Frankenstein's Bride (10 page)

“Not dead?” I asked.

“No, not dead; for we saw her stir a little as we watched—and we, fearing she would wake and spot us, ran off laughing, like
the two young loons we were. But we never saw her again. Thereafter the house stayed guarded. Rumors grew; there was more
bad feeling against the doctor, and my father too, for helping him. I do not know how it would have ended, but not two weeks
after the doctor and my father came back from Ireland we awoke to the sound of the doctor's wagon going hell for leather through
the village street, heading for the causeway. His men carried flares, all his baggage was piled up behind—and even as they
left the village we saw the flames of a great fire on the hill. The doctor's house burned down—not entirely, of course, for
it was solid stone, but enough to destroy anything in the buildings and most of the timber as well, bringing in the roofs.
We thought he must have started the fire himself, for all his possessions had been packed up and loaded, we supposed, before
the fire began. The wagons were out of the village almost before we knew it, so we did not know if the doctor himself, or
all his men, or the pretty woman, survived the fire.”

Gilmore paused. “So now, sir, you will understand, perhaps, why seeing the man you call Mr. Victor Frankenstein made me run
for my life. For I truly believe,” he said in a low voice, “that he, Frankenstein, is the Devil, or something very near it.”

Still between doubt and belief, I again studied Gilmore's face, searching it as if it could provide the answer to my questions.
How could Victor—that frank, honest, open, studious, serious man—a man of whom it was impossible to think badly—how could
he have hidden himself away in Orkney to indulge in such mysterious and seemingly evil practices as Gilmore spoke of? Yet
it could not be denied that Gilmore had instantly recognized Victor as he came through the door at the house in Gray's Inn
Road or that the sight had plainly terrified him. Small wonder, if there was any truth in his tale. Was it possible Gilmore
had been traduced into inventing this story? But what possible reason would anyone have to bribe him to say such things? The
only way to explain Gilmore's story without believing Victor to be a villain, or practitioner of the black arts, was to conclude
that Gilmore, a mere boy at the time, with no wide experience of the world, had misunderstood what had happened on Orkney.

What he said next did little to support this theory. “I do not now believe it was a beast he had penned up in the barn,” he
said slowly. “I thought it was then, but now I believe it was a man, some suffering idiot crying out in pain and incomprehension.
But what would he have been doing to the poor creature, all that while?”

I confessed to him that the same thought had occurred to me as he told his story. What I did not tell him was that what had
crossed my mind, as he spoke, was a vision of that hideous creature I had seen at the dock, outside the theatre and in the
trees at the end of Victor's garden after poor Elizabeth's murder. If Gilmore's report were correct in its essentials, then
was it such a flight of fancy to imagine that whatever unfortunate creature Victor had kept in captivity had returned in order
to take a hideous revenge? That would explain Victor's passivity in the face of his wife's murder and his belief that somehow
he himself was the cause of the calamity.

And yet—we know man can be boundlessly cruel, that some evil men take pleasure in the torment and suffering they cause to
others. But how could I believe Victor Frankenstein one of those men, one who would capture and torment a fellow creature—or
seize a woman and take her helpless to a remote island to enjoy her? I could not believe it; the thought was impossible.

Gilmore regarded me sympathetically. “I am sorry to be bearer of this ill news concerning your friend, sir. I assure you all
I have said is true to the best of my knowledge.”

“I am sure that is so, Gilmore,” I said, “but we must think of the present now. I will tell Mrs. Frazer something of this
story—enough, I hope, to satisfy her and persuade her to keep you on.”

As we walked back I became suddenly alarmed. If there were any chance that Victor was being trailed by a madman, then the
man might have tracked him to Mrs. Downey's on the afternoon he visited us. This could put the household at risk. If the madman
had killed Elizabeth Frankenstein (who had not even known her husband at the time Gilmore described) then he might just as
easily, in his insanity, take his revenge on others connected with Victor.

On the way back to the house I therefore said to Gilmore, “I am still confused by your story, but I am greatly afraid that
Mr. Frankenstein may be being pursued by someone who wishes to hurt him or those who know him. Mrs. Frankenstein is already
dead, murdered. And at Mrs. Downey's house there are, at present, two ladies, a child and female servants. All may be in danger.
Whatever the truth of your story, Gilmore, you must promise me that you will never in any circumstances go off as you did
before. There must be a strong and active man in the house at all times.”

Gilmore frowned and asked, “Who is the doctor's enemy, do you think?”

