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  HYDE

  By Nigel G. Mitchell

  FOREWORD

  MY WOMB was the bottom of a flask. My mother was an apothecary in London. My father was Doctor Henry Jekyll. My name is Edward Hyde.

  Such were the words at the top of the pages presented to Gabriel John Utterson by an old woman late one night. He had not known her before that night, but the words that she relayed to him on her arrival changed his life forever.

  Just before she entered his study, Utterson's butler came to him and said, "Sir, I beg your pardon, but there is a woman here to see you."

  Utterson looked up from the family trust he composed by the light of the crackling fireplace. He set down his pen and frowned. "I am expecting no visitors. Who is she?"

  The butler bowed his head towards him. "She refuses to provide her name, sir. She only stated to inform you that she knows the secret of Jekyll and Hyde."

  Utterson looked to his familiar, who returned his startled gaze with a blank stare. If she knew the import of what he said, Utterson would expect shock and dismay. Apparently, she had not shared her secret with him.

  Utterson set his pen and paper on the desk, and rose to pace the small room of his office. "Very well. Send her in."

  As his butler left him, Utterson leaned against his window frame. He watched a horse and carriage roll by in the light of a street-lamp, and pondered whether her words could really be true. Utterson was once the lawyer and close personal friend of Henry Jekyll. As far as Utterson knew, only three people beyond Jekyll himself had known the secret.

  One was a doctor named Lanyon who died of shock at what he had learned. Jekyll's head butler Poole was another, but he had been sworn to silence and Utterson trusted his word without question. Indeed, Poole wished only to forget the ordeal he had been through, though Utterson knew that to be impossible. This left only Utterson himself to have revealed the secret, and he had told no one.

  Utterson considered briefly whether the mysterious woman had somehow gained hold of the confession that Jekyll had written before his death. However, the envelope left by Henry Jekyll had been locked in the room with him, undisturbed, until Utterson opened it. Utterson had destroyed the confession soon after he read it, so no one else could have known its contents. Yet despite all these precautions, this woman claimed she knew the secret.

  His butler escorted in an elderly woman. Her threadbare blue dress informed Utterson of her lower class, but she carried herself with a dignity that belied her status. Her wrinkled and weathered face peered out from under a shabby scarf and shawl. Her eyes shone with a piercing intensity.

  "Thank you kindly for seeing me, sir," said the old woman.

  "Not at all." Utterson held out his hand towards a chair. "Please, sit down. You must be frightfully chilled. May I offer you some tea?"

  She settled herself into the chair. "No, thank you. I shan't be staying long."

  Utterson affected an air of calm as he regarded the old woman before him. "My servant conveyed your message to me, but I'm baffled as to its meaning."

  But the woman was not fooled. She matched his gaze as she said, "I refer to the secret you guard. Doctor Henry Jekyll and Mister Edward Hyde were one and the same man."

  The chill he had felt on her arrival grew deeper still. Only the crackling of the fireplace filled the silence that followed.

  Edward Hyde had been Utterson's nemesis for a time, particularly after Hyde's murder of Sir Danvers Carew, a minister of Parliament. There had been a great mystery as to the whereabouts of Hyde and the connections that surfaced between him and Jekyll. In the end, the circumstances surrounding Hyde's disappearance and the odd behavior of Jekyll had become plain when Utterson broke down the door of Jekyll's laboratory and discovered Hyde's body dead on the floor. An empty glass of cyanide had revealed that Hyde had taken the drug, an apparent suicide from fear of discovery.

  Yet the document left by Jekyll had revealed that the two men had been one and the same. According to Jekyll's confession, Jekyll had created a drug releasing his evil nature in the physical manifestation of Edward Hyde. Unfortunately, Hyde's form had taken hold of Jekyll and eventually supplanted him, leaving Jekyll trapped in Hyde's body.

