Frankenstein's Bride (9 page)

E I G H T

IT WAS AT THIS TIME that Mrs. Downey's sister Mrs. Alice Frazer arrived from Scotland. Mrs. Frazer did not generally travel
with her husband since they had one of those comfortable marriages whose happiness depends to some extent on the couple spending
considerable portions of their time apart. Therefore she always brought with her on the long journey south a stout young man,
twenty years of age, Donald Gilmore by name, who protected her while traveling and accompanied her about London when she wished
to go out alone. However, once in town there was little for Gilmore to do, so the custom was that, since he was a skilful
man especially as regards carpentry, Mrs. Downey would set him to repairing her house where repairs were needed.

Some two weeks after the murders, an afternoon was dictated by Mrs. Feltham to be Victor's first excursion into the outside
world since his illness. Therefore a party consisting of Victor and Hugo and Lucy Feltham arrived at the front door in Gray's
Inn Road. Young Gilmore was at the open door, in the act of filing off the bottom, for it had begun to stick. I had just gone
out into the hall to look into the street to see if the guests were arriving when their carriage drew up. I therefore saw
all that happened as they descended. Victor, well muffled up and appearing still very weak, began to walk to the door leaning
on Hugo's arm. It was then that Gilmore, seeing three people intending to enter the house, straightened up and stood beside
the door to allow them through. As they walked past him into the hall Gilmore glanced at Victor, whose scarf was half pulled
up over his face, then peered at him searching. To the astonishment of all of us, he cried out harshly, “Frankenstein!” and
raced in a state of obvious fear down the steps of the house and out into the street. I heard him cry out again from the street,
as he went running off, “Frankenstein!”

Mrs. Downey, who had come to the parlor door to greet the guests, asked in a bewildered manner, “What was that? Where is Gilmore?”
But none of us, of course, could tell her. I shut the front door and we went into the parlor for tea. Once Victor was settled
in front of the parlor fire she asked him how he came to know the man, Mrs. Frazer's servant, but Victor professed as much
bewilderment as the rest of us and said that, inasmuch as he had observed the man in the doorway, whom he had taken to be
a carpenter employed from outside the household, he had no idea who he was.

“A mystery indeed,” Mrs. Downey remarked, pouring the tea. “Yet he knew your name, Victor. Is that not curious?” Lucy Feltham
persisted, but Mrs. Downey, seeing her guest to be uncomfortable and knowing him to be barely recovered from a serious illness,
capably turned the conversation in other directions and under her agreeable guidance the short visit passed off well. Victor,
though subdued, seemed in a little better spirits. Later we prevailed on Mrs. Downey, who played and sang charmingly, to entertain
us all.

Nevertheless, after our guests had taken themselves off, Mrs. Downey, having ascertained from the maid that Gilmore had not
returned, looked at me gravely and began to speculate about why he had run away. “My sister will be most upset if he does
not come back,” she said, “for he has been with her since boyhood. His father, an Orkney boatman, was drowned at sea when
Donald was twelve years old and as his mother was also dead the village sent him off to his only surviving relative, my sister's
butler. Mrs. Frazer found some work for him, helped, I believe, with his education, which was utterly lacking when he came,
and he has been with the household ever since.” And then each of us repeated the same thing to each other several times—I,
“How can it be that this young man who spent most of his time in the wilds of Scotland, could have come across Victor Frankenstein?”
and she, “Young Donald is the steadiest fellow in the world. What can have prompted such behavior?”

When Mrs. Frazer returned she was very astonished and put out by Gilmore's disappearance. She could not account for her servant's
recognizing Victor, or understand why the sight of him could have caused him such fear. Next day, we concluded, if the man
had not returned we must try to find him, but when we retired that night Gilmore had still not come back to the house.

However, the following morning at breakfast a maid reported she had earlier let the shivering Gilmore in, though, she added,
he had not been prepared to enter the house until she had assured him that the man he called “the doctor” was not inside.
“I would rather walk back to Scotland,” he had said.

I suggested we have the man up and ask him together what all this was about. Poor Gilmore, summoned, came into the room twisting
his hat in his hands. He was a short, stalwart, red-haired young man, ordinarily cheerful and good-humored, but less so now.

Mrs. Frazer opened the proceedings by telling him roundly he had behaved very badly in running off without permission and
staying out all night. She told him she knew him to be a most reliable and honest young man but did not understand what had
come into him. She could not have him running the city streets at night and very much required an explanation. He replied
without confidence, but respectfully, that she must forgive him—he could not give her the explanation she desired.

