Mary Reilly Read online

  “I’ve read your story,” he said, “and I found it most interesting.”

  “If you did, sir,” I said, “then I’m satisfied.” I took the chance of speaking to take a quick look at him, but looked away as quick for he had his kind eyes directly on my face.

  “Like many a good storyteller,” he went on, “you raise more questions in your tale than you answer.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that as it didn’t seem a compliment, nor did I understand what questions I could have raised or why he’d call my writing a “tale” as I’d only told what happened, so I said nothing but stood looking at a rose in the carpet like a dumb creature.

  “For example,” he said, “nowhere do you explain what your relationship to your persecutor was.”

  And of course I thought, Oh, I never did, and I wondered why I’d left that out, except that I’ve never liked much to say it even to myself. “I’m sorry for that, sir,” I said. “He were my father.”

  Master drew in his breath and said, “Oh, I suspected as much, but I’m disheartened to hear it.”

  Again I could think of nothing to say, except perhaps that I’d heard of worse cases than mine, but that seemed out of place somehow, so I said nothing.

  “Another thing you never mention, Mary, is how you feel about this monster.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he were a monster, sir,” I said. “He were an ordinary man, but drinking did for him as it has for many another.”

  He was quiet then, and I wondered if I’d said something I shouldn’t have. At last he said, “You don’t hate this father of yours, Mary?”

  “Well, sir, it was like this,” I said. “When I come out of hospital, Father was gone and I never seen him since. Marm went to work as a semptress, where she’d a room, and I went out to service …” I knew I hadn’t answered Master’s question but he took what I said and seemed to think on it.

  “And in your opinion it was only that he drank. You think that drinking caused him to abuse you?” He put this question so careful and serious, as if he really thought I might know the answer and enlighten him, and also it was a question I had thought on considerable myself, especially in the long, dark-filled hours my father put me through as a child, and even afterwards when I was safe from him in the houses of gentlemen like Master, I thought on it, so I tried to give Master my answer as true as ever I could.

  “When I was very small,” I said, “Father didn’t drink so much. He had some little work at the docks, and though he wasn’t ever a kind man, he weren’t cruel to me. Since his wanting to hurt me came on at the same time as his drinking, I naturally put one as the cause of the other.”

  “But you’re not sure which is the cause of which, Mary?” Master said.

  “Many a man drinks sir, and we see some of them only become high-spirited and good-natured, and others as is boisterous or wants a good fight with their fellows. With my father, when he was drinking it was as if he couldn’t get enough of seeing suffering, and as I was at hand, it was me he took his pleasure in hurting. He was a different man then—he even looked different, sir, as if the cruel man was always inside him and the drinking brought him out.”

  “Or let him out,” Master said softly.

  I had not been looking at Master from shyness to say so much, and when he spoke I saw he was fixed on me, attending on my every word, silent and anxious. I felt a terrible strangeness and scarce knew where to look when a knock come on the door and my eyes met Master’s in alarm. It was only a moment before the door opened and Mr. Poole come in with Master’s breakfast tray, but I saw many things in it: Master’s look of sympathy for me, first, and then as I turned to leave I got a full view of Mr. Poole in the cheval glass and saw his look fixed on my back, full of anger, for he could see I had been talking with Master and he couldn’t bear it, so I knew, as I hurried out of the room, that I’d best keep to myself as much as I could until that day was out.

  That night Mr. Poole told us Master had made himself ill from too much study and hardly touching his food, so for two days he did not leave his bed. Cook said she knew how to “bring him back,” as she put it, by starting him on soup, eggs and weak tea and then gradually bringing him to more solid foods. Mr. Poole insisted that everything must be brought in and done by himself alone, even to laying the fire, though he was good enough to allow me to bring the coals up, a bit of work his narrow shoulders was probably too weak to bear. He said nothing to me about my talk with Master, but he’d his eye upon me at everything I did and if I had a moment’s free time he invented some chore to fill it up. I didn’t mind him and was glad enough to have my hands filled, as I felt worried about Master and it seemed to me that in doing my part to keep his house running smooth, I might help him to recover his strength.

