Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters (9 page)

I ran blindly from the park through the quiet streets, looking over my shoulder to check if he was pursuing me but did not see him. Breathlessly, I climbed chipped narrow stone stairways leading back toward the center of town. At a busy thoroughfare, I finally recognized the way to the hotel and headed for it.

Oh, Diary, this is an event I want to wipe from my mind completely. Horrible! So horrible! Now that I have written about it I never want to think of it again.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF
INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN

June 26, 1815

My mood lifted as Anthony walked me back to the hotel. He told me of the surgeon who would give the lecture on the diseases of the colon and on how diseased sections of it could be simply cut out and reconnected with a special string made from catgut.

“The body is really quite mechanical when you break it into its components, isn’t it?” I remarked as we neared the hotel.

“In its material components, it is all quite logical,” Anthony agreed. “But what is that magical force that animates the flesh? That’s the mystery. It is what I think of as God.”

“Must it be so mystical?” I questioned. “God may watch over us and judge our morality, but is it necessarily divine intervention that starts life? Might it not be an electrochemical reaction such as any other? Whether sent by God or simply powered by itself.”

“
Electro
chemical?” Anthony asked.

“Yes. You know I studied with Count Volta. I have continued reading works on electricity as it interacts with other chemicals,” I said. I told him too that I had come upon my father’s experiments and writing on this subject. I didn’t say that I felt that my father had surpassed even Galvani and Volta in his findings. I didn’t want to seem a boastful daughter. And I also did not want to delve too deeply into the circumstances of my father’s life. I knew Anthony was ignorant of them, and I wasn’t about to enlighten him.

“You should contact Jakob Berzelius,” Anthony suggested.

I knew the name, and remembered that my father had been in touch with him. They had exchanged letters on the possibility of curing disease through the use of electric current.

“Is he still in Sweden?” I asked.

“He’s teaching at a university there,” Anthony confirmed. “I’ll try to get more information for you.”

At the front door of the hotel, Anthony stopped and took my hands in his. “Ingrid, we get along so well,” he said. “And it is so good to see you again.”

He lifted the man’s hat I had worn all day, which allowed my hair to tumble loosely to my shoulders.

“I no longer look like a man,” I said with a laugh.

“No, now you look like the lovely young woman you are,” Anthony said, his dark eyes beaming affectionately. “Could you ever think of me as more than a friend?”

The image of Walter in his chair, with his eyes closed, his hand holding mine, flew unbidden into my head.

“Anthony, you are so dear to me,” I began. “We do have fun together.”

Immediately a look of disappointment came over him. “I’m sorry I spoke. You don’t have the same feelings for me. I can hear it in your voice and see it on your face.”

“I might feel otherwise if another had not already taken that place in my head and my heart.”

“He’s lucky. I hope he knows that.”

“I’m not sure how he feels,” I answered honestly. Perhaps he had only grasped my hand as he was falling asleep. It could have been a gesture of friendship. Nothing like that had happened since, although I had read to him other times. We had become deeply companionable, but no more.

“If he foolishly does not return your feelings, write to me and I will come to your side at once.”

Squeezing his hands fondly, I promised I would. Anthony
would be a wonderful romance for me. He is handsome. Charming. And we have so much in common. But I could not lead him on with Walter constantly on my mind.

Anthony threw off the awkwardness and said he’d come for me in the morning. He would sneak me into the demonstration on intestines. I told him I couldn’t wait, which was absolutely true.

“Is it safe to open my package now?” I asked.

“I suppose so.”

With eager fingers, I opened the burlap and gasped with delight. It was Doctor William Harvey’s
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood
. Gingerly I turned the yellowed, crumbling pages.

“Is this from the sixteen hundreds?” I guessed. I knew from my private readings that William Harvey had been the physician to King James. It was he who had disproven the existing theories of the day regarding circulation. Excitedly, I read from the page I had opened to:
The heart does not make blood, instead the same blood circulates endlessly around the body. It goes around and around without being absorbed, and the heart is simply the pump that sends it on its way
. Inside were the most detailed anatomical drawings. They were not as perfectly drawn as those in my father’s papers, but they were easier to follow in their relative simplicity.

