Frankenstein's Monster (12 page)

Everywhere I turned, there were candles. Everywhere I turned, there were mirrors. And everywhere I turned, there were lilies: tiger lilies and panthers, goldbands and trumpets, madonnas and Novembers and pink arums—names I knew, names I guessed at from books—bowl after bowl of cool waxy petals, their fragrance thick and heady like overripe fruit. What far-flung countries had they been gathered from to then be forced to bloom, just for the sake of caprice?

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes against the glamour of these things, which were just more sources of confusion.

I was at once gladdened yet disheartened by what had just occurred in the salon, so much so that my face refused to obey me, as if all its former owners were reasserting their separate claims: my eyes and lips trembled, cheeks prickled, ears twitched. I had sat in polite company, conversed with party guests as one of them, entertained them with a tale. I had been extended and had accepted a return invitation.

And had been called an abomination.

Made an old woman shudder.

Forced Lily to run from the room, gagging.

She had touched the scar around my neck. It was not until minutes later that she fully understood that it meant a severed head had been attached to a headless body. Only then had she run from the room. Who would not be disgusted?

Mirrors are an unwanted luxury: I seldom see myself, nor want to. I studied my reflection as dispassionately as I could. My lips are as black as my hair. My face has a slight undertone of gray, as though the blood had returned to the flesh too late to hide the color of death. But the scars joining the various strips of skin are no longer violent red. I could even fancy that the thicker scar around my neck made it appear I had barely escaped the hangman’s noose or had been near-mortally wounded in battle. But it is more than just scars that inspires
dread. Do people look at me and see horror lurking just beneath this tattered skin? Or is it the reverse? Do they see that something is missing, the spark of divinity that makes a life human? I am a void, a chaotic abyss, that would swallow up the world.

Outside the water closet, the servant waited to lead me back. He walked to the rear door of the smoking salon. Instead, I moved toward the ballroom to look inside.

I had expected to leave; Winterbourne expected me to rejoin him. I needed time to …

The ballroom was a living thing unto itself. The gaiety, the colors, the music! Silk rustled, satin flashed. Faces smiled or laughed or nodded slyly. Eyes winked or flirted; shone with fondness, pride, shyness, love; yearned for a life as wonderful as a perfect party. Hearts that were sad or envious or hateful could not abide such joy and had fled, for the moment, into the shadows.

Guests noticed me and backed away, though I had not even crossed the threshold. Their apprehension prompted an ever-widening circle of uneasiness that spread through the room. My melancholy burned off, leaving the dross of anger. Who were these people? What frightful things would be revealed if
their
masks were lifted?

Inciting me further, I saw Lily, well recovered from the disgust I had caused her. She spoke animatedly with several young men. Each was dressed like a king. Perhaps they had learned of her costume beforehand and had wished to be her partner. As she and the men spoke, she looked around carelessly—nothing they said was of consequence—then she saw me, and her eyes clutched onto mine.

Her careless expression yielded to … I knew not what. Dismissing the group, she pushed her way through the crowd. Guests detained her at every turn to exchange courtesies or,
glancing at me, to share their worries. She nodded at each and slipped away, moving ever toward me. Her lips were pinched white. I braced myself against what she might say.

She reached out and pressed my hand gently, took it in both of hers.

“I am sorry, Victor,” she said, startling me with her words and her express of concern. “I truly did not think you would come. I never meant to—”

A scream ripped through the waltz, through the conversations, through the tap and thump of feet and the bell-like tinkle of glass. Music, speech, movement—all stopped; the scream endured, ripping through even the sudden silence it had caused, as brutally as a sword piercing a white veil.

Margaret Winterbourne had seen me.

She said no words. She did not point. She no longer saw at all: her eyes were opaque with terror.

“Margaret!”

Winterbourne’s voice, the speed with which he burst from the salon, the path he frantically cleared to rush to his wife, broke the ballroom’s silent tableau. Guests rushed toward Winterbourne with curiosity, while others tripped backward from me, for surely
I
was the reason Margaret Winterbourne had been stricken.

