Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters (7 page)

I gazed at his face, so wonderfully strong and manly in repose. It was his bitterness that occasionally warped the fine male beauty of his features. I sat and watched him slumber for a while, picturing him as he must have been when in better health. Finally, setting the book aside, I left quietly.

I think we have become friends. But I would love to be so much more to him.

FROM THE DIARY OF
BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN

June 25, 1815

At last the day came for us to travel to Edinburgh, and Ingrid and I set out for the dock having sent our bags ahead in a cart driven by the arrogant Riff. He offered to take us but I declined, saying we preferred to walk. Now that Johann has returned, the man’s charms don’t hold the same power to thrill me that they once did, and I was glad to be in the open air with only my sister by my side.

I’d written to Uncle Ernest and he replied that he was eagerly awaiting us in Edinburgh and would happily chaperone my meeting with Johann. Ingrid, however, was not as happy about this meeting and made no disguise of her disapproval. “I don’t trust
him,” she said in that overly candid way of speaking she can adopt from time to time as we walked along, nearing the harbor. “He was brutal to you. Forget him!”

“Stop saying that,” I insisted. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear, but it’s advice I can’t take because my heart won’t allow it.”

“Does emotion rule you entirely?” she challenged.

“When it comes to Johann, it does,” I confirmed, raising my voice to be heard above the wind.

“Well, don’t let it,” she insisted. “Use your intellect to overrule it. You deserve better than Johann.”

“You don’t understand, Ingrid,” I replied. “You’ve never been in love like I have.”

To my utter surprise, she blushed as deep a scarlet as I have ever seen her blush before. “
Have
you been in love?” I inquired quietly.

We had reached the harbor, where the tethered boats thumped against their moorings and screaming seabirds circled overhead. In this din I missed Ingrid’s quick reply and without saying more, her face lit with interest at something she suddenly noticed. Turning from me, she ran toward a white horse that was tied to a post.

I hurried after her and when I reached her side she told me it was Lieutenant Hammersmith’s horse. After speaking softly to the gentle creature, Ingrid then accosted a man working at the
dock, asking why the horse was there. The man said that Lieutenant Hammersmith had taken his sailboat out that morning, though he didn’t know where he’d gone to. “He can sail?!” she cried, seeming most surprised.

“Once he gets into the boat, he’s fine,” the man confirmed.

“He’s a remarkable person,” Ingrid said, and from the distant glaze in her eyes I couldn’t tell if she was speaking to me or to herself.

“Is he?” I questioned. “From what you tell me, he simply sounds self-pitying and reclusive.”

“Oh, no, you’re wrong,” she came back quickly. “He is a man of real depth and feeling. Despite his condition he still rides and sails. How many others with his afflictions would push themselves to do that?”

“You know him better than I do,” I conceded. Was it the thought of Walter Hammersmith that had made her turn so crimson when I mentioned love? I hoped not. A dour crippled man leading a reclusive life in a thatched cottage was not the kind of mate I would wish for my sister. But I suspect she goes to see him quite often; I can tell when she’s been there because of the faraway, dreamy look that comes over her. This can’t be good for her; surely a romance with this man will not lead to the full life of the mind in stimulating society that she wished for, but would be more like a jail sentence.

“Have you fallen in love with Walter Hammersmith?” I asked, relying on my privileged position as her twin as an excuse for my directness.

Ingrid’s panicked expression made her look like a trapped animal. With darting eyes, she seemed to be casting about for a way to escape me.

“Well, have you?” I pressed.

Ingrid walked off several paces and turned away from me. “It’s madness, I know,” she said. “But I can’t stop thinking of him and replaying our conversations over and over in my head. When I am with him I am just so happy.”

“Happy in that miserable dark cottage?” I questioned.

Turning to face me, Ingrid nodded. “When we are alone together there, no place could be better.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the taciturn Captain Ramsay, who was as disagreeable as always. He scowled darkly as he beckoned for us to follow him to his boat without even a word of greeting. I don’t know why he seems to dislike us so; perhaps because we are newcomers to the Orkneys, or maybe he sees us as wealthy, spoiled young women because we dress well and have manners.

We made the crossing in silence, feeling too uneasy to converse in front of him.

Captain Ramsay said not a word to either of us, but then as we were disembarking, he muttered something. Although his thick dialect is nearly indecipherable, I suspect that what he said was quite rude and maybe even of an unsavory nature. I shot him a look of indignation, which he returned with a hard stare. I thoroughly dislike the man and hope we can find someone else to take us on the return voyage.

We got to the main island just in time for the ferry over to the town of John o’ Groat’s on the Scottish coast. Ingrid was scarcely there at all, she was so lost in her thoughts of Lieutenant Hammersmith. She nearly walked up the wrong gangplank on the ferry dock and might have ended up on the boat to Norway had I not run to redirect her.

As we crossed the water, I advised her once more to forget about Walter Hammersmith and think about someone more fun and suitable for her, like the young man she was about to see. Ingrid had recently received a letter from a fellow student named Anthony Verde with whom she’d become acquainted while she was in Lombardy. Although she insists there is nothing between them other than friendship and a collegial passion for science, she was most excited to learn that Anthony has enrolled in the University of Edinburgh, which has one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the entire United Kingdom.

Needless to say, they refuse to admit women, but Anthony has promised to give Ingrid a tour of the school including the medical laboratories and, if possible, to smuggle her into his anatomy lecture, though for that she must dress as a man.

June 26

I am in love with the beautiful old city of Edinburgh with its ancient castle fortress on a high hill in the center of town. Stately neoclassic buildings from the middle of the 1700s surround the older part of town, which dates back to the year 1300. The city is no museum piece, though. It is as thriving and busy a city as any.