“Harvey was brilliant,” Anthony said. “Even though this volume is almost two hundred years old, you will learn a lot from it. It is not available anywhere but in a medical library. You could not
buy it anywhere, not with all your new fortune.” He grinned, pleased to have given me such an invaluable treasure.

Still holding the book, I hugged him. “Oh, you are such a true friend. I can’t thank you enough,” I said sincerely. “I shall be up all night taking notes.”

“No, my friend, sleep, so you can be alert for tomorrow’s lecture,” Anthony counseled.

“I’ll try, but it won’t be easy.” Bidding him farewell, I entered the hotel’s quiet lobby. But the day was still warm and my mind was so filled with everything that had happened today. And so I turned around and went for a walk to enjoy the last of it. Now I sit on a park bench in Parliament Square near the Cathedral of Saint Giles and write. I want to get it all written down before any of it leaves my head. This may be my only chance to write, because I know that once I get to my room I will be completely absorbed in Dr. Harvey’s revolutionary work on the heart.

Even though I never knew him, I imagine that my father would have been proud of my inquisitiveness, and the lengths to which I’ve gone to investigate further.

FROM THE DIARY OF
BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN

June 26 (continued)

My heart is torn apart and I am wretched beyond belief. This has been the most hideous day of my life. I feel like such a fool to have thought that Johann had truly changed in his feelings toward me when all the while he only loved the idea of gaining control of my fortune. Not only is he not the person I thought him to be, but he is a brute and a scoundrel. In a thousand years I could never have expected him to attack me as he did.

I shudder to think of what might have happened had I not been able to fight him off.

It was not easy to make my way home, since the attack had left
my mind in complete disarray. On the way I passed police officers but did not think to tell them what had happened. In truth all I wanted was to be back safe in my hotel room.

When I finally made it back, I was disappointed that Ingrid had not yet returned. I longed to tell her what had happened. I noticed a note that had been slipped under the door and retrieved it. It was written in the hand of one of the hotel staff, saying that my uncle had sent word that he would not return tonight but rather stay with a friend some miles away.

As soon as I looked at my image in the full-length mirror, I was glad that neither my sister nor my uncle was there to see the state I was in. My hair was almost completely unpinned and there was blood all over me from a wound I incurred on my right hand. I have scrapes of all kinds.

An urgent desire for a bath suddenly consumed me, and I couldn’t shed my bloodstained clothing quickly enough. The very idea that Johann’s skin might linger under my fingernails repulsed me; I longed for every trace of him to be washed away.

The claw-foot tub in the bathroom was deep, and I lay in it for a while with a blank mind.

Another onslaught of tears overwhelmed me as I thought of Johann. I had learned to accept his disinterest in me, but to then raise my hopes with such callous motives was so unconscionable. What could he have been thinking by pressing himself on me like
that? Did he believe that once he had robbed my virtue I would have no recourse but to marry him?

I wanted nothing more than to block it all from my mind, and so, shutting my eyes, I lay my head back against the back of the tub.

There was to be no escape, however, for in the next instance I was dreaming that Johann had me thrown over his shoulder and was carrying me into a shadowy forest of towering pines. I screamed, kicking and scratching, determined to squirm free from his viselike grip but unable to. In this dream my fear was completely unbridled, greater even than it had been today in the park. The sky shook with thunder as it opened, releasing a torrent of rain. Aware that I was losing my battle to break free of Johann, I screamed for help but was suddenly unable to breathe and started to choke. Then I heard Ingrid’s voice calling to me as if from very far away.

My eyes snapped open, and I was, in fact, choking and sputtering because I had sunk just below the water’s surface and must have cried out in my sleep, allowing the bathwater to flood into my open mouth.

Panicked, I sat bolt upright, gripping the tub ledge and coughing as though my lungs might burst.

“Giselle?” Ingrid called through the bathroom door.

I opened my mouth to reply, only to find my voice so choked with emotion that I could not steady it sufficiently to speak.

“Giselle! Shall I come in? What’s wrong?” she kept on.

I didn’t want her to see me so distraught and so found my voice enough to ask her to wait. I stepped out of the tub and wrapped myself in a robe.

