The Gentleman Doctor

The Gentleman Doctor

By DragonWolf

Chapter V

~~~

Jekyll had been known to spend long hours in his laboratory. Now he would not emerge for any reason. No matter how the servants pleaded with him, the door stayed locked. They did not understand what had come over their master, and they were afraid.

It had grown too much. London was no longer safe for him, was not safe for anyone as long as he was there. He made up his mind what had to be done. Fighting to ignore Hyde’s fury in his head, he took up his pen and wrote a letter that was pages long.

He confessed everything to Utterson. Sir Danvers Carew’s murder. The creation of Hyde and the truth of his identity. The full extent of his depravity and self-loathing. Everything. He finished the letter with a promise that he was going to commit suicide. He did not, but almost wished he had to courage to.

He sealed his confession and sent it to Utterson. And then he fled.

He always wanted to see Paris. Though certainly not like this.

He had wondered what London thought of Henry Jekyll now, supposedly a self-destroyer. What that would have done to his reputation would have been too horrible to guess. But he learned the story told around the city was that Hyde had murdered Jekyll, then killed himself— a small lie that Utterson had doubtless made, for the sake of saving his friend’s reputation. Jekyll was moved to tears to hear this; even knowing the truth of Henry’s sad life, the lawyer’s devotion beyond breaking. How he wanted to thank Utterson, to stay in London with his true friend, but knew it was best for all of them if Doctor Henry Jekyll remained dead to the world.

He fled to France to escape the sadness and bad memories in London. He passed well enough among the city’s people, his unassuming ways and his fluency in French allowing him to go unnoticed. It was here, in the life of anonymity he had built for himself, that he surrendered to Hyde.

The power of the evil had grown so strong within him that it was beyond him to control. Not only did he sometimes see Hyde’s visage rather than his own reflection, he heard the monster’s voice in his head.

It was not all the time that he would hear Hyde appear to him or speak, just when his emotions ran high. It came when he was angry, or upset, or afraid.

But easily the worst of it was when he realized that Hyde would follow him to the brothel.

Hyde enjoyed Henry’s debaucheries, but not so much as tormenting him for them. Hyde hated his alter ego, thought him impotent and weak. He harassed the doctor mercilessly. Hyde’s presence mortified him, and his words tore into him. It was like having a witness to his deeds. A witness who spared no opportunity to torture him.

“How many have there been now, that wanted your money more than they wanted you?”

No shame, no disgrace, no dishonor he’d ever known in his life came close to equal that raw, visceral humiliation. Hyde saw the conflict between his better, reasoning nature and his baser, lesser nature. He saw every craven desire Henry was too weak to control.

The monster’s cruelty was bitter. Often he remained silent for long periods of time, as Jekyll dared to hope that the beast’s consciousness had not been wakened. The doctor would try to go about his secret business, as Hyde waited for the right moment. And precisely when it would wound him the most, Hyde would speak.

“Not enough blood for both your governing organs at once, eh, Henry? And which one do you always let win out?”

Jekyll tried to silence him, tried to fight back, but there was nothing he could say. How could he retort to an enemy who knew him as well as he knew himself?

Sometimes he would hear the monster demand to be released, and Jekyll had no more strength to resist him. Hyde would rampage through the darkest places in the city, a monster greater and more terrible now than he’d ever been in London, wrecking destruction and violent horrors until the elixir at last wore off. And through it all, the small part of him that remained Henry Jekyll hid in a corner of his mind and sobbed.

No longer could he hold to the belief that his deeds and Hyde’s were not one and the same. Not knowing he was the one to unleash the horror, that it had been created from the darkness in his very own soul. All semblance of the dapper gentleman doctor was gone now; a fearful, trembling wreck was left in his place.

He had not killed himself when he told Utterson he was going to, and more than once regretted it. Suicide, that blackest of all sins, was often in his thoughts. He should rid the world of his evil once and for all. The most honorable act of which he was capable would be to take his miserable life, and face whatever Hell he’d made for himself in the next world. Besides, death would bring the only peace he’d ever know.

But he was too great a coward even for that.

He wondered if tales of Hyde’s crimes in Paris had made their way back to London. Perhaps Utterson had figured out by now that his friend was still alive, too cowardly to do what he knew he should. That he’d ran away from the trouble he’d caused rather than facing it like a man.