  Cook’s method was a good one and in a few days Master was recovered and about his usual routines. One morning as Cook and I was peeling ’tatoes, I spoke to her about the garden, which she called the “yard,” because she said it was too run-down to be called a garden. “But that’s the waste of it,” I said. “Here we go out to the greengrocer for parsley and all herbs when we could easily be growing them here.”

  “A herb garden,” Cook said. “I’ve thought of it myself. We had one at B___________. Square, in a yard no bigger than ours here. But the earth would need heavy spading, Mary, and my poor back is too stiff for such work.”

  “But mine isn’t,” I said. “Only I’ve never tried a garden so I wouldn’t know how to begin.”

  “Oh, I could tell you that,” Cook said. “I’ve a green thumb; my mother said it run in our family.”

  So Cook and I talked on this garden and by the time Mr. Poole come in for tea I’d persuaded her to talk with him on the subject as if it were her own idea, as I knew he’d never agree to it if he thought it come from my head. I went up to my room and amused myself with my writing a bit, then when I come down Cook was smiling at me and said it was all arranged, that Mr. Poole approved of the idea and had given her leave to use any free time we both could find to begin our project. He even told her there was all the tools we would need in the shed off the laboratory and that in Dr. Denman’s time there had been a nice bit of garden there and that in his opinion, it were a waste to have it run-down as it was.

  So on one thing Mr. Poole and I are agreed.

  I was up early the next morning, well before the sun, and I had washed down the front steps on my knees before anyone in the house was awake. This suited me well enough as I never like being looked at as I’m doing this work, especially as so many of the houses near us are now let to all sorts of tradesmen, so there’s a constant traffic and not of the nicest gentlemen, either, but those who think it’s smart to speak out to a working girl and see if they can distract her from her duties. It was black and foggy out, and the gas lights were still lit so each one had a yellow halo round it and they looked like a line of strange, bright fairy clouds, making eerie dollops of light along the street which was as quiet as death. I did the steps and then all the brass and took my buckets to the curb to empty out. I stood looking at the house front and my first thought was, ours is the finest and best kept on the street. Then, as I was dreaming a little, on how many houses I’ve been in and how of them all this is the best place I’ve had, for I’m paid more here, twelve pounds a year, there’s a liberal feeling in the kitchen for we all of us eat as well as we could want and haven’t even to get our own beer, and though Mr. Poole is hard on me, he’s not unfair, and of course our master is a respected gentleman who does many charitable works and as he is a bachelor, there’s only him to keep up after and he’s as clean in his ways as a military man. As I was musing thus, I saw a lamp go on upstairs in Master’s room. I had a misgiving that he might be sleepless or ill, and I gathered up my buckets to go in lest he might ring, but as I did this the lamp went out again.

  When I got back to the kitchen I put the big kettles on and got the stove up for Cook, who come in as I was working, surprised to find me there a
s she is always first up and has the kitchen warm for us and our tea when Annie and I come down. I told her I’d done my morning work and was now free to run out to the markets for her, so we might both have an hour before lunch to start on our garden, and I could see she was very pleased, called me “dear Mary” and said I was the best housemaid she’d ever known and a credit to our house, all of which made me feel pleased with myself and glad I’d come up with our project.

  By half after ten everything was done, Cook had the shed key from Mr. Poole and we went out to begin our work. We found the shovels and spades, rakes, a good hoe, gloves, a number of empty pots and even a big bag of soil, all put away neatly in the little shed where, Cook said, they mun have been sitting for twenty years, waiting for hands as would take them up.

