Mary Reilly

by Valerie Martin

  “Well, here’s a fine young miss at my doorstep,” she said. “Having been turned out of her position, if I don’t miss my guess, for pinching the silver, or was it the brandy, my girl.”

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Farraday,” I said.

  “And you’re looking at her, too,” was her response.

  I drew the letter from my sleeve, my fingers trembling so it was all I could do to unfasten the buttons, and as I did I explained myself, wanting only for this business to be concluded and myself far away. “I’ve a letter from Dr. Jekyll,” I said. “He has bidden me deliver it to you and wait on your answer, which you may give me direct without writing,” and I pulled the letter out. Before I could hand it to her she had snatched it from my fingers, breaking the seal eagerly. “Harry Jekyll,” she said, “and what does he want with Mrs. Farraday today?” She withdrew the page from the envelope, extracting two bank notes and slipping them into the front of her dress so quick and nimble I couldn’t make out their amounts, then stood perusing the letter with her eyebrows raised and a self-satisfied smirk on her lips. It shocked me to hear Master referred to so familiar, and I had such a feeling of revulsion for her that I drew back a little on my step and tried to occupy my thoughts with the wonder of such a woman being able to read.

  “I thought it would come to something like this,” she said at length, looking me up and down as if she thought I must be an accomplice.

  “I’m afraid I know nothing of it,” I said.

  “Count yourself lucky, then, my girl,” she replied. “I wish I knew nothing of such a one as is here sent to me.”

  I was silent and she continued her perusal of the letter, hissing over it like some snake who has come upon a mouse, and darting quick, glittering looks at me over the top of the page. “These terms is acceptable,” she said. “I’ll say that for Harry Jekyll, he knows the price o’ things.”

  “Then your answer is yes,” was all I said.

  She folded up the paper, stuffed it back in the envelope and sent it to lie with the bank notes in her bosom, all the while smiling at me in such a hateful, confident way as made me shrink inside my clothes. I had a dread that she was about to touch me.

  “Oh, you look innocent enough,” she said. “And you’re very cool, aren’t you. Proud too, I’ll wager, but time will take care of that.”

  I said nothing, but I met her insulting eyes with my own and poured out through them such feelings as seemed fairly to sober her, for she lost interest in baiting me and said, “Tell your master it will take me a week to clear everyone out. I can’t turn out such as have already paid. Then another week to make the”—she paused over the word—“alterations he wants.”

  “Very well,” I said, feeling so mystified at her response that I stood a moment turning it over in my mind. “I’ll tell him your answer is yes, in two weeks’ time.”

  “You may tell him whatever you want,” she said. “And give him Mrs. Farraday’s compliments for choosing such a milk-faced, lying little la-di-dah for a messenger, and tell him next time he has business with me, he’d best come on it himself. I think he’s not above it,” and with that she closed the door hard in my face, leaving me feeling a gush of relief, for I thought now that was over and I might spend the rest of my life without standing again in such a doorway with such a woman. I turned away and hurried down the busy street, looking neither right nor left but straight ahead, only wanting to be home in my quiet room where I might best mull over what could possibly be the meaning of this unhappy business.

  This morning I was up early—indeed I slept poorly all night, doubtless from the weight of guilt I feel about my errand yesterday, though it does seem it isn’t my own, but rather Master’s, as doing his bidding is only my duty. Still it was my half-day and I’d a perfect right to refuse, though such a course never come to me for a moment until after the whole thing was concluded. I dressed and went down to the kitchen, hoping to be at my work before Cook come in, but of course she was there and would ask at once how my day had gone and if I’d found the cloth for my cloak, so I had to sit over my tea and lie about going to this store or that, but nothing would do. Lying does not come easy to me, nor do I do it well. I thought Cook looked at me close, and felt myself blushing with confusion. Then Mr. Poole come in and said Master had been in his laboratory the entire night and had just come in and wanted his breakfast and fire and then to be left alone, as he intended to sleep until noon, he was that done in. Cook turned to her pans and I put on my bonnet and apron, feeling grateful to have the opportunity to deliver my message so early in the day. Mr. Bradshaw came in and he and Mr. Poole sat down at the table to wait on their own breakfast. “I’ll do the fire now,” I said and went off feeling disapproval in the air, though this was likely my own imagining as there was nothing uncommon in my actions.