But Paris became no more refuge than London. The horror of Hyde’s deeds was only growing worse. After the hideous crimes committed in that home on the Rue Morgue, Paris’ most famous detective Auguste Dupin had found him out and placed a reward on his head. It was one dark night not long after someone finally caught him, bagged and trapped him like a wild animal. The man who did it had been unstoppable; he handled his rifle as if it were an extension of himself. He dragged him onto a strange submersible vessel beyond anything he’d ever seen before. He had a proposition to deliver.

He recognized the name of Allan Quartermain. Jekyll had read of him in countless books. He was an adventurer beyond compare, the only hunter in the world who could have captured a beast such as Hyde. He was the sort of man Henry had once dreamed of being, tall and strong, handsome and fearless, with a presence that commanded attention.

Hyde was furious at being caught, and more so at being chained. He tore the heavy bounds from their moorings and whipped them at the men around him. They were dark-skinned, he noted distantly, Asian in aspect rather than European.

“Stay back if you value your life,” Quartermain called to others there. There was a fellow in clearly Indian dress standing imperious and stern near the hunter. A man in a fine suit and impossibly fine features looked at Hyde as if bored. Another in a long coat and covered in white greasepaint stood near him and a tall tow haired youth dressed like an American. And lastly, a darkly lovely woman with sharp eyes peered in interest at him. Hyde leered brazenly in her direction, but she did not betray the slightest hint of discomfort.

“You’ve done terrible things in England,” the hunter said to him, in a deep and rich voice. “So terrible you were forced to flee the country. I’m ashamed to say that her Majesty’s government is willing to offer you amnesty, in return for your services.” He regarded him steadily. “Do you want to go home?”

“Home,” Hyde echoed. In the back of Edward’s thoughts, Henry lurked with his own. They offered him official pardon, not if he repudiated his evil, but if he were to use it to their ends. This hardly involved him at all. Even now, they wanted Edward, not Henry. He did not want Hyde’s wickedness to be legitimized, did not want his own wickedness to be legitimized. He hated the thought that suddenly Hyde’s evil was acceptable.

Still… he missed his old life, the good moments of it anyway, and his missed his old friends, Gabriel Utterson in particular. He wanted to go back.

“Home’s where the heart is, that’s what they say,” Hyde continued. “And I have been missing London so. It’s sorrow is as sweet to me as a rare wine.”

He nodded his great head in a mockery of politeness. “I am yours.”

His eyes swept the room, observing the tension among them, sizing them up like a hunter sizes his prey. “Don’t be afraid.”

The American affected unconcern. “Who’s says I’m afraid?”

“You!” With a mighty heave, Hyde tore the chains from the wall and swung them, making them duck and dive for cover. “You stink of fear!”

“Quite the parlor trick,” the man in gray commented lazily.

Hyde eyed him fiercely. “Wait till you see my next one.” He convulsed in agony, and began to change. They looked on in horror as the transformation overtook him, tearing away the monstrous form of Edward Hyde. Henry came out screaming, and collapsed to the ground.

Chest heaving, he shook himself out of the chains that were now too big for him. He stood up straight and faced them, struggling to gather what shreds of his dignity he could.

“Doctor Henry Jekyll,” he nearly whispered, his words a tragic parody of gentleman’s manners. “At your service.”

And so the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was formed. They briefed in on their mission, and of the great, impossibly advanced ship they were on, the Nautilus.

It was most unusual to be in the company of people as strange as he was. A traveled hunter, a pirate scientist, an invisible man, an ageless immortal, an American adventurer, and a lady vampire. One Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, the vampire.

Mrs. Harker, he learned from Nemo, was a chemist like himself. Perhaps he could… perhaps he could talk with her. Just talk. It would be cheering to talk with a fellow scientist who shared his interest.

He heard the story of her and her late husband’s battle with the demonic Transylvania count, and of how she been made into a bloodthirsty monster. The thought spoke strangely to him. There was an evil inside her, one that she had to keep under control. He felt a great sympathy for her; indeed, a kinship. There was a monster in him as well. He knew what it was to fight a demon.

So darkly beautiful, a knowledgeable chemist, and with a monster inside her as well. Small wonder she so fascinated him.

And so he found himself striding down the hallways of the ship toward Mrs. Harker’s stateroom, hoping to speak with her. He found her with Mr. Dorian Gray, but instead of turning and leaving, he lingered just beyond the doorway. As it ever was, they did not notice he was there.

Gray offered her a drink, and when she cut herself on the breaking glass, the blood woke the beast in her. But she fell on Dorian with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood.