  I set to work with Cook’s direction, and heavy work it was, as the ground was so hard it come up in great clods. Cook said first those ugly bushes mun go and they gave me a fair struggle, though they hardly looked alive, and I thought how all plants do struggle and seem to be longing to flourish no matter how badly they are treated or on what hard, unprofitable soil they fall, so I began to feel a little sad for the poor bushes, but Cook said they’d be the death of our herbs so up they mun come.

  We had been at it a good time, me digging and Cook breaking up clods with a spade, when we heard the laboratory door open and Master come out, strolling towards us in a leisurely way and looking so strong and well it was a pleasure to see. Cook got up as he approached and begun dusting herself off, looking very nervous and surprised, as she rarely sees Master, being always in the kitchen, and she said, “Oh, sir, what is the hour? You mun be coming in for your lunch.”

  So Master come up to us and I gave up shovelling, feeling a little ashamed for I was sweating and dirty and I knew my face must be red from my struggle with the bushes, though I felt proud too, for there they were, got up on the flags and ready to be hauled off. Master said to Cook, “It’s only just past eleven. I was going in to write some letters before lunch. You might tell Poole I’ll take it in the library and there’s certainly no reason to hurry.”

  Cook bobbed him a curtsy and said, “Very good, sir,” and then to me, “I’ll be off to get cleaned up and the luncheon on, Mary. You may work a bit longer if you’re not tired.”

  I said I would and Cook hurried off, leaving me leaning on my shovel and Master gazing on me in my dirt. “Well, Mary,” he said. “Poole tells me we’re to have a garden.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Cook says we may have herbs here and she knows the way of gardening.”

  “You don’t know the way yourself?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “We had some potted geraniums once, at the Marley School, and that’s as close as I’ve been to growing anything.”

  Master seemed to light up with interest at my reply. “The Marley School, Mary?” he said. “Why, that is one of my projects.”

  “Truly, sir? You mean you was a teacher there?”

  “No, Mary,” he said, seeming to think my idea a funny one. “I’ve never seen the school. But it was partly my idea and I gave the money for the building and I am on the board still. We see to the running of the school.”

  I thought it odd that Master would be running a school he never saw, and then I thought if he saw what went on there he might not be looking so pleased, but that made me feel sorry for Master, with his good intentions and his seeming so pleased to find I was a pupil there, so I only said, “It’s where I learned to read, sir, so I’m grateful to you.”

  This delighted Master so his face broke into a smile, as if someone had given him a fine present, and he seemed almost shy to have my thanks for he said, “Well, Mary. So. That’s very fine, very gratifying to me. It seems remarkable really, that you should go to my school and end up in my house.”

  Then I had such a mean thought it left me speechless, for it was this, that considering how rough the school was, it was a wonder I could read and had got as far as I have in the world, which surely even Master mun see isn’t very far. So I said nothing, but wiped my sweating forehead on my sleeve and stood looking at Master across the dirt feeling all the world was standing between us and we’d no way ever to cross it, but also that somehow we was also two sides of the same coin, doing our different work in the same house and as close, without speaking, as a dog and his shadow.

  Master’s smile faded and we looked at each other a moment longer, me feeling no shame at my dirt, but rather proud. Then Master looked down at the shovel pressed in the dirt and said, “Well then, Mary. Good luck with your gardening,” and he turned away and went into the house.

  So I continued my digging but I felt strange somehow, as if my work would come to no good end and the garden would never be as it was in my imagination, but only a poor stunted, blighted place where nothing would prosper no matter how much Cook and I might try. And I thought of Master who was so kind and thoughtful today, not distant as he used to seem before we had our talk and he read my history, and I remembered the question he had asked as to whether I hated my father for his ill use of me and how I had failed to answer it and Master had not pressed me, for he must have seen what I now understood, that I hadn’t answered because I don’t know the answer.

