Mary Reilly

by Valerie Martin

  Oh, why is my heart so heavy?

  I know it is that Master called me fair, and has stirred up my vanity to be something I am not. Before I sat down to write I lit the candle and looked at my face in the glass for a long time. As I put on my shift I stopped a moment to look at my body. How white my skin looks in the candlelight. I brushed my hair down and let it fall over my breasts and I thought, is this a sight my master would care to see?

  Ten days has passed with us all so busy I haven’t had the time to put down a word. Master is with us and in high spirits. He goes in and out and has had company three nights in five, including a dinner party for eight what had Cook and me run off our feet two days in preparation. He has not gone to his laboratory once and seems not to think of it. When I said to Mr. Poole that the dinner talk mun be very scientific, all the gentlemen being learned doctors (except Mr. Utterson who mun have what I’ve heard called a legal mind and so adds in his views as they might be useful), he laughed at me and said, “Why, Mary, the talk is all of a show Mr. Littleton has seen, in which a young lady flies over the audience on a trapeze, hanging upside down by her knees and even by her ankles, dressed in a bit of a suit covered with silver stars that shows off her figure completely and leaves naught to be imagined about her.”

  This shocked me and I said, “Surely Master has not been to such a spectacle.” Mr. Poole gave me one of his long, dry looks which may of meant, “Of course he has,” or “How could you think of it?” I’ve no idea which.

  Master has been drinking and eating more than usual as well, which I think cannot be bad for him. He has a fondness for good wine and Cook says our cellar is as good as can be found in London. These days Master has been sending Mr. Poole into it regular to fetch some bottle as has achieved “a perfection” so Cook calls it, and Mr. Poole says it is a wonder how Master knows just what is down there and how long it’s been and even exactly where it is. These he serves to his visitors, being a most generous host who shares the best he has, and afterwards when they are gone he may take the opened bottle into the library and finish it off over a book, or just sitting quiet before the fire. There I found him last night after dinner when Mr. Poole sent me to get up the fire, as it was dying and the house has a chill in it of late, though it is fair summer, that we cannot seem to drive out with coal or cleaning.

  Master was standing close to the fire, as is his way, and only turned to say “Come in” to my knock. “I’ve come to see to your fire, sir,” I said and he nodded, stepping back, but only a little, as if he couldn’t bear to be separated from the bit of heat that was left, and he said, “Good, Mary. I believe it is nearly gone and I’m feeling so restless I don’t think I’ll attempt sleep for a while.” So I had to kneel down at his feet, which made me uncomfortable, and go about gathering up what ash was left and laying in a new store of coals.

  “You must be chilled yourself, Mary,” Master said. “Our kitchen is such a vast, dark cave of a place.”

  “No, sir,” I said. “Cook has had the big oven up all day, so it’s like a furnace to me. I don’t mind the cold anyway, for I’m used to it.” As I spoke the coal was taking and a swell of heat seemed to pour out from under my hands, so I fell back on my knees while the wave rose up before me.

  “There,” Master said, drawing close and holding his hands out before him. “Good. I can never get used to the cold, I’m afraid.”

  I stood up and backed away, wiping my black hands on my apron, so that Master could go back to his fire-gazing, and I said, “That’s because you’re a gentleman sir, and have thinner blood than mine, no doubt.”

  Master gave a little laugh and spoke to me without looking at me. “As a doctor and a scientist Mary, I feel it is my obligation to tell you that your theory has no basis in fact.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, meaning I was sorry to have spoken foolishness, but Master thought I had not understood him so he turned to me and said, “All human blood is the same, Mary. Under the microscope I could tell your blood from a monkey’s, perhaps, but not from my own.”

  “I see, sir,” I said. I felt a little annoyed to be lectured on my stupidity, so I looked right at Master and to my surprise he seemed to blush, though perhaps it was only that the fire had made his blood rise, which I felt timid to observe in my own head as it might be another mistake on my part. Master took up the decanter from the tray Mr. Poole had brought in and poured himself out a glass of port while I stood watching, not able to think what to say next. Looking on me seemed to soften his thoughts for he asked pleasantly, “How does your gardening progress, Mary? I haven’t looked at it in weeks, it seems, I’ve been so preoccupied with projects.”

