Whitechapel

by Sam Gafford

  “No, my dear, I do not,” Arthur said with considerable restraint. “I find him to be pompous and an arrogant waste of the talents with which he was endowed. In deference to present company, I shall leave the matter at that.”

  In time, our carriage pulled up outside the massive Roman columns of the Lyceum, and we disembarked. The streets were filled with very rich people who mostly didn’t care to wait in lines to enter. Arthur moved through them rather easily, nodding at some and giving a quiet ‘good evening’ to others. Despite his station, Arthur Machen appeared able to move easily among all sorts of people with an ease that I couldn’t help but envy.

  The lobby was as majestic as could be imagined, with all sorts of marble columns and velvet and gold trim as the crowd moved forward. Our tickets were for an upper box; but as I moved us towards the stairs, a grim-faced usher blocked our way.

  “Are you sure you’re going in the right direction, sir?”

  I showed him my tickets, and he grew ashen.

  “My apologies, sir, but you’re not in the right area. These stairs are for the public booths. If you’d please to follow me?”

  It was not so much a question as a demand as he took off without a response. The ladies laughed quietly, seeming very pleased with the situation, while Arthur appeared positively ill from the sight of Mansfield’s face on the theatre cards surrounding the lobby.

  The usher led us down a short corridor to another flight of stairs which were so clean and pristine that you would have thought the rugs had been laid down that afternoon. We came out on a small landing where a steward stood waiting in front of a closed curtain. I could see two other curtains further down and their stewards moving about in a flurry of activity.

  “Here you are, sir. This is Stevens, and he will be your steward for this evening. If there is anything you need, he is at your disposal. Please enjoy the play.”

  I saw Amy and Arthur gasp at the sight as we passed through the curtains. The chairs were the most extravagant that I had ever seen. Even the ones in Gull’s home were ragged cousins compared to these. They were covered in red plush with an intricate gold trim. Upon each was laid a programme for the play.

  “Arthur,” Amy said breathlessly, “this is the royal box.”

  Chapter 42

  The best bribe which London offers today to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Every theatre in London (and maybe in other cities, I truly have no idea) have what is known as a ‘royal box.’ This is a special area set aside for those times when the royal family decide to go to the theatre. But, of course, they do not go every night nor, truthfully, to every show. Still, the box is always reserved for either their use or the use of their guests. Without my being aware of it, Gull had given me tickets for the Lyceum’s royal box. We had the best seats in the house.

  But the royal box comes with a cost. Everyone in the theatre sees you sitting there and will wonder who you are and why you’re there. So, as we moved to take our seats, I felt the collective heads of the Lyceum audience turn as one and glare in our direction. Sometimes there is nothing worse than seeing someone whom you do not know but feel that you should.

  After a few moments, and satisfying themselves that we were not of any great importance and that the Prince and Princess of Wales were not in attendance, the crowd looked away. Yet I could still feel the fierce glare of someone staring at us from somewhere. I could not see anyone, nor did I recognise anyone in the audience, so I tried to relax and calm my nerves.

  Arthur and Amy were kind enough to let Ann and me take the front seats. For the first time this evening, Ann was at a loss for words. I had hoped that she was just overcome with the grandeur of the Lyceum, but it slowly occurred to me that she was breathless with anticipation for the play.

  The theatre was truly spectacular and featured the type of opulent charm that only a Victorian theatre could offer, with a magnificently carved ceiling (from which hung a tremendous chandelier which sparkled like the stars) and moulding along the walls and cornices which ran in lengthy, hypnotic lines. The orchestra pit was already full with musicians dressed in tuxedos, busily tuning their instruments. The stage itself was a massive thing which I thought would dwarf any performer, and the curtain was a plush, luxurious velvet that draped down from the rafters like a waterfall.