Henry’s hands found his pocket watch in distress. Why did he do this? Why did he not leave? It was wrong.
But like so much else in his life, it was wrong and he could not resist it.

It did not surprise him to find she was drawn to Dorian Gray. Gray was striking and dangerous. There was danger in Henry too, but it was base and vile, monstrous. His was coarse where Gray’s was refined; his was repellent where Gray’s was seductive. It came down to Dorian remaining yet a man, while Henry was no more than a beast.

“And what do you know of demons?” Mina had asked Mr. Gray. He was sure whatever Gray knew, it was nothing to what she did. Or what Henry himself did.

He should have left then, but he simply could not. As always, he was standing on the fringes, totally ignored, able only to watch what he had never, could never experience himself. No woman had ever leapt at him like that; no woman had ever truly wanted him.

His pulse thundered in his ears, his blood felt like fire in his veins. And as it always did when he felt like this, it came again, the voice low and fierce in the depths of his mind. Hyde’s voice.

“That’s right. Look, but don’t touch, Henry.” He chuckled viciously. “That’s your way.”

It was his way. From the girls who hardly noticed him to the women who always ignored him, it was ever his way, unless she was a whore who could not reject the coin and so would not reject him.
He turned and nearly bolted from the doorway, caught yet again in his low moments by his most bitter enemy. He tucked his pocket watch back into his waistcoat.

“Just shut up,” he snapped. “I won’t be tricked again.”

“Tricked?” Hyde echoed, amused. “You’ve known what I was about each time you drank the formula.” And reveled in the guiltless corruption it opened to him.

“Liar,” he snarled. “I’m a good man. A good man!”

It wrenched him to utter the words. Good men didn’t lead hypocritical double lives. Good men didn’t hide in the shadows to watch and envy the passions of other people. Good men didn’t bring forth monsters from their own souls.
Hyde knew his thoughts as well as he did. “Who’s lying now? You want it,” he accused. “Even more than you want her.”

“No!” he denied, but his stomach churned with frustrated desire, both for Mina and for Hyde’s evil.

“You can’t shut me out forever. Drink the elixir.”

“No!” What would they think, if he released the monster in the very vessel? What would Mina think?

“She barely looks at you!”

Of course Henry knew it. Just like all the others had barely looked at him. “Be quiet!” he nearly pleaded, trying to shut out the memories. He didn’t want to think of those things, didn’t want to remember that pain.

“She’d look at me!”

Hyde leapt out and him and seized him by the throat until he couldn’t breath. Hyde was out, Hyde was loose, the evil within him could no longer be controlled…

Nemo’s sharp voice rang out and dashed his vision away. And that was all it had been, a vision.

“Contain your evil, Doctor,” the captain said sternly. “I’ll not have the brute free upon my ship.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “Must I take drastic steps?”

They all saw his struggle, and did not think he could handle it. He felt suddenly very angry; was there no one who thought anything of him? Why was he ever so reduced in everyone’s sight?

“I am in control,” he forced out thickly. He knew it was a lie. He hadn’t been in control of himself since he was twenty-four years old, before Hyde was ever dreamed of.

“I very much doubt that,” said Nemo sternly, not fooled for an instant. “Even the strongest of men know evil’s allure.”

“Your talk is all well and good, sir,” he shot back. “But your own past is far from laudable!”

He could see he had struck home with that. The anger flared in him, then burnt out. What right had he to speak of anyone else’s ignominies? He looked down, very ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. And he truly was. He turned to leave, but Nemo spoke again.

His voice was hesitant. “Has Hyde killed?”

Killed? Hyde had victims who had prayed for death to take them, to bring end to his cruelties. Death was the closest Hyde knew to mercy. Jekyll had not the words for the evils the monster had committed.

He turned and looked back at Nemo. “He… has done every evil a man can do,” he said at last. “And my curse… I recall his actions.”

“I sympathize,” the Indian replied, his bearing a little less stern for a moment. “My curse— I recall my own.”

The doctor continued down the hallway. I loathe you, he thought to the beast.

The echoes of Hyde’s voice still whispered in his head. You made me from yourself.

Indeed, Henry had his own actions to remember as well.

~~~

The End

~~~

Author's Note: Well, there you have it, folks! Thus concludes "The Gentleman Doctor". Your reviews have been great, and I can't tell you how much I love getting them. :-D This is it for the story, but I am planning to include a sort of "after-story essay" as an additional chapter which tells a little bit about my process and my goals for the story-- basically what I was thinking as I wrote. Thanks so much for reading, everyone, and for reviewing!