Hyde

by Daniel Levine

  Forfeit. Yes, that’s the word.

  Day Three, Noon

  From behind the oval mirror, I slide out the black leather violin case and carry it to the table. The silver buckles easily unsnap and I draw the lid open. In its blue velvet bed, the instrument lies quiet, larger than I remembered. Maybe because it always looked small in his loose, sprawling hand. I am not sure why I felt the urge to see it just now—this old witness, Father’s old friend. He adored this bloody violin. He could have donated it to a museum or a music academy, somewhere worthy, for indeed it is beautiful, with its slender neck and bronze skin, its lacquered frailty. Instead he left it to us, to stand untuned and neglected against the wall. Why? Atonement? What did he imagine he would prove by leaving us these beloved things?

  I turn my head to the blank northern wall where his portrait used to hang. There is no faded rectangle on the wood panelling, no sign the picture was ever there at all; the wall is just—bare. My face is starting to prickle beneath my beard, as if from shame. But why should I feel ashamed?

  I look again at the instrument and brush the strings with my thumb, touching off a husky, vibrant chord. I shiver and abruptly shut the case, snap the clasps. For a moment I stand with fingers on the leather, feeling something slip through me, some fleeting kind of understanding, about relinquishment, and Father, and Ghyll, and everything . . . Yet the pattern dissolves as I attempt to grasp it. I haul the case off the table and slide it again behind the mirror, the cheval glass swiveled around to look at the wall, as Jekyll left it.

  Better this way, the mirror turned to the wall. Better not to look at myself, to see what I’ve become, this caged, pacing animal waiting to be put out of its misery. He is toying with me, surely, Poole is! How can he detect nothing? How can he think that Jekyll is still up here? What if this does continue indefinitely, what if that is to be my punishment? No axe, no cyanide, no moment of glory. Instead, death by atrophy.

  Ha. Must not delude myself. I should be so lucky.

  This pricking of shame. It’s for Ghyll, of course. The way I relinquished it to those supposed inspectors and ran. Craven, pathetic, I abandoned my fortress to a pair of strangers, and after all the precautions I’d taken to guard against infiltration. Yet it wasn’t merely myself I was preserving. As I scurried south toward Castle Street, I could feel Jekyll’s frightened elation at our narrow escape. He had not wanted to stick around to see what the inspectors would say any more than I had. I lunged through the Castle Street door and up the rear stairwell into the safety of the cabinet, practically whimpering with gratitude at the sight of it. I had been gone a long, long time. More than two months, my longest stretch in the body yet. The lower syringe in the Milward box was still loaded, of course, but as I slipped my fingers into the steel loops, a prophetic thought struck me. Could the serum go stale—become inert—enclosed in the glass barrel all that time? What if the needle failed?

  It didn’t, at first. Jekyll tottered to the mirror and stared at his estranged reflection. A rust-blond beard camouflaged the face from cheekbone to throat, and a grungy mane hung before his gaunt blue eyes. He took out scissors and razor, poured some water into a bowl, snipped the beard down, and scraped off the bristle. He wet his hair and combed the knotted locks back as best he could, then dressed in his own clothes. He was recognisable again, but hollowed, white where the beard had been, with a haggard intensity to his gaze. He turned away, descended the stairs, and crossed the courtyard to Big House.

  From the dining room, he could hear a voice speaking, precisely, continuously, a muted intonation emerging from the arched passageway. Jekyll followed it to the parlour doorway. Poole was sitting in the emerald velvet chair reading from a book to the whole assembled staff, about a dozen seated around the room in attentive repose. The maids and the cook sat on the long sofa with the cook’s little boy at their feet, and Bradshaw the footman perched on the sofa’s rolled arm, one shoe dangling, hands crossed on his knee, his copper hair agleam. The footman’s gaze slid to the arching doorway and focused upon Jekyll, leaning there. All eyes in the room then moved simultaneously, and Poole paused midsentence and turned in his chair. A blank, spooky moment of unrecognition, as if he had strolled into the wrong house. Dr. Jekyll, Poole exclaimed. My goodness, what a surprise. Swiftly he stood, slipping the book behind his back. Please excuse us, sir, and welcome home, it’s so very good to see you. He cleared his throat. All of them began rising to their feet from the sofa and chairs, with a certain begrudging air, like obedient but disgruntled children told it’s time for bed. Sir, said the fat blowsy cook, fixing her skirts, will you be wanting yer dinner, then? Poole shot her a glance, and she looked down at the floor. Forgive us, sir, Poole said. Will you be dining tonight?