  While I was trying to recall the particulars of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short novel, which had only been published a few short years before and was the basis for the play, I looked over the crowd. Most of the upper boxes were filled, and I noticed that there were not many empty seats in the balcony or below. Despite Arthur’s opinion of him, Mansfield had a very successful hit. I turned to mention this when I noticed an odd look on Arthur’s face. He appeared to be fixated on a spot across the theatre from us; but before I could follow his gaze, the orchestra began to play a moody piece, the lights dimmed, and the curtain began to slowly rise.

  The play started slowly. An older man, Sir Danvers, is in his sitting room with his wife and niece. At first I thought we might have come on the wrong night, as it had all the markings of some sort of drawing-room melodrama, but that changed quickly. The niece was engaged to Dr. Jekyll, an arrangement heartily approved by her uncle, but there was some concern over Jekyll’s health from overwork. Another visitor arrives, a friend of Sir Danvers who, when the women leave the room, tells a story about a hideous man who had stomped a young girl nearly to death in the street.

  Soon after, Sir Danvers notices a dark figure lurking outside the bay window and sends his niece away. The figure comes closer and enters through the window, and we see Hyde for the first time. I could not have identified him as Mansfield if I tried. His hair was wild and his eyes were crazed as they reflected the stage light. His face was sunken and his brow dark with malevolence. I heard many in the audience gasp at the sight of him, but I was spellbound.

  “Monster! Who and what are you. Go, or—” demands Danvers.

  Hyde laughs at him—and it is a dark, evil laugh. “Go? Why, I will make the house mine, the girl mine, if I please.”

  As any good Englishman would, Danvers springs at Hyde, who throws him off and, when he will not relent, strangles Danvers to death. The audience screamed as the curtain came down on the first act.

  I looked at Ann, expecting her to be white with fear like many of the women in the audience, but she had the most extraordinary look on her face. I cannot describe it as anything other than hunger.

  There was no time to explore her odd behaviour, as the curtain quickly rose on the second act.

  The story moved quickly now, with an inspector trying to find Hyde in connexion with Danvers’ murder. Having now met a few inspectors personally, I was amused that this character was nothing like them.

  Hyde is traced to Jekyll’s lab but evades capture. Still, he is confronted by a friend of Jekyll’s who is also the doctor’s lawyer and is concerned that Jekyll has now named Hyde as his sole heir. Hyde attempts to ease the lawyer’s fears but has little success. When Hyde leaves the room, the lawyer questions Jekyll’s butler, Poole, only to be interrupted by Jekyll entering through the same door Hyde had used moments before.

  The lawyer attempts to break the news to Jekyll about his fiancée’s uncle’s murder and convinces him to visit her—something he had been curiously reluctant to do. There is a relationship between Jekyll and Hyde, but the lawyer is unaware of its exact nature and fears that Hyde is blackmailing his friend.

  Back at Sir Danver’s house, Jekyll tries to comfort his fiancée, Agnes, but she quickly grasps that her betrothed is connected to the murderer. Distraught, she confronts Jekyll.

  “No! No! I spoke the truth—he is gone forever,” Jekyll pleads.

  “And you let him go!” she sobs as Jekyll comes closer
. “Don’t touch me! If you really speak the truth, if you are honest and sincere, prove it to me now.”

  “Prove it? How?”

  “A word will do. Promise to have no thought but this. Promise to follow up this man, to hunt him down with all your heart and soul. Find him. Promise that—no, swear it!” She pleads to him but Jekyll turns away.

  “Oh, not that—not that—”

  “Swear it!”

  “I cannot.”

  “You cannot! Why?”

  “Because—he is my other self!”

  Agnes cries out pitifully and faints while Jekyll stoops over her in despair and the curtain comes down on Act II.

  I felt a strong pressure on my chest and realised that I had not been breathing through much of the last scene. I motioned for the usher, who quickly brought over a glass of wine. I made to give Ann a glass as well, but she waved me away. She was a woman entranced.

  Arthur was likewise in a daze, but it had not been caused by the play. He appeared to be scanning the audience for someone, and his attitude was one of suppressed excitement. His eyes darted back and forth and his body was like a tight spring before it snaps.