Mrs. Frazer's color rose. She had, she said, requested an explanation, now she demanded one. Gilmore looked at the carpet
and then met her eyes, “Madam—I cannot.”

Stirrups and reins were rapidly being lost. I saw Gilmore's dismissal by an angry mistress looming when he looked towards
me and appealed, “Sir,—it is a dreadful story unfit for the cars of ladies. This is why I cannot speak. It is a horrid tale
I have not told before, not even to my uncle and aunt, for they would be very grieved to hear it.”

The ladies, Mrs. Downey and Mrs. Frazer, looked demanding and demure all at once, as ladies will when told a subject is not
fit for their ears. Mrs. Frazer then said that however unsuitable Gilmore's story might be, as his mistress she had a right
to hear it, for unless she did, how could she judge if he was still fit for her service? She declared she was not prepared,
when she left London, to find herself embarked on a long journey back to Scotland with a henchman who might take it into his
head to run off at any moment. Distressed, he protested he would never do any such thing.

To cut all this short, I suggested I would take Gilmore off to a quiet spot, examine him and his reasons for disappearing
and then tell his mistress only what it seemed suitable for her to hear. This proposition was icily agreed to by Mrs. Frazer
and her sister. Under their reproachful eyes Gilmore and I left the room and repaired to a nearby inn. There I ordered him
a pint of ale, and as soon as our tankards were brought and we were settled at a table near the fire I asked him to explain
himself.

With his honest eyes on me, speaking in the soft tones of the Orkneys—and speaking well, for he was an intelligent young man—he
told me a story to upset all my previous notions of Victor Frankenstein—a dreadful story.

N I N E

WE WERE ALONE IN THE TAVERN as Gilmore began his tale. He said, “I met the doctor, Frankenstein, before I came to the mainland,
when I was a boy living with my father in the Orkneys. My mother was dead, having lost her life in bearing me. It was a poor
life. Our bleak little hamlet on the coast was connected to the main island by a causeway which was uncovered by the tide
only twice a day. It was a very hard life. We were no more than ten families and even then the sea and the land could barely
keep us. We lived mainly by fishing in our rough seas; the land was not fertile. It was riches among us to have a full set
of saucepans, sufficient bedding to keep us warm at night; luxury to have enough fuel in winter and enough to eat. I tell
you of our poverty and the uncertainty of our lives to explain—excuse—the work my father did later—for Dr Frankenstein.”

“Frankenstein came to the island?” I asked.

“He lived there.” Gilmore told me. “He came one day with wagons and took over a large, empty house on the hill above the village.
This had in olden times belonged to a smuggler who had made his living through contraband and robbing wrecks—sometimes wrecking
ships himself for his own gain. But he had been caught and hanged some years before and a stop put to him and to that trade.
Dr Frankenstein brought with him three sturdy henchmen who did all the work of the place. So—he moved into the house.”

Gilmore paused, wrestling with his feelings and finally said, “My father was not a gentle man, nor a clever one, but he loved
me and was anxious for me, motherless as I was, with only one other living relative in the world, my uncle, and he a man neither
of us had seen or heard from for many years. My poor father feared what would become of me if he were to die at sea while
I was still young. So he became fixed on money, saved every penny he could of the little we got. His idea was to get somewhere
else, perhaps even as far as America, where there was an opportunity to escape the trap of poverty and hardship in which we
were caught.

“Then the doctor moved in and father began to work for him in ways he should not. This is why I have never even spoken to
my uncle of this, for he would be distressed if he knew what my father had done—and what, I regret, I did to help him. And
for many years I was afraid of the law, though now I am older I do not think they would be hard on a man like me who did what
he should not when a boy under his father's orders. But as a lad I would lie awake at night, dwelling on what had happened
over in Orkney. It was like a nightmare but true and far worse than any dream.”

Here Donald Gilmore was again silent. “I believe I shall shed some of my burden by telling you what occurred.”

And I nodded and agreed, little guessing how heavy a load would fall on my own shoulders with the easing of Donald Gilmore's
burden. But even at that moment I suspected that what I was to hear about Victor Frankenstein, whom I so much liked and admired,
would reflect badly on him. But to deny knowledge, I then thought, was almost to deny God himself. I am less sure of this
now. So I said, “Well, Donald, my good fellow, I am sure whatever you did was done in youth and ignorance. So continue your
story.”