Winterbourne stood on one side of his wife, supporting her limp frame. On her other side stood Reverend Graham, whispering urgently—to Winterbourne, to Margaret?

Where was Lily? Should she not have hurried to comfort her mother, too? She was nowhere in the ballroom. She had left as soon as her mother screamed.

Would it have profited Gregory Winterbourne to have cut the pages of his book and read Pascal’s words? Does it profit me now? I know who put me into the world, I know what I am, I know what my body is. But of my senses, my soul, “that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself”—of that I am no less ignorant than any man.

I sit in my cave by the fire, reading these words that earnestly attempt to elucidate the human condition, all the while waiting to climb the cliff to do murder. At the party, more guests were inimical to me than not; more cowered like Lily’s dogs than overcame their revulsion to at least speak with me. Margaret’s shriek of horror, even despair, had turned the whole room against me.

She forces a quick end to things. I must act before she flees. But if I kill her, how can I not kill Lily, who is also Walton’s blood? If I kill the two women, how can I not kill Winterbourne himself, who calls them wife and daughter? And if I kill Winterbourne, how can I not kill in me the soul that should be there?

After midnight, I slipped around the outside of the Winterbourne house. From the distance came the howling of dogs,
but the sound came no closer. I quietly tried each window till I found one unlocked, which opened onto a room decorated with ruffles and lace. On either side of the room, velvet settees, piled high with pillows, were flanked by tall panels lavishly embroidered with Oriental splendors. On a dainty writing table stood a pen and inkwell and blank sheets of pale yellow paper—the yellow stationery I had seen in Venice. This was Margaret’s desk. Also on the desk was a small, uneven pile of dirty gray sheets and scraps of paper.

Stepping closer, I scanned the top one and saw “Your brother, Robert” scrawled at the bottom. These pages I folded into my pocket to read later. Then I crept down the hallway and found my way to the main staircase. I paused on each stair to make its creak long and soft, no more than the breathing in and breathing out of an old house at night. My own breath was ragged.

At the top of the stairs, I turned right and passed glowering portraits, heavy tapestries, overstuffed chairs, little footstools, vases of dried reeds, wicker birdcages with no birds, tall wooden clocks that did not tick—an increasingly senseless array of goods. The rooms here were furnished in rich splendor, yet none were occupied.

Returning to the staircase, I now proceeded to the left. The first room was filled with books—a
second
library? The books drew me inside like iron to a magnet, although I knew I should not tarry. Shelf after shelf lined up to dazzle my eyes with even more treasures than were downstairs. The room held two large leather armchairs, a massive desk and chair, a telescope set up near the window, a globe, and a narrow table on which sat glasses, liquor decanters, and humidors. Cigar smoke lingered in the air, embedded in the rugs and drapes.

Easily I imagined all this my own, reading every book on every shelf, writing in my journal every day, no want ever of
candlelight, no want ever of paper and ink. I would finish one journal, and another would be waiting to take its place. I would burn a candle not halfway down, and dozens more would appear.

But not even paper and light equaled the wonder of the desk. It beckoned to me. A fine place to read and to write! Overcome with desire, I sat down; the immensity of the chair, the desk, fit me like a close embrace. I stroked the wood, smelled the oils used to polish it, bent my cheek to its cool surface.

“It is beautiful, is it not?”

Winterbourne laid his candlestick on a table, pulled one of the leather armchairs toward me, and, as if he were the visitor and not I, sat.

“It was my father’s desk.” He brushed his fingers along one edge. “He often said a man needs a solid place from which to make solid decisions.”

Again, as on the night of the party, I had the sense of both Winterbourne’s power and his peace. I was also filled with overwhelming confusion. To do what I must, I needed to create an idea of a Winterbourne who was worthy of hatred. The idea fell before the man.

He leaned into the silence, a peculiar expression on his face.

“I had asked you to tea, Mr. Hartmann. I was disappointed when you did not come.”

“You still expected me? Truly? Tell me, how is Mrs. Winterbourne? Did she wish to take tea with me as well?”