This morning Ingrid left our hotel in the old part of town to meet Anthony Verde with some of our uncle’s clothing stuffed in a large bag. For a moment he questioned if he should let her go off with a young man unchaperoned. This made Ingrid laugh. “It can’t harm my reputation since I’ll look like a boy,” she said. “And Anthony is the sweetest young man; there is no need to worry about him.”

Luckily, our uncle is so focused on his business interests that he hasn’t really been paying much attention to our comings and goings. This has allowed us considerable freedom which we never knew with our grandfather.

For Ingrid’s sake, I hope this Anthony does have more than friendship in mind and will divert her from thoughts of our sickly neighbor, Lieutenant Hammersmith. I recall she once wrote me that Anthony was quite good-looking. The ways of attraction are certainly mysterious.

I am eager to hear how her day at the medical school is progressing, but now I must ready myself to meet Johann.

When he sees the woman I have become, he will be unable to resist me.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF
INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN

June 26, 1815

What a day I am having with Anthony! He has gone off momentarily to ask a friend something about his class here at the medical college of Edinburgh and has left me here at an outdoor table. I am using the time to make this entry in my journal.

It was good to see my old friend. He is, as always, lively and handsome with his dark, soulful eyes. It was so generous of him to give me a tour of the medical school. We shared great hilarity over my disguise as a male student. I can assure you I looked utterly ridiculous with Uncle Ernest’s large trousers belted under my armpits and his hat down over my ears. It drew quite a few quizzical
glances from Anthony’s fellow medical students. It was all we could do to keep from bursting into gales of laughter.

The high point was by far the anatomy lecture. How I envy him the chance to sit in on these demonstrations! There with about fifty other students, I sat on an ascending set of wooden benches and looked down upon a real human body! A corpse, to be exact.

The cadaver was slit down the middle so that the heart and lungs were exposed. At first I found this shockingly gruesome and turned away in revulsion. But, quite honestly, it was only a matter of minutes before my fascination bade me return to the sight. From then on I could not look away. I was so keenly aware of what an opportunity this was.

The surgeon-lecturer lifted the heart right up from the body and held it out for all to see. He pointed out the valves and explained their workings. The corpse must have been newly deceased, for when he squeezed the heart, blood gushed from a slash in each of the wrists.

After the class, Anthony pulled me into a doorway of the medical school and handed me a package wrapped in burlap. “I smuggled it from the medical library for you,” he whispered. “You must swear to return it when you have finished studying it. It’s not theft as long as I return it.”

“I swear,” I promised excitedly. I began to open it, but Anthony gripped my arm.

“Not here,” he warned. “Someone might see you.”

Clutching the book to my chest, I thanked him. Leaving the university, we walked to a shop filled with students buying dried sausages, smoked fish, breads, and other food items for their lunch. We bought a loaf of bread, some cheese, and two apples for our lunch and then went to sit on one of the outdoor benches set up to the side of the store. “I’ve never seen a dead body before,” I said as we ate. “How does the school come by them?”

A wary, guarded look came over Anthony’s face.

“They claim that all the cadavers are from people who have donated their bodies to science,” he said in a hushed tone. “But there is some question about that.”

“What kind of question?” I asked.

“My classmate swears he recognized one of the bodies as belonging to a beggar who lived under a bridge.”

“Are you saying he was killed so that they could use his body?”

Anthony shrugged, which I interpreted as a
yes
.

“Would the university do such a thing?” I asked.

“Not the university itself,” Anthony said, leaning closer. “But there are men who make a living providing cadavers to medical schools. Since Edinburgh has one of the largest, they tend to congregate in the area.”

A chill ran up my spine at the very thought of it. “Are you saying that Edinburgh is full of murderers?”

“Some are just grave robbers,” he allowed.

“Just!” I cried, and then clapped my hand over my mouth. “That’s bad enough,” I added in a whisper.

“Others simply stay near the hospitals and charnel houses for the poor. They pretend to be family and claim the bodies of those who die with no one to bury them.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“Yes and no,” Anthony equivocated. “Murder is bad, yes. But using the bodies of those who are already dead to benefit the living … I think it can be all right. That is why the university
looks the other way
, as they say. It is for the greater good, and no one is hurt by it.”

“I suppose,” I said, even though I couldn’t get over the feeling that it was a sort of desecration to those who had died and not intended for their bodies to be donated.

“Listen, my friend,” Anthony went on, brightening. “You come tomorrow and I will get you into the lecture on guts.”

“The intestines?”

“Yes. You will love it when they start taking out the intestines. They never stop coming.”

“It sounds fascinating,” I said.

Anthony began tapping my hand with rapid intensity. “Look! Over there, Ingrid!” He directed my gaze out to the street. “That man with the dirty hat and jacket, the one with the long blond hair.”

I spied the disheveled man. “What about him?”

“They say he is a grave robber, and I myself have seen him making deliveries of large, human-sized bundles at the back door of the school’s laboratories.”

“What’s his name?” I inquired.

“Gallagher.”

I peered at the man and thought he seemed quite disreputable. Was I looking at a real murderer, a grave robber, or merely a man who haunted the hospitals awaiting opportunity? Whatever his degree of criminality, it was chilling to be so close to such a person. It was hard to believe that a man like Gallagher would be walking freely in the daylight. I would have imagined him staying strictly to the shadows and cover of night.

As though he sensed our gaze upon him, Gallagher turned his head sharply in our direction and stared at us. His glare was so sinister it sent a chill through me and I looked away. When I glanced back, he was gone.

Anthony appeared as shaken as I felt. “He provides a service,” he said after a moment or two. “I try not to think about it too much.”

“That’s probably the wisest approach,” I agreed.