“For Hyde?” she said. “How could my mother possibly have been involved with Hyde? I was only a child, but I still remember the police coming to our house, questioning my father about him.”
“I was Mr. Utterson’s clerk at the time,” said Mr. Guest. “I remember the circumstances quite well, although fortunately I never met Mr. Hyde myself. That is of course why I asked you to come so urgently, although I hesitated to interrupt your period of mourning, Miss Jekyll.” He looked at her solemnly, but she thought that behind his professional mask, she could detect a smirk. He was the sort of man who would enjoy the misfortunes of others. “But there is more: your mother left these documents with the bank for safekeeping.”
He pushed the portfolio toward her. It was filled with papers of various sorts: another book, envelopes that likely contained letters, slips of paper that seemed to be receipts. She started to pull the other book out of the portfolio, but saw the look of avid curiosity on Mr. Guest’s face. He had probably restrained himself from looking through his client’s private papers, although he would have liked to. Well, whatever her mother had wanted to hide, Mary was not going to show him.
She closed and buckled the portfolio. “Thank you, Mr. Guest. Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all,” he said, with a frown—of frustrated disappointment, thought Mary. “May I ask, Miss Jekyll, what you intend to do in this matter?”
“I shall close the account, of course,” said Mary. She would go to Clerkenwell—could one get there by omnibus?—and withdraw the remainder tomorrow. Thirty-five pounds, five shillings, three pence. She could not help thinking with relief of the new number.
“That is certainly the best course of action,” said Mr. Guest. “Whatever the account was created for, I suggest you have nothing more to do with it. And if I may also mention—young ladies in your situation often find it a relief to place their affairs in the hands of those who are more worldly, more wise in such matters. In short, Miss Jekyll, since you have recently come of age, you may choose to marry. A young lady of your personal attractions would certainly prove acceptable to a man who is not particular about his wife’s fortune.” Mr. Guest looked at her meaningfully.
Goodness, thought Mary. Surely he’s not proposing to me? She had an impulse to laugh, but after the events of the past week, it would come out sounding like hysteria. This had all been . . . a bit too much. “Thank you, Mr. Guest,” she said, rising and extending her hand. “I’m sure you’re very wise in worldly matters and all that. And I appreciate your advice. And could you please ask your clerk to fetch my umbrella and mackintosh?”
It was still raining when Mary emerged from the solicitor’s office. She walked back through the crowded city streets, carrying the portfolio under her arm so it, at least, would not get wet. By the time she reached home, she was tired, wet, and grateful that Mrs. Poole had already laid a fire in the parlor.
BEATRICE: Oh, your London rain! When I first came to London, I thought, I shall never see the sun again. It was so cold, and wet, and dismal! I missed Padua.
DIANA: If you don’t like it here, you can go back there. No one’s stopping you!
CATHERINE: Please keep your comments relevant to the story. And it is not my London rain. I dislike it as much as Beatrice.
Mary changed out of her black bombazine into an old day dress, put on a pair of slippers, and wrapped a shawl that had belonged to her mother around her shoulders. She lit the fire with a match from the box on the mantelpiece. How shabby the parlor looked! She had asked Mr. Mundy, of Mundy’s Furnishings and Bibelots, what else she could possibly sell, but he had shaken his head and said there was simply nothing left worth buying. Unless Miss Jekyll wanted to sell the fine portrait over the parlor fireplace? But Mary would not sell her mother’s portrait.
She sat on the sofa and pulled the tea table in front of her, then unbuckled the portfolio and pulled out the documents it contained. They would have been easier to sort through on her mother’s desk—she could not help thinking of it as her mother’s desk, although she had been using it for years to do the household accounts. But there was no fire laid in the morning room, and not much coal left in the cellar. Also, she did not want to face those bills again, not now.
The book was, more properly, a notebook: her father’s laboratory notebook, she realized when she began leafing through it. She recognized his handwriting, the same angular hand that had commented in the margins of his books. The envelopes were addressed to Dr. Henry Jekyll, 11 Park Terrace. They must contain letters sent to him while he was alive, perhaps about his scientific experiments? He had maintained a large correspondence with other scientists in England and Europe. Scattered among the envelopes were miscellaneous receipts, mostly from Maw & Sons, the company that had supplied the chemicals for his experiments. She began to sort through the documents, barely noticing when Mrs. Poole brought in her dinner of a chop with peas and potatoes. She moved the documents to the sofa so Mrs. Poole could set it on the table, thanking the housekeeper absentmindedly.
When Mrs. Poole came to clear away, she leaned back into the sofa and said, “You know, I think Mr. Guest almost proposed to me today? Or hinted that I should marry a man who could take charge of my affairs, since young ladies are so unworldly.”
“And you running this house since you were old enough to sign your mother’s name!” said Mrs. Poole. “I’ve never held with men, and that’s a fact. Footmen are ornamental in white stockings for dinner service, but not as useful as a good scullery maid. Although Joseph made himself useful enough, I’ll admit.”
“If only I could afford a good scullery maid!” said Mary. “I hated letting Alice go, but she’s better off with her family. Mrs. Poole, could you sit down for a moment? I know, I know, it’s not your place. But please, there’s something I need to ask you.”
Reluctantly, Mrs. Poole sat in one of the armchairs by the fire, with her hands folded on her lap, as though she were sitting in one of the pews of St. Marylebone. “Well, miss?”
Mary leaned forward and stared into the fire. She did not quite know how to ask . . . but directly was always best. She turned to Mrs. Poole and said, “What do you remember about Edward Hyde?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I can’t tell you how much I regret allowing Mary and the rest of them to see this manuscript while I was writing it. First they started commenting on what I had written, and then they insisted I make changes in response to their comments. Well, I’m not going to. I’m going to leave their comments in the narrative itself. You, dear reader, will be able to see how annoying and nonsensical most of them are, while offering the occasional flash of insight into character. It will be a new way of writing a novel, and why not? This is the ’90s, as Mary pointed out. It’s time we developed new ways of writing for the new century. We are no longer in the age of Charles Dickens or George Eliot, after all. We are modern. And, of course, monstrous . . .