Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

  Stevenson spent a pleasant morning visiting with Colvin and Fanny Sitwell, whom he had not seen in a considerable while. Returning to his club for luncheon, he was pleased to be greeted at the door by Dobbs.

  “Mr. Stevenson,” said the stout fellow as he held the door. “Very good to see you.”

  “And you, Dobbs. I missed you yesterday.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir.”

  “Not at all. You are well? And your family?”

  “As well as can be expected, sir. Thank you for asking.”

  “And how do you find me, Dobbs?” It was all Stevenson could do not to wink.

  The man grinned. “That’s hardly for me to say, Mr. Stevenson.”

  “No? I no longer look handsome to you?”

  “I’m sure you do, sir. As always.”

  The writer laughed. “Very good of you to say so.”

  Stevenson returned to his room to wash up, and then descended to the dining room for a fine luncheon of leek soup, trout, and sherry trifle, all washed down with an excellent hock. As he savored the last swallows of the wine, he looked around at the singular opulence of the room: precious marble columns, ornate Parisian boisseries, mirrored French doors leading to the neighboring ballroom. The task at hand with Symonds was sharply focused—very specific. If somehow their fanciful undertaking were to meet with success and halt this particular abuse of power—power of whatever sort it was—what societal inequities, exploitations, and horrors would remain completely untouched? A man of conscience might despair before the question; alternatively, he might choose to do whatever he could to better the lot of those around him, when and where the opportunity arose, Calvinist determinism be damned.

  Stevenson considered his life to this point—what had essentially been an unbroken series of decisions and undertakings in which he had set his own interests above those of others. He might not actually be a bad man, but had his relations with his father or his mother or Fanny or Ferrier or anyone else ever involved his subordinating his own interests to those of another—and then extending himself to actual labor for their benefit?

  He sighed deeply, pushing his wine glass away on the pristine tablecloth. Nodding briefly to the gentlemen at the next table, he rose and set off to keep his date with Symonds.

  That evening, shortly after eight, a hansom clattered up Orchard Street into Portman Square. As a lamplighter tended to the last few gas lamps surrounding the vast central oval, the cab slowed opposite a row of handsome houses.

  “Just here, driver,” called Symonds, up through the open hatch. “No further.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There it is,” he said to Stevenson. “Number 43. The one with the bright fanlight above the door.”

  “We know he is in?”

  “We do.”

  “And there is no other door?”

  “There is. Behind. But I have a boy there.”

  “And he can be trusted?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The horse shifted slightly in the traces, then loosed a torrent of liquid onto the cobbles.

  “Sorry, guv’nor,” came the word from above.

  “Is this a hare-brained scheme, Symonds?”

  “Quite possibly.” He turned to Stevenson with a doubtful expression. “But it is something.”

  “Aye, but is it something absurdly fanciful? I confess I have been dwelling upon your suggestive allusion to Poe.”

  “No doubt a hazard of your occupation,” chuckled Symonds.

  “True enough. The end result, though, is that I am left wondering if this is something two rational men living in the heart of the most civilized town on the globe should ever entertain as a sane and practical thing to do.”

  Symonds chuckled again. “Perhaps history will be our judge. Provided it is a story that can ever be told.”

  “Truly.”

  Three-quarters of an hour passed without event, the two friends conversing now and again while Stevenson smoked the occasional cigarette.

  Symonds ultimately tapped on the hatch, which opened immediately.

  “Are you all right, driver?”

  “Fine, sir. Ta.”

  The hatch closed again.

  “He should be,” growled Symonds. “He is being exceedingly well compensated.”

  After another long but not uncomfortable silence, it was Stevenson who spoke.

  “I don’t judge you, you know, Symonds. For who you are.”

  “Thank you. There are those who do. And would.”

  “Indeed,” sighed Stevenson. “Perhaps fewer of them, though, than would be willing to admit as much in a public forum.”

  “Do you think?”

  “I do. I haven’t made a formal study of the matter, but I feel as though I know a thing or two about the effects of respectability and its uneasy cult.”

  “Indeed,” said Symonds. “It is strange,” he continued after a moment, “where we come from. Where I have come from, in my wrestling with what is done and what is not to be done.”

  “In what way?” Stevenson offered his companion a cigarette. Symonds shook his head and he lit one for himself, waving out the light and tossing it from the cab.

  “I first encountered the love of men for men—or of men for youths—at Harrow.”

  “Not unusual for any school, I suppose,” observed Stevenson. He blew smoke out from under the canopy of the cab, and the light breeze carried it away towards the house they were watching.

  “Not at all. Although for some—perhaps for most—it is a passing stage of growth. Of maturation. Into, you know, ‘conventional manhood.’”

  “Of course.”

  “For others, though, it is the gateway to something unchanging and unending. Paradise and Hell in one.”