“I am sure of nothing,” I told him, “but I think it possible he is that unfortunate creature Mr. Frankenstein kept in captivity
on Orkney. We must take precautions for a while. You had better say nothing of this to the household. You must be vigilant,
but keep the reasons for your vigilance secret.”

He nodded in agreement. As we hurried back to Gray's Inn Road I thought of Hugo and Lucy Feltham, and how they were, in all
innocence, bearing the grieving Victor company at Cheyne Walk. Ought I to warn them they might be in danger? However unpleasant
it might be I must now confront Victor with Gilmore's story at the earliest moment. Even Maria Clementi, outside whose theatre
the creature had been waiting, might be in peril. Unhappily, I recognized I must act.

T E N

RETURNING TO THE HOUSE I explained as calmly as I could to Mrs. Downey and her sister Mrs. Frazer that Gilmore, as a boy,
had met Victor while he was conducting experiments on Orkney. Being young and infected with the superstitious ignorance of
a small and unlettered community, he had taken Victor for some kind of wizard, and conceived a great fear of him. On seeing
him unexpectedly in London, that fear had suddenly revived, thus his flight. Yet, I told them, there was some evidence that
during his days on the island Victor had made an enemy. Since his wife had been murdered, and the murderer was as yet uncaught,
it might be wise to take precautions against anyone who might do any of us some harm. I suggested that until there was proof
that my fears were unfounded, either Gilmore or I should remain in the house at all times; and that one of us should accompany
the ladies on any outing or visit they might make. Other ladies might have welcomed such consideration for their safety, but
these sisters, whether by reason of temperament or upbringing were not so inclined to do.

Mrs. Downey and Mrs. Frazer were the daughters of a lawyer, John Jessop, and had been reared in Cornwall on a small estate
(so small one might call it a garden, Mrs. Downey once merrily told me). Mr. Jessop practiced law in the nearby town. The
family on both sides was well connected, but the Jessops were not rich. Mrs. Jessop, being a reading woman, whom some might
have termed a blue-stocking, was not the most careful mama in the world. Her two daughters spent more time with the village
children, blocking up streams, stealing watercress from farmers' fields and the like, than some parents would think advisable
for young ladies. Nevertheless, young ladies they were, though from an unconventional household liberal in its ways of thinking.
The late Mr. Downey was the son of Mr. Jessop's partner. When he and the young Cordelia Jessop made a match they removed to
London, where, after only eight years of marriage, Downey died, leaving his wife little more than the lease on the small house
in Gray's Inn Road. Her mother's sister had mercifully left her a little money some years earlier, so she was able to continue
to make a home for herself and her little girl Flora.

To make ends meet, Mrs. Downey decided to take a lodger. How I became that man is easy to tell. Two years earlier I had come
to London to pursue my researches. Needing a spot near to the libraries and individuals whom I should need to consult, I asked
at an inn where I might find lodgings in the neighborhood. I was directed up the street to Mrs. Downey's. I was a little surprised
to discover when I met my prospective landlady that the widow looking for lodgers was not a motherly woman of forty but a
young woman of twenty-six. But as she appeared to have a clear sense of what she was doing in the matter of candles, laundry
and chops, I took the rooms. It was not until I had been there six months that I discovered I was Mrs. Downey's first lodger—I
was also to be her last, but that tale comes later.

This digression may help to explain why Mrs. Downey and Mrs. Frazer were not happy about recommendations without explanations.
Respectable as they were, they had been reared according to the advanced principles of education promulgated by Mr. Godwin
and French savants such as M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to these men, there ought to be very little discrimination
between boys and girls as far as their education and rearing is concerned. Training had produced a very curious, animated,
questioning, independent spirit in Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. Downey. Admirable as this spirit might be in many ways, it does not
produce blind obedience to male suggestions and wishes (and was, I believe, one of the chief reasons for the less than cordial
relations between Mrs. Frazer and her husband). Therefore I left the house as the questions began, abandoning Gilmore, I suspected,
to an interrogation which would make him wish he had fallen, rather, into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. I had to trust
him not to reveal too much of his horrible and mysterious story when pressed, yet had no choice, I thought, but to leave him
to his fate, for I had to speak to Victor.

I decided first, however, to visit Maria Clementi's house and communicate my suspicions of the man I had seen outside the
theatre to Mrs. Jacoby, asking her if she, too, had observed him on any occasion.