  Something cold will do.

  Poole served him cold roast beef and vinegar-dressed potatoes in the dining room. I hope you will pardon my liberty in the parlour, sir, he said. Jekyll’s cheek was full of beef. He swallowed the cold lump and dabbed his lips. What were you reading? Just a spot of Dickens, sir. Your research expedition. I trust it was fruitful? Jekyll sucked a strand of meat from his molars. There was fruit, all right.

  When Poole left, Jekyll dispatched the rest of the food and went upstairs to his bedroom, where he ran a bath. He sat on the edge of the crashing tub, his heart clenched like a cramping muscle. That scene in the parlour, everyone gathered together listening to Dickens. As if he were standing outside a brightly lit window, spying on a large contented family at their cheery hearth, with the ragged darkness at his back and the chilly pane of glass dividing him from that warmth. The way they had looked at him, with mild alarm and consternation, as if he were indeed an intruder in his own home. What had happened in his absence?

  He sank into the scalding water to hang suspended beneath the surface. We throbbed in seeming unison. His thoughts were an underwater warble but I did not need to hear them clearly. Of course something was happening. Nothing definable, a mere penumbra of trouble to come, but the mantle of Dr. Henry Jekyll could not protect us anymore. If Mr. Seek knew about Jekyll and the link between us, if he was determined to expose us, then he would not stop at chasing me out of my home. He would come for us at Big House as well. We had to be ready. Jekyll could not continue to keep his own infuriating counsel. He had to accept me into the sanctum of his reasoning.

  Jekyll padded, dripping, into his dressing room, struggled into his gown. He threw open the windows in his bedroom and slumped on the edge of the bed, streaming sweat. I could feel the silk sticking to the burning skin, the refreshing air wafting in from the square, the pulsing of the room, its expanding and contracting. We lay back woozily on the bed, the ceiling awhirl like a fan.

  The surgical theatre. The dissection table. White sunshine poured through the cupola. Surgeons were working on us with scalpels and forceps while students we could not see watched from the ring of benches. John Hunter, the great father of Big House, was lecturing as he sliced a section of flesh from our biceps. We raised our arm and marvelled at the sleek, purplish fascia under the skin. We put our fingers into the incision and began to pull it wider, and as if the whole forearm and hand were a rubbery glove, we peeled the flesh down from the braided tissue and ripped the entire sloppy thing off, strands of clear integumental membrane stretching from the webbing of the fingers before snapping loose. The surgeons were trying to hold us down, but we fought them off and sat up, hooked our fingers into the rims of our eyes and tugged till the eyeholes popped and the whole suffocating mask of the face was sloughing free—

  Then awake: eyes flicked open.

  On the belly, face crushed to the bed. Morning light like a magnesium flare. Head pounding, beastly thirst, but couldn’t even lift the face from the rough silk cover. Eye slipped shut into a blissful second of sleep, then jerked open again, staring at the hand that lay on the bed before me. Dead, disembodied hand: I tried to move the thumb, and to my surprise, it twitched. The fingers fluttered to life too, arachnoid. I curled them into a
fist, released them, fascinated by the simple action of my hand.

  My hand.

  I scrambled to my knees, heart galloping. Jekyll had gone to sleep—and yet here I was, waking in the body. I leapt from the bed and stumbled into his dressing room, approached the oval mirror and tipped it down. Oh God. Wild-haired and bleared with sleep, my reflection gaped back; I could feel Jekyll recoil. I reached toward the glass, then peered down and experimentally pinched my nipple, a sharp tweak. Pain. It was firmly attached. This was no dream.

  I spun from the mirror. I had to get to the cabinet. With Jekyll jumping like a frantic candle flame in the mind, I fumbled into his clothes and crept to the bedroom door. I peeked down the corridor. Poole might be anywhere at this hour. I slipped from the bedroom and slid along the wall to the stairs. I peered over the railing and down the spiraling steps to the marble parquet of the main hall, listening. From the main hall I ducked into the narrow hallway leading down to the dining room. The dining room was the greatest danger; Poole always appeared within a minute of Jekyll’s sitting down for breakfast. I tiptoed rapidly past the dining table and skipped down the two steps into the conservatory. I was reaching for the steel handle of the door when my eyes jogged left, and I froze. Bradshaw and Lizzie stood by the hanging plants ten paces away, quietly watching me.