  Stevenson nodded. Nothing particularly apt came to mind to offer. “I was speaking of respectability, though. And I must say that at school, when it emerged that no less eminent a man than the headmaster was having illicit relations with one of the boys, my initial response was outrage. I don’t know precisely if it was the fact that they were doing it—that it was physical. I had formed, you see, some high notions of Platonic affection from The Symposium or Phaedrus. I can’t remember which. So this involvement naturally seemed a squalid and carnal travesty. Or was it that this man was a perfect hypocrite to be practicing behavior that he clearly, and repeatedly, condemned from the dais as a vice? But I would have said then, callow youth that I was, that their affair was a perfect affront to respectability itself. That it was damnable.”

  “I suppose in many ways it could have been. How old was the boy?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Past the age of consent, then.”

  “Then it was twelve, in fact. What I meant to say, though,” continued Symonds, “was that my confident embrace of what was respectable began to erode in rather confusing ways.”

  “How so, John?”

  “The man called me to his rooms one evening to tell me how fine a scholar he felt I was. He walked behind the chair I was sitting in and he put his hands on my shoulders and he squeezed them repeatedly. And as he told me that he felt a great fondness for me, as I was doing so well at his school, he ran his hand down my chest and inside my shirt.”

  “What on earth did you do?”

  “I made my apologies and said I wasn’t feeling well. I flew out of the room.”

  “I can well understand.”

  “As I thought back on it, though, I realized that it was not that a man was touching me. But rather that this man was touching me. Who should have been protecting his charges, rather than preying upon us.”

  “Yes.”

  Symonds shook his head and then surprised Stevenson with a chuckle. “He was not an attractive man, either. There was nothing the least bit Hellenic about the old coot.”

  “I see.”

  “Look,” said Symonds, shortly after eleven o’clock. A light had appeared on the first floor. “That is his bedroom.”

  �
�You’re sure?”

  “I am.”

  They watched carefully for several more minutes, and then the light by the front door dimmed and the windows on the ground floor went dark. Shortly thereafter, a glimmer appeared in a window on the second floor.

  “The servants must be retiring,” said Stevenson.

  “So it would appear.”

  Stevenson looked at his watch. Ten past eleven. “Can we possibly manage to do this every night, Symonds?”

  “I honestly don’t know. But to stand idly by, knowing all we already know? With the papers filled, week after week, with…” Symonds shook his head. “If I am ever to be able to live with myself, Louis—”

  “I certainly didn’t mean to signal any reluctance,” interjected Stevenson. “I remain equally committeed. And I continue to think, as we discussed earlier, that it must be we who do this.”

  “You’re perfectly right. The reports of anyone else would be useless.”

  “There,” said Stevenson, pointing towards the house. “The bedroom light has gone out.”

  “So it has. I expect we should wait a bit longer to make sure he is in for the night?”

  “We should.”

  Symonds tapped again on the hatch. “Driver. Driver?”

  A rustle and an odd snort came down from above, as though the man were waking. After a few seconds the hatch opened.

  “I think we shall just be a few more moments. For now, stand easy.”

  “Righty-oh, sir.” The hatch clapped shut.

  At the same hour the following evening, another cab rolled up next to the wrought iron fence that enclosed the center of the square. It was raining moderately hard, and the cobbles sparkled with lamplight and the splashing drops.

  “Night the second,” observed Symonds. “What does this evening have in store for us?”

  “I wonder.” Stevenson peered across at Number 43. The front rooms on both the ground and first floors were brightly lit, and at the upper of the two, a large shadow passed occasionally across the drawn curtains. “It looks as though he may be in his room. He may be preparing to go out.”

  “Perhaps. We shall see.”

  “Cigarette?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Stevenson lit one for himself and tossed the match out into the rain.

  “Perhaps you haven’t noticed that I no longer smoke,” said Symonds, looking at his friend with amusement.

  “No.”

  “It is one vice that I have managed to curtail.”

  “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “I would content myself,” Symonds responded with a chuckle, “with your not continuing to tempt me.”

  “I shall set politeness aside, then, in favor of supporting virtue.”

  “I should be most grateful. Whisky?” Symonds held up a small silver flask.

  “Of course.” Stevenson took the container and, untwisting the cap, threw back a generous swallow. The harsh liquid drew a pillar of warmth down through the core of him. “Thank you. Perhaps we should offer some to the coachman. It’s a wretched night.”

  “I trust he has a supply,” replied Symonds, taking a long draught himself. “He’d be mad not to.”

  “Fanny hounds me incessantly to give up tobacco, you know. I don’t believe I am able.”

  “Nor did I think I was. I believe my lungs do feel very much better, though. Save when I am in this smoking chimney of a town.”

  “Hardly a smoking chimney tonight,” observed Stevenson. He waved at the steady precipitation.

  “No, not tonight. How is Fanny, then?”

  “Fine. Fanny is fine. Happy to be living in a sizeable villa with a staff of three. And a butler, now that my father has died.”

  “I am sorry, Louis.”

  “No. His time had come.”

  Symonds opened his mouth to speak, but remained silent.

  “Fanny has no notion what I’m doing here,” Stevenson offered after a moment. “I hesitate to think what she would make of all this.”

  “Understandably.”

  “Perhaps she would join us. With her pistols.” He looked at his companion and laughed.

  “Your wife has pistols?”

  “Of course she does. She lived in California. There,” he said, pointing towards the house, “the bedroom light has gone out.”