  “Arthur,” I asked, “are you all right?”

  He looked at me and his eyes were crazed.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said with some effort and went back to his searching.

  The curtain rose and the play continued with more intrigue regarding Jekyll’s strange behaviour. Having read the book, I knew what to expect; and yet, I was still enthralled by the story. Finally, the point of revelation was near!

  Jekyll’s friend, Lanyon, is waiting at Jekyll’s flat when there is a knock on the door. As it is opened, a gust of wind blows out the lamp and the stage is lit only by a fireplace as Hyde comes into the room.

  Lanyon confronts Hyde, who taunts him mercilessly.

  “Choose!” Hyde demands. “Sleep in peace: or learn that all your science is a cipher. Learn marvels of which Hippocrates never dreamed!”

  Lanyon, in an aside to the audience whispers, “Why, those were Jekyll’s words!”

  Lanyon moves closer to Hyde. “I have gone too far to retreat. At last, I own to the greed of curiosity. Go on! I must know the end.”

  I leaned forward and was literally on the edge of my seat.

  “Good. Lanyon, you remember your vows. What follows is under the seal of your profession; and now, you who have so long been bound by narrow and material views, you who have denied the virtue of a medicine for the soul— Behold! Man of unbelief! Behold!”

  Hyde drinks from a glass containing a foul mixture that he has made as they argued and throws it upon the floor. He reels, staggers, and clutches the table in pain. Suddenly he calls out, but in Jekyll’s voice, “Lanyon! Lanyon!”

  Then he straightens himself and walks erect to the centre of the stage. Where Hyde had stood, there is only Jekyll!

  Lanyon retreats in horror, shouting “Jekyll!” and the curtain falls quickly on a stunned and terrified audience.

  Mansfield had been remarkable. It was beyond belief that one man could play both characters, but he had shown it could be done and done convincingly. I believed that he was Jekyll and also Hyde. He had shown that one man could be two completely different men and occupy the same body. Good and evil in one. For reasons of my own, I found myself intensely curious about such a concept.

  I was about to apologise to Ann for my previous comments about Mansfield when something across the way caught my eye. Someone was leaving one of the boxes on the other side of the room, almost directly across and further back from us. I wouldn’t have noticed if the woman hadn’t been wearing a shockingly red dress. As I turned to get a better look, I saw Mary Kelly leaving. Even this was not the most alarming thing, for leaving with her was a man who was very familiar to me. As he turned to put on his hat and coat, for a quick moment, he looked directly at me and smiled. Quickly, almost at a run, they left the box and were gone. But, for that split second, I was looking directly at Arthur Machen.

  I quickly turned back and saw that Arthur was still sitting behind me. I swiftly looked back at the other box, but it was empty. Completely lost, I looked again at Arthur and could tell that he knew what I had seen. His face was pale and he was sweating. Amy had begun to notice our movements; Arthur silenced me with an imploring look. The curtain rose on the final act and I sat forward, trying to convince myself that I had been mistaken, that it had just been someone who looked similar to Arthur. But I could not convince myself of that lie.

  As the play prepared to finish, Jekyll has found that the potion which controlled his transformation had come from contaminated chemicals and could no longer be reproduced. Worse, he no longer had control over when he would become Hyde and felt that his control over the beast was weakening.

  Desperate, he implores Lanyon to have Agnes come by the window one last time, so that he might see her once more before leaving the country, but he begs Lanyon not to tell her he is near. As Jekyll waits in his room, he paces nervously.

  “No sound but the roar of London. Hark! I heard voices. Lanyon has kept his promise. She is there.”

  Jekyll moves to the window and we can hear, as from a distance, the voices of Lanyon and Agnes coming closer. “They pass. She knows nothing. I will not have it so. I must speak if only one word. Agnes! Agnes! Look it is I, Henry Jekyll!”