When I arrived, Maria was not at home. Ushered into a small sewing-room upstairs, I found myself addressing Mrs. Jacoby as
she bent over a heap of theatrical costumes to which she was making repairs. It was not a cordial welcome. I launched into
my story, telling her bent head much of what I had told the ladies at Gray's Inn Road. I added that I had seen a hulking figure
concealed outside the very theatre at which Maria was performing, and that I suspected he might be the same man I had observed
in Victor's garden on the night of the murder of his wife. Victor, I said, might have an enemy in this man and since the murder
of Mrs. Frankenstein, it behoved all who knew him to take precautions to ensure their own safety. I was not sure how much
of this strange story was believed. As I concluded she put down her work, lifted her head and told me robustly that she had
already called on the services of an old sergeant of her husband for the defense of the household.

After a pause she apparently came to some resolution and, with angrily tightened lips, told me, “There would seem to be matters
connected with Mr. Frankenstein of which you are unaware. My decision to employ a strong man in the house was taken for reasons
not unconnected with Mr. Frankenstein, but I do not want them spoken of on every corner. I would not tell you of this had
you not come here with this strange story. But you have, and now I will relate what occurred here only yesterday.”

This was of course the very day when Victor had been brought to Gray's Inn Road, and Gilmore, recognizing him, had run off.
Mrs. Jacoby then told me that Victor, very weak, had arrived at Russell Square in the early evening accompanied by some friends
who had been very reluctant to let him leave the carriage. The lady of the party, Mrs. Feltham, had come to the door saying
that Mr. Frankenstein, who was traveling back to his home with them, had suddenly insisted on visiting Russell Square to see
Maria Clementi about an urgent matter.

Plainly, Mrs. Jacoby told me, she was unhappy about the proposed visit but could not prevent it. She appealed for Mrs. Jacoby's
cooperation in making the visit a short one for Mr. Frankenstein was still weak after an illness.

Mrs. Jacoby had agreed to all this, though reluctantly, but told me, “I was very unhappy he had come. Let us be quite candid—before
his wife's death Mr. Frankenstein was seized with an alarming passion for Miss Clementi and I feared that, in spite of his
bereavement, that emotion had returned. I believe Mrs. Feltham knew this and also disapproved of the visit.

“I am employed to guard Miss Clementi against the sort of scandal which attaches itself to young women in prominent positions.
I exist, moreover, to spare her agitation and fatigue. Mr. Frankenstein's visit was not welcome to me.”

According to Mrs. Jacoby, Lucy Feltham returned to the carriage to wait. Victor descended and entered the house looking, Mrs.
Jacoby said, very ill and feverish. He pleaded for an interview alone with Maria, even if it were to last only five minutes.
His manner was so agitated she thought it better to agree to a brief meeting between the two in private, if this was Maria.
But she herself would be in the adjoining room all the time. Her aim, she said, was to get this interview over quickly and
calmly and set the sick man on his way home with his friends.

Maria agreed to see Victor alone in the small drawing-room for five minutes. Mrs. Jacoby therefore retreated to the dining-room,
with which it was connected by large double doors. She sat down and kept her eye fixed firmly on the clock. But not a minute
after Maria entered the drawing-room she heard Victor's voice raised in passionate speech, though whether his tones were those
of love or anger she could not tell. The voice went on and on and she was about to interrupt the interview, even before the
agreed five minutes were over, when she heard him cry out in a dreadful voice, “Maria! Maria! You will be the death of me!”,
then leave the drawing-room and, indeed, the house, slamming the front door behind him.

She had rushed into the room to find Maria, very white, collapsed in a chair and unable, of course, to give any account of
what Victor had said or what he wanted. Plainly, said Mrs. Jacoby, Mr. Frankenstein had upset her very much—and not, she added
grimly, for the first time. “I shall not let him in the house again,” she told me. “To do so would be insanity. He is a sick
man and, I believe, deranged. I dread to think of the state of mind of a man returning to pay court to a woman two weeks—two
weeks!—after the death of his wife. Yet what else could his visit have meant? If that is so, then he is a monster. The story
you have just told me of an enemy keeping watch on him is unpleasant. Whether it is entirely true I do not know—but of such
a man as Mr. Frankenstein I must tell you I can believe almost anything. To be honest, I half-suspected when you first arrived
he had persuaded you to come and press his case with Maria. I apologize for that suspicion. But now you see why I have already
sent for a sturdy man to guard the door. I cannot have him here again. And if you have any sense at all, Mr. Goodall, I should
leave this matter strictly alone. It is none of your business and involving yourself in it can only harm you.”

