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GWENDOLINE BUTLER
A DARK COFFIN
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1995
Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1995
Gwendoline Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
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A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780006497103
Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545438
Version: 2014-07-08
Contents
It’s all very well, all this sympathy with Jekyll, but what do you think it’s like being Hyde – shut up inside all the time and only let out, escaping, when you can? And knowing all the time that you are fertile, and may breed worse than yourself.
Jekyll and Hyde and another Hydelet, eh? Well, think about it. And Hyde doesn’t like Hyde’s face any better than the world does. Hyde has eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Hyde sometimes lacks is a voice to speak.
All theatres have their own histories, their heroic moments, their tragedies, and their own ghosts. It is what gives them their colour, their character.
St Luke’s Theatre in the New, the Second City of London, had a short history as a theatre, with not much chance to build up stories and ghosts. It was the creation of Stella Pinero, the actress wife of John Coffin, distinguished policeman, Keeper of the Queen’s Peace in the Second City. Stella had had the idea of making a theatre here in her husband’s bailiwick, and it had prospered. She had seen it grow from a small outfit to one which now had a main theatre, a smaller theatre workshop where more experimental productions could be mounted, and a fledgling drama school which worked in conjunction with one of the newest universities in the Second City. And soon, her theatre would have its own festival for two weeks in the summer. (After Ascot and Wimbledon and just as the schools broke up for their holidays.) The first festival was being organized and Stella was hopeful for a royal patron. Maybe a Princess?
But if St Luke’s Theatre was new, it was housed in an old building. Stella had made use of an old church, bombed and fallen into disuse. She had rescued it from a future as a Bingo Hall. In the tower of the converted church, she and her husband had an apartment of great attractions with a splendid view towards the river, and perhaps less convenience if you lived up a winding