“You must imagine, Mr. Goodall,” said he, “the effect it had on us, living on our poor, wild coast with the land so sparsely
covered with soil we were hard put to get any crops from it, when from Lerwick one day, going through the single street of
our village, came laden wagons making their difficult way up the hill to where the old unoccupied house of the smuggler stood.
This was a low stone house on a cliff with some dignity to it. The main windows faced out to sea. There was a forecourt in
a paved yard and on either side of this there were big stone buildings, one a barn, one stables with enough stalls for several
horses. Both house and outbuildings were dilapidated. Without more ado the doctor began to repair them, paying some attention
to the barn and part of the stables, for he let it be known he was a scientist, on the island to get enough peace for his
work, and these were to be his laboratories.

This meant little to us. We were pleased enough to get work from him, the men to build, the women to clean and prepare the
house. We looked forward to more work and more pay from that quarter, but as soon as the house was ready Dr. Frankenstein
made it very plain that he had no more use for us and moreover he had his three burly men keep watch over his premises, day
and night. They would accost any man or woman who came up to the house and ask them what they wanted, telling them they had
no need to call on the doctor for anything and generally seeing them off. And from that moment on we saw little of Dr. Frankenstein,
only his horse going through the street. So the goodwill which existed earlier for the doctor began to evaporate. Rumors started
up—that he was practicing black arts, that in his converted stable he was keeping some kind of strange animal which was never
seen. And truly, strange noises came to us in the village, when the wind was right, noises the like of which we had never
heard before. Being ignorant people, we told each other the animal must be a lion, a tiger or a bear and only felt very deprived
that he would not let us come to the house to see it.

“Then, alas, our troubles began. Dr. Frankenstein, during the repairing and preparation of his house, had often made use of
my father's sturdy little boat to fetch and carry from the mainland, and now he asked him if he would take the boat to the
Low Countries to collect an item of which he must never speak. He would be well paid for this. My father agreed and I went
along with him to lend a hand with the sails, as this was to be a long journey for such a small craft and apart from my father
and myself, only the doctor and two of his men were to go. Frankenstein's other man was left behind to guard the house.

“We made our voyage successfully, landing at Ostend where we took on board some crates, the largest by far having been conveyed
earlier by boat from Dieppe, and being labeled ‘Paris.' This measured some ten feet by eight and appeared, from the weight
and the sound which came from inside, to contain liquid, for the sound of it slopping about was audible. Indeed, it was so
heavy that at Ostend we had to get it aboard with a winch—this alarmed the doctor who knew that there was no such equipment
to be had at our harbor in the Orkneys. Two days later we were back and unloading. The largest crate, that which contained
the liquid, was hauled off and put on a waiting wagon with the improvised assistance of the ropes and pulleys we used to haul
our boats up the beach. The wagons then set off slowly up the hill to the doctor's isolated house, but on account of the weight
of the largest box and the general difficulties of unloading, Dr. Frankenstein asked my father to come along to help. My father
dispatched me to a neighbor's. Thus the party set off, one of the men in front with a lantern, for it was late, the other
driving the wagon with the doctor and my father walking behind to relieve the weight. Now—though my father had sent me to
a neighbor—I did not go. Instead, I followed on and thereby saw my father's guilt.”

“You cannot blame him for accepting a desperately needed commission to take a boat to the Continent—” I began.

“Not that—no,” Gilmore assured me. “It was because of the large box—or rather, what was in it.” He paused. His honest face
had been grave throughout his whole recital and now took on an expression of misery. “Imagine me, a boy who had never been
away from Orkney,” he said sadly, “I had seldom been even as far as Lerwick, suddenly transported to the Low Countries in
the company of such a man as the doctor, so different from us fisher-folk that he might have come from off the moon—then sent
back on the instant to stop in a dark cottage with a tallow candle burning. I followed on secretly, curious to see what would
happen, taking a sheep path which ran from above the village right along to where, on a ledge, I could look down on the house
of the doctor from about twenty feet above. If it had been daylight, and the men less occupied with getting their heavy freight
uphill without toppling over the wagon, I would have been spotted for sure. As it was, some time before they entered the courtyard
I was safe in my eyrie, peering down. It took some courage, though, to stay in my position for down below was the grange in
which Frankenstein kept his animal, whatever it was, and it was groaning fit to bust, poor creature—whether the men left behind
had maltreated it or whether it had some affection for its master and knew him to be coming I do not know. But it groaned
and moaned in a blood-chilling way, and it was dark and the surf crashed on to the shore below the house—only curiosity conquering
cowardice kept me in place that night.

“Then the wagons reached the top of the hill and turned on to the paved area before the house. The unloading of the boxes
began, the men, including my father, taking the cargo from the wagon either into the outbuilding opposite where I was, which
I knew to be the doctor's laboratory, or into the house. A man had brought a torch and set it in the entrance of the house,
and Frankenstein held aloft a lantern.

