More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
MARY: Is it really necessary to begin with the funeral? Can’t you begin with something else? Anyway, I thought you were supposed to start in the middle of the action—in medias res.
MARY: Not that in medias res! They won’t understand the story if you start like that. CATHERINE: Then stop telling me how to write it.
The face that stared back at her was pale, with dark circles under the eyes. Even her hair, ordinarily a middling brown, seemed pale this morning, as though washed out by the light that came through the narrow windows on either side of the front door. She looked like a corpse.
BEATRICE: The laws regarding female inheritance in this country are barbaric. Why should male heirs be left fortunes outright, while female heirs are left only an income for life? What if their husbands abandon them, as so many do? Or transfer their fortunes to accounts in Budapest? Who is to take care of their children?
Almost as long as Mary could remember, her mother had stayed in the large bedroom she had slept in since marrying Dr. Jekyll and moving to London from her native Yorkshire—pacing around the room, talking to invisible companions. Sometimes she scratched herself until she bled. Sometimes she tore out chunks of her hair, so it lay in long strands on the floor. Once, Nurse Adams had suggested she be sent to an institution for her own safety. Mary had refused, but in the last few weeks she had begun to wonder if she had been wrong. What had caused those violent spasms, those shrieks in the night?
...more
Even as a little girl, Mary had not cried easily. She had learned long ago that life was difficult. One had to live it with courage and common sense; it did not reward sentimentality.
MRS. POOLE: Miss Mary is a lady. She does not throw fits, unlike some as I could name.
“Yes, but she could at least have said goodbye. After the way I took her in and trained her. I never expected ingratitude, not from Alice! And no forwarding address. I would at least have liked to send her a card at Christmas.”
“Mrs. Poole, you really should reconsider . . .” “I’m not leaving you, miss,” said Mrs. Poole. “Not in this big house, all alone. My father was butler here under Dr. Jekyll, and my mother came from the country with Mrs. Jekyll. Your mother’s nurse, she was.
“Flats!” said Mrs. Poole in a horrified tone. “Divide a gentleman’s residence into flats! I don’t know what the world is coming to. Well, perhaps Mr. Guest will tell you something to your advantage.”
newspapers boys called out, “Another ’orrible murder! Maid on her day out found without a ’ead! Read about it in the Daily Mail!”
Mr. Guest was as tall and lean and balding as ever. He reminded Mary of a cadaver;
At the top was written: DATE—TRANSACTION—AMOUNT—PURPOSE. Each transaction had taken place on the first of the month, and each was recorded in exactly the same way: Payment to the Society of St. Mary Magdalen—£1—For the care and keeping of Hyde.
your mother left these documents with the bank for safekeeping.”
And if I may also mention—young ladies in your situation often find it a relief to place their affairs in the hands of those who are more worldly, more wise in such matters. In short, Miss Jekyll, since you have recently come of age, you may choose to marry.
Mary leaned forward and stared into the fire. She did not quite know how to ask . . . but directly was always best. She turned to Mrs. Poole and said, “What do you remember about Edward Hyde?”
“There are references I don’t understand—scientific references, in part. But I’m starting to think that my father was involved in some strange things, Mrs. Poole.”
Mrs. Poole removed the plate and cutlery in a way that expressed her complete disapproval. She has always had the remarkable ability to show exactly what she thinks without saying a word. It’s a very annoying trait. No, you may not add a comment here, Mrs. Poole.
A lady might feel fear, but she must not give in to it, or so her governess had taught her.
With a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she crossed the courtyard at the back of the house and unlocked the laboratory door, which had been locked for—how long now? Since her mother had become too ill to be cared for by the servants and Mary had hired Nurse Adams. That must be . . . seven years ago. Even before that, it had only been entered by the maids, for an annual cleaning.
I still remember that night, although it was so long ago. My father and Mr. Utterson breaking down the door to the office, and then my father telling all the servants that Dr. Jekyll was dead. An accident, he told us, but we all whispered the word suicide.
You know, when I was a child, I thought my father was a magician. I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world.
Mary, who was not thinking about the price of boots because that is so boring, shut her umbrella, awkwardly because she was carrying the portfolio Mr. Guest had given her under one arm.
DIANA: You’re not going to make him the hero, are you? Because that would be sickening.
But I’m sure the solution will be a simple one, in the end. Spectacular cases are usually simpler, and less interesting, than they initially appear.”
She thought of what she had read in her father’s laboratory notebook and the letters, what she had not told Mr. Holmes. There was no need for him to know, at least not yet.