Feeling overwhelmed, I sat a moment on the edge of the tub and fell into tears once again. Ingrid’s expression was a mask of horrified concern when she stepped into the bathroom and found me sitting there.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF
INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN

June 26 (continued)

When I went into our room about an hour later, I could see Giselle’s clothing was tossed carelessly around the room. Her diary lay closed on her bed. It was not like her to be so slovenly.

“I’m back!” I called to the closed bathroom door.

A long period of silence was followed by the sound of Giselle coughing.

“Are you all right?”

Giselle’s coughing continued. After a few minutes more, I rapped loudly on the door. “Giselle? Shall I come in? What’s wrong?”

Cracking open the door, I saw that her head was in her hands as she sat propped on the edge of the tub. Her luxuriant hair veiled her face, but the lift and fall of her shoulders told me she was, indeed, weeping heavily. “Go away, please,” she pleaded in a sob-choked tone. “I’ll come out in a moment.”

“All right,” I agreed out of respect for her wishes. It wasn’t easy since I wanted to race to her side to discover the cause of her unhappiness.

It had to have been Johann. I’ve always believed he was vain and unworthy of Giselle’s tender affections. Everything she’d ever told me about Johann made me dislike him. Whenever I voiced this, she wouldn’t hear of it. Where Johann was concerned, she made every allowance for his shallow self-centered behavior and his rudeness to her. I suppose it was an example of love’s legendary power to render blind the one who is in love.

While I waited, I picked up the clothing Giselle had flung so recklessly. The white shirt she had worn beneath the jacket of her blue traveling suit was speckled with red. Lifting it to my nose, I detected the pungent, iron-tinged odor of blood.

As I was examining this, Giselle emerged from the bathroom wrapped in her thick, paisley-print robe. Her eyes were swollen from crying. “Giselle, what’s happened?” I asked urgently, wrapping my arm around her.

She didn’t answer until I’d gotten her seated on the bed. Giselle
choked out the story of how she had thought Johann had come to her out of love but that over lunch it had soon become clear that he was only after her inheritance.

“Are you sure that’s why he came?” I asked.

“I’m certain of it. He found out about the fortune from Margaret. He’s already planning how he will spend it traveling the continent, and live at the castle when he’s not traveling across the globe.”

Giselle threw herself against my shoulder and fell into another fit of forceful crying. “And it gets worse!”

“What? Tell me!” I urged.

“He tried to force his affections on me, and when I rebuffed his advances, he hit me!”

“He hit you!” I cried, outraged. Pulling back, I examined her. When I brushed away her hair, I observed a definite blue-purple welt on her cheekbone. Checking her hands, I saw they were horribly scraped. One very pronounced gash across her palm was probably the source of the bloodstains on her shirt.

Filled with furious indignation, I stood. “Have you told this to Uncle Ernest?”

Giselle shook her head. “He sent a message that he is visiting a friend in Glasgow and won’t return until tomorrow.”

“Then
I
will go speak to Johann’s father myself. He can’t be allowed to get away with this. We’ll have him arrested. Where are they staying?”

“I have no idea,” Giselle replied, wiping her eyes.

“Then in the morning I will go to every hotel in search of them,” I resolved. “I will check every register.”

“It was horrible, Ingrid,” Giselle sobbed.

Holding her tight, I rocked her soothingly until her breathing slowed. Lowering her to the bed, I pulled the covers over her and was glad she drifted quickly off to sleep.

A murderous rage consumed me. Needless to say, I did not spend the evening studying Harvey’s book on the heart as I had planned. Rather, I sat in the dark seething, still fully dressed in my manly disguise.

How dare he attack my sister? How dare he!

June 27

When the first rays of dawn crept through the window, I couldn’t wait any longer. I left our room and went out into the quiet streets determined to locate Johann and his father. In the half-light of early morning, my man’s clothing made me feel less vulnerable than I would have felt in a dress.