“Meanwhile the groaning of the beast in the old barn became louder and more pitiful. It began to bang itself against the door
holding it in, but the men took no notice. They had left the offloading of the largest crate until last, for that would be
the most difficult task. Then, with two men on the wagon, one of them my father, and two more below, they eased the large
crate to the back of the cart, the doctor nearby holding up the lantern. The plan was evidently to push the big crate forward
until one end was supported by the two men on the ground, while the weight at the back end would be taken by the men on the
wagon. Thus they would ease it off gradually. But it was not to be. The two on the ground had just begun to edge the rear
end of the crate forward from the wagon when the beast, whose complaints had subsided to a sort of rumble, suddenly gave out
a huge, echoing scream. It began to batter furiously at the door of its prison. The shock of this noise—for later we found
it had been loud enough to be heard as far away as the village below—caused someone to falter in the difficult business of
getting the crate from the wagon. It fell, the men leapt clear—it broke open.

And there, lying half in, half out of a vast, spreading pool of liquid, was the naked body of a young woman, her golden hair
spread all about her. I suppose she had been lying in that fluid all the while.”

“Dead?” I asked.

“I thought so then,” he said. “I thought it was a corpse.”

“She was alive?” I questioned, amazed.

“Yes,” he said gravely, “alive!” He went on, “She was motionless, lying, so white in that puddle, with all her long hair seeming
to be floating round her. I still recall it, as if it were before my eyes. I had never seen a naked woman before,” he told
me.

“A most terrifying way to encounter one for the first time,” said I, attempting to disguise my consternation. I wondered if
this spectacle, seen in semi-darkness by a mere boy, had been exactly what he supposed it to be. Surely that had not been
the figure of a real woman? Had it not been a model or perhaps some rare kind of ape with an uncanny resemblance to the human?
Easier to think those thoughts, rather than that Victor Frankenstein had imported a woman, dead or alive, in order to conduct
some experiments upon her. “What happened then?” I demanded.

“The doctor was greatly concerned, exclaimed aloud and cursed the men for their clumsiness as he tenderly gathered up the
woman and carried her in his arms, her long hair drooping down over his arm, into the house. And all this time the creature
in the barn kept roaring and, as soon as I had got over the shock of seeing the crate fall and the woman lying there, I took
to my heels and raced back to where I was meant to be, hoping my father would never find out about my hiding on the hill that
night, as he did not.”

“He never spoke to you of this?”

“Never. Though he may have spoken to others, for I know it was later said, behind men's hands, that Dr. Frankenstein had imported
a woman, drugged, to Orkney for his use. He was rich; we were poor and afraid. Nothing was done.”

“Unlike what we hear of the stout-hearted Orkneyman,” said I.

“Stout hearts sink when bellies are empty,” Gilmore replied. “The men feared that if they reported the doctor for kidnapping
or the like, the law would be turned against them and they would be taken away from hungry wives and children.”

I shook my head, “This story of a woman drugged and brought to Orkney by Frankenstein seems to me most unlikely, Gilmore,
from everything I know of the man.”

“I cannot help that, sir,” he responded doggedly. “I am telling you the truth—and the truth gets worse. For after this we
did not see the woman again, though my father was again employed by the doctor, this time to take a crate, much the same as
the last, to Dublin. But there was no liquid inside it. The crate was landed at Dublin, where the doctor stayed for a week.
Then he came back with my father in the ship, but this time without the crate.”

I looked sharply into Gilmore's eyes, searching for the truth. Either the man was a consummate liar who actually believed
his own lies, or he was telling the truth as he knew it. “You think he took the woman to Dublin in a crate?” I asked, incredulously.
“Left her there and came back alone?”

“But it was not the woman,” he said, “for we saw her at his house, while the doctor was away.”

“Saw her?” I repeated, astonished.

“That is how I know she was alive. For she was in the house while the doctor and my father were away on their voyage. The
doctor had left only one of his guards behind and once he was gone this man, a big fellow, speaking a harsh tongue none could
understand, seized the opportunity to come down to the village and drink and try to get hold of a woman. So I and another
lad, knowing there was no one at the house, ran up the hill to see what we could spy out and there she was. We peeped through
a big window on the ground floor and there was the young lady, in a blue dress, lying asleep on a couch, with a kind of picture
book, like one for a child, in her hand, and all her long fair hair trailing over the sofa. She was, indeed, a lovely sight,”
Gilmore said. “So young and so pretty, with a sort of innocence on her sleeping face.”