  Lizzie was watering a ferny plant while Bradshaw stood close behind her, hands clasped behind his back, as if surveying her work. A suave little smirk lay stranded on his lips. The girl was flushed, a guilty sparkle in her startled eyes. Clutching Jekyll’s trousers at the waist, shirttails billowing and the buttons askew, a sneaky lover escaping out the back door, I snatched at the handle and hobbled barefoot across the gravel yard. They did not matter; all that mattered was bringing Jekyll back. Up the stairs I scurried, to the red-baize door, where with a spasm of panic I thought: The keys! But they were in his trouser pocket, and then I was inside the cabinet. The key clattered into the glazed press; I pulled open the doors and slid E drawer from its slot.

  I had never prepared the needle. This was Jekyll’s domain. And yet I could feel him guiding my hands, suddenly dexterous. I watched them operate: pluck down an Erlenmeyer, pour the crimson liquor into the flask, scoop out a spoonful of powder. When it fizzled down to pale green, I transferred it to the phial and jabbed the needle through the rubber plug, at last pushing a thin jet of serum from the hypodermic. I pumped my fist, pulling the tourniquet tight with my teeth. And as I steered the needle home I did not let myself wonder what would happen if it failed.

  Twenty minutes later Jekyll sat down for breakfast. He pretended to read the paper as Poole poured his coffee. When the cup was full, Poole idled at attention behind the paper until Jekyll lowered the top half and looked him resolutely in the eye. Poole dipped his glossy head. I merely wanted to say, sir, that it is good to have you home. Thank you, Poole, Jekyll replied cagily. Good to be home. Poole bowed again and turned with the urn, then paused and said, Might we expect you to stay for some time, sir? Jekyll shrugged, shamming indifference, and gave his paper a shake. Yes, I expect so.

  When Poole left, Jekyll set his newspaper aside and carried his coffee upstairs, moving very deliberately, as if the cup were brimming full and he did not want to spill a drop. But it was the body that felt precarious, as if a sudden gesture might pitch me back into it without warning. I was scared, and baffled, and could not help feeling somehow responsible, like a bad dog who had done something rash and stupid—even though of course I had not done anything. If I did not understand the laws of nature and science it was no matter, they existed, immutable, reliable, and the central one of my existence was that the needle was my key, my passport into and out of the world of the senses. Yet now it seemed the laws were breaking down. The façade of Henry Jekyll was no longer an absolute protection.

  Jekyll held himself tensely against the intrusion of my thoughts as he paced his study. From a shelf he had pulled down a collection of cloth- and leather-bound books that he piled on his desk and consulted sporadically, scanning the lines of ornamental fluid scrawl—his own, I recognised—before shoving the books aside with an exasperated hiss. By that evening he was sprawled on his leather sofa, brooding at the reddish stain of sunset upon the ceiling. When Poole rapped on the door, he was silent. When Poole rapped again he called out testily, What is it? Poole opened the door. Mr. Utterson to see you, sir.

  Jekyll sat bolt upright. What, he cried, now? We had not even heard the doorbell. Yes, sir. Mr. Utterson is downstairs.

  Jekyll dragged a hand through his hair. Utterson! I had almost forgotten about the man, with all our other worries. We could not see him, of course, not now, not like this . . . Poole cleared his throat. Sir, I took a small liberty, I hope you don’t mind. I told Mr. Utterson that you had been slightly under the weather and that I would see if your circumstances had improved. Jekyll lifted his finger in the air, nodding. Yes, yes, that was very good thinking, Poole. You know, I am still recovering from my travels, in fact. Perhaps you would tell Mr. Utterson I’ll come to see him soon, in the next few days.

  As soon as Poole left, Jekyll leapt up and crossed the room, pressed himself flat to the wall beside the window. He could see the front steps and the walk, and after a minute, Utterson emerged and descended to the front gate. There, as if feeling our hidden gaze, he turned and looked directly up at the study window. Jekyll moved his head at the last moment and stood rigid, waiting. When he peeped out again, Utterson was stalking away down the pavement.