  I believe to hate my father would be to give in and make small my real feeling which is strong but not like hate, as that seems simple, pure and clean. Yet I feel that my father put this dark place in me that brings sadness on me unawares, when I should be happy to have my good place and such friends as I have and someone like Cook who can advise me on the way of gardening, and who is simple herself and finds happiness in doing her work and knowing her place. But for me, though I can get past it, there’s often this darkness and sadness, unexpected and coming from things that should bring happiness, like the thought of the garden and the working in it with Cook, but then it rises up inside like a blackness and I really am in that blackness where my father left me, with no way out and nothing to do but wait until somehow there’s some merciful release and I come to myself again.

  So I feel my father made me thus, or left me thus, with this sadness which has been hard to bear and will likely never leave me no matter what fortune I have, and it sets me apart from my fellows who seem never to know it. While I can’t forgive my father, neither can I regret what I am, and there are times when I would not give up the sadness and darkness because it do seem to me true that this is part of how we mun see life if we are to say we saw it, and it has to do with our being alone and dying alone, which we all mun do. So it seems to me that many people, especially gentlefolks, spend a great deal of money and all their time trying to push all sadness from their lives, which in my view they can never do, because it is there, no matter how well off we may be in this world, and it just mun be got through. I see I have this patience to wait it out, and the truth is no matter how dark I feel I would never take my own life, because when the darkness is over, then what a blessing is the feeblest ray of light!

  And this is truly something I see in Master and why I am so drawn to serve him and what I think he mun see in me, and why he has wanted to look into my history, because we are both souls who knew this sadness and darkness inside and we have both of us learned to wait.

  I couldn’t seem to come back to myself after my talk with Master over the garden. It was as if I had been digging up my own childhood and for the rest of the day my thoughts was as hard and black as the soil. These many years I’ve seldom really thought on my past and have tried to put it behind me, going on with my work, for I see no good in brooding on things that can never be changed. I know Cook thought it odd to see me downcast at lunch, as she was pleased with me and full of plans for our garden, but I could scarcely lift my head. Afterwards I took my buckets and brushes and went out to scrub the flags in the front hall. This is a long, slow, dirty job which I like to do on my knees with my skirts tied up, using a lot of water and brushes, first to loosen up all the dirt, then a deal more until it is clear again, taking it up w
ith my big sponges and pouring more out until I’ve fair made a little river of the hall. Before I started I got the fireplace going so the hall would dry out fast when I was done, but as I worked it made me so hot that I was dripping and felt I was in a steam cabinet such as I have read about in the bathing establishments. I worked and worked, scrubbing hard, sloshing through the filthy water to fill my buckets, going round the house and in through the area, so many passersby saw me hurrying along in my bare feet and skirts tied up, then I had to use half a bucket on my feet at the front step before going back in. I was waiting for my spirits to lift with the dirt, but they would not. Then I had a thought that struck me so hard I dropped my brush and rose up on my knees like a rabbit trying to hear the fox and that was this, that my father is still alive somewhere.

  Why this should so stun me I don’t know, but it did, and all at once it was as if he was not just alive somewhere, but in the very hall with me. Our big house was silent all around me. Master had gone to his laboratory after lunch and Mr. Poole was out at the chemist’s for him. Mr. Bradshaw had his day off, Cook and Annie was in the kitchen, so I knew there was no one about, yet I seemed to hear someone walking towards me.

  I glanced back at the fire, for a chill had come over me, and gave myself a shake as if I could shake off the dread. But it would not go away and I felt as I used to feel when I heard his bootstep in the alley, that I could pick out his step from among a thousand, for it was always coming for me and each step fairly called my name. Then I felt the water running down my face was changed, that it was tears. I could not think when was the last time I found myself crying. “Oh lord,” I said out loud. “What’s becoming of me?”

  So I had to force myself back to my work and just let the tears run with all the other water I had about me, which they did and quite freely. I thought on Master and how his notice of me has stirred up all this confusion, sadness and dread, all feelings I thought I had put to rest, and how it is doing me no good at all, yet I think I cannot undo what’s been done, nor should I try.