  I went up the stairs and knocked at Master’s door. He called out to me, I went in and found him, as I expected, lying on his bed in his dressing gown. “I’ve come to do your fire,” I said, and he only responded, “Yes, good,” so I went straight to work, hardly having looked at him. My heart was pounding, as if I had something to fear, and I went over and over sentences that would be the answers to his questions, how I had fared on his errand, what Mrs. Farraday had said, sentences that would tell him how distrustful and sad I felt so that he would explain to me the meaning of it all and set my mind at rest.

  When I stood up and turned to him I saw he was lying back on his pillows with his eyes closed, looking for all the world like a corpse, pale and drawn about the temples. My heart sank, for I knew I couldn’t speak and I stood near the foot of the bed gazing at him stupidly.

  His eyelids flickered, he saw that I was there, but he seemed too weak to take me in, so he closed them again, turning his head a little away from me. I thought I should have to go away and speak to him at some later time, but just as I was making up my mind to go out he spoke, still without looking at me. “Were you able to deliver my letter for me, Mary?” he said.

  “I did, sir,” I said.

  “And the answer?”

  My poor head seemed about to burst. I knew I could not say any of the sentences I had thought out so careful. I couldn’t even bring myself to say the name of Mrs. Farraday, much less tell my feelings of shock and concern for Master, that she should speak of him so disrespectful and talk to me, too, as she had, so rude, seeing as I was connected to him and to his house. I heard myself say only, “The answer is yes, sir, though she says you must wait two weeks.”

  Master sighed. “Good,” he said. “That will be quite convenient.” Nor did he turn toward me or even open his eyes, seeming to be nearly asleep, and so I went out.

  I went down the stairs feeling as weary as if I had worked all day, instead of as I should after my half-day, refreshed and ready to shine up a palace if the chance arose. In the kitchen Cook was just putting out some eggs and rashers. I took my plate with a heavy heart and sat down next to Mr. Bradshaw, who was in a jovial mood, teasing me about my young man in the park, with whom I must be spending my half-day pretty “vigorous,” as he put it, for I seemed worn out in his view.

  I only looked up from my food to say, with my whole heart behind it, “Mr. Bradshaw, I do wish that was the truth,” and we all had a dry laugh at my expense.

  Two weeks has passed since last I writ, and I thought this morning that today is the day Master’s business with Mrs. Farraday must begin. I have spent many hours trying to coach myself on what that business might be, and I think I must have a good imagination when I consider just how many stories I’ve come up with, some to Master’s credit and some that shock me for having appeared in my own head. Indeed I am in a bad way and weary from it all. Master is occupied much of the time, in his laboratory or visiting or having his friends in, and seems to think on those occasions when I am in the room with him that everything is as it has always been. I try to believe this myself and do my work with a good will, but I don’t believe it no matter how much I might try.<
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  It does seem to me that what Master has done is take rooms in that house, or perhaps the whole house, and that he has done this for someone else, someone Mrs. Farraday (if that is her name, for I doubt everything in my worst moments) knows and does not like.

  The only thing I do that lifts my spirits is work in the garden with Cook. We have managed several times to get in an hour in the early morning, or late in the day as the days is so long now, and many of our plants has their heads above the soil. Now an hour of work can make a noticeable order. The weather has been grey, unseasonable cold and wet, the coldest summer in many years, but our herbs and flowers seem to thrive upon it. We have parsley of two kinds—one curly, which Cook says she will use for garnish, and one with a flat leaf for cooking—rosemary, thyme, mint—a most hardy plant this is, as goes underground to jump up again in a space not its own, which Cook says is the nuisance of it and if we went away the whole garden would be only mint in no time—sage, garlic, and marigolds to prevent bugs, one border of pansies, not bloomed yet, and another of poppies, which are just coming up and so delicate I fear they won’t prosper, and two edges, one of lavender and one of foxglove. Cook has a little place in the centre for a boxwood, which she is looking out for, she says, as a present for me because it will bring a good marriage.