Doggedly I went from one hotel to another, starting with the outer ring of the newer part working my way in toward the medieval section, asking after Johann and his father. My search went on for over an hour with no success. Finally, I came upon a narrow,
dirty hotel with a threadbare green awning. The name
ROOSTER’S CLAW INN AND TAVERN
was scrawled in chipped paint across the front window. It seemed a disreputable establishment — not the sort of place Johann and his father would frequent. Just as I was turning away from it, though, a horse-drawn carriage came along the road and turned into an alleyway beside the hotel that was just barely wide enough for it to fit.

Could Johann and his father be sneaking out at dawn to avoid the police? I didn’t want to let them slip away, so I turned down the alley, determined to have a look at what was going on.

When I rounded the corner, two men were standing at the back door of the hotel. Immediately I ducked back behind into the alley so they wouldn’t see me. Surreptitiously I peered at them from around the corner of the building. Instantly my hand shot to my mouth to stifle a gasp. One of the two men was the sinister Gallagher. From this closer vantage he was even more frightening, with rotted teeth and pockmarked skin. His companion was equally alarming, of darker complexion and burlier. He had been the one driving the carriage on the way in.

In the next moment, the back door opened and a heavy man passed them a large package bundled in burlap and tied with rope. It was easily the size of a human body.

There was no conversation exchanged as Gallagher got into the coach and his associate perched atop the coachman’s seat once
more. I watched as they left by way of the alley on the opposite side of the building.

So there it was! I had witnessed a dead body taken away in the early hours of the morning. What would they do with it? Where would it end up? How much money would they receive?

I turned to walk back up the alley and immediately saw that my path was blocked by the very same coach. The men had gone around the front of the street and turned back in. As I pivoted to retreat around the other way, my motion was stopped by Gallagher, who stood blocking my way. I was trapped! Instantly I recoiled in fear and revulsion to the stench of body odor and alcohol that emanated from him.

Gallagher gripped my arm roughly and then grinned, displaying his decayed teeth. “You’re a girl!”

I nodded, too frightened to speak.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, his smile disappearing.

My lips seemed to be moving independently of my terror-frozen brain. I don’t know where I found the wit to concoct the story I told him. “I’m a medical student. That’s why I’m dressed as a man. So I can sneak into the medical school.”

“A sneak, eh?” Gallagher said. “Nothing wrong with that. Why are you here?”

“Bodies,” I said. “I need money, and I heard you could make some selling bodies to other medical students.”

Gallagher shook me harshly. “And what made you think you could find a body here?”

“I heard things,” I replied, working to keep my voice steady. “The medical students talk. They guess about where the cadavers come from.”

“The dead donate their bodies to science,” Gallagher sneered cynically.

“Yes, I know.” It occurred to me that I might soon become one of those bodies. Gallagher seemed to be a man who could slit my throat and not think twice about it.

Gallagher eyed me up and down. “Are you strong?”

I nodded.

“You need money and I have a job needs doing. I have more corpses to claim, and I could use someone to help pull the bodies into the carriage and sit with them. Sometimes they get stiff and even look like they’re sitting up. You got to knock the body down so nobody sees it. Can you do that? It would free my friend up there to help me with the heavy lifting.”

It sounded awful. But I was fascinated. Besides, what would he do to me if I refused?

“All right,” I said.

“If you tell anyone, I’ll find you and kill you.”

“I’ll never tell,” I assured him.

With a nod, he bade me to follow him into the carriage. I was almost knocked back by the smell of the rotting corpse. “And this one is only a few hours old,” Gallagher said with a laugh. “Wait till we get a few that’ve been stewing for a while.”

For the next hour we drove through the streets of Edinburgh collecting dead bodies. At the hospital we picked up two bodies. I waited at the dark end of a cemetery while Gallagher and his companion entered and returned covered in dirt with another burlap sack. I helped pull it into the carriage.

This body was so rank with decay that I had to lean out the window to vomit. This caused the two men to laugh uproariously. It was the first time I heard the other man make any sound at all.

It was almost fully light before they dropped me at a corner near my hotel. “It’s better if you don’t know where we’re delivering these,” Gallagher said as he paid me from a roll of money he took from his pocket. “You did good by us. If you ever want to work for me again, be at the Rooster Claw at the same time. And remember to keep your mouth shut.”

