Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin

Author:Valerie Martin [Martin, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Speculative Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Literary, Historical, General
ISBN: 9780375725999
Google: og1XPwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0375725997
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1990-01-01T18:30:00+00:00

BOOK 3

This is a new book I bought at Lett’s for sevenpence.

Today I was up early and worked until ten, for there was a deal to do in the house to have it ready for Master’s dinner party tomorrow. I got all the folding done and ready for ironing, which I will do in the morning. It was a fine clear day like yesterday, a great relief to me as I had to cross the town, and also as I thought a funeral in the rain or fog would be so gloomy I could not bear up under it. I put on my dark skirt and grey bonnet and my mourning bands, also my heavy cloak, for there is a chill in the air though it is bright. Cook gave me a slice of mutton pie she had left from yesterday’s lunch and a piece of brown bread which I wrapped up to take along.

So I went off and made my way through the busy streets. The bright day seemed to put the whole population in a good humour, and even the horses weaving through the traffic with their carts and cabs had a festive look about them. As I was standing at a crossing before Russell Square, a big grey fellow who was drawn up next me stretched out his long neck and took up a bit of my cloak in his lips, as if he wanted to have a look at it. When I started, he did too, throwing up his head, and the driver shouted down to me, “He’s taken a fancy to you, miss,” so I laughed and the big horse hung his head down as if he was ashamed.

I stopped near noon and ate my lunch at Finsbury Square, then drank a cup of milk from the man there and went on to Marm’s lodgings.

Mr. Haffinger had done himself up in an outlandish costume which he seemed to think was very fine. He’d an old top hat, very high, such as one rarely sees these days, and a shabby cutaway coat that had seen better days. His waistcoat was too tight for him and his shirt had a high stiff collar, which he’d wrapped round three or four times with a black cravat so wide it came to the tip of the collar, so he looked as if he could neither breathe nor turn his head. He was pleased to see me, he said, and we was to go at once to the funerary furnishers, for they’d come to take Marm early in the morning and said they would be ready to proceed to the churchyard at one sharp. As we walked along he told me something that fair made me fall down in the street. He said that after I’d come to see him a gentleman visited him as well, asking after my marm. He would not give his name but said he was her relation and Mr. Haffinger took him down to his hole in the wall to look at her.

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