There was a time when dinners at Jekyll’s house were the chief jewels of the social season. Utterson looked forward to them as he might a royal banquet, savoured them in the moment like a vintage wine, then kindled the memories for weeks – months – afterwards.
On this Saturday, however, he arrived at his home at Gaunt Street at six o’clock, opened the door guardedly, ascended on hushed feet to his bedroom, brushed his tailcoat, affixed his tie and cufflinks, and uncapped a decanter of bedside gin to settle his nerves. His hands, he noticed, were shaking uncontrollably.
‘Will sir be requiring dinner this evening?’ Poole asked from the door.
Utterson hurriedly concealed the glass. ‘Not tonight, Poole,’ he managed. ‘I’m dining with old friends.’
‘Old friends, sir?’
‘All rather unexpected, which is why I failed to inform you.’
‘Very well, sir – I take it you’ll be returning late?’
‘Very late, I expect. If you’ve prepared something for dinner you may enjoy it yourself.’
‘Why thank you, sir.’
In the cab, still trembling, Utterson could not prevent his mind from reliving a high tea of exceptional awkwardness that he had shared that very afternoon with the widow Spratling.
It was at the tea rooms of the Savoy Hotel, the sort of fashionable establishment he would never have patronised had he not been seeking to impress a lady. The widow, still in mourning silks, and looking indecently alluring even under the hideous glare of the hotel’s electric lamps, was accompanied as usual by her smirking son Terrence and was wearing on her countenance an expression of great expectation.
‘You said last week you had some pleasing news for me, Gabriel.’
‘That I did . . .’
‘And yet you have already been so good to me that I don’t know how I might ever repay you.’
‘You should not even think about repaying me, Nora.’
‘But I do think about it, Gabriel. Every day I say to Terrence that we have been delivered an angel. I say to him that we should never despair if things look bleak, because Gabriel will find a way to extricate us from our misery.’
‘You should not elevate me to such levels,’ Utterson said stiffly. ‘Indeed, I fear I might yet prove something of a disappointment to you, for a certain announcement I had intended to make might need to be postponed.’
‘Oh?’ The widow’s face wrinkled.
‘Well,’ conceded Utterson, ‘it’s just a temporary setback, I hope, and I am doing everything to settle the matter expeditiously. Nonetheless, it means I am unable to play the angelic role you have generously ascribed to me. So I trust you will forgive me.’
‘Of course I forgive you, Gabriel – how could I not?’ Nora paused, clearly struggling to contain her curiosity. ‘But whatever could it be,’ she went on finally, ‘that you were intending to announce to me? I hope it is not improper to ask?’
Stung by her plaintive tone, and melted by the anguish in her eyes, Utterson found himself divulging his little secret. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. You see, I had been intending to move personally into the Jekyll home next week, once it legally became my property, leaving my current abode in Gaunt Street vacant for the two of you.’
The widow gasped. ‘You mean to say you would offer your own home to Terrence and me?’
‘Precisely.’
She beamed. ‘Good Lord, Gabriel – could it possibly be true?’
‘It has been my intention for some time now.’
‘But how would I ever afford the rent for such a fine house, in the straits I am in?’
‘I expect no rent at all,’ said Utterson. ‘In fact, it is you who would be doing a favour for me, as I do not wish to part with the place entirely; nor can I conceive of tenants more reliable than you and Terrence.’
‘Oh, it’s true, Gabriel – it’s true! We would care for the place as our own! Why, this is exactly the news we have been waiting to hear. A home in Gaunt Street! This is just what I have been dreaming of – to get away from that stinking, noisy hovel in Shepherd’s Bush. Oh Gabriel, make no mistake, you are an angel indeed!’
Utterson was already regretting his disclosure. ‘And yet,’ he warned, ‘there might well be a delay, as I’ve indicated – perhaps a serious one.’
‘But how could it be, Gabriel? What could possibly thwart us?’
Utterson sighed. ‘It’s all very silly,’ he said. ‘You see, a man – an impostor – has moved into the Jekyll home, claiming it as his own.’
‘An impostor?’
‘A man claiming to be Henry Jekyll.’
‘Henry Jekyll! Our Henry?’
‘A fraudster,’ Utterson insisted. ‘A brazen, black-hearted fraudster.’
The widow frowned, thinking about it. ‘But if he’s a fraudster, dear Gabriel, then why have you not had him evicted?’
‘Whoever he is, he has managed to hoodwink many of those who have met him – mainly old men with failing memories.’
‘But not you?’
‘Not I,’ sniffed Utterson. ‘I shall confront him shortly.’
‘So you’ve not yet seen him?’
‘I shall do so tonight, at dinner.’
‘At dinner, you say? You’re going to meet this fraudster over dinner?’
Utterson realised how far-fetched it all sounded. ‘I shall deal with him there.’
The widow looked uncertain. ‘And you are absolutely sure he’s not Henry?’
‘Entirely.’
‘Even though Henry’s body was never discovered?’
‘His body . . . his body does not need to be discovered.’
‘And though you admit you have no real proof that Henry is dead?’
‘I had no need of proof. None, I tell you. Because I know Henry Jekyll is dead. And I know that his friends have been deceived. I know this for a fact.’
There followed an excruciating silence, during which the widow appeared increasingly distant. ‘Henry Jekyll . . .’ she whispered.
‘Not Jekyll,’ Utterson said. ‘A charlatan.’
But the widow seemed not to have heard him. She seemed, indeed, to have fallen into a trance.
And Utterson, in that dreadful moment, understood that Nora, too, wanted to believe, for her own reasons, that Henry Jekyll was still alive.
Because, by God, she’s still in love with him.
All these thoughts were scraping through his head as the cab wheeled into Jekyll’s street, where a sudden chill would years earlier have made the amber glow of the doctor’s windows seem inordinately inviting. Tonight, however, through a tempest of emotions, they resembled to Utterson nothing less than the fires of hell.