“I’m sorry. You finally come to us for help and—”

“Help?”

“Of course. Why else would you be here, except for my brother-in-law? I confess I did not realize who you were at first because I have so discounted Robert’s fantasies. The
Waltons have a family tendency toward mania. My poor wife suffers from it. My daughter, too, already shows signs, I fear. And, of course, Robert. But I never imagined that his fixed ideas sprang from reality, that he was tormenting an actual person. You see, I know who you are. Or at least, I understood it when you told your tale of the Patchwork Man.”

“You know who I am?”

Winterbourne knew,
he knew
, and still he sat and talked to me! After the wonder of how he treated me at the party, his respect here was almost too much for my spirit to bear.

“Yes, you are the unfortunate whom my brother-in-law has pursued these many years. I apologize, however little recompense that is. I mean, it’s surely misery enough for you to have suffered through the unspeakable calamity that left those scars. And then, besides, to have had a, a
madman
—there, I have said it—create his own frenzied explanation for those scars and hunt you down because of it.” Winterbourne paused to calm himself, disturbed by what he perceived as my situation. “Mr. Hartmann, it is beyond human understanding how you have not become as deranged as my brother-in-law. I promise you: I will do whatever I can to make him stop. I only wish I had learned of your existence earlier.”

I nodded, too disappointed to speak. I was made of such obviously mismatched pieces that I had silenced an entire ballroom and would have sent its occupants into a stampede had Lily not been on my arm. Despite this, Winterbourne had prettified the monster into the victim of an accident. By doing so, he no longer flinched at the sight of me and, thus, was able to discourse with me as an equal.

That in itself was as dizzying as strong wine, and for that, I would accept his ignorance or the lie that made it possible.

He pulled his chair closer. “Obviously, Mr. Hartmann, you
related the story of the Patchwork Man to reveal to me who you were. It is Robert’s mad invention. Still, as you told the creature’s tale, I sensed sympathy in your voice.”

“It has been ten years,” I said. “I’ve worn the Patchwork Man’s identity so long I have become the thing I am accused of being.”

“I understand.” He stood up to pour two glasses of liquor. Opening a humidor, he asked if I smoked. When I shook my head, he took out a cigar for himself, then set a glass before me on the desk. “Men often become what they are told they are,” he said. “If you repeatedly tell a man he is a slave, he will eventually forget how to think as a free man, although I am optimist enough to hope that there is something in a man that will always remain free.”

“And if you repeatedly tell a man he is a monster?”

Winterbourne took the still-unlit cigar from his mouth and studied it.

“Mr. Hartmann, you did not come for tea as I invited you. Why tonight, like this?”

“Calling on you is impossible.” I took the glass and cupped it between my huge hands. “Besides, I’m more used to the darkness.”

I sipped the liquor and let it warm me. How easily I had become a man.

“Still, I might have come in here with my pistol,” Winterbourne said, with not threat but curiosity in his words. “I might have thought you were a thief.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because you had much to say that had not yet been said, and I sensed that you would appear at an unexpected time to say it.”

“I would speak with your daughter again, too,” I said carefully. “I offended her.”

“You wish to apologize?” He dismissed my request with a curt wave. “Regarding my daughter, it is best if you neither take offense nor think that you give offense. I would say nothing to a suitor, but to you who know her uncle, I may speak the truth. Her erratic behavior may be from the family weakness. It may be from her own overly strong will. The result is the same: she is uncontrollable. She gives me much cause for worry, yet should I lock her room each night? I believe she would climb down the trellis to have her freedom.”

“I find her fearlessness admirable.” It would also give me, I knew, sufficient opportunity to take her when the time was right.

“It is not admirable. It is foolish and unseemly. Women have been put in Bedlam for far less.” Winterbourne shook his head in sadness. “There are other ways she reveals that she is not well. Nightly she runs with the hounds past exhaustion. When she returns, she is wild eyed, as though she had been chased by demons. She brings home strangers of all sorts. Men who are dirty beggars.”