Frankenstein's Bride (11 page)

He regarded me with a steady demeanor, perfectly at ease. But I noticed his face had gone very pale.

Hugo was gazing at me in astonishment. He asked, “Jonathan—what is all this?”

Victor only said, “So that was Gilmore's lad. He was but a boy when I was in the Orkneys. The fisherfolk there did not like
me. Indeed, they feared me. I had thought to find peace for my scientific researches in that remote spot, but in the end was
driven off by hostile and superstitious local folk. I had my house guarded because I knew their temperament. I had reason
to think that one night, after drink and inflammatory remarks at the bare cottage room they called the tavern, they might
march on me and do me and my work harm. Indeed, I think they may have started the fire which burned my house. I do not take
it at all kindly, Jonathan, that you chose to discuss me and my affairs with your landlady's sister's servant and give your
attention to wild boyish tales he related to you. Now you come here fantastically prating of some imaginary enemy—”

I was shaken by his all too plausible denials. Yet there was at least one fact in a cloud of what Victor correctly pointed
out to be hearsay. I cried “You
saw
the man in your garden. His appearance distressed you. You spoke of guilt—”

“My wife had been murdered a few hours before. And my only son,” Victor said shortly. His tone was very cold.

I stood quite still, as shocked as if he had struck me. Either I was a fantasist or my friend Victor was a cold-blooded liar.

Hugo the peace-maker intervened. “Jonathan,” he appealed, “if there is some old story the man Gilmore has told you, can we
not talk of it later? Victor has been ill, is still unwell.”

“Not too ill, it seems, to prevent him yesterday from descending from the carriage taking him home to have a noisy interview
at Russell Square with Miss Clementi,” said I.

“So you have spoken about me to Miss Clementi's paid companion, as well as a manservant at the house you live in,” Victor
said, his tone verging on the contemptuous. “Well, I am grateful for the interest, Jonathan, you seem to be showing in my
affairs. Would you like to discuss me with my butler now? May I introduce you to the boot-boy?” He paused, and regained control
of himself. He continued in a less unfriendly voice, “I went to see Miss Clementi to ask her to resume her lessons with me,
as a favor to both of us, for I must work and occupy my mind so as not to dwell on the tragedy that has taken place. The sooner
I begin, the better it will be for me. Jonathan, my dear man, can we not forget all that has been said here this afternoon?
Let us put it behind us. Will you not sit down and take a glass of wine with us? We dine in an hour. Will you stay?”

The bewildered Hugo added his voice to Victor's, “Stay, Jonathan, do. Shall we not sit down together, the four of us, you,
Victor, Lucy and myself, and talk together as we have done in the past?”

But I shook my head and said in great confusion, “No, no—I cannot. I must leave. Victor—I am truly sorry if I have said anything
to upset you. I will go now. I must think.”

And I blundered from the room, as mortified as I have ever been in my life. The scene had not taken above ten minutes and
yet, during it, I had angered Victor, shocked Hugo and acted, as I saw it, like a fool and a villain. Such scenes are forgiven,
I knew, but never quite forgotten. I cursed myself as I walked quickly along, as if escaping from the house, although snow
was swirling round me and the ground beneath my feet slippery. Then I saw, through the blowing snow, some hundred yards away,
what I took to be a figure, dark against the surrounding whiteness. It was on top of the wall which surrounded Victor's garden.
As I looked, it moved, heaved itself a little higher up and put one knee on top of the wall.

Then the man hurled himself over and dropped the ten feet or so to the ground below in a wild tangle of arms and legs. Once
on the ground this individual instantly scrambled upright and began to run away down the road, with a curious lop-sided gait.
He was huge—he was the man I had seen before, whose existence Victor had so recently denied—and he had been watching Victor's
house.

I set off after him as fast as I could go, shouting, “Stop! Stop, man! I must speak to you!” I did not reflect that there
was no one about and that, if I caught up with him, an encounter might be the worse for me. He ran on, though looking over
his shoulder, then put on speed, going quickly enough for a crippled man traveling over a slippery surface.

This chase, with both pursuer and pursued hampered and often sliding through a snow storm, might have struck an observer as
comical. Yet we were both, I'm sure, in dead earnest—me to catch him, he to get away.