  Moving away from the window, Jekyll awaits Agnes. “She has seen me, she will come! Thank Heaven!”

  Exhausted from his emotions, Jekyll falls into the chair. “She will come! I shall hear her voice! Shall see her once—only once, before!” The audience gasps as Jekyll looks at his hands—and we see him turn again into Hyde.

  Terrified, he jumps to his feet and looks in the mirror to see that he has changed into the evil monster without even knowing it. He shrieks because he knows that he cannot stop Hyde any longer except for one, final way. He quickly drinks a vial of poison which kills him instantly as he falls onto the floor. The curtain comes down for the last time on the tragic tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  Chapter 43

  I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

  —Oscar Wilde

  The audience stood and applauded wildly, but few applauded more loudly than Ann. Within a few minutes, the cast came from behind the curtain and took their bows. In a wild flurry, Mansfield appeared and took extravagant curtain calls before finally leaving the stage.

  “We must go backstage!” Ann demanded; and before I could object, she was already out of the box, with Amy quickly behind. Arthur moved to follow, but I grabbed his arm and held him back.

  “Arthur,” I said, “that was Mary Kelly. What was she doing here and who is that fellow who looks like you?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot say, Albert. Not here. Not now. We will speak of this privately—but I am frightened, Albert, very frightened.”

  Arthur pulled away and we quickly took off in chase of the ladies. They had run down the stairs at a full gallop and, before we could catch up, slipped through a door that was clearly marked “No Admittance.” Ann’s familiarity with the layout of the theatre concerned me, but I had little time to consider it as they were brought up short outside of a shut door by a very imperious-looking man.

  “I’m telling you again, madam, Mr. Mansfield sees no one after a performance. NO ONE!”

  Amy had little patience with the man. “I am Amy Machen and he will see me!”

  With that she began knocking on the door and calling out Mansfield’s name.

  “Madam, please!” the man protested. “I am Mr. Mansfield’s dresser and I assure you that he sees no one!”

  Just then, the door flew open and Mansfield stood in the doorway, his face switching completely from rage to delight.

  “Amy! What a wonderful surprise! I thought I saw you in the boxes! Do come in, come in.”


  The dresser moved meekly aside and we entered an amazingly ornate dressing room. It came close to matching Gull’s sitting room for splendour. There was a large mirror in front of a table that was literally covered with makeup and brushes and various other implements. A large sofa was nearby upon which his Jekyll clothes had been carelessly thrown. A huge wardrobe took up almost half of the back wall and it was full of clothes, some of which, I quickly realised, were women’s. Mansfield was wearing a luxurious dressing gown with his initials embroidered in bright red. He had apparently been in the process of removing his stage makeup, as it still covered most of his face.

  As Ann came into the room, Mansfield took her hand and made to kiss it as in the European fashion. She did not pull away from his touch.

  “And the lovely Miss Ann! How delightful to see you again. You’ve been a naughty girl, haven’t you?”

  She looked startled at his suggestion, and her eyes widened.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t come to see me. I promised to help you with your career, remember? Shame on you.”

  Reluctantly, Mansfield turned to us. “And Arthur, as well. Did you enjoy the play?”

  Arthur cleared his throat. “Oh, yes, very much. Your transformation was most effective. I surmise that it was through the use of different lights and special makeup?”

  Mansfield straightened slightly.

  “Partially, yes. But it was as much physical in the change of posture and the deepening of my voice . . . like this!” He suddenly changed his voice to that of Hyde’s, and the lower tones resonated in the room.

  “Very impressive,” I said, and Mansfield finally turned to me with little more than disdain on his face.

  “Ah, yes, Arthur’s friend . . . Bert, isn’t it?”

  “Albert. It was a very interesting adaptation of the story. It’s a shame you had to change it so much.”

  Arthur smiled, but Mansfield glared at me. “What do you mean?”

  I suddenly felt Ann’s hand gripping my arm tightly.