  “Hardly have I, sir,” I said. “But it do seem that as soon as some seed we planted comes up, two such as we don’t want are on each side vying for the sun.”

  “Weeds, Mary,” Master replied, setting his glass down hard on the tray as if to crush out the weeds growing there. “Where do they come from if you haven’t somehow put them there?”

  “Why, the air must be full of them, sir,” I said. “For they are so much about that we see whole forests as is grown up without cultivation. But what strikes me is why, once they find a bit of soil, are weeds so much stronger than the things we want to grow?”

  “And do you have an answer to that question, Mary?” he asked.

  “I have thought on it, sir,” I said. “And it seems, being wild, they have a greater will to life.”

  Master gave me a ghastly smile and repeated what I’d said as if it was some profound truth he’d just received from an opening in the sky.

  “I think it’s true of many things as is deprived, and children too,” I said, “that they grow strong when no one cares for them and seem to love whatever life they can eke out and will kill to keep it, while the pampered child sickens and dies.”

  Master poured out another glass of port and I saw his hand was shaking. His face was pale and drops of moisture had formed on his upper lip and forehead, so he looked like a man having a fright instead of talking with his housemaid on the subject of weeds. He brought the glass to his lips abruptly, seeming not to taste the little bit he swallowed and gazing at me over the glass with lowered eyelids as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes showed him and so sought another line of vision.

  “Sir,” I said, “are you well?”

  “Why do you strike me so, Mary?” he replied, sounding hoarse.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” I said.

  “The things you say and that earnest, sober manner you have, as if you always mean more than you say.”

  I looked down as he spoke, feeling I couldn’t ever look up again, and so confused my mouth went dry. Master stood just so without moving, his glass in the air.

  “I’m sorry for it, sir,” I said. “If I seem forward. I only want to be honest and answer you always as best I can.”

  Still Master said nothing and while I stood waiting we heard the sound of raindrops against the window, very soft and seeming far off, so that the room, with the flickering fire and drawn curtains, was a haven from the cold darkness outside.

  “How many people know about you, Mary?” he said at last. “How many know how you came by those scars on your hands?”

  I drew my hands away, so surprised was I to hear Master speak of them. “Only you, sir,” I said. “It is not a story I care to tell.” I wanted to add that no one had cared to know, which struck me as the wonder of it, but Master cut in quickly.

  “I thought you could not tell it,” he said. “It was for that I asked you to write it down.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “You was right in that.”

  “Can I trust you, Mary?” he asked. “As you have trusted me?”

  Then I thought Master must be planning to give me a piece of writing on his own life, which did strike me as too fanciful, especially as he seemed so uncertain and anxious about asking me. “I hope you can, sir,” I said, “in all things.”

  He put down his glas
s and peered at me another moment, so that I thought he was trying to read my character. “Yes,” he said. “I think I can.” Then he went to his writing desk and took out an envelope, which he tapped against his palm as if still weighing whether to give it me or not. “You have a half-day this week, don’t you, Mary?” he asked, still looking at the letter.

  “I do, sir,” I said. “On Thursday.”

  “I want you to deliver this letter for me,” he said. “It must go by hand on that day. And no one must know of it—not Mr. Poole, not Annie, you understand.”

  “I do, sir,” I said. He held the letter out to me but I felt too timid to step forward and take it, though I was that curious to read the address I could not take my eyes from it. So we stood there a moment, very awkward, then Master closed the distance to me and I put my hand out not thinking, except as I might to stop him. When he stepped back the letter was in my hand.

  Master watched me closely as I turned it over and read the address. I struggled to keep my face from showing what I felt, for I knew exactly where it was and I wondered how Master even knew of such a street. No gentleman could have any business at that address as could do anything but bring ruin to his name. That it was addressed to a Mrs. Farraday troubled me further. How could Master know of a woman who would live in such a place as I knew this to be?