Nodding, I took the money. “I know.”

When I got back to my hotel room, Giselle still slept soundly. Bathing required me to scrub with an abundance of soap to rid myself of the odor that seemed to have seeped into my hair and
skin, into my very skin. My man’s clothing was now so foul that I had to dress and ask the concierge to admit me to Uncle Ernest’s room for fresh clothing. (I claimed he had sent word requesting them.)

It was only then did it occur to me that I had failed in my mission to find Johann and his father. Guilt flooded me as I realized I had let Giselle’s attacker escape due to my obsession with my own scientific pursuits. I had utterly failed my twin! I cursed my selfishness, but the moment to act had passed. Surely they had gone by now.

Soon I was once more dressed as a man and standing in front of the hotel, awaiting Anthony. Maybe I should have stayed back with the sleeping Giselle to tend to her, but I couldn’t stand to miss this next lecture. Once more my ruthless pursuit of science was interfering with my sisterly duties. I was plagued with guilt, but it did not stop me. There was no telling when such a chance would arise again.

“You look fatigued, my friend,” Anthony greeted me. “Were you up all night carousing?”

“You’ll never believe where I’ve been,” I told him. As we walked toward the medical school, I revealed all that had happened.

“That was very dangerous of you,” he scolded.

“What choice did I have?” I countered.

“You should have contacted the police regarding this Johann. In that case, you would not have been out unescorted to begin with.”

“I suppose so,” I conceded.

That morning I once more sat riveted by the sight of a human body with its insides revealed. This day the surgeon lecturer cut out a section of colon and then reattached it. The skill with which he sewed the pieces of flesh together was no different than the way a tailor might connect a sleeve to a coat. I had been taught to sew. I could do this type of stitching.

I gazed down at the two cadavers on the tables. The one being stitched had a cloth over his face. The other was of an elderly woman who appeared as though she was only sleeping peacefully. Naturally I was reminded of my morning’s adventure.

Did I feel guilty about it? Asking myself this important question, I waited for my innermost self to reply.

The true answer was no, I did not.

What did the dead care? They felt no pain or shame. If they had family who might have cared, their bodies would have been claimed.

Did I think all this because it eased my conscience? Because I wanted to think it?

I didn’t care.

Glancing around the arena, I saw all the medical students furiously taking notes. I began to do the same.

By the time I returned home, Giselle was dressed and appeared to be completely returned to her old self. She was wearing a lovely
flowered gown with a lace collar. Her Indian-print shawl was draped over her shoulders. She’d swept up her hair in a coiled, braided bun that was very becoming. Even the high-button boots, which had been dirty and scraped yesterday, now gleamed.

“Sister, how are you?” I asked, peeling off my man’s jacket and stepping out of the tightly belted trousers.

With a critical eye, she took me in. “I’m fine. How are
you
? You look exhausted!”

“I found it impossible to sleep last night,” I admitted. “Then, before dawn, I went out to find Johann and his father.”

“You didn’t!” Giselle gasped.

“I did. And you will never guess what happened to me.”

When I opened my mouth to speak again, I was surprised to discover it was quite dry. My mind also was blank. Some inner impulse was stopping me from telling my twin about my escapade with the body snatchers. This was odd, since I usually told Giselle everything.

“What?” she prodded.

“I couldn’t find them,” I said. “Perhaps they’ve left town to escape prosecution. When Uncle Ernest returns, we’ll enlist his help in going to the authorities.”

“No, we won’t,” Giselle stated firmly. “I’m glad you didn’t find them, and I don’t want Baron Frankenstein to know of this. I couldn’t bear it if anyone was to find out about this humiliation.”

“Giselle, you can’t let him get away with it. He hit you!”

Giselle’s complexion went red with anxiety. “That’s right, Ingrid, he hit
me
, not you. It’s for me to decide how to handle this.”

I was stunned. I don’t think she has ever spoken to me so harshly.

“But, Giselle —”

“No! You must respect my wishes on this, Ingrid. I want to put this behind me as though it never happened, to block it from my mind completely. We will not speak of it or think of it again.”

“How will we explain your injuries?” I asked.