  That night Jekyll prepared another injection of the serum in the cabinet and carried it back to his bedroom. He tucked it into his bedside drawer and then settled down fully clothed in the armchair before the windows. He was keeping a vigil against me, steeling himself against sleep. As if I would usurp the body again the moment his eyes slipped shut. As if I even wanted the body now, under these circumstances. How was I to blame? How could he know so much and seem to understand so bloody little?

  At dawn we snapped awake. Jekyll quickly looked at his hands, front and back, and clasped his gritty face, touching all the features as if to make certain they were still attached. He dropped his chin to his chest with a relieved sigh and murmured, Thank God.

  Thank God? I had never heard him say such a thing before. And I wouldn’t ever again.

  We heard the doorbell this time. Jekyll was in his study, where he’d spent the morning and afternoon poring over his old journals. They were his journals from France on the case of Emile Verlaine. I tried to read along, but it was like trying to read over his shoulder or within a dream. Yet I could tell he was reading about the powder, the chemical injection. Emile Verlaine had not required any needle to change into Pierre, and the Other, not at first. The transformation had occurred involuntarily. Jekyll had simply manipulated, tamed, this natural process. Our case was different; I needed the injection. Was this because Jekyll had better control of himself than had Emile? Or because I was more obedient than Emile’s interdependent personalities?

  The doorbell’s three notes knelled. Within a minute, Poole was knocking on the study door. Forgive me, sir. Sir Danvers is downstairs. I explained that you were indisposed but he was very insistent. He asked that I deliver this.

  Poole held a white envelope in his hand. He came forward and Jekyll reached out automatically to accept it. Together we stared at the sinuous line looping over its face:

  Dr. Jekyll

  Our heart was frozen in a block of blood. The hands flipped the envelope over and tore the flap apart, drew out the slip of pale green paper. Jekyll’s bank cheque. Made out to Bearer, for ninety pounds, on December 12, 1884. His signature—my fishy forgery—scrawled across the lower line. A red bank stamp impressed on the corner. Jekyll was turned toward the windows, not breathing. There was something else in the envelope. His fingers picked out the familiar calling card: Danvers X. Carew, MP. He turned it over.

  You must see me

  Poole was waiting. Sir? he ventured. If you are unwell, I will tel
l him to leave.

  No. No, send him up.

  Poole departed. Jekyll set the envelope down near the journals spilt across the desk. Something had happened to the air—it was thick as water. Footsteps began to click across the main hall. Jekyll opened his desk drawer and swept the journals inside. He smoothed his hair and wrung his hands, exhaling three sharp gusts, as he did before a fencing match. When Poole entered with Carew, Jekyll was gazing out the window, hands in his trouser pockets. Sir, Poole murmured, shutting the door on his way out.

  Electric silence. Jekyll did not move. He was composing his face: a bland lift to the brow, a nonchalant little moue of distraction. He turned and presented it to Carew. The man wore a grey suit with a lavender bow tie; his beautiful, brushed ivory hair hung in wings to his shoulders. Good evening, Doctor, he said. Jekyll made no response. Carew gestured to the leather chair across from the desk. May I? Jekyll nodded, and Carew sat down, crossed his long thin legs. He had removed something from behind his back. A folded newspaper. He frowned at it, then leant forward and placed it on the desk. The Pall Mall Gazette.

  Today was Stead’s last report, he said. I thought you might be interested.

  A blaring chromatic chord was sliding into harmony in our head. Carew settled back, gave an almost apologetic smile. I confess, I’m quite pleasantly surprised by all the attention the piece has received. When Stead originally told me what he intended to write, I rather assumed it would all be dismissed as the hysterical ranting of a radical. People don’t want to hear what really goes on out there, they don’t want to be hectored by some angry newspaperman. But Stead knows the public better than I do, it seems. Cables of support and interest from America, from the Continent, an endorsement from the British Medical Journal. People are outraged, at long last. Something might actually be done. I find it almost incredible. Carew paused and gave again that slight smile, almost a grimace. Of course, Stead’s methods were—there will be questions he’ll have to answer. Goodness, buying a child, even if it’s only to prove that one can. He went too far for his own good in this crusade. But I suppose a man must go too far, sometimes, to get something done. Wouldn’t you agree?