Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Glyn Maxwell

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781786829511
• eBook ISBN: 9781786829528
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A new version, from award-winning poet Glyn Maxwell, of Robert Louis Stevenson's Gothic masterpiece. A decent man finds himself stalked and confronted by his own evil alter-ego.

1

Darkness

FIGURES between darkness and light Light. Something weeping

JEKYLL waking, reaching for his notebook

JEKYLL: Coming home… from some place – as if end of the world – about three o’clock, black winter morning – way lies through a part of town – nothing to be seen but lamps… street after street, all the folks asleep – empty as a church… do not remember walking here, or why I came, or what I wait for…

A GIRL, loitering

JEKYLL: See a figure – girl – matchgirl just standing, shivering, no one came to buy her matches…

A FIGURE comes from nowhere

JEKYLL: Then suddenly a man, stumping eastward at a good walk – towards where the girl is standing, then – horrible part of the thing – what he sees is what I see – the matchgirl growing in my sight, the ground bouncing along before me, over cobblestones I go, like my eyes were the stranger’s eyes, little white face does not believe I would, draining of blood for I cannot stop, I will not stop, I do not stop –

The FIGURE cannons into her, knocks her down, tramples her, she screams

JEKYLL: It wasn’t me, I saw it, it wasn’t a man at all, to leave a child screaming on the ground, it was like some damned Juggernaut! Not a man – not I, not I… Then it was over, both were gone, I saw nothing, only the empty street, the chains of lamps, I heard only – weeping, like a lost soul, and I woke with that on my heart, as if –as if I myself were the creature weeping… Lady, oh lady, help me… These dreams are overpowering, it’s the compound brings them on,

He notices something

JEKYLL: And – there are – matches in my clothes…

ROSE prepares

ROSE: Rose-scented paper, so she knows it’s me…

GABRIEL: George, my dear brother, how is life in Devon? I imagine you enjoy all the peace and serenity I am in want of here in London,

ROSE: And the pen with the violet ink, so she knows I mean it!

GABRIEL: I write with some urgency, in response to your request regarding your daughter: this is not a fit place and these are not fit times for a sweet soul like little Rosemary, I would exhort you for her own sake – please do not let her write to me –

ROSE: My dearest Auntie Gabriel, how are you on this fine day? ‘Tis a fine sunny day in Devonshire, are there blizzards over London?

GABRIEL: As you well know I would find a direct approach from that spirited child not so easy to resist,

ROSE: This letter comes from Rosemary Palfrey, your favourite niece. My father says you were always quite the one for puzzlements and riddles, so I’ve made a riddle just for you:

GABRIEL: I can only disappoint the girl, so do please discourage her from any personal approach,

ROSE: When you last saw me, Auntie, I was half the height I am now and thirty-three percent in years, in five years you’ll be twice my age,

GABRIEL: I am sure she’s not yet eighteen,

ROSE: Wrong! Next! I am writing from my undiscovered planet so very far from the light of London that it appears as nothing but a distant star in my eye –

GABRIEL: Please, George, I exhort you,

ROSE: And the wise men of the parish, they think this errant twinkling can be removed by the use of damp cloths,

GABRIEL: I am sure that when the time comes, perhaps when Rose is married and of shall we say a more settled disposition,

ROSE: And my best friend Jenny Gleaner says I’ll never leave the village,

GABRIEL: Moreover I am very busy this season with my charity work especially, she would be left to shift for herself, and as a young child she was ever bored and restless,

ROSE: My train arrives at the station of Waterloo at 4.19 precisely – will I be in time for the Battle? I doubt it, I have never arrived precisely anywhere!

GABRIEL: There is really no great space for her in my house –

ROSE: But I did! At 4.19 – oh my this house is a palace! And you live here, look at that window, all the different shades of glass!

GABRIEL: I do, Rosie, but then, over the years I’ve acquired many –

ROSE: Is this where you do your, father says you do experiments,

GABRIEL: George’s mind is lingering years ago, why don’t you get some rest,

ROSE: He said you’d understand me, do you think so? I do hope so, for I don’t understand me and he most certainly don’t!

GABRIEL: Doesn’t,

ROSE: Doesn’t, what’s this, what does it measure,

GABRIEL: It’s an ornament, it’s nothing, now what I don’t understand is, why did the fellows I sent to meet you arrive here with all your packages and cases and no sign of you at all?

ROSE: Why? Easy, I went walking in London Town, I told them to go ahead without me.

GABRIEL: Why on earth would you do that? You have never been here!

ROSE: Because I have never been here! I have just now voyaged to the realm of wonders! and she wants me to sit in a box pulled by a horse and look through a porthole at houses going by, ooh a building, another building, another building, very interesting,

GABRIEL: Oh good heavens above,

ROSE: I strolled down Th...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Characters
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4