She and Watson looked at a sign on the gate, on which was written: A MISSION TO RESCUE OUR FALLEN SISTERS IN CHRIST. VISITORS PERMITTED BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 AND 4, EXCEPT ON THE SABBATH. NO GENTLEMAN VISITORS AT ANY TIME.
[The rest of Diana’s comments are not appropriate for a book that we hope will reach an audience of both mature and younger readers.]
“Who is this girl?” Mary asked Mrs. Raymond, feeling utterly bewildered. It was about time she got some answers. And the girl, whoever she was, should have her arm tended to.
“May the Lord bless and keep you—away from here, you imp!”
Here she was, in the middle of Whitechapel, with Dr. Watson and mystery in the shape of a very dirty girl, arguing to be taken to a murder. What would Mrs. Poole think? MRS. POOLE: What indeed!
JUSTINE: Diana, I’ve always wondered. What did you do in the baptismal font? DIANA: I pissed in it! JUSTINE: Yes, I suspected something of the sort.
“Diana,” said Mary, “even rats wouldn’t pick bones clean in one night. If you’re going to tell tales, you should at least make them plausible.”
Kate looked down at her hands on the table, but did not cry. What good would it have done? We often think that class of woman is hard-hearted, because it does not show emotion, but what good would it do for the Kates of the world to cry? They have learned that tears do not bring relief or change of circumstance. There is no one to wipe their tears, no one to assuage their grief.
Diana laughed again. “Jekyll’s dead, according to Miss Mary, here. That means Hyde’s dead. My mum told me that Hyde was just another name for Jekyll. Hyde was a disguise Jekyll used when he didn’t want to be found out. Like a cloak.”
There was a look on Diana’s face: anger at not being believed, and something that startled Mary, a grimace as though she were about to cry.
“Come on,” said Mary to Diana. She was not interested in amusing Mr. Holmes. She was grateful to him for having included her in the investigation, but also irritated—she was not sure why. “I have a lot of work to do. And you need a bath.”
Park Terrace was broad and quiet, and the only sound was the clopping of the horse’s hooves as it stepped impatiently in place. The brick buildings, dating from the time of one of the Georges—she could never remember which—stood along the street in respectable rows.
But tonight, a particular sentence in the letter had stood out, taken on a different and more sinister meaning: A scientist should not experiment on himself. What, exactly, had her father been doing?
“Why, the two were quite different. Dr. Jekyll was a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman, and Mr. Hyde was a low, creeping sort of thing. It’s not possible, I assure you.”
“He may have poisoned himself, in a way,” said Mary. She hesitated—would her idea sound foolish? Impossible? But she had to tell someone, and she had known Mrs. Poole as long as she could remember. Mrs. Poole had been like a mother to her, when her own mother couldn’t be. “These documents imply—they seem to indicate—that he was performing chemical experiments. On himself, and one of those experiments transformed him into Hyde. The disguise wasn’t just a physical change, like changing his clothes and putting on false hair, but an actual chemical transformation.”
Today, I let out the beast Hyde. He is stronger than I am. What will he do when I can no longer control his impulses?
The sight of my face in the mirror. The horror! The horror! He has gained the power to transform at will, and I cannot stop him.
“And the final entry.” All is lost. All, all lost, and I am a dead man.
“Why did the sight of his own face fill him with horror? And these two letters from Maw & Sons, the wholesale chemist and supplier, about some sort of powder he ordered.
“Diana, if you’re not polite to Mrs. Poole, your stay in this house won’t be a pleasant one,” said Mary. “She’s the one who cooks for us and cleans our rooms, and makes our lives generally comfortable. Although if I don’t find a way to make money soon, she’ll have to find another employer, and we will have to fend for ourselves.”
Who would be writing to my father from Budapest in Latin?
My dear Jekyll, I am glad to hear that your experiments are going well. I remain convinced that we are working along the correct lines. The important scientific advances of this century will be in the biological sciences, as the important advances of the previous century were in chemistry and physics. Darwin has shown us the way, although he himself cannot see past the end of his nose! (I have heard it is a rather long nose, but not long enough to see the truth.) We shall go where Darwin never imagined. Transmutation, not natural selection, is the agent of evolution. God is an alchemist, not a
...more
Our colleague Moreau was right to conjecture that the female brain would be more malleable and responsive to our experiments.
A scientist should not experiment on himself. He should be a dispassionate observer, and for an experimental subject, young, malleable flesh is best. You have a daughter, have you not? Surely she is old enough for you to begin the process, in whatever direction you decide will yield the most promising results.