  They had waited eagerly for half an hour more and were just beginning to think the evening would again be inconsequential when a covered black landau pulled up in front of the house. Two oversized carriage lanterns flanked the driver’s seat, casting their glow on the withers of two immense chestnut geldings.

  “It’s his,” whispered Symonds. “I’ve seen it at the Athenaeum.” He tapped on the hatch, which sprung open quickly in response. “Steady up there. We’ll be following this one. Keep your distance, though.”

  “I remember, sir.”

  Two minutes passed and the door to Number 43 opened. A tall and burly figure stood there for a moment, silhouetted against the brightly lit hall. A male servant appeared to offer him an umbrella, but he waved it away and stepped out into the rain in his cape and top hat.

  “Our man,” whispered Symonds.

  They could see the carriage tilt as their subject climbed in; then, with a crack of the coachman’s whip, the impressive pair of horses set off at a trot. Their cabman timed it nicely, waiting until the landau was just at the out of the square before he prodded his horse into action. In a matter of fifteen seconds they, too, were into Wigmore Street, heading east at a healthy clip.

  “Well, he’s not going to Mayfair, in any case,” observed Symonds.

  “Nor to Buckingham Palace.”

  “Not if he’s looking for streetwalkers. Unless Her Majesty has brought in a new flock of ladies-in-waiting.”

  They rattled along the thoroughfare, their carriage splashing through the occasional pool of rainwater. Unexpectedly, the landau turned hard right into Cavendish Square, slowed, and came to a halt in front of a brightly lit house. The coachman leapt from his seat and ran up the front steps, knocking loudly at the door. It was opened by a man in livery who let the fellow into the hallway. In a moment, the door reopened and the driver returned to the carriage followed by another gentleman, also dressed in evening clothes.

  “What do you make of it?” asked Symonds, looking across at his companion.

  “We shall have to see.”

  The landau dropped down to Oxford Street, where it turned left towards the East End.

  Stevenson looked at Symonds and nodded. “A promising point of the compass?”

  “It’s premature to say.”

  “Perhaps they’re going to the theatre.”

  “The theatre?”

  “The Lyceum. Mansfield is back onstage.”

  Symonds eyed his companion gravely. “You really must free yourself of that worry, Louis. Besides, they’d be hopelessly late. Even for the second act.”

  “Point taken.”

  At Tottenham Court Road, the big carriage veered north, then paused at the head of Bayley Street. It waited for a huge public coach to clear the intersection, then crossed on to Bedford Square, where it came to a halt in front of a stately house on the northern range. Even with the rain drumming on the roof of the cab, Stevenson could hear the strains of a small orchestra coming from within. Through the tall windows, he spied elegantly dressed men and women moving gracefully to the music. As the two gentlemen descended from the carriage, the door of the house swung open to admit them, and the music welled out in concert with the bright chatter of a jovial gathering.

  “‘Golden Beauty,’” declared Symonds.

  “What?”

  “The waltz. All the rage.”

  “Of course.”

  The door closed, and the landau proceeded around to the east side of the square, where it took its place in a long queue of waiting conveyances.

  It was close to one o’clock when the black carriage came back around to the house and picked up i
ts two passengers. At the bottom of Bloomsbury Street, it turned west and returned directly to Cavendish Square, where the second gentleman descended. The door of his house had no sooner opened than the carriage lurched away, heading straight back to Portman Square. Stevenson and Symonds waited vigilantly until the first-floor window had remained dark for a half-hour. With a great sigh, Symonds instructed the cabman to drive back to the Savile Club.

  “Well!” said Stevenson. “Next time, we shall have to bring more cigarettes. And whisky.”

  Symonds laughed. “At least the rain seems to have abated. I am positively exhausted.”

  They clopped along through the largely empty streets. In Grosvenor Square, they passed two policemen supporting a well-dressed fellow as he stumbled down the pavement. The man bent over to retch, and the constable to his left jumped back to avoid the fouling of his rain cape and trousers.

  “I assume he had a sufficiency of whisky,” quipped Stevenson, taken of a sudden with myriad Edinburgh memories.

  “You know, Louis,” said Symonds, as they continued on. “I feel I should say something.”

  “About?”

  “Last night. About my decrying the headmaster’s ways with the boys of Harrow—and at the same time continuing to indulge in the favors of my sweet telegraph lad.”

  “It’s of no consequence,” said Stevenson, feeling far too tired to go into a subject that could be touchy enough to negotiate at the height of his powers.

  “Well, it is of consequence. It, too, smacks of hypocrisy. And of exploiting those less fortunate than we.”

  “It is well to be thoughtful,” offered Stevenson, “and, when it is called for, contrite. But none of us always walk the high road.”

  “Have you used prostitutes, Stevenson?”

  The question shocked the writer, less for its directness than for the fact that the answer ought to have been obvious. Had Stevenson been obliged to name a friend who had never resorted to a whore—either as an adolescent or as a grown man—he would have been hard pressed. Perhaps Colvin. But then, what must the man have done for all these years as he waited for his Fanny to be free to wed?

  “I have.”

  “And since you were married?”

  “No. Although there have been times of temptation.”