  Utterson knew all this, but hid his startled expression with an affection of scorn. He turned his back on the woman to glare out the window at the night. "Madame, such an accusation is not only ludicrous, but shameful to make. Doctor Henry Jekyll was a man of virtue, a pillar in the community. Mister Edward Hyde was a drunkard, a brute, and a murderer. To suggest they had even the slightest in common is to slander Jekyll's good name."

  The woman unwrapped her shawl to reveal grey hair curled tightly into a bun. She continued with her calm voice. "Be that as it may, it is the truth. And you know it. Mister Hyde told me of you, Mister Utterson. He said that you'd be the only one Jekyll would trust with his secret. As Hyde trusted me with his."

  By then, Utterson had already turned to stare at the woman with open horror. "Hyde told you his tale?"

  "Not directly. Wrote me a letter, he did." The woman drew a sheath of papers from her sleeve. "It was in an envelope delivered to me, sealed with instructions that they be opened only on the occasion of Hyde's death or disappearance. I gather Jekyll gave you a similar package."

  Utterson nodded and turned away to set his gaze into the burning coals of his fire. "True. Such a letter drew me into the entire sordid affair."

  The woman rose to her feet. "Hyde told me you were a close companion of Jekyll. If he wrote you of his secret, I'll wager he gave you his side of the story. I hear tell Jekyll's reputation is quite high."

  The woman moved across the room lightly towards him. She wore a cheap perfume that permeated the air. "I got no illusions about the nature of Hyde, Mister Utterson. He was a drunkard and a brute and a murderer, as you say. But Hyde was more than a mere monster. You couldn't see that, but I could. Perhaps because I lack the benefit of living in the sinless glow of virtue such as Jekyll and yourself."

  She said this last with great contempt as she glared up at him. "Every man deserves to be judged properly, Mister Utterson, even a man like Hyde."

  She held out the papers. "You've read Jekyll's account of the affair, Mister Utterson. I bid you to read Hyde's as well."

  The very thought of peering in the mind and heart of a man like Hyde put Utterson almost to his knees. Yet something about the woman's words did reach him. Perhaps he did feel that a part of the story was missing. Perhaps he felt curiosity as to what would drive a man like Hyde to such horrors.

  For whatever reason, he took the papers from the old woman. It felt warm to the touch. He considered that to be from contact with the old woman's skin, but the fleeting thought that it was hot from some devilish power of Hyde crossed his mind.

  Once relieved of the documents, the woman immediately turned and headed for the door. "I waited for a time to see if you would distribute Jekyll's confession, Mister Utterson, but I've yet to see it come to light."

  Utterson shuffled the pages as he murmured, "No, I burned them within hours of reading. As Jekyll's lawyer and friend, I had a professional and personal responsibility to protect his reputation. Besides, the account had the air of the uncanny."

  The old woman wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and head. "Burn these as well once you have read them. Hyde should get no better or worse treatment than Jekyll."

  "And what if I do shant read it?" Utterson called out to her. "What if I throw these into the fire and let Hyde's villainous account burn with him as he himself now burns in Hell?"

  "That's your affair, Mister Utterson," the woman called back without so much as a glance over her shoulder. "My dealings with Hyde are at an end."

  Utterson looked down at the papers, read the first few lines, and knew hi
s curiosity would get the best of him. He would read Hyde's account.

  But as she left, he called out, "Wait! Who are you? What is your connection to Edward Hyde?"

  She paused in the doorway and peered under the edge of her shawl at him. "If you wish to know who I am, you must come to know Hyde first."

  And then she slipped out of the doorway and was gone.

  Utterson did not pursue her. Utterson sat down and began to read.

  Jekyll's account of his experiments and final end with Edward Hyde had left Utterson shaken. Yet Utterson had taken solace in the fact that he finally understood the sordid and cryptic events in the last year of his friend Jekyll's life.

  But the documents left by Hyde left Utterson more shaken still. Worse, it led him to realize that he had not known Jekyll at all in his life. Indeed, it was only by coming to know Edward Hyde that he came to know Henry Jekyll for the first time.