  Nothing is big enough to pick yet but we can see how it will look. There’s a deal of feeding and pinching and always weeding to be done, which Cook directs me in.

  Sometimes, if I’m not too busy, I go out after dinner just to look at it, and to smell the pleasant scent of the herbs which the damp air seems to blend into something that is all one, though I feel I can separate out each herb if I try. Yesterday as I was doing this, feeling it really is a blessing at such times to have a nose, though at others one may wish to close up a nose as we do our eyes when we don’t want to see, I heard Master passing along the closed passage that leads to the side street. I knew it must be Master as the passage has only one other door, which opens into the old theatre, yet the step did not sound like his but rather too heavy and uneven, dragging a little. Still, it must have been him, only my ears misled me or the hard flags of the passage mun distort the sound. He went along from the theatre, opened the door to the street, then went out.

  Why did this surprise me so, and why did I have a feeling of such gloom at the thought that Master comes and goes in his own house without our always knowing? Certain it would be unnecessary steps and trouble to cross the yard and walk through the house to the front door when this door is so much the more convenient.

  But, I thought, how much of the time that we think Master is in his laboratory, not to be disturbed, is he perhaps not there at all?

  I stood still, listening, but there were no sounds, then a fine rain began to fall and the sound of it seemed to fill up my head so that I couldn’t move. I hoped Master had remembered to take his umbrella—a foolish thought, but it seemed important and I went over it a few times as if thinking on it could put the umbrella in his hands. And I was getting wet myself but didn’t care. I looked down at my hands, which no matter how I scrub them are always lined with blacking and lately, because of the odd weather, have been full of twinges and pains that feel like hearts throbbing. I remembered what seemed like so long ago, when Master took my hands in his own and looked at them in the lamplight, of how shy and embarrassed I felt, but yet, I cannot deny it, pleased as well to be noticed by him, to feel I was of interest to him. As I was having these sad thoughts Mr. Poole put his head out the kitchen door and called to me. “Mary,” he said. “Have you no more sense than to stand there dreaming in the rain?” I went in, thinking how I must seem to Mr. Poole, who knows nothing of me, and less of Master than he could ever suspect, I’ve no doubt.

  This morning I was polishing the tables in the drawing room, in fact on my knees on the floor to do the legs which stand on great carved animal feet I like to think is lion’s feet, when Master come in suddenly and seeming in a hurry, threw himself down on the settee so that his long legs stretched out before him on the carpet, and heaved a great sigh as if he was at the end of a struggle. Then he saw me, or rather saw the back of me and said, “Mary, good. You are the person who should hear of this.”

  So I had to back out from under the table and turn myself around to him on my knees. Then I thought it wouldn’t do to stand, as he was nearly lying down, so I sat back on my heels and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s inconceivable to me,” he went on. “They want to close my school.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” I said.

  “The commissioners are of the opinion that educating the poor is a dangerous pastime.”

  “I can’t see how that could be,” I said.

  “It seems two of our scholars haven’t done very well, though we can’t say they didn’t profit, for they got themselves up to be assistants at the school and then disappeared with all the funds they could lay their hands upon.” Here Master laughed abruptly, rolling his eyes upward as if he’d never heard of anything so ridiculous.

  “That’s a pity, sir,” I said, “if it makes your friends feel their good effort has come to a bad end.”

  “They say we’ve only taught pickpockets to be embezzlers.”

  “Surely sir,” I said, “they must expect something like that now and then.”

  “Exactly what I told them. Naturally we must lose a few along the way, but why does that lead to the conclusion that we should give up the whole enterprise? And I brought you up, Mary, as an example of one who has come through our school with her moral capabilities intact. I told them my housemaid can read and write as well as any of you, and I’ve no doubt is a far better critic of reason and morality than any of you seem to be.”

  This made me blush and I could only stammer, “You flatter me, sir.”

  “No, Mary, I don’t, and you’d agree with me if you had five minutes of conversation with these fools. Littleton, whose name is surely a description of the size and density of his brain, said he for one wouldn’t care to have a housemaid with any moral sense at all—and the whole group of asses brayed out loud over that for a full minute.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” I said.