  “Can you deliver it, Mary?” Master said softly.

  I turned the letter over again so I would not have to look at it, then, feeling it was burning my fingers to hold it, I opened my wrist buttons and slipped it up my sleeve. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I can certainly do it.”

  “There will be no reply, other than a yes or no. This you can give to me on Friday, when you have returned.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “It’s a matter of some importance to me,” Master said. “I must be able to count absolutely on your integrity … and Mary,” he paused until I looked up and met his steady, calm gaze, “on your silence.”

  “Please, sir,” was all I could say.

  “Then I am confident,” he replied, “and now I put the business from my mind.” With that he turned back to the fire while I stood a moment looking at his back, at his hair which is thick, silver and a little long for the fashion, curling over his collar, and I thought I would like to cut a lock of it. Then, shocked at my own strange whims, which it seems I never can control, I went out, closing the door quietly behind me.

  It is very late and our house is asleep, but I cannot sleep. I lay beside Annie for hours, staring into the darkness, having such thoughts as leave me bitter and confused. I got up at last and lit the candle to sort things out if I can by putting them down. The moon is full tonight and makes a white, chilly light all along the windowsill where I sit. There’s no view but the back of the house next ours and a small space filled with blackness and stars.

  It’s all very well for Master to say he can now put the matter out of his mind, and doubtless he has done so while I am left sleepless, feeling not trusted and valued as I should, but anxious and afraid. The letter lies hidden in my dresser, folded inside my other night shift, and there it must stay for another night before I can set myself to the unhappy task of delivering it.

  After I left Master last night I told myself this only pertains to some charitable work, such as is often his pleasure to do, and I will see as soon as I come to the house that it is the beacon of honest light in the darkness of poverty and filth that lies all round it. In fact I know there is a house on that square run in part by the church (churches as must lock their doors of an evening, such is the character of those parishioners), a house that is for homeless children where they can rest a night or two until some place can be found for them. But I know well enough that this street runs onto the square but don’t face it, so it cannot be the same place. And even if it were, why would Master have such a need for secrecy? In general he is pleased enough to have it known abroad that he is one who cares for those less fortunate.

  No, everything about this letter is not what it should be, and I dread the morning I must go out and see to its delivery. Yet I do feel Master would not call upon me in such a way if it were not, as he put it, of some importance to him—of some very considerable importance, I should say—and I know also that he must set a great deal of trust in my character and the goodwill I bear him, to choose me over Mr. Poole to carry out this request.

  For surely Master knows no one could be more devoted to him than Mr. Poole. So there can only be one reason and that is this is some business he don’t want Mr. Poole to know of, which do lead again to the feeling that this is something no respectable gentleman mun engage upon.

  How my heart misgives me, to be singled out, because of what Master knows about me, as the one most likely to keep whatever painful secret this is.

  So this miserable errand is finished and I hope I may never go on another such. I felt, returning finally to my own small room at the top of this fine house, that I was coming into the fresh light of day after a trip through Hades.

  I was up early and did my work in the morning and hurriedly, as I always do on my half-day so I won’t be behind the next day. I got in a great lot of coal, did all the dusting, stripped down Master’s bed and turned the mattress, swept out the carpet with tea leaves, then made up the room again, the drawing room dusted and the fender polished. I got two buckets of water and washed me in the kitchen near the stove, which I usually enjoy, and Cook sat by talking to me. But she would ask what my plan was for my day and I lied, saying I was to stop to cheapen some cloth for a new cloak, as my woollen is too warm for this time of year, and that I would go to Regent’s Park as I always do, rain or shine, on my half-day, to see the roses and chat with the gardener there, a fine old country fellow named Mr. Tott, who always looks out for me when I go there and talks to me about the roses. My heart smote me to be lying to Cook, and thinking on where I was bound made me feel so low I could scarcely bring it off, but Cook seemed satisfied enough and wished me a good afternoon. Then I got dressed as I always do, in my good crinoline, print frock, bonnet and gloves, thinking as I put on my cloak that it was a waste to be going out in such attire, what usually makes me feel so festive and cheerful, on an errand that seemed fair to breaking my heart. I had the letter slipped in my cloak pocket that morning, so out I went wishing for all the world that it was a bit of cloth and a walk in the park I was bound for.