  Chapter One – The Birth of Edward Hyde

  MY WOMB was the bottom of a flask. My mother was an apothecary in London. My father was Doctor Henry Jekyll. My name is Edward Hyde.

  Recent events have made it clear to me that I have little time left in this world. Death awaits me, either at the hands of others or my own. My (what word shall I use to describe him? Partner? Jailer? Brother? Let us call him father) has made it his determination to destroy me or destroy us both, and I fear he shall succeed. I have noted his attempts to record his version of our tale. At first, I merely destroyed his papers as I found them, but now feel compelled to pen my own.

  Though I have little interest in defending my actions or redeeming myself in the eyes of humanity, I feel the need to leave behind a narrative by which my life can be understood. You, the reader, are free to make your own conclusions about the life and times of Edward Hyde. But if you have read Henry Jekyll's whitewashed account, then I must warn you that you face the unvarnished truth from me. To read my life is to pierce the underbelly of this world and face the ugliest aspects of Man.

  Unlike most newborns, I remember the first moments of my life quite clearly. I awoke to find myself standing in the midst of a large room filled with medical and experimental apparatus. The noxious odour of sulphour and other chemicals filled the air. The scent came from a long table beside me, laden with flasks, tubing, and beakers of fluids, along with a burner still glowing with flame. A white salt-like substance lay in careful piles on glass saucers scattered prominently among the equipment.

  A nearby cabinet's glass door revealed a multitude of shelves inside supporting flasks with a vast array of liquids and powders such as to create any concoction one could imagine. In the opposite corner of the room, a fireplace burned and filled the room with a pleasant warmth and the scent of smoke. An easy chair sat by the fire, along with a small table and a bookshelf of scientific and religious tomes. The dawn had just begun to show itself through a small window barred with iron.

  I had no memories of entering the room, nor anything else. Unlike a true babe, however, I did have a consciousness, knowledge of language, and could stand erect. Yet I knew not who or what I was. I was like one struck with amnesia.

  Over time, I became aware of a flask in my hand, empty save a few drops of some green liquid clinging to the bottom and sides. I brought the glass to my nose and came near to vomiting from its pungent odour. It smelled strongly of phosphorous and ether.

  Regarding the glass drew my attention to my hands. They seemed particularly gruesome in form. Thick, coarse hair dusting the knuckles made its way down to carpet the backs of the hands.

  My attention turned to my clothes. I wore a long white coat over a gray suit with a red silk tie. I knew enough to recognise the fine quality of my clothing, yet they hung several sizes too large on me. My shoes clearly had great value as well, but felt tightly around my feet. It struck me as odd that I would be dressed in such finery without regard to its fit.

  At that moment, I felt a fluttering in my mind, as if the wings of butterflies brushed against the inside of my skull. Eventually, I would come to know the sensation, but at that moment it was foreign to me. Yet the effects became quickly apparent. It was a compulsion, almost irresistible, to find a mirror. I desired to look upon my face.

  Yet where would I find a looking glass in such a place? None presented itself to me. Even the second story above me proved empty, save for a sofa next to a small window. Through the window, I could see a courtyard below that faced the open street of a city. Descending to the ground floor, I took note of a door nearby that opened and revealed a large chamber.

  The sun's rays fell through a skylight onto rows of empty benches arranged around a long table. Once again, I must remind the reader that I was not cursed with the ignorance of a true child. I recognised the room as a surgical theatre whereby once poor creatures found themselves dismembered for the scientific voyeurism of common medical students. That table now held wooden crates of various shapes and sizes filled with straw and an even greater variety of chemicals than the laboratory I was born in.

  Clearly, I was in the domain of a man of science. I pondered the possibility that I myself was that scientist. But how could that be? I had no memory of scientific matters, nor did I feel particularly inclined towards them. Perhaps my current lost of memory was the result of some experiment. That seemed quite likely, considering the glass I still carried in one hand. This renewed my interest in my appearance and I hurried across the theatre to a nearby corridor.