  “I’m not so naïve as to think we can solve the world’s problems by having a school, but surely we’ve an obligation to relieve suffering when we can. And ignorance is suffering, though the poor brutes who are driven to our doors may not know it. Any school, simply by existing, must be a force for good.”

  I smiled, both at the excitement in Master’s speech and the strange idea he’d brought to my mind. “What makes you smile, Mary?” he said at once. “Am I wrong? Speak frankly.”

  “I was thinking that there can never be such a thing as a force for good, sir,” I said. “And there’s the pity of it.”

  Master opened his eyes wide and protested, “But, Mary, I try to be just such a force.”

  “Well that’s it, sir, isn’t it,” I said. “That good is what always needs trying, as it is work for us and don’t seem to come natural, whereas havoc comes of its own accord. And also it does seem to me that the two words won’t go together, as force can never do aught but evil.”

  Master paused, mulling over my words. “Surely this is a grim view, Mary. If this is true then we must despair of our efforts—indeed, there is no point in any effort.”

  “Oh, I suppose, sir,” I said, “it does little harm to try. Your wicked boys is really no wickeder for learning to rob a school instead of a pocket.”

  Master smiled. “And it seems to me also, Mary, that there are many who have no difficulty in being good. Yourself, for example.”

  “Being and doing is different, sir,” I said. “I have no will to cause pain and suffering, as some do, if that’s what you mean. But as for doing good, I confess I don’t think of it. I only think of doing what I mun to stay as I am.”

  “Which is good,” Master said, as if to pay me a compliment.

  But my answer sprang to my
lips, and I knew Master mun understand it as no one else might.

  “No, sir,” I said. “Which is safe.”

  Master leaned forward, propping his chin on one hand and gave me a long look, full of sympathy, so that there was no need to speak. We heard, though only because we had fallen silent, Mr. Poole’s step in the hall, for he walks like a ghost and often as not appears in a doorway as if he just sprang up from the floorboards. Master and I exchanged a look of warning, for if Mr. Poole saw me on my knees talking to Master, he would not approve and Master knows this as well as I. I went back to my lion’s feet and Master fell back on the settee. In the next moment Mr. Poole looked in, seeming surprised to see Master, and said, “Ah, sir, I did not know you had come in.”

  It is very late. I’m weary but won’t sleep I know until I puzzle out my poor feelings, which has been in an uproar all day so that there is a chorus of voices in my head, each one demanding to be heard against the others. When Master is gay and kind to me, as he was today, asking my opinion and listening to me as no one has ever listened to me, then all the sadness I feel lifts as suddenly as a bird, leaves me entirely, and I know such a soaring of spirits as I think mun come to few in this life. Though I tell myself this is only a gentleman having idle conversation with his housemaid for want of a better pastime, I don’t believe it, have no will to believe it, but respond, no, he wants my company and not another’s. When he talks to me of doing good, of how his efforts is blocked by those who only think of money or prestige, then my worry about his sending me out on an errand to Soho, my distrust of the woman he has chosen to help him, seems the worst sort of suspicious mind, to imagine that Master means anything but good or that he owes me some explanation of his intentions. I feel ashamed of myself and resolve to accept my place as Master makes it out for me, and not as I might want it to be. When he tells me he trusts me and shows me he trusts me more than anyone else in this house, my heart leaps and I think, I am of use to him and mun keep that trust, that my obligation is clear, yet there is another voice that will put in, he means nothing by it, he is gay and it pleases him to say such things to one who cannot but obey him. This, I’ve no doubt, is Mr. Poole’s view of the matter and though he says nothing to me, his coolness is such as mun be felt by everyone in the house, except, of course, for Master, who cares nothing about it. When I went down to the kitchen after speaking with Master this morning, Mr. Poole was sitting at the table with Mr. Bradshaw, who did not fail to notice the cold look he gave me as I come in or the tone of his words to me, which was to suggest that I find a way to do the drawing room in the afternoon, when it is less likely to be in use.