master rung for anything. None of us heard him come in, but in the morning when Mr. Poole come down he said Master was asleep and we was not to disturb him. We crept about all the morning, until Mr. Poole came out and found me doing the brass on the street, to say Master wanted a fire in his room, for he was not feeling well enough to come down.

So I went up and tapped at the door, and Master called out, “Come in.” He was huddled in his chair before the cold grate with the lap robe over his legs and another thrown around his shoulders. He gave me a weary smile as I come in and I thought he looked old of a sudden, as if his night out had taken years off his life. “Mary,” he said, “I think I’m frozen through.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I was not certain whether to leave a fire last night but Mr. Poole said he would get up when you come in, so I did not.”

“I did not wake him,” Master said. “I was so tired, I was asleep as soon as I got to my bed and I’ve only just waked up.”

I knelt down before the coals and went to work. “Cook is sending you up a tray,” I said. “A cup of tea will bring you right.”

Master sighed. “I wish that were true,” was all he said.

It did not take long to get the coals going, then I went to draw the curtains for the sun was shining, though it was cold, and I thought the light might make Master feel less dreary. I noticed a drawer sitting on the floor near the window, which had some odd-looking bottles as for medicine, as well as papers such as is drawn up at the chemist’s, though not marked. It looked like the drawers in the press in Master’s cabinet and I thought it must be, so this was doubtless what Dr. Lanyon had come for and Master had met with him to bring it back. I stepped around it to reach the curtains but Master said, “No, Mary. Leave them closed.” Then Mr. Poole come in with the tray and began fussing over Master, so I went out. When Mr. Poole come down he told Mr. Bradshaw he was going out to fetch the locksmith again and Master was not at home to any visitors for the rest of the day.

When the locksmith come in the afternoon, Master went out to his laboratory with him and they was busy there some time, replacing the lock what was taken off yesterday with a new one, so Cook told me. After our tea Mr. Poole come from upstairs to say Master wished
to speak to me in the drawing room, so I went up at once. Master was just finishing his own tea when I come in and he looked better than he had in the morning, but he seemed anxious and even vexed, for he come straight to the point as soon as I come in. “I want you to give my cabinet a thorough cleaning, Mary,” he said. I know my mouth dropped open for I never thought to hear such a request from Master. He paid me no mind but fished out the key from his pocket and held it out to me. “I’ve told Poole this is your first priority.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I’ll be spending a good deal of time there these next weeks and it’s very dusty from disuse. I’m sure you’ll find your work cut out for you.”

“Yes, sir,” was all I said.

“Put in some coal in the theatre, so I can get to it with ease.”

“I will, sir,” I said. Then as I was going out he said, “Don’t bother to clean the theatre, Mary. Just the cabinet.”

I looked back at him and glad I was that I did, for he gave me a most kind smile and said, “If I turn you loose upon the place you’ll have everything sparkling in no time. Don’t touch those cobwebs in the theatre. I don’t want to be attacked by disgruntled spiders.”

I laughed at this and went on my way, feeling my spirits much lifted by Master’s easy way as well as the opportunity to do some real service to him. I was soon among my buckets and brushes, choosing the best for each purpose, and I mixed up a special polish, for I
thought I might make those smiling babies on the fender glow like lamps with a bit of effort. Cook laughed at me and said to Mr. Poole, who passed through the kitchen looking testy, for he hates anything like a change, “Mary thinks it a holiday to finally have a go at Master’s cabinet.” Then I went into the yard and began drawing water. It was cold out but fair and as I passed the garden to bring the buckets to the theatre door, I thought about the bulbs storing up food under the soil and waiting for the time when they knew it would be safe to push up. How odd it is that plants can have what we so often do without—good sense and judgement. I set down my buckets and took out the key Master give me, for I thought I should have a look at the room before I brought the rest of my things along, to decide how to proceed. The theatre door had been left open, so I walked in.