  The corridor led to a heavy door that opened onto the courtyard, exposing the barely lit streets of the city. The chill winds blowing past caused me to shiver. A young woman walking by caused me to retreat back into the theatre. I was not yet ready to venture out into the world. I noted that a flight of stairs near the door led up to the laboratory. I could reach this back door directly from the laboratory. That seemed useful, but did me no good as yet.

  Roaming my environment, I found a few dark closets that proved to be empty and dusty with disuse. I also encountered a spacious cellar stacked with lumber. The thick cobwebs that covered the wood told me they had not been disturbed in some time. There would be no mirror to gaze upon here.

  I returned to the theatre and found a second door that opened to the outside. The dawn had just begun to brighten the sky as I stepped out. I inhaled the scent of wet earth and manure hanging in the cool air. This area seemed to me to be a private garden enclosed in iron bars and brick walls. A heavy fog curled over dampened soil where the tips of roses and lilacs had only just begun to emerge. I crossed the fledgling garden with hurried steps.

  Moving through the fog, I came into view of a luxurious home that towered several stories above me. An uncanny fear of discovery gripped me that I could not quite understand, but was accompanied by the same fluttering sensation I had experienced before. Was I a stranger in this house? Would the occupants greet me with joy or horror? I knew not, and accounted that lack of knowledge as the cause of my apprehension.

  I reached a door that appeared to be the servant's entrance to the kitchen. The fear increased until I felt my heart would stop, but it also awakened some strange joy within me. I imagined encountering someone who would attack and attempt to kill me. The thought of that encounter, and all the pain and violence that would ensue, somehow thrilled me. As a result, it was with a mixture of relief and disappointment when I opened the door and found the kitchen empty. But there seemed to be something boiling on the stove, carrying the scent of warm pudding, which told me that someone would be returning soon.

  I moved through a drab and cluttered kitchen to an entrance hall decorated with more finery, including Oriental rugs, a polished stone floor, and a number of valuable paintings. Clearly, this home belonged to a family of wealth. A fireplace smoked with fresh coal, and a large painting hung above it that portrayed a man in his mid-forties with a kindly appearance. The manner it which it was displayed led me to believe it to be a portrait of the owner of the house. Judging only from what I could see of my own body, I saw in
myself no resemblance to the man in the painting.

  There seemed to be no one about at this early hour, since only silence greeted me. I came to a high staircase and mounted the steps quickly. The fluttering in my mind came again, along a sudden shock of awareness. Suddenly, the home was familiar to me. I knew where the bedroom lay in its cavernous halls.

  I made my way quickly to the master bedroom, which I found furnished with more Oriental rugs, a brass bedstead with a bed of feathers on top, a wardrobe, a washstand, and a dressing table. The tall standing mirror that I sought stood next to the dressing table. There, I saw myself for the first time.

  My appearance was a shock to me, as it would be to all those I encountered. I shall attempt to describe myself.

  That morning, I saw a man in the mirror standing less than five feet. My standing with a hunch accentuated my lack of height, as if I suffered from a curvature of the spine, though none exists than I can detect. My clothing hung loose about a body thin to the point of being sickly. My pale skin added to the impression of illness. My hands and feet appeared larger than normal. My face seemed misshapen with a lumpish brow, beady brown eyes, and lips that seemed perpetually twisted in cruelty. Almost every inch of my body bore a thin layer of coarse hair, almost as an ape. There seemed to be an air of deformity about my visage, but it was impossible to attribute to any physical feature. It was as if one could see my soul, and that soul itself suffered from the true deformity.

  A growing sense of terror seized hold of me. This was definitely not the face of the man in the portrait over the fireplace, whom I had taken to be master of the house. If I were not the owner, than who was I? And how had I gotten here? Why was I wearing clothes that were clearly not intended for myself? My horror also came from the knowledge that I was nothing less than a hirsute disfigured dwarf. I was trapped in a body of such loathsome form that even I recoiled from it.