  I took the omnibus to St. James’s Park so that I could have part of my walk coming and going through some quiet green place and so settle my resolution going in and lift my spirits coming out. The weather was grey and drizzly but not cool, and in spite of it many people were strolling about, taking such fresh air as they could find. From there I had a long walk, through thick crowds of people of all sorts out to do their shopping, and carriages surging by with the drivers shouting at anyone foolish enough to try to cross a road, the horses all in a lather, wild-eyed, unable to look right nor left for their blinkers but driven forward by the whip and the mad sound of hooves everywhere, always a sad and frightening sight to me, so I clung to the buildings, moving along slowly and being bumped by those coming in and out of the stalls. Then, as if there was some signpost or boundary, all the noise and commerce gave out, the streets narrowed and the whole scene grew dark and mean—low doorways, lampless and dirty, many standing open and the unlucky residents lounging about on the steps or simply in the dirt itself. There were children everywhere, crouching in the doorways, collected in groups on every corner, working their ways singly or in a pair, through the grown people on the sidewalk with an eye always to pockets that might be liberal or just untended—cunning, sharp-faced, pale, starving, vicious children such as have neither homes to return to nor anyone who might care whether they are ever seen or heard from again. On one corner I passed a solemn girl sweeping the crossing and crying out in a sweet, sad voice for a penny. I dug down in my cloak pocket and came up with one, which, when we had reached the other side, I pressed into her outstretched h
and. She barely glanced at me but closed her white fingers tight around the coin—the first she’d seen all day, I had no doubt—and turned back to her crossing, calling out to a loutish man who brushed past me roughly in his hurry to be about whatever bad business he had in mind. I stopped to look back at the child and saw myself in her hopeful, sad little face—only I was more fortunate than she, because Marm made such a home for me as she could and did not turn me into the streets. I had no brothers and sisters who must be fed too, and when I had the good luck to go to school, I found the strength to wrest a little learning from my poor teachers, who was starving nearly as bad as we was.

  These streets were not the ones I ran down as a child, though they might be and will be near enough to them soon, as the poor buildings give out under the burden of so many. Even as a child it seemed to me that what made such places wicked was not so much that they was dirty, crowded, ugly and falling down, but that the people who come to live in them know this is a place where no rules or manners need ever be applied and so they act exactly as they feel. Were the gentle classes put into such a place and bidden to live there, they would not know how to act.

  I kept my eyes down and hurried along, feeling I was moved only by a dull tug of sadness coming out of my own childhood but now attached to this errand, which I could not think upon without a shudder. Again I told myself that doubtless this was some good thing Master had contrived, to lighten the suffering around me with a little food, a bed, or a book, but though I advised myself, I could not believe it. Here and there were housefronts of a better stamp than their neighbours—not clean by any means, nor inviting, but not in such a state of disrepair, not betraying every sign of want and despair, and at length I found myself standing before one such which bore the same number as Master had written on the letter.

  There was a step to separate this doorway from the filth of the street and I lifted my skirts to perch upon it. I found no knocker nor any sign of a bell, so I pounded the wood a few times hard with my fist, waited, hearing nothing, then pounded again. This time I heard the sound of someone moving, a rustling of skirts and a quick step. In a moment the door flew open and I was seized up by the cold, mean, hungry eyes of a woman who I could see greeted every new face as an occasion for suspicion and contempt. She was tall, not well dressed but not in the poor rags of her neighbours on the street by any means, and her hair, which was wiry, silver with age, untidy, seemed to stand out about her face in anger. Though her dress was clean it was cut too low for morning, and the bones that protruded at her throat, where some gentlewoman might place a locket on a bit of ribbon, stuck out looking raw, angry, like the rest of her. When she spoke, which she did at once, her voice was husky, her accent as rude as if she hated the words she spoke.