He crossed the road to the riverside. I followed. Then there was a sudden flurry of snow which went into my face, blinding
me. When I brushed the snow from my eyes the man was gone—but I knew where he was. He had returned to the quay where I had
first seen him. So I walked straight down to the strand, spied out the steps up to the wharf ahead of me (the tide was low)
and struggled on to the quay. As my head rose up to the stone surface of the dock I saw, through the snow, first a braced
pair of legs, then a trunk, and found myself facing a sturdy man with a sack over his shoulder. As he looked doubtfully at
me I asked him, “Have you seen a man with a limp?”

From his reply, “Why would you want to know that?” I deduced that the man was here, though he was not to be seen.

“Who is he?” I asked. “What is his name?”

He peered at me through the swirling snow. “What's he done?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I replied. “Who is he?”

“We calls him Oberon,” the fellow said, “—in jest, for the King of the Fairies, you know. We don't know his name. He says
nothing. He's weak in the head, but he's strong in the back and does what he's told. They keep him on, paying him in scraps
of food and copper coins. He sleeps in that shed over there and acts as watchman by night. But I wouldn't go over there and
stir him up. He's meek as a lamb most of the time, but sometimes he'll fall into a sudden rage, and that makes him dangerous.”

“I must talk to him,” I said.

“I've told you—he's feeble-witted, you'll get nothing from him. But if you want him you'll find him in the hut. I've got to
get this sack of wood back to my family.” And with that he plodded along the jetty and began to climb the steps up to the
road.

In some apprehension I went to the wooden building the man had called the ogre's home and pushed open the door. The building
was some ten feet square and used as a storehouse. At the back were piled crates and barrels, almost to the roof, while to
the right were coils of rope, a pickaxe, an upright spar. But to the left a small corridor between stacked crates some three
feet wide led to cleared space at the back, and there was what appeared to be a heap of bedding. In the dim light, I saw crouched,
even cowering, rather like a child hiding in a cupboard, the vast figure of the man they called, cruelly, Oberon.

I could not at first make out his expression, but as I took, fearfully, a step into the hut I saw his teeth, bared in fear,
like an ape's. I said, “Fellow—man—whoever you are—tell me why you are spying on Victor Frankenstein.” The sound of the name
made him start, which caused me to fall back a pace, thinking he meant to attack me. But then he lapsed into apathy again
and his low, gruff voice started up, but he only babbled out an incomprehensible mix of sounds from which it was impossible
to make out any words. Yet I thought he was trying to say something. “Come,” I said. “I mean you no harm—but I saw you in
Mr. Frankenstein's garden one night and today saw you come over his garden wall. What do you want with him? What have you
done?”

I then saw him, in the dim light of that cold shed, sobbing, crying helplessly, wiping his eyes and nose on the sleeve of
the black coat that he wore. Fearful as I had been of him, and still was, I felt pity too. And I thought I caught, mixed with
his sobs and babblings, one word I could understand: “Bride, bride, bride,” he seemed to be saying.

I copied this word back to him, “Bride, you say? What bride?” The hideous thought came to me suddenly that poor Elizabeth
Frankenstein's death could have come about because this deluded creature, watching her comings and goings from opposite her
house, had persuaded himself that she was his—had broken in and, when she resisted him, killed her, and the child with her.
This vision was most terrible to me.

And now he arose and began to shout, babbling, stumbling, yet, from the incoherent sentences I still thought I heard, “my
bride, my bride.” He took a step towards me. His eyes were very large and brown. They burned. Uncertain whether he was asking
my help or menacing me, I retreated from the doorway, yet thought I was beginning to understand some of his incoherent speech.

“He—has—my—bride,” he seemed to be saying.

Unheroically, I did not stay to question him further about what he meant. The snow was still swirling down, we were alone
and already what daylight there was began to wane. I decided on retreat. As I walked backwards from the hut in the direction
of the road, I still spoke to him calmly, “Who has your bride? Is that what ails you? Tell me what is your trouble.”