I stood up. “In spite of all, Mrs. Jacoby,” I said, “I still regard Mr. Frankenstein as a friend and I am going now to speak
to him and try to help him.”

“I wish you joy of it, then,” she said. “And if you will take my advice you will get him to a quiet spot far from London where,
with help, he can recover his strength and his sanity.”

As I left the door a carriage came up the street towards me. In it I saw a smiling Maria Clementi, a young woman I imagined
to be her servant, and that degenerate, Gabriel Mortimer, dressed in his burgundy coat and trousers, a tall green hat on his
head from which his jet ringlets hung down in profusion. He and Maria seemed to be laughing together at some remarks of his.
Having no wish to encounter them when they dismounted from the carriage, I turned, as if I had not seen them, and went off
rapidly in the other direction, searching for a hackney carriage to take me to Cheyne Walk.

I thought of that merry party in the carriage. How could the delicate Maria Clementi manage to stay on those terms with a
fellow of such an obviously disreputable kind? What a strange household that was—in spite of an appearance of honesty, even
Mrs. Jacoby did not seem utterly candid and open. I could not decide whether she was what she purported to be, the loyal friend
and protector of Maria, or a woman of a more sinister and self-interested kind.

On my journey to Chelsea snow began to fall. My heart sank at the prospect of the necessary but unpleasant interview I would
be forced to have with Victor. Only a few weeks before I had been reproaching him with his conduct towards his wife. Now I
was searching him out in order to imply there might be some unadmitted, shameful secret in his past. It would not do, I thought.
I must disentangle myself from the web of Victor's affairs, part of which was the enticing, fascinating Maria.

I was pleased to hear, when I arrived, that Mrs. Feltham was out, calling on friends. I wanted neither to raise specters in
front of her nor to be forced to draw Victor aside in order to speak to him.

I was shown into the study, where I found Victor in a chair by a roaring fire. A shawl was over his knees. Hugo was leaning
negligently against the desk, upon which lay a half-empty bottle of claret. The two were laughing as I entered. I felt a little
foolish when I saw all this. Here was I, bent on investigating a dark secret involving a friend, on warning the household
of danger; there was Victor, glass in hand, health plainly much restored, enjoying a pleasant afternoon. I looked at him as
he greeted me with a smile. I could not believe that this was the same man I had seen desperate for Maria Clementi, seen racked
with remorse after the death of his wife and child, and who now, if Mrs. Jacoby was to be believed, had resumed his courtship,
with wife and child barely cold in their graves. And then, there was Gilmore's tale of what had happened in Orkney. My heart
failed me. It seemed impossible Victor had anything with which to reproach himself. Yet I had come to the house for a purpose
and decided, most reluctantly, to fulfill it, although knowing this interview might well cost me some part of a friendship.

Victor began by offering me wine, which I declined. I asked him where were the two men I had employed on his behalf to guard
the house while the madman who had killed Elizabeth and the child was still at large, for I had seen no trace of them when
I arrived. “Oh,” Victor responded to my enquiry, “I discharged the fellows. I did not like having them about and I have come
to the conclusion, as has the magistrate, that the murderer was a thief who disturbed my wife as he went about his business
and wickedly killed her to avoid detection. The magistrate thinks, and so do I, that he is unlikely to return to the scene
of his crime.”

In a voice I knew to be less confident than his own, I asked, “But what of the man I saw lurking in the trees in your garden
on that dreadful night, the same man, I believe, I saw earlier in the evening outside the theatre where Miss Clementi was
performing?”

“I did not see the man myself on either occasion,” replied Victor. “And nor, I believe, did anyone else.”

“Dear God,” I burst out. “Are you telling me I imagined that man? Victor—do not deceive yourself or your friends. There is
some bad work afoot here. That young man who left my landlady's house so suddenly yesterday when you arrived was Donald Gilmore,
her sister's servant, son of the boatman you employed when you were on Orkney. You did not recognize him because since you
last saw him he has turned from a boy into a man. But he knew you the moment he saw your face—and named you. He has told me
of the woman you caused to be brought to the island in his father's boat, of a creature you kept in the barn, of the guards
around your house—of a fire. Victor—do you not think that all this had something to do with that malformed creature who appears
to be watching you and those you know, and with the death of your wife and the boy? For your own safety, and ours, be frank.”