He came towards me, not, I think, with menace in mind but nevertheless, his great shambling figure was menacing enough. Then,
haltingly, but clearly enough, he bellowed, “Frankenstein!” and pointed again, as he had when I first saw him on the barge,
throwing his arm to the left in the direction of Victor's house. And he cried again, “Frankenstein!”. This time there was
no doubt about the violence of his feelings.

At this, I confess, my nerve broke. I turned and ran along the paving of the quay, scrambled up the slippery steps to the
road and, with one glance behind me at the top, to assure myself he was not coming after me, hastened homewards, sliding on
the snow, now an inch deep, under my feet. Later, I again looked behind me to see if he was following. Seeing he was not,
I slowed my pace and, wet and cold, continued to plod forward as fast as I could.

Yet in spite of my retreat it did not seem to me that the poor, misshapen creature had meant me any real harm. He had done
no more than chase me off and return to his lair. His pathetic babbling speech might have been more appeal than threat. And
he had called out Frankenstein's name, called it out, it seemed to me, in pain and indignation. What could it mean? My head
reeled, but this I knew—Victor's cold denials of any knowledge of this man must have been lies. He was no chimera, no figment
of my imagination. Victor had not told me the truth. This greatly saddened me on the long, uncomfortable walk to my lodgings.

I arrived back at Gray's Inn Road in a deplorable state. Gilmore opened the door to me and was disconcerted by my appearance,
but all I could say to him in the hall, as the parlor door flung open and Mrs. Downey appeared with many exclamations, was.
“Be vigilant, Gilmore. Nothing is any better.”

Then came the usual kindly attentions from the two ladies of the house, the fire lit in the bedroom, the production of a steaming
hipbath, fresh clothes and a seat at the parlor fire, feet boiling in a mustard bath like a piece of beef. Then came supper
and a whisky toddy—for Mrs. Frazer never came over the border without bringing with her several stone jars of her native brew.
There was, however, a quid pro quo behind these kindly female attentions. In exchange the ladies required a fuller account
of the story Gilmore had told me at the inn. Evidently their questioning had got little out of him. Nevertheless, further
confused by the events of the day, I felt it better to say nothing. I wished I could, for safety's sake, have commanded the
whole household to move to another place, away from these mysteries. But of course, as a mere lodger in the house I could
not give orders and to have attempted persuasion would have meant telling all.

So, contributing nothing to the happiness of Mrs. Downey and her sister, I claimed fatigue and went early to bed, but not
before I had surreptitiously visited Gilmore in the kitchen, telling him we must keep watch that night over the house and
requesting him to rouse me at eleven o'clock, so that he might go to bed while I stayed awake watching. When he looked at
me in alarm I told him that I believed I had found Victor's enemy, that he was most probably a lunatic and not far off from
here. “He appears harmless, but that may not be his permanent state. We must be careful. Tomorrow I shall endeavor to make
some better plan, but for tonight we must stay on guard.”

I then retired and lay down in my clothes to get some hours' rest. At eleven Gilmore duly shook me awake and, the rest of
the household having gone to bed, I went downstairs. Looking from the window of my room, I saw that the trees, the yards behind
the houses with their little patches of vegetables had turned white. The looming houses, most windows unlit, were black against
the snow. From their crooked chimneys smoke still streamed into the dark night sky. As far as I could see not a footprint
marred the whiteness behind the house in any direction. Nor was there any sound of traffic or people in the streets, as if
the snow had laid a great, quiet blanket over all.

Downstairs, I listened out, occasionally rising from the parlor fire to look from windows, back and front, to see if there
were anyone near the house. Alone, in the unusual silence snow brings to a city, I wondered if my precautions were needless.
Had my imagination carried me into fantasy?

Suppose, I wondered, that a charge were laid of slandering Victor's good reputation. The prosecution could well make a strong
case that I was mad—none but I had seen the ungainly, half-witted man I claimed was threatening Frankenstein. As for Gilmore,
what lawyer could not easily discredit the unsupported word of a witness about what he believed to have occurred so long ago
when he was a boy? Either Victor Frankenstein, my friend, was deceiving me or I was myself deluded, sorely mistaken about
much in this affair. Such uncomfortable thoughts did not, though, overcome my fatigue and the warmth of the fire. I regret
to report I fell asleep.